CELTIC TIGER MOVIES MUST BE DESTROYED!

A long time ago in the 1990s only certain Irish movies were allowed to get made. They had to be set in the 1950s, rural areas, father-son tensions, girls with long hair, poverty, local pubs, priests, shawls, and wealthy landowners. Or else they had to be magical, mystical, films set near the sea, and preferably aimed at kids. People hated these movies and rightly so. Technically bland and pedestrian they followed the TV-drama template of zero risk, emphasis on script, stage acting, and dull cinematography. Oh, and don't forget to add an over-the-top music score please. That will do nicely. But people got angry. 'We want modern stories featuring good-looking characters in urban settings' they pleaded. The country was changing and Irish cinema had to change too. So the movies we made moved on - no more IRA films, no more rural dramas, and no more 'magical' films featuring dwarves and children. Thank goodness for that so. But what was to follow? What was to replace these wretched movies? Step aside you miserable, grim cinema and make way for a new kind of filmmaking: the CELTIC TIGER* movie!