Leprechaun origins

Another one! This is set in Ireland where four tourists visit and get sacrificed to a little monster. They escape and go on the run trying to survive. It's mostly set at night, is fast paced, but isn't scary at all. There's one good scene where they accidentally kill one of their own. This monster appears different to the others in the series, more deformed. The story involves a mine that has gold extracted and the leprechaun wants it back.

Title: Leprechaun origins
Genre: Horror
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: DVD

SAVE OUR IFTAS!

It's the biggest crisis in Irish cinema since Kirsten Sheridan ceased being a member of our Film Board! Not only has RTÉ refused funding for this year's event but now the IFB is also considering the same. This is a total disgrace! What other organisation would nominate masterpieces like Shrooms and Trouble with sex? What will we do without these IFTAs? This event fills about three pages on this blog alone. Where else can Amy Huberman stand behind our President and wink at someone off-screen? Where else can Saoirse Ronan's dad say "she's having a curry"? The IFTAs do the exact same as most Irish movies do: bad camera work, terrible sound, bad dialogue, and ugly women. That Nordie short that got an Oscar nomination today: you can be damn sure that it would NEVER have received an IFTA nomination. Because the IFTAs doesn't worry about silly stuff like quality. For the sake of Irish cinema please save our IFTAs!

The good, the average, and the rubbish of 2014

Probably the weakest year so far this decade for Irish cinema releases. Some titles got screened exclusively outside of Dublin but made little impact. Here's a rundown of what I saw:

GOOD
Noble - impressive biopic that didn't do as well as it should have.

Food guide to love - another release that no-one noticed. Set in Dublin it eventually ran out of steam but is enjoyable enough.

AVERAGE
Guarantee - political horror about the banking collapse.

What if - OK romcom with a bit of intelligence, partly set in Dublin.

Jimmy's hall - small-scale movie about a man hounded out of Ireland

Songs for Amy - how many Irish romance movies got released this year? Set in Galway, this is one of the better ones.

RUBBISH
Standby - join-the-dots romcom with (mostly) Irish accents.

Out of here - middle-class rubbish about an art-school drop out. As dull as it sounds.

'71 - straight-to-DVD IRA thriller which got good reviews elsewhere.

Gold - the most inept title for an Irish movie since Sensation. 'Turd' would have been a better title.

A nightingale falling - another Big House movie but without the quality actors and Protestant outlook.

Mrs Brown's boys d'movie - TV adaptation comedy that fails to match older ones from the 1970s.

Frank - another overrated release from this director. Full of horrible characters and even worse music.

Run & jump - imagine if someone made a movie about how a man copes married to a disabled woman? That wouldn't be acceptable. Here's one with the roles reversed and it was about as original as that selfie its director posed for at the IFTAs!

Calvary - church bashers at it again in the most subtle of ways. Gleeson won't be smirking in a few years when no-one remember his movies!

Sea - if I wanted to get funding from our Film Board this is the kind of crap I would use. Exactly the kind of stuff that soaks up funding yet no-one really is impressed with the finished result.

Stag - it's one thing to copy obscure movies but here in Ireland we do it a little different. Yes, lets copy recent box-office hits from the States. Singer Rocky DeValera had more originality than this rubbish. Amy Huberman's in it too, enough said.

Stalker - seriously, this is just sh-t. There's a reason certain films don't get made and it's not because Irish directors don't have the 'balls' or whatever rubbish that FIS document states. About as subtle as Louis Walsh voting for Irish acts on the X-factor.

GIVE DUNCAN CAMPBELL FUNDING FOR A FEATURE!

This Dubliner has just won the Turner prize and has more filmmaking talent than a hundred Graham Cantwells! Our Film Board should award this guy funding to make a feature immediately. They need to take a break from funding crap like Standby, Gold and The stag. Campbell could make another Hunger or Snap? Give him enough money to make a feature on his own terms. It's really sad that people need their talent to get recognised abroad while our Film Board supports the latest knobhead from IADT or the Catalyst scheme. It's like when I was a kid in the 1980s and our radio stations were blaring out the latest tune from the rock band Hothouse flowers while the far, far superior Dublin band My bloody valentine got zero airplay in this country.

Run of the arrow

Another old Western with a local theme. Steiger plays an Irishman (with a strong accent) who decides he cannot live in the newly formed United States. He heads West, joins the Indians, and then helps the cavalry select a site to build a fort. Amid tensions on both sides he has to obey his new beliefs whilst preventing both groups from fighting each other. The title comes from a game where a man is chased by the Indians whilst given a head start depending on the distance shot by an arrow. Anyone who thinks Dances with wolves is anyway original needs to watch this picture! You won't read about this movie in books on Irish cinema but Fuller was just as important a director as John Ford.

Title: Run of the arrow
Genre: Emigration
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

StandBy

Standby for another crap release from our Film Board! It's the dullest of people making a movie in the most 'challenging' of genres, the romcom! Seriously, these people are just too normal to make anything of interest. The reason they receive funding is because they will never rock the boat. An airport worker, who plays in a skiffle (not rockabilly) band, meets an old flame and he brings her around Dublin before her next flight out. There's absolutely nothing of interest here, everything is predictable, safe, bland, and forgettable. The only good scene was a dance to a Depeche Mode cover. Ireland, a country where we're come out of the worst recession in history yet film makers produce this contrived sh-te! Let me guess, all the script readers working for the IFB are female? Knobheads with empty minds, making templated rubbish convinced they've got talent.

Title: Standby
Genre: Romantic comedy
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Guarantee

Watchable and fast-paced movie about the Irish banking collapse. It intercuts video footage of the major figures involved, shows how America had their own problems, it portrays the bankers as being smarter than the politicians, and keeps you watching. The limited-budget shows on screen, none of the actors resemble their real-life characters, the music is dull, and a lot of the movie amateurish. But at least this film is relevant to our times and treats the audience with some intelligence. A real-life horror movie!


Title: The guarantee
Genre: Docudrama
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Out of here

Awful and dull movie about a returned emigrant who's dropped out of art college. It's like a sequel twenty years later to Snakes and ladders where the movie follows Moxley's son! Similar scenes (e.g. rave) but these young people are too dull to enjoy themselves. Are we supposed to feel sorry for this guy because he didn't get his degree from NCAD? As if his friends are going to get a decent job with a useless degree in fine art! There's absolutely nothing new in the film, every scene has been done before in previous Irish titles. Uses a disjointed observational style but there's nothing in the movie to interest. The similar but less stylish Gingerbread men is much better. Yet another turkey that's getting decent reviews because it got Film Board funding! What's missing from Irish cinema? Not this sh-te!

Title: Out of here
Genre: Mumblecore
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

'71

This year's IRA movie and it's well-made but has the look of a straight-to-DVD effort. It's 1971, and two soldiers get left behind in a street battle, one gets shot dead, while the other goes on the run. The army shouldn't have picked up that body because it could be booby-trapped. The other meets people from both sides of the conflict and discovers that most have dual identities. You won't really care what happens because the whole movie gets ruined by hand-held cinematography. It's also set at night so is difficult to follow what's going on. Some good acting, chase sequences, and plot twists but this movie has about as much to say on the Troubles as Graham Cantwell's 'masterpiece' Anton.

Title: '71
Genre: IRA
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema

Dick Dickman PI

Unknown movie from about a decade back that's now been released on DVD. It's terrible stuff! Set in the South East it tells the story of an irritating man who trains himself to be a private investigator. He checks out Russian criminals trying to steal Irish culture! Featuring the 'cream' of Irish comedy: Brendan's Grace and O'Carroll, June Rodgers, Frank Carson, and Joe Rooney. It looks like it got filmed on a camcorder bought in Argos(!), is fast-paced, and has the tone of a live action version of a children's cartoon. There are several women in the film who appear almost identical and it gets confusing to figure out who's who. Lots of popular songs on the soundtrack (did the producers really get clearance to use these?). Seriously, this movie is just sh-t!

Title: Dick Dickman PI
Genre: Comedy
New/old: Old
Cinema/DVD: DVD

Gold

Another mundane release from our Film Board. Similar in tone to Life's a breeze or Run and jump and just as bad! Dull characters, bad music on the soundtrack, no real drama or comedy, dull lighting, story that doesn't know when to end, and a general smugness that everyone involved is doing something special. Well they're not! These people are just too normal to do anything of interest and same with the filmmakers! A middle-aged guy visits his daughter's new family. None of these people are likeable, for example when Nesbitt's character falls into the river we don't care! It's bland and boring and all the 'right names' are involved but seriously you would need low expectations to enjoy this. After paying €10.10 I didn't!

Title: Gold
Genre: Comedy drama
New/old: New
Cinema/DVD: Cinema