english | the m0vie blog

347. On the Waterfront – Leaving Cert 2023 (#187)

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Conor Murphy, this week with special guest Donald Clarke, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This September, we are running a season looking at the films on the Irish Leaving Cert English Curriculum. So this week, Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront.

A down-on-his-luck former prizefighter, Terry Malloy finds himself doing oddjobs for the local union boss Johnny Friendly. When one of these jobs ends with dock worker Joey Doyle thrown to his death before he was due to testify to corruption within the union, Terry begins to question and doubt his involvement. A burgeoning romance with Joey’s sister Edie gradually awakens Terry’s conscience, throwing him into conflict with everything that he has ever known.

At time of recording, it was ranked 187th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, blacklist, Cold War, communism, conor murphy, donald clarke, education, elia kazan, english, history, huac, leaving cert, leaving certificate, leonard bernstein, marlon brando, on the waterfront, Russia | Leave a comment »

And They Lived Happily Ever After? Will Gnomeo & Juliet Have a Happy Ending?

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Darren

It started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended up in tragedy.

– Milhouse Van Outen

I have to be honest. I studied Romeo and Juliet in secondary school and I just didn’t get it. Not the fancy-ass language or the outdated words, but the appeal of the play. Seriously? This piece of work right here is frequently regarded as one of the romantic pieces of literature ever written? A play about a teenage fling which ends in suicide? Where Romeo falls for Juliet on the rebound and they never get to spend any time together? Where a convenient third-act quarantine serves to lead to the play’s tragic conclusion? I never really got the appeal of the work – I mean, it was good and smart, but it struck me as a lot more cynical and bitter than most seem to think it is. And so this trailer for Gnomeo and Juliet arrives, and I’m wondering – will a whole generation of children end up scarred by the image of gnome suicide?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Characters in Romeo and Juliet, elton john, Emily Blunt, english, Gnomeo & Juliet, james mcavoy, Michael Caine, Movies, plays, pop culture, romance, romeo + juliet, the bard, tragedy, William Shakespeare | 2 Comments »

Film Studies in the Leaving Certificate…

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Darren

I sat the Leaving Certificate over five years ago, so the memory of the examine is still fresh in my mind. For those international readers, that’s the exam we do at the end of secondary school before we go to college (it determines whether we get a place as we don’t really have college fees… yet). Anyway, no subject perplexed me as much as English did. here was a subject that could be interesting and compelling, but mostly ended up boring the pants off anyone sitting it. The subject is taught over two years with students choosing one core text (taken for a set list by the Department) and then three ‘comparative texts’ (also from a list, albeit a larger one). There were also poets and composition and all the stuff we would expect. I remember being excited when I heard that films were on this comparative list. But that soon changed when I learned which films. With all the kids going back to school, I wonder if film studies should be made a larger part of English studies, or if we simply need to revise which films we use and how we use them in the class room.