Baz Luhrmann directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan in this adaptation of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age fable about a man who acquires untold wealth to seduce the married woman he was too poor to propose to.

My favourite (respectable) book as a teen. This adaptation felt diminished on the small screen, less impressive on second watch. No director does saccharine doomed romance or overwhelming production design like Luhrmann but his other stylistic choices often are grating. This contains too much of the same braying franticness and musical naffness that makes Moulin Rouge unwatchable for me. This just about overcomes it’s frenetic ornateness thanks to some unguardedly vulnerable work by Leo and the sheer pure mystery of the source material. To accuse a Great Gatsby film of being OTT is churlish… so… there we are, old sport.

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/

Herbert Ross directs John Cusack, James Spader and Imogen Stubbs in this political drama about two college roommates who discover they have different ethics when they find themselves rising the Washington ladder.

Glossy, boiler plate stuff. It has the appearance of a gentle comedy from its sax heavy score and font chosen for opening credits. Though it is heavier by nature than those aesthetic choices it easily entertains throughout – the plot actually isn’t a million miles distant from The Talented Mister Ripley save a murder or two. If you want two quirky stars trying their hand at something adult with no inbuilt surprises this passes a weekday night pleasantly.

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/

Anthony Minghella directs Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow in this period psychological thriller where a young gay conman ingratiates himself into the lives and wealth of the idle American rich in Italy.

A very beautiful film, every shot feels sundappled and stinking of La Dolce Vita. The wardrobes alone are to die for, no wonder Tom Ripley kills to stay smartly attired. You get three bristling chest-out performances from Damon, Law and an egregiously spoilt Philip Seymour Hoffman. Any one of them is Oscar worthy and rewards repeated viewing. This is very much a class act. Visually it rarely puts a foot wrong, and it wears its intelligence proudly on its sleeve. I enjoy it thoroughly every time I watch it, though my preference is still for Purple Noon. The final act drifts a little too far away from the main drag, you know if you are still introducing pivotal characters to the plot in the final 15 minutes that maybe the adaptation could have used a little reigning in or folding together of players. Minor gripes about a film I return to often.

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/

Terence Young directs Sean Connery, Claudine Auger and Adolfo Celi in this fourth 007 spy adventure where a SPECTRE agent steals two nukes and holds NATO to ransom.

Here it is – plodding, directionless Thunderball. My least favourite Bond. Connery phones it in, the story take an hour to get going, the underwater “action” sequences move at deathly pace. The Bond girls are sexy and glamorous – Fiona Volpe’s redheaded assassin is the only real spark of life. The best action sequence involves her (a chase around a carnival and nightclub) and even that ends with a non-committal shrug. I’ll probably never watch Thunderball again, and there’s no other Bond I’d consider typing that about.

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/

Martin Scorsese directs Robert DeNiro, Cybil Shepherd and Jodie Foster in this paranoid character study where an insomniac cabbie slowly drifts into a world of loneliness and violence.

Maybe it took a blunt pastiche like last year’s Joker for me to completely discover the power of Scorsese’s original. This ain’t no theme park misanthropy, no soft play seedy, no safety scissor self-destruction. This has the ache and the negative energy of true cinematic oblivion. It bored me a little as a kid, the late night timings of its scheduling on TV meant I was exhausted by the drained operatic finale, adverts interrupting didn’t help… In my twenties I had fears that maybe the mirror was being held up. Me > Robert DeNiro > Travis Bickle. How do you marry up being a good person with the casual indifference you develop to the daily destitution you see on the city streets? How do you combat a wobbly sense of the self when every interaction you have with humanity feels false and doomed to rejection? How do you find love when your attitude towards women swings from white knight tendencies to over consumption of pornography? How do you take action in a world you detest when all efforts not to go with the sickly flow are seen as intense and overbearing? Luckily I’m surer of myself now, never suffered the curse of mental illness, know how to control my paranoia, anger and doubt to healthy levels. The closest I run to being a Travis Bickle these days is the occasional burst of rudeness or inappropriateness. But in my twenties… who knows how close I got… a few more bad decisions or unlucky days… Maybe I couldn’t get on board with Taxi Driver in my youth as it felt just a little too close to home. Now I’m mature, happy and have evolved tools to deal with other people on my terms… I can appreciate the urban hellscape Marty conjures up. Appreciate Paul Schrader’s fatal assessment on humanity. Appreciate Bernard Herrmann’s final mournful, rumbling score. Appreciate DeNiro’s hungry, desperate intensity. Appreciate how no-one can capture the colours and illuminations of a city like DoP Michael Chapman. Appreciate what a little powerhouse Jodie Foster always was and is. Travis got it wrong… Fuck Betsy (even though it is Shepherd’s best performance)! Iris… “THEY… CANNOT… TOUCH…HER!” The meters on, I’m in the second half of my life, I don’t think Taxi Driver will ever be elevated into my personal God Tier but I finally see the true qualities in it that you all could before me.

9

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/

George A. Romero directs Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea and Russell Streiner in this zombie horror where a ragtag group of survivors are besieged in a boarded up farmhouse.

“They’re coming to get you Barbara!” One of the true revolutions in cinema. Before this landmark, zombie movies were classy period dramas with a haunted ghoul… afterwards the hordes just got faster, hungrier, relentless. The fear of the mob, of the crowd, infection, loss of humanity… the 21st century’s fears predicted and given cheap celluloid form. Before this landmark, DIY indie movies were about hipsters farting about the streets of Manhattan but now you could make action, horror and thrillers on a shoestring budget. Romero proved you just needed your own energy, purpose, brute simplicity. Before this landmark, a black protagonist hardly existed on the screen unless it was a hero who conformed to white liberal Americas hypocritical standards of worthiness. Duane Jones’ Ben takes charge and takes action…“Now get the hell down in the cellar. You can be the boss down there, I’m boss up here!” Night of the Living Dead ain’t no museum piece, no milestone to be mentioned in essays then overlooked. It still grips as a movie nightmare, moves like its life depended on it, takes risks that still feel impactful. Romero’s claustrophobic framing helps, his complete abhorrence of narrative slack is essential.

9

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/

Danny Boyle directs Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox in this Scottish thriller about flatmates who discover a bag full of money in their spare room… and a corpse.

1994 – My sister came back from a late night showing of Shallow Grave and spent a morning regaling the entire family in our kitchen about its gory shocks. I wasn’t old enough to go see it in all its 18 certificate glory then but I was already in love. Boyle is fantastic at injecting energy into potentially tired early set-ups, making the fantastical have the ring of everyday truth, framing the unpleasant to maximise the nastiness and turning little knowns into bonafide movie stars. McGregor, Eccleston, Fox, Peter Mullan and Ken Stott all impress with quirky, often inscrutably magnetic, performances. And whether Shallow Grave assaults your ethical sensibilities or your stomach lining it plays out as an absolutely unhinged Hitchcockian carve-up. Trainspotting just about pips their debut to the post as McGregor or Boyle’s best but their breakthrough is still the taut stuff of nightmares. If you want a lesson in dark cinematic tension this has matured marvellously. Full bodied thrills.

10

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/

Jessica Hausner directs Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw and Kerry Fox in this sci-fi drama where a plant geneticist designs a flower that pollinates happiness but might delete all genuine emotions.

Visually this is a treat to look at from the colour coded laboratories to Beecham’s pale, buttoned-up wardrobe. If it was just a film about her choosing her silk tracksuit for household lounging I might give it 10/10. Unfortunately it is a stilted Invasion of the Body Snatchers reduction. Unwilling to deliver terror and happy to leave things so frustratingly open ended so you can scratch your head over whether its an allegory about the pressures of being a working mother, the pharmaceutical industry or conforming to societies ideas of sanity… or even the unfair distrust of mature women in working environments… If you can be bothered to care to scratch. There’s a lot potentially going on beneath the surface but once you take the tight production design out of the equation that surface is very thin. And stretched. Not enough happens to hold your attention for 90 minutes and this feature lasts almost two (painful) hours. The subtle dystopian ideas hinted at could have made better impact in a 20 minutes short. Boring ultimately.

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/

Chris Sanders directs Terry Notary, Harrison Ford and Omar Sy in this adaptation of Jack London’s classic adventure story where a soft dog finds his core as he travels further into the Yukon during The Gold Rush.

One of my favourite stories made without having to bully or mistreat or risk harm to its animal lead. Buck the dog must learn about the harshness of life and the cruelty of man’s club and whip to find his freedom. You can’t practically put a real pup through that to tell the tale. Is the CGI dog photorealistic? No. But like young Bobby De Niro in The Irishman, once you are invested in the characters and the narrative this only jerks you out of the story on very rare occasions. The tale-telling is good. Broad, child friendly, full of epic sweep and engaging peril. I felt fully connected to the adaptation, enjoying the human interactions (Ford does fine at appropriate half star power) and the canine drama. It is a kids adventure story with deeper meanings and messages than your average pap. If I had spawn I’d much rather take my brood to see this and enjoy its values than a Minions 2 or a Peter Rabbit 3.

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/

Michael Winterbottom directs Steve Coogan, David Mitchell and Isla Fisher in this satire (in all but spoken name) of disgraced high street fashion tycoon / sweatshop racketeer Philip Green.

Greed is the kinda film you really want to like. The talent and pedigree are strong – you know everyone’s heart is in the right place and they are capably trying their best. There are just enough funny, barbed moments to fill a trailer. You completely agree with its politics. But it has nothing revelatory to say and the ensemble drift about hoping for better material. You wish it landed twice or four times as many laughs. There’s a real feel of Altman’s Nashville or, perhaps damningly, Pret-A-Porter, where a mass of vapid people hang about an overhyped event. One of those is considered a classic, the other a bomb. I personally can’t tell their qualities apart but they are mirrored here. Or maybe if Winterbottom and Sony didn’t end it all on stats about inequitable wealth within the global garment trade that will shock absolutely no one. The only punch that really lands is a subtle one where a composite character ends up working back at a sewing machine in the UK. I assume the unexplained point is with workers rights and financial safety nets being eroded here after Brexit and a decade of Tory leadership, we are set to become a dystopia for the sweatshop conditions and poor pay lambasted within. Listen, any comedy with Coogan and Fisher featured prominently is going to be worth a peek. They are gifted comic actors both overskilled in portraying society monsters. And the lad who plays a young Coogan, Jamie Blackley, convinces utterly as a young Coogan. Shame the script feels like a raggedy first draft rather than a made-to-measure product.

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/