Four new films to see this week: Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, How to Train Your Dragon, Tornado and Lollipop
Directed by Laura Piani. Starring Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly, Charlie Anson, Annabelle Lengronne, Liz Crowther, Alan Fairbairn, Frederick Wiseman. 15A cert, gen release, 97min
Charming, clever romcom that casts Rutherford as a French bookseller who gets cast into a messy love triangle at a Jane Austen retreat across La Manche. The film does occasionally struggle with getting England right. We are always aware this is a French film-maker looking through the window at the crumpets on their doilies. But there is a mischievous intelligence at work that complements the embrace of sometimes-broad misunderstandings. It's worth it alone to hear Agathe identify, in the most Gallic of vowels, one character with a particular work. He suggests, apparently, Mr Bertram in 'Mahnsfeeld Perk'.
Full review
DC
How to Train Your Dragon ★★★☆☆
Directed by Dean DeBlois. Starring Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Gerard Butler, Gabriel Howell, Julian Dennison, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Peter Serafinowicz. PG cert, gen release, 125min
Live-action remake of 2010 animated hit about a young Viking who makes friends with a dragon. One could bang on all day about how familiar so much of this seems. But it is only fair to acknowledge that, judged as an independent entity, the current film works as sleek, funny entertainment. Much of that is down to the cast. Thames, as the spirited protagonist, doesn't let his fragile ingenuousness get in the way of moral determination. If we must have such retreads then let them at least be carried off with this degree of amusing gusto.
Full review
DC
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Tornado ★★★☆☆
Directed by John Maclean. Starring Tim Roth, Jack Lowden, Takehiro Hira, Joanne Whalley, Koki. 15A cert, limited release, 90min
Maclean returns to the austere storytelling that defined Slow West, his well-regarded 2015 debut. Set in a rugged and unnamed corner of 18th-century Scotland, the film follows the taciturn young circus performer of the title and her father as they are drawn into a deadly pursuit. The McGuffin is familiar: an opportunistic theft, a misplaced bag of swag and double-crossing rogues on the rampage. Will frustrate the giblets out of those seeking narrative momentum. But viewers willing to sit with its stark silences and oppressive atmospherics can look forward to a singular, if rarely easy, watch.
Full review
TB
Lollipop ★★★★☆
Directed by Daisy-May Hudson. Starring Posy Sterling, Idil Ahmed, TerriAnn Cousins, Tegan-Mia, Stanley Rhoads, Luke Howitt, Aliyah Abdi, Johanna Allitt. 15A cert, gen release, 100min
We're not sure why Molly (played with fraying precision by Sterling) has served four months in prison, but her attempts to chart a path back to normalcy are unjustifiably frustrating. Her longed-for reunion with her two children is spoiled when only her daughter arrives, and then only for a minute. Hudson has staked a significant claim in the rich terrain of Britain's socially conscious, kitchen-sink milieu. There's no triumphalism here, but there's enough grit and community spirit to coalesce into a decent outcome. Maddening and urgent viewing, nonetheless.
Full review
TB
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Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Dear Erin: Why do Irish people love to get annoyed about ‘Oirish' films?
The most popular defence when you have failed to recognise, say, a broad pastiche of Donald Trump on social media is that the reality is now so extreme no parody is possible. Almost exactly 20 years ago, one Nathan Poe made such an argument about people who deny evolution. 'Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is utterly impossible to parody a creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article,' he wrote. This is known as Poe's Law. Anyway, all this is by way of explaining how I – along with others who should know better – briefly fell for a recent jape that didn't quite include a 'winking smiley'. A few weeks ago, ads began appearing on buses for an upcoming feature called Dear Erin. 'She was the Irish goodbye he never forgot,' the tagline read. Peter Coonan , in cloth cap and collarless shirt, writes a letter at a table that also holds a pint of stout and a glass of whiskey. One hand is bloodied. Shamrock spills from a breast pocket. Somehow a rainbow makes it into the collage. A moment's digging unearthed a trailer for the ghastly thing. 'My greatest love? A simple Irish boy from a simple Irish town,' a female American voice trills over glissando strings. Maybe he has now forgotten her? Of course not. Coonan, sitting in his booze-stacked snug, begins a letter with 'Dear Erin' before continuing: 'I've played that night over more times than the Finnegans fought the O'Malleys.' After a bit more shameless blarney, a shadow falls over our hero and we hear, in that same American accent, an uncertain 'Paddy?' READ MORE You might reasonably conclude that only a fierce eejit – no cuter than a donkey's behind – would fall for such a load of aul' cow's muck. But context is all. What was the advertisement doing on the side of a bus? What would Peter Coonan, a Love/Hate alumnus of some distinction, be doing in something that didn't quite exist? This wasn't a post on XformerlyTwitter. There was real money behind it. Moreover, this is surely a case where Poe's Law applies. The deluge of Micksploitation never stops: Far and Away, PS I Love You, Leap Year, Laws of Attraction, Wild Mountain Thyme. No stereotype is too insulting for visiting Americans to exploit. So, for an hour or two, I, and a few other film boffins on the social, could be forgiven (give us a break) for falling into the trap. The parody was a fair one. The clues were right there. What trailer for an apparently imminent title – 'coming this summer' – fails to include a precise release date? Squint and you will see that Paddy's letter is addressed to 'ERIN, AMERICA' – too broad for even the dimmest begorrah aesthetic. I cannot claim to be the first to spot that 'Hugh Forbes', the film's alleged director, shares his name with the character played by Maureen O'Hara's brother in The Quiet Man. We soon all decided that it was a stealth advertisement for something or other. Would Erin soups do such a thing? Not on this occasion. It transpired that the campaign was financed by Epic The Irish Emigration Museum . A longer video, released later, has Coonan break character and snort: 'I'm sorry but who f**king writes this s**t? How are we letting people away with this?' The museum's website , going in big, offers essays on 'the impact of Hollywood stereotypes of Ireland' and 'how to de-stereotype … 'Oirish' films'. This follows (another clue) a campaign from the same organisation that, with predictably hideous results, asked AI to create images of a typical Irishman. Fair enough. The strategy worked. At least one column in at least one national newspaper has now mentioned the prank. The worthwhile question is less why Americans (sometimes still the British) keep doing this – lazy sentimentality? – than why the nation remains so eager to get annoyed about it. It is a little over a year since we all went ballistic over a harmless Netflix title called Irish Wish . Yes, as I then wrote in this place , the Lindsay Lohan vehicle was silly. But was there any need to publish all those 12,000-word treatises on its supposed crimes against the national psyche? [ Planning to hate-watch Lindsay Lohan's Irish Wish? Micksploitation addicts should prepare for disappointment Opens in new window ] There is no easier way of attracting Irish attention than releasing something that shamelessly ploughs the Micksploitation groove. The Epic campaign is correct to bemoan the more egregious tropes. But let us not pretend we wouldn't miss these things if they went away. Baloney such as Wild Mountain Thyme and Irish Wish make us feel noticed. They make us feel righteous. They allow our hearts to beat a little faster. If Americans didn't do this to us we would have to do it to ourselves. As we have just done.
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
Dying review: Dark family saga shows living, like dying, is a messy business
Dying Director : Matthias Glasner Cert : 16 Genre : Drama Starring : Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Anna Bederke, Hans-Uwe Bauer, Saskia Rosendahl Running Time : 3 hrs 3 mins Matthias Glasner's Dying (or Sterben in the original German) is a film composed like its central musical motif: sprawling, discordant, haunted by mortality and strangely reminiscent of other works. Spanning three hours and five loosely tethered chapters, this dark family saga plays like a collage of recent festival favourites; early, unvarnished scenes of elder care nod towards Vortex and Amour ; a hectic middle section concerning a conductor recalls Todd Field's similarly themed Tár ; a late narrative swerve into assisted suicide intersects with Pedro Almodóvar's The Room Next Door . Somehow, the disparate pieces and maximalist clutter find a rhythm. Glasner's sweeping intergenerational study lays bare the fractures within a German family. Lissy (Corinna Harfouch), an incontinent matriarch dying of cancer; her husband Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer), vanishing into dementia; their son Tom (Lars Eidinger), an enigmatic conductor rehearsing a choral piece titled – get it? – Dying; and Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg), their estranged, self-loathing daughter, who works as a dental assistant in the belief that it's a job everybody hates. She sings beautifully, but only when drunk. Her desperate affair with a married colleague marks her out from a clan composed of emotionally distant adults. Tom's marked detachment is signalled by his bizarre domestic arrangements and the dispassionate abandonment of his depressed composer friend. His blank self-concern veers toward blackest comedy: imagine an episode of Peep Show directed by Michael Haneke. READ MORE There's plenty to admire in the performances – Harfouch, Eidinger, and Stangenberg all deliver searing, bravura turns. The film's obsession with finality makes room for bodily fluids of all varieties. Even the film's hook-up scene – Ellen pulling a lover's tooth before kissing his mouth – is bloody. Living, like dying, is a messy business. The script's wandering and overlapping arcs can feel uneven and tricksy, yet there's something utterly compelling in how Glasner stages decay not just as a biological inevitability, but a doomy familial legacy.
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
Kneecap banned by Hungary ahead of planned festival performance
Hungarian authorities have banned Irish rap group Kneecap from entering the country to perform at the Sziget Festival. They accused the band of using anti-Semitic hate speech and praising the Hamas militant group , a government spokesperson said on Thursday. Belfast-based Kneecap, who regularly display pro-Palestinian messages during their gigs, have caused controversy elsewhere in recent months, including at Britain's Glastonbury Festival, where frontman Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – known as Mo Chara – accused Israel of committing war crimes. 'Hungary's government has moved to ban Kneecap from entering the country and performing at Sziget ... citing antisemitic hate speech and open praise for Hamas and Hezbollah as justification,' government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs wrote in a post on X. READ MORE Mr Kovacs later posted the official letters from immigration authorities banning the band for three years, claiming that their entry would 'seriously threaten national security'. In May, Mo Chara was charged with a terrorism offence in Britain for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Iran-backed Hizbullah. He denies the offence. Last week, UK police said the group would face no further action following their performance at Glastonbury last month. The trio led Glastonbury crowds in chants of 'f**k Keir Starmer ', in reference to the British prime minister, during their set at the festival. Representatives of Kneecap did not immediately reply to requests for comment. The band has said previously that its members do not support Hamas or Hizbullah, and that it condemns 'all attacks on civilians, always'. Hungary's government had already asked festival organisers to drop Kneecap from the line-up at the week-long event, which draws several hundred thousand music lovers to an island in the River Danube each year. More than 150 artists and cultural figures, including Academy Award-winning director Laszlo Nemes Jeles, have also signed a petition protesting against Kneecap's participation. Sziget organisers, who said they had not been notified of the government's decision, have resisted the calls to scrap Kneecap's planned performance on August 11th. 'Our festival remains true to what we have consistently achieved over the past 30 years: there is no place for hatred, incitement, prejudice, or any form of racism or anti-Semitism,' they said in a statement last week. Sziget's other performers this year include Post Malone, Shawn Mendes and Charli XCX. – Reuters
