Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Alexandre Aja directs Cécile de France, Maïwenn and Philippe Nahon in this extreme French slasher flick where a family on a farm is hunted by a brutal stranger and the guest in the attic tries to rescue the eventual survivor.

In France this is called High Tension. And that sums it up. An hour long set piece. Cranked and cranked and cranked until the machine is taut and thrumming. Even on what must be my fourth watch I was utterly gripped. Nahon’s violent fuck is horrible, shows no remorse. A truly awful grotesque creation. The twist will leave you with more questions than answers but I think this works best as cinematic nightmare writ large rather than a product of sturdy logic. Aja is one of the great genre directors of the 21st century.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Creep (2004)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Takashi Miike directs Kazuya Kamenashi, Nanao and Riho Yoshioka in this Japanese thriller where a psychopathic lawyer enters a game of cat and mouse with an axe wielding killer dressed as a monster from a children’s picture book.

Is it my patience that has eroded? Has my attention span gone? Or are filmmakers, even voices as idiosyncratic and OTT as Miike, packing all the juice into the first act these days? Desperate for you to stream enough of their movie so you are hooked or at the very least they pass into the rubicon of algorithmic success? The first 45 minutes of this are set piece nirvana. A prologue where police raid a mansion of surgical horrors. A car chase with brass balls. A monster attacks a monster and one looks like something straight out of the Stan Winston workshop. Every time someone dies blood gushes in orgasmic fountains. And then it slowly normalises. The plot is still wacky but the form resembles a Sunday night detective drama. The geysers of crimson dissipate. The last hour is fine but who wants ‘fine’ from Miike?

6

Perfect Double Bill: First Love (2019)

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George Miller directs Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke in this post-apocalyptic prequel following the rise and revenge of Furiosa Imperator.

Ozploitation Maximalism Goes Ben-Hur. I have gripes. The lean chase flick gives way to a decade spanning odyssey. Can something you love play overlong? As accomplished as the action is it doesn’t take you to the extreme frenetic ‘anything goes’ anarchy of Fury Road. And I love Taylor-Joy in the right role but she ain’t a physical match for Theron so doesn’t fully convince as an Angel of Vengeance. Her rise feels forced… mandated rather than earned… where as in Fury Road Furiosa’s status within this hierarchy was undisputed gospel. You never questioned it. When she and Hemsworth’s Dementus finally face off you know it isn’t going to be a fair fight to the death as there’s no possible way she can win that. Making this anti-climatic. I just felt a little removed, uninvolved from a cinematic universe I’ve always loved. There was more than enough good stuff revisited that I still enjoyed myself. Hemsworth really goes full throttle and the story can’t really breathe without him. His gang are delightfully scumbaggy. Jenny Beaven does miracles coming up with new looks for mutated crooks. I’m always going to want more Mad Max. Always. This just took me a smidgen colder than any of the previous episodes.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Richard Linklater directs Glen Powell, Adria Arjona and Austin Amelio in this true crime caper where a wimpy college professor becomes a fake hitman for the New Orlean Police Department’s undercover sting operations.

Works best as a dark romantic comedy with two smoking hot principals. A bit too scattershot and low energy to be anything more than a curio. Feels like a “One For Them” from Linklater though there is a nice subtextual thread about Powell’s dweeb becoming a better man… a hit as a man.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Bernie (2012)

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John G. Avildsen directs Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita and Elisabeth Shue in this teen drama where a Japanese master teaches a bullied kid the art of self defence.

Here’s a VHS that was everywhere when I was kid, super quotable, but one that I very much outgrew by the time I got to secondary school. It is so long, and often inert. The performances are actually kinda awesome so it makes sense as to why it captured an entire generation’s imaginations. Macchio does an admirable job of recreating the I Was A Teenage Rocky Balboa dialogue without feeling like a baby Stallone clone. And Shue, playing young in her early twenties, is a teenage good girl dream. The ending is quite involving but it takes far too long to get to that tournament. A whole cruel summer… Wax On, Wax Off. Hurry up.

5

Perfect Double Bill: The Karate Kid (1986)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

David Cronenberg directs Peter Weller, Judy Davis and Ian Holm in this surrealist science fiction drama based on William Burroughs’ banned experimental novel.

A bug exterminator / author and his wife become addicted to the green powder that kills the roaches. She is cheating on him with other writers making him a literary cuck. He accidentally shoots her. His typewriter takes on insect form and starts to give him cheery instructions from its friendly anus shaped orifice. Will he follow the orders? Crack the mysteries of the paranoid “Interzone”? Who are the mugwumps? I rented this as a naive 13 year old expecting the star of Robocop and the director of The Fly to deliver further SFX madness in the form a comprehensible drama. Maybe even in an adventure? How foolish I was? Naked Lunch is a fully committed period mindfuck. Slow, obtuse, mature. I don’t remember my reaction to all this back then. I knew it was all beyond me. But today… it is quite boring. Testing. But with lovely creature design…and a morbid sense of the absurd. What to make of the Scooby Doo finale? I’m still not smart enough. Nowhere as near as fun or as horny as the addictive Crash.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Crash (1996)

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John Clark directs Terry Serio, Deborah Conway and Max Cullen in this Ozploitation racing flick.

Nothing much happens s-l-o-w-l-y and then the final race is rushed and stunted by an arty conclusion.

3

Perfect Double Bill: The Car That Ate Paris (1974)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Randal Kleiser directs Brooke Shields, Christopher Atkins and Leo McKern in this romance adventure where two child cousins are shipwrecked on a tropical island paradise and then discover each other sexually.

Infamous for an underage Shields being constantly in the nude… though the reality is a very obvious body double being used whenever nature cannot conceal her. Like a lot of arthouse movies, there is an undeniable beauty to it and it is trying to say something grandiose about human existence but you kinda just sit through The Blue Lagoon and once watched out of curiosity you know you’ll never revisit it. Unlike an arthouse film the motivations behind this production are seedier and this intentionally filled the grindhouse circuit programs for years. A weird alternative for men not brave enough to buy a ticket for a porno. Given the age of the star give me a proper adult movie any day of the week.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Endless Love (1981)

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Noah Baumbach directs Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle in this absurdist drama based on a literary classic by Don DeLillo.

Academia. Consumerism. Apocalyptic Events. Addiction. Infidelity. Only viewed through a cartoonish, Sesame Street tinted lens that is three parts Amblin (think Goonies / Gremlins) and one part Mike Nichols. A lot happens in White Noise. All of it anxious. Both Gerwig and Driver possibly give their career best performances. The movie has a magnificent middle hour where the family try to survive an Airborne Toxic Event that is both nightmarish but also a loony Spielbergian homage caper. On the whole though this is a movie consisting solely of big swings that only a fool could connect with all of. Excessive effort has been put in here for a release that got lost on Netflix. My real question is: should satires care about skewering the attitudes and excesses of forty years ago?

6

Perfect Double Bill: Downsizing (2017)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Peter Hyams directs Jean-Claude van Damme, Powers Boothe and Raymond J. Barry in this action thriller where a terrorist takes over a hockey match to hold the Vice President of the USofA hostage.

Die Hard In An Ice Hockey Arena. Made mainly greenlit as one of the producers owned an ice hockey arena. The first two thirds are pretty perfunctory. Only really memorable for a deliciously hammy nasty from Powers Booth, a lengthy fight with a goon in a penguin mascot costume and how often JCVD disappears from the foreground. The final third is hot stuff though. The muscles from Brussels has to take to the ice and change the game for ludicrously contrived REASONS TM. The effects budget goes through the roof as we are dangling off lighting rigs and bare knuckle fighting helicopters. The conclusion is so OTT satisfying it converts this forgotten program filler into a Saturday night win.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Nowhere To Run (1993)

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