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/

Eugene Kotlyarenko directs Joe Keery, Sasheer Zamata and David Arquette in this found footage killer satire where an insta-fame wannabe starts filming and killing the passengers on his ride share shift.

An Influencer era update on The King of Comedy that never really finds its pace. Likeable Stranger Things stalwart Joe Keery holds it together admirably but I think it is fair to say many of us don’t find the world of streamers and youtubers and twitchers quite as fascinating as the old media of films and TV think we should. At least the blind narcissism means there’s a reason for the cameras not to stop and for multiple angles when needed, I guess?

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/

Ronny Yu directs Monica Keener, Robert Englund and Katharine Isabelle in this horror crossover movie where the villains from Elm Street and Friday the 13th fight over who gets to kill the teens.

Pretty dumb and routine. Yu’s slick direction plays more expensive looking than the earlier franchise entries but makes minimal sense. The movie only comes to life when Freddy and Jason finally start tearing chunks out of each other on a construction site. This late in the day Looney Tunes violence isn’t worth waiting up for though. The kids are so underwritten and disposable that even the decent Keener and Isabelle struggle to be more than doomed T&A.

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/

Tom Mankiewicz directs Dan Aykroyd, Tom Hanks and Alexandra Paul in this buddy cop comedy reboot of the Fifties straight laced detective show.

A favourite when I was a kid but put away and forgotten about like a Visionaries toy or a Bobby Brown cassette through my twenties and thirties. It hasn’t stood the test of time, being relatively jokeless and shapeless. There’s at least a definite energy to Dragnet, that means it is never boring even when it doesn’t work. Being both a big budget 80s comedy and directed by Roger Moore era 007 writer Mankiewicz there are three sequences of expensive vehicular slapstick where some more wittier silliness really should be. Aykroyd seems to be having a blast talking fast in jargon… that is his schtick. Hanks was already destined for better things. The rap they do at the end is atrocious.

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/

Jérémy Clapin directs Hakim Faris, Victoire Du Bois and Patrick d’Assumçao in this French animated adventure where a disembodied hand searches the city for his body.

The strange perspectives and unusual peril the hand finds itself in are very absorbing. The flashbacks to its sadsack owner and his quirky poetic rebellions against urban alienation less so. A bit too pretentious to whole heartedly recommend.

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/

Susanne Bier directs Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes and John Malkovich in this apocalyptic sci-fi where a viral force possesses people into killing themselves once seen.

I avoided this brief sensation when it seemed to merely exist to inspire memes and rip off A Quiet Place. It actually works quite well as the dwindling ensemble bicker and make bad decisions in light of a supernatural extinction. Nothing particularly original happens but the early set pieces are tight and the burgeoning romance between Bullock and Rhodes is convincing. They told me not to look, but it was an entertaining enough watch. The ending is a little too underwhelming though.

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/

Ramin Bahrani directs Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra and Rajkummar Rao in this drama where a boy from India’s rural underclass inveigles his way into working for a corrupt family.

Anyone who has seen the blistering 99 Homes will know that Ramin Bahrani can make cracking cinema out of holding a mirror up to wealth and class inequalities. Here he adapts the Booker prize winning novel about India’s rigged caste system and takes in globalisation and endemic corruption to boot… It is quite a canny piece of cinema that many young film critics will compare to the grandstanding of Parasite and many older critics will notice coded queer comparisons to The Servant. Yet the great movie it reminded me most of is French prison thriller A Prophet. The rare tale of a pawn making its way daringly all the way across the board, the most precarious individual clamouring up a hierarchy. An ‘exploitation’ flick in the least used definition of the word, one where various scenes can be read in intriguingly different ways. An attractive cast and eye for incongruous detail mean this corking epic of developing world mores and bad behaviour absolutely chops.

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/

Daniel Goldhaber directs Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh and Samantha Robinson in this creepy horror where a cam girl finds her profile hacked by an nasty doppelgänger.

A neat and nasty little rattler that teases it will turn out like the Talk Radio of private shows but then mutates into a Repulsion / Mulholland Dr. descent into madness and identity blurring. As an allegory Cam works really well in manifesting the dehumanising and exploitative realities of online sex work. I assume. The script was written by former cam girl Isa Mazzei. I don’t know whether the often sexless dress-up shows or the glamorous drop-in community studio (what’s the chances of all the top performers living in the same state, let alone the same town?) or the stars’ obsessive All About Eve-esque battles for top rankings play particularly believably. But it is not a world I’m au fait with and it isn’t a thriller particularly grounded in reality. So why quibble? After her strong turn in The Handmaid’s Tale, Madeline Brewer comes into her own as the locked out and wigging out protagonist. It is a cute little calling card one watcher, that promises big things for the future of all involved, but it never threatens its antecedents’ supremacy within the genre.

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/