Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Paul Flaherty directs Martin Short, Charles Grodin and Mary Steenburgen in this comedy where a bratty 10-year-old boy is obsessed with visiting a dinosaur-themed amusement park and drives his uncle crazy to get there.

What is Beethoven was Martin Short in shorts? What if What About Bob was creepily, cringey weird? I love both Short and Grodin but there’s a reason this has become a cult. It isn’t very funny but it is uncanny enough that you look deep and hard into all the mid tastelessness hoping for more.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Pure Luck (1991)

Jonathan Darby directs Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow and Johnathon Schaech in this thriller where newlyweds move to the family thoroughbred horse ranch, only the mother resolves to get rid of her new daughter-in-law.

The Mother-In-Law-From-Hell. This psycobiddy throwback sat on the shelf for years until Paltrow became a name. So they reshot the ending, defanging it of any trace levels of excitement. Even with the final fumble it idles about not knowing when, if ever, it should start going hard. A turkey.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Mother’s Boys (1993)

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Christian Petzold directs Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer and Langston Uibel in this German drama focuses on four people sharing a holiday home on the Baltic Sea.

We’re all going on a summer holiday… Gentle and unassuming. Shifts from being a comedy of manners to a light exploration of class inequality and then a dark exploration of climate change. Paula Beer as always captivates.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Undine (2020)

Lynne Ramsay directs Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly and Ezra Miller in this drams where a mother struggles to love her strange child because of the increasingly dangerous things he says and does as he grows up.

40 miles of bad road. Oppressive and bleak as it is artfully and immersively crafted. Few directors plunge you into fragile, sociopathic mindsets quite like Ramsay.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Elephant (2003)

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

Yimou Zhang direct Yi Zhang, Haocun Liu and Wei Fan in this Chinese Communist period comedy drama where an escaped convict, a runaway and projectionist battle to rescue a print for a small town’s movie event.

Epic and intimate, satirical and reaffirming, slapstick and melodramatic – all in one big sappy unspooling.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Red Sorghum (1987)

Orson Welles directs Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and himself in this film noir thriller where a Mexican DA and a corrupt American cop investigate a border town car bombing.

Not a buddy movie. Low angles, hard shadows, sweat oozing. It does play like Orson is trying to make the ultimate noir… a capstone for the sub genre. Leigh, resplendent, is having motel trouble again. Marlene Dietrich is the bad girl with a heart of gold. Welles is everything wrong with fascism in a dirty mac. Heston is miscast. All the trope characters are amplified, maybe becoming more complex because of their heightened nature. The set pieces are gripping, orchestrated perfectly, giving Lang and Hitch a run for their money in their suspenseful bravado. Feels apiece with the doubtful morality of other classics of this era like 12 Angry Men and Sweet Smell Of Success. The last classic film noir is bitter, poisonous and overcooked to near perfection.

9

Perfect Double Bill: The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

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Jane Schoenbrun directs Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder and Jack Haven in this meta slasher art sex film where the Gen Z director of a horror franchise remake connects with the hermit final girl actress of the original 1980 cult classic.

Moves, thankfully, at twice the clip of of the often interminable I Saw The TV Glow. That is still quite languid but it feels apt. Anderson and Einbinder have chemistry, generate genuine heat. As strange as it all is TS&D@CM is going to be very rewatchable. Well… certain scenes anyway… Exists in a weirdo liminal space between artifice and camp. The credit sequence is a very heartfelt celebration of the life cycle of a horror franchise. What uninitiated straight horror fans are going to make of all this exploration of disassociation and asexual headspace is anyone’s guess…

7

Perfect Double Bill: We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)

Destin Daniel Cretton directs Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal in this soft reboot of the Spidey franchise where our friendly neighbourhood webslinger rebuilds his life anonymous but alone.

This is exactly what I want from a Marvel movie. The stakes remain smaller, local and gripping; the revolving door of visiting villains and anti-heroes all feel in service of the story; the soapy stuff is of that good quality. Genuinely plays out like reading a 6 issue Marvel comic book arc. No other Peter Parker movie has ever achieved that. This is some good summer blockbuster-ing. The Punisher! The Hulk! The Hand! Yes, please! Holland might struggle in other leading roles but he is the definitive Peter Parker.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Avengers: Doomsday (2026)

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

Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross direct Tony Aburto, Micah Bunch and Nichole Dukes in this arty teen road movie.

Partly unscripted documentary, the cool kids meet quirky outsiders and deal with disorderly street life in their stride… trying to reach an “end of the world party”. As much Steinbeck or London as The Real World. Quite grubby but quite beautiful.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Streetwise (1984)

Ted Kotcheff directs Gene Hackman, Patrick Swayze and Fred Ward in this war movie where 10 years after his son went M.I.A. in Vietnam, a retired Colonel assembles a private rescue team to find Americans held in P.O.W. camps in Laos.

Precursor to both The A-Team and Rambo II with solid action and goofy training montages. Hackman is better than this but that doesn’t hurt the watchability. The big finale is muddy chaos in the best way.

6

Perfect Double Bill: B.A.T. 21 (1988)

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