George C. Wolfe directs Chadwick Boseman, Viola Davis and Colman Domingo in this big screen adaptation of August Wilson’s play about the fractious recording of an early Blues record.

Chadwick Boseman finally lives up to his reputation and inhabits a role, truly brings it to life. That’s as cruel an irony as anything opened up in this play. Viola Davis’ complicated and entertaining Ma Rainey is an equally towering achievement but the real life figure remains an enigma. I’m not sure if it is a case of we do not see enough of her or that Davis and Wilson sensibly don’t want us to get a true fix on her power, morality and vulnerability. Visually, Davis transforms herself almost into a grotesque with seeping sweat and violent make-up. We certainly witness her ruthlessness and selfishness to keep her artistic control in the White Man’s World. But as much as she guards her art and perks, she doesn’t raise her fellow artists up. She doesn’t ever go down to the hellish cell of a rehearsal room nor have to accept the scraps of false opportunity the exploiters throw her way. The dead ends and the exploitation Boseman’s Levee experiences results in senseless violence. Violence neither the celebrity or the white paymaster witnesses or suffers. Expect this to sweep up the main acting categories this Oscar season.

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/

Sophia Takal directs Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon and Cary Elwes in the second reboot of the Seventies festive slasher were a college sorority is stalked by a masked killer.

Tone deaf and heavy handed. Tries to insert a whole swathe of modern feminist ideologies in to the unprepared mouths of its very, very annoying avatars. All soundbite, no political content. Meanwhile… us genre fans have a weak tea PG-13 horror movie continually waiting on hold. The only kill in one act feels very much like a reshoot done late in the day and shunted in under studio mandate. This is a real joyless hot mess that fails to achieve anything it sets out to do.

2

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/

Steven Spielberg directs Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore and Dee Wallace in this children’s sci-fi fantasy where a suburban family of kids befriend an abandoned alien.

A massive Spielberg fan, I never understood this one’s popularity. In turns maudlin, sinister and boring – the iconic moments are cheesy and the creature SFX unreliable at best. Even I had a rubber toy that looked more like mangled shit than a friendly alien when I was a tot. Spielberg has to try really hard to make a bad film, this is admittedly too well crafted to match Hook. I prefer anarchy, stars and hubris over technique but it is a close race to the bottom. E.T. is saved by some cute child performances and John Williams’ evergreen score which does a lot of the narrative heavy lifting. Imagine how tedious it would all be without his orchestra cadging us along and seducing us.

4

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/

Lewis Gilbert directs Julie Walters, Michael Caine and Michael Williams in this romance where an alcoholic literature professor is revitalised by his working class Open University student.

An ode to self improvement and second acts in life’s lived. Willy Russell’s witty and sensitive play is expanded successfully into a charming slice of cinema. Walters makes a blistering big screen debut – you genuinely fall in love with her straight talking hairdresser. Caine also takes some nice risks in a very generous effort. The prevailing attitude that he almost threw his career away with greedy choices in the Eighties is proven a nonsense by his acting here and in Hannah And Her Sisters. The ending is wonderfully uplifting even if it is bittersweet. Liverpool is played by Dublin for tax dodging reasons by Gilbert and his Alfie.

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/

Jeffrey Schwarz directs Divine, John Waters and Mink Stole in this documentary celebration of the Baltimore drag star from Pink Flamingos and Lust In The Dust.

Catty talking heads and fun movie clips make for an entertaining but strung out feature length biography.

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/

Michael Anderson directs David Niven, Cantinflas and Shirley MacLaine in this family adventure adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel where gentleman of means Phileas Fogg wagers his fortune that he can navigate the Victorian globe to a strict time limit.

A big glorious afternoon devourer. Full of cameos from stars who mean nothing to modern eyes and exotic locales visited or recreated by playful Technicolor technicians. Yes, there are dated elements; Shirley MacLaine plays an Indian Princess, there’s an extended bull fighting sequence. Yet it is rousing to see a big budget extravaganza that focuses on adult characters while still marvelling the kids. There is rarely a shot that doesn’t contain a cute animal, a dazzling piece of slapstick or an ode to a forgotten culture. Movie magic and top Niven action, it also has one of the most abrupt endings to a three hour movie ever.

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/

Krzysztof Kieślowski directs Grażyna Szapołowska, Olaf Lubaszenko and Mirosław Baka in these Polish arthouse hits that follow a stalker who tries to connect with his beloved and a killer who faces the death penalty.

Two films, both expanded from episodes of Kieślowski’s Ten Commandment’s TV series Dekalog. Love is a beautiful little slice of strange romance. It paves the way for the themes and style of his Three Colours Trilogy. Grażyna Szapołowska gives a rapturous performance as the woman who discovers she is being watched by an obsessed stranger across the way. While never condoning the toxic masculinity of the boy who spies on her, this reverse Rear Window has a sweet poetry. Killing is harder going. A treatise against Poland’s continued practice of the death penalty, it is a self consciously ugly film. The image is filtered to look sickly green and the lens distorted so that the frame never settles. We watch various characters fall into place (all of Kieślowski’s tales seem fascinated with fate and human beings tumbling into a certain unavoidable combination) before a prolonged, grim murder… then the brutality of the state sanctioned execution of the guilty. The TV episode was instrumental in changing the law and ending the practice allegedly. The pair of films are a fascinating view of Poland in the last gasps of Soviet life.

8/6

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/

Amy Seimetz directs Kate Lyn Sheil, Jane Adams and Kentucker Audley in this indie drama where an infectious fatalism spreads among a bunch of posh cunts who spend their last day blankly staring into space and bumming me out.

One of those movies that make all the critics’ end of year lists so you dutifully watch and then wonder… who the actual fuck is employing these dicks for their opinions? Maybe their aspirational upper middle class lifestyles of awkward dinner parties, modern art on the walls and bad relationships are mirrored here? I don’t know. This just plays out like bad fringe theatre. A real Emperor’s New Clothes situation. The concept has been fleshed out far better before in Camus’ The Plague and the Canadian indie gem Last Night. It doesn’t help that this ponderous, deadpan time waster has been billed everywhere as a horror. They aren’t all going to die because of some terrifying Lovecraftian pandemic, they are going to die as someone decided to film a bunch of their slightly famous mates doing an acting class exercise and pass it off as a feature length movie.

2

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/

Harry Bradbeer directs Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill and Helena Bonham Carter in this kids adventure where Sherlock and Mycroft’s little sister investigates her mother’s disappearance and the attempts on a hot teen lord’s life.

A perfectly serviceable entertainment that feels like three episodes of a Christmas tea time miniseries crammed together to make a feature length release. By the end, only a side mystery has been solved and that’s so the Timothée Chalamet resembling romantic interest involved can boxed up to be replaced by whatever ever foppish Corey is in fashion when Enola Holmes 2 starts rolling. The production values are high, there’s an admirable effort to make the mid billed casting as diverse as possible. It is all very suffocatingly breathless. Like a corset, ornately attractive but with little room to enjoy one’s self in. Stranger Things breakout Millie Bobbie Brown is an engaging lead, she will be a star, but this relies a little too much on her eagerly sticking her piehole right up into the camera to make sure we are keeping pace with the nonsense plot. You’d go mad if you did, the screenwriters haven’t bothered, so why should you?

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/

Jerzy Skolimowski directs Alan Bates, Susannah York and John Hurt in this psychological chiller where an obtuse loner moves into a couple’s home and threatens the sound recordist husband with his mystical scream that kills all that hear it.

This is aiming for a combination of the discombulating unease and sexual intrusion that Joseph Losey and Nicolas Roeg achieve with their studies of societal deconstruction and creeping madness. The only problem here is it is quite boring. Well acted, nice concept… dully executed. “Get out of here Anthony, or I’ll shout your bloody ears off.”

4

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/