Rooney

Enjoyable black and white movie from the 1950s about a council worker lodging in Rathmines. He meets a variety of women residents (similar to the recent Brooklyn) and falls for the unpopular one. Lots of good scenery around the city: Temple Bar; the Quays, O'Connell St, and that strange church in the middle of the road in Dublin 6. Lots of familiar faces for anyone who watches these movies including Eddie Byrne (from Star wars). A bit dialogue heavy and script based, it has its moments, but many scenes are repetitive. It's too smug for its own good and doesn't reach the heights of the similar great Ealing films. Everyone is polite too even when arguing, which appears strange. A good hurling game at the end which you won't see in too many other Irish films. Far better than 95% of the rubbish our Film Board has funded but predictably forgotten, ignored and little-known. If you see this DVD in the shops buy it for Xmas!

Title: Rooney
Genre: Romcom
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

The good, the average, and the rubbish of 2015

Another mixed year for Irish-themed cinema. A dozen releases but few made much of a success critically or commercially. A small number got vanity releases outside Dublin but made no impact. Here's a run down of the ones this blog sat through.

Good
Brooklyn - well directed yet everyone used the writer's name when describing this movie.
Monged - on release for a week (or weekend) this is a good drugs movie about three different lads. Nothing new but memorable.
You're ugly too - this year's movie about a mismatched pair in a strange location. Low-key but it worked.
Patrick's day - easily the best Irish release of the year. A mother messes up her son.

Average
Hallow - most of the better Irish horror movies seem to get ignored. Maybe because they're British-made?
Hit producer - first rule in film school, don't try and copy Hollywood movies as they'll always look like the cheap castoffs they are.
Pursuit - another action movie, using an Irish legend it's worth a look but tiresome to sit through.
Glassland - told from the view of the son looking after his alcoholic mother. Nothing new but worth a look.

Rubbish
Christmas star - an Irish Xmas movie that got no mention in our media. Says all you need to know about its quality.
Legend of Longwood - if a gender film quota gets introduced here this is the kind of crap that will get made more often.
Get up and go - apt title as you will want to walk out of the cinema during this tedious rubbish.
I used to live here - same setting as Glassland. Social realism without that nasty intelligence or actually saying something.

Christmas star

It's Legend of Longwood again! Aimed at kids but has a confusing story, bad direction, ugly cast, scenes that don't cut together, well made but below average, and everyone giving their best but this tires the audience. A Northern Irish man returns to his area from the USA. He tries to trick the locals into selling their globe factory so he can build a theme park. A little girl born on the 25th December who can perform small miracles tries to stop him. There's not much about Christmas here and the story is daft and contrived. Why does Brosnan phone from America yet the little girl has no mobile phone when her parents search for her? What's with the strange guy with no hand? Why is there a woman giving birth in a barn in the opening scene when it's supposed to be a movie for kids? Why do the two bad guys run away when the kids blow whistles? A lot of this stuff is too silly and doesn't make sense. It's like bits from other bad movies: for example when where the kids invade Stormont and it's on the telly we're shown scenes of outsiders watching on TV cheering them on. It's happy-clappy crap aimed at stupid people with nothing new to make it memorable.

Title: Christmas star
Genre: Kids
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema