Since this video touches on VHS tapes that weren't properly rewound, I think it's a good time to remind people to always rewind youtube videos to beginning when you are done watching them. Have you ever clicked on youtube video and it took a long time for it to start up? That was because some asshole who watched that video before you didn't bother to rewind, so youtube servers had to waste time doing it automatically. So always be kind and rewind, it's not hard to do!
The later "straight-to-DVD" ones are the best. They just have random action scenes on the back cover, with versions of Steven Seagal that don't appear in the movie.
I work for a merch wholesaler, and we ended up with A LOT of leftover merch from the Shaolin Wheel of Life tour. I think we still have the tour books and the plastic prayer bead wristbands.
Makes sense a lot of people tend not to buy tour merch. I remember I was at an American idle top 13 concert a few years back and their shirts were like 30 dollars.
The uncle Derek story had me sitting on the edge of my seat, a white knuckle ride the whole time, if you want a entertaining time and something the whole family will enjoy, watch it.
From what I remember about Brandon Lee's death, it wasn't cloth stuck in the gun but part of a dummy round. The pistol had been fired earlier in the day with a dummy round -- effectively a full bullet without the usual powder to push it out of the gun -- and the tip of it had separated and stuck in the barrel. When a blank round -- a bullet without the part that separates and flies towards the target -- was later loaded and fired at Lee, the propellant launched the stuck piece of dummy round right at him, killing him. The Brandon Lee incident has popped back up in the news lately due to the whole Alec Baldwin gun incident. I guess even now there are still fatalities entirely down to someone getting lax with safety precautions.
This^ the only additional thing was that the "dummy round" they were using was not a proper dummy round which have no primers. They used "homemade" instead of properly buying real dummy rounds. These homemade rounds had the powder charge removed but not the primers, and were not intended to be fired. The gun was accidentally discharged and the primer had enough energy to push the bullet part into the barrel. The homemade dummy rounds were yet another aspect of the negligence and corner cutting that caused the accident to happen.
they didnt have a proper armourer when it came to using guns on set for that film they just pulled the heads off bullets and emptied the powder apparently they used them as 'dummy rounds' to show loading of the gun on film something happened one was fired but got jammed in the barrel no one knew and another that was turned into a blank was inserted and fired which pushed the jammed bullet out the barrel to me it sounds way to convoluted and im more suspicious about it all
Ah yes, Recky is one of my favorite films! I love the scene at the end where he has a decisive win against Mercury Creed and yells out "Aiden!" at the end!
LOL, guess what. There acutally exist a full-length parody of Rocky, called "Ricky 1" (and it's really bad). But Adrian is called Annie and Apollo Creed is Silver Shadow.
I remember having the 2 Ghostbusters on 1 tape and for some reason it had an episode of batman '66 between the film's. For some reason my memory is telling me that I had it as 1 tape anyway
@@incredibleflameboy my friend had a gb 1/2 that had a Batman episode in between. It was the black and white series from way way back. No idea why they did that.
I bet when Uncle Derek wrote Grumi on that VCR he never suspected that 20 years later people around the world would be desperately trying to guess what movie it was.
I love the perceived premise I have of cliffhanger from the very little that was featured here. "Come on, John Cliffhanger, we need you back to climb one more cliff, you're the best in the business." And then he gets shipped off to the rockies where he gets revenge on the cliff that took his partner.
The Crow is my favourite film of all time. I love comics and horror and romance and that film just epitomised all of those things for me. Brandon was indeed fantastic as Eric Draven, so tragic that he died so young, and in such a horrible and unnecessary way.
It's so sad, that comic author James O Barr created the comic to deal with the tragic loss of his girlfriend who was killed by a drunk driver (if I'm remembering correctly), and then felt personally responsible for Lee's death after the accident.
From what I can recall VHS labels were never known for being particularly interesting. That was more of the cover's work. I guess the only reason the Daredevil one had a more elaborate label is because that movie came out relatively late into the format's lifespan, and people were getting used to CDs/DVDs with nice prints on them.
yeah, i work in a thrift store so i see loads of VHS, and i have literally never seen one that doesn't either have a white label with black printing, or white text printed directly on the cassette
@@vattmann1387 That's the one I assumed Ashens meant, too. Broken Arrow being a term for a when a nuclear weapon is lost. It has that wonderful line in it. "I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it."
I believe the reason they are not fully rewound is that they are ready to watch after the adverts and trailers. I used to do this to tapes that had them.
@@joshshrum2764 I once traded in a copy of Pokemon Platinum with a save file in the Elite Four, with one Pokemon in my team, and having freed as many others from the PC as possible. It would have been a miserable experience trying to complete that save.
33:20 there are a grand total of six volumes of Akira. You absolutely should read them, they are incredible and 100% worth it. Yes, the film does try and condense it all, and loses some of the character and impact from the books, but I think you went a little harsh on it - I think the film is brilliant in its own right, if you can get your head around it.
I get where he's coming from, when I first Akira as a young boy I also remember being quite disappointed, the marketing around it (at least that I'd seen) was also quite misleading. It was only later when I watched it again that I really started to appreciate it for what it was.
"They fired a prop gun..." *Insert CJ saying "Ah shit here we go again"* Edit: While we're mentioning film related things we like, Ashens streams on Twitch Wednesdays and Sundays with quizzes, old games, and sometimes on Sundays shitty old VHS covers
@Mike I think it's best not to speculate - let's wait for what the police investigation's got to say. A tragedy no matter what, but "or something" comments can be withheld surely. They contribute to nothing but most often rumors that turn out to be just wrong.
Well it eliminates Gone With the Wind, which came on two tapes. Same with Dances with Wolves director's cut and all the other Kevin Costner movies from that period
I was just thinking the same thing. Then again what happened with Lee seems like a genuine accident where a couple people dropped the ball. The later however seems like Baldwin was stupidly playing around with a prop gun.
Apparently things made for killing can kill. If Baldwin is innocent of murder, negligent manslaughter, whatever, hopefully no more people have to die on set for millionaires to make even more dosh. Pretty weird that the movie centers in accidental murder. Didn’t know Baldwin was method.
First watched Zulu on TV as a young child and it scared me half to death. As an adult what scares me is that it actually happened though not necessarily as depicted in the film. As a movie it was fairly respectful of the Zulu and portrayed them as a civilised nation responding to an aggressive invader. Cain's character begins as a huge snob who is then humbled by the brave but common soldiers around him. The silence at the end of the battle as they survey the carnage. You can almost hear them thinking "Did we really do that?" My nephew at that point asked me if Rourkes Drift really happened. He then said "But that's horrible." Yes, that's war for you. Avoid if possible.
Akira was the first mainstream anime hit in America too. So much so, in fact, that to this day there's still a bit of a stereotype to the Japanese about how much Americans love Akira
I really miss VHS cases. There’s something about the way the plastic shines that’s unusually pleasing. DVD and Blu-ray cases just don’t look the same, the plastic on the VHS is slightly opaque, maybe that’s what it is? Also I can imagine Ashens regarding a dusty box of VHS tapes on a shelf as if it were the Ark of the Covenant! Hmmmm, free content, result!
Oddly they are the same type of plastic , polypropylene but vhs had a fine texture on the clear film that covered to artwork which might make it look different.
Honestly what I find really super interesting is how different UK vhs boxes are from the US. Video rental stores had this kind of boxes but the ones you bought at the store were the clamshell style here or the soft cover. I have a ton of vhs from my childhood and none have this kind of cover 😂
When I was growing up Zulu was one of my dad's fav movie and forced me to watch it every bloody week on a Sunday. I got so sick and tired watching it but watched it again for the first time in 20 years earlier this year and thought it was quite entertaining.
"The Sum of All Fears" is probably much better than that utter tosh classic, "The Fear of All Sums", about a student who has a truly bizarre and abject phobia of math class.
I always found the first Mad Max film to be a bit too of a slow burn for my liking, but Mad Max 2 is just too good. Beyond Thunderdome is fun, but doesn't come close to being as good as Mad Max 2. Fury Road might be tied with Mad Max 2 for me, though. Bloody love Fury Road.
Mc Vicar, once worked in Mcdonald's for 23 years, to pay for his sins for selling fast food lukewarm to customers. He decides to become a vicar, but soon falls into a situation hotter then anything he served in hospitality. 😂 That's what came to my mind when I saw the title of the VHS tape.
That's kinda what I was thinking "Do you have nicer labels over there or something?" I remember them basically just being there to make sure the cassette ended up in the right box.
In North America they kinda just stopped putting labels on most VHS tapes in the late 90s and just pad printed the text directly onto the shell. It usually looked dreadful.
My local Blockbuster in the mid-late 90s (Yorkshire UK) was fairly big and i remember them having a rather substantial Anime/Manga VHS section, they had a big Wrestling section too.
The Predator VHS has accidental behind-the-scenes shit (because of the pan & scan) that you won't see any more. I remember, as a kid, smiling as I watched Carl Weathers hide his arm down his trousers before being lifted by a wooden catapult.
@@AgentTasmania I think it had something to do with squeezing the widescreen image to 4:3 and then kind of zooming out so it wasn’t squashed. I’m not sure on the technicals but it often happened with the VHSs. I remember the scene in Peewee’s Big Adventure when he’s taking the endless chain out of his bike and you can just see it coming in from the bottom. Or the film with Charlie sheen as an undercover biker in which, during the sex scene he knocks over a lamp and you see a hand come from off screen and catch it. That one was hilarious to me as a kid!
@@AgentTasmania Not so much added as revealed. Back in the days of 4:3 TVs a widescreen film might have the masking top and bottom removed to fill the screen and reveal things underneath like 2 Gizmo puppets or matte paintings not quite filling the screen. Weirdly today people are now starting to believe there’s extra footage hiding outside the frame of their widescreen TVs. I blame Zack Snyder for bringing back square movies!
@@benblem147 That's spot on, thanks! Wiki has this to say: "Film makers may also create an original image that includes visual information that extends above and below the widescreen theatrical image; this is called "open matte". This may still be pan-and-scanned, but gives the compositor the freedom to "zoom out" or "uncrop" the image to include not only the full width of the wide-format image, but additional visual content at the top and/or bottom of the screen, not included in the widescreen version... The expanded image area can sometimes include extraneous objects-such as cables, microphone booms, jet vapor trails, or overhead telephone wires-not intended to be included in the frame, depending upon the nature of the shot and how well the full frame was protected"
The Warriors - one of the best films ever. Long pointless story, I was about 14 and telling my dad about a film called 'Sneakers' (great film) to which my dad mentioned a film called 'The Warriors'. Literally the weekend after during school holidays I was up late and a film came on. Afterwards, gutted that it had ended, I remembered the name. Told my dad he was like 'Yea that's the film I told you about'. Fantastic film, old and dated a bit now but an absolute classic.
I was going to make a joke that Cube and Cube 2: Hypercube could be the mystery video, but after looing it up to see if it would be possible, I've just discovered they've made a Japanese adaptation of Cube, and it only came out yesterday! What a weird coincidence
Like many others, I'd never even heard of 'The Warriors' until Rockstar made their 2005 video game based on it. I think this was at least partly responsible for starting the revival in interest. It's most definitely how I came to discover this brilliant cult classic. Anybody thinking about watching it should watch the original theatrical cut, though, not the 'Director's Cut' with all it's out-of-place comic book style segues. They look too modern and shiny to suit the grungy look of a 70's movie - and in my opinion, they add absolutely nothing to the experience.
I watched that cut, and I enjoyed the comic-panel stuff. Perhaps I should watch the original for comparison purposes though. Also, one of the few cult films I thought was actually worth the hype.
2 "Mystery tapes". They are "mystery" either for laughs, or because of something else... I think those were "Emmanuelle" and "Emmanuelle 2". A staple of sorts.
Hahaha. Not heard those names for ages. My Dad made the foolish mistake of writing "Rugby World Cup - DO NOT TAPE OVER" on _one of those kind of tapes_ which... as a teen... made me think "...wait a minute, since when did YOU watch Rugby?"
Great video Stuart, as usual you have taken us back to a time of nostalgia with showing us the era of the VHS, Loved your commentary in the video and your late uncle had a great taste in movies so for that reason alone I am guessing the double VHS set was The Terminator & Terminator 2 Judgement Day, two great films and definately fits in with his taste.
Akira wasn't the first to make it into common video rental stores, I know because me and my brother used to rent anime, and some were very common and they predate Akira, one example are the Devilman movies. Ultimately the first anime to commonly find their way into common video rental stores in foreign countries were in the 1980's, Akira came later in the early 90's. Akira was of course a single movie. I didn't end up looking at Akira until much later, like in 2012. I also was confused by it, the visual detail in the movie was impressive, but I couldn't quite fathom how the story told in the movie is great, I got the feeling I was missing context or meaning, many things happened without any explanation, and strange deformed powers etc, I also got the feeling that they didn't have enough time to actually flesh out the story in that single movie, and the amount of story compression left it feeling a bit like random events occurring and you were unsure how it's all meant to fit together and what it's even meant to signify.
@@thatguywithoutnousernamevo7540 So it was possible. I had Ghostbusters 1&2 on 1 tape with an episode of batman '66 in the middle. I wasn't sure if I'd misremembered it but it seems it's possible
A friend made a tape for me, copied Ghostbusters from HBO. But she let the machine keep recording and the next show was Brewster's Millions, which I actually liked as well as Ghostbusters.
The Battle of the Bulge features an intermission that just has a title screen and specially composed music for about ten minutes in the middle of the film.
Zulu is one of my mum's favourite films, I always catch her watching it whenever it's on TV, the same goes for Spartacus. I've never seen either film all the way through, but my mum bloody loves them.
I watch The Crow every year on devil's night, love it. Halloween ain't til manana. :v Shitty and lax on-set armorers are so dangerous because a firearm loaded with blanks is capable of doing basically the exact same thing a live round would if something is stuck in the barrel. From what I understand a poor quality armorer loaded the revolver with regular rounds that had the powder removed but not the primer for a closeup. The hammer was dropped and the primer exploding had enough force to lodge the bullet in the barrel. It was loaded with blanks after (and never inspected somehow, again incompetence) and with the exploding blank with a bullet lodged in the barrel it basically became a regular gun. It sounds like the Alec Baldwin thing was EVEN MORE STUPID because they had live bullets on set for who the fuck knows what reason.
For the 2-pack you left out, I'm torn between guessing "The Amityville Horror"/"Amityville II: The Possession" or "An American Tail"/"An American Tail: Fievel Goes West" for whatever reason. If I have to guess only one, I'm going with the Don Bluth cartoons since Amityville would actually be seasonally appropriate and you might actually make sure to mention them over some of the weaker films in the pile. So, yeah, I'm guessing it's "An American Tail" and "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West"
I got Akira and Urotsukidoji both on vhs the same day, my dad brought them back for a car boot after seeing I liked Pokemon. That was an odd day for an 8 year old.
Yeah, the people selling anime VHS' really were clueless for a good couple of years. I had to have a talk with a couple of the local ones when they put Adventure Duo and Gigolo Brothers (seriously, with that name?) next to Bob the frigging Builder... =P
It's so bizarre, only today in work I was talking about The Warriors film whilst clinking a glass and creepily saying 'warriors, come out to play, warriors come out to playay'.
i still collecting VHS to this days i love them the flickering the picturefailers and co are so charming and not every vhs movie is avilable on dvd or Bluray
I, too, have a VHS/DVD collection largely poached from thrift stores. From my experience of what I've seen in double features of movies with their sequels, I am going to guess The Mask and Son of the Mask.
Ok, if I had to take a guess at the two-pack VHS, I'd imagine it's The Never Ending Story and it's Sequel. I'm only guessing this because we has those movies in a two-pack myself when I was growing up. XD
Im going to guess that as well. My reason for choosing is that it would've been such an oddball choice, given that the other videos were mostly mature action flicks. Weird thing is that there is a release with both films on one tape as well.
Since this video touches on VHS tapes that weren't properly rewound, I think it's a good time to remind people to always rewind youtube videos to beginning when you are done watching them. Have you ever clicked on youtube video and it took a long time for it to start up? That was because some asshole who watched that video before you didn't bother to rewind, so youtube servers had to waste time doing it automatically. So always be kind and rewind, it's not hard to do!
50p charge added to your blockbuster card if you don't you scoundrels
Best comment
Let's all get together on April first and paste this under every video we can. That would be cool.
Amazingly there might actually be a grain of truth in this as a side affect of (server side) load handling caching and preloading
@@ghostlypresence5362 I'm sorry, I'm going to ask you to back up and think through that statement you just made
R.I.P. Uncle Derek, thanks for contributing to the internet posthumously.
Uncle Derek? I have not Heard of this person? ... so... Hmm!
@@thethirdrail8397he created the content for this video dingus
“I used to have an uncle called Derek.”
Amazing, heartwarming, action-packed story.
8/10 IGN. Too many uncles named Derek.
Agreed
Stories like that are why I am subscribed.
Let’s just hope they don’t mess up the Netflix adaptation.
I'm guessing it's not the CheapShow Derek which they're holding back until Stuart is available
Stuart, you can't distinguish between Steven Seagal movies, but judging by his acting, neither can he.
@@BobDavies1 Best one the cake is the costar.
The later "straight-to-DVD" ones are the best. They just have random action scenes on the back cover, with versions of Steven Seagal that don't appear in the movie.
There’s “Chinese” Steven Seagal. And “New Orleans Guy” Steven Seagal. And then the “Entemann’s Donut Goatee” Seagal.
I work for a merch wholesaler, and we ended up with A LOT of leftover merch from the Shaolin Wheel of Life tour. I think we still have the tour books and the plastic prayer bead wristbands.
Makes sense a lot of people tend not to buy tour merch. I remember I was at an American idle top 13 concert a few years back and their shirts were like 30 dollars.
Now we just need the Ashens - Brutalmoose VHS Extravaganza crossover and i can die happy.
His VHS videos are some of my favorites that he does. I think he said in a stream he'd be doing more soon.
Yes yes yes.
I honestly thought this was a brutalmoose video in my sub box and had to do a double take
Life goals
Almost thought Moose's "Mystery Tape" series had somehow inspired Ashens to start to look at random VHS's.
Re: The Crow
Something very smiliar may have literally _just_ happened on the set of Alec Baldwin's current film (Rust)!
Big oof.
Yes it did. Only difference being is that it was the camerawoman that got killed and the director that was injured.
@@danforbes3573 Wasn't it the other way around? I read a quote saying the woman was a great director or something
@@exzyyd392 She was the Director of Photography
@@exzyyd392 Best timing
Also, I miss VHS cover art. So amateurish, yet so unique and anarchic.
Sundays have been fun recently.
I feel the same way about Master System game box art, that stuff was mental.
"They look kind of stinky" is such a wonderful way to describe a film
especially Stephen Segal movies
The uncle Derek story had me sitting on the edge of my seat, a white knuckle ride the whole time, if you want a entertaining time and something the whole family will enjoy, watch it.
I wish my ADHD was not so bad, I couldn't make it through the whole story. 😞
From what I remember about Brandon Lee's death, it wasn't cloth stuck in the gun but part of a dummy round. The pistol had been fired earlier in the day with a dummy round -- effectively a full bullet without the usual powder to push it out of the gun -- and the tip of it had separated and stuck in the barrel. When a blank round -- a bullet without the part that separates and flies towards the target -- was later loaded and fired at Lee, the propellant launched the stuck piece of dummy round right at him, killing him.
The Brandon Lee incident has popped back up in the news lately due to the whole Alec Baldwin gun incident. I guess even now there are still fatalities entirely down to someone getting lax with safety precautions.
I mean, nothing will be worse than the Twilight Zone helicopter crash...
sure.. yet 2 shots were fired lately and 2 people hit.. and one is dead.. a bit wierd tbh
This^ the only additional thing was that the "dummy round" they were using was not a proper dummy round which have no primers. They used "homemade" instead of properly buying real dummy rounds. These homemade rounds had the powder charge removed but not the primers, and were not intended to be fired. The gun was accidentally discharged and the primer had enough energy to push the bullet part into the barrel. The homemade dummy rounds were yet another aspect of the negligence and corner cutting that caused the accident to happen.
they didnt have a proper armourer when it came to using guns on set for that film they just pulled the heads off bullets and emptied the powder apparently they used them as 'dummy rounds' to show loading of the gun on film something happened one was fired but got jammed in the barrel no one knew and another that was turned into a blank was inserted and fired which pushed the jammed bullet out the barrel to me it sounds way to convoluted and im more suspicious about it all
What would be the point of firing these dummy rounds? Were these meant to function as bullet props but one was loaded anyway?
Ah yes, Recky is one of my favorite films! I love the scene at the end where he has a decisive win against Mercury Creed and yells out "Aiden!" at the end!
LOL, guess what. There acutally exist a full-length parody of Rocky, called "Ricky 1" (and it's really bad).
But Adrian is called Annie and Apollo Creed is Silver Shadow.
@@ArCgon Lol, I have to find this and watch it!
My guess for the mystery VHS set is Ghostbusters I/II, because Stuart would probably hold that back to do a video with Gannon.
I remember having the 2 Ghostbusters on 1 tape and for some reason it had an episode of batman '66 between the film's. For some reason my memory is telling me that I had it as 1 tape anyway
Maybe Batman and Batman Forever. Or The Neverending Story 1 and 2.
@@incredibleflameboy my friend had a gb 1/2 that had a Batman episode in between. It was the black and white series from way way back. No idea why they did that.
I bet when Uncle Derek wrote Grumi on that VCR he never suspected that 20 years later people around the world would be desperately trying to guess what movie it was.
The Lethal Weapon 1 and Lethal Weapon 2 VHS set, I had that one as a kid and it seems to suit your Uncle Derek's taste.
I had it too!
I love the perceived premise I have of cliffhanger from the very little that was featured here.
"Come on, John Cliffhanger, we need you back to climb one more cliff, you're the best in the business."
And then he gets shipped off to the rockies where he gets revenge on the cliff that took his partner.
The Crow is my favourite film of all time. I love comics and horror and romance and that film just epitomised all of those things for me. Brandon was indeed fantastic as Eric Draven, so tragic that he died so young, and in such a horrible and unnecessary way.
Right with you. My favorite movie ever!
It's so sad, that comic author James O Barr created the comic to deal with the tragic loss of his girlfriend who was killed by a drunk driver (if I'm remembering correctly), and then felt personally responsible for Lee's death after the accident.
I also enjoyed the live action series they made. It was typical 90's action series fluff.
He should be named Eric Dcrow
From what I can recall VHS labels were never known for being particularly interesting. That was more of the cover's work.
I guess the only reason the Daredevil one had a more elaborate label is because that movie came out relatively late into the format's lifespan, and people were getting used to CDs/DVDs with nice prints on them.
yeah, i work in a thrift store so i see loads of VHS, and i have literally never seen one that doesn't either have a white label with black printing, or white text printed directly on the cassette
“Is this the one about a stolen nuclear bomb?”
Well, it’s Tom Clancy, so probably.
There was another one released about the same time. If I remember right it was Broken Arrow.
More silliness about stealth bombers losing a nuke etc.
Which one
@@vattmann1387 That's the one I assumed Ashens meant, too. Broken Arrow being a term for a when a nuclear weapon is lost. It has that wonderful line in it.
"I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it."
Tom Clancy is JK Rowling for adult men.
Your Uncle seems like a guy I would hang out with and have a beer. Even in his current condition.
weird coincidence to be talking about Brandon Lee's death today. It just happened again to someone else.
Just thought that myself
@@callummclelland7959 no i did
“They look kinda of stinky”
title for the third Ashens movie
Schwarzenegger - Nothing like it has ever been on Earth before.
Dr. Ashen's Uncle Derek : _"....I left all of my treasured VHS tapes for my dear nephew Stuart"_
Cheapshow's Uncle Derek : _" _*_Bone Hoover_*_ "_
"I was given the VHS tapes to deal with". The mind boggles.
Mental image of a dozen lorries backing into the yard...
Yeah everyone took all the Blu-Rays and DVD's. They left Ashens the VHS. Lovely family. LOL
Tey are fery dengerous and ve muss deal with it.
“Does it add an ambience, or does it just remove visual fidelity?”
- a question I have asked every single time I go to get rid of a box of VHS tapes.
I believe the reason they are not fully rewound is that they are ready to watch after the adverts and trailers. I used to do this to tapes that had them.
You. You're one of the good ones.
And then we have people that make a save file in Final Fantasy 7, where the bomb timer is almost depleted.
@@joshshrum2764 I once traded in a copy of Pokemon Platinum with a save file in the Elite Four, with one Pokemon in my team, and having freed as many others from the PC as possible. It would have been a miserable experience trying to complete that save.
33:20 there are a grand total of six volumes of Akira. You absolutely should read them, they are incredible and 100% worth it. Yes, the film does try and condense it all, and loses some of the character and impact from the books, but I think you went a little harsh on it - I think the film is brilliant in its own right, if you can get your head around it.
I get where he's coming from, when I first Akira as a young boy I also remember being quite disappointed, the marketing around it (at least that I'd seen) was also quite misleading. It was only later when I watched it again that I really started to appreciate it for what it was.
"They fired a prop gun..." *Insert CJ saying "Ah shit here we go again"*
Edit: While we're mentioning film related things we like, Ashens streams on Twitch Wednesdays and Sundays with quizzes, old games, and sometimes on Sundays shitty old VHS covers
@Mike I think it's best not to speculate - let's wait for what the police investigation's got to say. A tragedy no matter what, but "or something" comments can be withheld surely. They contribute to nothing but most often rumors that turn out to be just wrong.
"I'll give you a very strong hint: It's a film and its sequel!"
Well. That limits it to about a Million movies...
Well it eliminates Gone With the Wind, which came on two tapes. Same with Dances with Wolves director's cut and all the other Kevin Costner movies from that period
Wow that timing was impeccable given what happened with Alec Baldwin today
I was just thinking the same thing. Then again what happened with Lee seems like a genuine accident where a couple people dropped the ball. The later however seems like Baldwin was stupidly playing around with a prop gun.
The very first thing I Fort
@@Savannah_Simpson The armorer wasn't union and fucked up, Baldwin is innocent.
@@Clay3613 yeah but the fact it's happened after the crow blows my mind. That's a thing that should never happen again
Apparently things made for killing can kill. If Baldwin is innocent of murder, negligent manslaughter, whatever, hopefully no more people have to die on set for millionaires to make even more dosh. Pretty weird that the movie centers in accidental murder. Didn’t know Baldwin was method.
I'll never get rid of my WWF tapes, even PPVs I recorded live as a kid. So many memories.
My guess for the mystery movie and it’s sequel is Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On the Move because I bet uncle Derrick fancied Kim Cattrall
Who wouldn't?
Good guess!
There was Mannequin 2 ?!
Is the double pack The Nutty Professor and The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps perchance?
Also Gromi… could be Wallace and Gromit perhaps?
uncle Derek needs to buy those tape cleaners to avoid the molds, RIP uncle Derek.
First watched Zulu on TV as a young child and it scared me half to death. As an adult what scares me is that it actually happened though not necessarily as depicted in the film. As a movie it was fairly respectful of the Zulu and portrayed them as a civilised nation responding to an aggressive invader. Cain's character begins as a huge snob who is then humbled by the brave but common soldiers around him. The silence at the end of the battle as they survey the carnage. You can almost hear them thinking "Did we really do that?" My nephew at that point asked me if Rourkes Drift really happened. He then said "But that's horrible." Yes, that's war for you. Avoid if possible.
Akira was the first mainstream anime hit in America too. So much so, in fact, that to this day there's still a bit of a stereotype to the Japanese about how much Americans love Akira
I really miss VHS cases. There’s something about the way the plastic shines that’s unusually pleasing. DVD and Blu-ray cases just don’t look the same, the plastic on the VHS is slightly opaque, maybe that’s what it is?
Also I can imagine Ashens regarding a dusty box of VHS tapes on a shelf as if it were the Ark of the Covenant!
Hmmmm, free content, result!
Oddly they are the same type of plastic , polypropylene but vhs had a fine texture on the clear film that covered to artwork which might make it look different.
"They fired like a prop gun..."
Eeeeeeek.
I was about to say the same thing!
OOF YIKES.
@@Leatherbubba 😬
@@Nicksta101 😮
@@Nicksta101 Thanks
Honestly what I find really super interesting is how different UK vhs boxes are from the US. Video rental stores had this kind of boxes but the ones you bought at the store were the clamshell style here or the soft cover. I have a ton of vhs from my childhood and none have this kind of cover 😂
Gods! This took me back to my Carboot Sale days of looking for dodgy 80s horror VHS tapes...usually hidden amongst a ton of Mills & Boon books
When I was growing up Zulu was one of my dad's fav movie and forced me to watch it every bloody week on a Sunday. I got so sick and tired watching it but watched it again for the first time in 20 years earlier this year and thought it was quite entertaining.
Nice timing on the Brandon Lee death story right there.
@Mike Loser*
@@j.f.christ8421 Not really.
@@j.f.christ8421 you
"The Sum of All Fears" is probably much better than that utter tosh classic, "The Fear of All Sums", about a student who has a truly bizarre and abject phobia of math class.
There was a recent rerelease of the Akira manga with extra concept art and stuff. It's definitely worth reading the whole thing in my opinion
Ashens calls them "rewound," I suspected some of them are "unwatched."
Prewound.
Might as well watch some Ashens on a Friday night…. What wizardry is this? A new episode? Ye Gods!
What is this obsession with labels. VHSs never had fancy labels. Just the title, key actors, director and that was pretty much it.
Mad Max 2 is probably the best Mad Max movie. 1 is the origin, but Mad Max 2 just perfected the formula.
Agree, the first one is an amazing slow burn revenge film but the second one is Mad Max perfection.
"Two days ago, I saw a vehicle that could haul that tanker."
fury road was pretty good too, I still haven't seen beyond thunderdome
I always found the first Mad Max film to be a bit too of a slow burn for my liking, but Mad Max 2 is just too good. Beyond Thunderdome is fun, but doesn't come close to being as good as Mad Max 2. Fury Road might be tied with Mad Max 2 for me, though. Bloody love Fury Road.
that Shaolin Wheel of Life really is spectacular, they showed in on Channel 4 some years ago
Those generic VHS labels give me a huge Proustian rush in a way the bespoke ones never do. Call me mad, but I love them.
Mc Vicar, once worked in Mcdonald's for 23 years, to pay for his sins for selling fast food lukewarm to customers.
He decides to become a vicar, but soon falls into a situation hotter then anything he served in hospitality. 😂
That's what came to my mind when I saw the title of the VHS tape.
When you said "Jackie Chan broke every..." I was expecting "bone in his body"
This was his first film, he only broke half.
One thing about The Warriors that few people probably know. A PSP Game of The Warriors was released. If I can remember right, it was quite enjoyable.
I'm curious what Ashens thinks is a "good label". They all looked like that back in the day
That's kinda what I was thinking "Do you have nicer labels over there or something?" I remember them basically just being there to make sure the cassette ended up in the right box.
In North America they kinda just stopped putting labels on most VHS tapes in the late 90s and just pad printed the text directly onto the shell. It usually looked dreadful.
My local Blockbuster in the mid-late 90s (Yorkshire UK) was fairly big and i remember them having a rather substantial Anime/Manga VHS section, they had a big Wrestling section too.
The Predator VHS has accidental behind-the-scenes shit (because of the pan & scan) that you won't see any more. I remember, as a kid, smiling as I watched Carl Weathers hide his arm down his trousers before being lifted by a wooden catapult.
Wouldn't normally expect a cinema-to-video conversion to have stuff added to the frame.
@@AgentTasmania I think it had something to do with squeezing the widescreen image to 4:3 and then kind of zooming out so it wasn’t squashed. I’m not sure on the technicals but it often happened with the VHSs. I remember the scene in Peewee’s Big Adventure when he’s taking the endless chain out of his bike and you can just see it coming in from the bottom. Or the film with Charlie sheen as an undercover biker in which, during the sex scene he knocks over a lamp and you see a hand come from off screen and catch it. That one was hilarious to me as a kid!
@@AgentTasmania Not so much added as revealed. Back in the days of 4:3 TVs a widescreen film might have the masking top and bottom removed to fill the screen and reveal things underneath like 2 Gizmo puppets or matte paintings not quite filling the screen. Weirdly today people are now starting to believe there’s extra footage hiding outside the frame of their widescreen TVs. I blame Zack Snyder for bringing back square movies!
It appears the technical term for this is open matte so that's a topic looking up if you're interested in more examples.
@@benblem147 That's spot on, thanks! Wiki has this to say: "Film makers may also create an original image that includes visual information that extends above and below the widescreen theatrical image; this is called "open matte". This may still be pan-and-scanned, but gives the compositor the freedom to "zoom out" or "uncrop" the image to include not only the full width of the wide-format image, but additional visual content at the top and/or bottom of the screen, not included in the widescreen version... The expanded image area can sometimes include extraneous objects-such as cables, microphone booms, jet vapor trails, or overhead telephone wires-not intended to be included in the frame, depending upon the nature of the shot and how well the full frame was protected"
The Warriors - one of the best films ever. Long pointless story, I was about 14 and telling my dad about a film called 'Sneakers' (great film) to which my dad mentioned a film called 'The Warriors'. Literally the weekend after during school holidays I was up late and a film came on. Afterwards, gutted that it had ended, I remembered the name. Told my dad he was like 'Yea that's the film I told you about'. Fantastic film, old and dated a bit now but an absolute classic.
I’ve actually just started collecting VHS again so this video came out just at the right time for me 😁 amazing stuff
The Sum of All Fears is the one movie I have never successfully stayed awake during
I own it on VHS and I have tried to watch it a few times lol
Is it Home Alone 1+2? Your uncle's essentials collection would be complete.
Rest in Piece Uncle Derek, you had a good collection of VHS.
I was going to make a joke that Cube and Cube 2: Hypercube could be the mystery video, but after looing it up to see if it would be possible, I've just discovered they've made a Japanese adaptation of Cube, and it only came out yesterday! What a weird coincidence
I had a Law and Economics course in college and the professor would always use Mad Max as his example of anarchy. I loved that course.
Like many others, I'd never even heard of 'The Warriors' until Rockstar made their 2005 video game based on it. I think this was at least partly responsible for starting the revival in interest. It's most definitely how I came to discover this brilliant cult classic.
Anybody thinking about watching it should watch the original theatrical cut, though, not the 'Director's Cut' with all it's out-of-place comic book style segues. They look too modern and shiny to suit the grungy look of a 70's movie - and in my opinion, they add absolutely nothing to the experience.
Such is life being too young, most of my generation knows of Warriors.
I watched that cut, and I enjoyed the comic-panel stuff. Perhaps I should watch the original for comparison purposes though.
Also, one of the few cult films I thought was actually worth the hype.
@@SwedishEmpire1700 "Warriors, come out to play-ay" *clinks glass bottles on fingers" THAT Warriors?!
Unfortunately it's the only version I saw. Shite.
@@Fluttermoth Yes, the very same clown gang and baseball gang Warriors movie.
damn the timing of showing the crow with what just happened to alec baldwin
2 "Mystery tapes". They are "mystery" either for laughs, or because of something else...
I think those were "Emmanuelle" and "Emmanuelle 2". A staple of sorts.
Hahaha. Not heard those names for ages.
My Dad made the foolish mistake of writing "Rugby World Cup - DO NOT TAPE OVER" on _one of those kind of tapes_ which... as a teen... made me think "...wait a minute, since when did YOU watch Rugby?"
Great video Stuart, as usual you have taken us back to a time of nostalgia with showing us the era of the VHS,
Loved your commentary in the video and your late uncle had a great taste in movies so for that reason alone I am guessing the double VHS set was The Terminator & Terminator 2 Judgement Day, two great films and definately fits in with his taste.
I'm guessing at 'Romancing the Stone' and 'Jewel of the Nile' for the mysterious 21st tape.
Akira wasn't the first to make it into common video rental stores, I know because me and my brother used to rent anime, and some were very common and they predate Akira, one example are the Devilman movies. Ultimately the first anime to commonly find their way into common video rental stores in foreign countries were in the 1980's, Akira came later in the early 90's. Akira was of course a single movie. I didn't end up looking at Akira until much later, like in 2012. I also was confused by it, the visual detail in the movie was impressive, but I couldn't quite fathom how the story told in the movie is great, I got the feeling I was missing context or meaning, many things happened without any explanation, and strange deformed powers etc, I also got the feeling that they didn't have enough time to actually flesh out the story in that single movie, and the amount of story compression left it feeling a bit like random events occurring and you were unsure how it's all meant to fit together and what it's even meant to signify.
The weirdest VHS I remember owning was a double feature of men in Black and bad boys
what movie was first? were both films on one tape or was it a box with both tapes?
@@thedeadpoolwhochuckles.6852 They were on one tape. First was men in Black
@@thatguywithoutnousernamevo7540 So it was possible. I had Ghostbusters 1&2 on 1 tape with an episode of batman '66 in the middle. I wasn't sure if I'd misremembered it but it seems it's possible
A friend made a tape for me, copied Ghostbusters from HBO. But she let the machine keep recording and the next show was Brewster's Millions, which I actually liked as well as Ghostbusters.
The Battle of the Bulge features an intermission that just has a title screen and specially composed music for about ten minutes in the middle of the film.
Is this british Redlettermedia now? If so sign me up
what we need is a crossover for the ages. ashens guest spot on best of the worst perhaps?
the real mega powers: Stuart Ashen and Rich Evans. TOGETHER AT LAST
Zulu is one of my mum's favourite films, I always catch her watching it whenever it's on TV, the same goes for Spartacus. I've never seen either film all the way through, but my mum bloody loves them.
The crow chose the worst time to make an appearance given the Baldwin incident
Clearly the two movies Ashens left out were House and House 2: Second Story.
Prediction for the two-pack: Gremlins & Gremlins 2.
John McVicar was the first man to escape from Durham Prisons high-security E Wing, 29th October 1968
Haven’t watched Zulu? I almost dropped my cuppa.
Ashens- "How will I search through all of those comments...Magic?"
Me- "E's a wizard Barry!"
Lovely! Is there going to be a Halloween Tat Special this year
Zulu is one of my favourite movie of all time. And the the mystery VGS is Die Hard and Die Hard 2
Ah haaa, man, I saw ZULU back in 2016 and it became, then and there, my favorite war movie; I find it to be rather outrageously good.
That Cliffhanger cover art made me laugh.
Stallone looks like he's in a campy dance musical.
I watch The Crow every year on devil's night, love it. Halloween ain't til manana. :v
Shitty and lax on-set armorers are so dangerous because a firearm loaded with blanks is capable of doing basically the exact same thing a live round would if something is stuck in the barrel. From what I understand a poor quality armorer loaded the revolver with regular rounds that had the powder removed but not the primer for a closeup. The hammer was dropped and the primer exploding had enough force to lodge the bullet in the barrel. It was loaded with blanks after (and never inspected somehow, again incompetence) and with the exploding blank with a bullet lodged in the barrel it basically became a regular gun. It sounds like the Alec Baldwin thing was EVEN MORE STUPID because they had live bullets on set for who the fuck knows what reason.
This is the really real world, there ain't no comin' back!
They had live rounds on the Rust set because during downtime, crew would go fire live rounds at cans for fun
'It's rare that you're going to watch a Jackie Chan film and be bored.'
...Rumble in Hong Kong.
I rest my case.
Police Woman isn't really a "Jackie Chan" film though. He plays a bit part in it as one of the bad guys.
I enjoyed Zulu, though it was a pain to stream it. Had to download one of those "free" TV watching apps, that I'd never heard of
Zulu is an amazing movie. I love it.
Pokémon 1 & 2... Literally the only two VHS's I own
yeah i doubt uncle derek would own that.....
I remember when you showed a clip of "hey it's no bull. I wouldnt lie to ya about 3,000 centipedes". I'm still in disbelief to this day.
For the 2-pack you left out, I'm torn between guessing "The Amityville Horror"/"Amityville II: The Possession" or "An American Tail"/"An American Tail: Fievel Goes West" for whatever reason.
If I have to guess only one, I'm going with the Don Bluth cartoons since Amityville would actually be seasonally appropriate and you might actually make sure to mention them over some of the weaker films in the pile.
So, yeah, I'm guessing it's "An American Tail" and "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West"
McVicar is a bloody fantastic film. Brilliant!
Anyone else feel like it's ironic there was a Brandon Lee film in there after the whole news about Alec Baldwin, so tragic xx
The very film that had the incident as well
I got Akira and Urotsukidoji both on vhs the same day, my dad brought them back for a car boot after seeing I liked Pokemon.
That was an odd day for an 8 year old.
Yeah, the people selling anime VHS' really were clueless for a good couple of years. I had to have a talk with a couple of the local ones when they put Adventure Duo and Gigolo Brothers (seriously, with that name?) next to Bob the frigging Builder... =P
It's so bizarre, only today in work I was talking about The Warriors film whilst clinking a glass and creepily saying 'warriors, come out to play, warriors come out to playay'.
i still collecting VHS to this days i love them the flickering the picturefailers and co are so charming and not every vhs movie is avilable on dvd or Bluray
Zulu is fantastic, a friend of mine had a relative that was in the battle, one of the recovering guys who had to defend the house
I, too, have a VHS/DVD collection largely poached from thrift stores. From my experience of what I've seen in double features of movies with their sequels, I am going to guess The Mask and Son of the Mask.
Ok, if I had to take a guess at the two-pack VHS, I'd imagine it's The Never Ending Story and it's Sequel. I'm only guessing this because we has those movies in a two-pack myself when I was growing up. XD
I have it on DVD lol
Im going to guess that as well. My reason for choosing is that it would've been such an oddball choice, given that the other videos were mostly mature action flicks.
Weird thing is that there is a release with both films on one tape as well.
I like to pretend Ashens' uncle Derek is in fact the dude from Stop Skeletons From Fighting.