FILM SUPPLEMENT

In today's Irish Daily Mail! Four-page spread with articles on the Dublin Film Festival, some college, the Gaiety acting school, and Brendan Gleeson. The usual platitudes aimed at the misguided about how thriving our film industry is! Here's a tip off: Tesco have a free plastic card in their stores that gives a 50c discount on this paper from their stores every weekday for the next two months!

Traveller

Not to be confused with the already reviewed Traveller (or Travellers!) this is a recent movie set in Britain about Irish travellers. Although the accents are mostly English there are lots of Irish music on the soundtrack and references to this country. It portrays these people in the usual way: sulky racing, boxing, and rows with the police. A young man decides to return to the caravans, gets involved in a robbery, and dates a police woman. Singer David Essex (whose mother was an Irish traveller) appears and some of his songs are on the soundtrack. However, there are too many movies with this title, the action is low key, the direction is not involved enough, and we've seen most scenes in other movies. Not well known but out on DVD.

Title: Traveller
Genre: Drama
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: DVD

3 MONTHS!

Since the last Irish-themed movie got released; so much for the excellent state of our industry! What happened to all those Irish movies from last year's Galway Fleadh? Why are so few Irish movies getting screened in our cinemas? Two decades of our Film Board and still only ripples! Why doesn't the IFI screen more Irish movies? What happened to that Irish Film Channel? Why has the IFTA awards been moved to April?

YESTERDAY'S IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY!

Had a small article on our Film Board's latest shenanigans! Seems forgotten (but talented) director Damien O'Donnell has received some kind of funding for a new short film called You. The issue is that the award is supposed to be for new filmmakers and not for people who were doing well back in 1999! O'Donnell is exactly the kind of filmmaker the Board supports. Commercially successful but too normal to make anything of interest! So there you go future Irish directors - apply to our Film Board for funding under this scene for new talent and then see them give the award away to a guy whose career has dried up and needs to start again with some crap short! I'm off to Paddy Power's tomorrow to bet on Kirsten Sheridan receiving next year's award under this scheme!

Seaside stories

Another obscure feature from our Film Board's back catalogue; this one is terrible! Awful sound quality, camera work, acting, and story. It's a soap opera set in some crap West-coastal town. A woman gets involved with several local men, her daughter arrives from England, and her little boy has a secret. Everyone walks in the middle of the road, snorts cocaine(!), verbally abuses each other, visits the pub in the afternoon, and spy on each other. Thank fu-k I live in Dublin instead of some sh-thole like this place! Nothing to recommend about this movie except the decent music score (which thankfully uses no piano!). This is kind of crap that gets exclusively shown in that CineMobile and rural arts centres! So obscure, I couldn't find a poster image to put with this review! Love the way the IFB's website gives away this movie's entire story!

Title: Seaside stories
Genre: Drama
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

THE INTERNET HAS RUINED IRISH CINEMA!

What a statement! Yet there's some truth to it. We're on an island and should be isolated from other cultures but it's only a click away to see the cinema offerings from each continent. That's why most Irish cinema appears to be derivative of better foreign titles. Instead of coming up with our own style of cinema that's different to other countries we imitate - badly. Even acclaimed and successful directors like Lenny Abrahamson offer nothing new. It's conscious Euro arthouse that we've seen before but with Irish accents. Few of our directors stand out and the ones who do appear to have only one movie in them. The internet makes everything available and that's why people are so eager to copy rather than innovate. That's also why our filmmakers are absolutely obsessed with 'the look' of their films - stuff that's shallow and uninteresting but appears great. It's surface filmmaking and lacks the confidence for long takes or anything resembling life. There's a certain technical standard that Irish directors aspire to but audiences end up looking at the movie rather than watching it. That's why there are so many stupid horror and science fiction movies coming out of this country. Directors who have the technical skills but their minds are empty. Blame the internet people!

WHERE'S OUR FILM BOARD ASSESSMENT REPORT?

Dublin's Abbey theatre is in hot water over the release of a critical report on the quality of their recent productions! It's supposed to be a world-class playhouse but its productions were not! So let's ask Nostradamus what I'm now going to say! 1,2,3 ... where is the report on the Irish Film Board and the productions they support? What happened to John Carney's Rafters? Why do so many Film Board features have the exact same title? Why did Kirsten Sheridan receive funding whilst serving as a Board member? How many movies funded by the Board return profit? How much again did Perrier's bounty gross in the USA? Why do so many directors of features funded by the Board have foreign names? What happened to Five day shelter (yes, I know there should be a hyphen in that title!) and its director? Why have so many features funded by the Board over the years disappeared? Why has the Board not helped fund a new world-class director (Lenny Abrahamson is not in this category!). Why are so many Irish movies funded by the Board so substandard? Why are there the exact same actors in all of these movies? Why did Graham Cantwell have to emigrate? Actually, scrap the last point!

WENT TO SEE COLLIDER!

Jason Butler's debut feature (from FMN.ie), one of several recent science fiction efforts from Irish directors. This one is average; a group of mismatched people find themselves in a building and a time warp. Not terrible but rather forgettable.

THE GOOD, THE AVERAGE, AND THE RUBBISH OF 2013!

Another disappointing year for Irish cinema. Despite all the funding, film schools, festivals, and media support little of worth arrived.

THE GOOD
Good vibrations - Nordie music bio that worked.

Pilgrim Hill - impressive docu-drama about a lonely farmer. Even better it cost little to make. Talent shines through.

Philomena - enjoyable and moving movie about a woman's search for her lost son.

O'Briens - straight-to-DVD movie about a family gathering in the West of Ireland. Full of annoying characters but it still works.

THE AVERAGE
Earthbound - unusual sci-fi set in Dublin. Made no impact but worth a look.

Jump - rave movie set in Derry. Like a lot of Irish movies it arrives a decade late but is well made.

Belfast story - annual IRA movie. This one got ruined by lame direction but its script kept the story moving. Not as bad as the mainstream reviews.

In fear - this year's horror effort (Citadel wasn't Irish themed). Well-made with a small cast, effective though predictable.

THE RUBBISH
Hardy bucks - another Hollywood copy with Irish accents. Dire stuff.

King of the travellers - bad movie with a romance between two warring traveller families.

Life's a breeze - proof that Lance Daly is a minor talent. This is awful stuff. No-one cared about this family or their stupid mattress.

Black ice - Johnny Gogan's latest piece of drek. Boy racers along the border, in a fog!

Riders to the sea

For anyone who thinks music in Irish cinema stretches to The commitments and Once here's an opera! Made back in the 1980s by respected Louis Lentin it's based on the famous play. This isn't a static filmmaking of a live opera, it got made in a studio using pans, dissolves, and cuts. Short-TV feature which is difficult to follow as all dialogue gets sung. A woman laments the deaths of her children by the sea. Starts off with the writer working in a cottage. Impressive stuff and shows how dumbed down RTE has become since then.

Title: Riders to the sea
Genre: Opera
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

Last September

One of the best 'lost movies' funded by our Film Board. This is another IRA film set in Cork in the 1920s but here it focuses on a family living in a Big House. A young woman gets involved with both a British army officer and a rebel leading to tragedy. A splendid cast, stunning cinematography, interesting dialogue, and excellent direction this is one of the best Irish movies ever. What's impressive is that the characters take precedence over any action (which gets given brief treatment). It's an absolute disgrace that this movie has been forgotten. It never gets mentioned in books on Irish cinema either. The only bad thing I have to say is that it's similar to an older picture called The dawning.

Title: The last September
Genre: IRA
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD (region 1)