From the Archives: You Kill Me

From the pre-Talking Movies archives.

Ben Kingsley does a better Robert De Niro than Robert De Niro does these days, and, mirabile dictu, it’s enough here to power this film to great heights. I’ve mocked Ben Kingsley as much as anyone, especially the explosion of pomposity since he got his Knighthood and allegedly starting telling production runners foolish enough to call him Ben, ‘That’s Sir Ben to you!’, as well as inserting his title into the credits on Lucky Number Slevin. But his role as shambolic alcoholic hitman Frank Falenczyk must rank beside his terrifying turn as an unhinged gangster in Sexy Beast as his best performance since his seminal roles in Gandhi and Schindler’s List. The film begins with his alcoholic Frank demonstrating the best way to incentivise yourself to clear the snow off your porch; dropping a bottle of vodka a few feet ahead of you and having to dig your way towards it to get another swig.

Frank passes out drunk while waiting to take out grasping Irish mobster Edward O’Leary and is sent to San Francisco to dry out while his Polish crime family led by Philip Baker Hall’s patriarch seek to prevent a Sino-Irish takeover of their turf in Buffalo, upstate New York. Frank is forced by his Frisco contact, bent lawyer Bill Pullman (in an odd, odd cameo), to attend AA meetings. At first resistant, as he settles into a life working at a mortuary and attending meetings he begins to seek to make amends; not for the murders, he’s not sorry about them, he is sorry about murdering them badly because he was drunk. In a priceless scene he sends a $50 voucher for the Sony Centre to the family of a woman whose throat he was meant to slit, but she moved, so she got a knife in the eye first before being dispatched.

Tea Leoni, as his love interest Laurel (who he meets at a funeral), is more relaxed and thus a better actress now that she’s 41 than she ever was when she was a ‘hot young star’ and it is her hilariously deadpan acceptance of Frank’s past that makes the film work. John Dahl, the director of The Last Seduction and Red Rock West, uses a demented tango soundtrack that underlines the playful absurdity of all of this, and if you didn’t get it already Dahl inserts an insanely happy song to score a montage of Frank using melons to show Laurel how to slice up human beings efficiently. Luke Wilson as his AA mentor also delivers an unusually subtle and effective performance as Dahl draws out a mordant approach to the material from all concerned, while also injecting an undercurrent of deep humanity into the decline and fall of the Polish mob in Buffalo. This is a black comedy to savour.

4/5

Jeff GoldBLUMSDAY

It’s back and bigger and better than last year’s debut celebration – Jeff GoldBLUMSDAY returns to the Lighthouse on June 16^th.

Sure, some people will be dressing up in Edwardian boater hats and cycling around town pretending they’ve either actually read or read and liked James Joyce’s Ulysses. But some people will be dressing up in whatever feels right to celebrate the hesitations and mumblings of one cinema’s most famously uh-ing actors. Screen 3 is taken over the entire day to showcase the charisma of Goldblum from glorious cameos in blockbusters, to leading roles in dumb action and gory horror, and memorable supporting turns in rich drama and zany nonsense. Can anyone manage to see all 5 films? Someone will try…

(c)Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

The Big Chill

Screen 3 13:00

1983 saw Goldblum and Harry Shearer as memorable comic support in The Right Stuff, but the breakthrough for Goldblum was a plum role in Lawrence Kasdan’s epochal drama. Seven friends from college reunite for a weekend at a South Carolina winter house to attend the funeral of their friend (Kevin Costner) who has killed himself. Kasdan’s opening use of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ to introduce all the characters is taught to aspiring screenwriters, and the richly character driven examination of memory and nostalgia, and enduring friendship, clearly informed 2011’s Little White Lies.

Independence Day

Screen 3 15:00

Roland Emmerich’s meisterwerk: a big dumb blockbuster capable of appealing to two different audiences for two entirely different reasons at the same time, because it is a work of uber-American patriotism, directed by a German. While people in Idaho punch the air, people in Ireland fall off their chairs laughing. Goldblum is the recycling, cycling, chess-playing computer whiz who alone possesses the skills to strike back against the all-conquering aliens. But it will take quips by Will Smith, an epic speech by Bill Pullman, and a dog escaping a wall of flame to pull off.

Thor: Ragnarok

Screen 3 18:00

Thor and Loki come up against their long-lost sister Hela, and get their asses kicked. She takes over Asgard with literally contemptuous ease. And so Thor finds himself pitted against the Hulk in gladiatorial combat on a strange world presided over by an even stranger dictator: The Grandmaster. Is his character name a joking reference to Goldblum’s prowess at chess in Independence Day? Definitely not. But Goldblum is clearly enjoying himself as part of the parade of rambling, improvised tangents as Maori magician Taiki Waititi produces the funniest film Marvel Studios have ever permitted released.

The Fly

Screen 3 20:30

Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis are one of the tallest screen couples ever in David Cronenberg’s 1986 horror re-make, which took Vincent Price’s 1950s original, removed the camp, and added plentiful gore and Cronenberg body horror. Goldblum starts to transform into a giant hybrid of man and fly after an unwise experiment with his new invention goes catastrophically wrong. It’s all very well to be optimistic and aspire to be the first insect politician, but it’s more likely that by the time you are a giant man-fly that you’ll just start melting people’s hands off.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension

Screen 3 22:30

What can one say about The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension except that it clearly falls within Hollywood Babylon’s Lighthouse remit of showing trashy films to drunk people. Peter Weller is Buckaroo, Goldblum is New Jersey, and John Lithgow is over the top as the villain. The cinematographer was replaced mid-shoot for making this not look cheap and campy enough. Think on that as you raise an eyebrow, the way Sheriff Lucian Connally raises his hat, at 1984’s most convincing brain surgeon and rock musician.

ADIFF 2018

The full ADIFF 2018 programme has finally been revealed and Bill Pullman, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Schrader, Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Lance Daly, Nora Twomey, Paddy Considine, Sandy Powell, and Lynne Ramsay will all be coming to Dublin.  There will be seven World Premieres and a total of over 100 features screened, nearly all receiving their Irish Premiere. Tickets are released for sale at www.diff.ie from 7 pm today and the Box Office is open at 12 East Essex Street (+353 (0) 1 6877974) from 10 am 25^thJan.

Gráinne Humphreys, Festival Director, says “This year’s ADIFF programme is a line-up of films that are rich, exciting and wonderful. They reflect the truly global culture of film-making as well as celebrating the strength and depth of Irish film talent. It’s a selection that aims to inspire and entertain film lovers of every age and taste, including the youngest at Fantastic Flix. Our special guests include some of the finest performers and film-makers in the world and I’m particularly delighted to be welcoming our Volta Award recipients, Paul Schrader and Vanessa Redgrave to Dublin. Alongside the very best of new Irish and international cinema, there are echoes of film history in our silent film presentations and Cedric Gibbons Season, and an amazing glimpse of the future at the Immersive Stories: Conference and Exhibition, which brings the pioneers of virtual and augmented reality creation to Dublin.”

Some strands of the programme have already been covered in previous posts so let’s concentrate on what’s new.

Galas and Special Presentations
The Opening Gala will be the Irish Premiere of Black 47, the most hotly-anticipated Irish film of the year. Lance Daly directs this gripping thriller set during the Famine. Lance Daly and a selection of the cast including James Frecheville, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, and Stephen Rea will attend. One of Hollywood’s finest, Bill Pullman, attends the festival for the Irish Premiere of his new Western The Ballad of Lefty Brown, a superb addition to his distinguished body of cinematic work stretching back three decades. Amongst cinema’s most distinctive filmmakers, Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Morvern Callar) visits for the Special Presentation of her Cannes prize-winning thriller You Were Never Really Here. Irish-Spanish co-production, Muse, is a seductive supernatural thriller that was both set and shot in Dublin and will screen as a Special Presentation. Irish director Nora Twomey will attend the long-awaited Irish Premiere Special Presentation of her animated drama The Breadwinner, which has been Oscar-nominated in the Best Animated Feature category for 2018. From Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon, this is a powerful story of an Afghan girl passing as a boy to work to help her family survive. Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave will receive one of the two 2018 ADIFF Volta Awards, the festival’s most prestigious award, for her lifetime of achievement in cinema at the Irish Premiere of her passionate new documentary on the refugee crisis, Sea Sorrow. Her co-director and son Carlo Nero will also attend. Paul Schrader will also receive a Volta Award and is honoured for his extensive work as a director and screenwriter. Schrader’s acclaimed new film First Reformed starring Ethan Hawke will receive its Gala Irish Premiere at the festival. Schrader will also give an in-depth Public Talk and, as this year’s Guest Curator, will introduce three classic films that have inspired his work. Rounding off the festival with the ultimate in escapist cinema, ADIFF 2018’s Closing Gala is C’est La Vie. This funny, irreverent and charming French film is Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s follow-up to their box-office sensation The Intouchables and will leave festival audiences smiling until 2019.

Guest Highlights
The World Premiere of The Delinquent Season sees one of Ireland’s finest playwrights, Mark O’Rowe, make his debut as film director with a tale of two seemingly successful Dublin couples facing unexpected challenges. The stellar Irish cast includes Cillian Murphy and Eva Birthistle, both of whom will attend the premiere. Stacy Cochran will attend the World Premiere of her new film Write When You Get Work, a witty, knowing tale of success and excess on the Upper East Side, shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood). Three-time Oscar-winning Costume Designer Sandy Powell will visit for two new films that showcase her talents. She will take part in a Q&A after Todd Hayne’s Wonderstruck and introduce John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties. One of Ireland’s most provocative and challenging film artists, director Alan Gilsenan attends the World Premiere of his visceral and highly-charged new film, The Meeting. Actor/Director Paddy Considine visits the festival for the screening of his second feature as director Journeyman, a raw, powerful boxing drama in which Considine delivers an unforgettable performance. Canadian director Kathleen Hepburn attends the festival for her intimate portrait of grief and independence Never Steady, Never Still. Director Marc Meyers will attend the screening of My Friend Dahmer, a chilling look at the youth of real-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Irish Film and Talent
ADIFF 2018 is packed with Irish talent, with more homegrown highlights with directors in attendance including Irish Premieres of Aoife McArdle’s incendiary debut, Kissing Candice, and Good Favour, the third feature from Rebecca Daly which sees a religious community give shelter to an enigmatic outsider. Director David Freyne will attend the Irish Premiere of his fiendishly clever take on the zombie film, The Cured. Andrew Quirke’s hilarious Dublin double-act hits the big screen with the World Premiere of Damo & Ivor: The Movie.

Crime and Law
French actor-turned-director Xavier Legrand will attend his dazzling debut, Custody, about a court decision that tears a family apart.  Director/co-writer Yves Hinant and his co-writer Jean Libon will attend the screening of So Help Me God, a documentary following the unconventional and sometimes outrageous Belgian judge Anne Gruwez. Warwick Thornton follows his critically-acclaimed Samson & Delilah with an outback Western, Sweet Country. Director Jean-François Hensgens and armed robber-turned-filmmaker François Troukens attend the festival with their slick heist thriller Tueurs/Above the Law. Matthias Heeder attends the screening of Pre-Crime, a documentary exploring ‘protective policing’, a sci-fi staple that is becoming all too real. John McBratney, retired Senior Counsel will chair a special panel discussion on the Crime and Law strand, which also includes The Ciambra, Racer and the Jailbird, The Line, The Meeting and Have a Nice Day.

International Programme
French-language films include Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians, Laurent Cantet’s The Workshop, Xavier Giannoli’s Apparition and Coralie Fargaet’s Revenge. The wider international selection includes representation from Japan (The Third Murder), Australia (Sweet Country), Indonesia (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts), Israel (Foxtrot), Ecuador (Yasuni Man), Germany (Casting, In the Fade),Romania (Ana, Mon Amour), Norway (What Will People Say), Argentina (Zama), and Iran (Israfil). The contemporary cinema of Hong Kong is explored in a five-film season, with the support of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Belgium, that includes a visit from Angie Chen, director of I’ve Got the Blues. The season will also feature intimate war drama Our Time Will Come, the mysterious crime drama Somewhere Beyond the Mist, the offbeat and tranquil coming-of-age drama The White Girl, and dynamic action thriller Paradox. Actress Anna Krotoska will attend the screening of Polish character-driven psychological thriller Tower: A Bright Day. Selected to celebrate the centenary of Polish Independence, there is a rare chance to see Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1977 award-winning Death of the President. Highlights from across the Atlantic include sneak previews of Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow, Wes Anderson’s new animation Isle of Dogs, and Liam Neeson in Watergate drama Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. British selections include Sebastían Lelio’s Disobedience with Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz; Sheila Hancock in Simon Hunter’s Edie; and Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy in Isabel Coixet’s The Bookshop. Irish rising star Jessie Buckley gives a breakthrough film performance in writer/director Michael Pearce’s dark and delicious new British film Beast. English-language international documentaries include an intimate look at Leon Vitali’s life as Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man in Film-worker, the unexpected treat of a second visit to the Beales of Grey Gardens in That Summer, the swinging sixties narrated by Michael Caine in That Generation, and a magical time capsule of found footage in Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time.

Cedric Gibbons
Dublin-born Cedric Gibbons was the most successful art director in the history of cinema, responsible for MGM’s reputation as Hollywood’s number one ‘dream factory’. ADIFF 2018 celebrates his work with the Cedric Gibbons Retrospective featuring The Big Parade, Dinner at Eight, Grand Hotel, and An American in Paris, as well as a one-day conference at NCAD Gallery from 2^nd March. An exhibition will run at the NCAD Gallery 2^nd-31^st March.

Awards
Film-goers themselves will select their favourite film of the Festival with the AUDI-ence award. The winning film-makers will be flown to the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 where they will enjoy a true VIP Audi experience. This year’s ADIFF Discovery Award nominees are a testament to the strength of and depth of the new generation of film talent making their mark in a competitive but thriving industry. The nominees are actors Ryan Lincoln (Kissing Candice), Jessie Buckley (Beast), Rory Fleck Byrne (Inbox), Actors/Directors/Writers TJ O’Grady Peyton (Wave) and Liz Quinn (The Date), Director/Cinematographers Rua Meegan & Trevor Whelan (both Bardalo II: A Life of Waste); directors Mia Mullarkey (Mother & Baby), Louise Bagnall (Late Afternoon); and producer Sharon Cronin (Acorn).

Special Events, Shorts and the Surprise Film
One of the most popular and revered slots in the programme, the identity of the Just Eat Surprise Film is a tightly-guarded secret known only to the Festival Director but it always rewards the bold and the brave. The festival has expanded its ADIFF Shorts selections to four programmes of the best short films from Ireland and around the world, featuring both established talent and the next generation of film-makers cutting their teeth. The meeting point between audiences, critics, talent and industry that the festival provides extends far beyond the cinema screen in the ADIFF Special Events. This year’s events will include a Writers’ Masterclass with Laurence Coriat and an Audiences Panel with Ben Luxford, Head of UK Audiences at the British Film Institute. After the success of last year’s exhibition capturing Irish talent, ADIFF will present the second exhibition by Hugh O’Conor featuring intimate portraits of his colleagues in the Irish film industry.

Check out the new ADIFF Podcast at http://bit.ly/2DzwFt3

So, here’s the full ADIFF 2018 schedule, notably lacking any shows in the Savoy; with the Odeon Point and Cineworld 17 stepping into the vacuum left by Savoy 1’s dismemberment – of which more soon.

Wednesday 21^st February
21.00 Black 47   Cineworld 17
Opening Gala

Thursday 22^nd February
Fantastic Flix -11.00 My Neighbour Totoro   Lighthouse 1
14.00 Yasuni Man   Lighthouse 3
18.00 First Reformed  Cineworld 9 
Paul Schrader in attendance
18.00 Our Time Will Come   Lighthouse 3
18.30 Death of the President   Lighthouse 1
20.00 The Breadwinner   Cineworld 17
Featuring Q&A with Nora Twomey
20.30 Somewhere Beyond The Mist   Lighthouse 3
20.45 Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House   Cineworld 9

Friday 23^rd February
14.00 Pickpocket   Lighthouse 1
Introduction by Paul Schrader
16.00 Performance   Lighthouse 1
Introduction by Paul Schrader
16.00 The White Girl   Lighthouse 3
18.15 Beast   Cineworld 9
18.15 Never Steady, Never Still   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Kathleen Hepburn
18.30 I’ve Got the Blues   Lighthouse 3
In attendance: Angie Chen
20.45 In the Fade   Lighthouse 1
21.00 Paradox   Lighthouse 3
22.45 Revenge   Lighthouse 1

Saturday 24^th February
09.00 Immersive Stories Conference   Round Room, Mansion House
11.00 Dawson City: Frozen Time   Lighthouse 1
12.00 Film Festivals Programmers Speed Dating & Networking Session   Lighthouse Bar
14.00 ADIFF Shorts 1   Lighthouse 3
14.00 An Autumn Afternoon   Lighthouse 1
Introduction by Paul Schrader
16.15 Sweet Country   Lighthouse 1
16.30 That Summer   Lighthouse 3
16.30 The Divine Order   Cineworld 9
18.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
18.15 The Line   Lighthouse 3
18.30 The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid   Lighthouse 1
Film-maker in attendance
18.45 The Guardians   Cineworld 9
20.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
20.00 The Ballad of Lefty Brown Cineworld 17
In attendance: Bill Pullman
20.30 The Ciambra   Lighthouse 3
20.30 Tueurs / Above the Law   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: François Troukens, Jean-François Hensgens
20.50 Write When You Get Work   Cineworld 9
Stacy Cochran in attendance

Sunday 25^th February
09.00 Immersive Stories Conference   Round Room, Mansion House
11.00 Filmworker   Lighthouse 1
13.00 ADIFF Shorts 2   Lighthouse 1
14.00 Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle   Lighthouse 3
14.00 The Bookshop   Cineworld 9
15.30 What Will People Say   Lighthouse 1
16.15 Wonderful Losers: A Different World   Lighthouse 3
Film-maker in attendance
18.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
18.00 Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts   Cineworld 9
18.00 Thirst Street   Lighthouse 3
In attendance: Nathan Silver
18.30 Behind the Door   Lighthouse 1
Musical accompaniment: Stephen Horne
20.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
20.10 The Workshop   Lighthouse 2
20.15 The Cured   Lighthouse 1
David Freyne in attendance

Monday 26^th February
13.30 The Big Parade   IFI
17.00 Casting   Pavilion Theatre
18.10 Madame   Cineworld 9
18.15 Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts   Lighthouse 3
18.15 The Rider   Lighthouse 1
18.30 The Science of Ghosts   IFI
Film-maker in attendance
20.00 The Divine Order   Pavilion Theatre
20.30 ADIFF Shorts 3   Lighthouse 3
20.30 Tower: A Bright Day   Cineworld 9
20.30 You Were Never Really Here   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Lynne Ramsay

Tuesday 27^th February
13.30 Dinner At Eight   IFI
18.10 The Summit   Lighthouse 1
18.15 My Generation   Cineworld 9
18.30 Pre-Crime   Lighthouse 3
In attendance: Matthias Heeder
18.30 Phantom Islands   IFI
Film-maker in attendance
20.30 Good Favour   Lighthouse 1
Filmmaker in attendance
20.45 Israfil   Lighthouse 3

Wednesday 28^th February
13.30 Grand Hotel   IFI
16.00 ADIFF Shorts 4   Lighthouse 2
Featuring ADIFF Awards presentation
17.50 Twilight   Lighthouse 2
In attendance: Pat Collins
Fantastic Flix – 18.15 Lean On Pete   Cineworld 9
18.30 Custody   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Xavier Legrand
18.30 Isle of Dogs   Cineworld 17
18.45 While You Live, Shine   Lighthouse 2
In attendance: Paul Duane
20.30 Red Sparrow   Cineworld 17
20.45 Muse   Lighthouse 1
20.45 Zama   Lighthouse 3
20.45 Thoroughbreds   Cineworld 9

Thursday 1^st March
French Producer’s Summit   The Digital Hub
10.00 Careers Day   IFI
Fantastic Flix – 10.00 Cloudboy   Omniplex Rathmines
Fantastic Flix – 13.00 At Eye Level   Movies@Dundrum
16.00 Catch the Wind   Lighthouse 1
18.10 Wonderstruck   Cineworld 9
Film-maker in attendance
18.15 Disobedience   Lighthouse 1
18.15 The Image You Missed   Lighthouse 2
In attendance: Donal Foreman
20.30 Ana, Mon Amour   Lighthouse 3
20.30 Foxtrot   Lighthouse 1
20.45 Apparition / L’Apparition   Cineworld 9

Friday 2^nd March
Fantastic Flix – 10.00 Vampirina   Lighthouse 3
Film-maker in attendance
Fantastic Flix – 11.00 Rum 213    Omniplex Rathmines
In attendance: Wilma Lundgren
Fantastic Flix – 11.30 Cloudboy   Lighthouse 3
Fantastic Flix – 12.30 Liyana   Movies@Dundrum
13.30 An American in Paris   IFI
14.00 Writers’ Workshop Laurence Coriat   Brooks Hotel Cinema
18.10 Damo & Ivor: The Movie   Cineworld 17
Film-maker in attendance
In attendance: Rob Burke, Ronan Burke & Cast
18.10 The Other Side of Everything   Lighthouse 3
18.15 The Camino Voyage   IFI
In attendance: Dónal Ó Céilleachair
18.15 Hannah   Light House 1
20.30 Have a Nice Day   Lighthouse 3
20.30 The Third Murder   Cineworld 9
20.45 Kissing Candice   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Aoife McArdle

Saturday 3^rd March
Fantastic Flix -11.00 Fantastic Flix Shorts Omniplex   Rathmines / Lighthouse 3
Fantastic Flix -11.00 Mary and the Witch’s Flower   Lighthouse 1
12.00 Judicial Review: Law on Film
13.15 So Help Me God   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Yves Hinant, Jean Libon
13.50 Casting   Lighthouse 3
14.00 Catalyst Case Study – Kissing Candice   Bow St Academy
15.45 The Meeting   Lighthouse 1
16.00 Sea Sorrow   Cineworld 17
In attendance: Vanessa Redgrave and Carlo Nero

16.00 How to Talk to Girls At Parties   Lighthouse 3
Sandy Powell in attendance
18.10 Sicilian Ghost Story   Cineworld 9
18.15 A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Sinéad O’Shea
18.30 Journeyman   Lighthouse 2
Film-maker in attendance
20.30 The Delinquent Season   Lighthouse 1
Mark O’Rowe, Cillian Murphy, and Eva Birthistle in attendance
20.45 A Prayer Before Dawn   Cineworld 9

Sunday 4^th March
Fantastic Flix -11.00 The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales   Light House 1
In attendance: Patrick Imbert
12.00 Edie   Light House 3
12.00 Vanessa Redgrave Volta Presentation   The Gate
13.30 Racer and the Jailbird   Cineworld 9
14.00 The Italian Straw Hat (The Horse Ate the Hat)   Light House 1
Musical accompaniment: Günter A. Buchwald, Matthew Jacobson, Nick Roth, Derek Whyte
16.10 My Friend Dahmer   Cineworld 9
16.15 A Gentle Creature   Light House 1
17.00 Just Eat Surprise Film   Odeon Point
Featuring special presentation
19.00 Under the Tree   Light House 1
20.00 C’est La Vie   Cineworld 17
Closing Gala

Exhibitions:
Wednesday 21^st February – Sunday 4^th March
Celebrating Irish Talent Exhibition   Powerscourt Town Centre

Friday 2^nd March – Saturday 31^st March
Cedric Gibbons Exhibition   NCAD Galway

Wednesday 21^st February – Sunday 4^th March
Exhibition: Brown Bag Films Behind the Scenes   Lighthouse

Wednesday 21^st February – Sunday 4^th March
NCAD Exhibition   Lighthouse

5 Dispatches from Independence Day: Resurgence

Independence Day has been all over our TV screens, and the sequel, while entertaining enough, is never going to trouble it in popular esteem or take pride of patriotic bombast place in Roland Emmerich’s oeuvre. Here are observations on it.

1. Hansoloitis

“It doesn’t need matter that you come back, just how you come back” proclaimed Longmire’s gruff season 4 tag-line; and Independence Day: Resurgence bungles beloved characters as badly as The Force Awakens. It’s always great to see Judd Hirsch, but that doesn’t mean he can literally just drive around in a parallel universe to the forward drive of the plot without seeming superfluous. Vivica A Fox’s return is on every level as baffling as Bill Pullman being given a kind of rousing speech to kind of deliver to Jeff Goldblum with kind of the intention of being overheard by pilots, but only kind of, to the point where even the orchestra string section doesn’t know whether to swell or not. And then there’s the great dilemma: is it okay to kill fan favourites just to ‘raise the stakes’?

2. Turn on the bright lights

If The Bling Ring is the most over-lit film of our times, I have rarely wanted to scream ‘Turn on a bloody light!’ as much as for Independence Day: Resurgence. Markus Forderer aggressively discards the lighting schema established in 1996 by Karl Walter Lindelaub. This is possibly Emmerich’s murkiest film since Ueli Steiger hid Godzilla in night, rain, and shadow, and for no very clear reason. It hides scale in the African scenes, muddies action within the alien mothership, and gives the impression that commands are issuing from a bunker with a half-capacity generator.

3. Practical Magic

It is startling to see the practical VFX in the original Independence Day. Aliens that are CGI creations in Independence Day: Resurgence are costumes and puppets in the original. It’s odd to think that Independence Day by dint of being released in 1996 still had regard for tangible reality in blockbuster visuals; models of the White House et al blowing up mingled with real people and cars being yanked about on wires. And now, no, now we mostly get the same ‘awe-inspiring’ CGI as X-Men: Apocalypse. It is of course probably impossible to depict a city being ripped into the air by the gravity of a passing spaceship using models. But even trying and failing to get it all would sure have more impact than watching actors do their ‘amazed at the storyboard for the shot’ expression.

4. ‘Baby’

Bret Easton Ellis lamented that the growing importance of Chinese cinema audiences was leading to a quiet purging of gay characters from blockbusters. He feared supporting characters, like Harvey Fierstein in Independence Day, would be edited out by notes with an eye on the Chinese market, and gay characters, while happily surfing the zeitgeist in television, would disappear from American blockbusters. But Roland Emmerich, while pushing Chinese products and heroic Chinese characters, also reveals that Brent Spiner and John Storey’ Drs Okun and Isaacs are a gay couple. Almost entirely via body language and the word ‘baby’, as if chuckling that he might hoodwink the Chinese censor by insisting they’re just work colleagues, the censor has imagined something that’s not there in translation.

5. Funny haha

Aside from the unintentional hilarity, pointed out to me by John Healy, of cold fusion weapons, this isn’t very funny. Goldblum’s nods to Emmerich trademarks lack pizzaz, and new characters make little impression without memorable zingers. Emmerich co-wrote with trusted collaborators Dean Devlin and James Vanderbilt, and James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright (who starred in White House Down, in which everything paid off). How did writers so attuned to blockbuster structure under-nourish humour and over-complicate plot?

2016: Hopes

Midnight Special

Mud writer/director Jeff Nichols makes his studio debut on April 15^th with this tale he places roughly in the territory of John Carpenter’s Starman and De Palma’s The Fury. Nichols regular Michael Shannon plays a father forced to go on the run with his son after discovering the kid has special powers, and the FBI is interested in them… Sam Shepard also recurs, as does cinematographer Adam Stone, while Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst, and Joel Edgerton join the Nichols stable. It’s hard to imagine a genre tale from Nichols, but perhaps an unusually heart-felt Stephen King captures it.

Everybody Wants Some

April 15^th sees Richard Linklater release a ‘spiritual sequel’ to both Dazed and Confused and Boyhood. Little is known for sure about Everybody Wants Some, other than it’s a comedy-drama about college baseball players during the 1980s, that follows a boy entering college, meeting a girl, and a new band of male friends. The cast features Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, and Zoey Deutch, so in retrospect may be as star-studded as his 1993 exploration of the end of high school. Hopefully it’s as archetypal and poignant as that as regards the college experience.

 

Love & Friendship

On April 27^th almost exactly four years since Damsels in Distress the urbane Whit Stillman returns with another tale of female friendship, with a little help in the scripting department from Jane Austen. His Last Days of Disco stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny reunite for this adaptation of Austen’s ‘Lady Susan’ novella shot in Ireland. Stephen Fry, Jemma Redgrave, and Xavier Samuel are the supporting players as Beckinsale tries to marry off her daughter (Morfydd Clark) but the real attraction is Stillman, poet of dry wit and elite social rituals, adapting an author with similar preoccupations.

The Nice Guys

Shane Black’s third directorial effort, out on May 20^th, sees him back on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang territory. Get ready for Ryan Gosling to Bogart his way thru the seedy side of the City of Angels as Holland March, PI. March partners up with a rookie cop (Matt Bomer) to investigate the apparent suicide of a porn star. But standing in his way is an LA Confidential reunion: Kim Basinger as femme fatale, Russell Crowe as Det. Jackson Healy. It’s hard not to be excited at the prospect of terrific dialogue carrying some hysterically self-aware genre deconstruction.

Queen of Earth

We can expect writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s latest movie to hit Irish cinemas sometime in June. Listen Up Philip star Elisabeth Moss takes centre-stage here alongside Inherent Vice’s Katherine Waterston as two old friends who retreat to a lake house only to discover that they have grown very far apart with the passage of time. Keegan DeWitt scores his second movie for ARP not with jazz but a dissonance appropriate to the unusual close-ups, that have invited comparison with Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, as a spiky Waterston hurts an emotionally wounded Moss in all the old familiar places.

Independence Day: Resurgence

Roland Emmerich, the maestro of bombastic action that is actually mocking its audience, returns on June 24^th (for some reason) with a belated sequel in which the aliens come back. Jeff Goldblum has led a 20 year scramble to harness alien tech to strengthen earth’s defences but will those efforts (and Liam Hemsworth’s mad piloting skills) be enough against an even more imposing armada? Sela Ward is the POTUS, Bill Pullman’s POTUS has grown a beard, his daughter has morphed from Mae Whitman into Maika Monroe, and the indefatigable Judd Hirsch returns to snark about these changes.

La La Land

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling team up again on July 15^th for an original musical from Whiplash writer/director Damien Chazelle. Gosling is a jazz musician in LA who falls in love with Stone’s aspiring actress, and that’s all you need for plot. Stone did an acclaimed turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway, but whether Gosling or JK Simmons (!!) can hold a tune is unknown. The real question is will it be half-embarrassed to be a musical (Chicago), attempt unwise grittiness (New York, New York), or be as mental as aMoulin Rouge! with original songs?

Suicide Squad

And on August 5^th we finally get to see what Fury auteur David Ayer has done with Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery. The latest trailer has amped up the nonsense quotient considerably, and this now looks like The Dirty Dozen scripted by Grant Morrison. Joel Kinnaman’s long-suffering Rick Flagg has to lead into combat the assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), angry mercenary Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), witch Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), half-man half-crocodile Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the psycho in psychotherapy, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). All eyes are on Robbie’s take on Harley, well until Jared Leto’s Mistah J turns up…

Sausage Party

August 12^th sees the release of probably the most ridiculous film you will see all year, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have scripted an adult animation about a sausage in a grocery store on a quest to discover the truth of his existence. Apart from Jay Baruchel, all the voices you’d expect are present and correct: James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, as well as Kristen Wiig, Edward Norton, and Salma Hayek. But given how Green Hornet failed can R-rated semi-improvised comedy and animation go hand in hand?

War on Everyone

The Guard in New Mexico! Okay, maybe not quite, but in that wheelhouse. In late August John Michael McDonagh makes his American bow with a blackly comic thriller about two renegade cops (Alexander Skarsgaard and Michael Pena) who have devoted themselves to blackmailing and framing every criminal who crosses their path. And then they come across that somebody they shouldn’t have messed with… McDonagh’s two previous outings as writer/director have been very distinctive, visually, philosophically, and verbally, but you wonder if he’ll have to endlessly self-censor his take no prisoners comedy for ‘liberal’ American sensibilities. Hopefully not.

The Girl on the Train

Following Gone Girl another book of the moment thriller gets rapidly filmed on October 7^th when Emily Blunt becomes the titular voyeur. From her commuter train seat she witnesses the interactions of perfect couple Haley Bennett and Luke Evans as she slows down at a station on the way to London. Then one day she sees something she shouldn’t have, and decides to investigate… The impressive supporting cast includes Rebecca Ferguson, Laura Prepon, Allison Janney, and Justin Theroux, but it’s not clear if Secretary screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson has relocated the action to New York.

The Great Wall

November 23^rd sees Chinese director Zhang Yimou embrace Hollywood, with an English-language story about the construction of the Great Wall of China scripted by Max Brooks and Tony Gilroy. Zhang has assembled an impressive international cast including Matt Damon, Andy Lau, Willem Dafoe, Jing Tian, Zhang Hanyu, and Mackenzie Foy for this sci-fi fantasy of the Wall’s completion. Little is known about the actual plot, but Zhang’s recent movies about the Cultural Revolution have been a drastic change of pace from the highly stylised colourful martial arts epics of Imperial China he’s known for in the West.

The Founder

Michael Keaton cements his leading man comeback on November 25^th with a blackly comic biopic of Ray Kroc. Who is Ray Kroc you ask? The Founder of … McDonald’s. Yes the McDonald brothers did own a hamburger store, but it wasn’t them that expanded into a national and then global, brand. That was all Kroc, who bought them out, and then forgot to pay them royalties; one of several incidents of what people might call either unethical behaviour or recurrent amnesia. Supporting players include Nick Offerman, Laura Dern, and Patrick Wilson, so this tale might be quite tasty.

Story of Your Life

Denis Villeneuve gears up for directing Blade Runner 2 with an original sci-fi movie that should arrive late in 2016. A first contact story, adapted by Eric Heisserer from Ted Chiang’s short story, it follows Amy Adams’ Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics expert recruited by the U.S. military. Her job is to decipher an alien race’s communications, but her close encounter with ET causes vivid flashbacks to events from her life. Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg are physicists and spooks trying to figure out what her unnerving experiences mean for rest of the humanity.

Passengers

Stomping on Rogue One with a December 21^st release date is the dream team of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. Poor Keanu Reeves spent years trying to make this sci-fi rom-com happen but as soon as these two expressed interest Jon Spaihts’ long-circling script got permission to land. Pratt wakes from cryo-sleep 90 years too early, so wakes up another passenger to relieve his loneliness on the somnambulant spaceship. Michael Sheen is a robot, but the potential for delight is offset by worthy director Morten Tyldum and the high probability of the contrivance of every other rom-com being used.

Assassin’s Creed

‘One for the studio, One for ourselves’. As it were. December 21^st sees the acclaimed Macbeth trio of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, and director Justin Kurzel reunite for a blockbuster based on the all-conquering game. Ubisoft Motion Pictures (yes, that’s really a thing now) and New Regency have opted not to adapt the story of Desmond Miles, or Ezio Auditore; perhaps in case this bombs. Fassbender plays original character Callum Lynch who can commune with his ancestor Aguilar, also played by Fassbender; presumably with a devilish grin as he battles the Spanish Inquisition. Fingers crossed that this works.