Last night saw the debut of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s new BBC drama Sherlock, in which the excellent (and excellently named) Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman play Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson. The casting could not be more perfect. Seriously. This time, however, the great detective and his faithful army doctor pal are solving crime in the 21st century. It’s not the first time TV and film makers have brought classic characters and plots into the present day, and in this case it works extremely well, largely due to the writers’ evident affection for the original stories and to the pitch-perfect casting of and performances by Cumberbatch and Freeman as Holmes and Watson. Holmes is, as he always was, slightly sociopathic but capable of feeling... Similar posts

The FilmHelmut Berger, Brigitte Lahaie, Telly Savalas, Chris Mitchum, Caroline Munro, Stephane Audran, Anton Diffring, Howard Vernon, Florence Guerin, Lina Romay.This eclectic mix of genuine film stars and film stars’ sons, genre icons and scream queens, art house muses and hard core actresses must count as the most easily recognisable cast for main stream audiences that Shlockmeister Jess Franco ever managed to compile. Following the relative success of his previous film Dark Mission (also with Lahaie and Mitchum as well as Christopher Lee), he was now given a budget that even allowed his stars to stay in 5 Star Hotels in Paris. Franco has previously been known to siphon off money for one production and secretly produce an additional picture with the same cast and on the same sets.... Similar posts

The Kilkenny Arts Festival is due to start on 6th August next in Kilkenny, marking the beginning of a 10 day festival of Bertie Bassetts – All Sorts! This is the 37th year of the festival and the maturity of the festival shows in the numerous, wide-ranging and quality acts they have lined up for 2010. To make things easier, the festival has been separated into 9 different strands – that’s nine varieties of ways in which you can be entertained! Wired – a musical exploration. According to curator Matthew Nolan, this strand features one of the best live acts performing in Ireland at the moment, And So I Watch You From Afar. Click here to view the embedded video. Music - a mixture of jazz, percussion, trad and others to be found here. Randomly including a Congolese... Similar posts

Peter Cushing was “branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness.” Women hated the sight of him. His overall appearance could only be described as “monkey” or “baboon” like.There! I bet that caught your attention!What I am talking about is, of course, not Peter Cushing, the man, but the character he played in Hammer’s She, or to be even more precise the way his character was described in H. Rider Haggard’s original novel.Truth be told, however, not a lot of the original source material made its way into the final film.Though the basic shell of the plot – Ayesha (“She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed”) discovers the reincarnation of her long lost true love from a few centuries ago and tries to make him an immortal as well– remained the same, there were quite a lot of... Similar posts

Every month, MAP (Music Alliance Pact) asks music bloggers across the world to share a track from their home country that they think you should hear. Ireland is represented by Bingo. Check out the mental Estonia entry. ARGENTINA: Zonaindie The Kyoto Connection – H.E.A.T. The eighties are back! At least, that’s what we felt after listening to No Headphones Required, the cc-licensed brand new album by The Kyoto Connection. This amazing band delivers sweet electronic music mixed with Japanese juice and Flashdance-like synth sounds. If you like it, you can download the whole record from their website. AUSTRALIA: Who The Bloody Hell Are They? Kimbra – Settle Down I’ve been following... Similar posts

A conversation about scientific research methods sometimes arises when I meet my dissertation supervisor.  Surely if methods and processes are solid then whatever comes out of them is equally solid? If only life was so easy and straight-forward. Plenty of in-depth and critical predictive research is carried out on large sporting events. After all, where would the bookies be without them?  The problem is that predicting the future is impossible to do with anything close to total accuracy.  There are simply too many unknown variables that could come into play between the time of the prediction and the final whistle. All is not lost, however.  The Germans have the solution. They have Paul the Octopus!  The fountain of knowledge, (or Oracle, if you will) has done a seriously good job of... Similar posts

After the cinema, nothing surprises us. If the rampant absurdity of the sexagenarian Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans can be broadly linked to the penchant of his anti-hero protagonist to shove whatever he can up his nose, one might be similarly tempted here to rename the octogenarian Alain Resnais’ latest work as Wacky Tobacky. Not that there is anything harder than Irish whiskey on offer here. Rather, the great French auteur is simply intent on toying with our expectations for a film that, at first, seems gently magical, prior to growing gradually darker in tone, before finally ending up proving to be rather  unhinged. On the other hand, should this have come as anything of a surprise given that this unconventional... Similar posts

I am a broke man!!You are all must be enjoying the World Cup as much as I am. This have especially been a fantastic World Cup for all the Ireland football supporters, much better than if their team was being there. They have been esperienceing unadulteried pleasure at watching France crash and burn, and then drown before being hanged drawn and quartled. Although is only now the French government is demanding to know how come the manager and the team could bring the country into such disrepute. Is a question they should have been asking after the match against Ireland in the qualifiers!Also for the Ireland fans has been the joy of seeing their former colonial masterds England being humiliate by the Germans again. And not even an Aryan master race German team but a bunch of Turks,... Similar posts

Written by Robert JonesDirected by Edmund CoulthardJohn Lennon: “We’ve all contributed ideas.”There were many lines from this 85 minute biopic that I thought about using for a quote but for some reason that one stood out the most. I think it was down to the way in which the word, “idea” was utterly by Lennon during that press call with the Beatles at the start of this story.I’m not gonna say that I’m big fan of either the Beatles or John Lennon personally because both were before my time but I will admit that one of my favourite songs is “Woman” and the fact that I’m a big fan of Christopher Eccleston actually motivated me into watching this a lot more than I would’ve.For me, a lot of the stuff that was unveiled in this biopic piece was stuff that I vaguely knew of.... Similar posts

The Roots new album promises to be something special. It features brilliant, inspired samples, as well as guest performances from a range of acts. You can stream 90 second samples of all the tunes below, including the brilliant Monsters of Folk sampling 'Dear God 2.0' and their take on Joanna Newsom with 'Right On'. the album comes out on Tuesday in the US.Tracklist:1. "A Peace of Light" (feat. Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian & Haley Dekle of Dirty Projectors) 1:502. "Walk Alone" (feat. Truck North, P.O.R.N. & Dice Raw) 3:553. "Dear God 2.0" (feat. Monsters of Folk) 3:594. "Radio Daze" (feat. Blu, P.O.R.N. & Dice Raw) 4:165. "Now Or Never" (feat. Phonte & Dice Raw) 4:346. "How I Got Over" (feat. Dice Raw) 3:367. "DillaTUDE (The Flight of Titus)" 0:428. "The... Similar posts

The Roots new album promises to be something special. It features brilliant, inspired samples, as well as guest performances from a range of acts. You can stream 90 second samples of all the tunes below, including the brilliant Monsters of Folk sampling ‘Dear God 2.0′ and their take on Joanna Newsom with ‘Right On’. the album comes out on Tuesday in the US. Tracklist: 1. “A Peace of Light” (feat. Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian & Haley Dekle of Dirty Projectors) 1:50 2. “Walk Alone” (feat. Truck North, P.O.R.N. & Dice Raw) 3:55 3. “Dear God 2.0″ (feat. Monsters of Folk) 3:59 4. “Radio Daze” (feat. Blu, P.O.R.N. & Dice Raw) 4:16 5. “Now Or Never” (feat. Phonte & Dice Raw)... Similar posts

So it looks like I have managed to finish another one of my Operation: 101010 categories as I have watched the entire series of Whistler movies over the last few weeks:The WhistlerThe Mark of the WhistlerThe Power of the WhistlerVoice of the WhistlerMysterious IntruderThe Secret of the WhistlerThe Thirteenth HourThe Return of the WhistlerEagle eyed readers of my blog will notice two things:First of all, yes, this is a new category. I had previously not chosen these movies as contenders for the Operation: 101010 as I wasn't aware at the start of the year that I would watch them all or even that I would finally be able to get a hold of anyone of those productions. As such I am dropping my Mario Bava challenge and replace it with these films.See, the original Whistler movie from 1944 was... Similar posts

Just before Book Expo 2010 last week, American novelist and Radio raconteur Garrison Keillor wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, The End of an Era in Publishing. I should of course refer to the opinion piece as an ‘op-ed’ (opposite editorial), the description of it by many critics who chose to quickly round on Keillor in the subsequent days through printed column inches—but in particular—through chunks of web bytes with snarling teeth. If I did refer to it as an ‘op-ed’, I might, too, find myself laid bare to the dentures of the Prairie Coyote from Minnesota. “I grew up on the windswept plains with my nose in a book, so I am awestruck in the presence of book people, even though I have written a couple books myself. These are anti-elitist times, when mobs... Similar posts

Written by Simon NyeDirected by Catherine MorsheadDream Lord (to the Doctor/Amy/Rory): “Tweet, tweet, time to sleep. Oh, or are you waking up?”At some point in the series, we were always going to get an episode that would be a literal mindbender and in five seasons, I’m almost amazed that they managed to hold off until now. Two worlds to choose from and both of them were marred with their own problems? The problem was choosing which world was real and which wasn’t.Of course this couldn’t be too easy on Amy. The world in which she and Rory were about to have their first child should be the real one but there was also the world with the two of them and the Doctor in the TARDIS. That also had to be real, right?I think the bigger question was which world Amy wanted to be real all... Similar posts

If you are in or near Las Vegas in early June, I hope you can make it to the production of my new play Last of the Vegas Magicians, directed by Ruth Palileo, and produced by Butcher Block Productions. The protagonist, a retired conjuror called Victor Goodbody, is living out his last days in a Las Vegas Valley hospice. Having been relatively unsuccessful in life and love, he has come to delude himself that he is in fact a real magician: By the power of magic alone I raised not only the City of Las Vegas–but also the Volta Hotel and Casino–eighth wonder of the world and eclipser of the first pyramids of Old Vegas. With only words from the Lore Books and the force of my Will I raised a Stratosphere and a Forum. Volcanoes rose and fell at my command…even statues moved. For... Similar posts

Bloc Party front man Kele Okereke’s not a man who minces his words. On temporary sojourn from his highly acclaimed band and venturing out on an extensive solo tour (his first ever on-stage performances of his new solo material will be in Ireland), Kele is as boisterous in interview as ever. Answering our questions in quick-fire Cockney without taking a second to think, his dislike of self-promotion is in evidence form the off through his quickfire answers and abrupt tone. Kele lives up to his reputation as a man who – as much as he clearly loves his fans – is less than comfortably revealing too much of himself. We tiptoe around Kele’s well-documented interview killers (“don’t mention sexuality or ethnicity”, which we’re assured he’s almost offensively... Similar posts

Winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year, Greek writer and director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth is an extraordinary film; weird and provocative, whimsical and titillating, like Big Brother re-imagined by David Lynch.A businessman (Christos Stergioglou) and his wife (Michelle Valley) have convinced themselves that the best way to rear their children is to completely isolate them from the world. He goes to work in a factory every day, but his wife remains in their remote house, surrounded by a high fence, with their two unnamed teenage daughters (Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni) and their twenty-something son (Hristos Passalis).The children live simple lives. They are only taught what their parents choose to reveal to them about the world, and this is very little. The... Similar posts

For most music writers, reviewing what you love is more difficult than tearing into what you hate. Fact. So coming up with enough complimentary adjectives to detail the most recent Dublin show by the always bankable Mark Lanegan is indeed a quandary. While Lanegan’s performances are forever an occasion to look forward to, he occupies a strange place where you don’t get that sense of nervous anticipation of ‘will it be any good?’ because nine times out of 10 he delivers. With the sounds of Idlewild thumping away in the superior upstairs venue, the basement enclave of the Academy 2 is jammed to the rafters despite this being possibly the least publicised show this year. When the man himself emerges from the darkness and breaks the pent-up silence with the first... Similar posts

It's a bank holiday Monday, the sun is shining, the coffee is good, there's a game of football later which, while not especially important, is an Arsenal game and therefore a great thing (at least leading up to kick off), and all seems well with the world. Then you read Arsene Wenger talking about goalkeepers and he says: Let people think and let me do. But it isn't an area that I necessarily want to strengthen. Dark clouds now hang over this blogger's fuzzy head. The boss has given Lukasz Fabianski his backing, saying: He still has to show that he can be consistent. I know he has the talent and he has shown against Man City that he is mentally strong and that he can respond. Now the next target is for him to show that he can be consistent. I might have missed something but Fabianski... Similar posts