Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Marc Forster directs Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko and Mathieu Amalric in this all action direct sequel to Casino Royale which sees Bond hunting down Vesper’s killers and uncovering a wide reaching geopolitical cartel that operates in the shadows.

I am not being contrary when I say I absolutely, utterly, sincerely love this one. It looks lush, the dialogue is pared back (thanks writer’s strike) so that it almost feels like an art film in the moments and the bang bang is relentless. It suffered from constant online snark once they announced they were using one of Fleming’s more esoteric titles. Hobbling it within the groupthink culture before we even saw a trailer. And people who don’t love Bond didn’t get what they want. Boo hoo! They care about car porn, Bond having the rules of golf or a board game explained to him and a certain embarrassed winking excess around the tropes. I want a movie that accepts the villain should be pure howling evil, the women beautiful but disposable and the physical razzmatazz is front and centre. Go watch Skyfall if you want a legacy Bond for the casual fan. I turn up to every entry and live and breathe them for the years in between. BASTARD BOND! COLD BASTARD BOND! This is all the way up there with the series high points. It does it for me from scarring demolition derby chases around Lake Garda to the scorching detonating hotel infernos in the Atacama desert. The leanest, angriest Bond ever and an all action extravaganza. Just had a check, dickheads and 007 first and foremost is an action franchise. And Jack White and Alicia Keys theme song… an absolute rabble rousing stomper!

10

Perfect Double Bill: Casino Royale (2006)

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Michael Chaves directs Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson and Mia Tomlinson in this horror sequel where paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren take on one final case involving a cursed mirror.

All the old tricks megamixed. Teases us constantly that one of the Warrens is about to peg it. The end of school celebration atmosphere is very cheesy. These flicks have long lost the fear factor but they are about as cosy and prestigious as mainstream studio horror gets.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Ethan Coen directs Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans in this sex comedy thriller about a lesbian private investigator who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church.

Goofy hard boiled larks. Doesn’t add up to the sum of its parts but is unassumingly breezy, silly and horny. Qualley oozes star power and Evans, Charlie Day and Lera Abova are all memorable presences. Just go with it.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Go Beavers (2026)

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

Joan Freeman directs Melissa Leo, Randall Batinkoff and Dale Midkiff in the VHS exploitation flick where a teen runaway lands in New York and begins turning tricks for an unstable pimp.

Roger Corman gave more female directors a break than mainstream Hollywood ever did in the Eighties. Been a competent crew member on one of his productions before? Well as long as the poster was grabby, there was nudity and violence contained within, then he knew he could sell it, he gave you a shot. Streetwalkin’ can be absorbed as straight arrow sleaze. Yet it walks a line between being non judgmental about sex work without glamourising it. You can put a roof over your head in the big bad city if you can deal with the pimp battles and creepy johns. The survive-the-night thriller elements often happen at a remove from our heroine until the finale. So we just hangout in the milieu. Future Oscar winner Leo, in her film debut, is unsurprisingly vivid in her acting, adding an emotional consistency to her farm girl turned lady of the night… she also looks smoking in the buff. There were a few of these prostitute thrillers churned out in Eighties. This is, in my book, the best of the bunch.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Angel (1984)

Elia Kazan directs Marlon Brando, Lee J. Cobb and Eva Marie Saint in this crime drama about union corruption on the docks.

Very much a beast of its time. All the sweaty method machismo and didactic preaching. It looks wonderful and the scenes between Brando and Eva Marie Saint have heat and hope. The classic Contender dialogue between Marlon and Rod Steiger still causes the hairs to go up on the back of your neck. But there is that unmistakable lingering bad taste that this is a movie justifying snitching. Nobody likes a grass, Elia.

8

Perfect Double Bill: The Chase (1966)

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David O. Russell directs Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Amy Adams in this fictional crime drama based on the Abscam FBI sting that employed conmen to root out political corruption in the early Eighties.

A sleazy and silky blast. Everyone is playing a role up at 11 so it is as much a movie about acting. Cocaine acting. Except Jennifer Lawrence… for she is just plain loco. In a really exciting way. The screen lights up during her iconic scenes and considering the talent around her, that is quite the achievement. I still think this is up there with American Psycho as one of Bale’s best performances. Pathetic but just self aware enough that you care. The Batman casting often sees him used by Hollywood as a go to gruff, macho persona. That never rings true no matter how many hours in the gym or scruffy he grows out his beard. He is far more suited to playing men living a lie. Patrick Bateman. Those twins in The Prestige. Bruce Wayne. This. That is how you squeeze the sauce out of his method intensity. I have seen this effortlessly entertaining movie dismissed as a Goodfellas wannabe. The period fashions. The fast edit storytelling. The true crime trappings. OK. Explain to me why movies shouldn’t aspire to be as good as Goodfellas? A sexy, comedy tinged Goodfella? Cool. Just enjoy the ride and Amy Adams very revealing disco couture.

8

Perfect Double Bill: The Fighter (2010)

Bigas Lunas directs Biel Duran, Mathilda May, and Gérard Darmon in this erotic Spanish coming-of-age tale where a Catalan boy cannot stand the idea of having a new brother and dreams about drinking milk from the breasts of his mother again until a carnival dancer with perfect tits enters his life.

Idiosyncratic horny craziness. There is a whole ton of stuff going on here. Lunas’ breathless, zany style of wholesome perversion owes as much to French Cinema Du Look as it does his countryman Almodovar. I definitely watched this late night on Channel 4 as a teenager. As adolescent fantasies go it is memorable but also a one-watcher. Almost more a 90 minute naughty seaside postcard rather than a fully thought out narrative.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Golden Balls (1993)

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

Penelope Spheeris directs Chris Pedersen, Bill Coyne and Flea in this punk alienation flick.

Bad acting and pretty dull when the music ain’t pumping. There is animal cruelty, nihilism and a working parallel between the abandoned kids and unemployed older men who vilify them. It is a movie that begins and ends with a death of a small child. The first is dog attack, out-of-the-blue shock, the capper is an unabashed melodramatic cliche. Bad behaviour but not much fun. You’ll need to wash your eyeballs after. Spheeris’ career trajectory from punk documentaries to this to Wayne’s World to toothless nostalgic TV remakes has to be one of the stranger Hollywood creative journeys in my lifetime.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Out Of The Blue (1980)

Alan Beattie directs Patricia Pearcy, David Hayward and Joseph Cotten in this mystery where a new nurse in a rich man’s house keeps uncovering strange goings ons.

A drunk butler, a crippled sugar daddy, a backwards stepchild in the attic, a seductive yuppie, a long lost relative raised in a cult with no social barrier and a doomed Alsatian. Part chiller, almost a slasher. Patricia Pearce might not be the best actress in the world but she is very nice to look at. A vacant, keeps putting herself in vague peril, type of hotness. The movie doesn’t add up to much at all but it gets the eerie atmosphere down pat.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Madhouse (1981)

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Tony Richardson directs Laurence Olivier, Roger Livesey and Joan Plowright in this British drama where a fading music hall entertainer reaches the bitter end of his career.

Grim but emotionally astute. It’s a shit business.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Look Back In Anger (1959)