Netflix And Chill: Roommates (2026)

I have said it many times before, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with a movie not being quite what you expect it to be. In fact, a number of movies have been greatly appreciated by many because of their defiance of expectations, for want of a better phrase. Roommates isn't the film I expected it to be, fair enough, but it's also not good when it is being the film it actually is. Which left me quite disappointed.

Things start with a fight between dorm roommates Luna (Storm Reid) and Auguste (Ivy Wolk). The fight is so bad that Dr. Robyn Schilling (Sarah Sherman) intervenes, deciding to offer them a valuable lesson in the form of a tale about Devon Weisz (Sadie Sandler) and Celeste Durand (Chloe East). Devon hopes that college life will be a big improvement on her school years, and that looks possible when she meets, and becomes instant firm friends with, Celeste. It's not long until a few warning flags appear, however, and the expected smooth cruise through college turns into a very bumpy journey indeed.

Written by Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O'Sullivan, two people who have some shared work on roughly 60 episodes of SNL, this is a film that works better when the writers remember to have some funny dialogue in between the more dramatic moments. It also works better when there's some ambiguity. Unfortunately, both of those elements are missing when the film needs it most, instead relying on Sandler and East to carry viewers through the entire movie. They're not up to that task.

I'm not familiar with anything else from director Chandler Levack, but this certainly hasn't convinced me to rectify that situation in any great hurry. She seems to have been picked by Adam Sandler to help advance the separate career of a daughter who has spent the majority of the past two decades picking up credits for smaller roles in her father's films. That's certainly a job, I guess, but it's not one that everyone would be happy with.

The big stumbling block here IS Sandler. She delivers an eye-rolling bit of "teen angst" that would be fine in a smaller supporting role, but doesn't work well for a lead character. She's not a terrible performer. She's just not good enough for a role that needs someone much better in it to make up for the failings elsewhere in the film. East does a bit better, but she suffers more at the hands of the writers, especially once the film reaches the halfway point. Natasha Lyonne and Nick Kroll are very welcome as a pair of decent parents, Carol Kane is a delight as the grandmother, Gigi, and there are entertaining cameos from Janeane Garofalo and Megan Thee Stallion. Aidan Langford is pretty good as Devon's supportive brother, and Billy Bryk and Martin Herlihy do quite well playing two very different types of loser. As for Sherman, Reid, and Wolk, they're weak enough to make their few scenes together even worse than anything in the main narrative being presented.

A drama presented in the form of a comedy, but also trying to play everything in the same light and inconsequential way as many other Happy Madison films, Roommates could have been a film of simple pleasures. Some may admire it for trying to do something else. I cannot. It doesn't really seem to know exactly what it wants to do, and subsequently fails to do anything worthwhile.

3/10

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Mubi Monday: Carnal Knowledge (1971)

While it's over half a century old, Carnal Knowledge doesn't feel dated. That's as impressive as it is sad. Since finally watching it I keep making a joke about it being a film obviously loved by Neil LaBute, but I'm not sure I mean it. I mean . . . I DO mean it, but probably not as a joke. There's something in the bitterness and the misogyny here that is very much a precursor to the kind of sharp and jagged explorations of the same subject matter that LaBute would deliver in many of his own works.

Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) are two friends who have plenty of conversations about the women they decide to pursue. This is all set up in the very earliest scene, a sequence that has Sandy trying to establish a connection with Susan (Candice Bergen) after Jonathan basically says "I'll let you have her." Susan doesn't realise that she's going to end up in the middle of a strange three-way relationship with both Sandy and Jonathan, at least until one of them gets bored with things. Jonathan also gets involved with Bobbie (Ann-Margret), a woman who is worn down and seriously affected by the mistreatment she suffers from him. As time rolls on, various women see Jonathan unable to extricate himself from his self-created black hole of self-loathing and inability to view women as nothing more than potential conquests. It just remains to be seen whether or not Sandy will be locked in there with him.

While there's no denying that the heart of Carnal Knowledge is the bold and unflinching screenplay from Jules Feiffer, which lays bare an attitude and culture that persists to this day, it's hard not to give just as much credit to director Mike Nichols and his main cast members. Nichols may not have avoided a number of mistakes throughout his decades-spanning directorial career, but his best works cast a long shadow over a few different eras of cinema. This is one of his best, taking a scalpel to examine some of the wounds of the 1970s that were left to scab over by those wandering around aimlessly in the 1960s. Could Benjamin Braddock have turned into Jonathan one day? Maybe, maybe not. 

Garfunkel does very well in his role, being a bit more timid, yet also far too willing to join in with his friend when it seems as if it may prove to be a winning tactic for him, and all of the women make an impact in various ways (Bergen, Ann-Margret, Cynthia O'Neal, Carol Kane, and Rita Moreno), but the film belongs to Nicholson, who manages to somehow keep his character riveting even as he becomes more and more overtly loathsome. He's quite pathetic and horrible, but that is sometimes hidden away under a projected image of false confidence and bravado. 

Carnal Knowledge isn't an easy watch. I'm not sure I'd even call it an entertaining one. It's thought-provoking and vital though, an essential part of a conversation that is still happening over half a century after it was first released. The fact that we're still having the conversation may well make your heart sink, but it's also better than this kind of behaviour playing out without people having the knowledge to more easily recognise it and call it out. And at least there's a somewhat happy ending here, seeing the lengths one character has to go to in order to hold on to any imagined scrap of power.

9/10

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When A Stranger Calls (1979)

If you haven't seen When A Stranger Calls in many years then you should do yourself a favour and rewatch it. It's not the film you remember it being. Well, that's not quite true. The first 20 minutes or so are exactly the film you remember it being, but then you have over an hour that explores three very different characters and how they are joined together on their journey through life.

Carol Kane plays Jill, the young babysitter who is terrorised by a mystery caller while she is babysitting two children. All he keeps asking is "have you checked the children?" and Kane becomes so unnerved that she calls the police, who do their best to reassure her while eventually attempting to trace the origin of the call. As tension builds and nerves are shredded, this extended set-piece eventually ends before viewers are taken seven years into the future. Curt Duncan (the caller/killer, played by Tony Beckley) has escaped from a psychiatric facility, a private eye named Clifford (Charles Durning) has been hired to track him down, and Jill is now a married mother of her own two children. 

Directed by Fred Walton, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Steve Feke (expanding their short, "THe Sitter"), When A Stranger Calls is an interesting psychological horror, for the most part, that fortunately came along before the main wave of slashers that would take over the horror genre for most of the first half of the 1980s. More akin to films like Maniac and Don't Go In The House, this tries to separate itself from a crowded field by showing not only the actions of the killer, but also the effects on others who have crossed paths with him, be it a surviving victim or a determined ex-cop, and it does a great job of both providing some tension and thrills and also exploring how major trauma can reverberate through lives that have been shattered in different ways.

Kane is very good as Jill, although she's more convincing as the vulnerable babysitter at the start of the movie than as the woman shown in the third act. Durning is an excellent unstoppable force, a man now determined to stop a killer in a way that will guarantee he never gets to cause harm to anyone ever again. Then you have Beckley, who lends his character an awkwardness and a disconnect that makes him scarier than so many other, more physically intimidating, killers. Although there are other people giving decent performances here, it's the central trio of Kane, Beckley, and Durning that remains the focus of the thing.

The look and feel of the film may not be very cinematic, it often feels like a very well done TV movie, but the script elevates this into a bit of a minor classic (with that opening sequence so impressive that it has been reworked and homaged many times since, most famously for the opening of Scream). Neither Walton nor Feke would deliver anything else close to this in their film careers, but this alone should have been enough to have their names more celebrated than they are today.

8/10

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My Blue Heaven (1990)

Sorely overlooked since its release in 1990, My Blue Heaven holds up today as an absolute joy from start to finish. It's a standard "fish out of water" scenario, made all the more enjoyable by the nature of the fish and what he tries to get up to in his new environment. Star Steve Martin may be slightly miscast, most notably when his accent keeps wavering, but he makes up for that during the many moments when he can be more . . . . . . . . Steve Martin-like.

Martin plays Vincent Antonelli, a former mobster who is now under witness protection. Unfortunately, and much to the chagrin of FBI agent Barney Coopersmith (Rick Moranis), Vincent finds it difficult to adjust to life in a corner of white-picket-fence Americana. He's also a compulsive liar, or so it seems. It's hard to stay angry at the man, however, when he has such a surprisingly good heart. Even when he's upsetting Hannah Stubbs (Joan Cusack) he tries to make the best of the situation.

Directed by Herbert Ross, and written by Nora Ephron, My Blue Heaven is a nice, old-fashioned kind of comedy, with a smattering of bad language to keep Vincent Antonelli somewhat plausible as a main character. Martin may not be the strongest element, which is unusual for a comedy vehicle in which he's one of the main stars, but that's not a problem thanks to the great support from Moranis, Cusack, Bill Irwin, Carol Kane and William Hickey (not a large role, by any means, but I am always happy to see Hickey onscreen).

There aren't any major set-pieces, but that's not a problem either. This is a character piece, a look at two men and what they can bring out in one another. Martin and Moranis together create easy, enjoyable chemistry and provide viewers with a superior modern bromance before the word had been created and bandied around.

Unlike many of his '80s movies, this isn't a film that will automatically get a pass from every Martin film. That's a shame, because I think it's almost as good as any of his other major hits from the decade that saw him star in so many comedy greats.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Blue-Heaven-DVD/dp/B001FRZ9TY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375542910&sr=8-1&keywords=my+blue+heaven

Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)

From the very title of the movie (itself a reference to the old Glenn Miller tune, Pennsylvania 65000) to the set up and development of the plot to the large number of groansome gags, Transylvania 6-5000 feels very much like a dated movie unlikely to appeal to modern audiences. Using archetypal horror icons can work (just see the excellent The Monster Squad for an example of just how well) but this film uses them ineffectually and can't even compensate for failing in that department with any comedy consolation.

Jeff Goldblum is the journo rolling his eyes in exasperation and disbelief as he's sent on a job to Transylvania to investigate the background of a video received by his newspaper (that reportedly shows Frankenstein's monster scaring two unsuspecting tourists). Ed Begley Jr. is the editor's son who is along for the ride, making up for in enthusiasm what he lacks in common sense. Once they have arrived at their destination they are treated to a bizarre experience, staying in a hotel that caters specifically for tourists by catering to every Transylvanian stereotype and cliche. Are there monsters on the loose or is the whole thing just a lot of nonsense?

Written and directed by Rudy De Luca, Transylvania 6-5000 at least benefits from a decent cast. Jeff Goldblum has never, in my view, been unwatchable and his cynical presence helps lift this vehicle just above the very bottom of the barrel. Ed Begley Jr is slightly irritating at times but he's not the worst comedy actor ever. Jeffrey Jones has fun, Michael Richards plays a butler who is essentially "Kramer with a fondness for practical jokes" and Carol Kane steals every scenes that she's in as an overly affectionate wife pestering her husband (John Byner) while he tries to get on with his work. There's also a decent turn from Teresa Ganzel as Elizabeth Ellison and Geena Davis looks gorgeous in a vamp outfit. Joseph Bologna is slightly disappointing as a potential mad scientist, Dr. Malavaqua, but he doesn't drag the film down severely, mainly because it never really reaches any higher than average anyway.

The jokes occasionally raise the shadow of a smile but this kind of material was mined for far superior comedy gold by the likes of Mel Brooks, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis and even Abbott & Costello. By 1985 you would think that something sharper and smarter could have been created but that's not the case (I even enjoyed Transylmania and Stan Helsing more than this movie). A revelatory finale proves to be surprisingly sweet and gently amusing but it's also lacking in anything that actually makes up for the rest of the film being so disappointing and stale.

4/10

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