FILM reviewers at New York freesheet Village Voice have been laying into Ireland's best-known directors.
On Get Rich or Die Tryin', Laura Sinagra wrote: "Unfortunately, My Left Foot's Jim Sheridan, that reliable purveyor of Irish struggle-porn, anchors us in tedious exposition." Her colleague Michael Atkinson said that "Breakfast on Pluto may be Jordan's wildest mis-shot yet", dismissing three of his films - High Spirits, We're No Angels and, amazingly, Michael Collins - as "criminally inept catastrophes".
Roger Ebert was much more positive about Sheridan's movie in the Chicago Sun-Times, describing it as "a film with a rich and convincing texture, a drama with power and anger". In the New York Times, Stephen Holden noted that Jordan's film has "a similar zany, lurching momentum and vitality" to The Butcher Boy and that "in a year overcrowded with wonderful performances by lead actors, Mr (Cillian) Murphy's immensely appealing turn ranks among the strongest."
Breakfast on Pluto opens here on January 13th, followed a week later by Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
Less movies on more screens
December will be the quietest month of 2005 for Irish cinema releases. Only 12 new movies will be released, whereas September was the busiest month of the year with 33. We will get so few new movies next month because several blockbusters will be playing on multiple screens: The Chronicles of Narnia, which opens on December 9th, King Kong (15th) and The Producers (26th). In addition, Flightplan and Harry Potter can be expected to run on next month.
Completing the December line-up are Keeping Mum, Doom and Sophie Scholl (2nd), March of the Penguins (9th), Lassie, Joyeux Noel and The Family Stone (16th), Cheaper By the Dozen II (26th) and Just Like Heaven (30th).
Fine fellow for Film Fleadh
Galway Film Fleadh has appointed Felim McDermott as its new programme director. McDermott has been closely involved with the event for some time as co-ordinator of its masterclasses in screenwriting, acting and directing, and he co-ordinated the short film symposium at last month's Cork Film Festival. The 18th fleadh is set for next July 11th-16th.
Rare UK showing for short
Denis McArdle's short film, The Burning Bed, is now on release with Factotoum at UK cinemas. Set in the west of Ireland, it features Aidan Gillen and Gina McKee as a married couple of the verge of breaking up. It is, McArdle notes, the first Irish short film to secure a UK cinema release since Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Woman Who Married Clark Gable in 1985.
HP & the goblet of money
"Auds guzzle Goblet," declared the headline on Variety.com this week. For those who don't speak Variety slanguage, this refers to the opening business of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last weekend. In the US it took more than $100 million in three days, higher than its three predecessors, even though it carries the more restrictive PG-13 rating, and the fourth highest opening weekend figure to date in the US, behind Spider-Man, Shrek 2 and Star Wars - Episode III.
In Britain and Ireland Potter broke all opening records, making more than $24 million in three days.
Spoiler alert
Don't read this item if you don't want to know how the new movie of Pride & Prejudice ends. In fact, how it ends depends on where you see it. The version released here and in the UK concludes (rather oddly) with the camera fixed on Donald Sutherland as Elizabeth Bennet's father. In the US it runs a little longer, ending on a passionate, moonlit embrace between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy.
"You got the more sugary ending," Darcy portrayer Matthew Macfadyen told USA Today. "The Brits hated it." mdwyer@irish-times.ie
