Colleen Hoover self-published her first book. That isn’t unusual. Since then she’s sold twenty million of them. That is. The first time I saw a novel of hers on screen was It Ends With Us. She followed it up with It Starts With Us. (That sounds like an Irish sequel). It Ends With Us dealt…
The recent release of Knife, based on the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie in 2022 – which resulted in him losing an eye – prompted me to look back at some landmark films dealing with people who were attacked, or indeed martyred, for their religious views. In Joan of Arc (1948), Ingrid Bergman played the…
When I was a teacher in a previous incarnation, disruptive pupils were the bane of my life. You could have 39 out of 40 children doing what you said but if the fortieth one stepped out of line, a domino effect took hold. Your day was gone. One day in the staff-room I suggested dealing…
A woman drives a truck along a deserted road. There’s a dog in the middle of it. She’s unsure of what to do. Is it friendly? Injured? She gets out. We flash back to a week before. The dog is in a plane with its master, James Belmont (Brad Pitt). Then tragedy strikes. He gets…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when Andrew Scott is on the screen you’re not looking at anyone else. He has the presence of a Brando, a De Niro, an Al Pacino. And in Pressure (12A), he has their signature tune of being a simmering volcano to boot. I’m using a meteorological metaphor to…
I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience in a cinema quite like the last half hour of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It’s just been re-released into cinemas to commemorate its 35th anniversary. You might say it’s ho-hum today considering the incredible advances in computer generated special effects that have taken place in those years.…
What is reality? Is it the same as cinematic realism? In times past we treasured our screen heroes. Then The Morning After Optimism – to quote playwright Tom Murphy – arrived. The first time I saw a celluloid icon being toppled from his perch was in Doc in 1971. Harris Yulin played Wyatt Earp as…
“I’m not one for analysing my work,” says artist Paul Rowen in Guggi, a documentary on the artist-cum-sculptor with that moniker currently showing at the Irish Film Institute. When I heard his words I thought: You could have fooled me. He seemed to be engaging in little other than such analysis for the past hour.…
The world is currently trying to come to grips with the recent death of the much-loved singer Glen Hansard after a motorcycle crash near the Wren’s Nest pub. I know how treacherous the roads around there are. I found this out the hard way myself, having had a car accident after coming out of The…
By now most people are probably aware of the famous – or rather infamous – curse alleged to have been placed on the Mayo football team by a priest outside Foxford when they were returning from their All-Ireland victory in 1951 and failed to show respect for a passing funeral. According to the legend, the…