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Non-Review Review: The Canal

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

Ghosts are all around us.

As the opening scene of The Canal quite clearly states, the deceased endure long after their passing. Whether as images captured on camera or stories repeated in hushed tones, the dead haunt us. What are ghosts but the voices of history reaching out to the individual like some nightmare lodged deep in the collective unconscious? The “stone tape” theory of paranormal activity suggests that horrific events leave their mark, a blood stain that won’t wash out. What if that stain is psychological? What if ghosts are nothing but tales that echo in the darkness?

It is not an entirely original concept, to be fair. The idea of ghosts that exist as stories (or as media) is quite an old idea. In fact, one particular jump scare in The Canal owes quite a specific debt to Ringu, the iconic Japanese horror story about a ghost trapped inside a haunted video cassette. That scene is not the only parallel; The Canal centres itself upon a man working at the National Archives who finds himself processing old footage. No sooner has he discovered the gory details of a brutal murder in his home than it seems that those same ghosts come to life.

The Canal hits a few speed bumps in its final act, but – for most of its runtime – the film is a thoroughly compelling modern day ghost story. Writer and director Ivan Kavanagh wears his cinematic homages on his sleeve, drawing quite openly from directors like Roeg or Kubrick. The Canal is an unsettling and fascinating Irish horror film.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, horror, irish horror, ivan kavanagh, jameson dublin international film festival, jdiff, non-review review, review, the canal | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Let Us Prey

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

Let Us Prey marks the feature film debut of director Brian O’Malley.

O’Malley certainly knows his stuff. Let Us Prey is visually striking and very well-directed. It is rich and memorable, perfectly capturing the eighties exploitation vibe that O’Malley is striving for. It isn’t too difficult to imagine Let Us Prey as a lost horror film from the eighties, with its synth-heavy soundtrack and vague paranormal underpinnings. O’Malley draws from a wealth of sources, but Let Us Prey feels most obviously indebted to the work of John Carpenter, feeling like a curious blend between Prince of Darkness and Assault on Precinct 13.

Unfortunately, O’Malley confident direction can do little to conceal the obvious flaws in a clumsy script. While Let Us Prey has an obvious affection for classic schlock-fest horror films, the script feels more than a little lazy and generic. Horror films generally trade in tastelessness or tackiness – that’s a huge part of the fun – but there is no sense of technique in how Let Us Prey parades its own depravity. The “shock” elements feel cheap and half-hearted.

O’Malley is very much a director to watch, but Let Us Prey is saddled with a script that is far more horrifying than anything O’Malley can actually put on screen.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brian o'malley, film, gratuitous, horror, John Carpenter, let us prey, non-review review, review, steven lynch | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Pressure

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

Trapping a bunch of people in a claustrophobic location under time pressure is really the key to instant drama.

It is a well-proven strategy that has been used so often because it works. It is a great vehicle for high-stakes tension, but also for tough interpersonal drama. If you pack people close enough together under just the right amount of strain, it is a great way to reveal and inform character. It leads to conflict, which is generally quite entertaining to watch. If you can harness that tension and that conflict, it is fairly easy to get the audience to go along with the rest of the film.

Pressure is a quintessential “bunch of people trapped in a tight space waiting to die” film. Four divers venture down to repair an oil pipeline, only for disaster to strike. The four characters find themselves trapped alone at the bottom of the ocean, with no real chance of survival. Tough decisions have to be made, and characters are thrown into conflict with one another as the air runs low and the power runs out. There are moments when Pressure really works as a claustrophobic thriller.

Unfortunately, there are just as many moments when Pressure doesn’t work. The film seems intent on pulling the audience out of the harrowing situation – whether through quick flashbacks or nightmare sequences that undercut the claustrophobic tension of the rest of the film. Despite the best efforts of the cast, the characters feel stilted and stock – spouting cliché dialogue and coming in the form of broad archetypes. The scripting is similarly haphazard, particularly in the somewhat contrived third act.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Danny Huston, diving, film, matthew goode, Movie, non-review review, pressure, review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Shoulder the Lion

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

Shoulder the Lion is a visual sumptuous documentary from the creative team of Erinnisse and Patryk Rebisz.

The duo have a long history behind the scenes. Patryk is an accomplished cinematographer and Erinnisse is a veteran editor. However, barring a short film written and produced by Patryk a decade ago, Shoulder the Lion is the first time that the duo have taken complete charge of a film. The result is visually stunning. Shoulder the Lion is a documentary that divides its focus among three subjects – each dealing with a debilitating condition. However, the key is in how Shoulder the Lion attempts to relate to its subjects.

Shoulder the Lion attempts to convey to the audience – visually and aurally – what it must be like to see the world through the perspective of its three subjects. There are any number of striking compositions and sequences in the film, as the Rebiszes invite the audience to experience even some small segment of what day-to-day life must be like for its three central individuals. As Alice Wingwall describes her deteriorating vision, the camera filters out the colours. As Fergal Sharpe describes the agony of tinnitus, a painful electronic buzz builds.

There are structural problems with Shoulder the Lion. Most obviously, the fact that it divides its attention between three subjects while devoting so much energy towards its visuals means that not all of the three central figures emerge fully-formed. Indeed, it could be argued that the film expends more time trying to replicate their disabilities than exploring their experiences beyond that. However, the result is a thought-provoking and well-constructed piece of film. It is a beautiful piece of work, if not quite as deep as it might have been.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alice wingwall, art, documentary, fergal sharpe, film, jameson dublin internation film festival, jdiff, Katie Dallam, non-review review, review, shoulder the lion | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Force Majeure

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

A blackly comic interrogation of modern masculinity, written and directed by Ruben Östlund, Force Majeure documents a family holiday that goes horribly and spectacularly wrong.

Following a nuclear family on their five-day ski holiday, Force Majeure examines the consequences of a fateful decision by the family patriarch. Dining on a restaurant on the upper levels of the resort, the family witness a controlled avalanche that quickly seems more and more uncontrolled. As a sea of white washes over the restaurant, Ebba tries to shield her children – while Tomas grabs his phone and his gloves and runs for cover, abandoning his wife and children to the elements.

This sounds pretty bleak. However, Östlund shrewdly decides to play it as black comedy. He uses Tomas’ pretty spectacular failing as a jumping-off point into a number of delightfully uncomfortable sequences that manage to be both squirm-inducingly awkward and laugh-out-loud funny. For all the epic scale suggested by the movie’s one-line synopsis, Force Majeure is a rather more intimate piece of work. Two separate meltdowns over dinners with two different couples are arguably more catastrophic than any force of nature unleashed over the course of the narrative.

Force Majeure is a triumph, a stunning examination of a marriage under pressure.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, force majeure, jdiff, Movie, non-review review, review, Ruben Östlund | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: All About Eva

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

All About Eva has ambition to burn.

It is a modern film noir set against the backdrop of the Irish racing scene, filmed mostly on a single stately country home and with a functional budget that seems minuscule even by the standards of independent Irish film. The fact that it exists is a testament to everybody involved. The fact that it comes very close to working is icing on the cake. All About Eva is a very stylish piece of work that very clearly has a lot of ambition behind it. It is a trashy revenge saga that is produced with a very high level of competence. In particular, director Ferdia MacAnna does great work.

However, ambition is only so much. As good as the film looks relative to its budget, there are a number of key structural flaws that cannot support the weight heaped upon them. Most obviously, All About Eva is an attempt to hark back to the classic femme fatale movies, with a seductive and manipulative young woman infiltrating a racing dynasty so as to dismantle it from the inside. All About Eva lives or dies based on that central performance. Newcomer Susan Walsh simply does not have the ability to carry the movie around her.

To be fair, Walsh is let down by an uneven and scattered script, which revels in cliché. All About Eva is a film that seems wryly aware of its own trite plot beats and dialogue, but that self-awareness can only carry a film so far. There is a point where homage is not enough to sustain a genre pastiche. All About Eva comes surprising close to working, and has an energy that is almost infectious. Unfortunately, it cannot make it over the line.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: all about eva, femme fatale, film, Film noir, horse racing, Ireland, irish film, kildare, Movie, non-review review, review, web series | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang tells a story that would seem almost too absurd or too far-fetched if it were a scripted drama. The documentary charts the former NBA star as he attempts to organise a friendly basketball game between North Korea and the United States. The idea came from Kim Jong-Un, who had struck up an unlikely friendship with Rodman during an earlier trip to the isolated dictatorship. Over December 2013 and January 2014, Rodman helped to organise the most unlikely basketball friendly in history.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: dennis rodman, documentary, film, jameson dublin international film festival, jdiff, kim jong-un, matt cooper, non-review review, North Korea, review, the interview | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: La French (The Connection)

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

La French (aka The Connection) looks and sounds beautiful.

Working with cinematographer Laurent Tangy, director Cédric Jimenez manages to capture the scenic beauty of seventies Marseilles. The classic architecture, the sea views, even the hot night spots all look absolutely stunning. Le French manages to capture the crisp feeling of the late seventies without ever feeling stylised or staged. Similarly, Jimenez manages to pull together a beautifully evocative soundtrack, with songs as distinct as Call Me and This Bitter Earth helping to underscore emotionally-charged sequences and giving the film a sense of style and taste.

La French is a stylishly-constructed crime thriller that stretches from the south of France to New York and back again, a family loosely inspired by the infamous “French Connection” that fed drugs into France and overseas to the United States. However, despite its obvious overlap with William Friedkin’s The French Connection, it seems like Jimenez owes more to the work of filmmakers like Michael Mann or Martin Scorcese, constructing a crime epic that flows beautifully and effortlessly, with an impressive soundtrack complimenting a dynamic visual style.

This is perhaps the biggest problem with La French, a sense that there might actually be too much style – that the film may occasionally feel a little too hollow or detached from its twin leads. However, Jimenez cleverly casts Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche in the lead roles, who help anchor the film with a sense of humanity that only occasionally gets lost in the film’s beautifully-crafted production.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: crime, drugs, film, French, heroin, Jean Dujardin, la french, Movie, non-review review, review, the connection, the french connection, thriller | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Cinderella (2015)

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is probably the safest and most down-the-middle live action remake of a classic Disney cartoon. It is not as heavily stylised or esoteric as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, but it is also not as deeply flawed as Maleficent. If anything, Cinderella suffers from a lack of its own identity or energy. It is a well-made and functional film that avoids any truly significant problems, but it also lacks any real edge that might help it stand out.

Cinderella looks lovely. Dante Ferretti’s production design and Sandy Powell’s costume designs are breathtakingly beautiful. Branagh’s direction is clean and crispy, avoiding excessive clutter and trusting the story to tell itself. The cast are great – with Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter doing wonderful work. Even the script does exactly what it needs to do, walking the line between traditional and self-aware with considerable grace. Cinderella does pretty much everything that you would expect a live action adaptation to do.

At the same time, it lacks any real sense of cinematic ambition. It is nowhere near as iconoclastic as Alice in Wonderland or as ambitious as Maleficent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – Alice in Wonderland attracted a lot of criticism for playing more as a Tim Burton movie than an Alice in Wonderland film, while Maleficent tripped over itself in its attempts to re-write the classing story of Sleeping Beauty as a feminist parable. Cinderella‘s problems are much less severe, but its accomplishments are also less noteworthy.

The result is probably the most solid and reliable live adaptation of a classic Disney cartoon, albeit one that never seems to have any real ambition or verve.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adaptation, branagh, cartoon, cate blanchett, cinderella, disney, evil stepmother, feminism, film, kenneth branagh, lady tremaine, Movie, remake | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: From the Dark

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2015.

A large part of the joy of From the Dark is the way that the story translates its horror conventions to rural Ireland without breaking a sweat.

From the Dark is a very simple horror story that could be told anywhere. It is the standard story about a young couple who get lost in a remote location, discovering that their phones don’t work just as they stumble across some grotesque evil. It is a standard horror template, which feels particularly traditional once it becomes clear that the grotesque evil exposed by our two lead characters are very traditional vampires. However, director Conor McMahon does an excellent job executing all those traditional tropes against a very Irish backdrop.

A lot of the credit belongs to cinematographer Michael Lavelle who skilfully conveys the sense of rural Ireland as an isolated wilderness. From the Dark unfolds in Offaly, with Lavelle working hard to make the locality seem ethereal and haunted. Long grass sways in the wind, the sky lights up with beautiful colours at sunrise and sunset. From the Dark manages to expertly capture a sense of the countryside that is both breathtaking and alien. It seems like a world that is simultaneously magical and dangerous.

From the Dark is a rather efficient little thriller – one that moves along quite cleanly and efficiently. However, it is executed with a great deal of technical skill and proficiency, making for a satisfying old-school horror film.

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