Cameron Crowe directs Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit in this semi-autobiographical road movie of a straight laced 15 year old who finds himself on tour with a rising 70s band as a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine.

Also featuring fine work from Noah Taylor, Jason Lee, Zooey Deschanel, Philip Seymour Hoffman and especially Frances McDormand… the fantastic ensemble is both the strength and Achilles heel of this likeable comedy drama. Any film that gives you juicy glimpses of such brilliant personalities (and also somehow wastes Anna Paquin) and instead focuses on the rather insipid Hudson and blank Fugit is hard to fully be seduced by. Only Brad Pitt replacement Crudup shows his burgeoning star power as the charismatic but slippery lead guitarist of Stillwater, a wobbly dude who acts a part mentor and romantic rival for our lead. Crowe indulges… it is a long movie but his instincts to subvert expectations in nearly every scene and take light material down dark paths are still there. There are a dozen little embellishments that lesser filmmakers would never risk: the jock ex boyfriend who climbs through a window just to sit on a girl’s bed and reminisce, the ever lurking presence of rival local groupies, the hotel staff being matter of factly prepared and capable to deal with a penthouse suite overdose. It is a movie I enjoy a lot but struggle to see exactly why so many consider it a modern classic? Maybe those perennially uninvited to the party critics and journalists secretly craved a three hour movie where they were the hero and what they do was given the veil of shamanistic power? For the casual viewer it is a gentle, well observed journey, full of neat cool moments, that gives you a hundred little tastes of exquisite flavours you’d rather feast on.

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/

Archie Mayo and Fritz Lang direct Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino and Claude Rains in this crime romance where a dockyard thug and a suicidal woman try to rebuild their lives on a houseboat.

Tough and charismatic French star Gabin’s first lead Hollywood vehicle. The always wonderful Ida Lupino playing a little bird with broken wings who comes under his care. A houseboat setting that allows various personalities around the dock to drift in and out of their tentative romance. A thick mood of fog, booze and torpor including a Salvador Dali designed drunken wig-out sequence. Fritz Lang started this project but quit. Allegedly as he and Gabin had both been Marlene Dietrich’s lover and the tension that brought was unworkable. I’d suggest the project isn’t an obvious fit for Lang. The plot is loose, almost indistinguishable. It really is just the community and potential threats anchored around the cautiously chaste but obviously attracted to each other unlikely couple bobbing in and out of scenes. Will Gabin’s Bobo stay on the straight and narrow and settle down? Can Lupino’s Anna survive the more brutal elements of his past that haven’t quite accepted he is moving on? The movie does boast stand out B&W photography by Charles G. Clarke. Deservedly Oscar nominated, you can cut the moody pre-noir atmosphere he creates with a rusty knife.

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/

Alfred Hitchcock directs Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and Brigitte Auber in this romance mystery where a retired cat burglar must prove his innocence when everyone but a beautiful heiress suspects him of a series of jewel thefts.

Weightless Hitch. This just floats along sometimes with little urgency or obvious purpose. Amiable, glamorous, undemanding. The French Riviera and Edith Head’s costumes pop under a patina of greens. Robert Burks’ VistaVision framing fetishises the relaxed stars through a loop of low stakes flirtation and rebuffs. Only a prolonged rooftop finale gets the heart pumping… otherwise this is all high end packaging tarting up a small gift.

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/

Cheryl Dunye directs herself, Valerie Walker and Guinevere Turner in this indie comedy where a black lesbian documentary maker investigates a forgotten Hollywood actress.

Recently reappraised as a BIPOC LGBT watershed, I’m not going to pretend that my favourite scenes weren’t Cheryl moonlighting in her video rental shop. There’s echoes of Clerks in the salty interactions and now hyper nostalgic Generation X setting. The workable rom com elements of this are just abandoned after a sweetly full-on sex scene. The fake film historian investigation equally struggles to gain momentum. This clearly is a film cobbled from fudges, a tapestry of sequences defined by whatever resources were available that weekend and whatever piqued Dunye’s attention that week. No part of the pot luck is unworthy or bad but The Watermelon Woman never coalesces into something that transcends its amateur, outsider origins.

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/

Philippa Lowthorpe directs Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jessie Buckley in this retelling of the Women’s Liberation Movement’s protests against the 1970 Miss World contest.

A colourful history lesson, family friendly and accessible for all. Not as sensitive and humane as the similar Battle of the Sexes nor as impactful and unifying as Pride, in its better moments Misbehaviour at least aims for the high points of recent identity politics cinema.

6

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/

Tim Burton directs Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Geena Davis in the supernatural comedy where two recently deceased ghosts hire a skeevy bio-exorcist to scare the yuppie family out of their haunted home.

How is this rollercoaster of madness only 90 minutes long? Not enough Beetlejuice. Not enough Winona! I’m greedy. Feed me, Seymour! My Uncle Tony taped this off of Sky for me back in the day and since then it has informed my tastes and brought me joy in way few other movies have. Like Danny Elfman’s jaunty score or Keaton iconic comedy battering ram performance, this is a non-step pelt of nightmarish comfort and unpredictable ideas. A volcano of comedy and visual gold. Incomparable in its day … even if I have now outgrown it just a smidge.

9

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/

Andy Tennant directs Jodie Foster, Chow Yun-Fat and Bai Ling in this romantic retelling of British widow Anna Leonowens’ 19th century memoir of her time as the tutor to the King of Siam’s children.

A sumptuous family friendly look at imperialism that rubs modern eyes the wrong way. Hong Kong actors in the lead roles of characters from the same continent but with different nationalities!!! Anyone able to name a single movie star with a Siamese passport? Thought not. I’m surprised as nobody really has issue with Californian Jodie Foster playing a Brit? I don’t think anyone made this with a racist colonial agenda in mind. It clearly has been developed as a Hollywood vehicle for the hopelessly charismatic Chow Yun-Fat. He obviously isn’t Thai but he really is one of the few romantic leads from Asia to headline Hollywood mainstream productions with any consistency. And he achieved that on talent alone. Ethnicity aside, he’s a great fit for the character. The intrigue, love, action and comedy unspools at a magisterial pace with Jodie and Chow’s chemistry being the main draw. I don’t want to break any hearts, shatter any illusions, but Jodie isn’t a heterosexual and she plays her part with exactly the same standard of elan and aplomb as we always expect from her. Why should The Killer be limited when he’s equally as fine here? He’s a cocksure, cigar smoking treat in every scene. This predates Disney’s trend for making big, colourful live action epics out of their animated fairy tales by 15 years yet the tone, visuals and pleasures are very similar.

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/

Wolfgang Petersen directs Barret Oliver, Noah Hathaway and Tami Stronach in this children’s fantasy adventure where a bullied child reads the epic book of young Atreyu’s quest to protect Fantasia from oblivion.

I don’t think I have watched this start to finish before now. It is a really solid work of imagination. The creature and world building err on (barely) the right side of nightmarish. Probably would have scared me a little too much as a kid. It has a wholesome and well executed message about the power of dreams and reading.

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/

Guy Hamilton directs Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith and Jane Birkin in this Agatha Christie mystery where Poirot suspects an entire resort of murder.

Not the starriest but the most relaxed and fun of these big screen Christie adaptations. Rigg rocks up as a most deserving victim. Hamilton makes full use of his idyllic location. The mystery is more pleasing as you can least have an educated punt at whodunnit and how.

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/

Jay Roach directs Mike Myers, Mike Myers and Heather Graham in this comedy sequel where the swinging Sixties super spy time travels back to his own era to recover his stolen mojo.

A spirited rerun of all the original’s hits. Dr Evil dominates… to the point where shagdelic Austin feels a little like a tired afterthought. The newer additions are either so end of the millennium centric as to be spoof worthy themselves or rather grating. Mini Me and Fat Bastard are overused, the latter proving to be a painfully unfunny and misjudged creation. The only real levelling up is Heather Graham has better comedy chops than Liz Hurley.

6

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/