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…
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, ‘He’s about as funny as cancer.’ It’s used to describe dour individuals. The unique thing about the cancer film Sunny Dancer (15) is that it is indeed funny. The characters in it, all teenage sufferers from the disease, gather together at a Scottish summer camp where they interact in…
Some books are remembered as much for their epigrams as themselves. One thinks of L.P. Hartley’s The Past Is Another Country; Tolstoy’s Happy families are all alike. I’d wager that what most people will remember from Andy Serkis’ Animal Farm (PG), as they probably did from the George Orwell book on which it’s based, is…
I recently alluded to the fact that the ratings films receive are often misleading regarding advisory content for parents. The battle against censorship has long been won, which means that substandard films with strong sexual and/or violent content have come through the system as prolifically as artistic ones. We can’t prevent this. If you pass…
Having been in Blaenau Ffestiniog last week, it was interesting to see it turning up as the main location for Effi O Blaenau (15), a Welsh-language film showing at the Irish Film Institute from tomorrow. I only saw the town from the perspective of a tourist. In this graphic film, we see what lives are…
Last week I wrote about The Invite, a film that carried a 15s Cert but was more sexually explicit than most Under-18s ones in the past. Do such certs mean anything these days? It’s a long time since 1934, when Hollywood imposed a restrictive Code on films in an attempt to ‘clean itself up’ under…
Aubrey Malone