Carl Theodor Dreyer directs Renée Jeanne Falconetti, Eugène Silvain and André Berley in this silent recreation of the trial and execution of Joan of Arc.

Considered one of the greatest films ever made, this felt very much like eating my greens. I did my duty. I watched it. And maybe if I was in a cinema, locked in and overwhelmed by the big screen, I might have appreciated it more. But watched in bed (the only option really in early 2021) it was just a parade of grotesque faces towering over a close up of a miserable actress trying to look saintly. Repeated. On. A. Loop. Falconetti can play the glass-eyed martyr like no one’s business but as a drama this version is voiceless and grindingly repetitive… Not for me. Let’s call it a draw.

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/

Elio Petri directs Gian Maria Volonte, Florinda Bolkan and Orazio Orlando in this satirical Italian crime movie where an overconfident police inspector kills his mistress and leaves extra clues to condemn himself.

An anomalous and hypnotic film… the humour and brutality exposes the corruption and incompetence in Italy’s justice system. But it can also be taken relatively straight faced too. As a thriller where we identify with a cocky man who dances along the brink of oblivion after committing a crime. Leone regular Gian Maria Volonte’s is superb as the oily top cop falling apart under the weight of his own guilt and invulnerability. A game weasel drowning in respectability and privilege. Every time he tries to lead the homicide investigators or his superiors towards the truth he is overlooked and every time he catches onto his senses and tries to cover up his guilt things skew… weirder. The movie absorbs paranoia, kinky crime scene sex, office politics, student terrorism and a discordant, silly score from Ennio Morricone. The reason Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion works so well is its persuasive unpredictable strangeness. A world of order turned on its head, where the hollow little lives of the bullying bureaucrats smother the freedom and vitality of the next generation. It really is a movie like no other even though it often delivers on its skewering of the establishment and our desire to see this nasty piece of work evade repercussions for all his sins with thrilling elan.

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/

Lee H. Katzin and John Sturges direct Steve McQueen, Louise Edlind Friberg and Siegfried Rauch in this racing drama capturing the 24 hour race – the drivers, pit crews and spectators.

Steve McQueen, one of my favourite stars, might be a petrolhead but I am not. A passion project of his, this uses footage of him driving in other tournaments to suggest a narrative where he wins the big race for reals. It is immersive, just not very interesting. The documentary footage of the crowds arriving, camping overnight, distracting themselves with amusements proves the gold. The listless racing sequences and extended pit stops have little impact. It really is quite the bore. John Sturges started directing this before falling out with the studio and you can see his impactful, bold use of primary colours in some of the earlier shots of McQueen. Really though the only thing that fuel injects some pep into this vanity folly is Michel Legrand’s marvellous score.

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/

Chung-Hyun Lee directs Park Shin-hye, Jeon Jong-seo and Kin Sung-ryung in this Korean thriller where two girls from different decades can communicate with each other over time with deadly repercussions.

A good solid supernatural thriller that throws up some creepy paradoxes. Once it all gets going The Call is pretty restless in its desire to ring every permutation out of angering a psycho who has a twenty year head start on you no matter what you try. Almost to the point where it exhausts your patience just a little in its failure to wrap things up. Burning’s Jeon Jong-seo puts in another sexy but intense bout of unpredictable untrustworthiness.

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 Dobkin directs Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams and Dan Stevens in this musical comedy with the same narrative as pretty much every second Will Ferrell movie, here Eurovision replaces basketball, figure skating or NASCAR.

Two hours, one joke. At least it is an affectionate tribute to the annual phenomenon.

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/

Rawson Marshall Thurber directs Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston and Emma Roberts in this comedy where a bunch of losers pose as a family on a RV holiday to smuggle drugs.

We’re The Millers runs its rail with a lot more thought put into production value than jokes. The kinda film written by people who have only ever experienced other Hollywood comedies rather than real life. As a targeted vehicle for Sudekis (think Ryan Reynold’s without the glamour) it often wastes the rest of the far naturally funnier cast. Will only be remembered for Jennifer Aniston’s game but PG-13 striptease sequence.

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/

Alfred Hitchcock directs Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll and Lucie Mannheim in this thriller where a man is framed for murder and chases down the few vague clues he has to uncover the conspiracy he is fatally embroiled in.

The original man on the run chase movie. Donat’s Hannay is one suave motherfucker – witty in the face of impending doom, dashing even when harried in the wilderness, only a cad when the ladies are too pigheaded to listen to charming reason. He skips from set piece to set piece – rivalled only by Indiana Jones in his ability to find himself from frying pan to fire to jaws of death. Some of the cliffhangers are perilous stunts like his iconic escape from a moving train on the Forth Rail Bridge but many are with a variety of ladies who are fighting off an irresistible urge to fall for the desperate man. Hitch loads every male / female interaction with a chaste lustiness, you get the feeling if Hannay had a moments respite he’d be at it like a sewing machine. Edwardian mores and the long arm of law stop him from consummating any of his encounters even when he kinkily spends a night handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll. There are peculiar little commentaries on party politics, nationalism, bureaucracy and marriage laced throughout The 39 Steps. The movie seems to be lampooning institutions whenever it isn’t derring and doing. Even if you’ve watched a fair few releases from The Thirties before you’ll be shocked at how thrilling it all is. A real outlier, it is something else. Hitch went on to make many classics but I genuinely think his reputation was cemented the moment he made such an ahead of its time proto-blockbuster. We wouldn’t have North By Northwest, The Fugitive or 3 Days of The Condor without it, but in all honesty this is the finest example of the sub-genre… it just happens to be the earliest. It moves so neck breakingly fast, THE END card appears, we fade out… and it takes you a few hours to realise Hannay is still very much in the stew when we leave him on a minor moment of triumph.

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/

David Ayer directs Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mireille Enos and Olivia Williams in this action thriller where a corrupt DEA unit try to figure out who is killing them off one-by-one after a scam goes wrong.

A second try and this is still a major disappointment. Possibly the one project of the big Arnie comeback that had the potential to be a classic like the old days. It has a strong hook, lashings of gory, explicit violence and a toxic macho attitude. And it falls flat on its face. Casting is a big problem… your Sam Worthingtons and Terrence Howards and Mireille Enoses are not just already difficult to like actors in repugnant roles but they don’t really convince as the badass unit of every cartel’s worst nightmares. They try to talk the talk but you cannot imagine them walking the walk. It is very hard to care about a team this detestable, who not just behave shittily to each other and everyone else but consistently make dumb choices and tactical errors to boot. For example: You’ve got ten seconds until that oncoming train hits your caravan. The door is definitely locked. At what point wouldn’t you try the fucking window?… Still Arnie is as hard and pure as ever. There is an obviously tacked on reshoot ending where he takes on a dive bar of nobodies in a Stetson that is superior to any of the cacophony of nihilism that came before it. Seriously, that five minute amendment epilogue raises Sabotage’s score here significantly.

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/

Simon Stone directs Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes and Lily James in this period drama where an unlettered working class excavator is set to task on an overlooked Dark Ages mound that turns out to be the historically significant Sutton Hoo burial site.

Better than I anticipated, this is a quite involving drama that uses its ensemble like stepping stones, moving on to a new protagonist’s stiff upper lip soap opera with every new act while never losing its place in the greater geography of the story. There’s been the usual controversy /award season smear that such and such’s character was made up or that and that’s historical figure was far older… which is a nonsense when a low key, cleanly written drama is so involving. Embellishments are cinema, we come to be seduced, to see the filtered, enticingly tidied up version. This makes archeology sexy without a rolling boulder or bullwhip in sight. It makes the poshos seem dignified with minimal pomp or circumstance. Fiennes is particularly exemplary as the forthright man of talent having to navigate a world who dismiss him as cheap negotiable labour, he brings a dignity and quiet intelligence to the role. The often wet James and Mulligan are unusually good here, Stone brings out the best in these actresses in a fluid slice of 1930s cottagecore. Mike Eley’s on location cinematography is outstanding, you can feel the soil and sun and burrs, it immerses you so. The one glaring misstep the movie makes is we never really get a good prolonged look at the treasures painstakingly unearthed while emotions are being churned up around the edges of The Dig.

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/

Lee Tamahori directs Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel in this thriller based on a Philip K Dick story where a magician can see two minutes into his own future, meaning he can stay one step ahead of the authorities and terrorists who want him.

Starts out fun and sprightly with a diminished energy Cage sleazing about Las Vegas and overly sincerely trying to woo Biel. If it kept that focus and scale Next could’ve been a quirky little gem. The requirements of a bigger budget action production begin to dominate though, leading to some barely sketched villainy and shrug worthy set pieces. The blocky CGI is some of the very worst put on screen this side of the early Harry Potters. Polygon shitty.

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/