Mark Romanek directs Carey Mulligan, Kiera Knightley and Andrew Garfield in this sci-fi dystopian romance based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 award winning novel.

At a strange boarding school, the children are gently being prepared for a life of brutal exploitation, very different but not quite different enough, from our own. Ishiguro’s novel explored cloning and could be seen as an allegory for farming, mortality or even being working class in a system designed by the upper classes. As with all his works, there’s a protagonist living by a very strict rule which leads to regrets once opportunities to love and take risks are missed. The problem is the book is dreamy, always from a distinct POV where we always know just a morsel more than our naïve but curious narrator. A movie needs to make the imagined, explicit… the hinted at, indisputable. I think I was thrown the first time I caught this at the cinema. The adaptation of the book was unshowy, kind of drab, and I didn’t care for the casting. A decade down the line and I have far more admiration for Knightley and Garfield. Romanek’s visuals are very precise. I think you could watch this with the sound off and still get an equal understanding of the drip-fed plot and stunted but ghastly emotions. He’s never really lived up to the promise his three very distinct movies (Static, One Hour Photo)… I feel given the chance he could be as great as Fincher or Park Chan-wook … but having to wait over a decade each time to realise a feature film in the Hollywood system must take its toll. Screenwriter Alex Garland’s adaptation of the book fits in more recognisably with his later directorial efforts. A nettle, warm tea, soggy woollen jumper vision of British sci-fi, owing as much too Wyndham, Orwell and Kneale as it does to those government Public Service Warning adverts that scarred a generation. This might be one of the saddest mainstream genre films ever made and it certainly is evocative and quietly challenging. Its only failure is not surpassing the outstanding source material.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Gattaca (1997)

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/

Alan Clarke directs Tim Roth, Bill Stewart and Geoffrey Hutchings in this made-for-telly British movie following a young skinhead as rebels against every effort to punish or rehabilitate him.

I’ve watched this a few times in the past and always rated it but this watch blew me away. Roth’s debut performance is compulsive, nasty, complex and flawless. A delinquent in complete control. Always breaking down doors, even though he’s nicked the keys. His violence and crime are slowly revealed not to be impulsive acts of thuggery but long game plans of pointless destruction. Vandalism but with a crescendo. “Touching the dog’s arse.” Bring everyone down to his nihilist level. He’s kinda like a skinhead Joker. 16… first role… untrained… fuck me!

10

Perfect Double Bill: American History X (1998)

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/

Mário Peixoto directs Olga Breno, Taciana Rey and Raul Schnoor in this arthouse classic from Brazil where three strangers are on a boat remembering the lives they abandoned.

The above synopsis I had to look up midway through the movie. I tried my best to concentrate. To figure out what was going on. I was aware, prepared even, that watching non-genre silent cinema often means I have to reprogram myself. Reset myself to a different movie storytelling grammar. I focussed really hard, enjoyed some of the imagery. But I just couldn’t fathom who was who, what was what. So an hour in I paused it, went on Wikipedia and read the plot. Whatever magic this contains was dispelled by that concession. Well done for surviving lost film but you just aren’t for me.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Earth (1930)

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/

James Marsh directs Ian Holm, Jeffrey Golden and Jo Vukelich in this documentary that recreates the grisly, lurid and uncanny news stories of an unfortunate 1890’s mid-western town going through a spate of poverty and mania.

I caught this on TV late one night in my teens with no real idea what it was. Rewatching it so many years later was a slightly fraught experience. It felt like the first 15 minutes contained everything I had drowsily logged back then. Had I fallen asleep all those years ago? No… this sustains its monochrome weirdness though out. A unique, very satisfying western.

9

Perfect Double Bill: The Blair Witch Project (1999)

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 Lean directs Ann Todd, Claude Rains and Trevor Howard in this romantic drama where two old lovers, now both married, reunite twice over the years with damaging consequences.

While the first hour of this can feel very much like a colder, upper class retread of Brief Encounter something happens towards the end that surpasses the more well known movie. There are a domino rally of expert set pieces involving a returning boat, a cuckold candidly revealing his disappointment, a goodbye on a bench and tube line finale that really cook. The emotional turmoil is savage, Lean treats each closing separation like a mini-thriller, it really hits you with a wallop. Todd is a fascinating lead, Rains always excellent value. With a New Years party at a Chelsea Art Club and a trip to the mountains of Switzerland this is also an obvious influence on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Will rewatch soon.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Brief Encounter (1945)

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/

Arnaud Desplechin directs Denis Podalydès, Léa Seydoux and Emmanuelle Devos in this adaptation of Philip Roth’s erotic literary novella where he bangs a hot English hot wife and brags about it in a book.

Glad I never read the book. Seydoux has less nudity than you’d expect considering every other chapter is a prelude to sex. She does however look striking and utterly ‘not English’ in her late Eighties high street fashions. Pretentious.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Goodbye Colombus (1969)

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/

Anne Fletcher directs Danielle Macdonald, Jennifer Aniston and Odeya Rush in this teen comedy where a plus-size teen and her misfit friends decide to rebelliously take part in the Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant that her mother organises.

There’s a lot going on here; all of it colourful and sweet and relatively wholesome and positive. Executive producer Dolly Parton’s official sanctioned jukebox background soundtrack is the key selling point and it wouldn’t take too much tweaking to turn this into a West End hit. Danielle Macdonald makes light work of a lead role that could be overly worthy and heavy handed in the wrong hands. The kinda movie you’d want your teen daughter watching.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

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/

Stephen Norrington directs Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah and Peta Wilson in the comic book adaptation where a group of Victorian literary figures team-up to defeat a great evil.

Library card steampunk, flat unmemorable spectacle. Norrington and Connery clashed on set, neither took on any further major movie projects. Were Big Tam’s since revealed health issues to blame? Was this one last begrudging shift to collect a retirement paycheck so he never had to turn up on a sound stage again? Whatever his motivations (and he’s easily the only reason to watch this), he gobbled up a lot of the budget, meaning the support cast are drowsily played by unknowns and also rans when this really needs additional star power to match the lead. Not the only reason this is such a dud but certainly the problem that should have been easily identified before it went to camera. The Invisible Man “FX” are laughable.

3

Perfect Double Bill: The Avengers (1998)

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/

Laurent Cantet directs François Bégaudeau, Agame Malembo-Emene and Angélica Sancio in this French drama where we observe the annual ups and downs of an inner-city high school class from the dedicated but jaded teacher’s point-of-view.

The grind of dealing with behavioral issues, entitlement and over-enthusiasm. Bégaudeau essentially plays himself, this is based on his novel based on his experiences. In France both works are called Entre Les Murs, Between The Walls, suggesting we are getting an insider’s view. And what happens is pretty believable, natural, has the frustration of reality. There are no great white saviour moments, no overtures to suggest some grand success story emerging from all the turmoil and boisterousness. The basics are barely communicated, even the projects that capture the teens’ imaginations are only mildly impactful in any tangible graded way. The movie and the year ends with one quiet child questioning aloud and downcast whether she has really learned anything at all. In the first act we witness a few teachers, both newer and seasoned, react negatively about their kids in the staff room. Bégaudeau’s response is poker faced. Is he wiser? More attuned to the class’ pressure, problems and needs? He certainly never writes them off, approaches each lesson with seemingly realistic expectations of what might be achieved if they can stay on topic. Yet in the third act, a moment of emotion leaks out of him, his volatile charges leap on the negativity… even though one child’s ultimate fate is a systemic failure, long in the offing… he cannot help but feel his moment of weakness has lost him the opportunity to turn the tide. The Class itself, almost unconsciously bounces back quicker from the quiet tragedy that threatens their cohesive chaos. A telling drama that benefits from casting real faces rather than professional actors in most roles.

8

Perfect Double Bill: The We And The I (2012)

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/

Richard Linklater directs Milo Coy, Jack Black and Glen Powell in this animated youth comedy where the 1969 moon landing is remembered by a fantasist Texan child.

Maybe every generation should have one of these – a nostalgic deep drill into every aspect of their childhood. The music, games, shows, food, social changes and big events. At times it can just feel like an awesome list of cool stuff remembered and recited… and I’m completely down with that. I’ve been adding tracks from the extensive soundtrack to my streaming library for a week now. Fantasy and obsession with the space program give way to a great day out at a theme park. So we are kind of in space, seeing an alternative day dreamed view to one of mankind’s biggest achievements, and also on the couch, half asleep, wondering if Time Tunnel will be on tomorrow. It just clicks, I laughed a lot at this. Linklater most successful rotoscoped project and in my head an unofficial prequel to Dazed & Confused. These Texan kids are exactly the right age to grow up into that tribe.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Waking Life (2001)

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/