Guy Hamilton directs Roger Moore, Jane Seymour and Yaphet Kotto in this 007 action movie where Bond investigates a drug distributor and dodgy ambassador who share the services of a psychic virgin.

The one where Bond runs over the alligator! EON’s confidence that they have the right man to replace Connery is evident. Moore is given little fanfare in his introduction, it feels very much like business as usual rather than a forced rebranding. He in turn has no interest in aping Connery and just relaxes through the globetrotting and enforced perils in his own inimitable suave as fuck style. Almost too relaxed! The script doesn’t have any big action until the final third and then most of it is an endless speed boat chase through the bayou – more interested in gags than thrills. The passable action is the only element that lets Live And Let Die down though. Everything from the dainty innocent sexpot to the rollicking Wings theme song cooks. There is some controversy about the voodoo and blaxploitation elements. Bond has never been, and should never be, a bastion of good taste. A weak defence would be it is far less gallingly racist than Fleming’s novel. A strong counter though I found put eloquently in a Den of Geek retrospective: “Kananga, Tee Hee, and Baron Samedi are all intelligent, charming and, crucially, competent villains who are depicted as Bond’s equals.” Thanks Max Williams for making a fantastic point… Live And Let Die abandons Blofeld and gives 007 some proper memorable fresh threats to face of against. Kotto, Julius Harris and Earl Jolly Brown make for positively formidable opponents and anyone who has witnessed Geoffrey Holder’s unrestrained weirdness as Baron Samedi knows these are exactly the strong support performances that make for an outstanding Bond. The pleasing supernatural notes have never been deployed in the franchise again but they meant Moore began his tenure with an indelible explosion of cool and colour.

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/

Wes Anderson directs George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman in this stop motion animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s childrens classic about a fox who steals from some vengeful farmers.

Anderson bolts on his shabby chic house style and Manhattan neuroses to the beloved tale, not always seamlessly. There’s a hyper cool wit to the script that makes you forgive all the additions and alterations. It looks comfy and raggedy enough to marvel but I doubt kids really get the archness of it all or care about psychological anxieties of the family. Still any scene were Clooney’s impeccably cast Mr Fox faces off against Willem Dafoe’s Nouvelle Vague rat is a joy.

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/

Brad Anderson directs Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin and Michael Eklund in this thriller where a killer traps a teen girl in the boot of his car and a 911 operator must locate her before she disappears.

The first hour of this is tight as a drum. The always reliable and underrated Brad Anderson turns the screws until they squeak. The finale makes the mistake of abandoning its well defined post for a poor man’s retread of The Silence of The Lambs. And while this decision forgoes the strengths of the high concept, it at least gives us a gory wrap up.

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/

Rob Reiner directs John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga and Nicollette Sheridan in this teen road movie where a mismatched pair of co-eds travel across America together; one too see her boyfriend, the other to make it with a dream woman.

A nice little respin on It Happened One Night… the romantic comedy elements chime best here. A shockingly young looking Cusack manages to translate quite a fratty jock-ish character into a likeable lead… on paper he is certainly a bit of a dick. There’s plenty of laughs and energy even if it very rarely strays from the most travelled route these things must follow.

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/

Tomas Alfredson directs Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy in this espionage mystery where a fired intelligence expert must figure out if the Russians have a mole in his old outfit.

A small confession: I have tried to finish John le Carré’s landmark thriller three times over my life and never gotten more than halfway through it. Let The Right One In director Alfredson recreates the mundanity, sadness and mistrust that I struggled with on the written page perfectly. His vision of Seventies London and the sad little bureaucrats who play games with each other’s lives is a seedy world of grime, dust and beiges. He populates it with the very cream of British screen acting. Everyone on top form, none more so than Gary Oldman in a career best as Smiley, a cog of coiled suspicion. All making for an endlessly rewatchable whodunnit.

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/

Christopher Nolan directs Guy Pearce, Joe Pantoliano and Carrie Anne Moss in this detective thriller where a man who cannot make new memories tries to avenge his wife’s murder in a tale told backwards.

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10

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/

Paul Greengrass directs Tom Hanks, Helena Zengal and Elisabeth Marvel in this Western where an itinerant man, who reads newspapers aloud to illiterate communities, takes on the stewardship of a young orphan raised by the Kiowa tribe who killed her settler family.

A gentle, tactful western… a 21st century reversal of The Searchers where the Civil War veteran attempts to repatriate a lost daughter rather than hunt her down, unsure of what ‘home’ now exists for her with her adopted culture displaced and her blood relatives distant uncertainties. This is easily Greengrass’ warmest, most accessible work… the few sops to action are involving and sustained but the real danger is ‘the civilised world’. Laws and rights and technology have yet to create a safety net out in the Midwest, so we watch a broken man and a confused young girl traverse various threat filled interactions. There is much allegorical mirroring to current woes: mentions of a blighting disease bookend the story, a Trumpian bossman played by Thomas Francis Murphy dominates a central chapter. Decency personified, Tom Hanks fits this kind hearted but vulnerably intelligent lead role to a tee and Helena Zengal aims successfully for expressive rather than cute in a rare decent child acting turn. Nothing happens in News Of The World that reinvents the wheel or usurps the greats of this genre but it is an inarguable quality release that fills an evening nicely.

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/

Tyler Taormina directs Haley Bodell, Audrey Boos and Gabriella Herrera in this teen mystery where a community of kids meet up for an annual tradition… a dance / ritual / pairing off at a local deli that has life changing consequences.

Taking the hazy puppy fat vibe and mega ensemble mosaic storytelling of Dazed & Confused, then slowly dripping in the creepy paranoid elements of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Stephen King and The Wicker Man. I’m not sure if any of those three sources are actual direct influences but they give you an impression of the dark, spiritual turn the movie obliquely takes at the midway point with little further explanation. To call it a horror would be over egging the pud, but the night time world we are left in of drop outs, burn outs and left behinds has the same threatening ennui of Linklater’s little seen adaptation of Eric Bogosian’s Suburbia. The movie is healthier company when hanging out with innocents… we quickly share their unspoken fears and hopes. Unsure which of these gawky kids will find romantic success at the big predestined meet-up. Taormina’s brooding timeless atmosphere is recklessly borrowed from better cinema, but you do want to rewatch this strange little dream again soon. Try to fathom the warning signs; the over anxious parents, the open door community that just lets random roaming kids use their toilets on this special day, the loaded hand gestures that seemingly define the rest of their existences. Certainly one of the more fascinating releases that has garnered extra attention because it was released during COVID lockdown, one that might have easily faded into little seen obscurity in a normal release calendar… Also this has nothing to do with Bukowski’s best novel.

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/

François Truffaut directs Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy and Claire Maurier in this French New Wave landmark following a young boy who goes off the rails when he bunks from school.

A movie that shows the innocence of mischief and petty larceny. Jean-Pierre Léaud’s little rebel, Antoine Doinel, is kicking against the rigid unfairness of life. His belief in the school system is gone and in his parents’ is wavering. You can’t even trust a thief, so why shouldn’t he lie and steal? Angel faced Antoine is trying out the spoils of adulthood; drinking, smoking and brief freedom. The scene where he and his truant pal smoke cigars into bottles reminds me of Pinocchio. Only in Truffaut’s semi-autobiographical work, Antione is not on quest to be “a real boy”, he’s trying to outrun reality. Why do all the daytime amusements of Paris exist… the Zeotrope, the matinees and the pinball machines… except to amuse those who should be chained to their desks and have escaped? We are going to watch all five movies Truffaut and Léaud made charting the rascal’s coming of age and journey into adulthood. I doubt any of the future entries will have Henri Dacaë’s eye for urban beauty and the playful perspective of this revered classic. Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte’s editing herds us along into devilry, Jean Constantin’s winding down waltz of a score is a sweet lament to a more naive joy. You really get lost in the thrill of skipping school and running away with only Antoine eventually suffering any of the nasty consequences. For those of us who hated school but never risked our parents’ wrath by bunking off for a day this is wish fulfilment of the highest order. You don’t envy Truffaut’s ‘luck’ that his parents were too caught up in their own lives to correct him when he first started raising minor hell. You do worry where his fictional composite Antoine is headed with after the ‘FIN’ title card separates us, with only a dull sea left to hem him in.

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/

Sam Raimi directs Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry and Kassie Wesley DePaiva in this horror comedy sequel where Ash returns to the cabin in the woods where demonic chaos has been unleashed.

Pure splatterpunk slapstick. Thumps with a chainsaw and does not stop. Groovy!

10

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/