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Do We Give Too Much Kudos to Established Directors?

There was (as ever) a rather interesting piece in the Guardian a few weeks back which suggested – what with Alice in Wonderland and Shutter Island coming out within weeks of each other and dominating film discussion in March – perhaps we tend to focus too much on established directors like Burton and Scorsese.

Because it’s one thing for a studio to take a project and market it with such frenzied hyperbole that for a week or two seeing it becomes all but obligatory for anyone wanting to remain a la mode. It’s quite another for film-goers to convince ourselves we need to see that same project through an increasingly forlorn belief in its director as a still-vital and relevant force. Whatever the implications of Burton’s Alice may be for exhibitors and all that newly-installed 3D technology, the nuts-and-bolts issue here is surely the length of time any once-great film-maker is given in the cinephile heart purely on the basis of dusty triumphs a decade or more in the past.

I thought it only fair to wait until I had seen bother of those big films to comment. Being entirely honest, I don’t think it’s entirely reasonable to lump Burton and Scorsese together as some sort joint proof of that assertion. In fact, I’d argue the two are very different sides to the same coin.

Is Burton picking his own creative bones dry?

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Swan Lake at the Grand Canal Theatre

Yes, we occasionally do high-brow stuff here as well. I had the great joy of taking the better half to a performance of Swan Lake by the Russian State Ballet at the Grand Canal Theatre last night. It’s the first show to perform at Dublin’s newest and largest theatre venue and it was a great opening for the 2,100-capacity location. I’m still more than a little skeptical about the venue’s longterm prospects – is Dublin large enough to sustain a theatre of that size? – but there’s no denying it is simply jaw-dropping.

Just Swanning Around...

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We’re an Irish Blog Awards Finalist…

Wow…

I have no idea what to say. We have somehow, against incredible odds, been singled out as one of the five best pop culture blogs based in Ireland by the Irish Blog Awards.

Artist's rendition of author's emotional state right now. Note: Knowledge of method acting techniques might be slightly exaggerated.

To give you an idea of the kind of talent we’re up against, check out my fellow nominees, most of which are longterm fixtures of the Irish Blogging Landscape. I used to read several of these long before I even dreamed of starting up my own little corner of pop-culture-stream-of-consciousness. It’s a cliché to say you’ve been nominated against your idols, but it’s true. A less smaltzy way of saying the same thing is say that, if you can judge a man by the measure of his opponents, we must be doing something right. Check them out:

And a quick shout out to all the dudes and dudettes who took the time to judge. Not just this blog, but the hundreds of others. That takes a lot of patience and we’re glad you all put the time in. Thanks.

And check out our category’s sponsor, Insure.ie. They’ve also invested a lot of time and faith in this whole blogging thing and it’s great to see web companies – particularly Irish webcompanies – investing in an Irish online community. Thanks.

I’ve been emotional enough here, I reckon. I just want to say that I never really imagined that this blog would every really come to much when I started it last May. It was just a place for my random rants about whether bloggers should be considered legitimate critics or whether Hollywood respects its elderly stars. I want to just thank every person who takes the time to read a post – whether they think I’ve somehow said something that might be relevent or they think I’m talking out of a hole other than my mouth – and those who have shown support and encouragement. Yes, you. The person reading this now. Thank you.

And I want to thank those who put up with all my mindless real-world-based, pop-culture-related ranting for years before I started this. You guys know who you are. Especially my significant other. Who has the patience of a saint. Thank you all. 

I’m probably overdoing it, but I figure – in honesty – I’m punching above my weight in this category, and this post feels like the appropriate place for the well-deserved ‘thank you’s. I am honoured and chuffed to have made it this far at all. It has been a pleasure – I hope some people have enjoyed this half as much as I have. I hope to be attending the ceremony in Galway next Saturday, which should be a great night.

I’m going to say it once more: wow.

Matt Fraction’s Run on The Invincible Iron Man – Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

Released just in time for you to play catchup before Iron Man 2 hits the cinemas, Marvel have published the first nineteen issues of Matt Fraction’s run on The Invincible Iron Man. It’s a big book. Unfortunately, it only contains two storylines (it looks like the era of decompression isn’t quite over), but despite some storytelling issues it manages to be a fairly entertaining read. Mostly because Fraction seems to have a fairly solid handle on the man inside the suit of armour.

Iron Woman...

Note: I do feel a little bit robbed. I bought this on amazon.com advertised as a Marvel Omnibus. It arrives at my door as a slightly larger than usual hardcover. There are next-to-no extras or commentaries or anything. I was looking forward to shelving this with my cool Omnibus collection – they do just look better. It isn’t any smaller than the Death of Captain America Omnibus or the second Brubaker Daredevil Omnibus. I’m a little bit ticked off. But I’ll get over it.

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In Defense of Popcorn…

Seriously?

Not cool. Seriously not cool.

The chairperson of Sony, Michael Lynton, has come out urging cinemas to start sideline popcorn and soft drinks in favour of healthy alternatives. Perhaps its an indication of the crazy politically correct world we live in, or maybe it’s a depressing sign of how little he knows about the movie-going experience, but I’m going to draw a line in the sand and say “No more!” Yes – if movies taught me one thing, it’s rhetoric. And the joys of popcorn.

Pop quiz, hot shot... is there a kernel of truth in these rumours? Okay, I'll stop.

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Non-Review Review: The Big Lebowski

Apparently The Big Lebowski wasn’t anything special when the Coen Brothers drafted it. Just a routine little film with a main character very loosely based on a film producer that they used to know. To this day they’re still a little perplexed at the massive success the film has had, becoming a cult phenomenon and a serious contender for the mantle of “Best Coen Brothers Film”. In a way, that’s almost perfectly suited to the kind of film this is. It’s a lot of hubbub over a film clearly meant to be very small, much like the film itself is a very big story wrapped around a very ‘small’ character, so to speak. It’s always reassuring to know that The Dude abides.

"This is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules."

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Non-Review Review: Taken

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

– Bryan Mills

Let’s face it, if the above quote doesn’t appeal to you then you probably aren’t the audience for this action flick.

It's a little like that. Okay, it's a lot like that.

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Non-Review Review: Julie & Julia

I am quite surprised to admit that I greatly enjoyed Julie & Julia. Probably more than I should have, on careful analysis. The film’s main gimick – juxtaposing Julia Child’s time in France with Julie Powell’s attempt to cook through the gigantic tome which resulted from Child’s time in France – never really comes together, but it manages to work on pure whimsy despite highly predictable subject matter (indeed, the thread running through Julie’s storyline kinda presupposes the end of Julia’s arc – Julie wouldn’t be cooking from her book if she didn’t succeed). It isn’t a masterpiece or a classic, but it’s a very watchable piece of moviemaking.

Can you smell what the blogger's cooking?

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Why Are We Afraid to Scare Children?

I watched the Platinum Anniversary Edition of Pinocchio over the weekend. aside from the revelation of how ridiculously Disney manipulate the market to keep their movies out of constant circulation and creating false scarcity, what really struck me about the movie was how ridiculously (and gloriously) dark it was. As a 23-year-old adult, I felt more than a little uncomfortable watching the movie, so I can only imagine how it would have terrified me as a kid. Turning kids into donkeys and selling them to the circus! Threatening to chop up the lead character for firewood (and showing a similar puppet with an axe in his back)! The lead character lying limp, face-down in a puddle! It occurred to me that you’d never get a film like that made for kids these days. Why are we afraid to scare children?

He's a jackass! Geddit? Seriously, this gave me nightmares.

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Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis Omnibus, Vol. I

It took me a while to write this. Because it took me a while to figure out what to say. I honestly believe that the combined Bendis/Brubaker run on Daredevil has been perhaps the single most impressive run on mainstream comics in the past decade. It isn’t post-modern or retrospective, it isn’t flashy or innovative. It’s just a collection of good and clever stories, well told. Some of them reflect the state of the superhero in popular culture, some of them explore the role and function of the media as a supreme court of arbitration, but most of them are just good and clever noir stories. If you are looking to pick up a single collection of comic books, I would recommend this. It’s nominally a superhero story, but at its heart it’s a gritty urban thriller. But that’s enough hyperbole, don’t you think?

Better the devil you know?

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