Hassle With A Passel

Recent months have seen me cool the jets on VHS tape collecting and viewing, letting the thirty or so tapes I had left to watch sit in idleness with few new ones joining them. I had decided there were enough there without adding any more, and also adding more was curtailed by the expense. With that last issue eased somewhat, I reasoned that picking up a few tapes was a fine spark to get me excited about my tapes again, and off the persnickety habit of watching streaming movies online.

I bought ten tapes after an audition recently at the cost of about fifteen dollars, which on a per-unit basis is really very cheap. Among them were three Steven Seagal movies. I recently have grown very enthusiastic about Seagal, who is terrible, but who also is fascinating to think about and whose films are mostly very watchable even if they are generally not very good. There's his big hit "Under Siege" as well as a couple of the films he made just before really cratering.

There's also "Octopussy", which is one of Roger Moore's last Bond films. It's not as bad as it could be, but it certainly comes after it would have been sensible to have the man step aside. It has some fun stuff to it. Louis Jourdan is not a terrible villain, nor is his henchman unworkable. I remember certain scenes being rather thrilling and scary as a boy, and while that's passed, it still holds some charm for me. For a dollar, I couldn't resist.

'Couldn't resist' applies to many films I pick up. "Hellraiser" is a fine example. It's streaming on Netflix and I've recently seen it, but it's so good that when a fairly original looking take of it popped up at the store for two dollars, I couldn't resist. I don't even know how often I'll be eager to put it on, but I just had to have it. If you haven't seen it and you're interested in some legitimately effective 80's horror, this is an example of that done right.

After that, we're at the end of movies I have any real kind of familiarity with. There's "White Tiger", with Gary Daniels of "Blood Moon". There's "Rooftops", which looks like a fun 'street kids and music' kind of film. There's "Basic Training", which seems eager to capture the "Police Academy" mantle. There's the Rutger Hauer actioner (as film catalogs used to say) "Wanted: Dead Or Alive". Lastly, there's "Star Hunter", which is a 90's scifi film starring Roddy McDowall and Stella Stevens, so that should be something.

Of course when I start working these down, I'm sure I'll have something to say about them. I just have got to watch them at the rate that I have been doing streaming movies, and I can hardly fail to be done with them in a month or less. When I am low enough that my new purchases are immediately the likely suspects to be watched next, that will be really idea. Film watching really is a spontaneous act, and the closer the buy is tied to the watch, the better.