Move over Abba, Irish 'Celtic soul' lads The Script have torn up the plot across the water, where their debut album has crashed in at Number One in the album charts.
They’ve been heralded as the biggest thing in Irish rock since U2 – a prediction that proved prescient when The Script romped to the top of the charts with their debut album.
The Music Show, the largest event of its kind to be staged in Ireland, will be launched this Wednesday Afternoon, August 26 by THE SCRIPT, at a secret location in the centre of Dublin.
The Script and Sharon Shannon were just two of the big acts honoured at last night's Meteor Awards, where Hot Press editor Niall Stokes also picked up an award...
In the new issue of Hot Press, band members Danny O’Donoghue and Mark Sheehan talk about the grief, loss and life-saving operations that took place during the recording of their hit album We Cry.
Once something of a child prodigy, Carlow singer-songwriter Joe Cleere now reckons he has the answer to self-promotion in the download age. He speaks to Celina Murphy about supporting The Script and passing out 10,000 free CDs in a month!
Who better to launch this year’s Music Show than Irish band of the moment The Script? In a taster of what to expect from October’s RDS weekender, Danny, Glen and Mark treated a roomful of fans, music students and industry professionals to their thoughts on illegal downloading, songwriting, the dreaded Auto-tune and touring with Macca and U2.
Malahide’s DIRECTOR may not be any kind of tabloid headline generators, but with an accomplished second album produced by Pumpkins and Placebo veteran Brad Wood in the bag, they’re confident enough to let the music make the fuss.
The HP-7 Summit is back with Michelle Doherty, Rocky O'Reilly, Niall Breslin, Mark Greaney, Niamh Farrell, Messiah J and Danny O'Donoghue sat around the only table that matters this Christmas.
‘Rocquet’ is a top tricky nu-meets-italo disco odyssey (with enjoyably atonal organ ramblings that gradually lose the plot), while ‘Pork Chop Express’ flips the script with some confident Krautrock. Tirk we love thee.
Sian’s murky original meanders along, livened by the sci-fi stabs and house bassline. Sweet N Candy flip the script with a lively slow-builder; all trademark fills, reverbed chords and percussive wiggles and plenty of bottom-end swing.
We’re big fans of Chymera round here, so let’s admire his elegant mid-pace remix (of his own original) and focus instead on the other Irish offerings. Corrugated Tunnel retains the melody, ups the tempo and adds a crisp kick and wandering bottom-end, while Asciinoid’s hyperactive mix flips the script impressively with major chords, choppy broken beats and a kitchen sink. Cool.
Okay, the film is very family orientated, and expects that the audience will erupt with laughter at the very mention of the word “poo”, but much more effort could’ve been put into the script, even as a relentlessly puerile exercise.
TRM fans will take delight in being both surprised and disorientated - two signs of an excellent band that aren't afraid to flip the script and take a couple of risks
Moonlight Mile goes some way to restore sympathy, largely in part to Gyllenhaal’s engaging and sympathetic central performance, with flashes of the script offering a loving and clear-eyed examination of loyalty and loss.
Current HP cover stars The Blizzards, and Metallica – who featured on the front cover of our previous issue – are currently riding high in the top two chart positions.
Stylistically speaking, it’s a complete mess, replete with godawful 80s synth score and badly misjudged Se7en-style graphics inserted at random. These problems could be overlooked though, if the script and plot weren’t full of more holes than can be found in an average fishing net.
It’s not just because the script features some of the most imaginatively profane subtitles I have ever had the pleasure to read. This is that rarest of comic delights
The problem with Catch Me if You Can’s isn’t the acting, the script or anything inherent: its fluffy crowd-pleasing nature is OK in itself, but as is so often the case, it seems to have given rise to an urge to spell out every single plot-point and verbal nuance in excruciating retard-friendly detail.
As the country’s largest music festival, Oxegen is a crucial shop window for Irish acts. From main-stage headliners Snow Patrol through new kids on the block The Script. Here are some of our favourite Irish picks.
Independent Irish acts have been enjoying unparalleled success recently both at home and abroad. We talk to some of the key bands, DJs, bedroom boffins, labels, fanzines, record shops and blogs who've decided to follow the DIY path to glory.
CRAIG FITZSIMONS talks to KURT JONES and DAVID KELLY, writer/director and star respectively, of Waking Ned, a gentle comedy set in Ireland, but shot in the Isle of Man. Pics Cathal dawson.
Nailed is a heist movie with a difference. It’s been written, produced and shot in Belfast. Director Adrian O’Connell believes it could revitalise the north’s film industry.
American Psycho star Christian Bale dropped sixty pounds to play the lead role in the eerie new psychological thriller, The Machinist. Just as well the film has resuscitated his career, then. Interview by Tara Brady.
As the lesbian witch willow, Alyson Hannigan was the star turn in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. she’s also the lead female in the ongoing teen comedy caper that is American Pie.
He’s swapped the American Office for Hollywood, been touched by the hand of George Clooney and scrawled his name all over a house in Kerry. Tara Brady meets awesomely nice Away We Go star John Burke Krasinski.
Director PADDY BREATHNACH, producer ROB WALPOLE and writer CONOR McPHERSON take time out from polishing their latest haul of gongs to talk CATHY DILLON through the making of I Went Down.
Catherine Hardwicke won the Sundance best director award for Thirteen, her controversial and unflinching depiction of teen queen sex, drugs, shoplifting and self-harming. Moviehouse meets the director and co-star Holly Hunter.
Daniel Lapaine and Alice Evans are the stars of The Abduction Club, a restoration romantic comedy set in Ireland. "It's like Jane Austen after having a good shag," insists Daniel
That's Brendan and Trudy, by the way, not RODDY DOYLE and KIERON J. WALSH, writer and director respectively of the new hit Irish film comedy. CRAIG FITZSIMONS meets them.
Mothers disowned their kids. The kids fought each other. And the fathers… well, those who weren’t utterly inconsolable with grief did the only thing any grown man could do in such a situation – they phoned Joe Duffy and gave him an earful. For a few feverish, unhinged days in the build-up to World Cup 2002, the fallout from the Roy Keane/Mick McCarthy bust-up in Saipan divided the nation in a manner not seen since, well…
He brought the plight of the Guildford Four to the silver screen and shot a weepy film about the Irish diaspora. Now Jim Sheridan has made a movie with the sultan of bling, rap star 50 Cent. It’s all Bono’s fault, he tells Tara Brady.
"I've made another great movie, and the critics have already said it's a great summer hit," Arnold Schwarzenegger declared at Cannes recently, promoting his latest bid for world domination, "The Last Action Hero".
The violent life and death of the Florida prostitute Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for a string of murders, is the subject matter of the debut film feature monster by Patty Jenkins. Craig Fitzsimons talks to the writer-director about the controversial, Oscar-winning movie
Shakespear s Sister siobhAN FAHEY makes her acting debut in a powerful new short movie that goes to the heart of the Dublin heroin epidemic. Here, she tells craig fitzsimons about the legitimate highs of working in both music and film.
He directed a young Tom Cruise in Cocktail and inadvertently unleashed 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' on an unsuspecting world. For his latest project director Roger Donaldson returns to his roots in the antipodes words.
Driven out of India while filming her latest film. Water, Deepa Mehta talks about protests, effigies and the controversy that follows her wherever she goes.
Caitlin Murphy's darkly comic new play imagines the relationship between Joyce's daughter and Beckett's wife, one which would have been fraught with tension and sexual jealousy
Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange depicts the battle for one man's soul being fought in the arena of a psychiatric institution. The play's star George Costigan tells all.
Liam Fay talks to the three men behind the first “unmissable” movie smash of '95 SHALLOW GRAVE and hears why comparisons with the American death-and-glory tradition are a misnomer.
A mere 112 years after the infamous Transylvanian Count made his literary debut comes the official sequel to Dracula. Bram Stoker’s great grand nephew, Dacre Stoker, working with screenwriter Ian Holt, has brought the events and characters forward 25 years, taking their inspiration from Stoker’s original manuscript and notes.
The indie director's female lead of choice (I Shot Any Warhol, The Addiction), Lili Taylor is perfectly cast as a Liquored Up Fuck Machine in Bent Hamer's screen adaption of Charles Bukowski's classic Factotum.
THE WAR between the sexes certainly seems to be dominating Dublin stages these days. In The Mai at the Peacock, the male character is slowly marginalised, and in Refugees at the Eblana, the man exists only as an object of mockery, whose prick has been removed by his wife’s knife.
THE WAR between the sexes certainly seems to be dominating Dublin stages these days. In The Mai at the Peacock, the male character is slowly marginalised, and in Refugees at the Eblana, the man exists only as an object of mockery, whose prick has been removed by his wife’s knife.
Popular culture has seldom been this unremittingly grim. Resurrection Man is based on the blood-curdling activities of
the Shankill Butcher, and it stars
stuart townsend.
Interview: craig Fitzsimons.
Irish director Terry George has made one of the most powerful movies of the year in Hotel Rwanda, the Oscar-nominated film that tells the harrowing story of the genocide of the Tutsi tribe by Hutu extremists. Here, the ex-Republican activist – and former hotpress contributor – talks to Tara Brady about collaborating with Nick Nolte, Don Cheadle and Joaquin Phoenix, the challenges of bringing such provocative material to the screen, and why the West's failure to intervene contributed to the scale of the atrocity.
He's famed for his method-acting obsessiveness and supposed reclusive streak. But could the real secret about Daniel Day-Lewis be that he's actually rather normal?
Writer-director Christopher Smith has already curried a great deal of favour with such clever Brit horrors as Severance and Creep. Triangle, a smart and nifty psychological chiller, suggests that Mr. Smith has only been clearing his throat.
How does a teen four-piece go from school talent show to rubbing shoulders with The Script at Oxegen? RTE 2FM School Of Rock winners THE TRUFFLE SHUFFLES confess all to Hot Press about mitching off school, debuting in Punchestown and batting giddy schoolgirls off with a stick.
They may not be that just yet but if current plans for global domination go according to the script Linkin Park will be very soon. Stuart Clark travels to London to hear the band’s new album Meteora and finds that American rock’s hottest property are surrounded by the kind of security normally reserved for Michael Jackson
Tara Brady talks to Renee Weldon, star of The Trouble With Sex, the new romantic drama from director Fintan Connolly which explores the rules of attraction in modern Ireland with style and panache.
AIDAN KELLY’S latest stage role in blasted, as a psychotic soldier, is a far cry from his last TV role in the RTE sitcom 'TheCassidys'. Interview: JOE JACKSON
Joe Jackson talks to Apres Match’s Risteard Cooper, currently starring in the Abbey’s production of Frank McGuinness’ acclaimed First World War play, Observe The Sons Of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme.
Controversy is already swirling around the forthcoming Abbey Theatre production, Barbaric Comedies. JOE JACKSON finds out what it s all about and talks to one Irish actress who decided against appearing in the play
Former Friends star David Schwimmer talks about his dark days of waiting tables and why his lawyer parents were perturbed by his determination to make it as an actor.
Joe Jackson talks to Dawn Bradfield, star of Poor Beast In The Rain, the latest instalment in playwright Billy Roche’s widely acclaimed Wexford trilogy.
Who said trad music was for fogeys and whiskery aul' fellas? Spook of the Thirteenth Lock draw on old-timey Irish sounds whilst also referencing prog and nu-gaze
He found fame in Queer As Folk and is currently to be seen in the acclaimed US crime drama The Wire. Now Aidan Gillen is burning up the Irish stage in an acclaimed new production of a David Mamet classic.
In between starting a family and touring the globe with Bell X1, David Geraghty has managed to find the time to squeeze out a second solo record, The Victory Dance. He talks about dealing with bat infestations, bestriding U2’s ‘Claw’ stage and tackling the fraught subject of 9/11 in song.
He made his name with the excellent anti-establishment drama How To Cheat In The Leaving Cert. Now director Graham Jones is back with another challenging offering in Fudge 44
KEN RUSSELL is one of the most
controversial film directors of our time. Now, he s published his first novel. OLAF TYARANSEN met him. Pics: CATHAL DAWSON.
Tower's Wicklow Street store manager Clive Branagan reflects on how the shop's independent stance enabled them to get progressively stronger, while others floundered.
With a major role in the new Ned Kelly biopic, dubliner Laurence Kinlan is being widely tipped as the next big thing. Just don’t mention ‘The Northsider Colin Farrell’, is all.
With her new movie The Heart Of Me having just hit theatre, acclaimed english actress Olivia Williams here discusses her breaththrough role in The Sixth Sense and what it takes to succeed in hollywood. words Tara Brady
It s hardly surprising that the neurotic Monica Geller is widely regarded as the least popular member of the Friends ensemble. Nevertheless, you ll be pleased to hear that Courteney Cox, the 33-year-old Alabama native who plays the Big Apple s tidiest twentysomething, revels in the role. What s more, with her success in Wes Craven s masterful suspense chiller Scream, she remains the only cast member from the smash-hit sitcom to have achieved major box office success. And now there s a sequel on the way . . . Interview: chris donovan.
It’s hardcore heaven this autumn as Dischord records release a 20-year retrospective CD, the story of Hope Promotions is chronicled in a new book and Fugazi return for an Irish tour
Recent violent attacks, such as the horrendous killing of two Polish men, may have involved young people. But that shouldn't lead us to tar an entire generation.
Hilary and Jackie director Anand Tucker’s latest film And When Did You Last See Your Father is an even more heartbreaking version of the story first told in Blake Morrison’s memoir of the same name.
With a hit Colin Farrell movie to his name, Martin McDonagh mulls over his early rejections at the hand of the Abbey, his "rivalry" with Conor McPherson and his run-in with Sean Connery.
Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are tough acts to follow, but Wes Anderson has outdone himself with his new movie, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, which boasts the combined talents of Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson and some surrealist fish.
IBEN HJELJE, the female lead in the new film of Nick Hornby s acclaimed High Fidelity, is the best thing to come out of Denmark since Hamlet.
Interview: CRAIG FITZSIMONS
Cast as fictional conjoined twins who start their own punk band Harry and Luke Treadaway have delivered one of the year’s funniest and most moving performances in the mocumentary Brothers Of The Head.
Once renowned as the doyen of new queer cinema, Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes has long since infiltrated the Hollywood mainstream. In a wide-ranging interview, he speaks about updating Douglas Sirk, seeing Pulp in Dublin and the parallels between American society today and in the 1950s.
He may have already seated his place in movie history with searing performances in the likes of Scarface and Dog Day Afternoon, but legendary screen icon Al Pacino remains keen to seek out fresh challenges. Hotpress caught up with Pacino to discuss his role in People I Know, the gritty New York thriller which sees the actor go back to his lo-fi indie roots.
With his first film The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy has fashioned a magnetic fable of Fin, the new-dwarf-in-town, which has invited comparison with Ford and Cassavetes.
DISCO PIGS stars, CILLIAN MURPHY and ELAINE CASSIDY, tell CRAIG FITZSIMONS about how they were drawn to the intense relationship and Cork patois of Pig and Runt
She made her name as one of Ireland’s leading stand-ups. Now Deirdre O'Kane is channelling her comic skills into a bittersweet study of a dissolving relationship.
Tara Brady talks to director Pete Docter about the latest Pixar mega-hit Up, which tells the story of an elderly widower who sets sail on an Amazonian adventure.
Once a rock’n’roll performer in his youth, CONOR McPHERSON has now graduated into one of Ireland’s brightest theatrical and literary talents. Still only in his mid-20s, he’s already written the screenplay of the acclaimed Irish thriller I Went Down, as well as several acclaimed plays, This Limetree Bower and his latest effort The Weir. Here, he talks to JOE JACKSON about the mixed reception he’s received from Irish theatre critics, and the influence of rock music on his work.
Nerd godhead Kevin Smith has gone back to the motherlode with his new movie, Clerks II. Middle age has done little to dent his infatuation with potty humour, he tells Tara Brady.
Neil Jordan's controversial new film Interview With The Vampire has angered both the gay community, who objected to the dilution of the movie's homoerotic content, and the author of the novel from which it is adapted, Anne Rice, who disagreed with the choice of Hollywood golden boy Tom Cruise in the starring role.
However, with Anne Rice conspicuously recanting and the critics in the U.S. responding rapturously, signs are that this is one Vampire which won't lay down and die. Report: Helena Mulkerns
It’s been ten years since his last novel, but Neil Jordan has now reprised his role as one of Ireland’s finest contemporary prose writers with the dark gothic drama, Shade. In a wide-ranging interview with Olaf Tyaransen the Oscar-winning writer/director discusses the challenges of literary craftsmanship, swimming with sharks in Hollywood, working with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, his disinterest in celebrity and why Ireland continues to be his preferred place of residence.
She is already established as Ireland’s most seductive screen icon. but in Sixteen Years Of Alcohol, Susan Lynch turns in a marvellously enigmatic performance.
Frank Oz may be the man behind those cuddly muppets, but he’s no pushover in person. Now, his chequered career as a director culminates in the darkly comic Death At A Funeral.
. . . who is the sexiest of them all? Helen MIRREN, apparently, at least according to readers of the Radio Times, who recently voted her the sexiest woman on TV. Which may be flattering but possibly also does a disservice to a gifted actress who has no qualms about speaking her mind whether on nudity, money, the stage, television or even the cowardly assholes who bomb for Ireland. Interview: Joe Jackson
Seth Rogen is one of the team of stoners behind a string of comedies that have generated a billion dollars at the box office. Pineapple Express is the latest.
From obscure Australian character actor to fan-boy pin-up, it has been a long, strange trip for Hugo Weaving. His latest turn, as a masked anti-hero, could be his definitive role.
Craig Fitzsimons talks to David Gleeson, director of Cowboys & Angels, another exciting addition to the growning canon of unapologetically youthful and exuberent contemporary Irish movies
Forget Rod, Emu and gottles of geer david strassman s ventriloquism is the missing link between rock n roll and Bill Hicks. barry glendenning meets the
puppet master. Pix: cathal dawson.
He may have just re-launched his stuttering acting career with a charming Ken Loach rom-com but that’s not to say Eric Cantona has lost any of his zen instructability.
Sinister psychological experimnets and political subterfuge are at the centre of Jonathan Demme’s intriguing new remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Luckily for us however, the film’s star Liev Schreiber happens to be an amiable, erudite ex-New Yorker with a degree in semiotics. Oh, and some nice cheekbones.
As evenings lengthen and winds shift, as light becomes harder and higher and as summer edgily advances, Ireland blinks and shakes its head. A strange year entirely so far. And no story has preoccupied attention like the Catherine Nevin murder trial.
One minute you're directing the UK National Lottery, the next you're fending off rabid dogs in the Himalayas. Asif Kapadia talks about his remarkable cinematic journey
Seven years after his last solo LP, David Holmes lost his father. That trauma, and working on the Bobby Sands-era drama Hunger, seem to have brought a new humanity to his work.
The young Carlow-based actress Saoirse Ronan is on the brink of Hollywood stardom, thanks to her Golden Globe-nominated performance in Atonement and her upcoming starring role in the next Peter Jackson movie, The Lovely Bones. In her first ever in-depth interview, she spoke exclusively to Hot Press about her sudden rise to fame.
From schlock kingpin to master of understated horror, auteur David Cronenberg has travelled a long way. His latest movie probes the underbelly of Russian criminals in London.
These days he may be more famous for his movies than his prose, but in conversation Neil Jordan remains linguistically precise as he dissects the Hollywood machine, reveals his love for Lord Of The Rings and discusses his latest movie The Good Thief, starring Nick Nolte.
Having scored critical and commercial success – not to mention putting Irish cinema on the map with the likes of My Left Foot and In The Name Of The Father – Jim Sheridan has now mined his own past for in America, a haunting remembrance of the film-maker’s time as a struggling immigrant on the streets of New York.
Sex And The City star Kim Cattrall is back on our screens in John Boorman’s The Tiger’s Tail, a dark satirical comedy planets away from her role as the kit-shedding Samantha.
RTE is often, and rightly, castigated by the print media for sub-standard productions, but its new comedy-drama series Bachelors Walk is already being heralded as one of the station’s best ever projects before it's even half-way through its eight-part run.
STEPHEN ROBINSON goes on location to discover the secret of the show’s success
She has the bearing of a 19th-Century aristocrat but, face to face, Keira Knightley is nobody’s princess. Here she talks about starring in Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End and explains why, for her at least, it really is time to jump overboard from the franchise.
Adam & Paul is not your everyday heroin-is-evil social tract masquerading as entertainment. as screenwriter and co-star Mark O’Halloran attests, it’s halfway between Laurel & Hardy and Mike Leigh. Photography Liam Sweeney
having debuted with sex, lies and videotape, director Stephen Soderburgh was widely tipped as hollywood's next big thing. instead he spend almost a decade in the wilderness before returning to the mainstream with hits like erin brockovich and ocean's 11, and a fruitful new working relationship with george clooney. now, in advance of his latest movie, solaris, Tara Brady asks: where did it all go right?
Barry Glendenning had a good idea: as a journalistic exercise – and a guarantee of public humiliation – someone should try their hand at stand-up comedy. Indeed, it was such a very good idea, that he was promptly Hot Press-ganged into doing it himself. This, then, is the true-life story of one man who stood up to be counted.
Back in the saddle with their eagerly anticipated second album Demon Days, subversive animated quartet Gorillaz here talk to Paul Nolan about striking out against celebrity culture, what went wrong with the Gorillaz movie, collaborating with Shaun Ryder, Roots Manuva and Dennis Hopper, and why they didn’t vote Labour. Oh, and Mexican brothels.
The star of what s set to be the summer s hottest movie, High Fidelity, on love, obsession, movies, rock n roll, his pal Bruce Springsteen and the records he turns to when he s had his heart broken. With support from co-star Lisa Bonet and director Stephen Frears. Text: CRAIG FITZSIMONS
Welsh actor Rhys Ifans is best known for his role as the easy-going slacker Spike in Notting Hill, but in reality he's a driven actor who's more concerned about imminent war than the state of the British film industry. But he still enjoys a pint, and yes, he did sing with the Super Furry Animals
Well, so would you be if you had to wear all that hideous make-up. Barry Glendenning meets FRANK KELLY, the long-established actor and comedian who now finds himself in the curious position of being best-known for shouting 'Feck!', 'Drink!', 'Girls!' and 'Arse!' fr. Jack hackett, this is your other life . . .
Black & White Pix: CATHAL DAWSON
With State Of Play and Shameless, Paul Abbott has taken more risks than any other writer of TV drama – with spectacularly successful results. Now, Channel 4 have asked the BAFTA award winner to write a pantomime, that’s destined to be one of the highlights of the festive season.
Raised on the road by evangelical hippies, Joaquin Phoenix has overcome the tragic death of his brother, River, to become one of Hollywood’s most brooding leading men.
She has spent her life being defined by the men around her - as daughter of Arthur Miller and wife of Daniel Day Lewis. With the release of her big screen adaptation of her novel, The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller proves that she is very much her own woman.
Unheard of a year ago, Carlow teen Saoirse Ronan is the actress of the hour in Hollywood. Here, she and her actor father Paul Ronan talk about her remarkable rise.
Seven years ago, CATHERINE ZETA-JONES was so down on her luck that she was having to open supermarkets to pay the rent. Then came a move to Hollywood and the patronage of, first, Steven Spielberg and, then, Michael Douglas who was so taken with the Welsh actress' charms that he married her. In London last week for her new film, Traffic, she talked to CRAIG FITZSIMONS about life among the Hollywood A-list
Actress, writer, director, singer and not quite so archetypal French heroine Julie Delpy renders terms like ‘renaissance woman’ positively anaemic. Currently back on the map with Before Sunset, one of the cinematic highlights of the year, she talks art, sex romance and Gallic caricatures.
Fourteen years on and people still come up to BRUCE ROBINSON and quote chunks of Withnail & I to his face. But if you don t know more about this talented, opinionated, chain-smoking, wine-guzzling writer/director, then that may be because, to put it at its mildest, he and Hollywood have never seen eye to eye. PETER MURPHY meets the angry older man
On the eve of the release of Martin McDonagh's In Bruges, A-list actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson give Hot Press the idiot's guide to making it in the movie business.
In the second and final part of an extensive interview, director Jim Sheridan discusses his troubles with Gabriel Byrne and Noel Pearson, explains why he could marry Daniel Day-Lewis but would fail to measure up against Richard Harris, and suggests the best way forward for the embattled Irish film industry. Plus: the ouija board prophecies which seem to have shaped his life. By Joe Jackson.
Hollywood's highest paid actress and the female star of Ocean's Eleven tells all about Bob Dylan, Anthony Hopkins, George Clooney, good hair, big bucks, greatest misconceptions and unfulfilled ambitions. Interview: Bruno Lester (additional quotes: Earl diTtman)
Having just bagged the coveted Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, John Boorman's eagerly awaited biopic of Dublin's most notorious fun lovin' criminal, Martin Cahill, has been hailed as a silver screen masterpiece. Craig Fitzsimons hears about the physical, moral and financial perils of making The General.
Painter, sculptor, composer and, of course, the all-action hero who got everyone kung-fu fighting. Tailor made for a part in Kill Bill, renaissance man David Carradine discusses his eventful life and times.
The MTV Europe Music Awards 2002 may have been a bit of a damp squib, but an electrifying Foo Fighters, a boards-sweeping Eminem and a nekkid Christina Aguilera prevented it from being a total washout.
In Francie Brady aka Frank Pig, author PAT McCABE has created one of the most unique characters in Irish fiction, an underground cult hero who's already been likened to Holden Caulfield and Huckleberry Finn. The novel from which he comes, The Butcher Boy, is a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic and work on the movie adaptation is already well advanced. Here, the man who's made a silk purse out of a sow's ear (sort of) talks comics, showbands, the human condition and, of course, pigs, in the company of LIAM FAY. Pix: COLM HENRY
What on earth is milky-white, squeaky-clean, God-fearin PAT BOONE doing,
wearing leather
and studs and singing heavy metal anthems? JOE JACKSON delves behind the year s most bizarre comeback to extract a rare and fascinating interview with a man who once alienated rockers and now finds himself ostracised by Christians.
16 years a teacher of Irish, Oliver P. Sweeney is ideally placed to reflect on the past, present and future status of our native tongue and the culture with which it is inextricably linked.
Harmonica virtuoso DON BAKER has been busy recently adding another string to his bow, in the form of an acting career which has so far seen him work with Jim Sheridan and Richard Attenborough. And in between takes he s even managed to put the
finishing touches to his latest album, Just Don Baker. Interview: PETER MURPHY. Pics: cathal dawson
Actor Peter Mullan first achieved mainstream success with his brilliant leading role in 1998’s My Name Is Joe, for which he received a best actor award at Cannes. His latest project concerns the abuse of young women by the Catholic Church in the Magdalen Sisters, which he wrote and directed
From the profound and the insightful to the weird, funny and just plain daft, Paul Nolan rounds up what the famous and infamous had to say for themselves in 2004...
At the ripe old age of 50, when most of his peers are floundering in the doldrums, Nick Cave has hit a purple patch with Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album to date.
He plays guitar for Springsteen, plays The Clash on his radio show and plays it fast and loose as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. Colm O’Hare meets the three-in-one Steven Van Zandt
With the departure of Shane McGowan a couple of years ago, it was fashionable to write off The Pogues as mere also rans. But the band have proven to be one of the success stories of 1993, with the release of their superb Waiting For Herb album putting them right back on course. Now they can afford to tell their detractors: kiss my ass (under the mistletoe of course). Interview: Siobhán Long.
When your personal background includes dusting down knives for sex and walking up the aisle wearing a white shirt with your husband’s name written in blood on it, then playing all-action heroine Lara Croft on the big screen probably seems like the very essence of normality. Angelina Jolie describes the joy of death-defying work, explains why England is more attractive to live in than the US, underscores the importance of her UN role and, finally, talks about life and love post-Billy Bob. interview Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
A new album, an exclusive gig and opinions on Velvet Goldmine, the Internet and life, love and happiness. STUART CLARK meets the legendary DAVID BOWIE.
It’s Star Trek Jim, but not as we know It. Over tea and biscuits, Mr Spock and Captain Kirk – aka actors ZACHARY QUINTO and CHRIS PINE – talk about filling the most famous boots in science fiction – and explain why JJ Abrams’ sexy new Trek movie is anything but a nerd-fest. words Tara Brady
Colm O’Hare reports on the latest developments in the Irish film world which – thanks to initiatives spearheaded by Michael D. Higgins, Minister of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht – is experiencing an unprecedented boom period.
Critical brickbats aside, the success of TRAVIS seems to know no bounds. Here FRAN HEALY and co talk to STUART CLARK about drugs, Oasis, Paul McCartney, Ali G, and drunkenly dancing on computers! The man who took the photos: STEVEN FISHER
The outrageous diaries of the late Carry On star KENNETH WILLIAMS, are now in the bookshops - often unsavoury, irascible, candid and scurrilous, but seldom boring. Williams dishes the dirt on Tony Hancock, Joe Orton, Stanley Baxter, Barbara Windsor, and on his own tortured homosexuality. ANDREW DARLINGTON reports.
Martin Sheen has starred in at least two of the greatest films ever made, survived a massive heart attack, found God, and campaigned tirelessly for social justice in the Third World. Now, he’s gone back to school, studying Philosophy and English at (of all places) the NUI in Galway. Jason O’Toole meets him for his only Irish print interview.
Actor, writer, musician, director, and husband of Angelina Jolie, BILLY BOB THORNTON is currently a very busy man, with one album on release and no less than three movies queueing up at the box-office. All this and he’s constantly on his guard against germs
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
He may not always be the critics darling, but BERNARD FARRELL remains one of Ireland s most popular and successful playwrights. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his regard for theatre and everyday heroes, and his contempt for snobs, suits and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pics: Cathal Dawson
In a rare interview, Simpsons writer Mike Scully talks about the show’s A-list musical guests, his love for Ned Flanders and upsetting the entire population of Brazil. He also tells us what to expect from The Simpsons Movie, which blockbusters its way onto the big screen in the summer.
AND THAT WAS JUST IN THE HOLLYWOOD BOARDROOMS! NEIL McCORMICK LOOKS BACK AT THE MOVIEMAKING YEAR IN WHICH ARNIE TOOK A TUMBLE, DINOSAURS CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD AND MICHAEL JACKSON’S PETER PAN DISAPPEARED OFF TO NEVER NEVER LAND.
You may well have thought Samantha Mumba had tumbled off the face of the earth. Not so. She’s been enjoying a year's break and plotting the next phase of her career. Ahead of the release of her new movie, the zombie comedy Boy Eats Girl, Mumba is in ebullient mood, as she talks about life in the goldfish bowl – and why she and Louis Walsh are still the best of friends. [Photos: Peter Evers]
Leaving behind his desk job, Paul Oakenfold has enlisted a galaxy of stars to perform vocal duties on hs new album Bunkka including Tricky, Nelly Furtado and, uh,
Hunter S. Thompson
He's the Hollywood enfant terrible who refuses to mellow with age. In a rare interview, John Waters talks about the aesthetics of trash, and looks back on his career.
Don't write the singular Maria McKee; write the plural Maria McKee instead. Bill Graham encounters a mercurial talent in a variety of moods, musics and memories.
It’s been a hell of a year for The Thrills, propelled from rehearsal rooms in rainy Dublin to a number one album, sell-out shows and limo-driven tours of L.A. at night. Hotpress catches up with the band as they kick off an irish homecoming trek with an exclusive Dublin fan club gig.
Backstage at Creamfields, JOHN WALSHE talks to FATBOY SLIM about the joys of fatherhood, being one half of the posh and becks of the chemical generation; sharing a hot-tub with Baz Luhrman and how he got Christopher Walken to tap-dance
What do you get when you lock indie gods Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Dublin's up-and-coming Blink in a room with unlimited booze and a tape machine? Well, you're about to find out as Blink ask their tourmates Carter how many pairs of underpants to bring along, whether or not you can leave stage to prevent wetting them and who washes them if you can't. Pix: Leo Regan
What do you get when you lock indie gods Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Dublin's up-and-coming Blink in a room with unlimited booze and a tape machine? Well, you're about to find out as Blink ask their tourmates Carter how many pairs of underpants to bring along, whether or not you can leave stage to prevent wetting them and who washes them if you can't. Pix: Leo Regan
A former drug dealer, he’s been shot at nine times and lived to tell the tale, emerging as one of the most controversial and uncompromising figures in rap. But there's more to 50 Cent than the popular legend suggests. For a start, there’s a new commercial edge to the music, as his US and Irish number one album The Massacre demonstrates. Plus, as one of the new faces of Reebok’s ‘I Am What I Am’ campaign, he’s taken to the role of cultural icon with considerable zest. Oh, and besides, he’s a bit of a wow with the ladies.
As the son of horror writer Stephen King, Joe Hill has a great deal to live up to. Far from being over-shadowed by his father, however, Hill has crafted a chilling and original debut novel.
Fashion designer, punk Svengali, musical maverick, filmmaker and occasional pervertor of justice. MALCOLM McLAREN has been all of these things – and more – in a rollercoaster career that's seen him become a hero to some and an unscrupulous villain to others. STUART CLARK tools up at Ron & Reggie's Gangland Surplus Store for a showdown with the man who manufactured cash from chaos! Scene-of-the-crime photographer: COLM HENRY.
On Sunday 16 October a unique event takes place in The Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, as the climax of the 1994 Dublin Theatre Festival. Organised by Amnesty International, Voices Of The Disappeared is intended to highlight their campaign on “ Disappearances” and Political Killings. Stuart Carolan reports.
The first rule of interviewing LOU REED is that you don t: he interviews you. Peter Murphy survives the turning of the tables and is rewarded with thoughts on Joyce, Wilde, Dylan, Ginsberg and on becoming an elder stateman for the alternative thing .
Known from the TV sitcom as the Man who Behaves Badly, actor Neil Morrissey is confounding the laddish caricature with his work for an anti-landmine charity. In this candid interview with Paul Nolan, he also reflects on childhood trauma, death in the family, that affair with Amanda Holden and his encounters with Olivier, Burton and Mel Gibson. main photography Cathal Dawson
Known from the TV sitcom as the man who behaves badly, actor Neil Morrissey is confounding the laddish caricature with his work for an anti-landmine charity. In this candid interview with Paul Nolan, he also reflects on childhood trauma, death in the family, that affair with Amanda Holden and his encounters with Olivier, Burton and Mel Gibson.
Neil McCormick embarks on a verbal showdown with Hollywood's most famous drug store cowboys and discovers that 1994 was the year in which the hot shots traded in their smoking guns for a pill called Prozac.
Whether starring in popcorn blockbusters or thoughtful art-house movies, Gabriel Byrne is a reassuring presence on our screens. But he reserves his deepest passions for keeping alive the flame of Irish culture among the diaspora.
In the second and final part of the ultimate interview, elvis talks about colonel Tom Parker, marriage to priscilla, his '68 comeback, his quest for enlightenment and the truth about his drug intake. but as he dreams of an exciting future, at 42 he doesn’t realise that the end is close at hand
*The quotes in this recreated interview are drawn from a wealth of reliable sources and involved extensive research into many rare articles and books
With their biggest dates ever in Ireland looming, LIAM MACKEY dips into voluminous hotpress archives and selects a small sample of what the paper said about U2 over the years
The Irish star opens up on sex, drugs, racism, crime, acting, actors and actresses, as well as slamming the Irish film industry and RTE.
Text: JOE JACKSON. Portraits: CATHAL DAWSON
During the late eighties, Aslan were among the most celebrated of Irish rock acts, immensely popular at home and signed to EMI, a major multinational label, on which they released their debut album, Feel No Shame. And then it all came unstuck, amid squalid tabloid accusations of drug addiction, egotism and recrimination. Now they re back, older, wiser and more resolute but with their musical batteries recharged, a new contract with BMG under their belts and that old emotional band intact. Report: Liam Fay (with additional reporting by George Byrne).
Exclusive: Kevin Shields, the missing presumed lost genius of Irish rock, re-emerges to tell the truth about sandbags and barbed wire, the making of Loveless, early Dublin days with Gavin Friday, Liam O Maonlai and U2, and his Bafta-winning work on Lost in Translation.
During the late eighties, ASLAN were among the most celebrated of Irish rock acts, immensely popular at home and signed to EMI, a major multinational label, on which they released their debut album Feel No Shame. And then it all came unstuck, amid squalid tabloid accusations of drug addiction, egotism and recrimination. Now they’re back, older, wiser and more resolute – but with their musical batteries recharged, a new contract with BMG under their belts and that old emotional band intact. Report: LIAM FAY (with additional reporting by GEORGE BYRNE). Pix: MICK QUINN
With his upcoming concert in Poulaphouca marking his solo Irish debut, it's been all too easy in the recent past to overlook Bob Geldof's standing as a musical and lyrical artist. The lines connecting the youthful Dun Laoghaire blues and Dylan aficionado with the creator of The Vegetarians Of Love are rarely traced in media-bytes that prefer to concentrate on Modest Bob, Live Aid Bob and Saint Bob. Here, Bill Graham, who knew the schoolboy, takes musician Bob on a freewheeling trip from then to now.
With his upcoming concert in Poulaphouca marking his solo Irish debut, it's been all too easy in the recent past to overlook Bob Geldof's standing as a musical and lyrical artist. The lines connecting the youthful Dun Laoghaire blues and Dylan aficionado with the creator of The Vegetarians Of Love are rarely traced in media-bytes that prefer to concentrate on Modest Bob, Live Aid Bob and Saint Bob. Here, Bill Graham, who knew the schoolboy, takes musician Bob on a freewheeling trip from then to now.
With his upcoming concert in Poulaphouca marking his solo Irish debut, it s been all too easy in the recent past to overlook Bob Geldof s standing as a musical and lyrical artist. The lines connecting the youthful Dun Laoghaire blues and Dylan aficionado with the creator of The Vegetarians Of Love are rarely traced in media-bytes that prefer to concentrate on Modest Bob, Live Aid Bob and Saint Bob. Here, Bill Graham, who knew the schoolboy, takes musician Bob on a freewheeling trip from then to now.
The future is here. Well, somehow it always is. And, as usual, it is both familiar and strange. Nothing seems to change, but one day you turn around, it is 1995, and you are cybersurfing on the internet, summer seems to last all winter, ambient-acid-techno is bubbling away on the radio, your fax machine shows up on the Antiques Roadshow and papa’s got a brand new drug.
Sex and sanctity, grit and glitter, penthouse and pavement, God and the Devil, and all conical points in between!
PETER MURPHY dials M for ADONNA, the pre-eminent pop icon of this and every other year
Masturbating for charity – it was a new one on us. So whose idea was it? What was the purpose? Who would turn up? And what would happen in real life, when the doors to the Wank-a-thon were finally declared open? There was only one way to get the real SP on what promised to be one of the most bizarre events ever mounted in London. Send for our man Tyaransen: he wouldn’t make his excuses and leave! Or would he?
The Hardwax man follows his recent MDR debut with two tracks from a similar palette – dry, lean drums, crunchy elements and glorious walls of FX noise.
Snazzily shot, deeply calculated, and enormously entertaining in its own overblown way, Pushing Tin is a sprawling mess of a movie which gets carried away yet still manages to entertain effortlessly.
SAMANTHA MUMBA AND her 11-year-old brother, Omero, are none too pleased this week after being told that they're going to have to re-shoot all of their scenes in The Time Machine.
THE ORIGINAL was, of course, an absolute joy and a thing of wonder, but its impact might have been even greater if they hadn't insisted on following it up with two sequels
The battle for the Christmas No.1 seems to be heading in a rather traditional direction, with The Priests climbing back to the top spot in the Irish charts.
With Jim Carrey having decided to go all serious, and Adam Sandler presumably next to follow, it has fallen to Saturday Night Live refugee Rob Schneider - writer and star of the infernal Deuce Bigalow - to assume the position of America's cinematic King of Smut.
A relentless, blood-soaked grand-guignol bombardment of cheapo SFX-on-genocidal-rampage destruction, Final Destination boasts one of the worst scripts of all time, but it's an inordinate amount of fun, shining from start to finish with an idiotic magnificence reminiscent of Ed Wood (almost).
Hey hey hey, here comes joy and merriment! Time for dancing in the streets! Hugh Grant stars in a rewrite of Four Weddings And A Funeral!!! Julia Roberts too! Yippeeee!!!.
DISNEY's '90s output has been somewhat hit-and-miss, with only 1997's astonishingly dark Hercules coming close to must-see status, but this one is a cracker, and compulsory viewing for those privileged enough to be in touch with their offspring.
The most unremittingly bleak and depressing indie offering to emerge from the States all year (with the possible exception of Paul Schrader's Affliction), this deeply fucked-up slice of white-trash junkie psychosis is a hard-hitting, supremely affecting journey into the black heart of the American nightmare, with some of its images powerful enough to merit comparison with Badlands, Taxi Driver and other similarly-flavoured excursions to hell.
Dreamworks’ eagerly-anticipated subversion of both fairy-tales and Disney animation has both dazzling use of CGI technology and a savvy script to recommend it
Young Zac’s dad thinks his son is gay. So does everyone else, including Zac. But will they all come to terms with it? Jean-Marc Vallée’s cute Québécois coming-of-age tale has already taken the audience award at Toronto and was the official Canadian entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.
With RTE’s new eight part mockumentary television series The Unbelievable Truth rustling feathers of the fans of our most high-profile celebrities in music and sport, Jackie Hayden spoke to its presenter Colin Murphy about celebrity, envy and er, beetroot.
IF THE truth be told I'm not normally much of a lad for war movies. I'm generalising here, but they're too long, their scripts tend to stink, there aren't many women to be seen, and I never did dig the sight of human blood in huge quantities.
The hiatus between albums is often an excuse for record companies to recycle and repackage the most outrageous muck imaginable in the interests of exploiting an artist's marketability - particularly when the act in question has produced a twenty-four carat classic of modern times, and there's no indication of a follow-up in the foreseeable future.
Amanda Byram was today unveiled as the host of this year’s Meteors Awards and nominees for 2009 were revealed - as well as the fact that Sharon Shannon would receive a lifetime achievement award.
Nick Cave has confirmed that he and Warren Ellis will write the soundtrack to John Hillcoats forthcoming film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
According to BARRY GLENDENNING, the overlords who persuaded Ben Elton and Richard Curtis to revive Blackadder for the Millennium Dome wouldn't know a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, danced naked on top of a harpsichord and sang 'Cunning Plans Are Here Again'.
So far, think classic '80s Depeche Mode, The Young Gods, Nine Inch Nails, Faithless and Death in Vegas - good goth/dance/pomp rock/freaked out fusion stuff - all shouty and melodramatic but still sweet and smooth
Catherine Hardwicke’s award winning film is an ‘issue’ film so if you find the work of Ken Loach too preachy by half, then this probably won’t float your boat.
Easy on the eye, and not exactly challenging in the grey matter stakes, Pitch Black is a highly watchable if far from unforgettable slice of low-budget sci-fi/monster-movie daftness.
The first batch of acts for Scotland's T In The Park Festival have been announced, giving a strong indication of who'll be coming to Punchestown this year.
A grim and miserable tale of relentless brutality, rape and buggery in an Irish industrial school, Song For A Raggy Boy was never likely to be a bucket of belly-laughs.
It was a great night for the Irish music community as David Holmes bagged an IFTA for his Hunger score, while Maria Doyle Kennedy scooped the Best Supporting Actress award.
IF YOU can physically bring yourself (kicking and screaming, no doubt) into the cinema - something of an uphill task, given the presence of Julie Walters - here you will be handsomely rewarded with a compact and highly entertaining little drama, which actually manages to address the Northern situation while remaining funny throughout - no mean feat that.
Canadian director John Fawcett last dropped by with Ginger Snaps, a pleasing rush of lycanthropy, menstruation and goth angst in suburbia. Excluding the Nicole Kidman bits from Moulin Rouge, it was the best horror show of 2000. His delayed sophomore venture lacks the chic indie innovation of that earlier film, but it’s an intriguing knot of Celtic mythology, girl-ghosts and killer sheep just the same.
For those who missed out first time round, Paths Of Freedom was a reasonably successful RTE series (from the team who also brought you Fergus’ Wedding).
Mr And Mrs Smith is all about the pitch; two deadly assassins are married without knowing it! Then an assignment brings them into direct competition! It’s a full-scale battle of the sexes with Vince Vaughn quipping from the sidelines! Then they find a common enemy! Coasting along on this dizzyingly high concept jiggery, Doug Liman’s blissfully empty-headed popcorn flick offers the seductive spectacle of two of the planet’s most prepossessing movie stars attempting to kill and fuck each other, often at the same time.
Approximately one hundred times more intriguing and emotionally engaging than I'd dared to hope, this beautifully majestic period piece will set your heart singing no matter how hard you try to resist.
Possibly Hugh Grant's greatest atrocity yet in a career liberally littered with them, this obnoxiously crass and racist pseudo-comedy is about as amusing and enjoyable as being hit repeatedly over the head with a sledgehammer while an endless remix of Queen's 'We Will Rock You' plays incessantly in the background.
Undoubtedly the most accomplished film-maker in Quebec – not that there’s vast competition for that accolade – Denys Arcand’s output is always worth a look, though you need to go back to 1990’s gob-smackingly pretentious but hugely entertaining Jesus Of Montreal to find the last time one of Arcand’s films commanded significant international attention.
On pain of castration, I must point out that I'd happily watch Neve Campbell washing dishes, dusting shelves and hoovering floors for two hours, but it's disheartening to see how dire her taste in scripts has been since the original Scream, and this lame-brained romantic comedy hardly represents a huge improvement.
En route, there’s some hair-raising swordplay, quite a few stirring skirmishes, passages of mildly tiresome buddy-movie convention, and your time-honoured posh girl-falls-for-devilish rogue scenario.
The Time Machine has enough thrills to hold its own as matinee fodder for 12-year-olds. However, this movie will likely prove miles too preposterous for most
UNBELIEVABLY TOUTED in many quarters as a serious contender for Oscars glory, Ride With The Devil – an elegiac Dixie/Western set during the American Civil War – marks a sharp change of territory for its highly-respected director Ang Lee, a man more commonly associated with fine-lined character dramas such as the impeccable Ice Storm.
By holding the general election on a Thursday, the Government parties have – one assumes knowingly – made it more difficult for young people in general, and students in particular, to vote.
Though oscar-nominated screenwriter Menno Meyjes has received criticism from some quarters for his portrayal of the young Adolf Hitler in his directorial debut Max, the Dutch-born film-maker insists that the humanity of history’s most notorious tyrant is all too clear. “And that’s what we should be afraid of,” he tells Tara Brady
This ought to be a series of thrilling monkeyshines to be accompanied by popcorn and Revels. But 21 can’t make ‘action’ at the tables look any more exciting than completing a tax return.
Centuries before Holland became synonymous with the export of tulips, relaxed cafe culture, sleazy porn and ‘brilliant orange’ football, the Dutch were famed primarily for their Old Masters.
Though the pitch for Gianni Amelio’s award winning film – distant father bonds with long-lost disabled son – may recall the well-meant condescension of Rain Man and Inside I’m Dancing, The Keys To The House somehow strikes an implausible balance between tear-jerking drama and clear-eyed depictions of impairment.
It takes over an hour for the movie to really get going in [the special effects] department, but it’s certainly worth the wait, with a bombardment of genuinely awe-inspiring SEs that more than fulfil the hype.
AN EARLY frontrunner for the best Britflick of '99, this poignant and hilarious little Northern low-budgeter is one of the most savagely funny and warmly human yarns to emerge from across the water in many moons.
TRUE ROMANCE (Directed by Tony Scott. Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken)
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe is, primarily, an attempt to wrought a Harry Potter/ Lord Of The Rings style blockbuster franchise from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia adventure and Andrew Adamson isn’t taking any chances with the first of seven planned releases.
THE BEST pure thriller I've seen in several years, Arlington Road practically gave me a heart attack, and I'm convinced it will hospitalise a few people before its run is up.
The impact of cloning on society comes under the microscope in A Number. Playing three “versions” of the same character raised unusual challenges for the play’s star, Stuart Graham.
Filmed in permanently wintry Minnesota, drenched in spilled blood and bleak snow, A Simple Plan invites comparisons to the Coens' Fargo. It is, however, much warmer in tone and more immediately affecting, a result of palpably human performances from the four individuals at the centre of the tale.
Unquestionably, Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within is a seminal film with respect to CGI technology. And while most people will undoubtedly find it worthwhile only as an intermittently entertaining high-tech Manga movie, there’s no doubt at all that it would be supreme if only we were all still twelve.
In order to facilitate the emphasis on spectacle, narrative and characterisation are almost completely sacrificed – and while there is some genuine sense of a stand-off for the movie’s final hour, it’ s rendered as an undifferentiated mish-mash of special effects and loud bangs.
A cinematic re-enactment of probably the most pivotal event in 20th-century world history - the Battle of Stalingrad - Enemy at the Gates has its occasional moments of considerable war-flick power, and might have even been worthy of respect had the casting not been so self-evidently insane.
Yes folks, it's here at last: the most eagerly-awaited film in all human history, starring the almighty Rupert Everett alongside his erstwhile pal Madonna in what aspires to be a serious issue-based drama about parenting, surrogacy, homosexuality and the nature of friendship
THE TAILOR OF PANAMA
Directed by John Boorman. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee Curtis, Harold Pinter
A curiously flat black comedy-cum-thriller, The Tailor Of Panama squanders the myriad of talents involved, forming a limp and largely incoherent mess of a movie.
Undeniably powerful, ruthlessly emotive, deeply manipulative but competent in the extreme, it's the (somewhat sanitised) life-story of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, his marriage and his recurring battles with paranoid schizophrenia
While lacking both the texture and scope of the Channel Four series which inspired it, Stephen Soderbergh's Traffic is an accomplished and intelligent, if flawed examination of the insidious nature of the contemporary drug-trade and America's escalating war on the same.
'Tis the season, so it's Christmas gigs a-go-go with Woodstar, Josh'n'James, the Juice Machine and a Very Corpo Christmas Caper to say the least. Ho ho ho
Don’t let the stifling heat get you down. Here’s some good news: Paths To Freedom star Karl McDermott is about to return to our radio waves with a new project.
Deafeningly loud, in-your-face, overheated, overlong, bereft of braincells and not half as much fun as the trailer might lead you to expect, Gone In Sixty Seconds is the latest plague to be visited upon the planet by Jerry Bruckheimer
If Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ is to be true to the bible then it has no alternative to be anti-semitic. Plus: why Sir Bob and Bono are on the wrong side.
European champions Spain's adventurous, attacking play shows it is possible to win major tournaments without going negative. But there's no reason why, with the right management, Ireland shouldn't be able to hold their own against the Continent's top sides.
SAVAGE, disturbing and fiercely moral, the searingly powerful American History X - something of an American cousin to Romper Stomper - follows hot on the heels of Arlington Road and anticipates the similarly-themed Apt Pupil.
They mightn’t stand a Roy Keane in Saipan’s chance of making it through to the group stage, but Jonathan O’Brien was impressed with Bohemians’ win in the European Champions League qualifiers
It's been a hell of a ride at Hot Press central over the past few weeks, what with a controversial drugs issue to defend, and a whole new look to usher in.
The ordinary people of Ireland have made the running of the Special Olympics here possible. The government must now do its bit for people with disabilities.
Richard Linklater’s swooning 1993 romance for the Douglas Coupland generation is one of those movies you just succumb to, or you don’t, and I’m militantly entrenched in the former camp...
Of all the films in all the theatres in all the world, Casablanca is the single biggest fluke of the lot; a shining testimonial to William Goldman’s supposition that, in movies, nobody knows anything
ON THE official Newcastle United FC website, a stylish and well-constructed piece of work, there is a Magpies team group photo in which all the players are standing instead of sitting on benches.
THOSE OF us who watched the highlights of Shelbourne's victory over a Ukrainian outfit in the European Cup-Winners' Cup, were wondering if perhaps we had stumbled onto the wrong channel.
The stars, dealers, limos and choppers are already gathering for the high point of the social calendar the annual Christmas/New Year party of parties at Snort Towers
Men, it turns out are right. You can have great sex without falling in love. Because, it seems, that’s the way we are programmed. So is the romantic ideal of love all its cracked up to be?
The Electric Picnic couldn’t have been any more inspiring (weather excepted). Now, roll on the Music Show....
Electric Picnic. It marks the end of the summer, and the beginning of the academic year when people start to trudge back to schools and college. It is a moment when you start to anticipate the darkness falling down around us, the days getting shorter and then shorter again, till the watershed weekend arrives when the clocks go back, and the winter comes stealing in.
There is a huge wealth of music talent in Ireland today. In this economic meltdown, the government should help the industry live up to its potential through the introduction of initiatives that would make Ireland a better environment for musicians.
30th Anniversary Retrospective: It was the funniest Irish comedy ever. A decade after Father Ted, two of the men behind the show - Declan Lowney and Arthur Mathews - reminisce about its impact.
Ireland has long been acknowledged as one of the richest and most exciting sources of musical talent in the world. Against that background, Hot Press has consistently argued that the Music Industry here is potentially a major source of wealth and jobs. As well as creative fulfilment and spiritual sustenance. To realise this potential fully, however, will involve imaginative policy-making by the government, as well as a commitment to creating the kind of climate in which indigenous Irish music, and musicians, can flourish.
Blessed with total recall, Craig Fitzsimons relieves the most glorious Irish sporting achievements of the past 30 years – and some that we’d all rather forget.
