Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger direct Eric Portman, Sheila Sim and Sgt. John Sweet in this wartime mystery where a land girl, a G.I. and British sergeant stop off at a small town outside of Canterbury and try to figure out just who is pouring glue into the local women’s hair.

A fascinating experience that the above précis nowhere near covers. The amateur detective aspects are half hearted and relaxed. We spend just as much time with our three present day pilgrims as they adapt to their new, possibly temporary lives. Much discussion is given to their previous employment before war displaced them. I guess just as Chaucer defined each of his storytellers by their station in life, here The Archers unspool each character while their lives are in flux, their old existences left behind. Maybe the message is we must all adapt and embrace the positives of change, no matter how drastic and forced. We enter the fictional hamlet of Chillingbourne by steam train (the cinematic icon of time travel and progress) and leave the plot relatively unresolved in the cloisters. The setting is a timeless village, where horse and cart dominate and little boys dream of wars they thankfully are too young to take part in. Once we get to Canterbury itself in the final act, the historical interiors of Medieval cathedrals and Georgian tea rooms stand resolute but beside them are bombed out streets lined with the signage of new businesses that will rebuild the thoroughfare, the plots resemble a seeded vegetable patch that has yet to sprout. The acting is uniformly marvellous, even from real life yank trooper Sweet, and maybe the mystery we are solving is who these people truly are during this pastoral moment of stasis – their old lives and new aspirations, dreams and romances unfolding to us as they pursue the trivial but bizarre case of a nighttime menace. A beautiful time-out from the war and ever encroaching modernity.

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/

Clint Eastwood directs himself, Tommy Lee Jones and James Garner in this sci-fi adventure where four rejected test pilots from the Fifties get an improbable chance to finally be astronauts in their dotage when a Soviet satellite needs fixing in the 00s.

A blockbuster of two halves. The bulk of the movie is a pleasurable breeze as the four wrinkly but spry stars assemble, train, cheat on tests, flirt, settle ancient scores and even are a hit on the late night talk show circuit. The quartet have a lovely energy, the steady flow of jokes gently hit the right notes and we get a far classier retread of the best moments of Armageddon. Then we go into space. FX takes over. The banter dries up. The spectacle is solid and anyone who’s bought a ticket is going to feel they got all their popcorn bucket’s worth of mid-level thrills and spills. Yet watching the old school boys (including Donald Sutherland) lark about on the NASA training program is the gold.

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/

Delbert Mann directs Cary Grant, Doris Day and Gig Young in this romantic comedy where the CEO millionaire wants a dirty weekend, while the girl wants marriage.

Cary Grant infamously tried LSD in the 1960s. I’m guessing during the production of this clunker as you feel like he’s drifting somewhere else most of the time. He had more chemistry with his cardigans than he does with Day. It looks a million bucks but the “playful” attitude to the new permissiveness of the era must have felt mouldy even by the time That Touch of Mink was released.

4

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/

Jesse Peretz directs Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke and Chris O’Dowd in this British romcom where a recently separated museum curator starts a flirtatious correspondence with the enigmatic rock legend her ex obsesses over.

While not revolutionary, this mature love affair is witty, flinty and quirky enough to always entertain. Set in a pleasingly familiar world where people have jobs, commitments and passions – it would make a fine triple bill with previous high profile Nick Hornby adaptations like Fever Pitch and High Fidelity. Hawke is a lot of laughs as the feckless but sweet natured indie legend who barely anyone remembers except a small cabal of middle aged white dudes. Imagine Kurt Cobain or Nick Drake if they survived the Nineties and healthily retired from the spotlight instead. Enjoyable.

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/

Franco Zeffirelli directs Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith and Cher in this ensemble wartime drama where the elderly ex-pats in Fascist Italy rally around an abandoned young bastard and raise him.

Not my cup of tea. For starters… I don’t like tea. Silly old birds make terrible decisions in the eye of war that we are supposed to see as feisty defiance. Beyond the fact that this type of affair holds little attraction for me, the repetitive narrative falls apart for three key reason; 1) Just how unlikable ageing British poshos are. Especially when en masse and bickering. 2) How soft and forgiving the Nazis and their Italian counterparts are… these are clearly not the cunts who ran Auschwitz or fought the Blitzkrieg into Russia. The biddies should be lined up against the wall after their first infraction. 3) The idea that Cher is some kind of irresistible, luminescent beauty that would drive a young lad to sexual jealousy! Risible pap for a niche matinee market. Positives: Lily Tomlin is in it and Florence looks nice.

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/

Cameron Crowe directs Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit in this semi-autobiographical road movie of a straight laced 15 year old who finds himself on tour with a rising 70s band as a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine.

Also featuring fine work from Noah Taylor, Jason Lee, Zooey Deschanel, Philip Seymour Hoffman and especially Frances McDormand… the fantastic ensemble is both the strength and Achilles heel of this likeable comedy drama. Any film that gives you juicy glimpses of such brilliant personalities (and also somehow wastes Anna Paquin) and instead focuses on the rather insipid Hudson and blank Fugit is hard to fully be seduced by. Only Brad Pitt replacement Crudup shows his burgeoning star power as the charismatic but slippery lead guitarist of Stillwater, a wobbly dude who acts a part mentor and romantic rival for our lead. Crowe indulges… it is a long movie but his instincts to subvert expectations in nearly every scene and take light material down dark paths are still there. There are a dozen little embellishments that lesser filmmakers would never risk: the jock ex boyfriend who climbs through a window just to sit on a girl’s bed and reminisce, the ever lurking presence of rival local groupies, the hotel staff being matter of factly prepared and capable to deal with a penthouse suite overdose. It is a movie I enjoy a lot but struggle to see exactly why so many consider it a modern classic? Maybe those perennially uninvited to the party critics and journalists secretly craved a three hour movie where they were the hero and what they do was given the veil of shamanistic power? For the casual viewer it is a gentle, well observed journey, full of neat cool moments, that gives you a hundred little tastes of exquisite flavours you’d rather feast on.

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/

Archie Mayo and Fritz Lang direct Jean Gabin, Ida Lupino and Claude Rains in this crime romance where a dockyard thug and a suicidal woman try to rebuild their lives on a houseboat.

Tough and charismatic French star Gabin’s first lead Hollywood vehicle. The always wonderful Ida Lupino playing a little bird with broken wings who comes under his care. A houseboat setting that allows various personalities around the dock to drift in and out of their tentative romance. A thick mood of fog, booze and torpor including a Salvador Dali designed drunken wig-out sequence. Fritz Lang started this project but quit. Allegedly as he and Gabin had both been Marlene Dietrich’s lover and the tension that brought was unworkable. I’d suggest the project isn’t an obvious fit for Lang. The plot is loose, almost indistinguishable. It really is just the community and potential threats anchored around the cautiously chaste but obviously attracted to each other unlikely couple bobbing in and out of scenes. Will Gabin’s Bobo stay on the straight and narrow and settle down? Can Lupino’s Anna survive the more brutal elements of his past that haven’t quite accepted he is moving on? The movie does boast stand out B&W photography by Charles G. Clarke. Deservedly Oscar nominated, you can cut the moody pre-noir atmosphere he creates with a rusty knife.

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/

Alfred Hitchcock directs Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and Brigitte Auber in this romance mystery where a retired cat burglar must prove his innocence when everyone but a beautiful heiress suspects him of a series of jewel thefts.

Weightless Hitch. This just floats along sometimes with little urgency or obvious purpose. Amiable, glamorous, undemanding. The French Riviera and Edith Head’s costumes pop under a patina of greens. Robert Burks’ VistaVision framing fetishises the relaxed stars through a loop of low stakes flirtation and rebuffs. Only a prolonged rooftop finale gets the heart pumping… otherwise this is all high end packaging tarting up a small gift.

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/

Cheryl Dunye directs herself, Valerie Walker and Guinevere Turner in this indie comedy where a black lesbian documentary maker investigates a forgotten Hollywood actress.

Recently reappraised as a BIPOC LGBT watershed, I’m not going to pretend that my favourite scenes weren’t Cheryl moonlighting in her video rental shop. There’s echoes of Clerks in the salty interactions and now hyper nostalgic Generation X setting. The workable rom com elements of this are just abandoned after a sweetly full-on sex scene. The fake film historian investigation equally struggles to gain momentum. This clearly is a film cobbled from fudges, a tapestry of sequences defined by whatever resources were available that weekend and whatever piqued Dunye’s attention that week. No part of the pot luck is unworthy or bad but The Watermelon Woman never coalesces into something that transcends its amateur, outsider origins.

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/

Philippa Lowthorpe directs Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jessie Buckley in this retelling of the Women’s Liberation Movement’s protests against the 1970 Miss World contest.

A colourful history lesson, family friendly and accessible for all. Not as sensitive and humane as the similar Battle of the Sexes nor as impactful and unifying as Pride, in its better moments Misbehaviour at least aims for the high points of recent identity politics cinema.

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/