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)
You can follow me on Letterboxd here https://letterboxd.com/ValVerdeNights/
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)
You can follow me on Letterboxd here https://letterboxd.com/ValVerdeNights/
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)
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 