Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Benny Safdie directs Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt and Ryan Bader in this true story from the early days of the UFC.

Three super strong lead performances. The Rock has never pushed himself like this. His portrayal of Mark Kerr is complex and unvarnished. Blunt is stellar as always. There is a little hidden tell about their mutually toxic relationship. She only ever wears monotone, he thinks she loves colours. Two people living a lie about each other. But the actual surprise is non-actor Ryan Bader. A former MMA star who you root for as everything falls apart with his friend. Safdie makes a Cassavetes / Leigh “actor’s movie” with a A-List stars and first timers. We watched this at an open air cinema in Greece and the weather took a swerve towards Baltic just as the first act started ramping up. So this viewing was a bit of a shivering grind personally and still it shone.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Beyond The Mat (1999)

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Paul Thomas Anderson directs Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor in this soap / revolutionary action movie.

He is a cinematic genius so expectations are always sky high. PTA tends to marinate with me over time. The first bite is always a first step with him. Natalie would argue Sean Penn’s hideous Colonel Lockjaw is the main character here and she may have a point. He wants something, has drive, a quest and takes action. Everyone else is a quitter disrupted by his wake of right wing bully boy horny malignant chaos. Penn’s performance is hilarious and chilling. Top villain. The code speak phone call, the third act multistrand chase, anything with Benicio Del Toro’s sensei. Yeah, yeah! Looking forward to watching again and seeing how I truly feel about this. Glad Anderson has finally managed to tame a Pynchon adaptation.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Inherent Vice (2014)

Stephen Poliakoff directs Saskia Reeves, Clive Owen and Alan Rickman in this erotic drama where a brother and sister start an ill advised affair with each other.

Feels very par for the course for this pre Four Weddings / Trainspotting era of British cinema. Funded by telly, dreary and with just enough forbidden nudity to keep you watching. If you can get past the criminal kink then this has some strong sex scenes. Everyone’s performances are a little too oblique but they look nice. Has its moments beyond the taboo bonking.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Cement Garden (1993)

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William Webb directs Richard Hatch, Shawn Weatherly and Leif Garrett in this erotic thriller where a rich brother and sister are crazed killers who stalk a phone sex chat line.

Starts very strong with nudity and incestuous psychos. Then it assumes you have blown your load and doesn’t do much else but hangout in nightclub parking lots. There is a Nancy Drew style babysitter who goes from potential victim to Leo Getz. We care far more about her and the shameless baddies than the cop and psychologist who get the spotlight. Hits its contractual runtime and ends abruptly with a whimper. Shaft turns up for one day’s filming.

4

Perfect Double Bill: The Banker (1989)

Clint Eastwood directs John Cusack, Kevin Spacey and Lady Chablis in this true crime drama where a puff piece magazine writer stays to cover a murder trial when his flamboyant millionaire host is charged with killing his working boy.

Not as tiresome as I remember. Though as a teen I was probably expecting something a bit more Grisham and a lot less flaming when I rented the VHS. It almost doggedly does not have the thrust of an airport novel. More a Savannah hangout movie which is stolen away from the A-Listers in the second half by Lady Chablis. The Lady Chablis, also known as The Grand Empress and The Doll, was a transgender club performer who Clint gives a sympathetic and generous eye to. She plays herself and is allowed to vamp and be human as her mood and the meandering story dictates. Not that the notorious Kevin Spacey doesn’t hold the attention. He sure is a charismatic bastardo. I miss him in films and his part here is retroactively on the nose irony supreme. Bless his gropey little heart. There actually isn’t enough of him really. Both Alison Eastwood and Paul Hipp make you wanna write one of those “Where Are They Now?” letters to Empire. If this awards bait movie had captured the public’s hearts and minds a tad more in 1997 then they’d both be household names now I’d wager. But, alas, pretty much every character is queer or straight washed so it had no real currency then or has even less today. Compromised. One of Clint’s lost experiments. Did you know this has been adapted into an Off-Broadway musical? Best thing for it.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Where The Crawdad Sings (2022)

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Peter Yates directs Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Edward Fox in this backstage drama where a fey assistant tries to keep his tyrannical employer, a mentally fading Shakespearean actor, on the rails for one last performance of Lear.

A filmed play. My least favourite medium but given the theatre setting we can give this one a pass. Two full fat, high camp performances that rollick against each other. It is dark but I chuckled a lot. I wonder if The League Of Gentleman lads love this. The camp and mutually assured destructive marriage of monsters feels like a massive part of their DNA.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Noises Off (1992)

James Glickenhaus directs Robert Ginty, Samantha Eggar and Christopher George in the NYC Vietnam vet vigilante flick.

The one-sheet promised a flame thrower wielding, motorbike helmet flexing, spin on Death Wish and Taxi Driver. The Death Wish comparisons hold up. Half the budget is blown on a Vietnam death camp prologue. Hueys buzz around between plumes of gasoline explosions, Stan Winston pulls off an early decapitation effect. Then the credits! The only way is up once we hit the streets of the Big (rotten) Apple, right? Not really. The first act is confusing. Ginty is such a charisma suck non-presence that it comes as a surprise once he emerges as our psychotic anti-hero. The evil fodder is ghastly and sleazy but short lived. There’s a bike chase but very little flame thrower. Eggar and George are the best things in it. Enjoying their own little completely superfluous side movie. Trash that is inches away from being very entertaining but that dead chubby faced vanilla lead fumbles it.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Exterminator 2 (1984)

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

Yorgos Lanthimos directs Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe in this kinky anthology where the same cast plays different roles in mini dramas that are deadpan power plays about control and desire.

Every world has its flawed god. The first story is cruelly amusing, the second the most provocative and the third drags. Perception plays a huge part in how you relate to each of these and the second story works as it slowly dawns on us that we have been backing the wrong protagonist from the start. Tales Of The Unexpected with flashes of nudity and perversion. How much you are into sad faced fucking and manipulative control is on you. If you loved Lanthimos’ earlier Greek efforts this well made 3 hour indulgence might tickle you more than it did me.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Alps (2011)

Mike Nichols directs Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Jeff Daniels in this drama where a magazine writer marries a cad journalist.

Exactly the type of movie that I would have watched on TV as a kid, not understood and therefore it didn’t gel into the long term memory banks. You see they used to make movies just for adults back then. And us nine year olds just sat through the infidelity and tiffs as the swearing had been dubbed out. The entertainment would have been seeing two great performances, a witty script and some wealth porn. The melodrama is a bit hard faced and it doesn’t help the overall mood of the piece that Jack steals every scene. The reality of the situation is of course he is fucking around. What else are you bringing to bed but a load of neuroses and a big sharer bowl of pasta. Jack had to get his. Fans of Ephron’s later, more magical, rom coms might find this a bit too intellectual and tough skinned. I’m actually not sure it is as smart as it thinks it is.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

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Jonathan Demme directs Juanita Brown, Roberta Collins and Barbara Steele in this women in prison exploitation flick from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.

Early exploitation Demme that, one or two scenes aside, doesn’t feel all the predatory. The first hour is a grindhouse Orange Is The New Black. The last twenty widens out and amps up the action. All the inmates have quirks and heart. Still fulfils what the dirty mac brigade would have required back then… and at least one of those scenes of sexual threat is quite abrasive. On the whole though… fun.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Big Doll House (1971)