The Bear Truth: A short film by Anna Rodgers celebarates this year’s GAZE Film Festival’s opening film Animals

GAZE; Dublin’s international LGBT film festival begins this evening Thursday 1st August at the Lighthouse Cinema here in Smithfield. There is a great variety of LGBT themed films including features, short films and documentaries as well as discussions and other associated events. There is lots of information on this year’s festival here.

The festival’s opening film is the Spanish film Animals and is a coming of age story which centres on the character of Pol and his relationships with his family and friends as well as Deerhoof who is an imaginary walking, talking teddy bear whom he turns to for support and friendship.

To highlight and celebrate the launch of the festival’s opening night film the Irish film-maker Anna Rodgers has made a short film called The Bear Truth in which several people talk about the stories and importance of their own relationships with their teddy bears. 

Blue Jasmine: Cate Blanchett stars in Woody Allen’s latest film.

The trailer for Woody Allen’s forthcoming film Blue Jasmine has just been released. It stars Cate Blanchett as Jasmine a New Yorker who loses all her money after her husband Danny is exposed as a criminal and she is forced to move to San Francisco to stay with her sister who is played by Sally Hawkins. Alec Baldwin stars as Danny, his second film in a row for Allen following To Rome With Love. It also stars Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard as well as the comedians Louis C.K. and Andrew Dice Clay. As ever Allen’s films also feature a new rising star and this film also features Alden Ehrenreich who recently starred in  Chan-Wook Park’s excellent film Stoker as well as Richard LaGravenes’s’ Beautiful Creatures.

There have been several comments on social media that the storyline of Blue Jasmine contains elements to the Tennessee Williams play and Elia Kazan film A Streetcar Named Desire with Blanchett playing a neurotic Blanch character with Hawkins also coded as her sister Stella and Cannavale to a much lesser degree as Stanley. Allen’s films that have featured argumentative but loving relationships between family members have always been some of his greatest works and this looks very promising.

Blue Jasmine is released in cinemas on July 26th in New York and Los Angeles and also on 20th September in the UK.

Feature: Papa Kenn Media Film Reviews

One of the best things about Twitter is discovering websites, blogs and Youtube accounts by movie fans. While my blog tends to be mainly about pop music the aspect of popular culture that I love equally as much is cinema.  What I think unites the movie fans on line that I like the most is that they appreciate cinema across the genres and especially commercial cinema. I think commercial cinema will often say the most about general society at any given moment of time in popular culture history.

One reviewer whose love of cinema both as an artform and just as importantly as a source of  popular culture to be enjoyed is Papa Kenn Media. I have been following his movie reviews through his Twitter and Youtube account for the past few months. He usually posts once a week and the film is often that week’s number one film at the american box office. This week’s is the new Disney movie Wreck-It-Ralph which he gives a great review. His reviews are a rapidly edited mix of scenes from the film as well as pop up images of film references or himself. It works well and his own sense of humour is what makes each review memorable even if the film he has reviewed wasn’t that great. What I like about his reviews as well is that they are never predictable. He assesses each film on it’s own merit and states exactly where he felt the film worked or failed to. I know that may sound like a basis trait that anyone reviewing a film should have but I sometimes think some reviewers often judge a film before they even see it. 

The best way to describe Papa Kenn’s reviews are to watch some of them so here is his review of Wreck it Ralph.

Here also are three other reviews: The Avengers.

The Raid.

and Paranorman.

Papa Kenn Media’s Youtube page featuring all his reviews is here. Follow his reviews through his Twitter page @PapaKennMedia.

Jeffrey Brown’s wonderful book ‘Darth Vader and Son’

Star Wars has become a generational thing in my family I loved the first three films from 1977 onwards and then when my brother Mike saw them on VHS in the 1980s he loved them too. Now my nephew Ben also likes them. Over the years Mike has made me several Star Wars related cards and birthday and Christmas presents. I have every card he has made me and presents from a C-3PO ceramic plate to my AT-AT bookcase. 

This year I got two Star Wars presents from Mike. The one he made me is completely original and very fantastic and is on the wall here beside me as I type at the desk in my spare room in my house. The other present is a hardback book called Darth Vader and Son and is a collection of drawings by Jeffrey Brown of Darth Vader and his son Luke.

The intro to the book says:

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

Episode three and a half:

DARTH VADER AND SON

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of

the Sith, leads the Galactic

Empire against the heroic Rebel

Allicance. Before he can take

care of the rebels, Lord Vader

must first take care of his son-

four-year-old Luke Skywalker

Here are some of the drawings from the book. I love that the other characters from the film are also the right age that they should be when Luke was a child especially Lando and Greedo. And also that Leia dresses her toys in girls clothes which is a great reference to the fact that bar her Aunt  (who she didn’t even know!) in the first film she was the only woman in Space.

If you love Star Wars as much as I do the link where to buy the book is here. it is also published by Chronicle books who have a special website just for the book here.

100 Cover Versions: #90: Sandra Bernhard covers ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’

When I first moved to Dublin back in the early 1990s one of the great things of living in a capital city was that there was a bigger variety of cinemas to go to and a wider selection of films. For the first time in my life because of the Irish Film Centre (now the Irish Film Institute) and also the Lighthouse Cinema when it was on Abbey Street I was introduced to arthouse, documentary, gay and lesbian and classic cinema. One of the first films I remember seeing and absolutely adoring was Sandra Bernhard’s performance film Without You I’m Nothing. I had never seen anything like it before. Her mix of humour, music, popular culture and sexuality in that film is still one of the greatest cinema moments in the many, many films I have seen over the past 20 years living in Dublin. 

Each performance of the songs in Without You I’m Nothing had it’s own story. Sandra mixed both autobiographical and completely fictional monologues in between the lyrics of songs that I both knew from radio days and ones I had never heard before like the country song I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Sandra became the song and the singer. She was Sylvester singing Do You Wanna Funk, she was Billy Paul singing Me and Mrs Jones. She made you think about the songs and hear the lyrics in another way, another wonderfully funny way. I was only coming out then and that film made such an impact on me. 

I have been lucky to have seen Sandra’s show twice over the years. Once in Dublin in Vicar Street and the second a few years later in New York in Joe’s Pub. Each time was brilliant. They were two different shows, new stories, new songs.

The funniest bit in Without You I’m Nothing I think is a monologue when she is talking about Madonna without actually mentioning her and then she adds a bit about Martika who was a big music star during the time of the film’s release. If you have seen the film you will know the part I mean. If you haven’t then I won’t spoil it. Sandra’s one liners are like bullets or knives in the most fabulous way.

The surreal thing about life is that I adored Martika and her music and still do and through the amazing medium that is Twitter she has tweeted me back a couple of times. I hope if Martika knows the film that she finds her mention in it funny. 

The most famous song from Without you I’m Nothing is at the end when she performs Prince’s Little Red Corvette. There are a few songs from the film on Youtube. Here is one that I love, well I love them all but this captures the whole atmosphere of the film very well. It’s Sandra’s version of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. It is all very Supremes as the version is more Diana Ross than Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell who had a hit first with it in 1967. Older than me! Diana had her first number one with the song in 1970.

I have Without You I’m Nothing on both video tape and DVD so if you haven’t seen it and you see it in a movie store or on line do check it out. It works best as a complete performance.  

My Brothers

My Brothers is directed by Paul Fraser and is released in selected Irish cinemas on August 17th. My Brothers is set over Halloween weekend in Ireland in 1987. It tells the story of three brothers; Noel, Paudie and Scwally who set out on a road trip to replace a watch for their dying father. Along the way, in the great tradition of road movies, the three brothers meet various characters and they both bond and fight. 

It is the first feature length film directed by Paul Fraser who has previously written the screenplays for acclaimed films such as Somers Town and A Room for Romeo Brass. He was also writer on Heartlands, a film from 2002 which was directed by Damian O’Donnell and was one that I remember really liking a lot when it was in the cinema. It starred Michael Sheen and Celia Imrie. 

My Brothers will screen at the Screen on D’Olier St, the Lighthouse Cinema and at Movies @Dundrum which are all in Dublin and will also screen at the Gate and the Triskel in Cork. Hopefully it will be shown in other cinemas too. The soundtrack also features original music by Jacknife Lee and Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol.

The Twitter page for updates on the film is @MyBrothersMovie and the film’s Facebook page is Facebook.com/myBrothersMovie

Film Noir at the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin

One of the great things about living in Dublin over the past few years has been the creative programming in our city centre cinemas. For years cinemas such as the Irish Film Institute, Cineworld, The Screen on D’Olier Street and The Lighthouse Cinema have added once off screenings of classic Hollywood and world cinema to their weekly listings. The Lighthouse Cinema was originally based in Abbey Street in Dublin. It re-opened a few years ago in Smithfield but closed down. It has since re-opened and has re-established itself as one of the most important and exciting cinemas in Ireland. This weekend I went to see several films at the Gaze film festival and the atmosphere was so brilliant.

Later this month and into September there is a short Film Noir season with screenings of five classics of the Golden Age of cinema history. Admission to each of the films is €9 or €7.50 concessions or you can go to all 5 films for €30. Booking can be made in advance at the cinema’s box office or by calling 01-8728006. If you are a film student or simply a fan of the best of that genre of American cinema this is a great opportunity to see these landmark films on screen. 

The five films in the programme are: 

– Gilda (August 15th)

– The Big Heat (August 22nd)

– The Big Sleep (August 29th)

– Mildred Pierce (September 5th)

– Laura (September 12th)

The Twitter page for the Lighthouse Cinema is @LighthouseD7 The poster featured above was designed by @MickMinogue and Paddy Dunne @Bawpsherep

Here is also the trailers for all five films.

The first is Gilda (1946) which was directed by Charles Vidor and stars Glenn Ford and most famously Rita Hayworth in her signature role.

The second film which screens on August 22nd is The Big Heat (1953) which was directed by Fritz Lang and starred Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin. The video clip below also features a montage of movie posters of The Big Heat.

The third film screens on August 29th and is The Big Sleep (1946) directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart and Laureen Bacall. The beginning of the trailer is wonderful. You wish marketing for movies was still like that. 

The fourth film is Mildred Pierce (1945) which screens on September 5th is one that was remade as a TV mini series for HBO in 2011. It is one of the ultimate Joan Crawford films. Mildred Pierce was directed by Michael Curtiz whose most famous film is Casablanca.

and the fifth film in the season which screens on September 12th is Laura (1944) and was directed by Otto Preminger and starred Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. 

Under African Skies

Paul Simon and LadySmith Black Mambazo play two nights in concert in Dublin’s 02 Music venue next Thursday 12th and Friday 13th July. 

Under African Skies; the documentary about his return to South Africa on the 25th anniversary of the recording of his Graceland album is also showing in cinemas at the moment. Under African Skies is directed by Joe Berlinger and features Paul Simon talking about the making of, the history and the powerful legacy of Graceland and also features contributions by people such as David Byrne, Harry Belafonte, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey and Steve Van Zandt.  There are screenings of it in The Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield here in Dublin at 650pm next Sunday 8th and at 615pm on Thursday 12th July.

Here is the trailer for Under African Skies. 

Here are some of the great songs from the 1987 Grammy winning Album of the Year Graceland.

The first is one of the most famous music videos of the 1980s; You Can Call Me Al. In 1987 it  also won the Grammy for Record of the Year.

The second is Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes.

The third is The Boy in the Bubble.

and here is a live in concert performance of the documentary’s title song  Under African Skies from 1987.