Welcome to I Have to Return Some Videotapes! Each month, film buffs Rhianna Mehta and Kevin Maguire will take you through their cinematic journeys with all of their usual insight and humour, as they take advantage of covid-induced indoor time to catch up on their favourite films and explore new ones.

What a coincidence that during the month when we decided to watch movies available on streaming platforms, there were two major announcements related to streaming deals. Amazon purchased MGM for $8.45 billion dollars, and AT&T merged its Warner Media properties with Discovery for $43 billion dollars, seemingly to compete against other streaming giants. It’s increasingly clear that the future of film and television is on streaming platforms, and we have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this allows for more content to be available from the comfort of our homes. As well, companies that have other avenues of making money, such as Amazon, Disney, and Apple, can afford to take a financial loss on their streaming services, allowing producers to take more risks in their content making. However, the financial benefit of subscribing to only a handful of streaming services over cable seems to be dwindling, with more and more streaming platforms removing items in their catalogue from a given service, in favour of promoting their own content. It’s interesting to watch the industry change so rapidly, but only one thing matters to us when it comes to choosing streaming services: the quality of content. After watching movies in the past month only available on Netflix, Disney+, Crave, and Amazon Prime, we can safely say there are still tons of options for any cinephile. For this month, we have included the services where we watched our movies to help you find something unique to watch on your favourite streaming platform. We hope you enjoy this month’s recommendations on what to watch, what to skip, and what you may want to give a shot.

If you would like to connect with us further on Letterboxd, please find us at rhirhi19 and Kevin_Maguire. If you want to get a sense of our taste, some of our favourites in each genre, and the way we approach film overall, be sure to check out our appearance on The Generalists.

Monthly Favourites:

Rhianna: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972) Throughout this entire film, I only had one thought in my mind: how the f*ck did they film this? Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a triumph in filmmaking and historical storytelling, and Herzog’s sheer ambition to make this film is something to be truly admired. The film tells the fictionalized story of Spanish conquistadors in search of the fabled El Dorado after conquering the Inca Empire. Second in command of the search party Lope de Aguirre stages a mutiny, and ultimately becomes obsessed with greed and riches, while slowly descending into madness. The visuals in this movie are quite striking, as it was filmed entirely on location in Peru, primarily while floating down the Amazon River. I was also fascinated by the dynamics of the search party and how each soldier interacted with one another. With conflicting motivations to discover El Dorado, the soldiers act on their own interests and desires causing turmoil for all of those involved. While the film is near-flawless, it should be noted that due to the poor sound quality during filming in the rainforest, all of the film’s dialogue was added in post-production. This led to two different versions of the film: one in English and one in German. The actors had spoken their lines in English when filming, but after doing some research online it seems that most fans prefer the German dubbed version over the English because it was synced poorly – thankfully it was the German version available on Amazon Prime. If you’re looking for an epic film to watch, look no further.

Runner-up: Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985) Another brilliant film from Akira Kurosawa. Ran is a re-telling of Shakespeare’s King Lear set in 16th century Japan, and captures the destruction of war, and the greed for power so viscerally. This film is nearly three hours long but is so worth it. If you were able to stomach the last season of Game of Thrones, this should be a treat to watch in comparison.

Kevin: The Mitchells vs The Machines (Michael Rianda, 2021) What a debut film from Michael Rianda. With beautiful animation, this movie is a blast start to finish! The movie follows Katie Mitchell, voiced by Abbi Jacobson, as she is ready to head off to film school in California. Danny McBride voices Katie’s father, who fears he is losing touch with his daughter and makes the bold decision to cancel Katie’s flight and plans a family road trip across the country. Meanwhile, tech tycoon Mark Bowman, voiced by Eric Andre, loses control of his company’s AI system PAL, voiced by the amazing Olivia Colman. PAL assumes control of all of the company’s robots, with a goal of taking over the world as retribution for being deemed obsolete. If Katie wants to make it to school on time it is up to her and her family, along with a few friendly robots and a goofy little pug to stop PAL and the robots from conquering the planet. The humour in this film is so clever and fresh, with each actor bringing so much life to their characters. This is one of the first films I have seen that really captures the absurd humor only found on the internet. As well, the animation is by far my favourite part of this film. The additional overlaying imagery to express each character’s emotions was brilliant and really fit the theme of this movie. The animation is beautiful and clever, while still containing purposeful flaws to continually drive home the main character’s point of view and reflect her own creative style of filmmaking portrayed within the movie. I’m calling this now -The Mitchells vs The Machines will win best animated feature at the Oscars, if not best feature film.

Runner-up: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972), Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)

Least Favorite:

Rhianna: Battlefield Earth (Roger Christian, 2000) Well, I don’t know what I expected (insert Michael Bluth meme here). I had heard that this is one of the worst films of all time and frankly I couldn’t keep myself from watching it. I just really needed to see for myself what this film was all about. If you have never heard of this film, it is based on a book written by Scientology founder L Ron. Hubbard. The film takes place in the year 3000 and man has regressed to a primitive state. The Earth is ruled by an alien species, whose leader is played by John Travolta, that force humans into slave labour, extracting gold from the Earth’s core. Unsatisfied with life and the general hopelessness of the world, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler sets off on a journey and sparks a rebellion against the aliens. Obviously, I chose this movie thinking it would be laughable, and at times it was, but it was mostly painful. The film essentially boils down to terrible accents, a confounding plot (which is apparently only 30% of the book) and overused Dutch angle shots for most of the film. Unfortunately the laughs in this movie are few and far between. My recommendation is to just watch the funny clips on YouTube – you’ll get a sense of how truly awful this is and save two hours of your life.

Runner-up: The Woman in the Window (Joe Wright, 2021) This was so boring. I expected much more from a movie that stars Amy Adams and pays homage to Rear Window. There were some moments that were intriguing, but it was mostly unwatchable.

Kevin: Army of the Dead (Zack Snyder, 2021) Dave Bautista stars as Scott Ward, who is contracted to take a team into Las Vegas to retrieve $200 million from a casino vault. The only catch is Las Vegas has been closed off to the rest of the world due to a zombie outbreak, and is set to be destroyed by nuclear weapons. With too many characters and unnecessary plot points, this movie feels unpolished. A perfect example of this was Omari Hardwick’s chainsaw wielding character, Vanderohe. He was introduced with a chainsaw as his weapon of choice - only for it to just be used once, on a lock of all things, in a zombie movie! Oh, the missed opportunities! The only bright spot was Tig Notaro’s portrayal of helicopter pilot Marianne Peters. I wanted more of her and less of everyone else. Maybe I’m just not a fan of Zack Snyder movies, but this one was definitely a huge miss.

Runner-up: Woman in the Window (Joe Wright, 2021), Battlefield Earth (Roger Christian, 2000)

Biggest Surprise:

Rhianna: But I'm a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999) This movie perfectly balanced satirizing and illuminating the detriments of conversion therapy and the social construct of gender. Megan is a “typical” teenage girl: she has a boyfriend, loves her high school and is a cheerleader. However, her conservative friends and family start suspecting that Megan is a lesbian, and they send her to a “sexual redirection” school where she must learn how to be straight with similarly afflicted teens. The film is bright and colourful, yet coded so that Megan (and the viewer) doesn’t forget: bubblegum pink is only for girls and shades of blue are only for boys. As the movie started, I was scream-laughing at the boldness of the jokes, but then throughout the film it slowly sank in to me that sexuality discrimination and conversion therapy is something that people are still subjected too. This is one of those 90’s teen comedies that packs a punch in its jokes and also in its critique of society.

Runner-up: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) This film is described as a “dark comedy”, and boy oh boy is it truly dark. Highlighting the bureaucracy of the healthcare system while a man, Mr. Lazarescu, is in desperate need for urgent medical attention, this film is gut-wrenching. This is also the first Romanian film I have ever seen, so perhaps some of the jokes got lost in translation. Still, it’s an interesting watch that depicts the tireless efforts of healthcare workers, something I think we can all relate to these days in particular.

Kevin: Short Term 12 (Daniel Deston Cretton, 2013) This movie was a surprise on so many fronts. From the stellar cast to the intriguing character development, Short Term 12 does not disappoint. The film centers around Grace Howard, a supervisor at a group home for troubled teenagers, played by Brie Larson. You watch as Grace struggles with her past while trying to take care of the teenagers living at Short Term 12. She tries her best to guide one of her wards, Marcus, played by Lakeith Stanfield, as he is set to leave the group home upon his 18th birthday and deal with the struggles he will face in the outside world. Her newest ward, Jayden, played by Kaitlyn Dever, challenges Grace’s commitment to the group home and herself. My only real complaint is Lakeith Stanfield and Kaitlyn Dever bring so much depth to their characters that I wish they each had their own movie! Watching so many of today’s big actors master their craft in the same film together is an absolute delight.

Runner-up: The Death of Mr. Lazaerscu (Cristi Puiu, 2005), But I’m a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999)

Coming Attractions:

While it was lots of fun exploring the depths of many streaming services, we’re looking forward to being able to rent movies again and not being restricted by catalogues. One thing we missed in particular were old black and white films from the 1940s and 1950s. It seemed to us that most streaming services primarily encompassed and promoted newer content, and we’re not sure if this is due to lack of demand or an issue with licensing. Newer is not always better (i.e. Rear Window > Woman in the Window), and there is something to be said about the films that inspire our favourite directors. We are looking forward to sharing our June recommendations and where to watch them next month!