Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Marc Lawrence directs Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader and Shirley MacLaine in this Christmas movie where Santa’s daughter must track down her brother in the real world after he runs away from inheriting the family birthright.

Anna Kendrick sparkles as the eponymous Noelle, in a kids movie performance that is expertly open yet hides a quality thread of keen self awareness. I don’t think we will challenge Elf, the most obvious inspiration, yet this is far more likely to become a surviving seasonal perennial than Fred Claus or Arthur Christmas. There’s enough unabashed joy and charm here to buoy up the formula. Sometimes simplicity, good production design and a nice smile is all you need when you put the decorations up and want to get in the festive mood.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Santa Claus The Movie (1985)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Warren Beatty directs himself, Al Pacino and Charlie Korsmo in this comic book adaptation about the prohibition era detective who takes on all the grotesque gangsters of his matte background city.

The summer after Warner Bros’ Batman rewrote the blockbuster map, Walt Disney’s Dick Tracy tried to pull the same trick off again with weaker results. Merchandising and marketing was on point in 1990. The tri colour Dick Tracy logo was everywhere and on everything. I had a Dick Tracy official watch, I remember that watch more than the movie. This is a hot mess upon a cautious revisit. It looks eye popping but that’s about all you can say. Beatty’s hero feels a little lost in an oversized but elegant yellow Burberry coat and an inappropriate schmuck’s shrug. I’m sure when Chester Gould created his primary coloured Elliot Ness in the 1930s he never imagined him played with the gormless, spineless tone of the airhead from Shampoo.

A fantastic cast of villains are slathered in prosthetics. I have no real issue with this, it is one of the movie’s long lasting selling points, but there’s so many freaks that you lose track of who is who. Clearly the thinking was if Jack Nicolson could deliver the biggest opening ever as a flamboyant yet deformed villain then imagine what we money we could make with Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman and James Caan and William Forsythe and a dozen more names drowned in pink rubber… There are montages instead of action and moping instead of sleuthing.

Glenne Headley and Madonna are the best things in it as the good girl and bad girl respectively. Though Madge’s revealing costumes make a mockery of the PG certificate. Not that I’m complaining. I just get the feeling once this was storyboarded and cast and Stephen Sondheim agreed to provide a few tunes, Beatty got bored or realised he was above all this. Dick Tracy makes for a very stilted adventure romp, the IMDB trivia proving far more fun than sitting through its unconvincing lurches at being an entertainment.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Darkman (1990)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Wolf Rilla directs Terence Morgan, Yoko Tani and Mai Zetterling in this British thriller where a petty thief seduces an exotic innocent and stumbles onto a big score.

Teatime crime that probably felt quite hardhitting in its day. It takes most of the movie before the heist even dominates the action but the build up is pleasant in its own right. The swindle – involving tunnelling into an embassy vault via the London Underground… makes for a pretty gripping finale. The real location work adds to the atmosphere. Dennis Price and William Hartnell hit their marks perfectly, elevating stock supporting roles.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Strongroom (1962)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Kaneto Shindo directs Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura and Kei Satō in this Japanese folk horror where a mother and daughter-in-law of a missing farmer kill for profit the samurais who get lost in their overgrown fields.

Onibaba translates as “Demon Hag” allegedly. This is a simple, eerie tale – very atmospheric and surprisingly sexed up. The horror is quite real world; starvation, plague, decomposition, loneliness, war. Though the samurai’s mask that has become the keystone image for this classic is quite the spooky piece of iconography. The hole where the bodies is dumped is also such a potently realised location you can see it still echoing throughout J-horror to this day. Nobuko Otowa’s lead performance has to be one of the best pieces of acting in the genre’s history.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Rashomon (1950)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Terry Gilliam directs John Neville, Sarah Polley and Eric Idle in this fantasy adventure where an ageing adventurer, whose very existence is the stuff of tall tales, quests to reassemble his old band of super powered cohorts to rescue a besieged city.

Folly. Whimsy. Bullshit. And at a scale that near bankrupted the production on the first week. There’s lots about this epic extravaganza of the imagination that would never be attempted now in such an ambitious combination: the on-location shoot, the rickety practical FX, the unknown leads, the zig zagging narrative, the period setting. I’m not saying we’ll never see a blockbuster (failed) again with some of these elements but never all together and so defiantly prominently. Gilliam is one of the great visualists, one the greatest agitators of neat plotlines and the uncluttered screen, one of the last true rebels who found his way (uncomfortably) into the studio system. His dreams are chaotic, meaningful, grainy and gargantuan. This has so many fine moments; Robin Williams as the King of the Moon, Uma Thurman emerging PG nude from an oyster shell like a Botticelli Angel, a race against a bullet, a sultan’s torture machine cum musical instrument, the JFK assassination remade in Napoleonic garb, the victor’s grin on the face of Neville’s gonad led titular protagonist. So it can be too hazardous to fully keep track of, and you can notice sequences where the planned scale has been fudged and cut back on by the moneymen… there’s still so much unique wonder on display here you can’t help but be swept along. Meta narratives and full scale battles, stunts and monstrosities. This is a true celluloid beauty, undeserving of its turkey reputation. So…it cost way too much and made hardly anything… Munchausen is the cinematic bastard that dreams are made of.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Time Bandits (1981)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Frank Darabont directs Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden and Toby Jones in this horror where a town is besieged by a opaque mist which contains creatures from another dimension.

Most current conversations about The Mist focus on its infamously devastating and bleak ending. It is a one-off humdinger. One so shocking and daring that you might not even have seen such a thing attempted in the decade of pessimistic finales: the Seventies. That’s just one of this Stephen King adaptation’s standout strengths. Darabont shrinks America into a crowded supermarket and the realpolitik of the besieged survivors feels like an even more apt assessment of the USA now than it did 15 years ago. And the always reliable Thomas Jane gets his showiest lead role and finds real vulnerability inbetween the more macho stuff. Yet what I really wanna talk about is the Lovecraftian monster FX work. Which is just superb. Outstanding in this modern era, combining sublime design with expert execution. Take a bow KNB EFX Group this must be your finest hour. A set of invading tentacles attached to some unseen gargantuan. A skinless pterodactyl eating every moving thing in sight. Five generations of acid web shooting arachnid, each larger than the next. Terrifying beasts from beyond which cause carnage with frequent excess. The Mist is a horror movie so perfect that even though I know Darabont shot it with a Black & White release in mind I always watch the colour one. I love it in its originally released form so why mess with perfection?

10

Perfect Double Bill: Maximum Overdrive (1985)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Mike Mills directs Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffman and Woody Norman in this road movie where a sensitive uncle looks after his sister’s precocious kid.

Mike Mills is 3 for 3 in terms of directing impactful little movies. His work feels personal yet entertaining. Crafted yet profound. Intimate yet universal. I bet you a red £50 note he’ll never make a Marvel movie. This is essentially a very classy take on Uncle Buck. The cityscape monochrome photography looks as good as Manhatthan did back in 1980. The performances are note perfect, even the child and especially Joaquin who goes from strength to strength every project. Families and communication come to the fore. “Blah blah blah” in a good way. This leans into essayist mode occasionally but that feels somewhat organic, the strongest voices stitched into the patchwork form are the kids being interviewed. Mills makes a hopeful and persuasive case that theirs are the voices that make the most sense to listen to in this world full of noise and opinions. Highly recommended.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Paper Moon (1973)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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 Pavlou directs David Dukes, Kelly Piper and Ronan Wilmot in this Irish monster movie where an ancient fertility demon tears up and possesses a backwater hamlet.

Clive Barker adapted his short story into a script and then disowned it. The titular monster looks like a gargantuan prototype for an action figure; stiff, plastic and with cheap red diode light up eyes. The director doesn’t have the common sense to hide the contemptible disappointment in the shadows or offer us only quick glimpses of the failed creation. His camera lingers on Rawhead Rex fully illuminated in all his fake, unconvincing laughable glory. A rare Irish horror, sadly one that has little going for it aside from a certain cruel streak. Runs out of steam long, long before a specteral finale featuring animated lightning FX that only happened in the mid Eighties.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Xtro (1983)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Joseph Ruben directs Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin and Kevin Anderson in this thriller where Pretty Woman fakes her death to leave her abusive husband but he ain’t having none of it.

A diluted thriller, remarkable only for Bergin’s memorably evil, OTT obssessed villain. He likes his towels neat, his cans facing label out and Berlioz pumping on the cassette player. He’s so self aware of these calling card faults he does precisely all these things to make his presence known in the weak tea finale. Characters doing stupid things to move the plot along is the only notable constant. Features a montage of cute Julia Roberts trying on hats in place of a chase or stalk. Has been remade over a dozen times in India. Dreadful.

2

Perfect Double Bill: Mary Reilly (1996)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/

Alfred Hitchcock directs Maureen O’Hara, Charles Laughton and Robert Newton in this period thriller where an Irish orphan arrives into a Cornish village where the locals lure ships to their doom and plunder their cargo – based on a Daphne Du Maurier novel.

Beautiful Maureen O’Hara’s official debut. A fun if over powering lynchpin performance from Charles Laughton. There’s a couple of decent mid level set pieces… nothing of that unique Hitchcock calibre to make their way into the history books… yet more proficient than anything in your standard period adaptation of the era. If you relax your eyes this is much like the kinda movie Tarantino seems to relish making these days; an ensemble of characters who are presenting themselves differently / falsely to each other and then seeing how these lies play out when different combinations of players are thrown together unexpectedly. Y’know like Reservoir Dogs / Inglorious Basterds / The Hateful Eight only with a lot more top hats adorned with buckles. Fine.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point 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/