Kitty Green directs Julia Garner, Owen Holland and Jon Orsini in this drama where a movie executive’s assistant works her dawn until closing time day trying to ignore all the evidence of his abusive exploitation of the hopefuls who enter his office.

Not just a drab procedural examination of #metoo complicity and hyper-normalisation but just an ever so familiar recreation of the mental and physical exploitation of anyone who has worked a bottom rung job. Julia Garner delivers a tightly wound lead performance and watching her try not to crumble in the moment where she attempts to take action is truly affecting. As well structured, immersive and non-sensational as this often is, it is still a button pushing, calling card debut and its deliberateness sometimes errs on the side amateurishness. While clearly trying to tell a similar tale from the less told angle, it does miss out on the bad behaviour transgressive pleasures that Mamet, LaBute, Solondz or Swimming With Sharks delivered when they sardonically visited the power imbalance of a bullying work environment. Admirable, just not very entertaining.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Peter Hyams directs Sean Connery, Mark Harmon and Meg Ryan in this buddy cop thriller where a homicide detective must team up with the military officer who forced him out of the army so as to solve a murder on base.

Some energetic on-location chases aside, this has very little memorable or original to offer. Connery seems at half power and Meg Ryan was already destined for better things.

5

Check out my wife Natalie’s Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Steven Spielberg directs Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter and John Goodman in this fantasy romance where a dead pilot guides the rookie who takes his place in the cockpit… and potentially the bedroom – a remake of 1943’s A Guy Named Joe.

Possibly the most Spielbergian lit movie ever. Danish cinematographer Mikael Salomon refuses to let a shot go past without infusing it with an almost parodic homage to his employer’s trademark painterly use of light to convey wonder and emotion. Sunrise through a window, dusk as a permanent state, shade through tall trees, raging fires, ghostly glows, piercing landing lights and fog light. Beams, blasts and filters a-go-go. It looks sumptuous. The tale it is in service of is slight and whimsical but our restless wunderkind can’t help but go large whenever possible. Beyond the epic aerial firefighting sequence, there are lurches into bits of big business that belong in an action blockbuster rather than a mature romance. Buses careen out of control, planes are taken for joyrides, trucks come to life. It means quite a ponderous proposition is never allowed to be boring. Yet with a cast this primo that was never ever a risk. Dreyfus is a flinty romantic lead but that suits his warts-n-all character. The Diane Thomas script doctored interplay between him and Hunter is seductive and the right side of combative. She’s burns up the screen with a fidgety layered performance that breaks hearts and should have gotten award recognition. Goodman does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of soul and laughs… even plot. There are swathes where you’d swear he’s the main protagonist. This is the first of many movies he’d steal. The man is Hollywood royalty in my book. Speaking of… Audrey Hepburn’s last role as an angel. She’s very frail but so playful and enigmatic. With this much high end cargo in the hold, nobody could blame the wooden Brad Johnson for not making much of a impact. The story all but gives up on him as viable third part of the romantic triangle before the last reel. Often considered a lesser and forgettable Spielberg entry, I remember loving this as a kid. And it held up well on a long delayed revisit.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Tony Scott directs Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon in this lesbian vampire horror where an ageing specialist becomes fascinated by a pair of ancient immortals hiding out on the Upper East Side.

All calling card style and MTV excess except when it isn’t. At times The Hunger is unsettling, shocking and classically terrifying. The opening 20 minutes has to be one of the most sustained sequences of impending doom ever, owing as much to Scott’s homage to Nicolas Roeg’s unusual cross cutting as it does Duran Duran promos. The middle section is calmer, even a little draggy, but we know it is building to Deneuve and Sarandon getting it on. That scene of seduction and infection is still pretty hot. Just when you think you know where it is all going to end, there is massive lurch into prestige Grand Guignol. Fetid skin flakes, bones shatter and blood pumps. Pretty amazing stuff! “You said forever. Never ending. Do you remember?”

9

Check out my wife Natalie’s Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

The Brothers Strause direct Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth and John Ortiz in this extra-terrestrials from warring franchises crashland in a small town U.S.A. sequel.

Pathetically mean spirited. Pregnant women are pumped full of chest busters, families are torn apart in front of each other, facile characters are introduced so they can just die the next scene. You can get away with one shock like that in a Dark Horse trade paperback but an entire movie of them? Ugh! No actor really lands a memorable or human performance. The whole thing is aggressively underexposed and difficult to decipher. The Predator / Alien hybrid looks like a reject toy line that got laughed out of the focus group. The sheer amount of casual gore and glimmers of the familiar production designs from entries past stops this being a complete write-off.

3

Check out my wife Natalie’s Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Russell Crowe directs himself, Olga Kurylenko and Yılmaz Erdoğan in this Aussie WWI epic where a grieving father travels to Gallipoli to find the bodies of his three fallen sons.

A robustly old fashioned movie that manages to out sweep Spielberg and Lean at times in its immediacy and bold storytelling. Sure, certain moments are clunky, cheesy or manipulative but Crowe the director has a natural talent at establishing characters you care about using very few moves on the board. The adventure sequences feel like they are from a far more expensive film, the romance is warm and well earned, the camaraderie between previous enemies hits a jovial note surprisingly quickly and the horrors of war are lingered on long enough so that they don’t just feel like an exploitative instigating plot point. I was thoroughly impressed by this and it entertained me effortlessly.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Catherine Hardwicke directs Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Córdova and Matt Lauria in this south of the border cartel thriller where a make-up artist is trapped between the cartel, the uncaring D.E.A. and the corrupt police.

Unconvincing shenanigans. You’d be far better off watching a couple of episodes of Better Call Saul or Narcos back to back.

3

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Elizabeth Banks directs Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska in this soft reboot of the glamorous female spy adventure series.

Diluted uninspired action, weak jokes and forced feminism only for the beautiful. Hey-ho! If I were a teenager I’d still love this. Ella Balinska is painfully wooden but for balance it is nice to see actual movie star Stewart cutting loose and having larks for once. Forgettable but let’s not pretend its predecessors were anything more than disposable fodder also. Nothing about it, good or bad, apart from maybe its expensive sheen, really attaches itself to the memory.

5

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Barry Sonnenfeld directs Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia and Christopher Lloyd in this remake of the sixties TV series featuring a loving family of creepy and kooky ghouls.

The production design is amazing, the script bleakly witty and the casting spot on. In order of perfection, we have eternally spirited Raul in first place followed by a precociously misanthropic Ricci and then Huston and Lloyd in joint third. The sheer enthusiasm they all display in what was an infamously troubled production is a credit to them. Released exactly when I was getting seriously into cinema, this should mean as much to me as say Beetle Juice or Jurassic Park. For some reason it doesn’t… I’m fond of it, I appreciate all its strengths but I rarely revisit it. Absolutely no idea why I personally can’t embrace it fully. There’s no logic to the below score as on paper, moment to moment, this is a wonderful supernatural comedy.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

John Turturro directs himself, Bobby Cannavale and Audrey Tautou in this spin-off from The Big Lebowski where the lilac bowling pederast goes on an erotic road trip.

One of the strangest projects to emerge in years. A three scene character from a cult classic leads an American remake of a completely unrelated dated French favourite containing some very toxic masculinity. It is the equivalent of casting Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day in a remake of Day of the Jackal. One of the most unfairly maligned too. 1.9 average rating on Letterboxd, 21% on Rotten Tomatoes!? Yet it is a warm, dirty pleasure – full of laughs and character actors you love seeing let loose. It is easily the best thing Tautou and Cannavale have done since their breakthroughs and Turturro clearly relishes giving his scene stealing miscreant Jesus Fontana a feature length spotlight. While no The Big Lebowski (and what is), it is even an improvement on Bertrand Blier’s source material, Les Valseuses. I can’t wait to watch this again in a double bill with The Dude.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/