Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro in this true crime epic where Native Americans who have struck oil in the Osage Nation are methodically infiltrated and killed off by predatory whites for their land rights.

Arty Marty. Closer in pace to Kundun and Silence – this is a meditation and a judgment rather than an entertainment. Sure, you get a similar downfall of a surface-only crime family as in Goodfellas or Casino. There are bad choices, violence and the deadly thrall of graspable wealth. America again. But at a palpable three and a half hours there were plenty of walkout in our sold out opening weekend screening. Walkouts when KotFM span it wheels. Walkouts when it was hard to keep up with the bounding passage of time. And walkouts very close to the end when it became clear that Leo wasn’t going to save the day and this was the polar opposite of a white saviour narrative. And I don’t blame those Saturday night tenderfoots. As consummately made, and as fascinatingly acted, as Killers of the Flower Moon is I won’t rush to rewatch (hence the below score). The middle section does get stuck in the mud, and it would be improved if we got much more of a sense of Lily Gladstone’s suspicions and turmoil that she might be being gaslit. Instead we follow the whites, hoping our gut instincts, history and the fucking title of the film aren’t a foregone conclusion. As we walk past the strangers getting off the train, the Klan casually parading behind us, the suit wearing wolves circling closer and closer, we hope for anything but the reality.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Nah… this is more than enough for one sitting.

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

Georges Franju directs Édith Scob, Pierre Brasseur and Alida Valli in this French shocker where a surgeon kidnaps Parisian beauties to steal their faces for his disfigured daughter.

Dream-like. Nightmare-esque. Full of extreme weirdness that goes just as hard as contemporaries Psycho and Peeping Tom. The never-ending fatal car rides. The iconic mask. The cellar full of caged dogs. Gothic and modern. The ending is full of the innocence of a fairytale. Everything else is just shock or boredom. Waiting for a face that isn’t your own but you hope will take.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Judex (1963)

My wife and I 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 Lowery directs Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander and Joel Edgerton in this fantasy adventure where feckless Gawain sets out on a doomed quest.

Lowery’s vision here is pretty stunning. Alien gargantuans roam the valley mists. Deaths are foretold in flash-forward detail. Every supernatural encounter seemingly has an erotic import bubbling away at the surface gallantry. I bet it smells as musty as a carrier bag full of conkers at the bottom of a kid’s wardrobe in December. Yet for all its beauty and horror The Green Knight feels kinda separate from the viewer, more like an intellectual exercise. The adventure and drama disappointed me slightly… but I would be keen to give it a second chance. On the big screen?

6

Perfect Double Bill: Excalibur (1981)

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

Ingmar Bergman directs Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan and Liv Ullmann in this Swedish chamber piece drama where two sisters and a loving maid prepare for a death.

Bold red. Sexual assignations. Jealousies and disconnections. I got more out of this than most Bergmans, plus the ladies are hotties. Interesting that this came out at the same time as The Exorcist as they share a lot of the same visual set-ups and claustrophobia.

7

Perfect Double Bill: The Silence (1963)

My wife and I 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 and Dean DeBlois direct Daveigh Chase, Tia Carrere and Ving Rhames in this animated comedy about an orphaned Hawaiian girl who befriends a fugitive alien who has been genetically engineered to be the ultimate destructive force.

First time revisiting this since the cinema release and it held up really well. Goes hard at the emotions but the comedy and the sci-fi aspects are strong too. Stitch is a wonderfully chaotic little creation. Nice use of Elvis and watercolour backgrounds. Feels like a true outlier in the post Walt Disney Renaissance wilderness doldrums.

7

Perfect Double Bill: The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

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

Joe Dante directs Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies and Kevin McCarthy in this blatant cheapie Jaws rip-off involving a mutated shoal of killer fish.

Listen… it isn’t very good by any reasonable sense of the term. Yet when Dante scribbles outside the lines of what Corman wants Pirahna chimes better than many slicker imitators. The off beat chemistry of the gawky leads. The self aware stunt casting of McCarthy, Paul Bartel, Barbara Steele and Dick Miller. All of whom sing. That weird little stop motion creature who appears in the lab for no reason. The stretched teases of the raft being unravelled and the water skier being ignored by his bimbo mates. It’s not right but it’s okay.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Pirahna II: The Spawning (1982)

My wife and I 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/

Joel Ashton McCarthy directs Alfred Hitchcock, Patricia Hitchcock and James Stewart in this documentary biography of The Master Of Suspense.

Nothing new here but a decent assemblage of his life, career and hang-ups. Why no Lifeboat or Strangers On a Train though?

6

Perfect Double Bill: Vertigo (1958)

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

Vaughn Stein directs Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Mike Myers in this crime mystery where a waitress / stripper entangles herself into the lives of two hitmen and a suicidal teacher for obscure reasons.

Vaugh Stein must maintain some murky hold over Robbie and Myers to get them to sign up for… this. There is a lot of star wattage and expensive production design crammed into a big nothing of an indie crime flick. The storytelling is very amateur – you’ll struggle to really understand what the plot wants to be in the first two acts. It really feels like a series of wannabe flashy scenes connected by claustrophobic geography. The two big twists are guessable, the acting arch and flat. Dexter Fletcher is the movie’s saving grace, his nasty piece of work understands the assignment. If you do select Terminal -brain switched off, hoping for Robbie in a series of kinky uniforms – then prepare to wonder why it all feels so sexless. I will say Christopher Ross’s cinematography plays with neon and flood lighting memorably. A rabbit hole nobody will want to fall down.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Kill Me Three Times (2014)

My wife and I 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/

Sylvain White directs Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana in this comic book action movie where a special forces unit fake their deaths to track down a shadowy figure who betrayed them.

Pretty standard Vertigo adaptation actioner. Think The A-Team with an R rating. More interested in visuals and gags than tension or urgency, The ensemble is very likeable and sweaty. Only Jason Patric’s utterly rotten big bad is doing anything above and beyond his usual MO. Considering he made a twenty five year long career as a bland lead, his scene stealing work here feels pretty special. Every time the storytelling feels pedestrian (which is a little too often) something momentarily excessive will happen to energise you.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The A-Team (2010)

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

Blake Edwards directs Peter Seller, Claudine Longet and Jean Carson in this Hollywood farce where a bungling Indian actor gets invited to a high end house party by mistake.

Dated, racist but does get laughs when the farce beds in. Sellers genuinely doesn’t need to be in brown face for any of the decent physical jokes to work.

5

Perfect Double Bill: The Mouse That Roared (1959)

My wife and I 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/