Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Francis Ford Coppola directs Tim Roth, Bruno Ganz and Alexandra Maria Lara in this philosophical fantasy where an elderly academic is reborn as a young(-ish) man in wartime Europe and… eventually… starts a relationship with a woman regressing through past lives.

Someone whose soul travels through time, out of sync and off pace with the deterioration of their body. Coppola returns to this theme in Peggy Sue Got Married, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Jack. Both The Outsiders and Twixt exist within a narrative time loop where the opening shots mouth snakes around to swallow the tale of the ending. The Conversation is a meta narrative of a man who captures a moment in time and obsesses and re-edits it to the point where it loses all meaning and reality. It is fair to say temporal matters mean a lot to FFC. Not that he makes much more than an overly earnest, pretentious hash here of his theme. My God, this is a boring movie. There’s rarely a shot or visual choice that doesn’t take you out of the film and question the intention behind it. A lot of the interiors are fudged as Coppola has filmed them at his vineyard using obvious green screen. The lifeless digital compositions reminded me of Fassbinder’s endless Berlin Alexanderplatz. Set in the same period and locale and with a similar sense of bludgeoning artificiality. At least this has the good grace to last less than two hours. The acting is also all very Brechtian. Roth is solid, coming alive in the scenes where he performs opposite discordant mirror images of himself. The performers that orbit him though are flat, obtuse puzzle pieces, shuffled around but never forming a complete picture. It is a head scratcher with no workable solution. Makes you wish the Movie Brat wunderkind had just carried on with gun-for-hire work for the studios… or retired. One final thought on that… Spielberg, De Palma, Marty, George Lucas and Francis all used to watch each other’s latest movies in rough cuts and give notes… so which Francis Ford Coppola project did this tradition end on? I wonder was it Captain EO, Jack or this?

3

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/

Lizzie Borden directs Honey, Adele Bertei and Florynce Kennedy in this independent feminist sci-fi film where a group of women rebel against the quiet revolution that oppresses them in future New York.

Cobbled together from whatever off cuts, one takes, stock footage and random home movies Borden got her hands on, I’m genuinely going to struggle to find many positive to note here. It reminded me of the outsider techniques and restrictions of Edward D Wood Jnr. Whereas Wood wanted to entertain with unchecked ambition and wayward quality control, this wants to regurgitate didactic politics at you. It can feel near incomprehensible at times… when it ends abruptly on a bang, you do wonder whether a bit more focus might have at least made us care how we got there. This patchwork agit prop belongs in a museum where you can at least walk off to the next exhibit once you realise its a work of threadbare incoherence.

3

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/

Lynne Ramsay directs Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott and Raife Patrick Burchell in this Scottish drama where a quiet shelf stacker steals her dead boyfriend’s novel and savings and goes to Ibiza.

Bored me to tears when it came out. Watched now, late night, with lowered expectations, I can see what a sensual experience it is. But it is also a middle class wallow in working class limitations and inappetence. Morton’s performance remains enigmatic throughout – like the alien in Under The Skin or prisoner in A Prophet you are never really sure what she is feeling, thinking or planning…

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/

Blair Hayes directs Jake Gyllenhaal, Marley Shelton and Swoosie Kurtz in this teen road movie satire where a boy with no immunities, raised in a plastic bubble, hits the road to find his true love.

Starts with a jarring midshot of a baby’s dick and gets increasingly horny and freakish from there. In a parallel universe this would have been the film that broke Gyllenhaal out into mainstream stardom and Donnie Darko would have been the little seen cult oddity. This is pretty blunt force trauma comedy and weirdness – like someone mixed up the script pages of Tommy Boy and Edward Scissorhands. You will laugh… but the best joke is unintentional… Here Fincher’s Zodiac killer is playing his anti-hero’s loving Dad! Would make a challenging triple bill with Freaked and Joe’s Apartment, in a season of “Some Executives Definitely Lost Their Jobs” comedies.

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/

Francis Ford Coppola directs C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon and Ralph Macchio in this period teen gang drama where the tensions between the Greasers and the Socials causes one group of brothers to fracture.

And Patrick Swayze. And Tom Cruise. And Diane Lane. And Emilio Estevez. And Rob Lowe. And Tom Cruise’s car crash teeth. Did I miss anyone?! The greatest cast assembled… mainly through prescience… hug, cry, rumble, bicker and behave all sweatily sincere. It is a manly film very in touch with its feeling… far more gushingly sensitive than even your Stand By Me’s or even Beaches’. It really is a tough boy weepie. Such a strong flavour that I’d say you’ll either be in by Stevie Wonder’s dreamy but overtly earnest theme song or you’ll reject it whole heartedly. Maybe that explains why it was more one of my sister’s movie than mine own growing up. Then again that might have had to do with shots of Rob Lowe getting out of the shower than any of the gauche male bonding. The acting is pretty variable, with Tom Cruise amusingly turned up to ELEVEN whenever he thinks he is being lost in the middle ground. Beyond the casting coup, Coppola seems happy playing this one relatively straight. There are some baroque edits and an over reliance on pathetic fallacy but in general this feels like an exercise in restraint after the excesses of Apocalypse Now and One From The Heart. Oh… And Tom Waits.

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/

John Schlesinger directs Tom Courtenay, Wilfred Pickles and Julie Christie in this British kitchen sink drama where a restless lad fantasises about a life less ordinary but reality is catching up on all the lies he has told.

God, Schlesinger hates these characters. Looking down on their values and limitations with a brutish derision. Only Christie’s free spirit and Finlay Currie’s ageing voice of disjointed reason get any kind of sympathy. Schlesinger always attacks both the status quo and the change in his assessments of the Sixties. This film has somehow gained a reputation for being quaint and cosy yet it is absolutely scabrous. The ending is a gut punch… even though it only involves milk, a suitcase and a train leaving a station.

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/

Harold Becker directs Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin and John Goodman in this cop thriller where a detective tries to find a serial killer who is selecting their victims from the lonely hearts ads and then falls for the only suspect he hasn’t cleared.

Becker struggles to find a consistent tone here with Richard Price’s script. Scenes shunt awkwardly from hard boiled policier into the realms of erotic thriller and then over to romantic comedy with little grace. The whole shebang is essentially a heterosexual Cruising. Yet Pacino feels untethered, struggling to match the unusually aggressive heat generated by an outstanding Barkin or that natural charisma of Goodman. It proves a grand movie for character actor spotting; half the cast of The West Wing is floating about while Richard Jenkins, Michael Rooker and Samuel L Jackson get memorable moments. Shame that as both a star vehicle for Al and a straightforward genre piece in general it is pretty meh.

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/

Terry Gilliam directs Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams and Mercedes Ruehl in the fantasy drama where a depressed, fallen from grace, radio DJ tries to help the unstable homeless man who has saved his life.

The above plot précis is only about a third of The Fisher King’s overloaded story… there is romance, quests and slapstick comedy. It probably is the most “balanced” Robin Williams star role. And I’m aware of the irony of using these words. His tour de force as Parry manages to find equal time for all the shades of Williams that might dominate another of his movies. The motormouth off-script riffing mania of Good Morning Vietnam or Mrs Doubtfire, the inspirational and unlikely therapist of Dead Poets Society or Good Will Hunting, the extreme fantasy quest embarker of What Dreams May Come or Jumanji. There’s even the darkness and maudlin air and bleak sincerity that he explored in later roles more and more. All that is missing is the saccharine staleness of his worst instincts. He’s delightfully unpredictable here. It leaves Jeff Bridges to be the straight man and he makes for a perfect reticent foil for Williams’ antics. The acting is uniformly grand… Amanda Plummer and Michael Jeter have stand out roles while Mercedes Ruehl deservedly won an Oscar for her brilliant turn as the put-upon video store owner who has somehow attracted all these fumbling failures into her orbit. Gilliam transforms New York into a dreamscape – one where skyscrapers, Chinese restaurants and Central Park feel like artificial worlds of scale, magic and adventure. In a key moment, Grand Central Station at rush hour mutates into a glorious ballroom dance. A rare Hollywood movie about loss and losers that feels bigger and more entertaining than most superhero flicks. The Fisher King is busy… but wonderful for it.

9

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/

Barry Sonnenfeld directs John Travolta, Gene Hackman and Rene Russo in this Elmore Leonard based crime comedy where a debt collector upsticks to L.A. hoping to become a movie producer.

The cast for this is amazing, the look clean (a little too clean, maybe?). Lots of balls are thrown in the air but very few come down with any kinda thud and it closes up on a weak punchline rather than a frenzy. I guess if you approach Get Shorty more as a gentle Hollywood satire you may find more pleasures. Yet this was clearly surfing in the immediate wake of Pulp Fiction and can’t help but come across as a disappointment. At least everyone looks cool… and that probably was the prime working directive.

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/

George Miller directs Jack Nicholson, Cher and Susan Sarandon in this black comedy where three single witches start dating a “horny, little devil.”

Comedy was so big in the Eighties that a relatively dry and adult work of literature could get a few big names attached to it and suddenly find itself adapted into a kinky blockbuster extravaganza. Too mature and sophisticated for me as a kid, I’d still concede it doesn’t really take shape until the SFX showcase second half. The sex comedy is dated and subtle but the rollercoaster of demonic bad behaviour that eventually sprouts from it is well worth sticking around for. Jack is wonderful here but it is fair to say he only really generates heat in his one-on-one moments with Sarandon. Cher is not a great screen presence but the supporting cast which includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Jenkins and a very game Veronica Cartwright ably carry the film.

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/