TEN NEW 'RULES' FOR IRISH CINEMA!

Right, it's been another average year for Irish movies. This can't go on as this decade has to change! There's no point in waiting for someone else to do this so Shoot the cabbage brings you 10 New Rules for Irish Cinema!

1. No more films featuring actors from Irish soaps.
No need to expand on this!

2. No more hype before the movie gets released.
Just release the thing and let audiences decide. Forcing a movie down their throats is a bad idea (unless there's a fast food tie in!). Expectations are too high and people will knock the movie.

3. No more colour filters on the cameras.
Having one character blue and another yellow is just crap. Nothing dates a movie quicker than forced style. Same for tourist shots of the countryside.

4. No more orchestras on the soundtrack. Unless of course it's 'proper' classical music e.g. Elgar or Bach.

5. No more genre comedies. You know: horror-comedies; sci-fi-comedies; gangster-comedies. They just don't work and never will. Made by people with no understanding of the genre they're trying to poke fun at?

6. No more 'based on a true story' movies. Because we all know they're never fully true and have been altered for dramatic purposes. Also, when the opening titles say 'Based on a true story' or 'The following events happened' it means we're supposed to like the movie regardless of its quality.

7. No more made-for-TV movies pretending to be feature films. Fair enough Omagh was great but Eden certainly was not. If you pay a TV licence then you should not have to pay to see these movies in the cinema.

8. No more 'pair of mismatched men in a strange setting' movies. They just don't work and will never be as good as Withnail and I anyway.

9. No more 'Irish versions' of famous movies. They will never be as good as Taxi Driver or whichever obvious movie the director has seen twenty times.

10. No more low-budget, digital movies that try to be slick and professional. There have been a lot of these Irish titles in the last few years. The whole point of making a cheap digital movie is that it should look raw, unpolished, energetic, realistic, gritty, and lively. When you're admiring an establishing arial shot of Dublin city filmed with a camcorder there is something wrong!