Thursday, November 21, 2024

NOW That’s What I Call A Musical – spandex and solidarity, friendship and forgiveness (Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 November)

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NOW That’s What I Call Music compilation tapes began 41 years ago this month. Released two or three times a year, they collected together –...
Friday, November 15, 2024

No Other Land – forced displacement captured from inside the West Bank and a friendship that defies stereotypes (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 22 November)

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No Other Land is a haunting film that stayed with me over the four and a half months since I first watched it as part of Docs Ireland at th...
Wednesday, November 13, 2024

The Other Way Around – a couple’s attempt to celebrate ending well (Belfast Film Festival at Queen’s Film Theatre) #BFF24

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Belfast Film Festival certainly had its fair share of surreal and absurd movies this year. The final screening I attended was Spanish direct...

Calamity Jane – mistaken identity, impersonation, guns, hats and a stagecoach full of whip-crack-away songs (St Agnes’ Choral Society at Grand Opera House until Saturday 16 November)

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St Agnes’ Choral Society are performing the musical Calamity Jane all week in the Grand Opera House. The story was made famous by the 1953 ...
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Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Nightbitch – exhausted mum by day, cuddly dog killing other animals and burying them in the garden by night (Belfast Film Festival at Queen’s Film Theatre) #BFF24

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Amy Adams plays a mum who stays at home to rear her toddler while her husband (Scoot McNairy) travels far and wide with his work. Hearing Mu...

Conclave – “certainty is the great enemy of unity; certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance” (UK cinemas from Friday 29 November)

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Conclave is likely to be in my top three films of the year. While it’s a great translation from page to screen of Robert Harris’ novel , ...
Sunday, November 10, 2024

King Baby – an allegory about the morally corrupting effect of being in or serving power (Belfast Film Festival at Queen’s Film Theatre) #BFF24

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Two men find themselves along in the ruin of an old castle. Sustained by a seemingly endless supply of powder in which to make jelly for din...
Friday, November 08, 2024

Chicken – feathery fantasy with a cocky critique of the acting profession (Belfast International Arts Festival at Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November) #BIAF24

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While the show begins with a wordless Bouffon-style entrance – fluffy chest puffed out, head nodding, pecking at the audience – Chicken soo...

Rumours – close encounters of a head of state and mummified kind (Belfast Film Festival) #BFF24

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A G7 Summit is being held in Germany at a remote country house. Its theme is ‘regret’. In Evan Johnson’s Rumours (Galen Johnson and Guy Mad...
Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Second Chance – a high altitude tale of hope and kindness from filmmaker Subhadra Mahajan (Belfast Film Festival at Queen’s Film Theatre) #BFF24

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Second Chance is a beautiful slow hug of a film. After a pregnancy scare and being ghosted by her boyfriend, 25-year-old Nia (Dheera Johnso...

Dead Man’s Money – where there’s a will there’s room for fear, uncertainty and doubt (Belfast Film Festival) #bff24

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Screened as part of the 2024 Belfast Film Festival, Paul Kennedy’s new film Dead Man’s Money shows a lot of promise with great casting and ...
Sunday, November 03, 2024

Blitz – Steve McQueen pulls at the less well explored threads of wartime London (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 8 November)

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Blitz is on a similar scale to war films like Dunkirk . Its sets are huge, stuffed full of extras and moving machinery. CGI allow the camer...
Saturday, November 02, 2024

Fréwaka – a Irish folk horror movie that is a gem of Irish filmmaking … at Belfast Film Festival #BFF24

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This year’s Belfast Film Festival opened on Thursday evening with a gala screening of Aislinn Clark’s Fréwaka . It’s set on the Cooley Penin...

The Vanishing Elephant (Cahoots NI in Grand Opera House until Saturday 2 November as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #BIAF24

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The Vanishing Elephant stems from Cahoots NI’s director Paul Bosco Mc Eneaney being told about Harry Houdini making an elephant disappear o...