Noah Baumbach directs Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle in this absurdist drama based on a literary classic by Don DeLillo.

Academia. Consumerism. Apocalyptic Events. Addiction. Infidelity. Only viewed through a cartoonish, Sesame Street tinted lens that is three parts Amblin (think Goonies / Gremlins) and one part Mike Nichols. A lot happens in White Noise. All of it anxious. Both Gerwig and Driver possibly give their career best performances. The movie has a magnificent middle hour where the family try to survive an Airborne Toxic Event that is both nightmarish but also a loony Spielbergian homage caper. On the whole though this is a movie consisting solely of big swings that only a fool could connect with all of. Excessive effort has been put in here for a release that got lost on Netflix. My real question is: should satires care about skewering the attitudes and excesses of forty years ago?

6

Perfect Double Bill: Downsizing (2017)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Peter Hyams directs Jean-Claude van Damme, Powers Boothe and Raymond J. Barry in this action thriller where a terrorist takes over a hockey match to hold the Vice President of the USofA hostage.

Die Hard In An Ice Hockey Arena. Made mainly greenlit as one of the producers owned an ice hockey arena. The first two thirds are pretty perfunctory. Only really memorable for a deliciously hammy nasty from Powers Booth, a lengthy fight with a goon in a penguin mascot costume and how often JCVD disappears from the foreground. The final third is hot stuff though. The muscles from Brussels has to take to the ice and change the game for ludicrously contrived REASONS TM. The effects budget goes through the roof as we are dangling off lighting rigs and bare knuckle fighting helicopters. The conclusion is so OTT satisfying it converts this forgotten program filler into a Saturday night win.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Nowhere To Run (1993)

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The Farrelly Brothers direct Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jason Alexander in this strange comedy romance where an obnoxious loser who is only interested in traditionally hot women is hypnotised to see the inner beauty in all… and unwittingly starts dating a big girl.

Yeah… it is in bad taste. But it is from the Farrellys so that bad taste is rather sweet and ahead of the curve inclusive. It kinda works better as a romance than a comedy. But! I hate these two leads. They’ve always irritated me separately … and together… IT WAS MURDER! George Costanza saves Shallow Hal playing a true scumbag with a hidden surprise.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Stuck On You (2003)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Paul Briggs and John Ripa direct Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina and Izaac Wang in this animated adventure from Disney.

Would have been nice to see this one on the big screen. Has a vivid colour palette and neat action. Works really well as a quest and feels like the biggest gamble away from formula the Mouse House has made in a long time… successful gamble. Beautiful oriental dragons.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Strange World (2022)

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Michael Bay directs Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler in this sci-fi disaster blockbuster where an asteroid threatens to obliterates humanity and only a team of roughneck oil drillers can save the planet.

July of 1998. Aerosmith on permanent rotation on the radio. Two asteroid movies entering the planet’s gravitational pull. Armageddon wins. The Bruckheimer formula taken to the max. Editing that’d make Tony Scott close his eyes. Retina dazzling colours often erupt through deep blacks. It ain’t a smart film but it is shamelessly entertaining. Quirky casting à la Con Air… the same amount of cheese, heart and script doctored wit. I remember holding a summer girlfriend’s hand tightly when Affleck sang his goodbyes to Liv Tyler, I remember a tear in my eye during the big emotional John Wayne heroic sacrifice. The stuff in space ain’t as involving as the breezy set-up but in general this fills the big screen and an evening in a way that even Nolan or Miller might be overwhelmed by. A pop bubblegum epic. Dumb but epic.

Michael Bay directs Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett in this war movie bolting on a love triangle romance to the WWII “day that will live in infamy.”

So with Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon all delivering muscular one-watcher satisfaction, Bay was dangerously close to stealing Speilberg’s throne as the king of the blockbusters. Sure, his work was blunter and less ambitious. Yet it had less pretensions and the craft felt cutting edge. Youthful. So a WWII Titanic-tinged period piece seemed like an overreach. Cameron can pull this shit off. The ‘fuck the frame’ guy… less so. The middle hour where Pearl Harbour gets obliterated is spectacular. Bay knows how to light and dress Beckinsale so she looks every inch a classic era movie star. The romance though is a duffer with Hartnett feeling like meat in the room. And the historical drama sees big actors (Baldwin, Voight, Mako) stifled by museum dusty characterisations. I’m pretty easy going about inaccuracy and artistic licence but this does feel in bad taste… and boring.

7/4

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Alfred Hitchcock direct Farley Granger, Ruth Roman and Robert Walker in this thriller where a man with an inconvenient wife meets a right charmer on the train who offers to off his missus if he’d only return the favour.

Pretty much invented High Concept. What if two men swapped murders? Every Highsmith thriller I’ve seen or read is about a protagonist working very hard to never have to work. Protagonist?! Yeah… I said it. Who is watching this and rooting for Farley Granger’s tennis dweeb? Robert Walker’s Bruno is an absolute boy. Insidious smoking jacket sociopath. The finale with the out of control carousel is a rollicker. So many inventive shots. Only the dull goodies hold this back from Hitch perfection.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Throw Momma From The Train (1987)

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Luca Guadagnino directs Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist in this sexually charged sports movie following a lust triangle between three tennis hopefuls over thirteen years of bedroom highs and career lows.

Extreme, bright and confident filmmaking that tarts up a rather predictable plot. Is the intrusive hard beat rave score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross necessary? I don’t know but I was bouncing in my seat and happily ignoring the dialogue whenever it piped up. Is the scene with all the extras’ penises necessary? Yeah… if anything it showed what a tease the rest of the movie is considering how close to nudity the three leads skate into throughout but teasingly never achieve. Was the time rally, back-n-forth storytelling necessary? It is about tennis and thrusty humping… so… yeah… duh! What about the pathetic fallacy hurricane that leads into the sunny finale? Necessary? Well… maybe not. What about every trick shot in the book being whipped out and waggled about for that patience testing sunny finale? Is that necessary? Maximalist cinema. Gotta get the kids in somehow. Zendaya’s first movie that belongs to her and I’m slowly getting on board with ‘arthouse Ron Howard’ Guadagnino’s hyped offering. Would watch again.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Wimbledon (2004)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Wes Ball directs Owen Teague, Freya Allan and Kevin Durand in this sci-fi adventure where a teen chimp has to free his peaceful tribe from enslavement while protecting a mysterious human who may unlock both the past and the future.

Refreshes one of the most satisfying franchises out there with a simple but often astounding quest. The unfussy plot leaves bags of room for risky set pieces, muscular characterisation and believable world building. Stand-out villainy from Durand’s tyrant bonobo. Caesar is dead, long live Caesar!

8

Perfect Double Bill: Prey (2022)

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Cameron Crowe directs Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz in this existential psychosexual romance where a successful man’s dream life turns into a waking nightmare.

A big budget folly. Takes everything fascinating about Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes and stretches it out. The paranoid atmosphere works in fits and starts. You never feel like there is tangible plot that all the mystery and confusion can anchor into. Tom, bless him, is out of his depth as the broken disfigured version of himself. Hard to believe so many of the takes used in the final cut were his least cringey tries. Having said that the blockbuster art film production looks amazing. Diaz and Kurt Russell put in rare acting shifts and truly shine. There are a couple of iconic set pieces (deserted Time Square / a car crash / bedroom face shifting) that really amp up your unease. But any film that ends on three lengthy scenes of flat exposition just ain’t my bag. Well done everyone on working outside their wheelhouse but this, at best, is a noble failure. A worthy marathon. See you again in twenty years when I forget how testing you are Vanilla Sky.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Penelope Spheeris directs Jim Varney, Diedrich Bader and Erika Eleniak in this remake of the old TV series.

Much talent and energy is wasted dashing about in search of a joke. Any joke. Recreates the famous credit sequence and sitcom set-up in colour… after which the writers then just insert the plot of the first Addams Family movie for little reward.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Sgt. Bilko (1996)

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