McKenna Harris and Andrew Stanton direct Joan Cusack, Tom Hanks and Tim Allen in this further animated adventure where the toys take on tech.
Hmmm… sacrifices the witty ensemble bantz and intricate, rocket fuelled chases for messaging and the feels. The ratios are wrong. Is this what kids want? Not my Toy Story, sorry. Let’s bring back the fun again Pixar.
5
Perfect Double Bill: Wall-E (2008)
Christopher Nolan directs Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland in this blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s epic Greek adventure.
Run away! RUN AWAY! A staggering, monumental achievement with sequences and visuals that pull your soul out of your body. Not perfect but definitive. Nolan’s true talent is breaking a complex set piece down to its basic parts, presenting the construction of it with the clarity of a line drawn Ikea manual, then assembling it before your eyes with a pace and involvement that dazzles. Artful world building that values simplicity and boldness to agitate the emotions. A murderer’s row of screen acting talent. Pattinson and Leguizamo have juice running down their chin they eat so well. Samantha Morton’s Circe pretty much resets the movie entire. She’s that powerful. Also hers is one of three moments where Nolan leans into unabashed terror. Let’s have his vision of the horror movie next please. This is a 2026 take on The Odyssey used as a vehicle for some very prescient themes. Ones that Nolan has been exploring since the very start of his unparalleled career. If you break the rules of civilisation can you ever go home again? Should you? Should it be easy? The vigilantes of Memento and the Batman trilogy. The warmongers of Dunkirk and Tenet. The technology pioneers of The Prestige and Interstellar. Should the journey back to family and community be a cake walk if you have removed yourself from it for abusive, violent, reality altering ends? Also my own little side theory is this all take’s place in an Inception subconscious Limbo… Hear me out. The totems which are handed back and forth (rings, bows, pins); the unconstructed landscapes with small labyrinths ruined around them; the repeated hordes that descend on any interloper once they make themselves known. Just saying… Nolan knows what he is flirting with, he knows how obsessive his fanbase is. These recurring images from his arthouse blockbuster past are at the very least winks to fuel a thousand hot take TikTok posts. Whose dream is it though? Mine! Mythic, already seen it twice.
10
Perfect Double Bill: Stop eating those Lotus petals, you fiends.
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin
Sébastien Vanicek directs Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright and Hunter Doohan in this sixth entry in the Deadite anthology series.
Big Evil Dead fan here. There has never been a bad entry. So me saying this one is merely serviceable feels like a death sentence. It has some extreme gore and a few clever oners vbut it is a bit of frump. A buzz kill. No… not that kind of buzz kill. Very little groovy chainsaw. What little humour there is, is very dry. Leans into “messaging” a tad too hard. The finale does go quite expressionistic. Floods of red and not just blood. Bad summer blockbuster season for the puppies. Hope Slinky survives Toy Story 5?!
6
Perfect Double Bill: Evil Dead Wrath (2028)
Kenneth Branagh directs himself, Emma Thompson and Andy Garcia in this mystery where a woman who has lost her memory is taken in by a Los Angeles orphanage, and a private eye is enlisted to track down her identity.
Existential potboiler that leaves out the sense and sex, aiming for a twist more metaphysical than mind blowing. The luvvie acting doesn’t gel. Robin Williams cameos as a disgraced psychotherapist and is the best thing in this. It is amazing how something with such bonkers plotting can be so predictable. Intrusive score. I really love this sub genre of film and this is one of the worst examples that still just about passes muster on a Saturday night. Swap Andy Garcia and Branagh around on the call sheet, let Garcia and Thompson have a few hot and saxophone heavy scenes and, kids, we’d have a VHS worth renting.
5
Perfect Double Bill: Judas Kiss (1998)
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Wim Wenders directs Patrick Bauchau, Allen Garfield and Samuel Fuller in this art film where a film crew hang about after their shoot runs out of money and their producer disappears.
A palette cleanser for Wim after a bad Hollywood experience. The languid hang out movie of the first two acts is cool. The movie snaps into focus in the final third once we are riding around in La La Land, movie billboards and hip self aware shots everywhere, lost in a paranoid neo noir. Not essential viewing by any means but a fine curiosity. I think Wenders knows he is doodling with celluloid and that is fine. The unused short ends from this were donated to Jim Jarmusch to make Stranger Than Paradise.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Kings Of The Road (1976)
Josef Rusnak directs Wesley Snipes, Eliza Bennett and Lena Headey in this “action” thriller.
Asks the question – what if a hitman made friends with a young horse girl? And seriously thinks we will care. Set in London but certainly not filmed in London. Dire. Oh, Wesley!
2
Perfect Double Bill: A Good Man (2014)
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin
Richie Smyth directs Jamie Dornan, Emmanuelle Seigner and Mark Strong in this war film where Irish Commandant Pat Quinlan leads a stand off with troops against French and Belgian Mercenaries in the Congo during the early 1960s.
Christian Gray cashes in his juice to make a vanity project that me and my Dad can watch on a Saturday evening together. Up the Irish, the only white people who have never done any colonising. No wonder we are first choice for such UN shitshows.
6
Perfect Double Bill: 6 Days (2017)
Boaz Davidson directs David Bradley, Anna Thomson and Ashley Laurence in this erotic thriller about a workaholic cop who begins to suspect that his new lover may also be a serial killer.
Taco Bell Basic Instinct. Explicit nudity straight after the credits, the American Ninja playing a poor man’s Shooter, a ludicrous sex scene on a home bar top (ICE CREAM), the final girl from the Hellraiser movies playing the good girl partner who has “Lisa Hoberman” written all over her student ID. Goes mega wacky in the final face-off. Which is, of course, the best bit of the movie.
3
Perfect Double Bill: Wild Side (1995)
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Jonathan Demme directs Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt and Bill Irwin in this drama where a young woman who has been in and out of rehab for the past ten years returns home for the weekend for her sister’s wedding.
I didn’t love this. The rich hipster garden party wedding would be insufferable to attend. Would drive me to self destructive levels of drink. Even if the music is good. Too much love, not enough resigned boredom. Maybe that’s a point. The dynamic here is claustrophobic and cyclical. A pressure cooker with only one outcome for the most vulnerable guest. Hathaway makes these occasional stabs at becoming the next Close or Streep but she is more a Pfeiffer. A star who is on her very best form in mainstream product. Adding class, glamour and understated acting into studio releases. The big showy thespian swings are never as satisfying as a Devil Wears Prada, a Les Mis or an Interstellar. The movie certainly didn’t leave me cold. I liked what Bill Irwin (cyclops reunion!) and Debra Winger were doing as the imperfect parents. Just found the whole vibe draining. I’d steal a car and hit that off-licence too. In Britain this is perfectly normalised behaviour during a long weekend with your immediate family. The sheer diversity of guests feels very much in conversation with Demme’s career. Every previous movie is seemingly represented by a background player.
5
Perfect Double Bill: A Wedding (1978)
Peter Duffell directs Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Denholm Elliott in this British horror anthology set around the same cursed country house.
Writer’s block. Wax museums. Child terrors. Possession via cloak. Not the finest Amicus compilation of Tales Of The Unexpected. These are all by Psycho’s Robert Bloch. The last chapter with Ingrid Pitt is the silliest tonally which is a shame as the concept has the most potential to be proper scary if played straight.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Doctor Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965)
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 