We’re working through a bit of a backlog on the Scannain podcast, so expect a number of entries publishing today.
This week, I join Alex Towers and Graham Day to discuss a week of film news and new releases that include Deadpool 2, Filmworker and On Chesil Beach. Give it a listen at the link, or check it out below.
Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: film, irish film, news, podcast, scannain | Leave a comment »
The twelfth edition of the new and revived Scannain podcast discusses the week that has been in Irish and international film.
This week, I’m joining Jason Coyle, Ronan Doyle and Emma Fagan to discuss everything from zero-budget Irish indie The New Music to the internal logic of It Follows. As usual, we discuss what we’ve watched over the past week or so, jump into the top ten, and talk about the new releases landing in Irish cinemas.
Check it out here, or give it a listen below. You can access the New Music GoFundMe here.
Filed under: Podcasts! | Tagged: blockers, horror movies, irish film, it follows, logic, love simon, michael inside, the new music | Leave a comment »
From writer and director Frank Berry, Michael Inside is harrowing, emotional and earnest look at cycles of incarceration affecting young Irish men from marginalised communities.
The plot of Michael Inside is fairly straightforward. As the title implies, the movie centres upon a young man named Michael who finds himself arrested in possession of drugs with a street value of two thousand euro. Receiving a custodial sentence, Michael finds himself incarcerated for three months. Michael must learn to navigate prison life, while his grandfather struggles to keep himself above ground on the outside. However, prison exerts a gravity, and escape is not as simple as release.
Inside, he’s dancing.
Michael Inside is an intense and claustrophobic experience. Asked early in the film if he suffers from any preexisting conditions, Michael responds, “Anxiety.” Shooting primarily in close-up with a hand-held camera, Michael Inside skillfully replicates that sensation. The characters constantly seem trapped and boxed in. Even before Michael is taken into custody, scenes are framed and blocked so as to suggest that he is trapped; the wire frame on crosswalks, the windows of the house, the bars of a fence. Michael Inside suggests that prison is more than just a physical construct.
Michael Inside is occasionally a little too earnest in its exploration of these vital and important themes, sometimes feeling more like an abstract civics lesson than an organic story. Still, there is no denying the raw emotional power of Michael Inside, particularly when director Frank Berry brings all the threads together at the climax of the story.
Everything, gone in a flash.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, frnak berry, irish film, michael inside, Movie, non-review review, review | Leave a comment »
This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2018.
The Meeting is a fascinating story, told terribly.
The real-life events that inspired The Meeting are genuinely moving. Nine years after she was sexually assaulted walking home from the bus, Ailbhe Griffith convenes a meeting with the man who raped her. In a small room, Ailbhe Griffith and Martin Swan engage in a dialogue about those events, about how that evening shaped both of their lives, and about the scars that linger. It took remarkable courage for Griffith to put herself in that room, and she is clearly a thoughtful and fascinating subject. There is a great movie to be made of this story.
Unfortunately, The Meeting is not that great movie. There are various reasons why The Meeting doesn’t work. Some of those reasons are justifiable and understandable, fair creative choices that simply don’t pay off in a satisfying manner and serve to undercut the narrative being constructed. However, some of those reasons are unjustifiable decisions that could never have worked even in abstract theory and which serve to turn The Meeting into a spectacularly ill-judged piece of cinema.
The eponymous meeting might have been a genuinely moving and affecting experience, but The Meeting is nothing short of a disaster.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adiff, adiff 18, ailbhe griffith, alan gilsenan, film, irish film, Movie, non-review review, review, the meeting | Leave a comment »
This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2018.
Black ’47 is a powerful piece of pulp storytelling, a bold and daring window into an under-served chapter of Irish history.
Directed by Lance Daly, working from a story derived by a variety of writers, Black ’47 is essentially a western set against the background of the Irish Famine. Of course, the reality is much more nuanced than that simple description would suggest, but it provides a suitable starting point for discussion. Indeed, all the genre elements are in place; a soldier returns home from war to discover the horrors that have befallen his family, and decides that there shall be no justice on earth save for that which he might exact by his own hand.
Black ’47 is a very sparse and rugged film. It would be a surprise if the nominal lead character, Feeney, speaks more than one hundred words. Indeed, at one point he explicitly rejects the English language as a tool of communication. The landscape of the film is rough and cold, the audience feeling the chill that runs through the film and almost smelling the decay in the air. Black ’47 reflects its rough and wild settings, and the characters who have been shaped and moulded by those surroundings.
Black ’47 is an effective piece of storytelling.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adiff, black '47, famine, film, history, horror, irish, irish famine, irish film, lance daly, non-review review, review, western | 2 Comments »
Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.
This time, a St. Patrick’s Day treat. Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea.
An adventure home through Ireland’s mythical dreamscape, Song of the Sea follows siblings Ben and Saoirse as they journey back home to the family lighthouse off the coast of Donegal. Along the way, they encounter mythic tricksters and sinister forces, while also uncovering long-buried family secrets that chip away at everything Ben thought that he knew.
At time of recording, it was ranked the 248th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: irish film, Podcasts!, song of the sea, The 250, tomm moore | 2 Comments »
This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.
Sing Street is a joyous musical coming of age story.
As with Once and Begin Again, director John Carney demonstrates an innate (and romantic) appreciation for the role of music in interpersonal interactions. As in both Once and Begin Again, Carney employs music as an emotional shorthand; both in how the characters relate to one another and how the audience relates to the film. As with his two prior films, Carney treats music as a language of love and attraction, offering his characters the chance to communicate ideas or feeling that can only be hinted at through conversation, no matter how intimate.
However, Sing Street more firmly ties its musical elements to a sense of memory or nostalgia, with a soundtrack that evokes the film’s secondary school setting as effectively as costumes or set dressings. Sing Street is an ode to the joys and adventures of youth, set to a catchy synthesiser beat.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adiff, adiff 2016, audi dublin film festival, film, irish film, john carney, Movie, non-review review, review, sing street | Leave a comment »
Aonrú offers a fascinating insight into life on Cape Clear Island off the west coast of Cork. The small community had subsisted for years on farming and fishing – as the documentary notes, “the farmers were fishermen and the fishermen were farmers.” Now, due to a number of intersecting and overlapping hurdles – both natural and man-made – the community finds itself struggling to provide a future for itself. The thirty minute documentary examines what it must be like to live on Cape Clear.
Skilfully constructed from a myriad of first-person accounts, archive footage and beautiful images of the region, Aonrú explores the pace of life in one of the most remote parts of the country.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: aonrú, documentary, dominic de vere, film, irish film, jason gaffney, Movie, non-review review, review, Television | Leave a comment »
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.
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 »
We’re big fans of Irish cinema here at the m0vie blog, so we are quite excited about The Guarantee, the new film written by Colin Murphy and directed by Ian Power, covering a crucial moment in modern Irish history. With the talent involved, it could easily develop into something like Peter Morgan’s “Blair trilogy”, a fascinating look at contemporary politics through the lens of key and defining events.
There is a special screening taking place at the end of October. I’ve included the press release below.
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2014, film, Ireland, irish film, the guarantee | Leave a comment »
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