Mike Figgis directs Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue and Julian Sands in this dark romance between a terminal alcoholic and a street worker looking for love.

When you watch Chicken Run you get an unfortunate hankering for a three piece meal. When you watch Leaving Las Vegas you wanna have a drink. Not downing vodka like it is water… Does anyone knock back spirits like this outside of the movies? What a movie. You get Vegas looking bright and sleazy. The editing is experimental and kaleidoscopic. Figgis’ camera finds everyday beauty whether lit by the dazzle dazzle of the strip, the clean lustre of a mall food court or twilight sun dappling droplets of bourbon on breasts. You get Elisabeth Shue looking delectable, yet channeling a backstory of abuse, exploitation, codependency and low self esteem convincingly. You get Cage’s most focussed wildly cool, erratic buffoonery. The booze is the fuel for his eccentric swings and volcano of tics here. He’s morose in a well of self pity, then he’s partying down a supermarket aisle stocking up on his poison, then he’s being a horny quote machine, far above self respect to care what flirtatious obscenities are wafting from his stinky mouth. “Like the kling klang king of the rim ram room.” Who knows what is flowing through his unrestrained brain? It is a performance like jazz with a bazooka with a bottle in both hands. There’s no doubt why Shue’s Sera falls in love with such a self imploding car wreck of a human. We do. There’s no doubt why she wants to stop him slowly rotting his body. We do. There’s no doubt in the quiet final moments our hearts have shifted from the bad choices and hurtful rejections to an unlikely, bleak transaction of tenderness that somehow closes the door on two troubled lives. For a little while they looked like they might save each other. Oscars all round. For once they got Best Actor bang the fuck on!

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/

Zoe Lister-Jones directs Cailee Spaeny, Michelle Monaghan and David Duchovny in this reboot / sequel to the teen witches cult classic.

Magic sparkle baths, mentally castrating bullies and banned love spells. F the patriarchy! Competently made and well cast, this attempt at a woke reshingling manages to lack both rebellion and scares, getting only the quirky fashions right. The original was made for teenage girls who wanted it darker than the Spice Girls… this defangs even that aspect… it is hard to see who outside of the sleepover demographic will enjoy it, and even if you are the target market you might spend a lot of the unspooling wondering when if ever things will turn deadly. The supernatural conclusion comes very late and is resolved super easily.

4

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/

Whit Stillman directs Edward Clements, Carolyn Farina and Chris Eigeman in this indie coming-of-age drama where a young intellectual spends Christmas with a gang of Manhattan socialites and debutants.

“It’s a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate.” I had forgotten I already watched this as a kid until twenty minutes in. Something about a rented tux and borrowed overcoats chimed within my deeper musty memory banks. Stillman has a graphic designer’s visual sense… if he cannot fill his screen with spectacle he makes the sparse luxury his camera does have access to go a very long way. The production fakes obscene wealth on shoestring convincingly. Usually I would dismiss such fare as posh people with posh people problems but this has deft touch and self awareness that softly enthrals. Nothing much really happens as an outsider fits in and an unofficial group of pals then slowly disband over romantic intrigue and unavoidable deadline of the Christmas holidays ending. There’s an intelligence and playfulness to the script that avoids alienating… even if you don’t get all the prep school references. We watch a way of life in decline, possibly it ever was outdated. A chilly, festive New York (beautiful as always) freezing a moment in time for an alien part of society that has always been not in sync with progress. The amateur acting is a bit serviceable but Stillman requires an almost deadpan tone which proves easy enough for his cast to hit. See you in another 30 years, U.H.B.s!

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/

Fritz Lang directs Henry Fonda, Sylvia Sidney and William Gargan in this thriller where a reformed tough tries to go straight for the love of a good woman but society forces them back into a life of crime.

At the centre of this early noir is a bank heist involving gas bombs and a ghoulish mask. While watching you think the quick edits are there so we cannot fully know whether Fonda’s Eddie is behind the mask, behind the mayhem. The studio and censors pared the sequence down… removing the violent deaths of innocent bystanders, women and children. What still exists works. It feels like a sequence from cinema future. A Tim Burton Batman villain strutting in a gothic soundstage. A horror character gone venal. The surrounding 90 minutes of story is standard stuff told at a clip. Your James Cagney movie would focus on the fall back into larceny stuff with more assurance. Your Bonnie & Clydes would implicate us in the thrill of life on the run, passenger seat living in a bullet strewn sedan. This plays out more as romantic tragedy, more as societal condemnation. Sylvia Sidney’s sweetheart is too bright for Fonda’s temperamental lunk. Smart, svelte and switched on. You never fully attune with how she throws her life away on such a dolt. You Only Live Once splashes about in lot of crime cinema’s ornamental ponds but never luxuriates in just one long enough to fully take hold.

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/

David Lynch directs Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek and Everett McGill in this biographical road movie about Alvin Straight, a pensioner who drove across states on a lawnmower.

The Rosetta Stone for Lynch heads. Here is how the Eagle Scout sees the world without nightmare murders, sex angels or purgatory waiting rooms. A gentle, pastoral place where good people bicker and help each other. Where lives run on a rail until they hit the road. A man enjoying one last adventure, trying to recapture his freedom and face his mortality. Spacek gives fine support as his mentally challenged but strong of heart daughter. Don’t let the family friendly certificate fool you. This is mature film about regret, overcoming tragedy… fucking life. It has the down home humour of a gentler episode of King of the Hill and the spiritual inclinations of a religious parable. It is also tremendously sweet to watch. The kind of cinema that declutters your brain a little, gives all your misgivings about the world a chance to relax. Lovely stuff.

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/

Luis Buñuel directs Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig and Stéphane Audran in this surreal classic where a group of posh friends cannot ever make a date for dinner without the world falling apart.

The value system and societal structures it lampoons don’t really exist anymore so the series of skits and bad behaviour have become a little dusty. It is a film you admire more than get actively involved with. Having said that, I found the first half continually erotic, and if that intention was there in Buñuel, then it is camouflaged beneath the surface.

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/

John Hough directs Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann and Eddie Albert in this sci-fi kid’s adventure movie where two orphans with psychic powers go on the run.

Doubt I have ever watched this Disney live actioner teeth to tits before. It was always lurking around the bank holiday weekend schedules – on the day you had plans or were dragged to visit family. It is a gentle romp, with acceptable FX and Fruit of the Loom wonder. Sturdy mixture of mystery and peril. Even as an adult with little nostalgic investment it was watchable. There’s a cat who really doesn’t want to be in half the shots he has to be in and a bear who is soft as mince. Half the movie seems to be the aryan alien sprogs nicking animals.

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/

Edward Hall directs Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher and Leslie Mann in this remake of the Noel Coward supernatural comedy where a dead wife returns to her former husband.

Shrill, deadening, witless. How can you make Isla Fisher unlikable?

2

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/

Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley in this period murder mystery where a distracted Treasury Agent investigates the vanishing of an inmate on an island that houses an asylum and lots of lies.

The biggest mystery of a movie in love with puzzles… Is Shutter Island better as a one watcher or as something to be picked apart over repeated viewings? The first time watching you could get a little ahead of all the anagrams and mindfucks and double play so that when the big reveal happened you could pat yourself on the back that you were halfway there. And after a couple of return visits to Marty’s madhouse, I can take healthy pleasure in seeing clues, hints and hat tips throughout the first two acts. Some are obvious, as visible as a clear day, others hide in plain sight, there to kick you in the arse that you didn’t notice them when your mind was concentrating on the foreground plot. But then you have to sit through that lengthy tumbling of the final pieces. The big picture is given indulgent time to fix and set. That final half hour of summing up and tying off is painfully exacting by the third time we endure it. Still… this is the closest thing Marty has made to a horror, even more so than Cape Fear. The psychic trauma of The Shining hangs over it as visual colour chart. It is nightmarishly vivid to look at. DiCaprio puts in a committed turn. The cast is there with him as he tries to keep eyes front on the job at hand, not to get distracted by their ever rippling violence and conspiracies that emanate from his wiry, erratic sleuthing. So much good stuff threaded into a five finger exercise. But I’m not going to rush and watch Shutter Island a fourth time.

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/

Jung-Ho Lee directs Sung-min Lee, Yoo Jae-Myung and Daniel Choi in this South Korean serial killer thriller where two warring cops race to catch the killer of a missing girl in the hope of securing a promotion.

Pleasingly bleak and nasty, with a couple of decent set pieces. It keeps reverting back to TV serial tropes and standards which lets it down. When it focuses on the diametrically opposed detectives’ spiralling grudge match it very much hits the spot. Jeon Hye-jin stands out as a paroled drug dealer who sets one of our Bad Lieutenant’s up with some good intel and a devilish further complication.

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/