Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Lisa Joy directs Hugh Jackman, Thandiwe Newton and Rebecca Ferguson in this sci-fi noir thriller where in a waterlogged dystopian Miami a man relives memories through a machine.

Not really a film in it own right but a box ticking exercise in how many better classics are referenced or recycled. Strange Days without the confident aggression. Blade Runner without the lived in world. Inception without the quality control. Memento without any emotional heft. Chinatown without the shocks. Dark City without the cult potential. The list goes on and on. A shiny, soggy mash where action intrudes only occasionally and often unconvincingly. The kind of movie that blatantly tells you how it is going to end in the middle, so you set your watch hoping it won’t do that with such an obvious thud. Clearly the victim of some degree of studio meddling, we all want original, ambitious sci-fi content with grandiose budgets. This film wouldn’t know originality or ambition is it was plugged into a dream machine for the rest of its life. Okay… so there is one chillingly inventive scene involving a billionaire’s widow lost in time that feels like something Philip K Dick or Alan Moore might conjure up. Otherwise this is just not it! The polar opposite of what we are craving. Yet it plods along inoffensively with a great cast who are gamely unsure if they are making the new The Matrix or another Transcendence. Oh well!

5

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/

Tom McCarthy directs Matt Damon, Camille Cottin and Abigail Breslin in this drama where a working class dad moves to Marseille to solve the crime his daughter has been sent to prison for.

Not the movie it has been sold as, certainly not the movie a minor Twitter hype storm has branded it as. Yes, a central aspect of the plot is an American student convicted of a crime under dubious circumstances like the infamous Amanda Knox case. But that seems a leaping off point for a very different story arc. Matt Damon’s hulking deadbeat only spends a small section of the story chasing leads and getting into fights. There’s a certain degree of irony to seeing Jason Bourne struggling in council estate scuffles. Yet if you’ve come for effective detective work or All-American dogooding you’ve come to the wrong shop. Slowly the mood gives way to a tale of redemption, rehabilitation and self realisation. Like, say, Gran Torino or Manchester By The Sea, we patiently follow a macho character finding a new lease of life within a makeshift family and unlikely community. The thriller aspects rear their head again in the finale… but are resolved with a dismissive ambiguity. McCarthy, by stealth, is making a film about how America views itself now that innocence has been long lost and the values it once held incontrovertible have been rejected or diminished. It is a complex movie that ends with two characters sitting on a porch, their worldview and understanding of themselves completely warped and altered. Marketed as a classy Taken this is some far more flavoursome stew than the meat and potatoes we were promised. I wonder if like Spotlight, Stillwater will grow on me over the years… it certainly has that potential.

7

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/

James Gunn directs Margot Robbie, Idris Elba and John Cena in this DC comic book movie sequel to the “villains get drafted into a crisis and prove their anti-heroic worth” blockbuster.

An improvement on the first film in every possible way. Here the names die mercilessly – it is unpredictable, gory and feels completely stand alone. The jukebox soundtrack is just as intrusive but the choices feel more in keeping with that flip, violent thrill ride we’ve bought a ticket to. Robbie’s Harley Quinn is shunted off to her own solo subplot for most of the runtime… you have the fear that she is in it more for the poster appearance than necessity to the narrative. Yet ghettoising your marquee name has its advantages too, the new freaks and geeks are given room to shine. Cena, a tubby shark and Daniela Melchior manage to make full impact among the busy ensemble of doomed showstoppers. Silly, excessive and garishly bright – this hits all the summer blockbuster buttons you want pressed. It outstays its welcome… a tighter finale would have elevated this into a rewatchable classic but as it stands this second attempt to Suicide Squad sees the mission very much accomplished.

7

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/

Justine Triet directs Virginie Efira, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Sandra Hüller in this dark French erotic drama where a psychoanalyst becomes obsessed with her new movie star patient, exploiting her life with damaging repercussions.

A difficult film to get a grasp on but the unpredictability leads to plenty of full on sex and scenes of emotional jeopardy. It probably tries to do too much but never stumbles from the fine line betwixt comedy and tragedy that it bravely walks. Featuring nicely ambiguous turns from the two leads and a striking, stand out comedy support from Toni Erdmann’s Hüller as an overbearing director. Worth a try. Shame that Britain doesn’t make these undefinable but mature works of cinema at all anymore yet they still seem a dime a dozen across the Channel. When did we give up on making movies for adults?

6

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/

Wong Kar-wai directs Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung and Jacky Cheung in this Hong Kong gangster romance where a low level triad is torn between his lovely cousin and his reckless friend.

Like early Tarantino, here is a debut that embraces the well chosen homage, improving and personalising the great threads from other movies into a pleasing megamix. Neophyte Wong Kar-wai shamelessly wears his influences on his sleeve. Riffing directly off of Mean Streets, Stranger Than Paradise and, in the finest but least least cohesive interlude, Top Gun – you can’t resist and are seduced. It helps that Andy Lau and Maggie Cheung absolutely sizzle when on screen together. Goes on a bit too long in the final wrap up – otherwise this would be an actual superior take on the plot of the Scorsese classic it steals wholesale from. Loved seeing this in all it step printing, neon lit glory on the big screen… the experience unearthed memories. It felt too familiar. I must have watched this late night on Channel 4 back in the day, with no idea what it was.

8

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/

Tom Ford directs Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Nicholas Hoult in this 1960s Americana period drama where a grieving gay professor meticulously prepares for his suicide over a day.

A heady mixture of sensuality and precision. You know everything within the frame has been chosen to a direct cohesive specification, right down to the weave of Firth’s protagonist’s black woollen tie. The performances are strong, it all floats definitively towards an inevitable conclusion.

7

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/

Quentin Dupieux directs Stephen Spinella, Wings Hauser and Roxane Mesquida in this parody horror film where a crowd in the desert watch a killer tire stalk a sexy girl.

Tries very hard to be meta and strange. Succeeds in those respects but in few other areas. Quite dull once you get your bearings.

5

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/

Pierre Morel directs Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen in this action thriller where a retired specialist hunts the white slaving ring who have kidnapped his daughter.

Now iconic but still barmy. So many strange choices from the soapy pop music subplots to Maggie Grace’s puppy dog running style. The first half which mainly centres around the buying of a karaoke machine tries for the slow build of the original Die Hard – taking extra time to immerse us into the characters before all hell breaks loose. Yet these characters are so creaky that it feels almost surreal to linger on their dynamics and quirks. Once we are in Paris and the action begins proper, the movie grows no more realistic… but you are getting what you bought a ticket for. Wallop. Wallop. Wallop. Mid level carnage, slightly better acted macho posing. The kinetics are actually quite forgettable… it is the untethered nature of the screen acting and the seedy but sincere scripting that have made this a cultural touchstone.

7

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/

Raja Gosnell directs Drew Barrymore, David Arquette and Michael Vartan in this teen romantic comedy where a dowdy journalist goes undercover as a high school girl, only this second chance sees her having to fit in with the cool kids.

Tries to do a lot with its overstocked cast, 80s nostalgia and law bending romances but a really game lead performance by Barrymore centres it. The very attractive star leans into her mugging, gross out and slapstick moments – whipping up laughs in even the most serviceable scenes. Her sweetness, sexiness and sense of timing proves compelling… as self produced vehicles go, Barrymore knows precisely what works for herself.

7

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/

Wes Anderson directs Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Olivia Williams in this comedy where a precocious teenager starts a friendship with a depressed millionaire, attempts to seduce the new kindergarten teacher and gets kicked out of the private school that is his world.

This is the tipping point where Murray shifted from beloved comedy star to global treasure. His grumpy, detached performance here is his best dramatic work… still hitting laughs… the lack of Oscar nomination is galling. The film itself is, for me, Anderson’s masterwork. Melancholy and enthusiasm, dreamers and deliberateness. Everything perfectly calibrated from the montages to the fonts. The reference points and homages just obscure enough to be hip without being alienating. An eye for getting his best out of casts that Hollywood has often forgotten what to do with. Later movies of his are more confident in their twee affectations but this still has one foot grounded in reality. The double whammy of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums marked Anderson out as a distinct voice and measured creative within indie cinema. I’d say Rushmore just pips the later film past the post. It does just as much emotionally and visually with less resources and prestige. The soundtrack zings stamp for stamp. The slightly scrappier nature (don’t get me wrong this would feel pristine if it came from any other auteur) makes Rushmore just a bit easier to fall for. You watch Rushmore, by the final curtain, your soul feels a little cleaner, a little more glowing. It is breathlessly well composed cinema – one of the indisputable classics of modern comedy. “These are O.R. scrubs.” “Oh. Are. They?”

10

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/