Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Tom Tykwer directs Ben Whishaw, Rachel Hurd-Wood and Dustin Hoffman in this period adaptation of the modern classic where a murderer with a supernatural sense of smell kills beauties and tries to capture their scent.

One of the finest novels ever written, Patrick Süskind’s Perfume is an erotic journey into callous brutality, irony and sensual mastery in 18th Century Europe. This sturdy realisation of the dark magical realism does a fantastic job of visualising Jean-Baptiste Grenouille’s hyperactive nostrils. We share a world of filth, decay, beauty and delicacy with Ben Whishaw’s near-mute parasitic outsider. The stronger first half of the film has a camp, bigger than life performance by Dustin Hoffman as an ageing perfumer. He tags out and Alan Rickman comes in as a father desperate to protect his precious virginal daughter from the killer who stalks his region’s alleyways and boudoirs. Run Lola Run’s Tykwer switches to epic sweep mode here and loses the audience slightly after the superior intimacy of breathing the same smells as Whishaw for so long. The grand finale though is pretty writhingly unique and bravely lensed.

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 Ford directs John Wayne, Jeffery Hunter and Vera Miles in this classic Western where a Civil War veteran and mixed race boy hunt the Native Americans who killed their family and took captive the young girls.

Pretty much every shot in this is a Technicolor marvel. Ford’s location work in Monument Valley is epic and unparalleled. Strange to think that pioneer colour cinematographer Winton C Hoch won three Academy Awards, lensed this sumptuous masterpiece, and then ended his career working on Time Tunnel & The Banana Splits for TV? It just doesn’t tally. Wayne manages to turn his simple man of action and vengeance into an enigma. We identify with him as he is the only one taking control, the loudest voice, the only undomesticated beast left in the wilderness. We don’t know if he is on a rescue mission or blinded by hate. His hatred towards the ‘Indian’ race is unfettered and palpable. There is no equivocating. He is racist. “Hero” as he is the only man left and driven enough to get the job done. Yet the film always frames such an attitude as wrong. His deeds posit him tipping over into becoming the villain, much like Red River we foresee a conclusion where the younger man might have to gun the old rabid dog down. Maybe the reason he hates the movie Comanches so much is they like him are a dying, outdated breed. Ethan Edwards and Scar are savage, nomadic and go against the grain of post-war humanity. Their strengths and outlook are not welcome at the wedding dance or the reservation. History is leaving their biases and violence behind, the pioneers no longer need a gunslingin’ alpha driven by righteous anger now the West has been won. The Searchers closes the doors on the old values as they serve their purpose after one last half decade spanning crusade. It is a ride of thrilling adventure and danger, far more sophisticated in its dramatic presentation of prejudice than modern eyes give it credit for. The point isn’t that racism gets the job done, it is that such an attitude has had its final day and is no longer welcome in a civilised society. That iconic shot of a door closing on Edwards is not a lament for his generation but punctuation.

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/

David Michôd directs Brad Pitt, Anthony Michael Hall and Topher Grace in this war satire loosely based on the exploits of General Stanley McChrystal who took over the occupation of Afghanistan and tried to win the war of hearts and minds that literally nobody else was invested in.

An alright film – not as funny, or zany, or affecting as it needs to be but well made and navigating some harsh truths of modern geopolitics. I find it hilarious that something so solid has an arbitrarily low score on Letterboxd. The main reasoning seems to be the kids don’t like Brad Pitt with grey hair but I suspect the true symptom is that a glimpsed Barack Obama is painted in an unflattering light. The woke generation don’t like seeing their idolised icon behaving how a politician must and world leader has no choice but to. Slippery. I reckon this representation is closer to the truth and have no issue with that. But yeah… this is a “rubbish movie” as a broad Pitt plays his age and has an amusing old man run. Bless his goofy heart, he commits to it. Catch-2010.

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/

Richard Stanley directs Nicolas Cage, Madeleine Arthur and Joely Richardson in this sci-fi horror where a middle-class family who have relocated to the wilderness are terrorised by the puce contents of a meteorite.

Richard Stanley (director of Dust Devil, and nothing since due to the vagaries of Hollywood) teams up with horror comeback Cage to do Lovecraft. This could have been a bin fire and I’d still be in. The movie itself is a creepy uneasy treat. Not fully palatable for mainstream audiences. The performances are variable, not helped by Stanley’s eagerness to shoot a lot of his dialogue in face-on close-ups. Cage starts out amusingly as a pretty regular unhip Dad but soon warps into a mix of Jack from The Shining and a Donald Trump impersonation as his idyllic life goes off the rails. It is an unpredictable, unrestrained jolt of acting… in keeping with the surreal mania of the plot. Either you are going to relish Cage obliviously collecting mutant tomatoes or you are going to switch off. I’m a tomato kinda guy personally. Madeline Arthur holds her own as the witchy daughter, though her personal disintegration isn’t given enough screen time to fully convince. She fares better than the older son who you forget even lives at the farmhouse until he suddenly reappears next the family dog who you have been caring about. Stanley is a rare unique voice in genre cinema and for the first half he seems muted and aiming for a subtle atmosphere of paranoia. Once the alien bacteria begins altering everyone’s DNA and perception the brakes come right off. The shocks in the final act are genuinely affecting and relentless. A visual treat for fans of both The Thing and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Only one shoddy CGI character reveals the budgetary limitations and Stanley is smart enough to cut around and only let us glimpse that monstrosity. Most “modern” directors would hold on such a weak FX as it cost a sizeable proportion of the budget. Stanley knows a rush of overwhelming chaos and nasty we can’t stop to pick apart is far more powerful. A beautifully ugly cult item.

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/

David Swift directs Hayley Mills, Hayley Mills and Maureen O’Hara in this Disney romantic comedy where accidentally reunited twin sisters swap lives in the hope of rekindling their divorced single parents love for each other.

Bright and conservative, god only knows how many times I watched this as a kid? The creaky values and aspects are what make it now, in a cheesy kinda way. You could hardly say Mills’ dual role is particularly easy on modern eyes and ears. Or that true A-Lister O’Hara is expected to do much more than walk down stairways in lovely dresses. There is some light, pleasant slapstick that keeps the engine running even when the plot is having its eighth fag break.

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/

Gina Prince-Bythewood directs Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne and Matthias Schoenaerts in this comic book action movie where immortals act as “a rescue team, not assassins” throughout history.

The key problem with any protagonist who cannot be killed is watching them survive a conventional action sequence contains zero peril. It is why Batman will always be more exciting than Superman. Why The Terminator movies must also contain a Connor. The Old Guard does eventually start to hint that its invulnerable death squad do have limitations to their regenerative powers but this weakness is never exploited. The spectacle here is pretty rote and for some reason accompanied by the breathy whispery pop tunes that became a cliche in trailers a decade ago. You understand every stylistic and narrative decision but it is hard to be excited by them. This is Highlander meets The Avengers but the most plain, unflavoured variation of that potent conceptual mash-up. Theron is shockingly lacklustre, the plot plodding and noncommittal. Positives? There is a decent fight / training level / initiation on a cargo plane and two of our lower billed former crusaders have heated moments of romance. These are the straws I clutched at under my duvet on a grey afternoon. As with most Netflix mega budgeted originals I found it hard not open a side window on my screen and scroll the internet after a while. I had no such issue of aimless distraction with the cheap dated film below, watched with the same AV set-up in bed.

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/

Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow direct Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia and Emma Danieli in this indie horror where a lone survivor of a vampire zombie apocalypse holes up in his home.

The first attempt to adapt Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. Bleak and hammy at the same time, though Price (the Nicolas Cage of his day) almost ensures these qualities. Also filmed in Rome’s EUR region (featuring distinctive concrete futurist architecture) this could easily be the immediate sequel to the quiet cataclysm we see in Antonioni’s L’Eclisse. That film ends with an eerie depopulation of the streets, here Price, when not barricading himself away from clumsy reekers, desperately scours the same abandoned suburbs. While often cheap and ineffective, a lot of the imagery predates future zombie classics uncannily.

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/

Carl Reiner directs Steve Martin, Rachel Ward and himself in this film noir spoof where a straight faced private dick interacts with footage of classic movie stars in hard boiled situations.

The central conceit of this rarely works. Only the scene where Martin is intercut with Bette Davis pays off. The other 18 or so attempts to make the joke perform feels more there to string a nonsensical plot together rather than because they found the punchlines. The comedy plays much better when it just Martin and Ward being goofs in monochrome cosplay. And the movie, despite not being very funny, is a loving celebration of a bygone age of moviemaking. The sweet tribute to Edith Head at the end adds at least a point to the final score. And we must track down the heavily salvaged movie The Bribe. Whatever it is, it looks awesome from what we glimpsed here.

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/

Roy Andersson directs Nils Westblom, Holger Andersson and Charlotta Larsson in this arthouse comedy where Swedish sad sacks and grotesques go about their dystopian grind.

More from Little Sweden. Pretty much the same vibe as You, The Living. A kinda utilitarian surreal sketch show. The recurring characters of two depressed novelty item salesmen are a welcome addition but the final sections lurch into an overly cruel set of tableaux that do little but visualise what we all already sadly know about humanity.

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/

Orson Welles directs himself, Joseph Cotten and Dorothy Comingore in this fictional biopic of a newspaper tycoon whose hubris and wealth destroys his life and ideals.

I doubt I’ll find anything particularly new to say about the most overly assessed, praised and dissected film ever made. Rotting ever so slightly on its pedestal as the official, indisputable “greatest movie” does it no favours. It is a fine feature, ahead of its time, compulsively vibrant. It throws every experimental and flashy filmmaking technique against the wall and a lot of that sticks. I’m not entirely sure there is always purpose behind the revolutionary use of deep focus, sound design and jump cuts no matter how dazzling they are when combined together so insistently. Likewise the sheer cornucopia of motifs and clues and parallels can be heavy handed in their slutty desire to be unpicked and unpacked. Jigsaw pieces. Rosebud. Principles. The movie has grown on me. It does get better with every rewatch. It almost deserves to be forgotten then rediscovered. Unearthed and viewed through unprepared eyes. There are superb moments that nobody comments on. Seeded through the more iconic stuff. The faceless investigator’s casual jokey dismissal of other’s lives caught up in the behemoth’s wake. The eerie background disembodied scream as Kane’s second marriage falls apart. Welles trashing a room in a fantastic, unwavering single take. Citizen Kane is packed with juicy morsels. I just personally feel it is more impressive to make a narrative film that is at peace with being itself for the entirety of it runtime rather than a supermarket sweep of qualities and tricks.

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/