Tony Richardson directs Rob Lowe, Jodie Foster and Nastassja Kinski in this adaptation of John Irving’s coming of age novel about an American family’s encounters with sex, death, bears and hotel owning.

There’s a few ways to adapt a story dense novel into a two hour movie. One is to cut and condense as much as possible while retaining as much of the mood and qualities of the original. Another is to make the movie a separate work inspired by the source material but not beholden to it. Then there’s this way… which is to rush through every narrative moment of the book giving no incident any extra emphasis or greater context. Democratic, brute force, boilerplate adaptation. People who haven’t read the novel must find this borderline incomprehensible. There’s no chance to get your bearings or savour the meaning of anything until the second half. The cast look sexy, it makes for a good York Notes reminder for those of us already initiated.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Tom Jones (1963)

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/

Edward Dmytryk directs Robert Young, Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan in this noir where a police detective investigates an anti-Semitic murder where a set of soldiers are the prime suspects.

Quite heavy handed and doesn’t really work as a thriller. The killer is obvious from the start and the movie cannot settle on a protagonist. There are two really neat monologues about prejudice in America. The source material was about homosexuality rather than anti-semitism and it isn’t a stretch to see all the characters as closeted. Not enough Mitchum for my liking, Gloria Grahame excels in a small role as a fallen woman.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

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/

Takeshi Kitano directs Miho Kanno, Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tatsuya Mihashi in this Japanese arthouse anthology movie exploring how we are all puppets to love, death and faith.

Very beautiful. The stories move through the seasons and each shift in environment opens up a new visual gallery which dominates the screen. The three tale of doomed romance are quite simple and unsubtle but maybe that benefits the magical realism of them.

7

Perfect Double Bill: The Scene At The Sea (1991)

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/

Eckhart Schmidt directs Désirée Nosbusch, Bodo Staiger and Simone Brahmann in this German arthouse horror where an obsessed teenager abandons her suburban life to meet a New Wave pop star.

All slow build to a violent, yet strangely sterile, finale. If you’ve seen images of Der Fan then you’ve no doubt seen a fully nude Désirée Nosbusch getting up to no good with a serrated blade. That kind of behaviour makes up so little of the movie and is handled so clinically that it probably is not going to satisfy either gorehounds or dirty macs. What the movie does really well is get into this girl’s unhinged but sympathetic head space. At one point the camera is literally swallowed by the vulnerable teen. We understand her yearning, and her delusion. We can barely believe it when it seems her dreams are coming true. Though we are not shocked to discover that the dream cannot last forever and there are plenty of men who want to ignore, belittle or exploit her. So it’s satisfying she gets the last laugh. And as a fully committed artefact of post-punk fashions and the slightly naff pretensions of the manufactured European pop scene, Der Fan is quite the treat.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Raw (2016)

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/

Zhangke Jia directs Hongwei Wang, Hongjian Hao and Baitao Zuo in this Chinese drama where a small time provincial thief realises all his friends have become “respectable” and toys with the idea of a normal life.

Solid slice of life drama with unprofessional actors who look authentic because they are. Meanders pleasantly, giving you a better idea of what life in a Chinese town is like away from the glamour of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. Some street scenes have an incongruous soundtrack of “other” media including, amusingly, John Woo’s The Killer.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Pickup on South Street (1953)

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/

Philip Noyce directs Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill and Billy Zane in this three-hander thriller where a yachting couple almost instantly regret picking up a castaway from a sinking ship.

One of the most beautiful films ever made is also one of the most gleefully intense. Mad Max 2’s cinematographer Dean Semler captures the glory of the ocean – whether choppy, stormy, placid, on fire or completely deserted. You get every variation and each is more brooding yet magnificent than the next. There are three very different acting style from the leads which somehow gels and amps up the unpredictable dynamics. The movie picks away at two nightmares simultaneously; what if you were alone and stuck in close proximity to a psycho and what would you do if trapped on a sinking ship. Then there’s the ahead of its time midway switcheroo. The traditional male hero, Neill, though resourceful and striving, goes from being the man of action to needing urgent help himself. Kidman ups her agency when she is left with no one else to deal with her Billy Zane problems and a tight clock to get back to her doomed hubby. Graeme Revell’s score is all desperate breaths, ghostly wails and relentless percussion. And there’s a top final kill. A lot of people would put this on the yuppie in peril shelf but the lead couple are too fixed on reuniting and banishing evil for us to ever enjoy seeing them put through such a crushing wringer. Perfect.

10

Perfect Double Bill: Knife In The Water (1962)

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/

Denzel Washington directs Michael B. Jordan, Chanté Adams and Robert Wisdom in the romantic drama where a single mother relates to her son how she met and fell in love with his soldier father.

The fine performances, great looks and casual chemistry between Jordan and Adams get this over the finish line. It can be way too stodgy, corny, conservative and flat. Often simultaneously. Denzel is directing the actors, that is his focus and strength… but his visual toolbox is barren and he rarely varies from a blunt medium range shot throughout. Hard to believe he made so many movies in collaboration with Spike Lee and Tony Scott. Yet when was the last time you went to see a weepie with such attractive leads? These movies aren’t meant to be art, this certainly isn’t, but it hits the spot.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Notebook (2004)

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/

Tony Scott directs Denzel Washington, Paula Patton and Val Kilmer in this sci-fi thriller where an ATF agent uses time bending technology to investigate a ferry bombing.

Peak post 9/11 cinema. We rewind, pause and reprocess a terrorist attack over and over again – trying to make sense of the tragedy but slowly numbing ourselves to the human cost. Three separate mini movies springing from the same incident. First act: traditional investigation with obscure clues and maverick detective smarter than the brass in charge. I’d watch that movie play out straight if Denzel stayed on his fine, committed form. Second act – Minority Report in the modern day. Tech nerds switch angles and zoom in on details from the past, using an all seeing but constantly moving forward MacGuffin. Only Denzel can unpick the clues and keep up with the strict four days in the past limitations on the big screen. Third act: we misuse the tech and go time travelling. After all there’s a hot woman to save and Denzel can’t stand about while geeks explain wormholes to him for another hour. The problem is every time we jump onto a new plot approach what works about Déjà Vu becomes diluted. Still a disposable Saturday night watch even if the talent and ambition does not match the end product.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Out of Time (2003)

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/

Peter Bogdanovich directs Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds and Tatum O’Neal in this comedy about the pre-studio days of silent movie making, following the fortunes of a lawyer turned director and a cowboy turned stuntman.

Ryan O’Neal ain’t no Harold Lloyd and he certainly isn’t Buster Keaton. Bogdanovich’s attempt to imbue his blank with a personality here is to get him to recreate some of the legends’ smaller pratfalls in the first reel. Otherwise this is a movie that hinges on the tenet that the director should always be sleeping with a leading lady. A cold mess. A tribute to the cowboy days of the silent movie business that has all the slap of a slumbering over confident white man on the dance floor. Hard to think what anyone thought they were giving audiences here. Tatum O’Neal is the best thing in it as a deadpan child in dustbowl drag. But we’ve seen even that trick before.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Chaplin (1992)

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/

Christian Petzold directs Julia Hummer, Barbara Auer and Richy Müller in this German drama about a family – long on the run after a decade old terrorist action – who struggle to maintain their cover once their teen daughter starts quietly rebelling.

Nice little mix of coming of age drama and thriller. Neither genre dominates the mood. Very relaxed but none the poorer for it. The softly spoken lead girl is particularly good.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Running On Empty (1988)

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/