Life's a breeze

If there's one genre even worse than the Irish horror movie it's the Film Board comedy. From Wide open spaces to Happy ever afters there is about 3% comedy and 97% crap in these movies. Now this latest effort is the same as the others. The usual faces, boring storyline, overdone soundtrack music, unfunny dialogue, confusing emotions, dull cinematography, short scenes (including the obligatory dole office one), and a sense of not caring what happens. Even better, the director already used the idea of an old person hiding money under the bed in his Halo effect. Everything that's wrong with Irish cinema involving all the 'right people' is here! That new teenage actress can't act, the characters argue with each other, none are likeable, and the movie runs out of steam after about an hour. There's not even one scene that sparks to life or makes you sit up and take notice. Bland rubbish made by bland people.

Title: Life's a breeze
Genre: Light-family drama
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Ballroom of Romance

Like most of the best Irish movies from the 1980s this one is forgotten. Short feature about a group of middle-aged lonely hearts who meet up at a rural dancehall. Fricker has her eye on drummer Lally but discovers that his landlady already has him. Then she fights off the leery advances from Kavanagh. It's an impressive movie and is better than that other famous Irish short-feature Poitin. Set at night like most good films this could have worked as a silent movie. The expressions on the actors' faces tell the story as good as the dialogue. Like most new Irish directors from that decade Pat O'Connor hasn't done much of note since. I blame the second Film Board for ignoring these directors' true potential but that's for another post!

Title: Ballroom of Romance
Genre: Heritage
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: Online

GALWAY 2013

With most of last year's Irish features forgotten already the new Fleadh programme for this month includes:

Sea
Another 1950's movie, great!

How to be happy
Another Filmbase feature which will get its only public screenings in Galway!

Run and jump
Family drama.

Cold
Eoin Macken's new one and it's not horror!

Black ice
Johnny Gogan's new one. Like his other features will no doubt be exclusively available on the Volta website.

Mister John
From the directors of Helen. These filmmakers are doing stuff far more impressive than the others here.

Dark by noon
Another sci-fi movie. Also has two directors.

Callback queen
Graham Cantwell's new one. Can't say anything bad about this as his friends on FMN might complain!

House of shadows
Not sure about this one, set in Italy with Irish actors.

Tasting menu
Some food/cuisine comedy set in Spain with Irish actors?

Out of here
Coming of age drama. From the guy who wrote the article What's missing from Irish cinema.

Shadows
Another interesting director.

Life's a breeze
Lance Daly's new one. This guy will eventually direct a really good movie. Doubt it's this one?

Discoverdale
Seems to be similar to a Leningrad Cowboys-type movie?

Made in Belfast
The obligatory Nordie movie which are usually good.

Love eternal
From the director of Savage.


So that's that. Lots of Irish features at the month's Fleadh but the usual mixture of rubbish and interesting titles. No doubt a few will get a cinema release, the rest will come out on DVD, while the remaining will be forgotten by next month. None will be a commercial success but hopefully a few will be worth checking out?