Takashi Miike directs Masataka Kubota, Shota Sometani and Sakurako Konishi in this crime caper where a terminally ill boxer saves a hallucinating prostitute who is at the centre of an erupting gangwar between the yakuza and the triads.

A throwback to True Romance or Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead or at least 25 of Miike’s earlier yakuza trips. This has a lotta flamboyant scumbags chasing after a bag full of drugs over one crazy, squib-packed night. Hard to pick a favourite character from the endlessly wild ensemble. The shotgun wielding one-armed Wang? Triple crossing Kase – a super slick eager beaver with a plan way too complicated to ever actually work in practice? The demented vengeance driven pimp’s girlfriend played gloriously OTT by an actress just called “Becky”? The lead girl’s ghost dad who likes to appear in public in his white y-fronts and nothing else? It all, somehow, makes sense within the loopy carnage of the film. A hyper violent Japanese treat.

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/

Miranda July directs Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins and Gina Rodriguez in this crime comedy where a family of very, very low level hustlers take in a new recruit.

“Most people want to be Kajillionaires. That’s the dream. That’s how they get you hooked. Hooked on sugar, hooked on caffeine. Ha, ha, ha. Cry, cry, cry… Me I prefer to just skim.” That is Richard Jenkins’ conman’s philosophy that he raised his daughter to live by. And the perfectly monikered Old Dolio has grown into the master of the minimal profit scam. But what she really wants is love and affection… she just doesn’t know it yet. July’s deadpan, hipster styling aren’t quite as successful here as in her debut Me & You & Everyone We Know. Yet the film is still pleasantly quirky and obtusely heartwarming enough to hit a similar seam. The outsider acting is top notch and all four leads (Debra Winger plays the cold mum) have a wonderful off tempo chemistry. Evan Rachel Wood, in particular, feels like she is splashing around in some untested waters and proves to have a real gift for physical comedy and gawky unhingedness. Even if the obvious slightness of the plotting may rub you the wrong way, do stay for the pay-off. The final sting is sweetly perfect.

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/

Buddy Van Horn directs Clint Eastwood, Liam Neeson and Patricia Clarkson in this action thriller where the trigger happy cop investigates a series of celebrity murders.

Dirty Harry’s last hurrah. Notable more for the sheer amount of before they were famous faces lurking around the smaller roles. Jim Carrey as a junkie rock star (not holding back on the gurning one iota). Guns N Roses as funeral guests. The action is haphazardly plotted but chaotic in the moment. It features a ludicrous chase between Harry and a explosive remote control car. Clint at least has nice chemistry with Clarkson. Lethal Weapon and Die Hard had been released by this point of the Eighties. This tired, now brainless, format had had its day.

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/

Michael Haneke directs Isabelle Huppert, Anaïs Demoustier and Hakim Taleb in this arthouse post-apocalyptic drama where a middle class family find themselves without shelter or comfort in a landscape pushed back to the Dark Ages by some unseen cataclysm.

I was dreading this. It is not like Haneke avoids a pessimistic view of humanity at the best of times. And he isn’t shy of extreme and shocking violence. So choosing to witness what he would do to a family in a lawless world of brutality and scarcity wasn’t exactly the most enticing proposition for a Saturday night on the couch. And if you’ve come for that then I’m sure Time of the Wolf doesn’t disappoint but it was a more palatable, meditative experience than I expected. Unless you are an animal lover! Huppert and Demoustier give affecting internal performances. The depressing vision of a countryside without supplies is convincing. As you’d expect family units and bourgeois beliefs are dissolved in a slow acid bath of relentless misery. But this also seems to be a film about faith. Everyone tries to hold onto some greater idea of how the world works, even when reality suggests a godless and compassionless and rule-free existence.

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/

David S. F. Wilson directs Vin Diesel, Guy Pearce and Eiza González in this comic book actioner where a soldier is brought back to life by a swarm of nanobots in his bloodstream giving him indestructible superpowers and wiring him for revenge missions.

First things first. More than half the time this looks utterly fantastic. There’s an extreme use of blues and reds, a thick gloss, that means this a treat for the eyes. Sadly the remainder of the film relies on CGI stunt avatars and looks about as convincing as Diesel’s acting. He a star, not a talent, and this film winds him up and puts him in the right direction for carnage. Essentially once it has all its misdirection and exposition out of the way, the plot reveals itself to be a very tech heavy spin on Memento. So its a nice touch seeing original misguided lo-fi death machine Guy Pearce now take on the Joey Pantalino role of his own classic. It all adds up to no great shakes… with only a comedy hacker making a lasting impression in a love it / hate it take on a tired support character. Watch only if you have two hours to kill.

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/

Katsuhiro Otomo directs Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki and Mami Koyama in this Japanese animated sci-fi classic where the weakest member of a biker gang is infected with apocalyptic psychic energy.

I first watched this on a coach monitor on a school trip abroad. The first thirty minutes drilled themselves into my harddrive but I do remember I struggled to remember the conclusion. Watching this on the big screen three decades later, there’s a reason for that. The last hour of the movie that broke Manga to the Western Hemisphere is very repetitive. One character shouts “ Tetsuo”, the other “Kaneda”. They miss each other with their laser beams. Then move to another location and repeat. And repeat. And repeat… The comics’ run wasn’t even finished when this was produced in Japan. Maybe that explains why the never ending finale is such a patience testing butt-number. Yet there’s still a reason why this became a cult classic… introducing a whole sub-genre of exotic animated nastiness to my generation of Europeans. With Akira you are never more than 10 minutes away from seeing extreme imagery never before put up there on screen. The opening act of awesome bike jousts and civil disobedience in a world that can only be described as Blade Runner without limits is truly thrilling. The stadium level body horror that follows is cruelly epic. Akira has never been quite able to live up to its own towering monumental reputation but in its finest moments you are seeing hardcore fantasy cinema with zero inhibitions.

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/

Kasi Lemmons directs Cynthia Erivo, Clarke Peters and Leslie Odom Jr. in the pre-Civil War biopic about a defiant slave turned extraordinary Underground Railroad ‘conductor’.

This has so many fine qualities… it is difficult to see why it struggles to be more than a perfunctory history lesson. Taking the most action packed period of the female abolitionist’s life… from her days on the run, to her returning south to free others, to her leadership of a battalion in the Civil War… it really should be more way exciting than this. Cynthia Erivo adds humanity and spark even to the moments when the script is a little frightened to put words in the icon’s mouth. The location work looks sumptuous, full credit to John Toll. Strangely, I think this occasionally repetitive, often overtly pious, production just needs more room to breathe. An extra half an hour so the better elements can stew up with some meaty flavour. Those perilous convoys through slave catchers and lynch mobs should have more to them religious messaging and near misses. They should be sustained sequences fraught with risk, and exploited for their inherent excitement. Only a set piece where the safe haven of Philadelphia is deemed searchable by plantation owners has the visceral thrill of danger. And this hero put herself in harm’s way continually for the freedom of others throughout her admirable life. This should be Braveheart, not Double Civics.

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/

Carlo Mirabella-Davis directs Haley Bennett, Austin Stowell and Elizabeth Marvel in this drama following a trophy housewife with extreme Pica, the desire to consume objects she should not.

Very clinical. A discomforting look at a disorder that wants to be the next Safe or Dans Ma Peau but you really only take away from it an envious sense of interior design.

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 Teague directs Rutger Hauer, Mimi Rogers and James Remar in this sci-fi prison break movie where a diamond thief in the near future finds himself shackled with an exploding collar that will detonate if he gets too far from a sexy inmate with a hidden agenda.

The kinda movie whose trailer was frontloaded onto every video I rented in 1992! Far better than it has any right to be… definitely thanks to a B-Movie cast enjoying one last romp before they are relegated to the DTV doldrums. Everyone here goes big so you can enjoy this at home. It is a tie between Stephen Tobolowsky’s slimy warden and Joan Chen’s maniacal cackling moll over who vamps it up the best. Hauer and Rogers have sexy chemistry as The Defiant Ones who are gonna get it on. He plays neatly against type as a reluctant nerd coward who throws down like a boss only when absolutely necessary. The near future setting is lightly satirical… it is easier to think of it is an alternative 1991 rather than some far reaching prophetic dystopia. With all the chuckle worthy cheese on offer it is easy to forget it should be an action thriller first and foremost. I’d have preferred at least one more set-piece that involved the perfect plot hook of the deadly synced up bomb collars getting lethally distant from each other… but this throwaway flick is clearly here for a good time not for a long time. And on that it delivers.

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/

Stephen Surjik directs Mike Myers, Dana Carvey and Tia Carrere in this comedy sequel where the public access TV superstars try to put on a music festival.

A decent middle of the road retread of what made the first one a classic. Most of the revisited gags are a little staler this time around, the stars clearly have their eyes on their next projects but Ralph Brown has a lovely part as a demented roadie. An inoffensive, quick turnaround cash-in you don’t begrudge anyone for being involved in. It would be weirder if there was only one Wayne’s World movie but dispiriting if there were three or four.

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/