Monday 30 April 2012

LATEST VIEW RESULTS AROUND THE WORLD!

Here are the latest results for countries accessing this blog. Strange more views from the USA than Britain? Ireland (first), United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, India, Ukraine, China (tenth)

Sunday 29 April 2012

DREAMHOUSE DVD!

Jim Sheridan's non-Irish Dreamhouse is out now on DVD. Shame there's no director's commentary!

Saturday 28 April 2012

PICKED UP A DVD

of the already reviewed Last bus home recently in a Dublin shop for about €5. Can't believe the same DVD is only NINETY TWO EURO on the British Amazon website!

AT-SWIM-TWO-BIRDS!

With all the hype about Brendan Gleeson's forthcoming directorial debut it's strange that no-one has mentioned this interesting fact: THIS MOVIE WAS ALREADY DONE BACK IN THE 1990S! There is an German film adaptation of this famous novel. The way Gleeson is going on you'd swear he's poineering this novel to the big screen! That's Irish cinema in a nutshell: blinkered and only looking at things from one angle.

Friday 27 April 2012

Thursday 26 April 2012

WENT TO SEE LOCKOUT

Enjoyable movie, don't mind the bad reviews! Rips off Escape from New York and lots of other sci-fi but so what? Won't be reviewing it because even though it was partly made in Dublin and the directors claim it to be an Irish movie there's nothing connected with this country in it.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Monday 23 April 2012

WHY IS THE IFB IN GALWAY?

Simple really: our current President Michael Daniel Higgins was Minister for the Arts back in the early 1990s and he helped reestablish our Film Board. His constituency was in Galway and that is why our Board was put there. Imagine how good Irish movies could have been if Higgins had been from Dublin?

Sunday 22 April 2012

BIG ARTICLES IN TODAY'S NEWSPAPERS

About Lockout the new sci-fi movie from a pair of Irish directors. Even better, the same papers are giving the movie bad reviews!

Saturday 21 April 2012

KISS FOR JED WOOD OUT NEXT MONTH!

Nothing to do with Jedward(!), the new Irish film A kiss for Jed Wood is out next month on the 18th.

Friday 20 April 2012

IRISH SCREENWRITING AWARDS!

Seems there's an award from the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild for best Irish film script to take place next month on the 10th.

Thursday 19 April 2012

TODAY'S EVENING HERALD MAGAZINE!

Called the Herald Dubliner has a small article called Our boys (and girls) abroad featuring five Irish directors making waves across the world. The selection is laughable. That is all!

Wednesday 18 April 2012

TEN THINGS IRISH CINEMA CAN LEARN FROM THE FRENCH NEW WAVE!

Been reading several books lately on French cinema and a few points stood out. So here are ten ideas that could benefit Irish movies:

WHERE'S SNAP ON DVD?

Over a year since its theatrical release it's strange that Snap still has not been released on DVD? Even if it did I doubt it would put be on the shelves alongside The field, Agnes Browne, and the other usual stuff?

Tuesday 17 April 2012

Oh, Mr Porter!

Strange that this famous comedy set along the Border never gets a mention in Irish cinema? Far funnier than recent Film Board efforts it's set at a train station in Buggleskelly. There are lots of crashes, arguments, and a gun-running operation. Will Hay gets sent to Ireland so as not to live with a relative and he tries to big up his little station. Except it's not even on the map! Some good character actors appear in this movie and it's recommended.

Monday 16 April 2012

LOCKOUT!

The directors of one of the best Irish shorts, Prey alone, have a sci-fi feature coming out called Lockout on the 20th of this month!

Sunday 15 April 2012

MOVIES MADE TO IMPRESS BUT NOT EXPRESS!

That is the problem and explains where our cinema is going wrong: show-off cinematography, obsessed with winning awards, too much training, riskless, lifeless, glossy, voiceless, safe, bland, inoffensive, trying to look as expensive as possible, predictable, overwritten, telling stories, and derivative. To sum up in one line: most of our films get made to impress but not express!

TEN IRISH MOVIES IT'S OK TO HATE!

Maybe not the worst made or the worst reviewed but here are ten Irish movies that Shoot the Cabbage cannot stand for various reasons:

Saturday 14 April 2012

River queen


Another movie about the Irish abroad this one involves the invasion of New Zealand and the Maori's defence of their land. An Irish woman gets caught up in the conflict and her son gets kidnapped. Like Ward's other films this one has stunning scenery, bad acting, continuous soundtrack music, and you end up looking at it rather than getting involved. Every scene has a moving camera and this gets tiresome. The first time the camera runs over a river it's impressive but by the tenth time they show this it gets boring. Lots of Irish music on the soundtrack and green tinting on screen. Useless fact: the Maoris doing the haka also appeared in the old Disney movie In search of the castaways.

Friday 13 April 2012

WHERE'S CHARLIE CASANOVA?

Made two years ago and hyped more than any other recent Irish movie. Yet it's still not in our cinemas? The offical website has no release date, the Irish Film Censor's Office has no released date, BUT the XtraVision webiste has a cinema release date of 11 May 2012 for this movie.

Thursday 12 April 2012

December bride



Good but rather flat film about two men who share a housekeeper. Set in an old Protestant community up North it's mainly filmed outdoors and is strong on visuals. However, as in most Irish titles these visuals draw attention and a lot of the scenes appear dull. It's like Dorothy but without the horror! Quite a decent film but compared to similar cinema e.g. Merchant Ivory's The europeans it's nothing special. Still, another decent effort made between the two Film Boards.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Monday 9 April 2012

TEN WORST CLICHÉS IN IRISH CINEMA!

It's a Bank Holiday Monday and this blog has too much time to spare! So here is a list of awful clichés in modern Irish film.

ALTERNATIVE TITLES!

Here's a list of other titles for Irish movies:

Angel (Danny Boy)
Anton (Trapped)
Assault of darkness (Bog bodies, Legend of the bog)
Bloom (Bl,.m)
Closer you get (American women)
Death games (Chaos)
Inside I'm dancing (Rory O'Shea was here)
IRA informant (Informant)
Last of the high kings (Summer fling)
My friend Joe (Joe my friend)
Quackser Fortune has a cousin in the Bronx (Fun loving)
Rewind (Redux)
Shellshock (Triage)
Trafficked (Capital letters)

WHERE ARE THE IRISH MOVIES SET IN THE 1970S?

Back in the 1990s most Irish movies were set four decades earlier in the middle of the last century. Now in 2012 we should be up to the 1970s for Irish movies? So where are these titles? The 1970s was a great decade for stories. Strange that when the Film Board restarted they were obsessed with older eras. Surely we should be making movies set in the 1970s by now? Some older examples include Killing Bono, 32A, Last of the high kings, Turning green, Last bus home, and In the name of the father. Plenty of scope for more titles? How about a movie on the Miami Showband massacre? Or the kidnapping of Dr Tiede Herrema? Or the story of Irish women's liberation movement from that decade? Seems the 1970s were too violent and angry for Irish cinema to tackle? That's why we're still making dire stuff set in the 1950s like Stella Days.

Sunday 8 April 2012

NEW CINEMA

In Tallaght, opening later in the year. Used to be one in The Square ages ago.

ALBERT NOBBS GETTING A RELEASE

At the end of this month. Empire magazine gave it a poor rating so don't expect the best.

Saturday 7 April 2012

IRISH FILM BOOKS: NATIONAL CINEMA AND BEYOND



Another academic book this one discusses Irish No-Wave director Vivienne Dick, Jim Sheridan, Disco pigs, Butcher boy, Bloody Sunday, and Magdalene sisters.

Friday 6 April 2012

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE AGAIN!

Strange, todays Irish Daily Mail newspaper reviewed the new movie This must be the place. That's TWO weeks after it got released here! They only gave it one star.

ROGER CORMAN

This week I watched a Corman movie called Deathsport. Unfortunately like most of his productions it was rubbish! But it was the famous director/producer's birthday yesterday and most are aware of his connection to Irish cinema. Back in the 1960s he produced Dementia 13 here. Then in the 1990s he set up a studio in Ireland called Concorde. There he made films such as Criminal affairs which caused a sensation at the Galway Film Fleadh. Unfortunatley due to the almost soft-porn content it was for the wrong reasons! Apparently it was the crew who selected this movie for submission and not Corman himself. Another film made here (and out on DVD) was A very unlucky leprechaun. There was trouble with unions, reporters, staff turnover, and a few controversial interviews with the Irish media. Legal threats were made when one Irish journalist gave Corman a script to produce but he turned it down. The Irish media then turned against him. There are three kinds of film categories: rubbish but fun stuff that Corman produces; bland, middle-brow stuff that our Film Board funds; and then high-brow stuff that the world-class directors make. Not only do we need an Irish director that's world class but we also need an Irish Roger Corman!

Thursday 5 April 2012

FILM ARCHIVE

Is getting moved to Maynooth Universtity due to size issues which begs the question: why was it in Temple Bar in the first place?

Wednesday 4 April 2012

Tuesday 3 April 2012

FUTURE OF THE IRISH FILM INDUSTRY!

Watching a short on the RTÉ website called Crossword and it really is shit. Is this the future of our film industry? Crap shorts that rip off stuff like Amélie. Stupid and annoying voiceover, titles melting on screen, and absolutley zero narrative. Then there's the obligatory plinky piano soundtrack. They couldn't even get the parrot to say 'absolutely' when earlier in the film they said it could. This is how bad Irish cinema really is when rubbish like this gets accepted for funding and a TV screening.

IRISH FILM BOOKS: NEW IRISH STORYTELLERS



New book about recent Irish cinema. Lots of academic ideas and even more errors! For example Frankie Starlight is incorrectly listed as never getting a theatrical release. There's a photo of Michael Gambon with the wrong movie listed underneath. But without a doubt the biggest fault is that this movie discusses only Film Board titles. That excludes stuff like Anton (which was more ambitious than many state-funded titles). Also excluded for some reason is Pavee Lackeen (one of the best Irish films from the last decade). There's a bizarre chapter about romance films and even stranger charts to explain some silly theory. Another chapter is devoted to John Carney (before Zonad got a release to ruin his reputation!). Worth a look but too academic (some good one paragraph ideas) and like the IFTAs, it ignores most Irish feature films. Might discuss some of the ideas from this book another day.

Monday 2 April 2012

Conspiracy of silence



Imagine if someone made a film about the Irish fishing industry in crisis and tried to convince the audience that this would affect the world's fishing industries? That would be daft. Yet this movie tries to make out that because there is a crisis in the Irish Catholic church that this will affect the same church right across the globe! So what is this crisis? The priests want to get married. Two young trainees get kicked out for breaking the rules. It's the old vs the new. As Dave McSavage might say: 'if you want to get married then don't become a fuc*ing priest!' The rest of the movie is awful: handheld camera in one scene, camera moving around actors while they stand still in the next scene, followed by a self-conscious slow zoom!Even Gay Byrne doesn't convince playing himself! Strange movie that's out on DVD everywhere but no-one mentions it with regard to Irish cinema. Maybe because it got made in Britain? Also, any director who uses a handheld longshot of a car approaching in the distance is just a bad filmmaker!

FRANK DEASY RADIO INTERVIEW

There's an old interview with the late writer/director on today's Liveline.

Sunday 1 April 2012

DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS?

But RUSSIA are the most frequent visitors to this blog after Ireland/Britain/USA.

Master of the world

Dated movie from the 1960s with Vincent Price trying to stop wars around the world. He uses an airship to attack from the sky. A group of ...