Technicolour Talkies of Hibernia

IRISH MOVIES 2008

2008-01-01T05:23:00.000-08:00

We haven't posted in a while as news was pretty thin on the oul ground there, but 2008 has a wealth of Irish movies and related news on the way...

Hugh O’Conor (right) hopes to put the dreadful Speed Dating behind him with WAITING FOR DUBLIN. In a Chicago nightclub on New Year’s Eve, 1944, a drunken Lt. Mike Clarke (O’ Connor) makes a bet of $1000 with a stranger (Karl Sheils – Capital Letters) that we will become a WWII flying ace by shooting down 5 enemy aircraft. When Mike sobers up, he realises that the stranger’s uncle, the man who witnessed the bet, is none other than Al Capone! Madcap antics enuse. Frank Kelly (Father Ted) and David Wilmot (Studs, Six Shooter) co-star. After that, Hugh will star in Martin Duffy's (The Boy From Mercury) drama SUMMER OF THE FLYING SAUCER.

After playing a hitman in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges (release date sometime this March) Colin Farrell will star with Ed Norton in PRIDE AND GLORY: A crime drama that sees Ed Norton’s cop investigate a scandal involving his brother-in-law and fellow cop Colin Farrell. Jon Voight co-stars.

Farrell’s co-star in the Belgian black comedy, Brendan Gleason, is to make his directorial debut adapting Flann O’Brien’s 1939 novel AT SWIM TWO BIRDS. Cillian Murphy, Colin Farrell, Sean McGinley and Gabriel Byrne are set to star alongside a who’s who of Irish actors.

Apart from appearing in the upcoming ANTON, Gerard McSorley (left) will team up with his Veronica Guerin director Joel Schumacher to star in the horror thriller TOWN CREEK, which sees two brothers caught in an occult experiment that dates back to the Third Reich.

Liam Neeson will return as the voice of Aslan in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN and take the lead in Pierre Morel’s TAKEN. Neeson plays a spy who relies on his skills to track down his estranged daughter.

The Halo Effect writer/director Lance Daly returns to direct KISSES, which sees two kids spend a horrific night on the streets of Dublin after running away from home. Stephen Rea takes the lead (not as one of the kids of course – our special effects artists just aren’t there yet).

The lovely Nora-Jane Noone (right) and the just as lovely Olga Wehrly (left) will play the eye candy in Brendan Foley’s (The Riddle, Johnny Was) horror BOG BODIES. The plot sees a 2000-year-old murder victim unearthed from a bog and go on a bloodthirsty rampage (as you do). Vinnie Jones stars.

Adam And Paul and Garage scribe Mark O’Halloran will star in Brendan Grant’s TONIGHT IS CANCELLED. O’Halloran plays a film director who wants to make a film about a Slav couple who escaped the war in Kosovo and made it to safety in Ireland. The film was completed last year and it’s unsure whether or not it will see some distribution.

Ciarán Hinds will be a busy man: he will star in Kimberley Pierce’s (Boys Don’t Cry) drama STOP LOSS, team up with Jean Reno in the comedy CASH and lend his voice to the animated adventure THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX.

Song For A Raggy Boy helmer Aisling Walsh (left) will direct Eva Birthistle (Middletown) and Samantha Morton in THE DAISY CHAIN. The plot sees crazy things happen when a couple adopt an autistic child.

I Went Down main man Peter McDonald will star with Iain Glen in the TV series CITY OF VICE.

Colm Meaney wil star in the US version of Life on Mars, but will also star in the thriller CLEAN BREAK, the comedy and the mini series 3 AND OUT and ZOS: ZONE OF SEPARATION.

Aidan ‘Oi loved her’ Quinn will star in the romantic comedy WILD CHILD, the drama THE OFF HOURS and is rumoured to take the lead in the Eric Stoltz-directed comedy PADDYVILLE, which will star Frank McCourt and Domhnall Gleason.

Can He Fix It? Yes He Can

2007-12-12T00:56:00.000-08:00

After writing and directing Cowboys And Angels and The Front Line, David Gleeson (right) will leave the script duties to A. Nother when he takes on Chuck Wachtel's novel Joe The Engineer; that A. Nother is none other than Wachtel himself, who debuts to adapt his own debut.

Tagged as a 'blue collar novel', the plot follows the titular character, a meter reader for a water company, who, after a tour in Vietnam, is tired of his meaningless life and tries to figure out what is going on on this crazy planet. Brad Renfro (Apt Pupil, The Jacket) is rumoured to play the lead.

Reviews for the book have been good ("a great, rough, sympathetic ode to real people"), but one worrying critique was that "the reader isn't it in for the plot" (that review can be read here). After two linear-plotted movies, is Gleeson about to direct an (whisper it) arthouse film? What is strange is that Wild Eye, David's own production company, are not behind it (that role falls to US house Toulillian Films), elbowing long-time partner Nathalie Lichtenthaeler into the cold. Oh, is there trouble in the Dutch camp?

You can catch David's interesting 'Writer's On Writing' interview with Irish Playwrights And Screenwriter's Guild here.

No One Will Sleep Through This Alarm

2007-12-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

You've a better chance of finding your baggage in Lockerbie than seeing a decent psychological thriller set in Ireland but lo - there's one on its way. Not for another year, however...

Guiltrip and About Adam director Gerry Stembridge has just finished a five week shoot of Alarm. The plot sees a young woman, Molly (Ruth Bradley - Love Is The Drug), who moves from her idyllic suburban Dublin life to a housing estate way outside the city and her life begins to unravel.

Co-produced by Venus Film And Television, the film will star Owen Roe (Intermission), Tom Hickey (Garage), Anita Reeves (Adam And Paul, The Butcher Boy) and Emmet Bergin (Veronica Guerin).

Although shooting has wrapped, the film is unlikely to hit our screens until late 2008/early 2009. Now TToH will admit that we don't know a lot about post production, but surely a mentally-retarded snail would edit the film faster than that. Come on, guys - get the finger out.

An Irish Opera? And It's A Comedy? Starring Ronnie Drew? You're On A Giraffe!

2007-12-10T06:43:00.000-08:00

So obscure IMDB don't even have it, O'Donoghue's Opera was made in 1965 but it wasn't seen until veteran filmmaker Tom Hayes restored it ten years ago.

Directed by Kevin Sheldon and starring Ronnie Drew (right) and The Dubliners, the comedy is based on the ballad The Night That Larry Was Stretched and sees Ronnie in a hangman's noose for being the best burglar in Ireland.

With nods and winks to all sorts to beat the band, the 37 minute O'Donoghue's Opera will screen in the IFI from Tuesday 11th December.

Oh Wow, Sir...It's A ...Oh, It's A Grammy

2007-12-10T00:59:00.000-08:00

We all remember The Simpsons parody (The Barbershop Quartet one), which brought to light that the Grammys aren't the most respected award a musician can receive, but it's just one more string in the bow for John Carney's Once, the little film that could.

Once has been nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack while the song Falling Slowly is nominated for Best Song. Written by The Frames's Glen Hansard and Czech diminutive singer/songwriter Marketa Irglova, it sounds like a tune The Grammy's would go for; James Blunt won last year.

With Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan shutting up shop and heading out west when they made it big, will John Carney be seen this side of the water again? And if not, would you blame him? Please post your thoughts below.

Falling Slowly, with some visuals from the film, can be heard below...

"I'd Bloody Love It If We Beat Them, I'd Bloody Love It...

2007-12-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

....and they still got to go to Sundance next month and get something...." Martin McDonagh's In Bruges will open Sundance this year, but it won't be the only Irish entry to the festival...

Simon Fitzmaurice's short The Sound Of People has joined the 19 titles (whittled down from 5000) for the Dramatic Shorts selection. Produced by Noreen Donohoe and starring Martin McCann, the story sees an 18-year-old connect with both his past and his future while dealing with his own impending death. Fitzmaurice: "I am absolutely over the moon about getting into Sundance. Everyone worked heart and soul on this film and this is a wonderful response."

In the Documentary Shorts section, Ken Wardrop has two entries: 'Farewell Packets Of Ten' sees two women discuss the pros and cons of smoking and 'Scoring' documents the power of the kiss.

TToH are still waiting on word for their own documentary - Doggin' Into Some Young One Down The Back Of The Cinema. Hopes are still high.

Gadzooks! Odds And Innards! Politician Comes Through On Promise

2007-12-06T01:35:00.000-08:00

The proles have spoken; the falcon has heard the falconer; the squeaky wheel gets the grease; you can put a cat in the oven, but that don't make it a biscuit; you can't make a silk purse out of toilet roll inserts (stop us - we're in a loop!).

In yesterday's budget, Minister for finance Brian Cowen has promised to invest €245m in the arts with The Film Board seeing an increase of 18% in its funding (good news for TToH as we've applied for a First Draft Loan. Get in, my son). Also, Section 481, the tax relief scheme for film and television production, is to be extended until 2012.

Sitcom Will Be A Hit - And That's A Red Roarin' Fact

2007-12-05T04:10:00.001-08:00

Post production on new Irish two-part TV sitcom The Roaring Twenties has begun and should hit our screens sometime in January.

Set in Rathmines, Dublin, the plot sees a group of - you guessed it - twenty somethings as they go through the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

Produced by Adrian Devane (Speed Dating) and Brian Willis (Short Order) of Igloo Productions, the mini-series was written by Steven Stubbs (It Happened One Night) and co-directed by him with 24-year-old debutant Ray Sullivan. The cast will include newcomers Jason Healey, Diarmaid Murtagh, Darryl Kinsella and Amy Kirwan.

The Roaring Twenties promises to be a hit along the lines of Pure Mule. TToH will have a review next year.

Abrahamson Sacks Turin

2007-12-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

Like Hannibal, Abrahamson's Garage has taken a while to get to Italy, pillaging the French villes of Chatenay-Malabry, Monte Carlo and Cinnesonne in its wake.

Last Saturday, his movie took Best Film at the 25th Turin Film Festival with a prize of €25,000. Will Abrahamson take his army north and face the Goths camped outside the Berlin Film Festival in February next year? Who's betting he won't? Behind that steely gaze, there's a hunger in his eyes - look. They will find tough opposition, though, as Anton's Commander-in-chief Graham Cantwell has his eyes on that prize.

The Secret Diary Of Adrian Dunbar Aged 49 3/4

2007-12-04T01:17:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 4th December, 2007

I saw Mr Lucas coming out of my mother's bedroom when I was leaving for school this morning. He said that my mother had 'an emergency that needed fixing right away'. I think my mother is being very unfair to Mr Lucas - she seems to need him every morning and it looks like real hard work because he was very red in the face and was sweating.

Pandora came around this afternoon. I touched her bust. Felt like I never felt before. Oh, I'm also directing a biopic of James Connolly.

Either TToH have lost their talent for picking up on news or Adrian Dunbar (right) is keeping the details close to his chest, but we hadn't heard anything about this until Sunday morning. Produced by Rascal Films, 'Connolly' is seen through the eyes of his daughter Nora and will star Peter Mullan in the title role with Susan Lynch and Patrick Bergin as Big Jim Larkin backing him up. The script will be penned by debutants Tom Stokes and Frank Allen.

The film is in preproduction so a release date is a long way off yet. Stay tuned...

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou Former Glory?

2007-12-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

After 2002’s unremarkable In America and 2005’s underachieving Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, Jim Sheridan, the director of My Left Foot, The Field, In The Name Of The Father and The Boxer, plans to get back to winning ways with two movies in the pipeline.

Up first is Brothers - a remake of Dane Susanne Bier’s Brode (2004) - which tells the tale of an ex-con who comforts his wife’s brother and children when he goes missing in Afghanistan. The film will star Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire as the titular brothers and Natalie Portman (boy, she’s a sport) as the broken-hearted wife. The script will be penned by Troy scribe David Benioff.

After that, Jim will turn his attention to Emerald City, a sneaky peek into the world of Irish organised crime in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Irish? Organised? We reckon it must be fiction. The trailer for the original Brode can be seen below...

At Last - In Bruges Trailer Is Here!

2007-12-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

After weeks of squinting at a shaky camera that shot a Ralph Fiennes scene from across the street, the In Bruges trailer is finally here. Woo-hoo! The black comedy will open Sundance and by the look of the trailer – and we don’t want to jinx it or anything - it’s odds-on to scoop at least one award. Definitely. No doubt in our minds. If it doesn’t, TToH will eat our hats. And we don’t own a hat – we’d have to go out and buy one. A Ten Gallon. Arrow and all. Check out Ralph Fiennes doing a hilarious Michael Caine-meets-Ben Kingsley’s-Sexy-Beast...

If We Didn't Write It, You Couldn't Quote It!

2007-11-30T01:02:00.001-08:00

"Of all the lousy gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine," "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," "I'd kiss you but I've just washed my hair," "It's hard to believe so much shite could come out of one dog," "Beautiful? She was genetically engineered by super aliens in a secret underground lab on the planet Attractive, deep in the Fuck Me, She's Gorgeous nebula!" Okay, so maybe the last line isn't famous (it's from a still-unproduced TToH script), but these lines wouldn't be a part of our lives if a writer didn't write them.

Writers do get a raw deal. There's an old joke that goes something like this: A list of people who will make changes to your script ...
The producer.
The director.
The script editor.
The actor.
The guy who brings the coffee.
Anyone on set that day.
You.

Whenever a film comes out, the first question usually is 'what's it about?', the next question is invariably one of the following: 'who's in it?' and 'who directed it?' What we seem to forget is that film is story - we go to the flicks to catch a good (if we're lucky) yarn - and you don't have a story without a writer. Nobody would be making money if a writer didn't sit down and type the words 'fade in'. Writers are forgotten. Who wrote Casablanca?

The Irish Playwright And Screenwriter's Guild converged on the Sony and 20th Century Fox offices on Wednesday to show their support for the WGA strike stateside. Striking to "put a value on their creativity, their work and their stories," there was a decent turn out and you can watch some of that footage, courtesy of the Irish Playwright And Screenwriter's Guild Blog. There is also more footage from around the globe at Youtube's Day Of Support.

The Embiggend O

2007-11-29T06:51:00.000-08:00

Unless you're Pat McCabe or Cecelia Ahern, the chances of your book being optioned and produced are slimmer than a slim thing. However, if ever there was a book screaming out for an adaptation it would be Declan Burke's (right) The Big O, which has just been nominated for 'Best Novel - New Voice' at the prestigious Spinetingler Awards. Published by Hag's Head, The Big O has just been picked up by Harcourt publishing stateside and the reviews are getting better every week: RTE called it "a smart, cynical twist-tastic romp ... just crying out for a movie treatment...Message for Paddy Breathnach: read this and go eat Hollywood" Which was nice. You can catch the rest of the reviews (and damn are they good) over at Crime Always Pays. So what's the story?

It’s your standard boy-meets-girl romance, except Ray meets Karen when she sticks a .44 in his face during a stick-up on a gas station. Enough to freak any guy out, right? Well, maybe – but Ray’s not just any guy. He’s a babysitter. Need a wife held while the boys walk her husband into his bank at four in the morning? Ray’s your guy, for 10% on the gross.

Trouble is, there’s a Balkan crew bunkering in around town and Ray’s old boss, The Fridge, has gone the way of all fridges – punctured at the bottom of a canal. So Ray’s getting out.

Trouble is, Karen can’t afford to get out. She’s got Anna’s special needs to worry about, and working receptionist for a plastic surgeon, Frank, won’t pay those kind of bills. Her best friend Madge would love to help, but Madge has enough on her plate worrying about how she’s going to put the twins through college, especially as Madge has never worked a day in her life and is facing into a ruinous divorce, from Frank

Trouble is, Frank can’t afford the divorce. Not when he’s got Genevieve sucking on him everywhere except the one place she should. What Frank does have, though, is comprehensive insurance, the kind that includes peace of mind if an iceberg falls on your yacht, or if you need to pay ransom in the unlikely event of your wife getting herself kidnapped.

So it’d make sense, right, for Karen, Ray, Frank and Madge to have a sit-down, maybe see if they can’t screw the insurance company if they pool their resources …?

Trouble is, Karen’s pyscho ex, Rossi Francis Assisi Callaghan, is out on the streets after a five-stretch for armed robbery and he needs his .44, his Ducati super-bike and his sixty grand stash if he’s to finally go legit with his planned support group for ex-cons, the Francis Assisi Rehabilitation Concern, aka FARC – all of which, in one shape or another, Karen has long ago re-invested in Anna’s special needs. And then there’s Detective Doyle, early 30s and a long time bored with banging her head against that old glass ceiling, who can’t decide if she’d prefer to take down a big kidnapping score to piss off the boys down the station, or a little horizontal jogging with this guy she’s just met, a real charmer called Ray …

A comedy crime caper-gone-wrong in the mould of Elmore Leonard and rooted in a Celtic Tiger kidnapping, The Big O is a furiously paced multi-character tale of modern Ireland. Karen, Ray, Madge, Frank, Rossi and Doyle: trouble is … their business.

TToH like to wish Declan the best of luck...

Too Much, Too Young

2007-11-29T03:39:00.000-08:00

Any young filmmaker in Ireland will know how tough it is to break into the film industry. Unreturned phone calls and ignored emails have them banging their heads up against a brick wall – without ever knowing if it’s the right wall. Stephen Byrne, a 25-year-old producer, kick-started the Waterford Film Festival this year while Michael Lafferty, a 21-year-old from Clady in Co. Tyrone joined the Young Irish Filmmakers on Youtube. He has his own blog where he tells us that he is going to make a video diary of his trials and tribulations of becoming a filmmaker.

For his final year college project, Michael wrote and directed a short film called ‘The Hitman’, which is “a story about revenge and murder” (handy given the title). Renamed The Vendetta, Michael tried his luck by entering it into the New York International Independent Film Festival. The film was greeted warmly stateside (it won the Best Action Genre For A Short Film) and Michael has since applied for funding his new film. We’ll let Michael tell his own here, and you can catch the first part of The Vendetta below.

A Barrage Of Awards For Garage

2007-11-29T02:46:00.000-08:00

What a difference a weekend makes – 48 little hours. It was four times a charm for Lenny Abrahamson et al as Garage scooped four awards last weekend. Garage picked up the Jury Award in Festival de Chatenay-Malabry and at the Festival Cinessonne, it took the Gran Prix award and the Prix De Etudiants. Bloody students – no good for nothin’ no how. They can’t even speak English good. Meanwhile, down at Monte Carlo, Pat Shortt (right) ran away (not very quickly, mind) with Best Actor. We've included link to the various websites, but they seem to be in some foreign language. We’re delighted for all involved and believe that Garage will go on to do better things.

P.T! Good For You And Good For Me!

2007-11-28T05:05:00.000-08:00

We’re big fans of P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) at TToH and we look forward to his There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Ciarán Hinds.

Based (albeit loosely) on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, There Will Be Blood takes place at the turn of the 20^th century where tycoon Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) strikes it rich after gaining drilling rights on a plot of family land in a backwater town in Texas.

It has been described as the “first great American film on the 21^st century,” and rumour has it that it’s not that Anderson will get his first Oscar, it’ll be how many. Anderson and Day-Lewis aren’t the most prolific (Anderson has only made three films in the last ten years, the previous one being 2002’s Punch Drunk Love; ditto for Day-Lewis except for the Punch Drunk Love part) and the fact that they’ve come together for the same project makes this a more interesting prospect. With one of our favourite up-and-comers Paul Dano (The King, Little Miss Sunshine, The Ballad Of Jack And Rose) in the cast and a soundtrack by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, TToH believe that There Will Be Blood will be Giant. Here’s the trailer. Mmm, good...

They Wrong, We Write

2007-11-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

The Irish Playwright And Screenwriters Guild is having a meeting tomorrow at 2pm in the Guild office, Art House, Curved Street, Temple Bar, to support the WGA. If you’re doing nowt and fancy a good shun – something we Irish are the best at – get your ass down there.

The Guild say have promised to: "supply the WGA t-shirts, and placards like they've got on YouTube. You can even make your own. A sample slogan is: "they wrong, we write".

Once we're kitted out we'll travel to outside Twentieth Century Fox for a short demonstration, and then onto Sony Pictures. Please turn up and show your solidarity with our fellow writers in the USA. They have put their careers and incomes on the line to highlight their essential contribution to the film industry, and to request proper remuneration for their creative talent. This is a struggle that writers across the globe can appreciate.”

At 4.30pm, there’s an end of year ‘sausages and drinks’ do. Gift! In the meantime, check out this industry in-joke – THE WGA STRIKE GETS VIOLENT...

TToH ‘Boy A-nt’ About Crowley/O’Rowe Collaboration (What We’ve Seen Anyway)

2007-11-27T01:25:00.000-08:00

There we go again – sometimes bad wordplay, if it’s consistent, can become genius. Or so we like to believe. Anyway, apologies for those queuing up for the Boy A review, but TToH can say in all honesty that missing most of the film was not their fault...

You see, when we left the computer to catch the film on Channel 4 at 9pm last night, TToH found that Mrs. TToH had occupied the television watching America’s Next Top Model. Since she had a long day AND cooked dinner (a delightful stir fry), TToH relented, pressed record on the DVD player and read for a while. Two hours later and horror of horrors – the blasted, confounded, curse-o’-God DVD player cut out a half-an-hour in.

The film opens with a 24-year-old boy (Andrew Garfield, above right) waiting release from prison. Given the name ‘Jack’, he is taken to a new town by his friendly parole officer (Peter Mullan) and lands a job at an airport where he makes a friend (in Anthony Lewis) and a date with the saucy secretary. Using the occasional flashbacks to the build up to the killing, TToH was disappointed to find that the boy he killed was a bully; we felt the film would have more bite if the kid were the quiet type. The DVD cut out just as ‘Jack’ reads a daily tabloid documenting his release from prison, with the headline ‘Evil Comes Of Age’.

The Intermission team seem to compliment each other: O’Rowe’s dialogue was stripped back while Crowley let the script to the talking. Mullan was restrained and Garfield gives ‘Jack’ that fish-out-of-water awkwardness but delivered it with subtlety. What we’ve seen impressed us immensely and according to Declan Burke at Crime Always Pays, the remainder was “top notch.” If you managed to catch the film, please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Boy A Screens On Channel 4 Tonight (Well, In A Half An Hour Really)

2007-11-26T12:28:00.000-08:00

John Crowley and Mark O'Rowe have teamed up again for Boy A, an adaptation of Jonathan Triggell's novel, and will screen for the first time tonight on Channel 4 - bless their cotton socks. Starring Andrew Garfield (Lions For Lambs), the plot sees 24-year-old ex-con Jack as he tries to readjust to the outside world after spending years inside for killing a young boy when he was teenager. Helped by father figure and parole officer Terry (Peter Mullan), Jack goes through the coming of age scenarios he should have gone through when he was a kid.

The Telegraph have interviewed up-and-comer Andrew Garfield and that can read here. Even though it's due a release next year (probably in the States), TToH will have a look-see and post a review upon the morn.

Answer Me These Question Three #5 Terry McMahon

2007-11-26T05:29:00.000-08:00

Terry McMahon (right) is a busy man. Not only is he a member of the Faculty and Screenwriting and Acting Tutor at The Irish Film Academy, he has been a guest lecturer on Acting and Writing at Dublin Institute of Technology, Institute of Art Design and Technology, and at Galway University. On top of that he was commissioned to write the screenplays Soul Cages for Daryl Hannah, Swordland for Paddy Breathnach, Simple Simon for Robert Pejo, Savage for Valerie Red Horse, Slice for Richie Smith and (co-written with Mark O’Rowe) Sisk for Brian O’Malley, while the original screenplays The Dancehall Bitch has been contracted by Robert Pejo, and Oliver Twisted by Damien O’Donnell.

With a First Class Honors Masters Degree in Screenwriting and awarded the RKO Pictures Hartley-Merrill International Screenwriting Prize in Cannes and the Tiernan McBride Screenwriting Award, Terry has also acted alongside David Carradine in Dangerous Curves, Don Wilson in Moving Target and Jonathan Pryce and Paul Bettany in The Suicide Club, including a stint in Fair City, for which he has written over seventy episodes. He has played the subtle and believable psycho in Fair City a few years back, and turned in a magic performance as Neville in David Caffrey’s (Grand Theft Parsons, Divorcing Jack) short film Bolt. TToH caught up with Terry to ask him a few questions...

1. What are you working on now?

While doing two other commissions, one for Ireland, and the other for America, I’m teaching in the Irish Film Academy, intermittently work on Swordland with Paddy Breathnach and Oliver Twisted with Damien O’Donnell, and, as well as ongoing Fair City scripts, I’m about to enter early stage pre-production on directing a low budget debut feature Charlie Casanova. And, with the imminent birth of my third child, I’m also working on not having a nervous breakdown.

2. What gets you in the mood for writing?

The deadline. I have a missus, kids, mortgages, and all the other real life pain-in-the-ass financial responsibilities every Joe Six-Pack who works for a living understands, which means I’m usually working on multiple projects with ever shortening deadlines. So when it comes to getting in the ‘mood’ I’m amazed when I hear writers talk about writer’s block. I’m permanently blocked, but, because food has to be put on the table for more mouths than my own self indulgent one, I’ve never inherited the luxury of gazing up my own artistic hole for months on end.

Getting through the bullshit block is where the writing begins. Every time I sit at the computer it’s the last place I want to be. The eyelids become heavy, breathing restricted and as all capacity to be creative vanishes you wonder why you were dumb enough to ever consider writing for a living? But precedent has shown if you don’t do it you become a cranky prick so you persevere, you push, you find one sentence to spark another, and when it kicks in you remember once again that writing truly is an addiction; a gloriously painful addiction, and you’re its pathetic servant.

3. Do you write in silence or do you need some background music?

For the unconscious is to be accessed, the conscious has to be distracted so I play music. Loud. And the nature, subject and genre of the screenplay will determine the music. I wrote the screenplay Slice with Richie Smyth. A visionary director Richie makes videos for U2 along with million dollar commercials but his real passion is for the broken souls hiding in the badly lit areas off the main street and one of these days he’s going to make a movie that’ll rip the audience’s heart out. Slice is a harrowing and graphic story about two of those broken souls and, though I knew it was going to be difficult to work on, I also knew there was a heartbeat in it that was worth going right down the line for. To give a sense of the visceral impact he was looking for from the script Richie handed me a stack of speed metal CD’s.

I’m a pussy when it comes to music - my desert island discs would be somewhere along the lines of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue or Billie Holliday’s Verve Anthology - so when I put that music on nothing could have prepare these virgin ears for that ear drum rape. But, when writing, I still insisted on putting it on, full blast, and the velocity of the music drove the narrative at the precise speed Richie was looking for. Right now I’m listening to Bob Dylan doing DJ on his radio show Theme Time Hour but the seductive bastard’s voice is so engaging between tracks that I have to turn him off, otherwise I’d happily sit back, close those heavy eye lids and wonder why I ever...etc.

4. How many features have you written?

Thirteen of the bastards. One original and twelve commissions, yet not one of those thirteen has been produced. I’ve had more green lights than Paris Hilton has had panty changes but they all have a habit of flicking back to amber too damn quick. My debut screenplay The Dancehall Bitch was finished the night before I was due to go to Los Angeles for the first time. It was written on a great little machine called a StarWriter, which was a word processor with an inbuilt printer. Cost two hundred pounds and I was on the dole but I was offered a day’s pay on some dodgy beer ad and went in with the cheque and bought that damned machine.

I’d never written anything before, had no qualifications whatsoever; left school three years before the Leaving Cert at fifteen, been homeless for a year or so, worked in a fish and chip shop, waited to sign on the dole when I was legally entitled to - which I did on my eighteenth birthday – but as I sat there in my one room flat, alone, socially inept, with an inferiority complex the size of Stephen’s Green, I opened that word processing machine and felt a rush of anticipatory anxiety that was the closest thing to hope I’d ever felt.

I’d like to claim I wrote that first screenplay in a matter of weeks – a frenzy of passion resulting in the birth of some masterpiece – but the truth is it took years. Then my son was born and, because I couldn’t do anything else, I got involved in acting. I was always a little embarrassed by being an actor but I got some dodgy jobs in dodgy Roger Corman (left) movies and acquired the lovely taste of the film set but I wanted to be on the other side of the camera. Which is why I wrote my first screenplay - an overwhelming need to make something original; to craft something out of nothing – and the day I finished it I thought the world would change. I stepped out into the street, half a bottle of celebratory cheap wine in my belly and a full tank of naively passionate belief in my heart, expecting passers-by to sense something off me, to recognize that an extraordinary event had just transpired, to understand they were in the presence of a bona fide writer; but the world rightly didn’t give a damn. Nobody stopped. Nobody noticed anything.

I sent the script to everybody and waited for my bed-sit door to be kicked in by hungry contract wielding producers and directors. I must have been out the day they arrived to kick down my door because it was years before anybody responded. Then I got a call from Daryl Hannah’s producer saying Daryl wanted to talk and a few weeks later she had me on a first class flight to Los Angeles to write her screenplay Soul Cages.

5. Advice to budding writers out there?

Write as if your life depends on it. Pretty soon it will.

6. Have you directed?

Apart from theatre, I directed some scenes from The Dancehall Bitch on the Moonstone Filmmakers Lab. Ciaran Tanhan shot it, Breege Rowely edited, Declan Conlon played the lead role, and all three were nothing less than brilliant. Moonstone is one of those organizations that, every time it’s mentioned, I feel I should genuflect. Run by Jean Luc Ormiere it attracts some of the most talented people you could imagine, all giving their time for free to help a bunch of dreamers shoot scenes from their screenplays and it gave me an insatiable hunger to direct again.

7. Gun to your head – acting or writing?

I took acting very seriously - two cracked ribs and a hernia serious - and I got to play central roles alongside some remarkable people like Paul Bettany, Jonathan Pryce and David Carradine. This was during the heyday of the infamous Concorde Studios in Galway. Making low budget American movies with occasional semi-big name international actors while paying hard working crews nothing close to union rates Roger Corman and his company came in for a lot of pseudo-intellectual flack but I did four or five of his films and they were a real pleasure to work on. The crews were committed in a way that many a union member might find intolerable but their hunger to learn and the opportunities for fast track promotion turned them into a powerhouse production unit and not one of those dodgy movies ever lost money.

As an actor on those crews I was given unprecedented opportunity and I did an equally pleasurable stint on Fair City but after awhile being an actor was like being the whore nobody wants to pay for. Horny cheap pimp directors examine you from a distance and decide to invest money in you for their fantasy fulfilment or drive on past in pursuit of some other whore. I was always cast as the bad guy but there are only so many murderers and rapists you can play before you begin to wonder. I was lucky in that I got many of the jobs I went for, but, when every audition becomes the same groundhog-day cattle market where you’re expected to stick your tits out and parade for half-blind, semi-literate, utterly inept lowlifes sitting in judgment, I knew I didn’t have the required mindset. I love working with actors and find in them a fearless and fiercely noble substance but when writing is difficult, it soothes the soul, whereas acting just burns the soul. The last audition I did was for a highly respected famous Irish director and twenty seconds in his company I wanted to smash his teeth in. Rude and maliciously ugly with it, his supposed insight into the vagaries of the human condition was quickly revealed to be just the conceited lie he hides behind. I left the room and made the decision never to put myself in that position again because next time one of us would be swallowing our teeth.

8. Favorite Irish Movie :

I don’t really know what constitutes an Irish movie anymore and I’m sure some of these will offend the purists but a few that spring to mind in no particular order are: Bloody Sunday, Quackser Fortune has a Cousin in the Bronx, Lamb, In the Name of the Father, The Quiet Man

9. What Irish movie deserves more credit?

Bloody Sunday deserves more credit – I understand there are regulations relating to Oscars and television but that should have won the Academy Award for Best Film and Best Director – it’s one of the most remarkable achievements on any stage – Irish or otherwise.

Anton And On And On

2007-11-25T06:28:00.001-08:00

A film that TToH are looking forward with feverish relish ish stylish Antonish (sorry, Anton), directed by the award winning Graham Cantwell. The film stars Anthony Fox, who also penned the script, Gerard McSorley and the sexy Greit Van Damme. So, what’s the sca, a mhac?

When Anton O'Neill (Fox) returns home after years at sea he finds that 1970s Ireland is a radically different place to the one he left behind. Northern Ireland is in flames, and civil unrest has spilled south of the border to his beloved home in County Cavan. Anton tries to convince Maria (Laura Wray), the love of his life, to join him in travelling the world, but her family duties mean she is reluctant to go.

When Maria falls pregnant and moves into Anton’s family home he feels trapped by a life he doesn’t want and rails against the mundane normality of daily routine by taking up with a group of subversive militants.

Drawn into an illicit world of violence against the wishes of his family, he soon realizes the dangers of this new environment, but when he tries to back out he puts himself and his family in danger. Falsely imprisoned by Lynch (McSorley), a corrupt detective hell bent on framing him, he engineers his escape and goes on the run to Paris, but when his violent past catches up with him he returns to Cavan to take one last stand against his former comrades.

You can hear an on-set interview with executive producer Pat McCardle, producer Patrick Clarke, Anthony Fox and his leading lady Greit Van Damme here. TToH hope to have our own interview with the crew at a later date. The film will be released sometime next year. In the meantime you can log on to Anton’s website and enjoy the trailer...

Le Freak, C’est Chic

2007-11-23T06:56:00.001-08:00

The first of Darren O’Shaughnessey’s 12 volume Vampire Blood novels, Cirque du Freak, is about to hit Hollywood with a release date sometime next year. Directed by American Pie and About A Boy helmer Paul Weitz and adapted by Mystic River and L.A Confidential scribe Brian Helgeland, the plot sees young Darren Shan (Josh Hutcherson - Bridge To Terabithia, Zathura) meet the mysterious Desmond Tiny, who just happens to be a vampire (typical - we hate it when that happens), at a freak show. After some off-the-wall shit, Darren is forced to leave his normal life and take to the road as a vampire. The film is getting a massive backing and the producers hope to rope in John C. Reilly (Magnolia, Boogie Nights) as Tiny.

O’Shaughnessey (below), who writes under the name Darren Shan, has been called a ‘master of horror’ by his publishers HarperCollins, but Darren was wary of how his vision would be treated by parents: "I ran all the arguments for the defence through my head in case of hostile interviewers - ready to explain why the books aren't a disgrace, that they had a strong moral underpinning. But in fact, there wasn't any outrage. No one, save the occasional parent or teacher, was up in arms at all. In fact, teachers and librarians have very often championed my books." (Telegraph.co.uk)

With the Harry Potter’s, Bridge To Terabithia, The Last Mimzy and The Dark Is Rising, kids’ movies have taken a darker slant with plots that refuse to talk down to them and TToH hope that Shan’s vision, which includes hellish demons, maggot-ridden corpses and freaky werewolves, will get a just adaptation. You can visit Darren’s website here.

Strength And Honour Proves A Knockout At Boston Film Festival

2007-11-22T04:35:00.001-08:00

Okay, so TToH weren’t impressed with Mark Mahon’s debut, but we don’t begrudge the Corkonian’s joy at the 23^rd Annual Boston Film Festival, held in September. Strength And Honour scooped Best Picture while Madsen (right, at the World Premiere at the Cork Opera House last Monday) picked up Best Actor. Mark: “This is a great honour. To win top awards at such a prestigious festival is surreal - competition was fierce this year with a large number of high profile titles competing. We’re absolutely ecstatic that Michael Madsen won for his superb lead performance and look forward to the theatrical release of ‘Strength and Honour’.”

For further information, you can log on to the film's website. You can also catch TToH’s review here.

Mark O’Halloran Is Gagging For It

2007-11-22T02:35:00.000-08:00

No sex, please – we’re Irish? Not so, apparently. Mark 'Kinsey' O'Halloran (right), the writer of Adam & Paul, Garage and Prosperity, is the first guest editor of Film Ireland for the January-February Issue 2008, a ploy the magazine hopes to have a series of, and wants to tackle the issue of sex in Irish film. Or lack there of.

Sex is largely ignored in Irish cinema (please - no jokes about copping a feel down the back seat) and Mark wants to undress (sorry - address) the issue: "A serious examination of the whole issue of sex in Irish cinema and television has been largely overlooked by the media. I was very interested in asking some questions about representations of sex, nudity and related themes in Irish film, because it has always seemed to me that we're a bit shy about that in this country. It's also a topic which lets us discuss serious issues like sexuality and censorship, but also to get playful and ask people who their Irish sex fantasy would be and to look at the myths around Irish porn".

Related themes? TToH were always interested in lederhosen-wearing dwarves riding seals on Dún Laoghaire beach while listening to Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. The sex survey, which is conducted anonymously, can be filled here. However, Film Ireland suggests that if you’re feeling saucy, you can leave your email address and be in with a chance of winning Filmbase membership and a “medium-sized” portrait of your favourite star. Hmmm. We’ll get right on that.

Give Us More F**Kin’ Money! - Farrell Fights The Good Fight

2007-11-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

At a charity event earlier today, Colin Farrell (right) stood up and was counted when he called for The Minister For Finance Brian Cowen to answer the calls of the Irish film industry for more support, by allowing an extension and expansion of tax incentives for filmmaking in this country. In 2003, a whopping €100 million was spent making films, compared with only €11 million this year.

Cowen will argue that Irish films aren’t exactly top priority for Irish audiences: In 2006, we handed over a tidy sum to the tune of €3.7 million to The Wind That Shakes The Barley, which put it on par with Casino Royale and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. This left the rest fighting for scraps from €1.3 million.

An Irish film needs to make about €500,000 to see any profit and in 2006, only Breakfast On Pluto managed to creep over that to make €939,194, which still didn’t see it wangle an entry in Carlton Screen Advertising’s Top 10 of the year. The remaining releases fared less well: Studs made €165,811, Tiger’s Tail €150,000, The Front Line €77,608, Isolation €33,792, Middletown €14,800. In fairness, it was a step up from 2005’s figures, which saw Tara Road, Pavee Lackeen and Boy Eats Girl take only €1,021,011 between them.

The Film Board are under serious presh from The Department Of Arts who, as of 2001, have set them a target of 25% recoupment of loans. The figures (thanks to The Sunday Times) above would suggest that that’s a big ask. “The film board is not an investment bank; we are a development organisation that sees funds as being about building a long-term, viable, sustainable, indigenous film industry,” said Film Board Chairman James Morris.

Right on, Jim. You tell ‘em. Don’t take no guff from these - oh, he’s not finished: “You can’t expect all your feature films to have mass appeal, but they may have other virtues and score on other scales of measure. You are bringing new filmmakers into the marketplace and ideas that may catch on, and there is the cultural dimension. Nobody in the film business expects all the films to be (a hit).”

We agree with James and The Film Board because where will it all end? An artist who sells less than twenty paintings won’t be allowed to paint again? Filmmaking is an art form. Full stop. Right, that's enough high horse malarkey - back to business...

McDonagh’s In Bruges To Open Sundance

2007-11-20T08:35:00.000-08:00

On January 17th, Martin McDonagh’s debut film will open the celebrated independent film festival in Utah. A black comedy, In Bruges sees hitmen Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson chill out in the Belgian capital after a London ‘gig’ goes tits up. The guys get into a series of scrapes with the locals, tourists and afilm crew.
With a budget of only €1 million and co-produced by Focus Features, Blueprint Pictures, Scion Films and FilmFour, In Bruges’ backing managed to wangle Ralph Fiennes into the impressive cast. McDonagh was happy with the news: "I'm stunned and thrilled that In Bruges will be opening a festival as prestigious, and as cool, as Sundance, and I simply can't wait to attend.” The full story can be read here.
There’s nary even a clip to be seen on the net, let alone a trailer, so we’ll have to do with this grainy, hand-held shot of a Ralph Fiennes scene from a bystander’s camcorder. In the background, and with the right kind of eyes, you can just make out Bigfoot.

Abusive Language? At Dublin Airport? And It’s News?

2007-11-19T10:02:00.000-08:00

Well, yes if it’s actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (right). No, if it’s the millions that traipse through those tenuous terminals every month. TToH are teetering on the brink of a Heat-style story here, but we couldn’t help ourselves given the material. In Ireland at the weekend as a guest on Tubridy Tonight to promote his latest film August Rush, the 30-year-old, who is currently playing Henry VIII in the BBC period drama The Tudors, had to be told twice by police to calm down at the BMI gate and desk. The Guards charged him with two counts of violating the Public Order Act and Rhys-Meyers is being forced to pay an undisclosed sum on condition he return to Dublin District Court on December 5^th.

The papers will try and sell the story as ‘Rhys-Meyers falls off the wagon’ scoop or some nonsense like that, but we defy anyone to check in at Dublin Airport and not feel the old red mist descending. In fact, booze should be a prerequisite. We’re with you Jono - all the way, son. The full story can be read here. And here. Here has bit, too. What's the bets that by the end of the week, Jonathan will have been drunk, coked up, taken three people hostage, hijacked a small two-engine plane and has delusional ideas of running his own private country - The Indpendent Republic Of Gurteen. Dublin Airport has driven people to less.

When Jonathan hasn't been losing the ceann in a completely understandable way, he's managed to have three films in the post. First up is The Children Of Huang Shi (with Chow Yun Fat, left) where he plays British journalist George Hogg who helped orphans in ravaged China after the Japanese invasion of 1937. After that is Chuck Russell's (The Mask, The Scorpion King) Mandrake, where Jonathan takes on the role of the titular hero, a magician who uses his powers of illusion for crime. Scheduled for release in 2009 is Danny Glover's Toussaint, a biopic based on the life of Toussaint Louverture (played by Don Cheadle), a Haitian who sparked a rebellion in the 18th century. Probably at Dublin Airport.

Will Breathnach’s Horror Be Given ‘Mushroom’ In Irish Hearts?

2007-11-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

Do you see what we did there? Much room? Mushroom? Yes, it’s more dreadful wordplay from TToH. The muzzle is off and the long-awaited review for Shrooms is here and although reports haven’t been kind, TToH believe the film is in danger of being misunderstood.

Five American students land in Ireland to sample the local fungi under the guidance of Jake (Jack Huston), who takes them to an isolated wood. Warned not to try the ‘death mushroom’, Tara (Lindsey Haun) does just that is treated to nightmarish premonitions of the deaths of her fellow campers. Soon, ghostly figures emerge from forest and the Americans are offed one-by-one, but are they real or are they imagining it all?

The story is, apart from the hallucination slant, nothing new and the sometimes-dodgy dialogue lets the film down. Where an Irish audience, who usually greet indigenous movies with as much enthusiasm as a verrucca in a communal shower, might snigger at dark tales of ancient druids and Wycherly and McGinley’s attempts at slack-jawed yokels, they will have a mystery for an American audience, which is where Shrooms is predominately pitched at (did Cletus and his fellow Mountain Men below the Mason-Dixon Line scoff at their none-too flattering portrayals in Deliverance and Southern Comfort? We’ll never know.)

Shrooms also boasts a major leap forward where Irish film needs it most – style – and TToH believe that it will herald a turning point for the industry. Far too long have our films taken on the look of a low budget TV drama and Breathnach (along with DOP Nanu Segal) must be applauded for what they’ve achieved. Shrooms does exactly what it set out to do, but will that be enough when it comes to bums on seats? Only time will tell.

Answer Me These Questions Three #4 PADDY BREATHNACH

2007-11-16T08:13:00.000-08:00

Paddy Breathnach (right) is a gentleman. It’s official. Chilled and relaxed in The Clarence Hotel, the director of I Went Down, Blow Dry and Man About Dog is prepared to talk about anything: Shrooms, his New Romantic sojourn, writer Pearce Elliot’s one-time desire for all things fungal and where he’d like to see the Irish film industry in five years. Oh, and that the Technicolour Talkies Of Hibernia is the best Irish movie blog in the world. Okay, he didn’t really say that – he didn’t even mention it - but we could tell. It was in his eyes, an unspoken thing between men.

1.When did you first get the goo for film?
I saw A Matter Of Life And Death on television and I thought ‘Why do I think about this film in a different way to all the others?’

2.Was film your first love?
No. An international soccer player. As a teenager I was in bands. I played the bass. I didn’t pursue it. Been in a band takes a lot of work and you’re co-dependent on a lot of people. Trying to keep the band together was hard going. The band I was in broke up and then you have to find a new band. Maybe I just wasn’t into it enough. Music was changing at that time as well. Coming to the end of the new age thing and new romantic was starting off. We had lots of names – they were all terrible: The Edelweiss, The Moral Virtues (his post-punk outfits) and Eureka Stockade - which was named after a rebellion in Australia in 1848 – that was our New Romantic name.

3.What first attracted you to Shrooms?
Pearce told me he was thinking of writing a story about his own nefarious past and he did. I read it, I liked it. I wanted to take the next draft slightly more ‘slashery’ and I wanted to push up the psychological and mystery elements of it. I think the subject matter – shrooms – suggested that.
I was interested in characters in a threatening and hostile environment. Places that have a graphic look to them. I wanted to explore that isolation and loneliness. That idea of uncertainty, creating a world where they’re not certain ... the angst, the dread.

4. Would you let the script dictate the style, or do you come up with sequences to try before there’s a script written?
Sometimes you think up sequences. It’s some things that happen in collaboration. I’d talk to Pearce and say ‘Why don’t we do something here?’ There was this sequence in the script that was set in bogs and we decided to do the sequence in the reeds. That was something I wanted to do, it was something that you’d see in Asian films. (DOP) Nanu Segal was very important when it came to the style. What we’d do is sit down and watch movies and she might come up with a few suggestions; what lenses we’d like to use, we’d use day for night and have a heightened feel. We’d sit down and reference loads of stuff and come up with a pallet for the premonitions.

5. Where do you see the Irish film industry in five years?
There’s clever and talented people out there now. Our relationship to the UK is a funny one. We’re close but not close enough. We’re different but not different enough. It’s our nearest market and it’s a hard market. We either need to connect with them or the States. What I would like to see is a range of different films coming out of Ireland that are going to different audiences – a good art house section, a good commercial section – and I think they’re judged all of the same criteria when really they’re very different and should be treated and judged differently. There’s a very positive energy coming out of the film board in the last couple of years. They’re supporting filmmakers in the right way and they’re interested in films that are engaging. It’s an interesting time.

5.What’s your favourite Irish film?
Once. Adam And Paul. They were great because they had their own style. They had a lightness of touch too, which is probably in Irish conversation is something we value a lot and in Irish story telling generally. I enjoyed those two a lot. I liked Intermission a lot.

6.What’s up next?
I’ve written a script called Swordland, which is about bandits in North Tipp in 1690. It’s like a western basically. In Irish. We’ll have to see about that. I wrote a couple of drafts of Shrooms but I’m not a good writer in the sense of I don’t have the discipline to go back (to the computer) every morning. It takes me a long time to do a draft. Too long. The ideal scenario would be to work with a writer. Re-writing or redrafting is easier.

Shrooms is out on 23rd November. Stay tuned for the review on Monday...

Gleeson And Farrell Are Incontinent!

2007-11-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

No, it's not a skitter scandal scoop, they are in Belgium wrapping on Martin McDonagh’s debut In Bruges. Starring Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes and Ciarán Hinds, In Bruges sees hitmen Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Gleeson) chill out in the city after a tough gig in London. With nothing to do, the two men find themselves in a series of entanglements with the locals, tourists and a film crew. Apart from that it’s in Belgium and Liverpool beat them in the 1978 European Cup Final, TToH has to admit that we don’t know a lot about Bruges. But thanks to Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic thriller, we’re going to learn a lot more. Written and directed by McDonagh, filming began last February and we’re hoping to see a few clips and trailers anytime soon. In the meantime, check out this clip from McDonagh’s Oscar-winning short Six Shooter, starring Brendan Gleeson, Rúaidhrí Conroy and David Wilmot.

Answer Me These Questions Three #3 IAN POWER

2007-11-15T09:58:00.001-08:00

“We’re not making scripts we’re making movies.” Ian Power (right) is the co-founder of Poderosa Pictures, an independent production company. In 1998 he won the Journeyman Prize For Scriptwriting for his short Buskers. Ian has also written and directed The Wonderful Story Of Kelvin Kind (which won the 2003 RTE/IFB Film Short Award) and has some numerous commercials (Lyric Fm, Radio 1, Independent Newspapers, Tayto and The National Lottery) in his canon. We caught Ian running between projects to ask him a few questions...

1. When did you first get the goo for film?

Believe it or not when I was 17 I wanted to be a dentist. Worried that it wasn’t for me, my folks sent me to a career guidance officer who suggested (thankfully) that I’d be better suited to something like film! I always loved film but it never dawned on me as a career choice – I didn’t even realize that you could study it in college. Delighted I made the swap but it still feels like I’m pulling teeth most of the time.

If you mean when I fell in love with film, I can't never remember not loving it. I do have a weird memory which I’ve kinda post-analyzed as the time I decided to be a director… Six years old (and I’m not one of these people who remembers a lot about being a child), Friday afternoon matinee, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ with my dad. The bit where Indy jumps on the white stallion and gallops into the horizon, the greatest score of all time swells… if I had hairs on my back they’d have been standing. Elated, I turn to my dad… and he’s fast asleep. I remember shaking the life out of him to wake him up. It was like - this moment was too big to just watch – it had to be shared. The waking up bit is the director in me I think – a desire to share the story experience. Sounds kinda bollox I know but there you go.

2. What's your favourite Irish film?

This is a hard one. I’d have to say ‘The Commitments’. English director I know but it’s probably the most Irish of Irish films (and I don’t mean o’Irish). That’s a lot about the writing – Roddy Doyle is a loud writer, loud enough to be the strongest voice, even after a director’s been in. Parker was a gift to the film too because he let the story shine, casted it brilliantly, and made it all feel real – something really poignant and funny about those clips of the kids playing with burning pallets in the alleyway… Anyway I’m bias because I love musicals but for me it’s the best of the Doyle translations – something magical about it.

Recently I loved ‘Adam and Paul’.

3.What's your least favourite?

Again, hard to choose… for a small nation have a high crap output, or had – I think things are really improving. Least favourite film is probably – well I’m going to say Ordinary Decent Criminal, not wanting to pick on the little guys (i.e. some low budget clangers).

4. What Irish film you think deserves more credit?

I’d have to say ‘In the Name of the Father’ – at least Best Actor. I think Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia instead, which is a crime – love Forrest Gump though.

5.What have you been doing the last year?

Wrote a feature at the start of the year, which got me a manager in L.A. I did meetings in Hollywood in June. Made some commercials in Belfast and Dublin in between. Got married in August. Signed with a producer in September for the feature.

6. What are you working on now?

I’m doing a final pass on the feature I wrote at the start of the year with a view to shooting it next summer.

7. Gun to your head – would you pick writing or directing? Why?

Directing. I suppose because it’s why I started to write. Like some writers direct because they don’t like the idea of someone else intruding on their vision. I started to write because it was the fastest way to get to direct. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with writing, but it’s very much a love-hate relationship – I hate the loneliness of it - and directing is a great way to get out of the house.

In truth I like directing because it’s more dynamic, and urgent. I think writing should be like that too but there seems to be a perception, in this country anyway, that if something is written too quickly, it’s less good than something which has been developed for a few years.

Wrongly, and I think it is changing with thanks to recent developments at the film board, we had a ‘development culture’ in Ireland which absolutely ruled the director out of the process. Development was a process for writers, producers, and script supervisors, and traditionally it took too long. Not having the director on board in development is like building a test track with no exit ramp – you just end up driving in circles. Not to say that the director is the most important part of the process but rather that he/she is a logical and essential step in the process of making movies. ‘Development’ should mean exactly that – a process moving forward – to make a film - not just a way to pay for paper and pencils.

Controversially perhaps, I believe we have a film industry because of two men - Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan. I know this is a facile way of looking at things, and I’m not taking away from the fact Irish producers have done incredible job bringing in foreign productions, keeping the industry alive etc. etc., but it wasn’t until we started to make world class films ourselves that our own industry was recognized. People looked at Irish films differently after ‘My Left Foot’ – it drew a line in the sand. Something changed. ‘The Crying Game’ changed the way people looked at independent film full stop. It’s no accident that these were director-driven films.

Recently, films like ‘Adam and Paul’ and ‘Once’ seem to be waking things up again. These are director driven projects, made with very little development because they cost very little money, allowing the directors the kind of autonomy they needed to make things interesting.

It’s funny the way the above question is phrased - Paul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver with a gun to his head, literally – dry firing it into his temple anytime he felt like stopping. The first draft is almost exactly what they shot. I think a director, if he’s good enough, responds to something guttural in the first draft, which can be polished out in the text. That’s not to say that scripts don’t need work, most do – but they can’t be approached in a finite way.

8. How many DVDS do you have and are they in alphabetical order?

Have about 150 DVDS – not stored in alphabetical order.

While we’re waiting for Ian’s script to come to fruition, check out Ian’s short The Prophet (narrated by one John Hurt no less)...

Boys Keep Swinging, Boys Always Work It Out

2007-11-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, we know that that’s the second David Bowie lyric we’ve referenced in our titles this week but we just couldn’t help ourselves (and to be really po-faced, we were thinking of The Associates’ cover version. Harrumph! Dropping more names than Lloyd Cole in a library we are).

The Intermission team of John Crowley and Mark O’Rowe have teamed up to adapt Jonathan Trigell’s novel Boy A. The plot sees 24-year-old ex-con Jack (Andrew Garfield – Lions Of Lambs) as he tries to readjust to the outside world after spending years inside for killing a young boy when he was teenager. Helped by father figure and parole officer Terry (Peter Mullan), Jack goes through the coming of age scenarios he should have gone through when he was a kid.

Intermission is one of TToH’s favourite Irish films and we hope that John and Mark can deliver the goods again. By the sounds of it, they’re onto a winner. We'll have the trailer as soon as we get our hands on it...

Catalyst Winners Announced

2007-11-14T08:19:00.000-08:00

Back in the summer, The Film Board, TV 3, Fás, Broadcasting Commission Ireland and the Arts Council got together to launch The Catalystproject - a scheme aimed at a writing, directing, producing team that would be trained in the art of making a film with a very low budget (How low? Think vertically-challenged Lilliputians limbo dancing). The teams would then be sent to numerous seminars where the team would hone their skills and rewrite their script accordingly.
The winners have just been announced - Redux (PJ Dillon, Alex Jones, John Wallace), One Hundred Mornings (Conor Hagen and Louise Curran) and Eamonn (Margaret Corkery and Seamus Byrne) - and will receive €250,000 award to shoot their films. TToH wishes them the best of luck.

Answer Me These Questions Three #2 BRIAN BOURKE

2007-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

He's Brian and so is his wife. Brian Bourke is a young Dublin-based producer/writer/director who has just got his own production company Blue Hair off the ground. To date he has written a feature (August Nebralski) and a handful of shorts, one of which - My Bike - is in pre-production. His favourite films include La Haine, American Beauty, Apocalypse Now and has a penchant for European cinema. We like Brian here at TToH and caught up with him during the week to ask him a few questions...

1. You've set up your own production company – why and what is your goal?

My main goal is to produce feature films and documentaries. I'm hoping to develop a pool of writers and directors so that they are in an environment where they can be supported while learning their trade. This in the long term will allow Blue Hair to have a pool of home-grown writers and directors to consistently work on projects long into the future.

2. What's your favourite Irish film?

I've probably seen more Irish films than I think I have, but Adam & Paul is the best film of recent years. But In The Name of The Father is a classic, which does a lot that I enjoy in films.

3. What's your least favourite?

The problem with Irish films is that we get to see all the crap as well as all the good ones. I think it is fairer to gauge the quality of a film that has made it internationally, rather than have least favourites that never leave Ireland. Every country has bad films produced each year, and many countries have good films that don't get an opportunity to travel. How's that for dodging the question?

4. What Irish film you think deserves more credit?

Capital Letters. A film which hasn't seen much daylight and is the kind of film I'd like to see more of in Ireland. (Capital Letters, right, stars the lovely Ruth Negga and Karl Sheils and is written and directed by Ciarán O'Conner)

5. What are you working on now?

We're in post-production on a horror short, written and directed by Aaron O'Reilly. I'm only just out of the starting blocks, so right now I'm trying to develop some scripts, mainly shorts, and get some writers to cut their teeth on small projects. A lot of my time is spent learning how to get projects off the ground and making connections. We have some feature ideas and I'm researching a documentary on Schizophrenia, which should go into production early next year.

6. Gun to your head – writing, directing or producing? Why?

Producing definitely. It is heartbreaking at times, but you're never far from the action, and get to be part of the film from the very beginning.

7. How many DVDs do you have? Are they in alphabetical order?

I have about 30 DVDs and they are spread about the house in no particular order.

The good news for any budding writers out there is that Brian is open to read anything you've got and will even meet you for a sit down afterwards to discuss it. Coffee may or may not be on you, however. You can reach him at brian@bluehairproductions.eu

Wonder If He’ll Ever Know He’s In The Best Selling Show

2007-11-13T06:52:00.000-08:00

Colm Meaney is set to star in the American remake of the British TV drama Life On Mars. Originally starring John Simm (Human Traffic), Life On Mars is a gritty/ black comedy detective drama set in the ’70s and garnered a cult following. And that doesn’t mean that no one saw it, either. David E Kelley (who is responsible for Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope and Boston Legal) promises to stick close to the British plotting, which might suit Colm. Meaney, who impressed with a dark performance in Intermission, should revel in his new role and has just finished shooting the pilot episode. TToH wish him the best of luck. You can catch the full interview on Rotten Tomatoes but check out the cracking swimming trunk chase from the BBC drama.

Answer Me These Questions Three #1 ANTHONY BYRNE

2007-11-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

Anthony Byrne's new film How About You, adapted from Maeve Binchy's short story, is set for release this Friday, 16th November. TToH managed to catch up with Anthony (left) to ask him a few questions...

1. Were you pleased with the reaction to Short Order?
I wasn't very pleased with the reaction to "Short Order". It's hard to be pleased about a film that no one has seen. Within the industry people seem to have responded extremely well and it was important in so far as I got a call from Noel Pearson about "How About You", so in many respects it did what it was supposed to do but I think at some stage in the future it would hopefully find a new audience.

2. What atmosphere do you need to write? Music? Silence?
Look after the script. Music and Atmosphere will look after themselves.

3. You wrote and directed Short Order. What was it like shooting someone else’s material? Did you feel a need to re-jig a few lines?
I loved working from someone else's script, although you have to remember that I spent a year with the screenwriter (Jean Pasley) so it was a very collaborative process but even when you're shooting you have to listen to everyones suggestions and decide whether it's right or wrong. It's not a case of changing lines in defiance of the screenwriter. You only make changes to improve on something.

4. What is Vanessa Redgrave like in person?
Vanessa is a very mercurial woman. On "Short Order" she only worked for a day and we got on very well and we kept in touch over the next year or so and when "How About You" came along I thought she'd be perfect for "Alice" but if you look back over the last number of years you'll see that she has only really played cameo roles in films, most recently "Atonement", so "How About You" is really the first substantial role she's played in some time and I think she was nervous of that and it led to some very tense moments on set and while it was tough at the time to get through it, if you look at the finished film, her performance is incredible so it wasn't a process that was without merit and I would happily work with her again.

5. Short Order had a sense of style not normally seen in Irish film. Was this a deliberate move?
"Short Order" is a very particular kind of film, but I didn't consciously set out to make an 'Irish' film or make it as a different kind of Irish film. I just made the film that I wanted to make. I loved movies like "Pierrot le Fou", "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", "Charade" and many others and "Short Order" was my homage to those movies and I'm very proud of it. The visual style is just something that I know how to do and feel very comfortable with and is present in my short films, most notably "Meeting Che Guevara & the Man from Maybury Hill", but I think you have to treat each film differently and serve the film. Films like "Short Order" are not the kind of films I want to continue making. It just so happened that "Short Order" was my first film so people presume that's what you do. I'd like to work in different genres and if you look at "Short Order" to "How About You" and most recently "Single-Handed" which is a tv drama I just finished, they are all polar opposites from each other and indeed the next film I'm planning on doing with Noel is even more different again, so I would like that to continue.

6. What’s up next?
I just finished a two part TV drama for RTE/Touchpaper tv called "Single-Handed", which we filmed in Connemara and it goes out on New Years Day. It's a straight up rural cop drama and I think we've made a really great piece of TV Drama. I'm really looking forward to getting it out. The script was great, the cast were fantastic. Owen Mc Donnell and Charlene Mc Kenna are amazing young actors and it's a big, cinematic drama that fits on your TV. I'm also working on another film with Noel Pearson called "The Runner", that we hope to do later next year in South Africa and New York.

7. What’s your favourite Irish film?
I'm not sure if some can be classed as "Irish" films but films that are Irish or about Ireland that stand out for me are Odd Man Out - Carol Reed, The Butcher Boy - Neil Jordan, The Wind that shakes the Barley - Ken Loach, Ryan's Daughter - David Lean, Man of Aran - Robert J Flaherty, The Miracle - Neil Jordan, My Left Foot - Jim Sheridan

Check out Anthony's Meeting Che Guevara & the Man from Maybury Hill.

Bare Knuckle Fighting? Near Chuckle Writing.

2007-11-12T09:34:00.001-08:00

We have to admit that we’re not impressed with Mark Mahon’s (left) Strength And Honour, a boxing drama set around the illegal bare knuckle bouts that litter the back roads of Ireland. Mahon managed to scoop Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones for the lead roles but can these pros help the script punch above its weight? A 2005 winner of Best Screenplay Unproduced award at the LA International Action On Film Ceremony, Strength And Honour is Mark’s first foray into directing...

What’s the story, Boss?

Madsen plays washed-up palooka Sean Kelleher, who, after the death of his wife and in need to raise some serious finance for an operation to save the same fate happening to his young son (Luke Whelton), takes up bare knuckle fighting. Standing in his way is six-time champion Smasher O’Driscoll (Vinnie Jones) and travellers who don’t take kindly to Sean’s inclusion in an exclusively itinerant-orientated sport. Patrick Bergin and Richard Chamberlain co-star.

Losing In Front Of Your Home Crowd
Wafer-thin, stereotypical characters and Madsen’s inconsistent accent, coupled with his by-the-number performance, don’t help the formulaic plotting. However, Jones, who looks like he’s having the time of his life, and Gail Fitzpatrick’s Mammy are the pick of the bunch. Mahon seems confident behind the camera too (the fight scenes are a joy), which augers well for the future.

Despite being down on his film, we’d like to wish Mark and Maron Pictures the best of luck with their next venture – an adaptation of Mahon’s graphic novel Freedom Within The Heart, an ambitious project that sees Brian Boru take on those pesky Vikings. But first, here’s a trailer for Strength And Honour.

TToH BOUND AND GAGGED

2007-11-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

TToH can confirm that we've seen Paddy Breathnach's Shrooms but because of an embargo imposed by the PR company, we can't post a review until the week of release. It's like trying to be a film reviewer in Nazi Germany, we tells ya! We will not stand for this injustice. Okay, we will this time around but next time... All we can do is post the trailer (again), but because we're really really good people at TToH (no, really), we'll post a different one. Enjoy...

If you go down to the woods today, you'll, eh, be killed

2007-11-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, we don't shield our children from the real world - we tell it like it is. So does writer/director Ciarán Foy, which is why we like him, and he can’t do no wrong at the moment. Not only was his short The Faeries Of Blackheath Woods nominated for Best Short at the recent IFTA awards, picked up Best Irish Short at the Diversions Festival in Temple Bar, the Cork Film Festival and the Kerry International Festival, it's also scooped Best Horror at the Melbourne Independent Filmmakers Festival.

What's the skinny?
A dark, stylish film, the plot sees young Melissa (Katie Keogh, above) who, despite the warnings of her mother, takes a trip into the foreboding woods of Blackheath.

Produced by Once Off Productions, we here at TToH hope this isn’t a ‘once off’. Did you see what we did there? Ha? Did ya? We hope to have a non-exclusive but free posting of the short in December along with a Q&A with director Ciarán. Jealous much?

Byrne, Baby, Byrne

2007-11-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

We’ve never apologised for poor wordplay here at TToH, and we’re not going to start now (previous suggestions of a heading were Byrne To Be Wild and Byrned Alive). Anthony Byrne’s fantastic Short Order – starring Emma De Caunes, John Hurt, Vanessa Redgrave, Jack Dee, Paul Kaye and John Polito – was released in 2005, and Anthony (left) has turned his attention to Maeve Binchy’s short story How About You, produced by Ferndale Films (My Left Foot, The Field, Dancing At Lughnasa).

So, what's the pitch?
In the run up to Christmas, Ellie (Hayley Atwell - Mansfield Park) is left in charge of a residential home run by her older sister. Most of the elderly residents have gone home for the holidays but four of the crankiest inmates remain to create havoc and destroy Ellie's yuletide cheer. Brenda Fricker, Orla Brady, Joan O'Hara and Vanessa Redgrave co-star.

Does hope lie in the proles?
Maeve hasn’t had the best of luck in adaptations (Tara Road and Circle Of Friends didn’t boil our potatoes), but TToH trusts Anthony (above) to pull out the stops. Again, we wouldn’t trust our word for it so we’ll point you in the direction of Short Order’s snazzy trailer and then why not check out How About You? TToH will have the release date the second we find out...... It wasn't last week was it?

Once Is Never Enough

2007-11-06T08:54:00.000-08:00

John Carney’s Once train keeps on chugging. Not only has the co-writer/co-director of one of Ireland’s most popular TV series, Bachelor’s Walk, won the Sundance World Cinema Audience Award for Once and his remake of Zonad has been given the green light, his cinematographer Tim Fleming (above left) has been listed in Variety's Top 10 Cinematographers To Watch.

How do ya like me now?

Tim has been praised for his cinéma vérité style, which made Tim ankle almost everything he knew: “I just about had a heart attack at first when I found out I wouldn’t be bringing all my lights and a lot of things I usually use.” Don’t bother ringing Tim tomorrow – he’ll be in L.A getting honoured at the American Film Institute festival party. Catch Tim’s Once visuals below.

No, it’s not going to be called 'A-ciara'

2007-11-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

29-year-old Irishman Ruairi Robinson is set to direct the live action adaptation of the 1988 cult classic Akira (right, no - left) Already nominated for an Oscar, Robinson’s stylish visuals will allay any fears fans of the graphic novel and the animated film might have. But don’t take our word for it. Have a look-see at his shorts - The Silent City starring Cillian Murphy and Don Wycherly (below) and Fifty Percent Grey (belower) - the word you're looking for is 'Christ, on sixteen bikes!'.

The Waterford Film Festival - Brothers are doing it for themselves

2007-11-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

It seems you can't scratch your ass without your elbow bumping off a film festival these days but the Waterford Film Festival , a three-day event that opens on 15th November, is a tad different than most. It is the brainchild of 25-year-old writer/producer Stephen Byrne, who dreamed up the idea when he was promoting his debut The Headmaster.

"I was getting ready to promote it and was back in Waterford when I realised my home city didn't have a festival. Around September of last year, I started looking into it and contacting various organizations about setting one up." Stephen is a man who knows how tough it is breaking into the Irish film industry and wants his festival to be an opportunity for filmmakers to get their work out there: “The main thing is more exposure and the idea is for people to spot filmmakers and contact them for future projects. So other financiers, maybe the Film Board or the Arts Council, will approach the filmmakers with the idea of doing a project together.”

So what's the skinny?
Many of the directors and producers of these movies will attend the event including Greg Chwerchak, US Director who will be screening “Greetings from the Shore”, a romantic comedy that makes its Irish debut at the Festival. The movie follows one young girl as she spends her last summer at the Jersey Shore before heading off to college. Mourning the recent death of her Father, her plans for a normal summer soon fall apart and the girl stumbles into a mysterious world of Russian sailors, high-stakes gambling, and unexpected love. “Greetings from the Shore” stars young American actress Kim Shaw in the lead role, but perhaps more notably, also stars Paul Sorvino of “Paul Cicero” fame from Martin Scorcese’s epic mafia movie “Goodfellas”.

What else you got?
Other works of note at the Festival include that of Australian Producer/ Director Jonathan Nolan who will also screen his highly critically acclaimed documentary “Fortunate Sons”, a documentary about the Bush regime and the US leadership in the post 1963 world, with a close look at 9/11 and the War on Terror. The documentary has been written and produced with a modern 'edgy' look and feel, with video-game style editing to appeal to contemporary audiences. Check out the Waterford Film Festival website for more information.

Substance? Pah - how about some style for a change, guys?

2007-11-03T05:56:00.000-07:00

Irish movies have a tendency to look at like low-budget TV dramas, which us here at TToH reckon stop us from competing with the big boys, but there seems to be something stirring in the camera departments, as the trailers for the upcoming Shrooms (below) and Anton (belower) will testify....

Shrooms

Written by Pearce Elliot (The Mighty Celt, Man About Dog) and directed by Paddy Breathnach (I Went Down, Man About Dog), Shrooms, taking its cue from American teen slasher flicks, sees a group of college students arrive in Ireland to sample the local delights offered by Irishman Jake (Jack Huston – Factory Girl). However (there always has to be a ‘however’, doesn’t there?), alone in the woods the group is set upon by ghostly creatures but our heroes are unsure if they are for real or just nightmarish hallucinations. What is striking about the film is the style, shot by cinematographer Nanu Segal...

Anton

Where as Paddy went overseas to give his film a distinctive look, debutant Graham Cantwell employs DP Fergal O’Hanlon to elevate his visuals above the norm for Anton. Set in ’70s, Anton O’Neill (Anthony Fox, who also penned the script) returns home to Cavan after years overseas to find his country radically different to the one he left. Drawn into Norn Iron’s civil unrest, Anton must choose between his woman and justice while keeping one step ahead of Gerard McSorley’s bent cop.

Stayed tuned for interviews and reviews...

Ger outta dat garage, Mrs. O'Halloran's son!

2007-11-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Comedy actors playing it straight is nothing new (Robin Williams has been getting away with it for years), but the difference between Shortt's performance as the simple-minded Josie, in Mark O'Halloran and Lenny Abrahamson's follow up to Adam And Paul, Garage, and his peers is that he doesn't bring attention to it. Josie runs a garage in an unnamed village somewhere in Co. Tipperary, and seems happy with his lot; the abuse handed out by Don Wycherley's frustrated drunk and the gentle spurns from Anne-Marie Duff's shopkeeper roll right off his back. It's only when Josie innocently shows a porno to teenage garage employee David (Conor Ryan) that things begin to unravel. We've come to expect dourness from the pages of an O'Halloran script - his TV outing Prosperity isn't exactly an Ibizian sunrise either - and sparse, stilted dialouge is the order of the day here again. Garage is fine, but O'Halloran and Abrahamson are treading water here, and we at TToH believe the team can do a whole lot better if they just unleash the dogs.

I've seen plays better than this. Honest to God - plays!

2007-11-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

Landing a Boeing 747 on an icy runway in dense fog with one wheel down is tricky, but adapting a play would take the Pepsi challange on that any day. Just ask Tom Collins (below, right), writer/director of Kings. What to do you do with those long, meandering talkie scenes that are accepted on stage, but would bore even the most cynical members of Generation X? Rest easy as Jimmy Murphy's critically acclaimed The Kings Of The Kilburn High Road gets a decent, if flawed, treatment. A downer, the plot follows four hard-drinking Irish ex-pats as they gather together for the wake of their friend, found dead on the London Underground days earlier. Colm Meaney plays Joe, the only one of the group who did alright for himself since leaving Ireland, but has lived with the guilt of being the catalyst in Jackie's (Sean O'Tarpaigh) demise; something Git (Brendan Conroy) and Jap (Donal O'Kelly) won't let him forget. These unresolved issues, and doubts over the circumstances of Jackie’s death, come to a head in the snug of their old local. Collins breaks up the one-locale play by moving the action all over London, but he can't do anything except put the camera on sticks and let the dialogue roll when it comes down to the 'big finish'. Unfortunately, the dialogue (which is mostly in Irish) isn’t snappy enough to sustain the climatic scene, even though the cast are at the top of their game. A good effort, Collins will go on to do bigger and better things. A mhac.
The trailer can be viewed here.