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Sat, Jan 16, 2021
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A guide to the festivals (probably) taking place in Ireland in 2021
  • Culture
  • Deirdre Falvey
  • January 16, 2021, 05:00

Contingency planning is the name of the game for arts festivals and events in the coming year

Netflix has spent millions on its films, so why are they so mediocre? Netflix has spent millions on its films, so why are they so mediocre?
  • Film
  • Hugh Linehan
  • January 16, 2021, 07:00

Streaming giant Netflix has spent gazillions making movies, with little of quality to show for it

'2020 was going to be the most amazing year ever for us' '2020 was going to be the most amazing year ever for us'
  • Stage
  • Sara Keating
  • January 16, 2021, 05:00

Producer Anne Clarke on experiencing live performance for first time since pandemic

The Irish Times Winter Nights festival: Full line-up revealed The Irish Times Winter Nights festival: Full line-up revealed
  • Culture
  • Róisín Ingle
  • January 16, 2021, 06:00

Gabriel Byrne, Nicola Sturgeon, Emma Dabiri and more to appear at the Irish Times festival

You could fill a book with doubleplusungood uses of ‘Orwellian’ You could fill a book with doubleplusungood uses of ‘Orwellian’
  • Culture
  • Donald Clarke
  • January 16, 2021, 05:00

George Orwell is common shorthand for ‘mean people are being mean to me because they’re mean’

WandaVision: The most audacious – and entirely bonkers – TV in recent entertainment history WandaVision: The most audacious – and entirely bonkers – TV in recent entertainment history
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Ed Power
  • January 15, 2021, 12:00

Review: WandaVision is a mystery, a satire and a love letter to the great American sitcom

Joe Duffy et al do what the mother and baby home commission could not Joe Duffy et al do what the mother and baby home commission could not
  • TV, Radio, Web
  • Mick Heaney
  • January 15, 2021, 05:00

The week's radio shows let survivors set records straight, share their anger and ask crucial questions

Sylvain Sylvain, New York Dolls guitarist who paved way for punk , dies aged 69 Sylvain Sylvain, New York Dolls guitarist who paved way for punk , dies aged 69
  • Music
  • January 15, 2021, 17:45

Billy Idol among those to pay tribute to ‘all-time great’ who had cancer for over two years

Pulling with My Parents: It’s sweet to see people discussing Tinder filth with their folks Pulling with My Parents: It’s sweet to see people discussing Tinder filth with their folks
  • Culture
  • Patrick Freyne
  • January 15, 2021, 05:00

Patrick Freyne: The RTÉ dating show will have Sigmund Freud weeping in hell

The Movie Quiz: ‘Fifty million people watched, but no one saw a thing’ – name the film from the tagline The Movie Quiz: ‘Fifty million people watched, but no one saw a thing’ – name the film from the tagline
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • January 15, 2021, 14:44

Plus: James Stewart and Hitchcock, a missing Saturday Night Fever song and Schitt’s Creek casting

Latest Film

The self-indulgent incoherence of David Fincher’s Mank, with Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, Arliss Howard as Louis B Mayer and Tom Pelphrey as Joe Mankiewicz. Photograph: Netflix Netflix has spent millions on its films, so why are they so mediocre?
The late Marvel head honcho Stan Lee with a Spider-Man model in his Beverly Hills office in December 2008. Photograph: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg The Movie Quiz: ‘Fifty million people watched, but no one saw a thing’ – name the film from the tagline
Julia Vysotskaya in Dear Comrades! Four new films to stream this weekend
  • Armie Hammer drops out of comedy film amid social media controversy
  • Netflix: 25 films to watch out for in 2021

TV & Radio

WandaVision: Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany WandaVision: The most audacious – and entirely bonkers – TV in recent entertainment history

Review: WandaVision is a mystery, a satire and a love letter to the great American sitcom

Liveline: Joe Duffy’s phone-in has played a crucial role in bringing to light the horrific secrets of Ireland’s clerical institutions Joe Duffy et al do what the mother and baby home commission could not
The series is set in the “second age” of Middle-Earth, long before the events in the JRR Tolkien classic, which spawned three hit films. File photograph Amazon’s Lord of the Rings will have plenty of elves but will there be any hobbits?
  • Jessie Buckley: Kerry’s bright star lights up the new season of Fargo
  • How to saw a person in half: 100 years of a sensational illusion

Latest Books

Gay Lynch with her novel Unsettled. Photograph: Flinders University Unsettled, a Galway-Australian frontier novel

Gay Lynch on her emigrant novel that spans Ireland and South Australia

Old favourites: The Decameron (1353) by Giovanni Boccaccio
“Rising in darkness is the hardest part for some, but I have always enjoyed it ever since those very early childhood mornings with Mum.” Dara McAnulty: Why I love winter’s grey and brown days
  • Jane Harper: ‘The thing I’m really interested isn’t the crime, it’s more the ripple effects’
  • Old favourites: the books that furnish my rooms

Film Reviews

One Night in Miami imagines that, on the night after Cassius Clay’s defeat of Sonny Liston, the fighter who was about to become Muhammad Ali gathered with Sam Cooke, Malcolm X and American footballer Jim Brown in a Florida hotel room. One Night in Miami

 
Julia Vysotskaya is electrifying as Lyuda, a dedicated party member. Dear Comrades!

 
Johnny Flynn in Stardust: the movie makes exasperating viewing for fans and will baffle newcomers Stardust

 
MLK/FBI documents the “darkest part of the FBI’s history” with its smear campaign against Martin Luther King. MLK/FBI

 

Latest Music

Sylvain Sylvain (right) and Sami Yaffa of The New York Dolls in London in 2006. Photograph: Jane Mingay/PA Sylvain Sylvain, New York Dolls guitarist who paved way for punk , dies aged 69

Billy Idol among those to pay tribute to ‘all-time great’ who had cancer for over two years

Pillow Queens: Sarah Corcoran, Pamela Connolly, Cathy McGuinness and Rachel Lyons ‘Very surreal’: Pillow Queens make US TV debut on James Corden show
David Gray. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien The Music Quiz: David Gray once sang about which aspect of a hospital stay?
  • Happy Mondays star Bez to launch fitness class after spending lockdown ‘mainly sitting on sofa’
  • David Bowie: 10 questions on his 5th anniversary

Book Reviews

The System: how the internet works and what is wrong with it
In My Gut I Don’t Believe by Joe Amstrong: under the eye of the Catholic Church
Baseless: An indelible portrait of the CIA’s institutional derangement
little scratch: Intense, visceral novel pushes the boundaries

Stage

Aisling O’Sullivan, Cathy Belton and Derbhle Crotty in The Approach by Mark O’Rowe. Photograph: Patrick Redmond '2020 was going to be the most amazing year ever for us'

Producer Anne Clarke on experiencing live performance for first time since pandemic

When the curtain came down on Our New Girl, did it come down on innovative programming along with it? Photograph: Ros Kavanagh Live theatre was getting interesting. Then Covid arrived
Owen Roe pictured after winning Best Supporting Actor Award at the The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards last year. Photograph: Aidan Crawley Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards for 2020 deferred because of Covid-19
  • Eddie Izzard to use the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’
  • Chief Justice Frank Clarke: ‘Judges are not immune from the human condition’

Art & Design

Painting Dublin: detail from Winetavern Street, 1934, by Harry Kernoff; The Fishmarket, Patrick Street, 1893 by Walter Frederick Osborne; The Leinster Market, c.1915, by Estella Frances Solomons, Painting Dublin: A visual history of Ireland’s capital city

Before now, emphasis was placed on rural landscape and western seaboard in Irish art. This book takes a very different approach

Raphael: a detail from The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, at the Apostolic Palace Raphael: A celebration of his life and work, on his 500th anniversary
Every Eye Is on Me: Melania Trump by Régine Mahaux-Van Wassenhove. Photograph, 2017 (printed 2020). The White House Perma-peeved: Melania Trump’s White House photo (plus 11 other revealing first lady portraits)
  • Forget social media. Nothing beats a real Christmas card
  • New portrait of Edna O’Brien unveiled on her 90th birthday

Unthinkable

Wollstonecraft, painted by John Opie, was disgusted at how intelligent “society” women were groomed for submission under marriage. Photograph: The Print Collector/Getty Images Never mind the Bridgertons, meet England’s first feminist

Unthinkable: Mary Wollstonecraft’s time in Ireland seemed to influence her world view

An air guitarist, or is it a philosopher? Photograph: Bryan O’Brien Is philosophy becoming ‘air guitar to the music of science’?
‘Why in the world is the president of the United States using Twitter at all – a platform that depends on quick and mindless impressions?’ asks philosopher Steven Nadler. Photograph: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg Enough of the ‘hot takes’ already: A philosophical wish for 2021
  • Would Jesus approve of Christmas?
  • In defence of realism: Idealists excite us but at what cost?

Heritage

The phrases and terminology that I was given made clear just how profound our understanding of coastal ecosystems had become The hundreds of Irish words for sea and sea life

The abundance of Irish words to describe every element of marine life is staggering

Culture television August 2019. Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby with his gang in Peaky Blinders series four. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/Caryn Mandabach/BBC Real-life Peaky Blinders: How the IRA sourced guns from the ‘Birmingham mob’
The Irish Government’s involvement with the Northern Ireland centenary will be the funding of a major conference in Queen’s University Belfast. 2021’s truce, treaty and Northern Ireland commemorations will test our goodwill
  • 100 years ago today the partition of Ireland was made official
  • Mystery of Sligo shipwreck solved 250 years after it sank

Michael Viney's Another Life

Gannet with fish: Anyone who has watched the birds plunging vertically from the sky to seize mackerel deep beneath the surface must marvel at their anatomy. Illustration: Michael Viney Gannet population continues to thrive despite human threat to its numbers

Michael Viney: Irish numbers have more than doubled since the counts of Operation Seafarer in 1970

Fox with prey: The urban adult is “thin and exhausted” from finding and ferrying food to its cubs. Illustration: Michael Viney Another Life: The fox as he dwells among us
Choughs. Illustration: Michael Viney The declining choughs of Dursey island need decision makers’ help
  • Super grass: the arching, architectural forms of wild meadows
  • Between cliff and sea: The curious trail of a puffin

Tuarascáil

Ba léiriú follasach é go bhfuil saol eile ag dul ar aghaidh lasmuigh den chóivid féin. Grianghraf: Saul Loeb/Getty Images Aon scéal eile?

Nuacht na maidne, nuacht lár an lae, nuacht an tráthnóna, tá gabháltas nach mór iomlán déanta ag an bpaindéim air.

Bíonn ar na mic léinn i nDún Dealgan ar mian leo gaeloideachas a fháil an contae a fhágáil agus breis agus 50 km a thaisteal ón mbaile. Grianghraif: Derick Hudson/iStock ‘Ní fheicim aon fáth nach dtabharfaí an cead’
Stát Rúnaí an Tuaiscirt, Douglas Hurd. Grianghraf: Frank Miller/The Irish Times Rialtas na hÉireann mí-shásta faoi chinneadh ar mhaoiniú Ghlór na nGael
  • Beartas Cliste
  • Santa agus an Saol Nua

Sponsored

A triumph of science and innovation A triumph of science and innovation

Rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has begun in Ireland, and Pfizer scientists working on its development speak about vaccine developments and innovations

IPBN webinar series will promote transitioning to the Algarve region IPBN webinar series will promote transitioning to the Algarve region

The Ireland Portugal Business Network series of webinars will assist attendees with practical lifestyle, business, finance, property, general living advice for the Algarve

Subscriber Only

James Ball argues that “online power structures mirror almost exactly the offline power structures which preceded them”. File photograph: Getty Images The System: how the internet works and what is wrong with it
Allen W Dulles and Senator Theodore F Green discussing the unrest in Iraq in July 1958. Photograph: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Baseless: An indelible portrait of the CIA’s institutional derangement
Howl by Kat Patrick Children’s books round-up: Howling and hilarity in equal measure

Most Read in Culture

1 A guide to the festivals (probably) taking place in Ireland in 2021

2 The self-indulgent incoherence of David Fincher’s Mank, with Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, Arliss Howard as Louis B Mayer and Tom Pelphrey as Joe Mankiewicz. Photograph: Netflix Netflix has spent millions on its films, so why are they so mediocre?

3 The New York Times argues no adjective derived from a modern writer’s name rivals “Orwellian” for visibility. Photograph: AP You could fill a book with doubleplusungood uses of ‘Orwellian’

4 Kerry’s own Jessie Buckley in I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Photograph: Netflix Netflix: The best 50 films to watch right now

5 Barry Gibb: ‘I care that the music lives, and I do everything in my power to enhance that.’ Photograph: Rose Marie Cromwell/New York Times Barry Gibb: ‘My brothers had to deal with their demons, but my wife wasn’t going to have it’

6 Liveline: Joe Duffy’s phone-in has played a crucial role in bringing to light the horrific secrets of Ireland’s clerical institutions Joe Duffy et al do what the mother and baby home commission could not

7 Julia Vysotskaya in Dear Comrades! Four new films to stream this weekend

8 Marie-Andree Leclerc and Tahar Rahim in The Serpent The Serpent: The BBC’s big new year drama has lost its way

9 The Irish Times Winter Nights festival: Full line-up revealed

10 The streaming giant’s recently unveiled 2021 slate is coming down with romantic comedies, family films and mid-budgeted dramas Netflix: 25 films to watch out for in 2021

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Music Quiz

The Music Quiz: David Gray once sang about which aspect of a hospital stay? The Music Quiz: David Gray once sang about which aspect of a hospital stay?

In honour of The Irish Times Health Month, a special quiz on medically relatable music

Macnas, whose parades are a core part of their work, receive this year’s special tribute award. Photograph: Brian Arthur
Irish Theatre Awards Find out who won this year, plus all our other coverage
 

The Books Podcast

The Irish Times Books Podcast - Darran Anderson, author of Inventory The Irish Times Books Podcast - Darran Anderson, author of Inventory 33:48
The Irish Times Books Podcast The best crime fiction of 2019 The Irish Times Books Podcast The best crime fiction of 2019 40:49
The Irish Times Books Podcast Remembering Maeve Binchy The Irish Times Books Podcast Remembering Maeve Binchy 35:01
The Irish Times Books Podcast Danielle McLaughlin The Irish Times Books Podcast Danielle McLaughlin 33:47

Culture Videos

Tanya Roberts, Bond girl and Charlie's Angel, dies aged 65 0:41 Tanya Roberts, Bond girl and Charlie's Angel, dies aged 65
Robin's Wish - official trailer 2:16 Robin's Wish - official trailer
Marian - official trailer 1:17 Marian - official trailer
Dazzling drone display illuminates Edinburgh sky for Hogmanay 1:26 Dazzling drone display illuminates Edinburgh sky for Hogmanay

Food & Drink Club

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Shelved: a selection of books by Irish women writers. Might some of these names figure in the final 12?
Women writers Putting Irish women writers back in the picture
 

Galleries

Late Late Toy Show 2020: Children from Spotlight Stage School and little puddle jumpers from Miss Ali Stage School rehearse Singin' in the Rain with show host Ryan Tubridy. Dublin. Photograph: Andres Poveda The Late Late Toy Show 2020
Sean Connery will forever be associated with Ian Fleming's James Bond. The actor most closely associated with the suave 007 operative. File photograph: PA Sean Connery: A life
Great reads From crosswords to great wines and the best bits from The Irish Times - Buy an Irish Times Book today
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