Wong Kar-wai directs Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung and Faye Wong in this Hong Kong diptych where two lovelorn cops start strange new romances anchored around a late night takeaway joint.

Easily Wong Kar-wai’s best – this treats the backstreets, bright lights and plastic picnic furniture of HK as oils in an expressionistic painting. The crime story aspects are dialled back, this is about heartbreak and fate. Real quirky romance. Faye Wong’s breaking and entering interior designer is the original manic pixie dream girl, the adorable stalker with keys to your home. Tony Leung is the beat cop who only seems to converse freely with his dishrag. Takeshi Kaneshiro is eating a month’s worth of expired tinned pineapples to get over his lost amour. Brigitte Lin is the hyper hot femme fatale; she’s heard all the lines and is on the run after her drug smuggling scam has gone wrong. California Dreaming on such a winter’s day. Like the lyrics of that song, which becomes near anthemic to this movie, Kar-wai sees the poetry in everything, the apposition in the everyday, the magic in yearning. Like Jim Jarmusch and Robert Altman, this feels almost anti-genre, a very difficult trick to pull off but here executed with masterful elan.

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/

Garry Marshall directs Richard Gere, Julia Roberts and Jason Alexander in this fairytale romcom where a fat cat and a prostitute spend the week together.

Everywhere she walks heads turn. As if LA has a deficit of leggy stunners, as if 5 star hotel guests never pay for sex work. M-MERCY! A star is born. Roberts is vivacious here playing the cleanest, most wholesome, healthiest looking streetwalker of all time. That aspect of the con never ever convinces and it has taken repeated viewings for me to get over the unreality and iffy-ness of it all. Yet the gloss works, the sexiness works, the jokes land and the yacht rock soundtrack absolutely slaps. It is Cinderella, ain’t it? Cinderella with references to crack and condoms… but Cinderella all the same. Made three decades after Breakfast At Tiffany’s and now the same passage of time old, I’d say it is about as dated and honeyed and forgivable. As well made and perky as it all is I don’t know what I want from it. A hard hitting drama? No. Slightly less pristine sex? The piano scene is perfect. A more believable ending? Truth is abandoned the second the wonderful shopping / makeover montage begins. Every outfit from the start of the second act = chef’s kiss! Sometimes you just gotta let the confection be the confection. This time, for the first time, I valued the sweetness.

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/

Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise direct Ann Carter, Kent Smith and Simone Simon in this sequel to the original terror classic which explores the family of survivors in the aftermath of Dad’s first marriage to a sexy alluring cat person.

A sequel in name and cast only… if you’ve come for Cat People you’ll walk away very disappointed. More about a troubled young tot’s slightly scary fantasy world, one where she imagines Simone Simon as spectral angel in the garden. Not particularly effective as a horror and a complete gyp as a sequel but quite sweet and watchable as a curious drama about a sensitive child. Atmosphere and anti-conformity are the cash money words of the day.

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/

Robert Schwentke directs Henry Golding, Andrew Koji and Haruka Abe in this action spin-off for the popular Eighties toyline’s most iconic ninja character.

Actually starts out quite strong, even if beat for beat the scripts for this and the recent Mortal Kombat reboot are interchangeable. There’s some pretty lavish production design and the earlier action set pieces have a certain degree of generous OTT pizazz. Yet it grows increasingly unmemorable the more the franchise elements are introduced. I watched this with one eye on Golding being a potential new 007 contender but am sorry to report he is the dullest thing in any of his scenes. To be blown off the screen by one or two colourful supports is forgivable but for every single other character to be more attention grabbing and likeable suggest he will not have the chops to be Bond.

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/

Terence Young directs Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna in this home invasion thriller where three crooks con their way into a blind lady’s apartment.

A very obvious adaptation of a stage play – the campier aspects are more pleasing than the smart stuff. The villains plan to recover a doll full of heroin is so arduous and convoluted it has zero chance of ever working. Hepburn’s straight performance as the best student at “blind school” is as cute as a button. Believable? No! But gloriously saccharine and sincere. The late sixties lingo and culture clash varnish feels particularly slapdash. Yet it kills an evening nicely… Henry Mancini’s score is surprisingly creepy.

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/

Sam Mendes directs Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig in this prohibition gangster movie where an Irish mob hitman goes on the run with his son when it turns out “loyalty” doesn’t cut both ways.

Confuses slowness for sophistication. Ambitiously aiming for the import of The Godfather and the look of Miller’s Crossing, this proves quite stilted and lifeless. A stellar cast feels slightly lost in the oversized mannerisms… there’s not enough larks with tommyguns nor moments of humanity that don’t feel forced. By no means a bad film, it is astonishingly well crafted, but an underwhelming swan song to Newman’s career.

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/

Iain Softley directs Stephen Dorff, Ian Hart and Sheryl Lee in this romance following the love triangle between John Lennon, early band member Stuart Sutcliffe and a German photographer set around The Beatles pre-fame days in Hamburg.

A favourite from my teens, I never remembered just how much sex and nudity there was in this. A lovely surprise in that respect. Softley’s debut is visually rich, the Hamburg strips bars seem like a direct homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s sleazier arthouse stylings. The Beatles Begins stuff can be a little too cute at times (meeting Ringo feels particularly crowbarred in) but the music is pretty toetapping. Getting modern grunge artists to punk up and speed up the energy of the rock ‘n’ roll hits the almost fab five would have played is a wonderful conceit. Ian Hart’s John Lennon is pleasingly abrasive and witty. Dorff and Lee are cast for their prettiness rather acting talent and he shows them up in quite a few scenes. One thing I noticed on this rewatch was just how much plot is raced through in the first 25 minutes. Everything is set up and primed in a breathless rush. It make the last hour seem a bit lackadaisical in comparison. Still very good but almost as if the movie runs out of uppers long before tragedy strikes.

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/

Lawrence Michael Levine directs Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon in this dark comedy where a difficult actress arrives at lake house retreat owned by a fractious couple.

This indie starts like a three hander play where we are stuck between a warring husband and wife and their sarcastic guest. It works and I would have quite happily experienced the continued tensions, flirtations and jealousies play out at feature length. At the midway point though something shifts, the story either resets or reboots from a reality altering viewpoint… the movie becomes a heavily populated meta farce. Not a bad one, and the themes remain the same, yet you feel like the toy you were enjoying playing with has been snatched away and replaced with something… a bit cheaper? Quibbles and frustrations aside, Plaza remains one of the most pleasing, exciting movie stars out there. She dominates the screen here.

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/

Wes Craven directs Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy and Brian Cox in this thriller where a hotel employee is trapped on a flight with a hitman who needs her to make an important call.

The Hitchcockian war of words and wits in economy class never really takes off. Luckily when we are off the plane Wes Craven finds his groove. Once McAdams is playing cat-and-mouse with a knife wielding psycho around a mansion sized house the entertainment comes. The Scream-esque finale is near orgasmic after a slow and underwhelming build up. Good cast.

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/

David Prior directs James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland and Sasha Frolova in this horror where an ex-cop investigate a missing girl, a curse and a cult.

Even though very little happens over quite an excessive running time, The Empty Man keeps you permanently on edge. The production has a consummate professionalism, executes a few genuine shocks and chills. The script is like four episodes of a prestige show binged together, though each from a different season of the run. It is all powered by the anticipation of some terrible thing about to happen, of some destructive cosmic truth about to be revealed. It is certainly unique enough, almost abrasively so, that you can see it building a significant fan following.

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/