Don’t Mess With Veronica Mars

The second novel in the Veronica Mars mystery series has been published, and creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell are talking about reviving the TV show for an 8 episode run in the vein of True Detective. What better time to fondly remember one of the last decade’s best shows? Here’s a teaser for my HeadStuff piece on Veronica Mars.

Logan: I thought our story was epic, you know? You and me.

Veronica: Epic how?

Logan: Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, blood shed. Epic! But summer’s almost here. And we won’t see each other at all. Then you’ll leave town, and it’s over.

Veronica: Logan…

Logan: I’m sorry. About last summer. If I could do it over…

Veronica: C’mon… Ruined lives? Blood shed? You really think a relationship should be that hard?

Logan: No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.

It may seem odd to talk about Veronica Mars as a romantic show, but there’s a reason the ‘epic love’ scene was reprised in the 2014 movie; the show could be swooningly romantic, as evidenced by the giddy crane-work when Veronica kissed Logan for the first time in season 1. That was also one of the most shocking moments of season 1, not only because it felt like Veronica was betraying her dead best friend Lily by moving in on her boyfriend, but also because the pilot had introduced Logan with Veronica’s caustic voiceover: “Every school needs its psychotic jackass. Logan Echolls is ours”. Veronica’s on-off romance with Logan was not unlike Rory Gilmore’s with the equally charismatic but erratic Jess. There were nicer boys than Jason Dohring’s movie-star scion Logan, like Teddy Dunn’s Duncan Kane and Max Greenfield’s rookie cop Leo, but Leo’s fate was the voiceover gag; “It’s the old story. Girl meets boy. Girl uses boy. Girl likes boy. Boy finds out, girl gets what she deserves”; while Duncan’s entanglement with the ill-fated Meg saw Veronica nobly sacrifice her own relationship with Duncan to help him and his baby daughter evade the FBI and the Manning family, sadly pinning to her mirror a note saying ‘True love stories never end’. Season 3’s ‘nice boyfriend’ Chris Lowell’s Piz was the nicest boyfriend of all, and, in incredibly revealing commentary on the season 3 finale, Thomas noted that when Logan extravagantly apologises to a bruised Piz for beating him up earlier over a leaked sex-tape, Piz looks totally defeated; because he knows that Veronica, well-intentioned but ruthless, is the kind of girl who will only ever end up with the kind of guy who, repeatedly, has beaten people to a bloody pulp with his bare hands for hurting her.

Click here to read the full article on how Veronica Mars handled female friendship, a father-daughter detective agency, and how the sunny setting belied a dark heart of noir cynicism.

The Shadow of a Gunman

Director Wayne Jordan returns to the Abbey after 2012’s The Plough and the Stars for another summer production of a venerable Sean O’Casey Dublin play.

Donal Davoren (Mark O’Halloran) is trying to write poetry in a Dublin tenement in May 1920. A task rendered nigh impossible by his talkative roommate Seamus Shields (David Ganly), and constant interruptions from a never-ending stream of visitors. There are Shield’s Republican associate Maguire (Muiris Crowley), hated landlord Mulligan (Gerard Byrne), and fellow tenants, the excitable Tommy Owens (Lloyd Cooney) and the flirtatious Minnie Powell (Amy McAllister). And that’s just for starters. Over the course of a long day Davoren gets no verse composed as he finds himself implored by Mrs Henderson (Catherine Walsh) to stand up for put-upon Mr Gallogher (Malcolm Adams) at the Republican courts in his capacity as an IRA gunman on the run. Davoren is happy to play along with this glamorous misunderstanding, until his masquerade suddenly turns all too real with searches, bullets, and bombs…

The Shadow of a Gunman’s two acts are played through without an interval. As so often with Jordan’s work it’s hard to discern the artistic imperative of that decision. It seems impossible for Jordan to inspire negative reviews, but this showcases his consistent flaws as much as it does his trademarks; down to O’Halloran reprising Jordan’s Twelfth Night tic of eschewing socks with shoes. Sarah Bacon’s tenement set has impressive depth, but it has none of the grimy realism of Bob Crowley’s 2011 Juno and the Paycock creation, and it seems to belong to a much later time-period, as does her brightly coloured short dress for Minnie Powell. Perhaps then this production is meant to be a critique of fellow-travellers in the years before the Troubles kicked off, with Davoren a nationalist who talks the talk but shrinks from walking the walk. No. But then sets and costumes have made illusory promises or served one joke in Jordan’s oeuvre before.

The costume is the first step to transforming the confident survivor O’Casey wrote into McAllister’s interpretation of Minnie as wide-eyed innocent. Surrounding her Crowley camps it up as Maguire, and Cooney is nearly a teenager in a Martin McDonagh Leenane play; giving the idea that fighting for anything is a bad joke. Ganly eventually hits his stride as Shields, but it’s hard, after Alice in Funderland, not to feel Jordan is laughing at religion in its own right when it comes to Shields’ religiosity, rather than laughing with anger at the hypocritical use of religion as O’Casey intended. O’Halloran plays Davoren’s frustration well, but his exaggerated movements seem a bit too much commedia dell’arte elsewhere; this is not a role akin to his scene-stealing turn in Hay Fever after all.

Gunman, courtesy of Mel Mercier’s impressive sound design, ends with a bang; but this is a consistently misfiring production.

2/5

The Shadow of a Gunman continues its run at the Abbey until August 1^st.

The Legend of Barney Thomson

Robert Carlyle makes his directorial debut as a boring Scottish barber who a couple of unfortunate accidents render prime suspect in a serial killer manhunt.

Barney Thomson (Robert Carlyle) is, by his own narration, a boring man. So boring in fact that he’s about to be fired by Wullie (Stephen McCole) because nobody wants to get their hair cut by a man without any chat. Barney’s appeal to Wally’s father James (James Cosmo) hits the same brick wall – Barney’s personality, or lack thereof; “Standing over the customers like a haunted tree…” And then Barney has an unfortunate workplace accident, or two. Which happen to coincide with DI Holdall (Ray Winstone) and his sidekick MacPherson (Kevin Guthrie) getting increasingly desperate to find a serial killer before their Chief McManaman (Tom Courtenay) hands the case over to strident Robertson (Ashley Jensen). And when Barney’s formidable mother Cemolina (Emma Thompson) helpfully steps in, in her own demented manner, Barney finds himself being liked for a dismembering homicidal maniac.

The Legend of Barney Thomson begins promisingly. There are choice insults. A panicked Winstone flourishes a new lead to the press, then retreats to the toilets where MacPherson finds him slumped on the floor – “I lied. That’s why I’m in the shape of a frog.” But the insults don’t match those in Armando Iannucci’s VEEP; a show aware that verbal cruelty is enjoyable for about 25 minutes, but then becomes exhausting. The shrill shouting matches between Jensen and Winston are deeply unfunny, never seem particularly motivated, and, even for a black comedy, just bespeak superficial characterisation. Brian Pettifer’s extremely creepy turn as Barney’s ‘friend’ Charlie is equally bedevilled by totally random character beats, while Emma Thompson’s one-note turn as a hard-living 70-something Glaswegian is a piece of stunt casting amusing for as long as you find her aging-up inherently funny.

It feels like there’s a different, better comedy within this movie attempting to escape; the desperation of DI Holdall to escape the “vomit-lashed sh**hole” that his Scottish wife has connivingly dragged him to, a despair which informs his phone-call to a bookie: “Can you say that again, in English? Because I didn’t get a word you just said. Yes, I know you’re Scottish. Yes, I’m aware that I am up here.” Instead the focus is on Barney, played by Carlyle, via Jeremy Davies, with lots of nervous twitches. The cast gamely play the machinations of Barney, Cemolina, and Holdall, and there are amusing moments but it’s hard to care about such half-written characters. “This is f****** ridiculous” says Holdall when the plot reaches its final ridiculous twist, and his character, tiring of the film, is verbalising what the audience has already felt for some time.

The Legend of Barney Thomson is only 95 minutes long, and yet rarely can a film have worn out its welcome quite so fast.

2/5

Comic-Con 2015

Another year, another San Diego love-in of Hollywood’s brightest stars and all things comic-book and fandom-y, but what were the cinematic highlights of Comic-Con 2015? Here’s a teaser of my round-up for HeadStuff.org.

Suicide Squad

Fury writer/director David Ayer took to the stage to talk trash about Marvel, claiming DC had the better villains; and then backed it up with the first look at Suicide Squad. It’s kind of staggering that a film not scheduled for release until August 2016 could have such a polished trailer, down to the spine-tingling version of ‘I Started a Joke’. While the sheer size of the cast still worries, it looks like Ayer’s promise to deliver The Dirty Dozen with DC characters holds good. And for all Will Smith’s prominence as a perceptive but depressed Deadshot in the trailer, there are really only two characters that matter: Harley Quinn and her Puddin’. Margot Robbie appears an inspired choice for the first cinematic incarnation of Dr Quinzell, hitting notes of naivety, menace, playfulness, and sheer insanity. Jared Leto, who has received endless inane stick over the appearance of his Joker, also seems a perfect fit as the Harlequin of Hate. In full make-up his wiry frame makes him seem similar to the Joker as drawn by Dustin Nguyen, in close-up the much-debated steel teeth rock, and his sinister lines could actually be Batman dialogue; which is quite intriguing.

Click here for the full piece on HeadStuff.org, with X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, The Man from UNCLE, Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens, and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice in the mix.

Once

John Carney’s indie film that could returns home as an unusual musical with a book by playwright Enda Walsh and originating director John Tiffany helming. Here’s a teaser of my review for HeadStuff.org.

Here’s a teaser.

Tiffany is responsible for the highly disconcerting set-up in which the audience can clamber onstage and buy a drink while the ensemble plays a number of Irish and Czech folksongs, so that the actual busking opening of the play emerges seamlessly out of a session. As our hero (Tony Parsons) finishes busking, he is accosted by a go-getting Czech musician (Megan Riordan) who insists he must (a) not give up on music, and (b) fix her vacuum cleaner. For he and Da (Billy Murphy) live above their hoover-repair shop in the North Strand, a life straitened by death and desertion. Her life is fuller. She lives with her mother Baruska (Sandra Callaghan), and three Czech flatmates; death metal drummer Svec (Rickie O’Neill), ambitious ‘burger-boy’ Andrej (Dylan Reid), and skimpily-clad man-eater Reza (Ruth Westley). With this injection of energy a burnt-out busker may stand a chance of recording a successful demo…

Click here to read the full review on HeadStuff.org.

A Month in the Country

Ethan McSweeny directs Brian Friel’s version of Ivan Turgenev’s classic comedy-drama concerning the complicated romantic entanglements on a 19^th Century Russian estate in high summer.

Natalya (Aislin McGuckin) is married to the much older Arkady (Nick Dunning), a man too distracted with improvements to his estate to notice that his permanent houseguest and best friend Michel (Simon O’Gorman) is plainly in love with Natalya. Other residents of the Arkady house include bombastic German Herr Schaff (Peter Gaynor), long-suffering Lizaveta (Ingrid Craigie), Arkady’s formidable mother Anna (Barbara Brennan), new tutor Aleksey (Dominic Thorburn), and Natalya’s teenage ward Vera (Caoimhe O’Malley). Local doctor Shpigelsky (Mark O’Regan) doesn’t actually live there, but he might as well given that he spends as much time there as the eternally distracted bickering servants Matvey (Dermot Magennis) and Katya (Clare Monnelly). But when Vera falls in love with Aleksey and Natalya becomes madly infatuated with him, and blind to the counsel of Michel, the stage is set for betrayal, heartbreak, and reproach.

ADP Briggs has convincingly argued that the parallels in characters and relationships between A Month in the Country and Uncle Vanya are too close to be coincidental; Chekhov as we know him is unthinkable without Turgenev’s exemplar. Certainly a scene of total chaos in the final act as several characters wander into the drawing room to resolve several sub-plots anticipates Chekhov’s fondness for rattling several scenes through one set. Friel’s 1992 version gives the servants Northern Irish leanings against an RP aristocracy, and Bolshintsov (Pat McGrath) is amusingly rendered as a 1950s Irish bachelor farmer. An interesting echo is a devastated Arkady’s lament that he needed a measure of discretion from Natalya and Michel in order to successfully not know what he does know, which seems to speak to Judith’s speech in Aristocrats on how her circumscribed life is possible to endure so long as its limits are not hammered home. Oddly enough there are anticipations of another playwright Friel has translated, Ibsen, in Natalya’s manipulations and impulsive scheming. It’s as if Judge Brack had never cornered Hedda Gabler and she continued to relieve her boredom by insulting people, thwarting romances, and impulsively manipulating people.

Aislin McGuckin who had some imperious moments in Heartbreak House at the Abbey last summer rises to the challenge of such a figure, and alternates knowing vocal sultriness, with epic self-pity, blind fury, and vulnerable self-awareness. Natalya’s proto-Chekhovian soliloquies baffled 1850 audiences, but their psychological quality is very modern; although they can seem repetitious, especially if you saw Mark O’Rowe’s lean version of Ibsen in April. O’Gorman’s Michel is a study in defeat, while Dunning’s Arkady comes into his own after the interval as a comic character in his obliviousness who is tragic in that he needs to be oblivious to function. O’Malley slightly overdoes the girlishness of Vera, before maturing under the machinations of Natalya, while O’Regan hoovers up good lines as punning peasant made good Shpigelsky. Gaynor meanwhile lets rip in support. The expected silliness he suppressed in his Hedda Gabler character in April appears here in spades.

Francis O’Connor’s clever set and Peter O’Brien elegant costumes are the perfect visual palette for Turgenev’s tale of misplaced affections and quiet acceptances in a production of bittersweet comedy.

3/5

A Month in the Country continues its run at the Gate until August 22^nd.

Trainwreck to hit Dublin

 

Universal Pictures Ireland and Dublin International Film Festival are presenting new comedy Trainwreck in a special screening with red carpet appearances by director Judd Apatow and stars Amy Schumer and Bill Hader. Tickets are €11 and available to purchase on www.diff.ie

Trainwreck, Judd Apatow’s fifth feature film as director, is a portrait of an unforgettable character written by, and starring, Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer) as a woman who lives her life without apologies, even when maybe apologies are what are needed… Since she was a little girl, it’s been drilled into Amy’s head by her roguish dad (Colin Quinn) that monogamy isn’t realistic. Now a magazine writer, she lives by that credo—enjoying what she feels is an uninhibited life free from stifling, boring romantic commitment—but in actuality, she’s kind of in a rut.  When she finds herself starting to fall for the subject of her new article; charming and successful sports doctor Aaron (Bill Hader); Amy starts to wonder if other grown-ups, including this guy who really seems to like her, might be on to something. The comedy, from Schumer’s own script, co-stars Brie Larson, John Cena, Tilda Swinton, and LeBron James.

Emmy-nominated Bill Hader, a favourite on Saturday Night Live for 8 years, has a number of memorable screen appearances under his belt from the maniac cop in Superbad, to the whimsical boss in Adventureland, and Kristen Wiig’s depressed sibling in blackly comic drama The Skeleton Twins, but this looks like his break as a mainstream film star. As a producer Apatow has introduced a number of new comedy voices into the mainstream – including Seth Rogen, Lena Dunham, and Chris O’Dowd. As the director of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, he’s almost single-handedly responsible for the resurgence of the R-rated comedy, but after Funny People and This is 40 he’s in need of a hit… Perhaps why he’s hitched his directorial wagon to Schumer’s rising star. Schumer, creator, star, and writer of Emmy-nominated Inside Amy Schumer, the Comedy Central show which premiered in April 2013, placed in the top five on the Billboard charts in 2012 with her comedy album Cutting,  and has recently gone super-viral with her response to Maggie Gyllenhaal’s casting-call woes.

“2015 is proving to be the year of Amy Schumer, a pistol-smart satirist, a Facebook feminist, a sassy screenwriter who has film friends in all the right places. She has clambered over her fellow comedic peers to ascend to the throne of this year’s Comic Most Wanted and the Dublin International Film Festival is delighted to welcome her and I can’t wait to meet her!” says Grainne Humphreys, DIFF Director, “In other Festival news we are all eagerly looking forward to DIFF 2016 and we are excited to announce we will be returning to a February Festival in 2016, on new dates of February 18th – 28th.”

Tickets for Trainwreck are €11 and will be available now to purchase on: https://diff.ticketsolve.com/shows/873537433/events

St Vincent at Iveagh Gardens

St Vincent arrived in the Iveagh Gardens on the back of the deluxe reissue of fourth album St Vincent, and played nearly all of it.

Generated by IJG JPEG Library

Striding out onstage with slicked-back raven hair she was as alien a presence as David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, and began with ‘Birth in Reverse’ with choreographed dance movements (courtesy of Annie-B Parson) with her bassist Toko Yasuda, that only added to the otherworldly aura if you were far enough from the stage to not be able see her feet as she and Yasuda moved forward and back as if standing on treadmills. Climbing the large three step podium to deliver a triptych of songs before falling down into an inverse crucifixion pose there was also something of Gozer the Destroyer about the stage-craft, something that might please an artist who referenced Edward Scissorhands as an inspiration for the codpiece-flaunting black outfit with touches of grey, often bathed in red or green lights as it was for ‘Cruel’.

After the opening salvo of ‘Birth in Reverse’, ‘Regret’, ‘Marrow’ and a vocally soaring rendition of ‘Cruel’ it was time for the first trademark rambling monologue, dismissing James Joyce as long-winded. And before she could be accused of the same crime she launched into her biggest hit ‘Digital Witness’, followed by ‘Year of the Tiger’, and then three songs delivered in a haze of dry ice from atop the podium – ‘Severed Crossed Fingers’, ‘Cheerleader’, and ‘Prince Johnny’. Standing near the speakers on the right of the stage it was noticeable from the off just how crisp and crunchy the sound was, rendering St Vincent’s material more electro-clash than you’d think. This was perhaps a pity for some of the quieter songs, but it rendered the opening of ‘Rattlesnake’, repeated over again while St Vincent danced, an unexpectedly juddering dance riff.

After ‘Every Tear Disappears’ and ‘Chloe in the Afternoon’ St Vincent delivered another monologue, with a huge pause after talking about how much she shared with Dubliners, like her favourite Yeats quote, before deadpanning ‘There’s … so many, too many to pick just one…’ and launching into ‘Actor Out of Work’. ‘Teenage Talk’, ‘Bring Me Your Loves’, and a rousing ‘Huey Newton’ closed the set. Returning for an encore laid out like a body in repose she delivered ‘The Party’ lying down, before utilising the full depth of the stage and the front row for ‘Your Lips Are Red’ which turned into a full-on Led Zeppelin ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ solo-tastic improv-jamming freak-out. St Vincent played 9 songs from her newest album, all effective, and the two most reflective and subdued of them, played atop the podium, were highlights.

St Vincent might have been better served venue-wise by a brace of Olympia dates, but she’s an artist at the height of performing confidence promoting an equally strong record.

4/5

 

 

 

 

*Nothing to do with the gig proper, but this was the worst crowd I’ve suffered through a concert with; not for setting fire to tents, but for talking. Talking, and talking, and talking… When St Vincent and her bassist stripped ‘Your Lips Are Red’ down to just vocals I could barely hear them above the hubbub of six different group conversations. Throughout the gig when she played louder, people shouted louder, to continue their *deep and meaningful* dialogues. I saw one woman’s face almost as much as St Vincent’s throughout the show because no matter how much I moved she always ended up in my line of sight as her group moved, and she was always facing me because she was nearly always turning her back on St Vincent to talk to her friends instead. People, just go to Starbucks…

Kids’ Films at the Lighthouse

Films You’d Love Your Kids To See, a season of classic 1980s movies back on the big screen, kicks off in the Lighthouse cinema tonight.

During July and August you can relive the golden age of kids’ films of the 1980s, with a brace of detours to the 1970s. The Lighthouse promises films which drew audiences into worlds filled with magic, adventure, thrills, and frights, courtesy of goblins, spaceships, pirates, muppets, friendly aliens, flying dragons, cars that could go back in time, and imbued with a sense of awe and optimism that can now be relived and enjoyed once more by new and older generations. If the last clause about awe and optimism causes bad flashbacks to Tomorrowland fear not. Film-goers are invited to experience the original spectacular sci-fi of Spielberg’s E.T. and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, as well as the fantasies of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The NeverEnding Story, and the tongue-in-cheek derring-do of Indiana Jones and The Goonies.

Special events include Lighthouse Book Club screenings of Willy Wonka and Stand By Me (both of which will have special Kids’ Book Club screenings), as well as a Jim Henson Double Bill, and an  Indiana Jones Marathon. There will be late-night screenings for adults and matinees for families to enjoy. So whether you want to re-live one of your old favourites on the big screen or introduce a whole new generation to these wonderful films, the Lighthouse invites you to escape into these magical worlds this summer on the scale they were originally intended – for a big screen with hundreds of people groaning at Indy being served monkey brains. It must be noted that the split-focus of the season, between 1980s kids who now have families, and 1980s kids who just want to relive their childhood is kind of interesting…

Your children cannot have the same childhood you had; the world has moved on, unless of course we’re talking about the seemingly indestructible world of Transformers. But even Transformers proves the point, my memories of those toys are inextricably bound up with an accompanying British comic and its staggeringly Shakespearean storylines, not a series of Michael Bay films whose screenwriters probably never heard of that comic. But the desire to introduce children to the 1980s classics Lucas & Spielberg et al suggests something more than nostalgia, it says something about the current state of cinema – and it’s more or less a white flag. Omnipresent CGI that can render anything you can imagine just so long as you imagine looking it like CGI will never capture the imagination the way that the last stand of practical effects did in the 1980s.

E.T.

WED 8TH JULY, 3PM & 8.30PM | SAT 11TH JULY, 3PM & 10.30PM

Science fiction when visualised by Spielberg and scored by Williams is an emotional wonder to experience on the big screen. E.T. asks the question ‘are we alone in the universe?’ and allows the audience to believe that if we’re not, then there’s a universe of adventures to be had and friends to be made. A film that can make grown men cry, Spielberg’s early masterpiece has an innate sense of wonder that is unequalled.

 

LABYRINTH

TUE 14TH JULY, 3PM & 8.30PM | SUN 19TH JULY, 4PM

Part Muppets, part Monty Python, this dark fairytale was directed by Jim Henson and written by Terry Jones. Starring a very young Jennifer Connolly and a very wicked David Bowie, Labyrinth is a rock’n’roll fantasy whose dark heart is cheered up by a colourful cast of Muppets who aid Sarah in her attempt to free her baby brother from the clutches of the Goblin King.

 

THE DARK CRYSTAL

WED 15TH JULY, 3PM & 8.30PM | SUN 19TH JULY, 2PM

In a world divided between the malevolent Skeksis and the benevolent Mystics, two ‘gelflings’ must quest to find the shard of the Dark Crystal to ensure the world doesn’t fall to darkness. Muppets mastermind Jim Henson and Frank Oz (Yoda himself!) co-directed this striking and beautifully crafted, yet sometimes rather dark fantasy.

 

THE DARK CRYSTAL & LABYRINTH

FRI 17TH JULY, 8.30PM

Are you a Gelfling or a Goblin? Celebrate the genius of Jim Henson by going back to the fantastical worlds and characters he created in The Dark Crystal and getting your Chilly Down (doing the Magic Dance) with David Bowie’s Goblin King. That’s right, it’s an 80s cult double bill in the shape of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

 

THE NEVERENDING STORY

TUE 21ST JULY, 3PM & 8.30PM | SAT 25TH JULY, 3PM & 10.30PM

Upon discovering a mysterious book, Bastian enters a magical world of Fantastica and is called on to help the Child Empress and young warrior Atreyu to save the world from terrifying non-entity ‘The Nothing’. But for every wish he makes, Bastian loses a memory from his real life. Fairy-tale action of the highest order – who hasn’t dreamt of flying on their own luck-dragon!?

 

WILLY WONKA

MON 27TH JULY, 6.30PM | SUN 2ND AUG, 1PM (FOR KIDS)

Keeping up the annual Roald Dahl summer book club, this year Lighthouse book club invites you to join them for a screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder, Roy Kinnear, and a host of Oompa-Loompas. For the first time ever, there’ll be both an adult book club in the usual slot and an extra Sunday afternoon children’s edition.

 

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?

WED 29TH JULY, 3PM & 8.30PM | SAT 1ST AUG, 3PM & 10.30PM

It’s difficult to say if Robert Zemeckis’ film was intended specifically for children or not. With its film-noir stylings, the ludicrously sultry Jessica Rabbit, and its knowing winks at the ego and corruption at work in Hollywood, there’s as much to love in this live-action-animation hybrid for adults as there is for children as Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd clash.

 

BACK TO THE FUTURE

TUE 4TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM | FRI 7TH AUG, 10.30PM | SUN 9TH AUG, 3PM

Time travel has never, ever been this much fun. Michael J Fox is 1980s teenager Marty McFly who, stuck in a time-travel jaunt back to the 1950s – courtesy of his mad-scientist friend Doc Brown – must ensure that his parents end up falling in love so his existence is ensured. Mind-bending in the greatest way and full of spectacle and adventure, as all great family films should be.

THE KARATE KID

WED 5TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM | SAT 8TH AUG, 3PM & 10.30PM

Everyone on your street did at least one karate class as a kid and there was probably some kid with a black belt who seemed like the coolest person in town. That is thanks, to a huge extent, to this film. Probably the greatest pairing of master and student in sports movie history, Daniel and Mr Miyagi throw poses like nobody’s business in this classic coming-of-age sports film.

 

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

WED 12TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM | SUN 16TH AUG, 3PM

Spielberg’s first foray into the world of extra-terrestrials, Close Encounters is not only a wonderful film, but one that has hardly aged at all despite its heavy use of special effects. The trademark Spielberg sense of wonder, channelled through man-child alter-ego Richard Dreyfuss, makes this a marvellous big-screen experience for both young and not-so-young. Although children might not be so enamoured with the idea of dad simply abandoning the family to hang out with ET.

 

INDIANA JONES TRILOGY

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg put their blockbusting heads together and came up with the ultimate family-friendly adventure. A throwback to old 1930s cliff-hanger serials, Harrison Ford is the perfect charismatic, quipping leading man. These films have everything – action, romance, face-melting, whips, running from a giant rolling boulder. Not only does each film get its own daily screenings but there’s also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch all three back-to-back in the Indiana Jones Trilogy Marathon. What do you mean there were four films?

 

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

TUE 18TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

WED 19TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM

INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

THURS 20TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM

INDIANA JONES TRILOGY  MARATHON

SAT 22ND AUG, FROM 2PM

For €21 TRILOGY DISCOUNT PRICE – call 01 8728006 or book in person at Box-Office.

THE GOONIES

THURS 27TH AUG, 3PM & 8.30PM | SAT 29TH AUG, 3PM & 10.30PM

Goonies never say die! Get your treasure maps out and come along to screenings of The Goonies, one of the most beloved of 80s cult classics. The ultimate kids’ adventure tale sees a group of friends trying to save their homes from being demolished and in doing so discover an old treasure map from the legendary One Eyed Willie, but they must battle the weirdest family in America for the hidden treasure. Pirate outfits and truffle shuffles encouraged.

 

STAND BY ME

SUN 30TH AUG, 1PM (FOR OLDER KIDS) | MON 31ST AUG, 6.30PM

Based on the short novella The Body by Stephen King, Stand By Me is a masterful adaptation of a very brilliant book, with Rob Reiner reining in King’s customary tendency to go just a bit too far. Pushing the definition of kids’ films to its limits this coming of age thriller starring the future Wesley Crusher and a fully-formed villainous Kiefer Sutherland is the perfect discussion piece for the YA Lighthouse Book Club.

 

Tickets are now on sale at www.lighthousecinema.ie, with free online booking for members.