Frank Capra directs James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore in this festive classic where a family man feels trapped by his small town existence… and when he reaches a suicidal low ebb on Christmas Eve he is visited by an angel.

Wears the trappings of “Christmas”, “small town”, “family”, “duty” to absolutely grind a man down. Most of It’s A Wonderful Life is brutal. George Bailey is deafened, slapped and weigh down every time he does the right thing. Bedford Falls is a hell of small, cosy cuts. Like In The Mouth Of Madness I wouldn’t be surprised that if James Stewart tried to cross that bridge rather than jump off it he wouldn’t be looped back to the Savings & Loans. Fantasy aspects aside, I always mistakenly assumed Capra was a socialist at heart. Yet after reading Five Came Back by Mark Harris I’m reappraising my surface level take on the auteur. He’s a populist. As enamoured with fascism as he is with community. In his view of America, the one outstanding individual makes change and holds his finger in the dyke against corruption. The general population are fickle and just as capable of tearing the dam that protects them all down as repairing it. They need a messiah, a special one, a Mr Smith, John Doe or George Bailey. Need him to do the heavy lifting, the smart thinking, take their hits once a scapegoat is required. It’s a terrible life being one of Capra’s outstanding good guys. Merry Christmas from the mob.

10

Perfect Double Bill: Lost Horizon (1937)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Bryce McGuire directs Kerry Condon, Wyatt Russell and Amélie Hoeferle in this damp horror where a swimming pool grants wishes to those who feed it.

Competently made but painfully boring. Never jumps the rails.

2

Perfect Double Bill: The Amityville Horror (2005)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Hayao Miyazaki directs Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda and Aimyon
in this Japanese animation where a young boy meets a mysterious speaking heron after losing his mother during World War Two.

Very much a Studio Ghibli Greatest Hits. Weird little sad sack humanoid grotesques. Secret worlds. Cute edible floaters. This is slightly more grounded in adult emotions. There’s an obvious Miyazaki avatar lording it around in the shadows wanting to pass his creation on to another generation, hoping for safe hands. It could be half an hour shorter and the dream logic plotting means it is easy to drift off when we suddenly shift onto a new plane of existence. I really did love a lot of this and I’m not a die hard Miyazaki adherent.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Spirited Away (2001)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Sofia Coppola directs Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi and Dagmara Domińczyk in this biopic of Elvis’s child bride told from her point of view.

There’s definitely a movie here but the end result is quite watery and underwhelming. The look and the sound is utterly enthralling. The performances less so. This is an enigmatic biopic… leaving too much negative space for the gauche actors to get a little lost. Spaeny is fine, adrift in the glamour and living every high school girls dream. She and Coppola reign as they hint at the cult like community she is sucked into at Graceland. But the later suggestions of outright abuse and worse still come across as weak tea. Pretty much every marriage has moments where one partner loses their temper. Just all felt too obtuse… if you let it wash over you, rather than absorb you, Priscilla is… alright, momma.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Last Days (2005)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Dick Clement directs Ronnie Barker, Richard Beckinsale and Peter Vaughan in this spin-off movie from the hit British prison sitcom.

No massive shakes as a unique cinematic experience but manages to recreate the humour and the clever characters away from the fake studio sets and transplant it all into a real working nick. Which creates a strange, but not unworkable, shift in tone.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Stir Crazy (1980)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Lars Von Trier directs Michael Elphick, Esmond Knight and Meme Lai in this experimental neo-noir where a retired detective returns to Europe to investigate a serial killer who roams an existential wasteland.

Very much an exercise in style – the sepia dunked palette and the pointless puzzle plot grow wearisome very soon. This kinda meta nothing mystery movie seemed quite prevalent in the Eighties and is one of Von Trier’s rare exercises in genre. Has a few shocking moments… but these days those are the very least you now expect from Lars…

4

Perfect Double Bill: Epidemic (1987)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Ira Sachs directs Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos in this emotionally intelligent Parisian millennial drama where an absolute train wreck of a human being leaves his long term partner to explore a straight relationship after a one night stand… only to realise he has given up too much on a whim.

“Pssst… PSSSSTTT… Hey you!… Yeah, you… Come here… Wanna see Paddington Bear raw fuck another dude for five minutes straight?… Step right this way, my man…”

6

Perfect Double Bill: Lilting (2014)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Jiří Menzel directs Václav Neckář, Jitka Bendová and Josef Somr in this Czechoslovak New Wave comedy about a teenage virgin who suffers from premature ejaculation when he starts working at the local railway station.

And this is more Carry On than kitchen sink. It is hard to see what the sniggering, horny fuss is all about until the second half. The seduction by rubber stamp and the fallout where an irate mother displays her “defiled” daughter to every man of authority is probably the satirical highpoint. There is some pessimism and fatalism that you’d never find in an American Pie sequel… not yet. The resistance / sabotage subplot is no more hard hitting than ‘Allo ‘Allo! Maybe the reason Sixties Czech filmmakers were so interested in one recent occupation was it gave them the chance to comment on another, more current regime indirectly? Still, you’d struggle to see what the Criterion release and Oscar win were all about going in cold in 2024?

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Cremator (1969)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Terry Jones directs Julie Walters, Alec McCowen and Shirley Stelfox in this “based on a true story” British sex comedy where a struggling single mum becomes a madame for kink specialists.

David Leland’s second script adapting the life of Cynthia Payne for the big screen. This is a bit squigglier than Wish You Were Here, with Walters’ performance being less well defined than Emily Lloyd’s show stopping debut. More kitchen sink than Carry On, Personal Service is a grimy but affectionate portrait of a gang of sexual outsiders. The ensemble casting is key. The film comes alive during a farcical wedding but that sequence feels quite separate from the tone of the rest of the movie.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Wish You Were Here (1987)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Todd Solondz directs Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton III and Eric Mabius in this teen comedy where twelve-year-old Dawn Wiener is continually bullied by her school peers and her suburban family.

Matarazzo puts in one of the great coming-of-age lead turns here, up there with Léaud’s Antoine Doinel and Bel Powley in The Diary Of A Teenage Girl. The film is funny but pummelling. Bleak and without respite or judgment or moralising or hope. Welcome To The Dollhouse is an acidic independent but I’m not sure it has much more to say than the world is a hopeless hell of mediocrity and pettiness. And as much as I love glossier studio contemporaries from the Nineties, this feels like an outlier that almost needs to exist as a counterpoint. A good proving ground for Solondz’s ultra anxious, hyper cynical Happiness, I do wish he’d go back to basics and make something of this or that ilk again.

7

Perfect Double Bill: The Diary Of A Teenage Girl (2015)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/