Pint of plain

Little-seen short feature from the 1970s about Irish men in London. It's done in black and white, long takes, and after each scene there's a cut to black. Set in pubs, parks, and pool halls it details various men and how they struggle abroad. Dialogue heavy and interesting it's certainly a bit different and stands out from the director's recent disappointing titles. Kind of similar to what Jim Jarmusch does but less polished and with more politics.

Title: Pint of plain
Genre: Emigration
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

Mrs Brown's boys d'movie

Based on the popular TV series this has Mrs Brown looking for an old receipt to help save her Moore St stall. She gets help from her family and blind ninjas! There's a new oriental character (also played by O'Carroll), a running gag about an Asian man, the Russian mafia, a court case, and Cathy has a new job. This is just average and certainly not as funny as the similar features of TV comedies from the 1970s (On the buses, Likely lads, Steptoe and son). The opening sky shots of Dublin were done better in Pete's meteor. If they were going to make a feature film then they'd shouldn't have used a TV director! Unwritten rule, if everyone had a good time making a movie then it will be a bad one!

Title: Brendan O'Carroll's Mrs Brown's boys d'movie
Genre: Comedy
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Elliot & me

Strange there's a recent Hollywood movie about a dog called Marley and me and now there's an Irish movie about a dog with a similar title! Short feature, just under an hour this effort is about a Dublin girl who buys her own pet, has it stolen, and tries to find it. She makes a report to the Garda yet when she discovers who stole the dog decides to get it back all on her own? The supporting cast are good and the cinematography is well done. But the little girl can't act and that dog is no Benji or Yeller! Not a lot to recommend, typical Irish movie, unoriginal and says nothing. The whole movie gets ruined by using too much piano and guitar on the soundtrack. However, unlike most films made here it has a target audience, young people!

Title: Elliot and me
Genre: Kids
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: DVD

Snakes and ladders

One of dozens of lost Irish movies from the 1990s this effort is a romantic comedy about two 30-something women who get involved with the same man (comedian Sean Hughes). It's dialogue heavy and rather bland though some scenes will wake you up! Joe Dolan appears in a great scene (similar to No surrender) and Rosaleen Linehan steals every scene she's in. Similar in tone to the later About Adam it uses location as a romantic setting and there are lots of great shots of this great city (though many locations are of course gone now). There's even some full-frontal nudity, a concert from Pierce Turner, and a clubbing scene. It's a good snapshot of mid-1990's Dublin with various characters (who've probably since emigrated!) and streets. The movie itself is dull enough but the accents and dialogue are good.

Title: Snakes and ladders
Genre: Romantic comedy
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Food guide to love

It's back to the Celtic Tiger era with expensive apartments, blogs, cafés, attractive women, tennis, and lots of nice people! Everyone here looks clean and inoffensive. It's about a food critic who falls for a Spanish lady. Very bland but still enjoyable. Dublin looks great here and the two leads are good. The story is slight (we're supposed to care that she turns vegetarian!) and there's a good contrast between the writer's sophisticated lifestyle and his old-fashioned parents. There's a running gag about coddle and Simon Delaney plays the same role he did in This must be the place. Looks out of place in current Irish cinema but it's a surprisingly good effort. One of the better Irish releases from this year.

Title: Food guide to love
Genre: Romantic comedy
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Jimmy's hall

Low-key but impressive movie about a man in 1930's Leitrim who starts a gathering. They learn dancing, jazz, cookery, and other pursuits. The church, state, and local IRA get involved and divisions in the area happen. Names get read at mass and fights break out. This movie is like dozens of rural Irish movies set in the middle of the 20th century except it actually has something to say. What it says is that certain people don't belong in conservative Ireland regardless of their talents. Also impressive was the lack of any photogenic actors! Of course, now the pendulum has turned and everyone's welcome here! There is little comedy in the movie and some of the characters spout left-wing stuff non-stop! It's strange they all seem to have the same political views? Not Loach's best work but compared to other recent movies made here like the derivative Frank and the cookie-cutter Run & jump it's a minor masterpiece!

Title: Jimmy's hall
Genre: Social realism
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Frank

Awful movie about a group of musicians recording an album in Ireland and then visiting a festival in the States. Dull to watch, the songs are terrible, and none of the characters are likeable. It's about a young man who joins the band, tries to make them more commercial, but causes them to split up. It never gets out of first gear, you won't care what happens, and it gets tedious to watch. Not even one scene sparks or makes the movie interesting. Everyone is a total loser and it's not remotely funny. The kind of movie Aki Kaurismäki was making 25 years ago but he did it much better. The dead body on the raft scene was previously done in the 1950's movie The Vikings. Nothing the band do is particularly original and it all seems lame.

Title: Frank
Genre: Music
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

WYCHERLEY'S A TWIT!

Good article on Irish actor Don Wycherley in yesterday's Irish daily mail newspaper. He outlines how difficult it is for established actors to find film roles in this country. He needs to fall back on his teaching career and doing plays to get by. He may be a teacher but is not too smart! He complained that the TV series Vikings (which gets made in Ireland) is not hiring Irish actors. Instead they are hiring Scandinavian actors! Let's suss out his logic! They are making a TV show about Vikings but are not hiring Cork actors like Wycherley to play these roles. Instead they are hiring people from where these Vikings come from! I can't see any problem there?

Passed away

Another Irish-themed Hollywood movie that no-one knows about. Released years before the similar Death at a funeral this one has a family gathering when a father dies. An attractive woman who might have been the deceased's mistress, an illegal alien, marital troubles, a pregnant daughter, elderly secrets, a communist nun, and Bob Hoskins (who always appears miscast). The kind of movie that sounded great on paper but doesn't work. It's about an Irish-American family with the usual names, religion, music, songs, red hair, and wake. The script is really good but the direction is awful. What should be farce ends up as a mismatched cast saying their funny lines. One great scene has a guy announce he's going for a pee and then violently embraces a woman. Then a waitress says "what would he do if he went for a sh-t!". It's interesting seeing lots of attractive women here who look strange due to their dated hairstyles, makeup, and clothes!

Title: Passed away
Genre: Emigration
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

Songs for Amy

Strange that this is currently on release without any fanfare? It's certainly not terrible though is bad in parts. A singer fails to turn up for his wedding, the bride-to-be (Amy) emigrates, she gets engaged to another singer, and then the wedding just happens to take place in the same hotel that the first singer inherits! Safe to say even our Film Board wouldn't fund this contrived rubbish! Yet, despite being too long this movie has something: it's certainly watchable, you can guess what happens, some of the comedy is good (the sexy traveller women!), everyone makes an effort, the scenery is impressive, and the characters are likeable. There's a good party scene with rock group Alabama 3! Like Vox humana it's a music movie set in Galway City with several locations used. A bit of everything here: romance, comedy (the sex tape was hilarious!), road, and music (bland rock) - that's why it got such bad reviews elsewhere. The kind of movie that would do well at some 5th-rate American festival!

Title: Songs for Amy
Genre: Romcom
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Run & jump

Set in Kerry this is about a young family that tries to cope when their father gets a stroke. An American academic visits and stays in the house. Similar to recent American movies: bearded men, video footage, acoustic indie songs, family rows, sunspots on the lens, hand-held cinematography, hippie outlook, low-key acting, and domineering women. This film is just terrible! Completely bland and dull to sit through. None of these characters are interesting and the movie is about as original as The stag! Every piece of dialogue needs to get filmed from a different angle to the last line! It's exactly the kind of movie you would expect from a new Irish director: a decade late! We've seen this family stuff before in Noah and the whale and countless other recent American dramas. All that was missing was a gay character (actually the son was!). I'm surprised they didn't all pack up into a van and head on a road trip with some tuneless acoustic dirge strumming on the soundtrack! The title comes at the end when the cast hop into the sea almost fully clothed. Best scene: the visit to the zoo.

Title: Run & jump
Genre: Drama
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema