Canada | the m0vie blog

184. Mommy – This Just In/World Tour 2020 (#—)

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Ronan Doyle and Phil Bagnall, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Xavier Dolan’s Mommy.

In a fictionalised 2015 Canada, widowed Diane “Die” Després finds herself forced to care for her young son Steve. Steve is a challenging child at the best of times, with his attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder leaving him prone to shocking mood swings. With the help of her neighbour Kyla, Die works desperately to strike a balance with Steve. However, whatever sense of equilibrium this dysfunctional family finds is destined to come crashing down around their ears.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: Canada, mommy, phil bagnall, ronan doyle, The 250, xavier dolan | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Grand Seduction

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

The Grand Seduction is nowhere near as cynical as it needs to be, and nowhere near as cynical as it thinks that it is. The story of a small Canadian ~~town~~ harbour in desperate need of a doctor in order to win a lucrative contract from a nebulous oil corporation, The Grand Seduction sets itself up as a vicious satire of these sorts of communities. Trying desperately to convince a visiting doctor to stay in their small community, the locals fashion themselves an endearingly quaint façade, manipulating their guest to get what they want.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brendan gleeson, Canada, film, jameson dublin international film festival, jdiff, Movie, non-review review, oil, review, Taylor Kitsch, the grand seduction | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Darkness Falls (Review)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Darren

Darkness Falls is the best script Chris Carter has written so far. It it is far superior to Fire or Space or Young at Heart or The Jersey Devil or even The Pilot. It’s quite possibly the strongest normal “monster-of-the-week” episode that Carter ever wrote, discounting his work on “special” episodes (like Post-Modern Prometheus or Triangle) or even some mythology stories (I’m quite fond of Redux).

Darkness Falls is – at its most basic – just a very strong monster-of-the-week installment, hitting all the right buttons to provide an atmospheric horror thriller.

If a tree falls in the woods…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Barack Obama, Canada, chris carter, Dana Scully, Darkness Falls, Martin Luther King, mulder, mulder and scully, National Security Agency, National Security Archive, National Wilderness Preservation System, Oregon Territory, Outdoors, Post-Modern Prometheus, Recreation, scully, Standing Bear, Steve Humphreys, United States, vietnam, Vietnam War, Washington, Wilderness Act, x-files | 6 Comments »

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013: Highlights!

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Darren

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival launched the programme for its eleventh year today. There’s some great stuff in here. There’s a variety of films, from European to American to Asian, from big budget blockbusters to intimate documentaries to more personal films. It’s a great selection of films, and festival director Grainne Humphreys should be proud. After all, if your biggest complaint is having to choose between L.A. Confidential and Bernie, then you must be doing something right.

I’ve picked out some of my own most anticipated events of the schedule below, in rough chronological order, so if you are looking for something to do on a particular day, feel free to see if there’s anything of interest. Unfortunately, some of the events overlap, so you can’t attend everything – something that’s a massive shame given some of the films on display here. With that in mind, the list is below.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, California, Canada, cineworld, dublin, Film festival, Hardy Bucks, jameson dublin international film festival, Matthew McConaughey, Movie, Paul Raymond, richard gere, Ryan Gosling, side effects, Steven Soderbergh, Stoker, the hardy bucks, United States | Leave a comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Darren

Join us the December as we take a dive into the weird and wonderful Will Eisner Spirit Archives, the DC collections of the comic strip that helped define the medium.

It’s hard to overstate the impact that Will Eisner had on comic books as a medium. The writer, entrepreneur and artist is known as “the father of the graphic novel”, with A Contract With God regard as one of te very first examples of the format. Eisner made massive in-roads into developing comics as a medium that merited discussion and attention, trying frantically to break out of the ghetto where the artform is so frequently trapped. While he has made countless pivotal contributions, arguably Eisner’s largest and most influential body of work can be found in The Spirit, the weekly comic strip that the author syndicated across America. Packaged with any number of respected newspapers, it was among the most widely-read comic strips in the country, but it also allowed Eisner the freedom to expand and develop his craft.

DC have collected the bulk of the character’s history in a series of their superb “Archive Editions”, from the first strip published through to Eisner’s last work on the title (with a supplementary volume published by Dark Horse). Here, in the first volume, we can see the artist honing his craft and developing the series into one of the most important in comic book history.

That’s his name!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: A Contract with God, alan moore, arizona, Bob Iger, Canada, comic book, comic strip, Comics, dc comics, Ebony White, Eisner, Eisner Award, Ellen Dolan, Homer, japan, North Carolina, Secret World of Arrietty, Spirit, Spirit (comics), Studio Ghibli, Terence McKenna, United States, Will Eisner | 1 Comment »

The Final Cut (Review)

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Darren

The third and final part of the House of Cards trilogy, The Final Cut exists to bring to a close the story of Francis Urquhart, the iconic and conniving fictional British Prime Minister. Portraying Urquhart during his twilight years, the series presents a man who has arguably faced and overcome all the challenges that the world has to offer. While The Final Cut lacks a clear focal point like House of Cards and To Play the King, it is a fitting conclusion to the epic saga, with a powerhouse central performance from Ian Richardson as the Machiavellian Tory Prime Minister.

Still in his Prime?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Canada, Diane Fletcher, Francis Urquhart, history, House of Cards, Ian Richardson, king, Larry Jordan, margaret thatcher, Minor characters in the House of Cards trilogy, Prime Minister, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, To Play The King, United States, Urquhart, winston churchill | Leave a comment »

What Does It Take To Get You To See a Movie Twice In the Cinema?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Darren

Going to the cinema is expensive. In fact, it’s been getting progressively more expensive these past few years, which seems to be a contributing factor in steadily decreasing theatre attendance. (The behaviour of fellow patrons and lax enforcement of basic cinema etiquette might be another.) Still, there’s something inherently romantic about a trip to the cinema, seeing the lights go dark and the images projected on a big screen, as they were intended to be seen. While a home cinema system offers its own perks, there’s just something inherently appealing about the real deal. Last Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing Cabin in the Woods with my better half – the second time I’d seen the film. I very rarely double-dip on cinema trips, but there were a variety of factors that alleviated my guilt. What does it take you to see a film more than once in a cinema?

Cinema is a cottage industry...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Arts and Entertainment, Cabin in the Woods, Canada, Christopher Nolan, david fincher, Drew Goddard, film, home cinema, Indoor Theaters, joss whedon, Movie theater, Movies, Theaters, titanic, United States, Woods | 12 Comments »

Oh Heck(le): When Is It Appropriate to Heckle?

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Darren

I attended the Irish premiere of Unknown last night as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. It was a fairly bland film, but what really stuck out to me of the night was a heckler during Grainne Humphreys’ introduction to the film. The guy was a bit of a dick, and it got me thinking – when is it appropriate to heckle?