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Well, yesterday evening, the DARTs to Greystones were cancelled and traffic was crazy, so we decided to go to the cinema instead. On my short walk down to the IFI, I took these few photos. Dublin can be so beautiful.

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One of the advantages of getting up early and driving in to work is that I get to hear the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show. Gift Grub aside, Ian tends to play some great music and this morning was no different. For the first time in years I got to hear the full unedited 8 and a half minute long version of Don McLean’s American Pie on the radio, rather than the usual abridged version.

The reason? It’s 50 years to the day since the plane crash that took the lives of The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and, of course, Buddy Holly. McLean’s classic 70’s track is dedicated to that day, the day the music died.

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And it’s amazing the things you never notice until you have a camera in your hand.

1 hour and 20 minutes later, I am just around the corner from work.

So disinterested in this film, I find myself drawn to the laptop instead to surf the Internets. Trouble is, I have no internet connection, so what to do? I am doing the unprecedented – I am writing a negative review for my blog. I see a lot of films and I attend many events, I go out a lot and I have an active social life. Generally speaking, I only put the positives up on my blog with a few exceptions.

Tonight (Saturday 31st January), after watching a couple of excellent episodes of the new series of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, we (in truth, it’s less ‘we’ more ‘I’) decide to watch the Bob Dylan semi-biopic, I’m Not There. I was disappointed to miss it in the cinema and I just never got around to watching it until now. Ruminating on the story of Dylan’s life, the man’s emotional tale is told through six characters representing different stages of Dylan’s existence, including Richard Gere as Billy the Kid and Cate Blanchett as the drug addicted recording artist.

Oftentimes it’s been said that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts – in this case the whole is pretty poor when compared with what is ploughed into it. The acting is quite superb – in that Cate Blanchett plays a heartbreaking ‘Dylan’; the supporting cast give it their all, including a small but good turn from Dawson’s Creek and Brokeback Mountain‘s Michelle Williams and surprisingly striking performance from Bruce Greenwood as both Mr. Jones and a sympathetic Pat Garrett (the man who killed Billy the Kid). The cinematography is good – we are presented with some great shots from stark angles. The music is understandably perfect. The whole film is based upon the life of the most mysterious and fascinating of all singer-songwriters of the last century. And yet, despite all that is going for it, this film ends up as a too long, pretentious muddle. As I said to Lottie before she fell asleep from boredom, the film makers spent so much time making a clever movie, they forgot to make a good one.

Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life.

Playing the many faces of Dylan the film includes a dull performance which I’m thankful Heath Ledger will not be remembered for; I’ve mentioned Blanchett‘s understandably Oscar nominated role, but the two standout performances for me are from the young black ‘Dylan’ played by Marcus Carl Franklin and the underused Ben Whishaw as the poetic ‘Dylan’ who doesn’t get enough screen time at all. Richard Gere‘s performance is solid but heavily let down by the director’s attempt at making a western style Sam Peckinpah movie…minus the grit. Lastly, Christian Bale‘s performance in the film is largely pointless apart from the fact that he does a fine ‘political Dylan’ impression. Although this good performance is counteracted by the dismal take on the ‘born-again Dylan’.

It’s like you’ve got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room. There’s no telling what can happen.

The film closes with this line, as if it is offering some kind of explanation or even apology for all that has gone before. All I can say is exactly the same thing I say to anyone who apologises to me: Don’t say sorry, just don’t do it again.

Over the Christmas break, I saw Dog Day Afternoon for the first time and loved it. Pacino was at his finest with his usual powerful energy, but with more control than he exerted later in his career. The film, which was more about celebrity culture than a botched bank heist, captured an era, captured a mindset and captured the imagination of its audience.

33 years later, the mussels from Brussels, Jean Claude Van Damme stars in his own twist on the classic heist scenario……and it’s actually pretty damme good.

On B’dum‘s recommendation I picked up JCVD in HMV yesterday and, much to Lottie‘s initial chagrin, we sat down to watch it yesterday evening. Strangely, the first thing about the movie that stood out was the impressive, all in one shot, opening action scene finishing on a funny interplay between Van Damme and the Director. It was clear this was not going to be a regular action film, nor a regular Van Damme throwaway flick.

In Belgium having lost custody of his daughter, a penniless Jean Claude pops into a post office to receive a money transfer to pay for his legal fees and becomes the main protagonist in a heist. While Dog Day Afternoon focuses on picking apart the media and America’s obsession with ‘celebrity’ in the 70’s, JCVD is more interested in deconstructing the actual ‘movie star’. This post-modern thriller, writen and directed by Mabrouk El Mechri goes further than simply poking fun at the twilight years of a once massive Hollywood star – it bores deep and pulls apart his life, culminating in a soon-to-be-classic scene where Van Damme literally ascends out of his life to gave a truly emotional discourse on the nature of his current existence. Yes, Jean Claude Van Damme is philosophical, thoughtful, emotive and most of all, proves he can act.

This film is no masterpiece but it does deserve some recognition. The ending doesn’t fit perfectly. It’s incongruent with the rest of the film and doesn’t give the final satisfaction I hoped for. That said, it does not take from the rest of the movie and as the credits rolled I found myself looking back over Van Damme’s impressive performance.

So, is this the start of Van Damme’s comeback? Perhaps! 2010 sees the teaming up of some of Hollywood’s biggest action stars, both former and present. Fan boys may be disappointed by the lack of violence and heavy action in JCVD, but The Expendables with Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke and Jason Statham, among others, looks like a crowd pleaser. It ill be iteresting to see the impact that movie makes.

To conclude the comparison between JCVD and Dog Day Afternoon, I’m not sure JCVD will stand the test of time as well as its 70’s counterpart, but at the moment, I’d rather sit down and watch Van Damme again first. This pacy, clever and very funny film is worth a look. I have it on DVD if anyone wants a loan. 🙂

Each week Fitzy puts up his Viral Video Selection. Usually they’re interesting enough, but this week’s one really caught my attention. It’s the first music video since Ok Go’s Million Ways video to really impress me. It’s Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie:

2009 is going to be a big year for movies. After a lacklustre 2008 (which saw only a handful of decent films grace the big screen), surely this year will see some more risks being taken and we may get to see some great original content churned out by the Hollywood machine.

Am I aiming too high? I don’t mean to be overly critical of Hollywood, but with the exception of some epic blockbusters (most notably The Dark Knight), they played it safe and threw up far too many crowd pleasing RomComs and the record breaking (but somewhat shameful) Mamma Mia! – the exclamation mark is not my idea.

I’ll acknowledge that there’s a few movies out towards the end of 2008 (vying for the Oscars), such as Milk, Frost/Nixon, Benjamin Button, Vicki Christina Barcelona and others, but seeing as we don’t generally get around to seeing them until January 2009 or later, I’m not including them.

But…looking forward…here’s my list of the potentially good, probably bad and likely to be ugly films we can expect this year. There’s also a few that I’m just hopeful about.

The Good

• Nine is a musical in which a middle-aged film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is trying to complete his next film. His only problem is that he has too many women in his life, including his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), his sexy mistress Carla (Penélope Cruz), and his muse and protege Claudia (Nicole Kidman).
• Them – From Edgar Wright of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Need I say more?
• Fanboys is the story of a group of friends who, anxious for the premiere of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – and because one of them is suffering from cancer and wishes to see the film before his death – decide to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal an early print of the film. A road trip begins as the friends encounter William Shatner, obsessed Trekkies, and bikers who make them undress for water.
• Surrogates – In the near future, humans live in isolation and only interact through robotic bodies that serve as surrogates. When several surrogates are murdered, a cop (Bruce Willis) investigates the crimes through his own surrogate. The investigation forces the cop to bring his human form out of isolation and unravel a conspiracy behind the crimes. In today’s online world where Second Life and other ‘worlds’ are so popular, this could prove to be an actioner with depth.
• The International may be the most timely high paced thriller out in 2009. Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks, the International Bank of Business and Credit. Uncovering illegal activities including money laundering, arms trading, and the destabilisation of governments, Salinger and Whitman’s investigation takes them from Berlin to Milan to New York City to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, the bank will stop at nothing to stop them.
• The Wolf Man may have made and remade so many times, but going by the publicity shots I’ve seen so far on this version, Benicio del Toro looks set to make the ultimate werewolf movie.
• In Dorian Gray Narnia‘s Ben Barnes doesn’t want to grow old. With support from Colin Firth and Ben Chaplin, this should be interesting.
• Sherlock Holmes – Guy Ritchie brings the master detective to the big screen with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson. What could go wrong?
• Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – the first Ice Age movie was fantastic. If this is a fraction of that, it’ll still be great.
• The Lovely Bones is probably the book I’ve heard most about in recent years without actually reading. It seems, as long as it avoids falling into its own arse, this could be huge. Saoirse Ronan stars.
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus has to be good. It just has to be. Gilliam has devoted his life to fixing it since the death of Heath Ledger, the film’s main star, and has enlisted the help of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to pick up where Ledger left off.
• Coraline is a stop-motion horror fantasy based on Neil Gaiman’s modern Alice in Wonderland-like tale.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is following 2007’s awesome blockbuster about the robots in disguise. Bigger, faster, louder – possibly better.
• Inglourious Basterds – I have misspelled nothing. Tarantino makes a WWII war movie. No more detail required – this will be epic.
• With Terminator Salvation so much could go wrong, but I’m optimistic.
• Monsters vs. Aliens does exactly what it says on the tin…by Dreamworks Animation. Oh, and it’s voiced by Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Kiefer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon, among others.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine – I loved all three X-Men movies and Wolverine has such a brilliant untouched backstory. With Liev Schreiber, the most underated actor of his generation, as Sabretooth, this could be great.
• Watchmen is likely to be one of the biggest films of 2009. Based on the epic comic series, Watchmen will be attacked by fanboys regardless how good or bad it is, so I just say sit back and enjoy.
• Star Trek will be big, regardless if it’s good or not. I’m hopeful. The cast looks good and in the hands of J.J. Abrams it should be safe.
• Public Enemies is a prohibition era ganster movie with a solid cast. Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotilliard, Billy Crudup and a huge bunch more. I smell Oscars.
• Toy Story in 3-D – Ok, so it’s just a re-release in a new format. Tell me you’re not excited though…
• Orphan is a basic horror movie about a husband and wife who adopt a creepy kid. So far, so average. But when I heard Peter Sarsgaard was in it, I thought it worth keeping an eye on.

The Bad

• G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra – GI Joe? Really? Don’t get me wrong, I loved my little action man when I was young. But a movie? With Dennis Quaid? Still, Christopher Eccleston might make a decent bad guy.
• Red Sonja is Conan the Barbarian’s female counterpart. Even Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan can’t make this work. Can they?
• Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian – Did you see the first one? You did? Then you know why this is in the Bad section.
• Fast & Furious, the seventh or eight follow up to 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, reunites the original’s Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in an effort to reignite both their flailing careers.
• The Proposal is just one of the many awful RomComs due out in 2009. I single out this one because it has the once cool Ryan Reynolds and the never-cool-but-gaining-some-credibility-in-recent-years Sandra Bullock. I guess they meet and don’t like each other and things happen and they have a big crisis moment and they fall in love and everyone laughs heartily at the end. Actually, now that I read a bit more about it, it seems to be a remake of Green Card. Still belongs on the Bad pile.
• The Birds was Hitchcock’s strangest horror and one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. As with Psycho, this does not need to be remade. Why can’t they just give the original a re-release in the cinemas? Why? Naomi Watts stars, seemingly.
• S. Darko – when I first heard they were making a sequel to Donnie Darko I laughed it off. What a ridiculous notion. Then, in the distance, I heard the faint ringing of Hollywood’s cash register and it all began to make sense. Oh, Daveigh Chase, the freaky girl from The Ring, plays Samantha, the ‘S’ of the title.
• Nottingham, another Robin Hood movie with the awful Russell Crowe playing both Robin Hood and The Sherrif of Nottingham – presumably one character wouldn’t be able to contain his massive ego.
• In The Informant the U.S. government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president turned informant Mark Whitacre. Sound like an intriguing courtroom drama? Nope – it’s a Matt Damon comedy. I’m very sceptical.
• Avatar is James Cameron‘s newest obsession after finally getting over his Titanic fetish. Frankly, I expect the sci-fi epic to fall down under the weight of it’s own sense of self-importance.
• Angels & Demons is the sequel prequel followup thing to The DaVinci Code. The plus side – Tom Hanks has got a haircut. Here, check out this truly terrible trailer:

The Ugly (I could add more but I might be ill)

• The Pink Panther 2
• Hannah Montana
• Confessions of a Shopaholic

The Ones I Am Hopeful About

• Friday the 13th – it’s a remake of the classic horror. It’ll probably be awful, but I’m interested.
• The Box reads like a horror version of Jumanji and has so much going against it – mainly its cast of James Marsden and Cameron Diaz. But this is the latest film from Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly. There is promise.
• Underworld: Rise of the Lycans – I was a huge fan of the first underworld with Kate Beckinsale (luvly!) and the sequel was decent too. This film harks back to the origins of the tale and has no Beckinsale, but does have Rhona Mitra, who looks an awful lot like Beckinsale in the posters. Michael Sheen is reprising his role though and that could make for something interesting.
• 2012 is another ‘world is going to end’ type films. It follows the survivors post-apocalypse. It is written and directed by Roland Emmerich of Independence Day and the slightly preachy Day After Tomorrow and I am hopeful about it because, despite the premise, it has drawn an amazing cast in John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson and others.
• The Spirit – This may be a 2008 movie, I’m not sure, but I have yet to see it. It’s received a number of scathing reviews, but I am still keeping my fingers crossed because it looks so damn cool.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the latest edition of the Neverending Story. I think maybe I’ve just gotten too old and tired to be excited about a new Harry Potter movie and I suspect much of the films cast are the same. I’ll undoubtedly go see it and I hope for good things. We’ll see.

And this is surely going to be shit but I can’t wait to see it:

• Final Destination: Death Trip 3D Horror – Loads and loads of imaginative death scenes……in 3D. Oh yes!

Needless to say, there are hundreds of more movies due out this year. This is my first glance across the list with higher budgets. I haven’t had a look at any Indie’s yet or delved too deeply into IMDb’s 8,937 titles released in 2009. Give me time…

So, are there any movies you lot are looking forward to, or is there anything you’d change on my list?

In recovery mode on Sunday afternoon, we decided to go to the cinema to see Frost/Nixon. In truth, I didn’t know much about the story prior to seeing it and I had only ever seen short clips of the interview between Sir David Frost and former US President Richard Nixon, upon which the film is based. I was wide eyed and open to the film. But I had not expected to be bowled over by it – from the opening scenes, I was gripped. Ron Howard, in his first great film since Apollo 13 in 1995, lets the story play out like Rocky without the boxing ring.

In one corner, we have David Frost, trying to salvage what’s left of his flagging career, while in the other corner we see Nixon believing that this interview is an opportunity to get the American people back on side.

Michael Sheen, who in previous roles has imitated both Tony Blair and Kenneth Williams, manages to capture Frost’s mannerisms and, in particular, his vocal inflections while avoiding parody (this is where I felt he fell down in his portrayal of Blair).

Frank Langella‘s Nixon is careful, calculating and unnerving, clearly enjoying how uncomfortable he makes his sparring partner. To unhinge Frost, Nixon throws inappropriate questions (Did you fornicate last night?) and off-the-cuff comments at him and for the most part his ploy works. I believe Langella has secured himself an Oscar for Best Actor for this role, where he does more than simply imitate Nixon, he embodies the man. From very early in the film I ceased to see Langella on screen, but instead was immersed in what Nixon would do and say next. In possibly the pivotal part of the film, the camera lingers on Nixon’s face and Langella, without saying a word, speaks volumes with his weatherbeaten features, desperate expression and lost, defeated eyes – a scene that will become a classic.

Matthew MacFadyen as John Birt, stuck in the impossible position of Frost’s producer, Oliver Platt as Bob Zelnick and Kevin Bacon, as Nixon’s aide, Jack Brennan, offer strong support, but its Sam Rockwell, as James Reston Jr., author and expert on Nixon and the Watergate controversy, who shines, not allowing us to forget for a single second how badly Nixon let down the American people.

Frost/Nixon is as much about television and its part in modern politics as it is about the infamous interview. Howard examines the role of pop journalism in shaping political views and this is perhaps the thing that lifts the movie out of the trap of being a wordy stage play, but instead produces a layered drama with plenty to bring the viewer back for a second sitting.

Although we know exactly how it will end, the build up to the final interview is actually exciting, the tension produced between the desperation of both men is unrelenting and as the credits role you may even feel a twinge of sympathy or the fallen President.

The negatives? Well, strangely, I only found negatives when I went about researching this post. It seems the story is a somewhat polished version of the truth. Stripped from the script is any mention of Nixon’s 20% stake in any profits from the interviews (surely a great incentive for him to have a dramatic revelation in the final parts of the interview). Indeed the historical, political and social impacts of the revelations are heavily overplayed in the film.

However, Howard is not making a documentary here and as an exciting piece of fiction, as a dramatic interplay between two great forces, this film is one of the finest ‘Based on a True Story’ films I have ever seen. I am reminded of Shattered Glass, Serpico and Quizshow as films that dramatise real events without dehumanising the characters. Frost/Nixon can sit proudly amongst these.

Andrew wrote a short post last Thursday (with a picture attached) criticising people who are proudly declaring that they have received a nomination for the Blog Awards in February. For those readers who are not involved in the Irish blogosphere, the nominations list is a comprehensive list of everyone who received even a single nomination. It is neither a shortlist nor a longlist. The post subsequently gained a lot of attention – mostly negative, it’s fair to say. Andrew is a good friend of mine, so I think I know him better than many of readers and reactors on the post. I didn’t think the post was worth the attention it received, but in retrospect I’m glad it has given a lot of people a sounding board for their thoughts on the nominations.

Yesterday evening, he published a longer, more considered post on the subject. This is one I felt deserved a comment from me. I started writing my reply which began as a sentence or two and expanded into a lengthly oration. So, rather than leaving the comment and sounding more like a castigation of Andrew than of the negativity towards the Blog Awards, I decided to put my views across here.

My thoughts on blogging and the Blog Awards are simple – I’m a social animal – I love the drinks and fun side of blogging. I’ve said so many times how many people I have met and good friends I have made through the medium. I was first introduced to blogging at the Blog Awards last year and all I saw was people who wanted to meet and chat and share ideas. How anyone can find that negative is beyond me. And I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t even consider coming down and joining the rest of us for a piss-up.

As Rick said in his comment on Andrew’s first post, so many people will never make that longlist, never mind the shortlist and this may be the only time a tiny little spotlight shines down upon them.  I am very fortunate to have had a brighter light shine upon me when I started blogging – I had some blogging friends who mentioned me and gained me a instant reader base. Most bloggers don’t have this and if they can gain even a few readers by being mentioned in a nomination list, then why not throw up a logo, why not thank their readers, why not shout it from the rooftops?

Andrew says it’s not personal. Both he and I understand that the online persona and the offline counterpart are not always the same, but others may not see it this way. When criticising the people who use the ‘Nominated’ logos in their sidebars (some of whom would consider Andrew a friend), it is taken personally and saying “it’s not personal” does not change that.

So, I suspect that is why he got such a reaction to his ‘throwaway’ post. When I first read it, I just shook my head at it because I thought it relatively pointless, but now I’m glad he published it, in a way, because it has allowed a lot of people react to the negativity in one place.

As for the politics of the whole thing – it’s posts like Andrew’s that create the ‘politics’ – opposing sides and criticising the acts of others. In the comments there was a mention of the clique element of it. Last years awards drew 400 people, I believe. This year is likely to gather more. That’s one hell of an impressive clique. In truth, I think one of the greatest parts of blogging is the arms-wide-open welcoming aspect. No one will shut you out or put you down and all comments and viewpoints are accepted. Blogging certainly has its niches (I don’t read too many of the female oriented beauty blogs, for example) but to call that cliquish is daft.

But then again, we are all entitled to our opinions, Andrew included.

To get worked up about all of this is, in my opinion, a waste of time. Some people like the idea of the awards, some people think it’s contrived. Personally, I think it’s a lot of fun. If everyone stopped taking it so seriously and just enjoyed a great night out, it’d be a lot better all around.

Why do we have a President? Really! I know that McAleese (and the other Mary before her) do a lot of charitable work and such and certainly raise the profile of Ireland abroad, but apart from acting as a figurehead of sorts, what’s involved in the role? There are certain legal aspect to it such as signing off on Bills and having vetoes, but do we need a President for this?

From what I understand, the last time the presidency was up for grabs, no one even contested it and Mary McAleese was returned by default. Surely that alone has to be an indication that in has become an irrelevant institution. Any thoughts?

I know my posting today is just shameless linking, but I really think everyone should go read this and get involved in a discussion and debate that is difficult to stomach but very important.

The National Lottie – Whose Silence Fed the Violence? –

Here, now that Brian Cowen has clearly lost any hold he may have had on our country’s economic stability, perhaps we should turn to someone with more political savvy to help turn things around. Jordan seems to have some interesting ideas…

So, you’ve lost your job, your monthly mortgage payment looks like an international phone number, your friends have abandoned you, your bank manager has taken a hit out against you……there’s nothing you can do but sit and cry. Thankfully, it’s good for you. Go ahead and cry.

And if your life is going well and crying is not on the cards, have a read of this – it will break your heart. From the pen of the generally-quite-filthy Maxi Cane. (Also, I nominated it for Blog Post of the Month – go do the same if you feel it deserves it).

On the DART on Saturday evening, heading towards the City Centre for a night of drinking, I glanced across Darragh’s blog and found one of the funniest things I’ve seen in ages. Check it out. Do do do do do do do…

Most people know that I’m a positive, cheery and mostly quite bouncy individual. I often forget that everyone isn’t the same as me. This guy is trying “to defeat a lifetime’s worth of negative thinking” and it’s an interesting journey to see him go from Day 1 to Day 21 where he is overcoming negativity from an anonymous commenter.

And finally, following on from my post about changing my name to Damien O’Bama by deed poll, it seems the name has already been taken – DamienObama.blogspot.com

Did you know, it’s surprisingly easy to change your name – legally. The costs involved in changing your name by Deed Poll are relatively small. It’s €55 plus the Government stamp duty of around €30 (expensive stamps – I say just hand deliver it).

So, what would you change your name too? So many people over the years have messed up my name and called me Damien – I grew to like it. And anything would be better than  the  very common ‘Byrne’ as a surname. So, I’m thinking about becoming Damien O’Bama. What do you think?

via the wonderful Daily What