Origin Review
The work of Ava DuVernay has been a champion of American cinema for years now. She’s done it all: an award-winning documentary, the hard-hitting biopic/historical drama, a Disney movie with Oprah and a Netflix miniseries. The varied nature of all that sounds like a lot,…
Double Blind Review
In the vast expanse of low to mid budget horror there’s a plethora of bad concept horrors. For every The Platform there’s an Escape Room, for every Get Out there’s a Master and so on. Irish horror is no different in this (see my previous…
Let the Wrong One In Review
In the past few years Ireland has seen a long overdue transition where filmmakers look internally for stories and move away from trying to impress the international marketplace. Movies like Paddy Breathnach’s Rosie, Phyllida Lloyd’s Herself, Frank Berry’s Michael Inside and Rachel Carey’s Deadly Cuts…
How to Tell a Secret Review
In recent times there has been a surge in media relating to the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community during the HIV and AIDS crisis of the 80’s and 90s. Films like Robin Campillo’s 120 BPM and Matthew Warchus’s Pride, series like Russell T Davies’s It’s…
It’s In Us All Review
In the world of film debut’s there tends to be a certain pressure put on filmmakers with promise. Not everyone can make a Citizen Kane or a Reservoir Dogs, it can take an artist some time to find themselves in their work and build tropes…
Leave No Traces (2021) Review
Poland’s Jan P. Matuszynski arrives with his 2nd major feature film after 2016’s The Last Family with film involving one of Poland’s most infamous cases of state brutality and intimidation. The murder and state cover-up of Grzegorz Przemyk, an anti-communist young poet at the hands…
The Cellar (2022) Review
Ireland in the last couple of years has seen a small boom in horror films. A genre that given our history (both mythological and real) would be perfect for big screen adaptions. Lee Cronin’s The Hole in the Ground (2019) and Lorcan Finnegans Vivarium (2019)…
The Electric Life of Louis Wain – Review
I find it odd going into a film not knowing anything about it. I always have a sense of anxiety or unease thinking: “Am I just going to sit here and be bored or is my mind going to explode with the level of artistry…