Parker Finn directs Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt and Lukas Gage in this horror sequel where the smiling curse moves onto a pop star just as she is about to embark on a gruelling comeback tour.

Again, more a chiller than a horror with massive debts to Repulsion and J-Horror. The backstage of a world tour setting adds pageantry and pizazz. Naomi Scott heavy lifts for the bulk of the movie. She convinces as a world famous singing sensation, a mentally fragile diva and a doomed doll in a demon’s psychological toy box. Bloody and grinding in equal measure my only real beef with the ambitious but mainstream Smile movies is they stretch a nippy Twilight Zone hour over twice the runtime. They play like emotional marathons. Intentional maybe, but this is going to restrain me from rewatching regularly.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Malignant (2021)

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Bronwen Hughes directs Sandra Bullock, Ben Affleck and Maura Tierney in this road movie romantic comedy.

Let’s direct an aggressively anti-marriage It Happened One Night in an ugly world that looks like the fake reality from The Matrix? Will it have likeable characters? Will it have a happy ending? Ugh!

3

Perfect Double Bill: Practical Magic (1998)

Ben Stiller directs Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Janeane Garofalo in this twenty something teen movie / romantic comedy / Generation X time capsule.

Forget Top Gun and Pulp Fiction. This has the Greatest Movie Soundtrack Of All Time! OK… maybe it’s neck and neck with Dazed And Confused’s OST. The movie itself is a little mercenary. Rather cack handedly trying to define an era as it was happening. While the plot is basically an update on Alcott / Austen / Brontë. Will our self aware heroine chose love or security… both choices come with a loss of independence, integrity and artistry. Both suitors are absolute states. And everyone else is insufferable too. Still, it is trying to be adult, cuter and edgier than Friends in passing. Winona feels like she is playing a human being who does shopping and laundry which was a rarity in the Nineties. There are some good laughs. The script has wit that rounds off the cliched tartness and those fool’s errand attempts to be seminal. And because it was marketed as THE Generation X movie, nostalgia now means it fulfils that destiny. We all know Before Sunrise is the actual Gen X movie that got things right. I kinda love Reality Bites in spite of itself.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Empire Records (1995)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin

Clint Eastwood directs Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette and J. K. Simmons in this courtroom drama where an everyman finds himself serving on a jury in a murder case where he not only believes the suspect to be innocent but he himself might be responsible for the victim’s death.

Somber and elegiac. Hoult reins it in with an internalised performance surrounded by a wonderful ensemble. What a brilliant sweet spot his career is in right now! It doesn’t go for the explicit thriller manoeuvrings of a Grisham but often it feels like knowingly playful update on 12 Angry Men. Much like Mystic River and A Perfect World this is an adult exploration of shared guilt and American justice hidden within a glossy morality play. Shame it didn’t reach a wide audience. 20 years ago it would have been THE Oscar front runner.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Mystic River (2003)

Len Wiseman and Chad Stahelski direct Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves and Gabriel Byrne in this action spin-off where an orphaned girl trains to be a killer bodyguard within the John Wick universe.

There are an un-tally-able amount of moments of people getting walloped in the crotch in this. Knees, rubber bullets, actual bullets. Bad time for genitals. The “ballerina” aspect seems to be stop gap marketing idea from seven years ago never truly fulfilled in the finished movie. “Kikimora” would be the more apt title for the finished product. As that is what Ana de Armas’ pretty but sexless blank trains up to become. She is essentially a Gen Z Nikita and Anne Parilaud even has a blink and I missed it cameo according to the credits in tribute to that hit girl classic. Everyone is getting old. The action is very much more of the same… only the cuts are quicker to cover up de Armas’ heavily relied upon stunt doubles. If you got bored of the constant grappling and shooting and slamming in past entries, then this doesn’t offer much more variation than previous ones. Having said that, Ballerina does become at least a bit more slapstick and spectacular in the second half. There is a rumble through a workshop with grenades that feels excessively silly and the finale involving duelling flame throwers has certainly never been done before. Allegedly, series mastermind Stahelski reshot all these sequences after Wiseman’s cut got weak test scores. And that shows. The last act is way more involving, inspired and pulse raising than the rather lacklustre seen-it-all-before build-up. Of course it helps that Keanu crops up for a prominent reprise in the third act. If you like gun-fu, comic book world building and puce lighting, then this fifth trip out of The Continental does hit the spot. I guess I still do.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Anna (2019)

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Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein direct Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt in this legacy sequel to the horror accidental death franchise.

The teens at my library told me they snuck in to see this through the fire exit and I look like the guy who got his brains eaten up by a lawnmower! Not exactly a compliment but I’ll take it. Awesome prolonged Sixties-set opening at a doomed skytower restaurant. Some franchise high kills and teases. Likeable final girl. Tony Todd’s lovely final monologue of his career. Probably the best one yet.

Jonathan Entwistle directs Ben Wang, Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio in this intertwining of all the iterations of the Karate Kid series… “Two Branches, One Tree.”

Miyagi-Do is back and now… well… Now my wife wants to learn kung-fu. Super colourful. They make the sensible decision to give the kid the first half to himself before Jackie and Ralph can dominate the limelight. At one point he is training Pacey Witter. It can’t get cooler than that. Just a lot of good hearted fun. The tournament resembles an arcade game and there’s an alley fight sequence where Wang recreates all of Jackie’s energy and moves. What more could you want in a Sunday morning multiplex trip?

Two pleasant surprises that weren’t even on my radar a few months ago. Feeding nostalgia hunger pangs that I didn’t know I even had.

6/6

Frank Marshall directs Jeff Daniels, Julian Sands and John Goodman in this creature feature thriller where small town USA is taken over by killer spiders.

This was the first movie I went to see without parents or my big sister. My mates and me absolutely freaked at the scene when a killer spider makes it way down the wet torso of an oblivious girl in the shower. We were standing up screaming and hooting and hollering. We had such a good time, this was our Minecraft “Chicken Jockey” moment. Holds up well. It ain’t Gremlins or Jaws but has that unmatchable Amblin mood. Great jungle prologue, decent family friendly scares, spider sex scene, Goodman comic relief and Jeff Daniels is always primo.

7

Perfect Double Bill: *batteries not included (1987)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin

Brett Ratner directs Jackie Chan , Chris Tucker and Tzi Ma in this rote buddy cop comedy where mismatched police officers are assigned to rescue a Chinese diplomat’s abducted daughter.

“I didn’t like the movie. I still don’t like the movie. I don’t like the way I speak English, and I don’t know what Chris Tucker is saying. If you see my Hong Kong movies, you know what happens: Bam bam bam, always Jackie Chan-style, me, 10 minutes of fighting.” – Jackie Chan

Love Jackie. Hate Tucker. Why is it even called Rush Hour? Because of the one throwaway line by a henchman?!

5

Perfect Double Bill: Rumble In The Bronx (1995)

Renny Harlin directs Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane and Samuel L. Jackson in this shark actioner where smart predators flood and take over a scientific installation.

Everyone remembers this for Samuel L Jackson’s speech. Premium in-flight entertainment centre trash. Saffron Burrows’ “scientist” is just a pretty body to ogle but Jane and Jackson are both top value. It is essentially a soaking wet Jurassic Park in terms of formula. The kills make their way down the credits with few surprises. At the start of most scenes you can tell exactly whose turn it is to become shark lunch next. Almost like the spotlight resets onto them ominously. LL Cool J’s chef has own little bonus movie away from the doomed ensemble and that is even dumber. Burger King cinema. Everyone else does it better but once in a while you just need to check in for yourself that the Whopper still exists.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Shallows (2016)

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Soi Cheang directs Louis Koo, Sammo Hung and Richie Jen in this Hong Kong martial arts epic where an immigrant tries to survive the gangs of lawless Kowloon in the Eighties.

A throwback to A Better Tomorrow but at triple speed and with gaudy stylings. The fights and wire work are impressive, graceful yet chaotic. The dedication in recreating the high rise slums of Kowloon with sets and CGI is laudable. And just so motherfuckers can be dropkicking each other about it too! This has oodles of plot, back story, sidebars and revelations. It can be way too dense at times. Just let the story wash over you. Philip Ng is on fire as the ambitious evil henchman and we are always going to want to see Sammo.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Limbo (2021)