Paul Dano directs Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould and Jake Gyllenhaal in this 1960s-set family drama where a teenage boy starts to realise his parents are fallible human beings.

“Boy, boy, boy! Boy!” Confession – I don’t really rate Carey Mulligan. I might have to reassess that opinion. She is a powerhouse here. Shifting personality from Madonna to Whore in her son’s eyes when in reality she’s just surviving. Gyllenhaal is superb as usual as the depressed, unreliable father. His performance reminded me of Brad Pitt in The Tree of Life but this film is far subtler and controlled in its pretensions. Like The Ice Storm, this gets a sense of time, humanity and loss of innocence from the POV of a teenager absolutely correct. Dano is going to be a sensitive director of actors with a nicely restrained visual sense – his use of both colour and long shots are excellent. This is tense, heartbreaking but non-judgemental piece of debut filmmaking. I’m excited to see what he does next. Amanda Ford’s costume design is also spot-on.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Joseph Losey directs Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker and Virna Lisi in this Venice-set drama where a young author with inner demons falls for a malicious high class call girl.

Lust becomes a warzone. Jeanne Moreau’s enigmatic and callous siren manipulates, berates and destroys her prey. She slinks about to jazz records like a jigsaw puzzle piece. She appears at Venice landmarks like a phantom. She laughs in your face with animalistic glee as you forsake your last shred of dignity. It is a great physical performance by Jeanne Moreau who looks fabulous. Stanley Baker is a bit of a lunk so you have no real sympathy for him as the brainwashed victim of her sexy bullying. Italy looks damp, ornate and harsh – still very beautiful. Losey’s direction experiments with jump cuts and symbolism. Everything is desolate, and yet even the desolation is gorgeously enthralling. Would make a great double bill with Don’t Look Now.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Don Taylor directs Linda Hamilton, Geena Davis and James Franciscus in this TV movie espionage melodrama where young Russian girls are trained to be KGB honeytraps.

So an early crack at the plot of Nikita or Red Sparrow or Anna… but without any of the sex or violence. I guess you are supposed to get caught up in the across-the-superpowers romance. The direction is pretty flat, understandable for a TV production but Don Taylor directed Omen II and The Island of Doctor Moreau the decade before. Canada stands in awkwardly for Mother Russia. I watched mainly for Linda Hamilton but she’s pretty glum here.

3

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Jean Cocteau directs himself, François Périer and Marie Déa in this time -hopping eulogy to his own surreal ambitions.

Episodic French weirdness. Some of it beautiful, some of it smart, a lot of it up its own arse.

4

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Jean-Jacques Annaud directs Everett McGill, Ron Perlman and Rae Dawn Chong in this prehistoric adventure where three cavemen are sent out on a mission to save their tribe by stealing fire.

A genuinely captivating, pleasingly violent romp. Filmed on location in the wildest reaches of the globe, acted in grunts and made-up nonsense designed by Anthony Burgess. This is an epic production where you are intimately drawn into the leads quest, fears, vulnerability, arcs, lusts, desire and evolution.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Jean Cocteau directs Enrique Rivero, Elizabeth Lee Miller and Pauline Carton in this surreal classic where an artist becomes seduced and trapped by his own work and life.

Really just best to let the weirdness and iconoclasm wash over you in cinematic waves. Full of impressive practical effects work, conjuring and rug pulls.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directs Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler and Olivia Cooke in this teen drama where two film nerds befriend a school kid dying of cancer.

Cute… a little too cute. Jon Bernthal lightens things up as the least likely history teacher in cinema ever. RJ Cyler and Olivia Cooke put in really sweet turns. There’s a definite vision here. It is The Fault in Our Stars for yoots who think they are way too smart and too sophisticated for such manipulative fare. I actually prefer the schmaltzier, more mainstream doomed teen romance. The mawk here is a little too try hard, a little to too cool for school! The homemade spoofs of arthouse classics are fun. There’s no way these seventeen year old dorks have better and more expansive moving image tastes than… me. It is a false note like when in other teen movies there’s that precious 14 year old cutie who is into The Pixies and The Stone Roses. It just doesn’t ring true. Let’s make teen movies for the kids, the references shouldn’t reflect the fantasies of middle-aged screenwriters. Desperate that their tastes are still relevant. Gripe aside, this is cute. And sweet. And mawkish.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Ingmar Bergman directs Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann and Lena Nyman in this Swedish drama about a quiet, near suicidal daughter confronting her feckless yet domineering mother when she visits her country home for a rare stay.

More bloody miserablism. Well acted though… especially the still elegant and glamorous Ingrid Bergman in her challenging swansong. Some of the formal experimentation I liked (the background character of the husband’s third person introduction to our lead), some I hated (endless shots of a screaming disabled woman being ignored).

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Gus Van Sant directs Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon and Joaquin Phoenix in this indie crime satire where a local weather girl persuades some horny high schoolers to off the husband holding her back from fame.

Like contemporaries The Young Poisoner’s Handbook and Heavenly Creatures, this is one of those mid- 90s ambivalent true crime adaptations that doesn’t want to stand in judgement of the murderers so much as the society that inspired them to commit such awful acts. In all honesty, while the acting is consistent in a deadpan camp kinda way and the direction quirky… I, Tonya pretty much takes the same elements and creates a funnier, darker and more scathing romp. No discredit to anyone involved here but the tales and tone are so similar you might as well just watch the superior version.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/

Adrian Shergold directs Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine and Tony Pitts in this drama about a working class Northern woman who escapes poverty and violence by becoming a Working Man’s Club comedian.

A Richard Hawley from The Longpigs soundtrack. A setting in the 1970s cabaret scene (before Alternative Comedy and observational stand-up). A lead movie performance from left-wing National Treasure Maxine Peak. There was a lot that attracted me to Funny Cow on paper. I missed it at the cinema due to the only screenings being available in my free time being Mother & Baby exclusive. I’m going to be honest… it wasn’t the film I was expecting. It is grimmer and grittier than you’d ever want it to be, with a couple of later lurches into tragedy bursting the bubble of believability. You’ll know the bit of extremely forced pathos I mean if you’ve seen it. Funny Cow isn’t in any interpretation a feelgood film… it often makes Ken Loach’s similar brand of polemic feel comparatively fluffy and carefree. The storytelling shifts fluidly through time, playfully… but often just to rush us into the next bludgeoning moment of misery. The working men’s club scene is recreated with accuracy. They don’t soft sell the protagonist and pretend she was an original voice or anachronistically didn’t give the audiences the racism they were used to. The victory here is the balls she found to get up on stage and go against everyone’s preconception of her, and women in comedy in general. In that respect the film does not strike a false note. It clearly is a passion project of Peake’s and you do have to wonder what BAFTA were thinking when she wasn’t nominated. She completely commits to a wild, often unsympathetic and abrasive turn. It saves the film from its self pitying urges. I suppose the luvvies have their own reasons and their own darlings. Worth a punt if you don’t want a fun night in.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s 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/