Blackbird

Review by James Mahon If Michael Flatley’s recently released self-directed and produced film Blackbird (Michael Flatley, 2022) was a satire of the spy film genre it would be a ‘tour de force’.  It possesses such a derivative plot, ostentatiously bad acting, and generic clichés that it perfectly parodies everything inherently wrong about the thriller category.

Crimes of the Future

Review by Cat Earley “Do you mind if I ask you something intimate?” says Kristen Stewart’s character to Viggo Mortensen’s in David Cronenberg’s new Crimes of the Future.  “No, go ahead.” he replies. “That surgery is sex, isn’t it?” She continues, “surgery is the new sex.” “Does there have to be a new sex?” “Yes.

See How They Run

Review by Luke Bradley See How They Run (Tom George, 2022) launches straight into its ‘whodunnit’ narrative. Scored by the narration of Adrien Brody’s hot-shot director Leo Köpernick, he criticises the ‘second-rate murder-mysteries’ of the 1950s. ‘It’s a whodunnit; you see one, you’ve seen them all’, Köpernick laments. Opening with such a brazenly self-referential statement

Funny Pages

Review by Katie McKenna In 2013, author Brett Martin analysed the television renaissance that had just occurred. Over the course of about two decades, tv had transformed from a mass-entertainment medium, something to sit in front of and shut off your brain, to a source of some of the most experimental and moving stories of

The Lad Goodbye

Review by Cat Earley Following their previous flick – the short film Hi, Lad (2020) – Victor Dubyna, Nolan O’Kane, and Kirk Percival of Lad Films released their first feature film, and continuation of their short in what they have self-described as a ‘stoner-noir’. The Lad Goodbye (2022) follows the conventional beats of a classic

Elvis

Review by Cat Earley In an age where biopics show no end in sight, Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022) is one of the more predictable releases of the year. With the legacy of Moulin Rouge! (2001) and The Great Gatsby (2013) behind him, Luhrmann’s take on this increasingly popular film genre is, well, predictably Baz Luhrmann.

Earwig

Review by Brídín Ní Fhearraigh-Joyce Earwig (Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2021) has the strangest film premise you’ve ever heard of. The film opens with a girl, fitted with an ice teeth apparatus that must be replaced daily. She carries two glass apparatuses on the side of her mouth, collecting her drool. She appears to have never been

Conversations with Friends

Review by James Mahon The recent television series adaptation of Sally Rooney’s debut novel Conversations with Friends  (Lenny Abrahamson and Leanne Welham, 2022) has been roundly panned by the majority of critics within the mainstream media. Judged with a tone of finality – as afflicted by leaden acting – emotional superficiality, and perhaps the biggest