Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Jason Reitman directs Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott and Cory Michael Smith and Tim Fehlbaum directs Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro and Leonie Benesch in this pair of historical behind-the-scenes recreations of Seventies TV live broadcasts that were ground breaking.

Claustrophobia. Ticking clocks. Looming deadlines. Murphy’s Law. If there was an unrecognised movie sub genre that has been kicking about since the late 50s it would be The Pressure Cooker. Ordinary people trying to achieve extraordinary goals while everything around the becomes an obstacle. Sidney Lumet was the pioneer of the form with everything from 12 Angry Men through Fail Safe to Dog Day Afternoon. Recently the Safdies’ have popularised the tropes with Good Time and Uncut Gems. Or maybe Birdman? Or Captain Phillips? Or the Charlie Work episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia… The camera stalks, the walls close in, and for every ingenious, improvised solution there is a Chekov’s gun waiting to go off at the worst possible time.

Two films have been released in the U.K. within a space of a week which seem to ride this growing trend and set in the same milieu; live television. Saturday Night aims for “real time”-ish comedy drama. Cramming all the legends, tall tales and bad behaviour into the 90 minutes before the first SNL sketch was put on air. It is a race against the clock, a clash of egos and a watershed moment. Very much a lionisation of what Lorne Michael’s achieved with very little backing from the NBC suits. This era of US comedy is my hot sauce and the casting is really keyed in, especially the lad they get to play Chevy Chase. The female performers are a still sidelined but the always welcome Rachel Sennott is given a pumped up writer’s role. I had high hopes for this and, a little inevitable mawk aside, Reitman did the business even if it never quite blew me away.

Far more effective is the comparatively dry apolitical drama of September 5. Sure any film about Palestinian militants killing Israeli athletes is going to be an ethical hot potato to juggle. Fehlbaum’s talky ensemble film walks the line tightly by focussing on the analogue solutions to reporting this knife edge situation to the world. 16mm film is raced across police lines, phone lines are soldered to microphone wires, ID cards forged and time on the sole satellite has to be bartered for in hourly shifts. All by a sports broadcasting team with minimal hard news experience. You get a true sense of modern reporting coming together in the lunges of inspiration and desperation. I was completely gripped. Was that day truly the first time a TV channel ident was used?

7/8

Drew Hancock directs Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid and Lukas Gage in this thriller where a young woman begins to discover her life is not all that it seems on a weekend getaway with her boyfriend’s friends.

I had the early big twist ruined for me the morning before going to see this. I probably would have twigged it. There aren’t many surprises after that but it is handsome.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Promising Young Woman (2021)

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Mel Gibson directs Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace in this thriller where a U.S. Marshall tries to transport a federal prisoner over the Alaskan wilderness only to discover her pilot is an assassin.

Not entirely sure what attracted Mel to this. Cheap rather than claustrophobic. The script is a stinker. Never really confident with what to do after the first act set-up that doesn’t instantly crash the little plane into a mountain. So Marky Mark spends most of the movie knocked out. He goes out of his comfort zone but a new Hannibal Lecter ain’t born. Full of weird little choices, none of them good. A hard movie to take any positives from even though it ticks its own basic boxes on the check list.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Passenger 57 (1992)

John Dahl directs Steve Zahn, Paul Walker and Leelee Sobieski in this highway thriller where a prank on a road trip turns nasty once a killer in a truck begins chasing two brothers.

A nice little American Pie era spin on Duel. Looks glossier than anything Dahl had made before but also has a nasty streak that owes as much to Wes Craven’s Scream as any Neo-Noir. The ending has quite obviously been reshot but still works as a multiplex grabber. Zahn shines in the lead, Ted Levine’s supplies the malevolent voice of the unseen tormentor.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Jeepers Creepers (2001)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin

The Coen Brothers direct Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind and Fred Melamed in this bleak comedy where a Jewish college professor’s humdrum life unravels in the 1960s.

The Dybbuk. The goy’s teeth. The “Mentaculus”. Joel and Ethan’s biggest enigma. Is it a fable? Is it fate? Some faithful yet biblical recreation of their childhoods? The closest we have gotten to the existential dread of Barton Fink but here the mysteries are both more suburban yet difficult to fully fathom. Stuhlbarg is fantastic, permanently harried, this is the role that made him “a name”. Maybe they lean into the dream sequence rug pull once too often, maybe for non-Coen initiates this will feel like a big nothing? I don’t know. I’m a fan and I find it spellbinding.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Indignation (2016)

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Guillem Morales directs Belén Rueda, Lluís Homar and Pablo Derqui in this Spanish psychological thriller involving twin sisters, eye transplants and suspicious suicides.

The sorta mystery where the drip feed of clues is so obvious you are constantly aware of the manipulation. Don’t you hate only getting half the story? That story mutates about three times meaning it is unpredictable but you never feel each new ripe set-up is ever fully exploited. Belén Rueda is a very attractive lead and there’s a couple of unnerving moments but this just never fulfils its potential. Hitchcock or De Palma would have cooked this concept up tasty hot.

5

Perfect Double Bill: The Orphanage (2007)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin

John M. Stahl directs Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde and Jeanne Crain in this film noir melodrama about a socialite with an obsessive love for her novelist husband.

Bright noir that looks like Sirk and proves gently psychologically unsettling. Tierney looks stunning no matter what states of unease (harried / paranoid / murderous / suicidal) she is in. I don’t want to spoil the strange little “happy” ending but I’ll posit two questions. Who doesn’t want to spend their marriage alone and uninterrupted with Gene Tierney? And should we really trust a narrator who is defence attorney for the survivors, retelling a story with many suspicious plot holes in it?

8

Perfect Double Bill: Mildred Pierce (1945)

David Twohy directs Vin Diesel, Thandiwe Newton and Karl Urban in this sci-fi epic where Pitch Black’s anti hero takes on an intergalactic imperialist death cult.

I remembered feeling this was a disappointment after the lean and tight Pitch Black. Bookended by a sub Dune plot of regal squabbling and unconvincing CGI, Chronicles often reeks of vanity. Yet on a curious revisit the good stuff sang louder. The middle act on a sun scorched prison planet hits the high notes of the first film. Thandiwe Newton’s smokin’ hot Lady Macbeth clone is way better than some of the other thespians cashing in a paycheck. The ambition of the visuals is laudable even if the tech doesn’t quite meet the vision. There are good action beats and even a couple of creepy moments. The closing shot is cute beyond belief. I had a lark with lowered expectations.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Riddick (2013)

Colm Bairéad directs Carrie Crowley, Catherine Clinch and Andrew Bennett in this Irish drama where a young girl from a loveless family spends a summer with relatives.

Heart wrenching child’s point of view stuff. So many deeply true moments. Very good but very sad. Wonderfully bold yet simple framing from cinematographer Kate McCullough. Based on a Claire Keegan novella.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Aftersun (2022)

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Kathryn Bigelow directs Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty in this Iraq war movie following a military bomb disposal unit with an unstable new sergeant.

Easily the best movie set in the second invasion of Iraq. The heat, dust and volatility of the occupation is immersive. Nobody does death wish intensity quite like Bigelow. She is one of my favourite directors based on the purity of her action filmography. More pessimistic than Cameron, grittier than a McTiernan, more poker faced than a Verhoeven. The first hour of this is take no prisoners set piece after set piece. The marathon sniper stand-off in the desert is as dangerous and as gripping as a sequence of peril can get. Do we get any further into the three protagonists mindset than war is bad / sad / pointless but addictive? No. But ultimately there isn’t much more to say about violence than it mutilates humans inside and out. For my money, one of the most entertaining 21st century Best Picture winners.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Three Kings (1999)