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Screenwriter

Donald Clarke

Whingeing about cinema and real life since 2009

Monthly Archives: February 2012

Marilyn is on the new Cannes poster
  • Cannes
  • February 29, 2012, 22:41

I’m sure you couldn’t care less. But it has just been announced that Marilyn Monroe is to appear on the poster for Cannes 2012. If you do attend that sunny event you very quickly get used to seeing the year’s …

Moments at the Oscars
  • Oscars
  • February 27, 2012, 16:07

By now you will know that The Artist has triumphed at the Oscars. Scratch that. You knew that was going to happen about six months ago. As I suggested in The Ticket last Friday, the Oscar watcher really has to …

DFCC and surprise film at JDIFF

We had an impressively suave line-up of talent at the Dublin Film Critics Circle Awards. Marjane Satrapi, Marian Finucane and Gareth Evans all turned up to accept awards at the perennially diverting soiree in the Irish Film Institute. This year’s …

Nuala and DFCC at JDIFF

A particularly busy festival grinds towards its close this weekend. We enjoyed the rush and the run. There were plenty of good films and the guests were starrier than ever. I had a very nice night this evening. I got …

Still alive at JDIFF

I suppose, in addressing the highlights of my week, I can hardly avoid mentioning that I had a nice chat with Al Pacino yesterday. You can read the interview on Saturday, so I won’t bothering going into too much detail …

Day three highlights from JDIFF

Everything is still ticking along nicely. Enjoy lovely video here. More amusing comments will follow later.

Whit Stillman and others at JDIFF

Look, I’ve taken a photograph of Whit Stillman, director of such fine movies as Metropolitan and Barcelona, as he makes his way into Cineworld for Friday night’s screening of his new piece Damsels in Distress. If you look carefully (well, …

Max Von Sydow and Last House on the Left
  • Horror
  • February 14, 2012, 22:32

Certain protocols apply in press interviews. Among the most important is that you don’t make a berk of yourself by getting your photograph taken with the talent. I remember being at a group interview a few years back for Miami …

Why so little chatter about Dickens?
  • Books
  • February 9, 2012, 00:43

The question is, of course, more than a little facetious. Having kicked off sometime in 1978, the Dickens bicentennial has now passed through about five media cycles. You know how these things go. Four hundred articles appear. Then somebody pens …

The strange story of the Jack and Jill press show.

Here’s an odd one. Every now and then, some distributor will fail to screen a film for the press in this territory. More often than not the movie will be shown to our cousins across the Irish Sea. A good …

Farewell Ben Gazzara

Just look at this now-poignant Life cover from 1969. Three of the finest actors of their generations — all good pals — have got themselves dolled up for the photographer. It’s Peter Falk, John Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara. Don’t they …

A word from The Muppets.

There is only a week to go before the release of the much-anticipated Muppets film. It offers everything you could possibly ask for from a movie starring 30-year-old felt puppets. Walk don’t run and all that malarkey. Tara Brady of …