The Catholic Media Conference in Atlanta has just released details of three films which may be of interest to readers. The first, Jesus Thirsts: The Miracle of the Eucharist, embarks, as the CMC puts it, “on a global journey to rediscover and revive the transformative power of the Eucharist.” Produced by Jim Wahlberg and directed…
The Irish Film Institute is commemorating Bloomsday (June 16) this year with a showing of the film Adam and Paul, Lenny Abraham’s debut.
Shanghai is the Promised Land. From the surrounding villages and townships, they come, Junior Franz Liszts pitting themselves against the best of the rest from areas that expand like repeating decimals. Xia Yidi is eight. He’s the kind of lad you might expect to see playing with his toys. But when he puts on his…
If you uttered the word ‘Cheer’ to me before I saw Tanya Doyle’s Eat/Sleep/Cheer/Repeat, I’d have thought you were giving me an instruction to support someone. In actual fact it’s shorthand for cheerleading. For those of you who, like me, thought cheerleading was ‘an American thing’ here’s a corrective to that mindset. Though we’re still…
“That blasted book near killed me,” John McGahern said to me of his final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun. He put more of himself into it than any of his other ones. That’s saying something. It has now been made into a film (Cert 15). I didn’t ‘get’ the book when I…
Few people have names more applicable to the way they lived than Amy Winehouse. How many hours did she spend in such establishments? She died at 27, thereby becoming a member of the ‘27 Club’, an ill-fated gathering of rock legends that also included people like Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Robert Johnson, Janis…
Marlon Brando would have been 100 yesterday. Born on April 3, 1924 he was, by fairly common consensus, the greatest actor of his generation. Was he a ‘Method’ actor? This is the school of acting he’s always identified with, focusing as it did on reaching into one’s inner self for inspiration. He claimed not to…
The devil – and angel – is in the detail. Great movies come from moments. Mother’s Instinct (15A) is threaded together like a labyrinthine tapestry of ominous vignettes where every slight movement or gesture becomes charged with an opaque threat. It’s a horror film that plays out like a symphony. Stanley Kubrick would have…
The Oscar ceremonies, Hollywood’s annual ritual of patting itself on the back for delights real or imagined, are taking place next Sunday night. Unless you’re one of those obsessives who likes to stay up into the wee hours to hear the results, California time being ten hours behind us, you won’t know who won until…
Bob Dylan’s career ran chronologically alongside that of another iconic singer with the same Christian name. Bob Marley is less well known to most people than Dylan but Bob Marley: One Love (12A), a biographical drama of the Jamaican singer-songwriter, may change that. The casting of Kingsley Ben-Adir in the title role received the blessing…