Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Luca Guadagnino directs Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist in this sexually charged sports movie following a lust triangle between three tennis hopefuls over thirteen years of bedroom highs and career lows.

Extreme, bright and confident filmmaking that tarts up a rather predictable plot. Is the intrusive hard beat rave score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross necessary? I don’t know but I was bouncing in my seat and happily ignoring the dialogue whenever it piped up. Is the scene with all the extras’ penises necessary? Yeah… if anything it showed what a tease the rest of the movie is considering how close to nudity the three leads skate into throughout but teasingly never achieve. Was the time rally, back-n-forth storytelling necessary? It is about tennis and thrusty humping… so… yeah… duh! What about the pathetic fallacy hurricane that leads into the sunny finale? Necessary? Well… maybe not. What about every trick shot in the book being whipped out and waggled about for that patience testing sunny finale? Is that necessary? Maximalist cinema. Gotta get the kids in somehow. Zendaya’s first movie that belongs to her and I’m slowly getting on board with ‘arthouse Ron Howard’ Guadagnino’s hyped offering. Would watch again.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Wimbledon (2004)

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

Wes Ball directs Owen Teague, Freya Allan and Kevin Durand in this sci-fi adventure where a teen chimp has to free his peaceful tribe from enslavement while protecting a mysterious human who may unlock both the past and the future.

Refreshes one of the most satisfying franchises out there with a simple but often astounding quest. The unfussy plot leaves bags of room for risky set pieces, muscular characterisation and believable world building. Stand-out villainy from Durand’s tyrant bonobo. Caesar is dead, long live Caesar!

8

Perfect Double Bill: Prey (2022)

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Cameron Crowe directs Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz in this existential psychosexual romance where a successful man’s dream life turns into a waking nightmare.

A big budget folly. Takes everything fascinating about Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes and stretches it out. The paranoid atmosphere works in fits and starts. You never feel like there is tangible plot that all the mystery and confusion can anchor into. Tom, bless him, is out of his depth as the broken disfigured version of himself. Hard to believe so many of the takes used in the final cut were his least cringey tries. Having said that the blockbuster art film production looks amazing. Diaz and Kurt Russell put in rare acting shifts and truly shine. There are a couple of iconic set pieces (deserted Time Square / a car crash / bedroom face shifting) that really amp up your unease. But any film that ends on three lengthy scenes of flat exposition just ain’t my bag. Well done everyone on working outside their wheelhouse but this, at best, is a noble failure. A worthy marathon. See you again in twenty years when I forget how testing you are Vanilla Sky.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

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

Penelope Spheeris directs Jim Varney, Diedrich Bader and Erika Eleniak in this remake of the old TV series.

Much talent and energy is wasted dashing about in search of a joke. Any joke. Recreates the famous credit sequence and sitcom set-up in colour… after which the writers then just insert the plot of the first Addams Family movie for little reward.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Sgt. Bilko (1996)

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Danny DeVito directs Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and himself in this black comedy where a long married couple battle each other to the death when their love goes sour.

Strange to think that this bleak, cynical anti rom-com was in steady rotation with Twins and The Three Amigos in my childhood viewing habits. My sister and I loved it as an alternative sequel to the Joan Wilder / Jack T. Colton adventures, and I realise looking back Michael Douglas was the one movie star who could get both my Mum and Dad to drop us off at the grandparents and go see a new release on opening weekend. He’s a slick scumbag here. It is hypnotic experiencing such an arrogant piece of shit watch his world fall apart. Whereas in your standard Douglas thriller the trauma is mainly psychological, here the whacks are escalating pratfalls with a co-star he has long established heat with. Turner is a classier prospect, always has been. She felt out of sync with Eighties – her flawless beauty and all-rounder talent base feeling more akin to a Rita Hayworth or a Lauren Bacall. So watching her crack is like watching a priceless Ming Dynasty vase slowly be crushed in a vice. DeVito’s sensibilities and pacing are spot on. His palette is just as expressionistic as Burton or Sonnenfeld were in this period. He still feels like an underrated director. There are some scene transitions and deadly slapstick set pieces here that are all-timers. And the whole thing is strangely moral. Homunculus.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Serial Mom (1994)

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

Ol Parker directs Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Kaitlyn Dever in this romantic comedy where a long-divorced couple go to Bali to stop their daughter’s spur of the moment wedding.

Expensive fluff with relaxed stars and enviable locations. The best you can say about it is it finds screentime time for the always wonderful Billie Lourd. If it were black and white and starred Grant & Hepburn we’d think of this as a Golden Age classic but times have moved on.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Runaway Bride (1999)

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Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre directs Emma Corrin, Jack O’Connell and Matthew Duckett in this adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s classic, controversial fuck novel.

An unnecessary remake. Every generation needs their period frolic in the sunshine I guess. Lashings of sex and nudity. Duckett as the cuck and Joely Richardson (stunt casting) as Mrs Bolton put in the best shifts. Have a slither of ambiguity about them. The costume design and production is very bright and tactile. Understands Lawrence’s vision, politics and philosophy but then again so did the Ken Russell’s mini series.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Lady Chatterley (2006)

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

Alan Parker directs Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne and Maria Doyle in this Irish musical comedy where a young hustler recruits a soul band from the estates of North Dublin.

Iconic and very quotable. Foul mouthed as opposed to genuinely gritty. A rainy fairytale. The music makes it. Mad to think Robert Arkins who carries the ensemble with charisma and timing never really worked on a big film again.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Sing Street (2016)

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Janeen Damian directs Lindsay Lohan, Ed Speleers and Alexander Vlahos in this romantic comedy set in “Ireland” where a book editor’s wish to marry her dream man disrupts the wedding she has crossed the ocean to attend.

Nobody drinks wine in Ireland… allegedly. Why are all the actors British? Truth be told, if Lindsay Lohan turned up in a small Irish town they’d declare a three day holiday and worship her as a returned pagan goddess. She works her way through about 50 fetch fits here. So as a delivery system to look at stunning Li-Lo, mission accomplished. In all other ways a failure of a film. Is it trying to replicate the blocky textureless tone of her tween films from two decades ago? On purpose? The cliches, the immature characterisations, the non-jokes. It is like Lohan has been stuck remaking Just My Luck on a loop for twenty years. Blarney edition.

2

Perfect Double Bill: Just My Luck (2006)

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

David Chung directs Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada and Michael Wong in the kung-fu thriller where three young law enforcement officers find themselves pulled into a deadly spiral of revenge after they foil a plane hijacking.

Nightclub fights through shattering glass. Skyscraper dangles. Dynamite versus tank finale. Unpredictable plotting – I’d struggle to give you a plot synopsis until the end of the second act when things coalesce. Young Michelle with dork hair and loads of class. Amazing stunts between moments of high melodrama and goofy romantic comedy. Full fat entertainment where nobody is safe and there’s always a more deranged villain waiting in the wings.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Yes, Madam (1986)

You can follow me on Letterboxd here https://letterboxd.com/BobbyCarroll/