Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

David Robert Mitchell directs Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor and Maisy Stella in this throwback sci-fi adventure where the Platt family bands together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban street into prehistoric hunting grounds.

He sure takes his time between projects but David Robert Mitchell is now three in a row for highly entertaining cult favourites. This is everything a slowly decaying adult kid wants from a movie openly inspired by Jaws, Poltergeist, Gremlins and Jurassic Park. Hard candy for Gen X-ers. Intense build -up, superb thrill sequences, shocking FX that lean as much towards threat and gore as wonder, McGregor’s retro short shorts. Feels both precise and chaotic. In an alternative universe this is the blockbuster of the summer instead it is a dog days oddity primed for those in the know. Sledgehammer versus Allosaurus! I’m in. Even the final shot is a subversion and celebration of the Amblin template.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Hope (2026)

Gregg Araki directs Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Mason Gooding in this BDSM sex farce where a kinky conceptual artist makes one of her assistant’s her new bedroom muse.

Surprisingly slick, focussed and sweet for Akari.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Fucktoys (2025)

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

James Ashcroft directs Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan and Adam Scott in this serial killer chiller where a writer’s son is kidnapped and he has to turn to his own estranged father who caught the new child killer’s inspirational mastermind decades before.

Rock solid cast play serial killer movie cliche bingo. De Niro, Monaghan and Michael Keaton are top value but this is a trifle of gloomy coincidences.

5

Perfect Double Bill : Night Hunter (2018)

Matt Johnson directs Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas and Emilia Jones in this biopic following the summer a young Anthony Bourdain took his first kitchen job.

A soulful and gritty good time. Would works just as well if it were about a feckless, unlikable fictional wannabe who you root for despite himself. Sessa is in danger of being typecast. Leo Woodall cooks in this as the bad boy who represents the dark paths Bourdain’s life may easily take. This movie taps into an area not really explored often enough in movies what happens when your teenage dreams fall flat on their face and you have no plan B. Rock bottom has never looked so sexy. One Battle After Another’s cinematographer Michael Bauman gets the 70s summer location mood down perfect.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Big Night (1996)

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Rory Kennedy directs Judit Polgár, Garry Kasparov and László Polgár in this documentary where a Hungarian chess prodigy challenges Soviet champion Garry Kasparov and her controlling father over 15 years.

One of the happier, more life affirming documentaries released by Netflix this year. Probably as Judit is an absolute charmer, well adjusted and a genius rather than a white woman trying to get away with murder.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Innocent Moves (1993)

Bruce Hunt directs Piper Perabo, Morris Chestnut and Cole Hauser in this survivalist horror where blood-thirsty creatures await a pack of divers who become trapped in an underwater cave network.

The Descent for Lemon & Herb spice level horror newbies. Decent C-List cast though. Lena Headey has Ripley written all over her… but will even she survive? Forgettable.

4

Perfect Double Bill: As Above So Below (2016)

Robert Altman directs Carol Burnett, Mia Farrow and Geraldine Chaplin in this New American Cinema farce where the daughter of a truck driver marries the scion of a very wealthy family and everyone’s lives spin out of control over the proceedings.

Pre-Mumblecore mumblecore pressure cooker. So so many subplots but only two of the two dozen threads hold the attention and pay off. Burnett’s tryst and the painting gift. Let this one wash over me but Natalie enjoyed it. Two hours was too long.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Interiors (1978)

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

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)