Notes on Halloween

There was a seasonally spooky special of Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle today featuring discussions of Halloween past and present.

David Gordon Green takes an appropriately Gordian approach to the tortured continuity of the Halloween series, affecting that this is the first entry since the original, and therefore logically has a 61 year old man running amok with the superstrength and healing superpowers of a much younger supervillain. Aside from wondering if Michael Myers is in fact Wolverine, I spent far too much time doing mental arithmetic to work out how old he’s meant to be in this movie. As director Green brings the gore, and some style, but this feels a world away from the patient chills of John Carpenter’s 1978 original.

Possibly the scene most akin to the original is the cold open wherein two British podcast journalists visit Michael Myers in a prison yard and try to get a reaction from him by brandishing his bleached William Shatner mask. Myers is unresponsive, but the other inmates freak out, animals become unhinged, and we smash-cut to the infamous pumpkin re-inflating as Carpenter returns to provide the synth score.

At least we still have… : Part V

The fifth in an occasional series in which I try to cheer myself up by remembering what still exists in the world and cannot ever be taken capriciously away.

Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, Leningrad. As performed tonight by the RTE NSO under a Russian conductor.

The spirit of Russian resistance to the Nazi war machine, as delivered by the oft in trouble with Stalin composer.

As the Bolero like melody grew in orchestration and volume I suddenly thought of Germans outside the besieged city becoming aware of this melody, louder and louder, until trumpets playing a tune that could only be Russian blare out in a show of defiance.

The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid: Discussion Groups

Award-winning new Irish film The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid, on release now, will be accompanied by a series of panel discussions after selected screenings to reflect on the issues raised in the film. Panels will take place at the Omniplex, Rathmines and the Eye Cinema, Galway.

Ward’s film investigates Kildare farmer Thomas Reid’s long struggle to resist a Compulsory Purchase Order from IDA Ireland who had identified his farm as having prime industrial development potential. Reid vowed to resist the sale under any circumstances and at any price. His story and the Irish Government’s subsequent response asks searching questions of how much one individual can be asked to sacrifice for the ‘national interest’.

Panel Details
Omniplex Rathmines  – Sunday 21st Oct 6.30pm
Lenny Abrahamson, Oscar-nominated director; Feargal Ward, director & Tara Brady, journalist Irish Times (moderating). Book here

Thursday, 25th Oct Eye Cinema Galway 6.50pm Lelia Doolan, filmmaker and activist; Luke McManus, producer & Dr. Tony Tracy, (Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUIG) (moderating) Book here

Filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson said “What is so excellent about The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid, is that, despite Reid’s deep peculiarity and quiet dysfunction, it is not the world of his crumbling Leixlip farm but the Ireland which surrounds it which comes to seem most in need of explanation and redemption. It’s our world, not his, which is the more troubling. I would urge anyone who values creative documentary film making to seek out this excellent, haunting and original film.”

Clare Daly TD spoke forcefully in Dáil Éireann during the debate on the Industrial Development (Amendment) Bill on 28^th March 2018 saying ‘I compliment Thomas Reid. In many ways he has been inspirational, a lone wolf taking on a giant single-handedly and winning, with five Supreme Court judges agreeing with him. However, that was not good enough. A multinational had to be given the land from under him and the law had to be changed to facilitate it. One can talk about selling and prostituting ourselves and giving it away, but today is a new low in that regard.’

The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid is in selected cinemas including IFI; Rathmines Omniplex; Mahon Point Omniplex, Cork; IMC Dún Laoghaire and Eye Cinema, Galway.

www.lonelybattle.com

Greg Sestero hits the Lighthouse

Oh, hi Mark. Greg Sestero is in town next weekend, to attend the Irish premiere of Best F(r)iends: Volume 2 on October 26^th at the Lighthouse.                                                                                                              

Sestero is of course one of the unfortunate stars of success de scandale The Room, who managed to spin a best-selling memoir, The Disaster Artist, out of the experience, and was portrayed by Dave Franco in James Franco’s hilarious film adaptation. Sestero will attend the screening of Best F(r)iends: Volume 2 and do a Q & A hosted by Derek O’Connor.

Billed as the thrilling conclusion of the Sestero-Wiseau Saga, and picking up where the first volume left off, Best F(r)iends: Volume 2 is heralded as bringing the saga to a satisfying close. Jon (Sestero) is on the run across the American Southwest, where he meets an array of wild and amazing characters and finds himself in ever-stranger situations…which go a long way in giving a better handle on the reality he’s fleeing. Of course there’s still one more encounter and one last reckoning to bring this strange journey full circle. The saga is the best (sic) of Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau distilled into pure ecstasy: charming, unexpected, dramatic, dark, and above all, endlessly entertaining (addictive). Wiseau wisely is not involved in writing or directing, just acting. Sestero is the writer this time, and Justin MacGregor has the unenviable task of taming the craziness.

Best F(r)iends: Volume 1 will screen at 18.15 in advance of Best F(r)iends: Volume 2 at 20.30.

Tickets for both films as a double bill can be bought at the reduced rate of €25 by calling the box office on (01) 872 8006.

Screening times and tickets can be found here:

Best F(r)iends: Volume 1: https://lighthousecinema.ie//showing/showing-39243

Best F(r)iends: Volume 2 + Q&A with Greg Sestero: https://lighthousecinema.ie//showing/showing-43261

Any Other Business: Part XIX

What is one to do with thoughts that are far too long for Twitter but not nearly long enough for a proper blog post? Why round them up and turn them into a nineteenth portmanteau post on matters of course!

BBC 2

Oh no, not again. BBC 2 has ditched its 1990s idents for new ones that aren’t as good. Here we bloody go again. Back around Christmas 2014 it was a delight to see the inventive, practical magic of the 1990s idents reappear for the 50th anniversary of the station’s founding. The response seemed so unanimously enthusiastic that it was heard at BBC HQ and lo, the crummy idents of the 2010s faded away, and the glorious old idents of the 1990s marched forth before programmes once again. Until now, and a new set of crummy idents are here to end the 2010s as it began, not with a bang but a whimper.

Politik: Part VIII

Hopefully this eight regrettable portmanteau of politics will be the last descent into such commentary for a good long while.

I serve at the displeasure of the Queen

I conceived of a wonderful wheeze last week. Theresa May should spring on Queen Elizabeth II at one of their legally obligatory weekly waste of time chats that she needs help dealing with Brexit. Specifically she needs three great minds (sic) to do the job, without the worry of party political or electoral considerations. So would Her Majesty mind awfully making Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Nigel Farage Ministers life Peers and also Extraordinary and Plenopentiary Ministers, acting above the Cabinet and answering directly to the Queen herself. Their task? To negotiate the Brexit they seem to have such strong opinions yet scant details on. The Queen, slightly taken aback, will agree, forgetting to ask whether the trio have assented to such an unusual move. They will not. The first they will hear of it is when Theresa May bounds out of the car as soon as it gets outside the grounds of Buckingham Palace and announces to one man and his camera that she is delighted that the three men have accepted to personally serve Queen and Country in this way, but mostly the Queen. Now. The ball is in their court. Will these men have the utter gall to refuse to serve the Queen when it has been announced that she has graciously made them Lords and given them a rank and function exceeding the Prime Minister? And when they make an absolute balls of Brexit who can they blame? The Queen? Perish the thought!

Macbeth

Director Geoff O’Keefe reunites with actor Neill Fleming, following his memorable Claudius in the Mill’s 2016 Hamlet, for an eerie take on Shakespeare’s Scottish play.

Civil War rages in Scotland. King Duncan (Damien Devaney) is only kept on the throne by the bloody valour of the Thane of Glamis, Macbeth (Neill Fleming). But when three witches prophesy that Macbeth shall be Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland hereafter fatal ambition seizes the mind of both his wife (Nichola MacEvilly) and he. Obstacles in his path are Duncan, and his son Malcolm (Matthew O’Brien); and obstacles to security as King are friend Banquo (Andrew Kenny), and his son Fleance (Eanna Hardwicke). And having filed his mind for the sake of his ambition all morality and sanity go by the wayside for Macbeth…

Gerard Bourke’s set and Kris Mooney’s lighting design create a powerfully eerie atmosphere. A skeleton and a decaying body hang over the stage emphasising the brutal nature of this Dark Ages kingdom, while Olga Criado Monleon’s costume design of flowing robes with all-encompassing hoods for the witches unsex them, allowing a terrific initial jolt when they seem to exit on one side and immediately appear on the other by magic, and also continually allowing them to prowl in the shadows of a stage replete with nooks and crannies. Their constant surveillance of the action makes them appear like irresponsible Greek gods toying their chosen mortals, and allows a terrific interval when they close the curtains with some theatrical magic.

If Michael Fassbender’s cinematic interpretation seemed to focus on the line ‘Full of scorpions is my mind’, Fleming’s turn here seemed to pivot on his agonised complaint to Lady M, ‘I have filed my mind’. MacEvilly’s Lady Macbeth is wonderfully contemptuous of Macbeth’s weakness during the feast, and in her sleepwalking seems less to be plagued by guilt as to be reciting both sides of her fight with Macbeth for his blundering with the knives. But despite the darkness O’Keefe finds some unexpected comedy in the text. Devaney’s Porter is played as still reeking of drink, and Macbeth arrives as if after carousing, concluding the recitations of ominous portents with a tart ‘It was a rough night’. There is also a delirious moment where Macbeth wheels around during the feast to check if Banquo is still there precisely when Banquo has melted away temporarily, the better to appal him later.

Playing Shakespeare with a cast of nine requires much doubling, and bar the predictably Lynchian moment when Devaney’s Porter appears right after the murder of Devaney’s Duncan, it works very well. Ailbhe Cowley very effectively switches between Lady Ross and Lady Macbeth’s servant with quick changes of hair, costume, and accent, while Kenny makes his doctor unrecognisable from his Banquo. Jed Murray’s imposing Macduff is a gruffer character than we’re used to, and his sword-fight with Macbeth ends with a piece of derring-do that wouldn’t be out of place in a Hollywood swashbuckler.

The gruesome coup de grace may not work for all, but this is a fast-moving production of much dark magic.

4/5

Macbeth continues its run at the Mill Theatre until the 26^th of October.

Notes on Venom

This week’s edition of Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle saw us belatedly get round to Tom Hardy’s Venom.

There are a number of ways to approach this movie. The 5 word summary -Tom Hardy Eats Bad People. Or the title from the point of view of his character, Eddie Brock -How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Love Venom. Or the pithy one word summary -Shambolic.

My fevered suspicion is that Kelly Marcel, who punched up Bronson and Mad Max: Fury Road for her old friend, saw the Bat-signal being flashed, yet again, and decamped to Hollywood to find Tom weeping in his trailer.

TH: It’s a mess.

KM: Page One rewite?

TH: No time. Just take my pages, give me good repartee with myself as Venom.

KM: What about Riz Ahmed and Jenny Slate and Michelle Williams?

TH: I don’t give a hoot about them! Are they friends with you? No! I am! Please! For the love of God fix it…

KM: Okay, calm down. I’ll give it a polish. Just your pages.

https://www.mixcloud.com/patrickdoyle/141018-the-sunday-breakfast-show-with-patrick-doyle/

Richard III

DruidShakespeare finally makes it to the capital having kept the Henriad away, and yes, the wait has been well worth it.

Photo: Robbie Jack

Richard (Aaron Monaghan) has been sent into this world before his time, scarce half made up.  And in a time of peace after the Wars of the Roses he embraces the role of villain. With gusto, informing us of his scheming before he undertakes each deceit. His machinations against his brother Clarence (Marty Rea) are only the beginning of an escalating palace intrigue that will undo Buckingham (Rory Nolan), Hastings (Garrett Lombard), Rivers (Peter Daly), Lady Anne (Siobhan Cullen), and the little Princes in the Tower (Zara Devlin, Siobhan Cullen again), before it brings back a time of war and undoes Richard himself.

This is not a short production but its 150 minutes with interval gallops by so gripping does director Garry Hynes make the action. There are numerous moments throughout that change forever how you will read passages in the text. Whether it be Marty Rea’s incredible turn as Catesby, the fastidious assassin with his ritualised use of a captive bolt gun, or Garrett Lombard’s unexpected and sublime ‘Whoa’ worthy of Keanu Reeves as Hastings suddenly realises that the doors have shut, the extractor fan and fluorescent light has come on, and he’s the only one left on the stage along with Catesby – bogus.

5/5

Richard III continues its run at the Abbey until the 27th of October.