Elizabeth Hurley derided as a scab ; the film industry s stars getting militant; a total shutdown in production imminent. Strange times as Hollywood prepares for a major actors and screenwriters strike. By CRAIG FITZSIMONS and TARA BRADY
Tara Reid shot to fame as amoral trophy wife bunny in The Big Lebowski. Since then she’s become one of the USA’s best-known young female actors, yet her reputation as a party girl has led to some rough treatment at the hands of the press
Young, hungry, professional film crews and equally young, beautiful and professional actors. What’s the Irish film industry come to? Just ask Speed Dating stars Nora Jane Noone and Hugh O’Conor.
As the Bachelor's Walk team start shooting the second series of the hit comedy-drama, actor Simon Delaney, who played easygoing if indolent barrister Michael, insists that the show's success hasn't changed him at all. Unfortunately. But can he tell us what's afoot in series two?
. . . Here’s T.P. McKenna, one of Ireland’s most eminent actors – and a punk at heart. In an outspoken interview he savages Marlon Brando, Joseph Strick, Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher – and talks about his desire to be held in the arms of young girls again . . .
Interview: JOE JACKSON
IT’S PROBABLY a little too blatant to run a line of comparison between the newer, younger breed of comedians, like Sean Hughes, and comic-actors like Eamon Morrissey. However, one distinct difference is that Sean has a TV series and Eamon hasn’t.
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.
Though much of the comedy is hit-and-miss, Michael Caine’s supreme turn as a hopeless, hack thespian makes this enjoyable viewing all on its own, while Moran is ever reliable as our maudlin hero, even beneath the silliest of wigs.
In a remarkably honest interview, which directly preceded the death of his mother, Jonathan Rhys Meyers reflects on his spells in rehab and discusses life as one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors.
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
They’re men behaving wonderfully and they’ve taken Irish television by storm. Now into its second series, Bachelors Walk has made household names of Barry, Ray and Michael, themselves inhabitants of a particularly memorable household. Fiona Reid meets the actors behind the true wise guys. Photos Roger Woolman
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
He has been hailed as a wunderkind of Irish theatre. Now, with his second feature film, The Actors, Conor McPherson brings his theatrical experience to bear on celluloid – with considerable success.
Stack dead actors, stacked to the rafters/Line up the bastards all I want is the truth/hey hey now can you take it?/And we cry when they all die blonde?"
Yes, well, let’s remember our manners, shall we?A meticulously, lovingly crafted homage to the Art Deco aesthetic and early twentieth-century matinees, the film is entirely composed using only digital effects and actors, although Jude Law occasionally blurs the distinction between the two.
Little Fish, as you may determine from the credits list, is an actor’s project. That is, a small, independently financed Australian film boasting the sort of meaty roles actors will travel half way around the planet for. Two words. Addiction Drama. Thus, Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill and Hugo Weaving, all people who can work pretty much anywhere and any time they please, have returned to the continent that formed them to deliver Raw Emotional Performances.
Everyone’s favourite slime-green marketing phenomenon returns in this rambunctious sequel which successfully recycles the shrewd, irreverent wit of the globe-conquering original. Now wedded to the lovely ogress-Princess (Diaz), Shrek’s (Myers) domestic bliss is shattered by an invitation from his in-laws to visit their kingdom of Far Far Away – a campy Hollywood parody apparently populated entirely by English character actors.
GODZILLA (Directed by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Starring a pathetic computer-generated monster and a host of actors so bad it would be cruel to quote their names.)
One of the funniest comedy sketches I ever saw concerned the timelessly naff quality of Queen’s sartorial sensibilities. It was on an Armstrong And Miller show about four years ago, and was set in the year 2040. A guide was taking a group of tourists around a stately home, which was putatively an exact replica of Freddie Mercury’s real life abode. The titular comedians were paid actors playing – for “educational purposes”, understand – Brian May and the late singer, with Ben Miller’s skin-tight leather costume being an especially funny tribute to Mercury’s near-heroically outrageous fashion sense.
Joe Jackson talks to Paul Meade, director of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing , the hugely successful examination of sexual politics which is currently enjoying an extended run at Andrew’s Lane Theatre.
Currently drawing huge crowds to The Olympia with his third Mrs. Brown play, Brendan O’Carroll nonetheless has a bone to pick with those pushing for the retention of the section 481 tax break for film-makers.
MICHAEL D. Higgins obviously got under the hypersensitive skin of Sunday Independent journalists who have accelerated their systematic, and at points, paranoiac attack on the Minister since he proposed some relatively revolutionary ideas about the arts, in a recent issue of Hot Press.
Mark Doherty is best known to Irish audiences for his live stand-up shows and his television appearances on RTE's Couched, yet as Joe Jackson finds out, he's just finished writing his first play
IT MAY be hard to explain, but we’ve all witnessed great acting – in our favourite movie, play or television programme (or simply when your lover claims that she, or he didn’t betray you, despite the fact that you caught them in the act).
Druid Theatre founder Garry Hynes warns that unless the Arts Council rethink their recent funding cuts, Irish theatre – and Irish culture – could be damaged for good.
B*spoke’s Jane Brennan on Tom Murphy’s adaptation of The Drunkard – and the family connections which make this production all the more meaningful for her.
Joe Jackson talks to Peter Hanly, currently starring in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Dinner With Friends, which explores the minefield of contemporary conjugal relationships.
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.
PASSION MACHINE s new production aims to tell the story of seven Irish people all born in 1958. Writer PAUL MERCIER tells JOE JACKSON about the phenomena his generation have witnessed.
Rough Magic, one of Ireland’s outstanding theatre ensembles, returns with a production of Shakespeare that examines the battle of the sexes in Ireland.
Joe Jackson talks to Arthur Riordan, author of Improbable Frequency, the hit musical comedy which examines Ireland’s neutrality during the Second World War in humorous and insightful fashion.
Joe Jackson talks to Arthur Riordan, author of Improbable Frequency, the hit musical comedy which examines Ireland’s neutrality during the Second World War in humorous and insightful fashion.
Flora Montgomery is one of Ireland's brghtest stars of stage and screen. She may have achieved a career high as the curvaceous criminal lead in When Brendan Met Trudy. But, as Stephen Robinson discovered, you don’t want to ask her about her nude scenes
It took ten years for debutante director Kerry Conran to complete his film, even though most part was done before he uttered the word "Action!". Tara Brady meets the brimming brain behind the film-geek opus, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Under the direction of Joe Devlin, the Focus Theatre has taken on an impressive range of projects – not least two plays that tackle burning contemporary issues. Devlin tells us how he’s been carrying on the Focus tradition.
CRAIG FITZSIMONS speaks to young Irish director DAMIEN O'DONNELL, whose debut feature East Is East takes a controversial look at Pakistani immigrant culture.
With Oscar hysteria in the air, Tanya Sweeney recalls the night she “gate-crashed”
hollywood a-list party – and survived to tell this tale of beauty and the beasts.
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.
Award-winning shorts director Robert Quinn and actor Andrew Scott on their new movie, Dead Bodies, a highly touted comedy-thriller set in contemporary Dublin
Tara Brady talks to uber-hip actor - and scion of the Coppola clan - Jason Schwartzman about his latest film with cult director Wes Anderson, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Jesse Hughes of Eagles Of Death Metal takes time out from showering with nubile fans to explain why the Republican party is too left-wing for him, sings the praises of George W Bush and tells us what it’s like to have a former Sex Pistol as a post-rehab sponsor.
Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill man Richard Curtis is back with another film that has heartstrings and funnybones in its sights. But is Love Actually any good? Craig Fitzsimons and Tara Brady endeavour to find out
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.
Indie-hit Once director John Carney talks to Tara Brady about how to make an Irish musical, while star Glen Hansard confesses he was pleasantly surprised at the film’s success.
On the occasion of the first Irish screening of Nagisa Oshima’s Ai No Corrida (In The Realm Of The senses), banned for 18 years because of its explicit sex scenes involving lead actor Tatsuya Fujii’s hardcore hard-on’s, Neil McCormick takes a ride through the history of the ’members’ of the film world’s penis colony and while he’s ‘at it’, talks to film sexpert David Sullivan about the ever narrowing gap between the porn film industry and mainstream cinema.
Long gone are the days when appearing in a play in the Gaiety rather than the Abbey or Gate was seen as “slumming it”. Or that's how Ronan Smith, who plays a priest in Groundwork’s latest production of John B. Keane’s Moll, which opens on March 9th and runs till April 9, sees it anyhow.
The plight of Ireland’s migrant community is explored in the new heist flick The Front Line. The movie’s stars Eriq Ebouaney and Fatou N’diaye explain why the Irish need to be more open to newcomers.
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.
One of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights, Conor McPherson has examined the Irish condition in forensic detail in plays and films such as The Weir, Port Authority and Saltwater. In his new play Shining City, McPherson uses the disturbed psyches of his lead characters as a means to explore loneliness, isolation, friendship and salvation in the ghostly setting of contemporary Dublin. “The city holds some very dark feelings for me,” he admits to Kim Porcelli.
Playwright Michael Harding explains why his newest play, Birdie Birdie, is about how “the only way to survive, as an individual or as a society, is to mind each other.”
Ex-Python turned film-maker Terry Gilliam watched his latest movie project the man who killed Don Quixote collapse after a succession of production disasters. Yet two young film-makers who accompanied the director on the shoot have released a documentary film about the making, and un-making, of Gilliam's epic
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.
Joe Jackson talks to Christopher Adlington, star of Enlightenment, the new play from Shelagh Stephenson which examines British attitudes towards the Middle East.
. . . 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
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
He’s the Latin smoothie who has wooed a gaggle of starlets, Scarlett Johansson among them. But Benicio del Toro shows a different side to his persona with his controversial new portrayal of South American revolutionary Che Guevara.
They are young, smart and full of self-belief. Their ambitions are boundless, their talents rich and varied. For a generation of young Irish women, the world is awash with possibilities.
From actors to musicians, models to politicians, women are redefining what it means to be female and Irish. Their role-models are women who have achieved greatness, who have made us sit up and pay attention. Not content to bask in someone else’s glories, they believe every woman should aspire to be the best at what they do.
These are the women for whom second best is an anathema. They are the future. To introduce the Hot Press-selected crew: Tanya Sweeney and Louise Hodgson.
Having previously worked with directors of the stature of Danny Boyle and Anthony Minghella, and with a role as the main villain in the next Batman movie in the offing, Cillian Murphy is one of the hottest young actors around. Joe Jackson caught up with murphy to discuss his central role in Garry Hynes’ version of Synge’s famous play, the Playboy of the Western World.
"To tell you the truth, I don’t see myself as being all that interesting or attractive." that being so, Colin Farrell must be one of a very few who doesn’t. Dublin’s latest superstar, famous for cussing, bedding women and (lest we forget) acting, has been inescapable in the gossip columns in recent months. But how much is truth and how much fiction? In this candid interview with Tara Brady, he talks about drink, drugs, football, fame, hype, luck, romance and – in his latest box office winner The Recruit – working with Al Pacino
The actor, director, novelist and husband of Uma Thurman on the thrill of being a non-specialist and the challenge presented by "the greatest adventure you can have" - being in love
No mere actor boy moonlighting as a rock star, Billy Bob Thornton is steeped in music and also in the kind of brooding Southern gothic aesthetic which informs his compelling album of song and story, Private Radio. Peter Murphy meets a singular man of stage and screen
Superstars, rock stars, movie stars, sports stars, tv stars, authors, actors, artists, comedians, politicians, broadcasters, astrologers, chefs, outlaws, weirdoes, dingbats and Lee Scratch Perry...
Can you see the Forrest for the Gump? Can you explain the cultural phenomenon of Steven Seagal in English plain enough for Seagal himself to understand? Did you recognise any of the actors hiding beneath moustaches in Wyatt Earp, Tombstone and Gettysburg? Are you ready for the fourth annual X-mas rated Blow Up Movie Quiz?
Oh, well, give it a go anyway. Now we separate the movie buffs from the people who have got something more interesting to do than spend all day hanging around cinemas and reading Hot Press. Answers can be found on page 99 but anyone caught peeking will have to live with the knowledge that they are a dirty, rotten, good for nothing, low down cheat. Good luck. And remember, this quiz is just like a box of chocolates . . . you’ll feel sick when you’ve finished.
Actor Ray Liotta has a jaundiced view of the film industry and the media that feeds off it. But, as he proves in Wild Hogs, he can turn on the comedy too.
They are senior members of the ‘frat pack’, the insider clique that rules Hollywood comedy. But do Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson ever stop goofing around in real-life?
The outlaw French directors’ leading man of choice, Vincent Cassel is also a mainstay of the Kourtrajmé collective, husband to Monica Bellucci and the star of the comic-horror guerilla feature Satan.
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.
Watching an Oscar Wilde play in full flight is one thing, right? As in Alan Stanford s meticulously directed version of An Ideal Husband, now running at Dublin s Gate Theatre.
A screwball farce with a keenly observational core, Caught In The Net examines manners and mores in the 21st Century. The play’s author Ray Cooney talks about his journey from would-be matinee idol to subversive playwright.
CATHY DILLON chats to Dubliner JIMMY SMALLHORNE, writer and director of 2by4, an acclaimed new film charting the lives of young gay Irish immigrants in New York.
Cult actor Crispin Glover talks about his taboo-busting directorial debut What Is It?, playing George McFly in Back To The Future and meeting Andy Warhol at Madonna and Sean Penn’s wedding.
From child actress to Emmy and Oscar-winning veteran, Helen Hunt exhibits Streep-like intelligence and versatility. She's now about to make her directorial debut with Then She Found Me.
Joe Jackson talks to Susan FitzGerald, star of Landmark Productions’ Irish premiere of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, the controversial play which explores a range of taboo topics.
Charlotte Bradley has worked as a successful actress since her early twenties. Now, however, her leading role in About Adam may make her a star.
Interview: Stephen Robinson
As one half of gross-out movie kings the Farrelly Brothers, Bobby Farrelly turned bodily humour into an art form. Now the Farrellys have reunited with actor Ben Stiller for their funniest film in years, The Heartbreak Kid.
He used to be an actor but there's nothing showbizzy about Johnny Flynn's baroque folk-pop. He tells us what it's like to grow up in a thespian household and of his friendship with Kevin Spacey.
As the summer blockbuster season ends, the average cinephile can look forward to a trickle of left field treasures. Echo Park L.A. is one such worthy specimen.
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.
GEORGE MARTIN was intrinsic to much of The Beatles brilliance. Now he s coming to Dublin for a series of special concerts. GEORGE BYRNE sets the scene.
DANIEL DAY Lewis, John Malkovich and Gerard Depardieu were all considered for the role of the vampire Lestat, in Neil Jordan's forthcoming film version of Anne Rice's complex, erotic horror story Interview With The Vampire.
He debuted in East is East, became a household face in Eastenders and has finally gone west to star in the bollywood meets hollywood movie, The Guru. The son of an Indian father and Irish mother, he talks here about his thrash metal past, the difficulties of being an Asian actor and why Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson are his spiritual gurus.
Rik Mayall is back with a show that could be his rudest and most spectacular yet. Paul Nolan asks about the latest installment of bottom, and why he and Ade Eedmondson are the new Laurel & Hardy.
Rik Mayall is back with a show that could be his rudest and most spectacular yet. Paul Nolan asks about the latest installment of bottom, and why he and Ade Eedmondson are the new Laurel & Hardy.
From Shakespearian thesp to sitcom star in Black Books, Nina Conti has proven herself to be one of the most versatile actresses around. But, as she tells Phil Udell, what she’s most interested in is reviving the lost art of ventriloquism
From Shakespearian thesp to sitcom star in Black Books, Nina Conti has proven herself to be one of the most versatile actresses around. But, as she tells Phil Udell, what she’s most interested in is reviving the lost art of ventriloquism
Now that it has been seen by the whole world (and it's Uncle Bilbo) the truth can finally be revealed – Gimli was a most reluctant dwarf. John Rhys Davies explains how he overcame doubts about the book and an allergy to make-up and learned to love The Lord Of The Rings, voted movie of the year in the Hotpress Readers Poll
Now that it has been seen by the whole world (and its Uncle Bilbo) the truth can finally be revealed – Gimli was a most reluctant dwarf. JOHN RHYS DAVIES explains how he overcame doubts about the book and an allergy to make-up and learned to love The Lord Of The Rings, voted movie of the year in the Hot Press readers poll
Words: CRAIG FITZSIMONS
Peter Greenaway’s latest film The Baby Of Mâcon has aroused critical opprobrium due to its blend of religious imagery and unnerving violence. Here, the director defends the movie, outlines his attitude to the moral guardians who object to his work and explores the importance of ritual in cinema and contemporary advertising. Interview: Patrick Brennan
Having admitted that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Brendan Dempsey briefs Paul Nolan on the upcoming Montreal Comedy Festival. and other stuff
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.
Theo, aka Terry Quigley, did time in One Half Monk, but now fronts Theo and the Red Beats. Jackie Hayden uncovers the background to their debut album Get What You Came For.
We’ve tipped them for success in the past, and now, with a New Year upon us, Laura Izibor, Dirty Epic’s SJ Wai and Fight Like Apes’ MayKay are set to sweep all before them.
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
Award-winning director and actor Ed Burns talks about enjoying success on your own terms, his lifelong music obsession and the fact that he’s about to make his first big-budget Hollywood movie.
I HAVE realised I am in the wrong profession, or at least the wrong strand of my profession. As a film journalist I get to see films before they are released in salubrious surroundings, with food and, more importantly, drink laid on.
JOAN ARMATRADING has been making impassioned, poetic music for two decades. She is also a political activist, having recently attended the 1999 Vienna Peace Summit. Adrienne Murphy met her.
JOAN ARMATRADING has been making impassioned, poetic music for two decades. She is also a political activist, having recently attended the 1999 Vienna Peace Summit. Adrienne Murphy met her.
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
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
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.
After cutting her teeth (ouch!) in Bachelor’s Walk and Shimmy Marcus’s Headrush, Derry actress Laura Pyper has squeezed herself into thigh-high boots and corset for Hex, Sky One’s teenage witch riposte to Buffy.
In a swelteringly hot Budape#st movie studio, situated by the banks of the River Danube just twenty minutes drive from the centre of the Hungarian capital, a beautiful flame-haired young actress named Juliana is painting a picture.
In a swelteringly hot Budape#st movie studio, situated by the banks of the River Danube just twenty minutes drive from the centre of the Hungarian capital, a beautiful flame-haired young actress named Juliana is painting a picture.
In a remarkable interview, the legendary David Kelly looks back on a long and adventurous career including parts in box office smashes, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Waking Ned.
ANYONE HOPING to learn about the Irish troubles from the cinema would probably conclude that Sinn Fein and the IRA had better declare a cease-fire quickly, before they do themselves some serious damage.
40 years after the Clancy Brothers brought Irish ballads to an international audience and won famous fans like Bob Dylan, Tommy Makem is still committed to the power of song – but appalled at the way modern Ireland treats its own culture.
Australian director Philip Noyce has directed such Hollywood blockbusters as Patriot Games and The Bone Collector yet his latest offering Rabbit Proof Fence is an altogether more considered offering. Tara Brady asks if this latest work and the forthcoming The Quiet American signifies a change in his approach to film-making?
Après Match member Gary Cooke on Joe Duffy, body piercings, and the perils of impersonating Ireland’s most belligerent broadcaster. Playing intermediary Paul Nolan
Having survived their initial mauling at the hands of the British music press, Asia-obsessed psychedelists KULA SHAKER have returned for a second innings. Frontman CRISPIAN MILLS lays off the poppadoms for long enough to chat to JACKIE HAYDEN about his band's new album, Strangefolk.
LUKE GRIFFIN has been getting rave reviews for his starring performance in The Disappearance Of Finbar. Could we be witnessing the arrival of
a cinematic superstar?
Interview: Craig Fitzsimons.
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
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
Yes, it’s the all-new, all-chuckling, all-giggling, all-grinning Dylan Moran. Well, not quite, but as Paul Nolan discovers, portraits of the stand-up as a difficult interviewee are rather wide of the mark
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.
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.
"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".
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 been at the helm with U2 since 1979. In the intervening time he’s been involved in every aspect of the career of the biggest rock band in the world. In a rare in-depth interview, Paul McGuinness talks about the highs and lows of managing the fab four and reflects on the State of the Nation and the implosion of the Irish economy.
JOSI RAMOS HORTA, the Nobel Laureate from East Timor, on the Indonesian genocide which has killed one-third of his people and Ireland and the world can do to help. Report: SIOBHAN LONG.
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.
Fifteen years after winning an oscar for his Les Liaisons Dangereuses screenplay, Christopher Hampton has finally managed to make his dream project Imagining Argentina, which investigages the plight of ‘the disappeared’ in 1970s Argentina. The response has been controversial to say the least.
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
Social diarist Amanda Brunker is so high-maintenance even her paper plates are designed by Damien Hirst. Colm O'Hare joins the TV presenter, model, actress, budding novelist and loose-tongued Eamon Dunphy guest in her comfy sea-front residence in Clontarf. Photos by Cathal Dawson.
Torquil Campbell, singer with Canadian indie achievers Stars, is a thoroughly nice guy – when he’s not plotting to put photographs of his naked, crucified, Spiddal-born wife on his album covers.
US chart-topping rockers tool like nothing better than hob-nobs, baiting journos and calling their children after prog rock bands. stuart clark shares the chocolate biccies
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.
The home studio, the stadium gigs, the best-selling dvd – nope, it’s not rock’n’roll, it’s stand-up comedy. Pat Shortt talks about a boom year for mirth-making.
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.
There was a time when the associations of Irish culture were such that those of a radical, progressive outlook automatically turned the other way. Not any more. Irish culture is alive and kicking. Report: Chris Donovan.
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.
BECKETT ON FILM is one of the most ambitious cinematic projects ever. Nineteen of Samuel Beckett's plays have been made into movies, directed by and starring numerous A-list figures. To mark the occasion, JOE JACKSON talks to Bono, John Hurt and Enda Hughes about one of the 20th century's greatest dramatists
Despite all appearances, Tamsin Grieg’s Black Books character Fran isn’t an unsympathetic, neurotic freak. “She wears dresses… she makes an effort,” she tells Paul Nolan
A few years ago it would’ve been impossible to make a movie like goldfish memory, but thanks to digital technology and film board funding director Liz Gill is celebrating a box-office hit.
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.
When not sleeping late or trying to score free beer, students like nothing better than to kick back and watch a movie. In fact, it is thanks to students that many films have gained a permanent place in the pantheon. Here are some stude faves from the annals.
Alryte! Liam Fay gets on the blower to Phil Redmond, the scouser who launched a thousand Brookside storylines, who chin wags about lesbianism, wife-beating, Emmerdale and, er, those Farm t-shirts!
Rregarded as the original, manufactured boy band, once upon a time The Monkees ruled the world. Now, half of television's fab four are back and, as you might expect, they have quite a tale to tell. Joe Jackson talks to Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz
A former skateboarding god and young entrepreneur of the year, Davie Philip exchanged the fast life for the good life. Iva Pocock reports on the curious making of a passionate green activist
The on-going trauma of being a Liverpool supporter isn?t the only reason that author, journalist and broadcaster declan lynch has been kept away from the Foul Play desk over recent issues ? he?s also
been readying his
theatrical debut, Massive Damages,
a tale, at once
rip-roaring and
sobering, of libel,
barristers, journalists, showbands . . . and Sting. Interview: jonathan o?brien.
Pix: MICK QUINN.
Many stars of print, pitch, stage and screen have illuminated the pages of Hotpress, often revealing aspects of themselves in extended Q&A sessions that are usually concealed in this age of the terse soundbyte and stage-mannered press conference.
LIAM FAY investigates the strange phenomenon of the RAINBOW PARTY, a pseudo-democratic movement dedicated to the abolition of politics and politicians , and meets its leader, the enigmatic RAINBOW GEORGE.
Mexican maestro Alejandro González Iñárritu hasn’t wasted any time capitalising on the critical and commercial success of Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Babel, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, is being hailed as another masterpiece.
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.
As pristine popsters ABC gear up for their appearance at the Heineken Weekender in Cork, NICK KELLY grills band mainman MARTIN FRY about his new album Skyscraping, his love of all things Elvis, his battle with illness and why it felt right to wear that gold lami suit in 1982. Below, meanwhile, we preview the rest of the Weekender s goings-on down in Cork.
When he’s not playing the evil criminal mastermind in Hollywood blockbusters, Eddie Izzard can be found wandering the corridors of the European Parliament with Tony Blair. Tara Brady gets a yes, no and maybe from the nail polish-loving English comedian.
Ahead of the release of his new movie, Irish boxing melodrama Strength And Honour, Michael Madsen reflects on a career that been sometimes troubled but never boring.
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.
Despite the sell-out success of the Monster tour and a shelf-load of awards for Black Books, Dylan Moran remains as steadfastly gloomy as ever about the art of stand-up comedy. “You’re standing there pandering to a couple of hundred swivel-eyed, maroon-faced, braying fucks,” he groans to Barry Glendenning.
GEORGE BYRNE joins the stars of stage turned stars of screen at the CORK FILM FESTIVAL as one band's star-crossed story takes another unexpected turn. Snaps: GEORGE BYRNE.
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.
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.
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.
Action movie sweetheart and FHM-proclaimed second sexiest woman on the planet Jessica Biel gives us the lowdown on upcoming period rom-com Easy Virtue... and nothing else.
Having come to prominence as an Oscar-standard character actor in films such as American Beauty, Adaptation and Capote, straight-shooting Chris Cooper now plays America’s worst ever spy in Breach
In the second part of a major interview concerning his brief as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht - and his vision for the future of the Arts in Ireland - MICHAEL D. HIGGINS talks about the enormous potential for job creation in the related areas of film, music and heritage, the changes he would like to see in the tax-free status afforded to artists and answers his critics in relation to Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act. Interview: JOE JACKSON
Spike Lee is a firebrand film-maker and not one to mince his words. So what is the spiritual father of African-American cinema doing making an old fashioned heist flick?
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
Motherhood has done little to diminish maria doyle kennedy‘s snarling rock chick attitude. Here, she talks about censorship, Chuck Palahniuk and how she’s managed to balance music with big-league acting.
Hi-tech slo-fi merchants
The Plague Monkeys discuss science,
vocal heroes, glockenspiel loops
and The Day Of The Triffids with a
suitably quizzical Peter Murphy.
Hi-tech slo-fi merchants
The Plague Monkeys discuss science,
vocal heroes, glockenspiel loops
and The Day Of The Triffids with a
suitably quizzical Peter Murphy.
An Bord Snip has been threatening wholesale cuts in the allocation of money to the arts. It would be a grave error, missing the importance of culture as a source of good citizenship and innovation in our quest for a new, more resilient economy, argues the former Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht and President of the Labour Party, Michael D Higgins, TD.
They were one of the most successful – and dysfunctional – bands of all time. Now THE EAGLES are aging gracefully and packing out arenas across the world, with Irish gigs on the way.
Hailed as one of the UK s hottest young talents, and having appeared in such successes as Michael Collins, The Magnificent Abersons, and Velvet Goldmine, Jonathan Rhys-Myers is in fact Dublin-born and raised in Cork. OLAF TYARANSEN met the rising star. Thesp Behaviour: Peter Matthews
Ahead of his 50th birthday, Morrissey talks exclusively to Hot Press about the sexual nature of singing, letting go in the studio, being blacklisted by the UK's Radio One and how he approaches songwriting.
The inside story of Veronica Guerin starring Joel Schumacher, Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds and Cate Blanchett. Rolling tape Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
Gregory David Robert‘s life reads like the most sensational book, a painfully true but scarcely believable saga of academic success, crime, heroin addiction, incarceration, torture, escape, re-capture, and finally, literary acclaim. Peter Murphy hears the extraordinary tale of australia’s ‘gentleman bandit’ turned author. photography Liam Sweeney
Having revolutionised television with Lost, wunderkind producer J.J. ABRAMS has now focused his sights on the ailing Star Trek franchise. But can a ‘Trek agnostic really breathe fresh life into the most famous brand in science fiction? And will his gamble of casting relative unknowns as the iconic Enterprise crew come off?
Credible clothing at an affordable price, dressing up Pulp and remodelling Tony Blair as a transvestite it s all in a day s work for wayne hemingway of hip fashion label red or dead.
Interview: Olaf Tyaransen
PETER SHERIDAN has done a remarkable job in bringing Brendan Behan s Borstal Boy to the small screen. Here he talks to hotpress CRAIG FITZSIMONS and TARA BRADY about accents, alcohol and artists
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.
Ireland’s biggest transatlantic TV star, Graham Norton has come a long way from his humble beginnings in Bandon. In his new tell-all autobiography, So Me, Norton writes about his tumultuous rise to the top, living in the media spotlight, keeping A-list company and coping with emotional upheaval. “It’s an uncertain time in my life,” he tells Olaf Tyaransen.
While women are still far from achieving equality of opportunity in music, the last thing women artists want – or need – is to be ghettoised, writes musician and journalist Kim V Porcelli. The point about the women who are at rock’s cutting edge – from Sinéad O’Connor through PJ Harvey to Peaches – is that they defer to no one in their pursuit of greatness.
DAVID HOLMES is about to leave his native Belfast for New York City, where he will record his third album. STUART BAILIE took a final opportunity to speak to the artist also known as Homer. On the agenda: Hollywood soundtracks, rumours of brawling, past glories and future plans.
Pics: MICHAEL TAYLOR.
Evan Dando of Lemonheads is one of rock's new wave of sex gods. But for a man of such apparently heavenly looks, he is rather short on statements of, er, philosophical gravitas. Bearing witness: TARA McCARTHY
The inside story of Veronica Guerin, directed by Joel Schumacer and starring Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds and Cate Blanchett. Rolling tape Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
Journalist STEVEN POOLE has, inspired by Orwell, written a riveting book documenting the insidious abuses of the English language perpetrated by politicians and powermongers.
Still on a high after his hobnob in the last issue with the Greatest Living Film Director, NEIL McCORMICK nears apoplexy as he gets to extract the closely-guarded secrets of being the Finest Actor in the World Today from DANIEL DAY-LEWIS.
Dance is dead, says Roisin Murphy, but if any act is going to raise it from the grave it’s Moloko, proud authors of the over the top and utterly sincere Statues, an album of tremendous pop songs that recapture the glory of classic disco.
Moviehouse meets the creative team behind King Arthur, the rollicking action-adventure story shot on location in County Wicklow. just don’t mention the Irish weather.
One of the ten most photographed people in Ireland, TV presenter Caroline Morahan isn’t just a pretty face. Fame, fashion, drugs, the Antisocial Behaviour Order and George Dubbya are all on the agenda all she pours scorn on John Walshe's ten-year plan and vetos Caroline – The Fragrance. Photography by Liam Sweeney.
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.
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.
With her new volume of autobiography, AGNES BERNELLE has turned the spotlight away from the stage and onto her own life illuminating both the happier and dark chapters of a turbulent personal story. Interview: JOE JACKSON. Pix: COLM HENRY
KATHRYN BIGELOW is one of the few women directors to break through the glass ceiling in Hollywood. What’s more, she makes action movies of a kind not normally associated with ‘girls’. The release of her latest meisterwerk, The Hurt Locker, an extraordinary movie about the activities of a US Army bomb disposal unit in the war in Iraq, sees her being tipped as a contender come Oscar season next year.
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.
When Patti Smith came up with Rock N Roll Nigger in the 70s, she marked herself out as one of the most articulate and confrontational performers of her generation. On the eve of her visit to Ireland, the High Priestess of American Punk Poetry talks to Peter Murphy about art, music, the people she s lost and why she ll never give in to political correctness
Recorded in the bucolic splendour of County Westmeath, Bloc Party's second album is a labyrinthine concept album about urban living. Better to take a risk, says frontman Kelé Okereke, than to repeat yourself .
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
Actress, singer, chat show host, Vogue model and girlfriend to Mick Jagger and Marc Bolan – Marsha Hunt was all of these things and more, and survived to tell the tale. And then she became an acclaimed best-selling author. Interview: Olaf Tyaransen.
Pix: Mick Quinn
Kenny Egan brought back a silver medal for Ireland from the Olympic Games – but almost everyone agrees it should have been gold. A national sporting hero, he tells Hot Press of his plans for the future...
She started as a model, carving out a successful career and living the celebrity lifestyle in the full glare of the cameras. With a well publicised stint on reality TV in LA behind her, she is now one of the hottest properties in British television.
Even though he s just as acerbic and witty as he ever was, these days GRAHAM PARKER isn t what you d call the man of the moment. Which is a shame, because the veteran new-wave critics darling is currently writing some of the best material of his life, including last year s Acid Bubblegum album, which he describes as a fucking great record . And as if that wasn t enough to be going on with, he s also got plenty of short stories on the go.
Tape: Peter Murphy
To some, he’s the last true socialist left in Ireland. In a forthright interview Michael D. Higgins reflects on Bono's knighthood, expresses his horror at America’s conduct in the Middle East and explains why the PDs are bad for Ireland
To some, he’s the last true socialist left in Ireland. In a forthright interview Michael D. Higgins reflects on Bono's knighthood, and explains why the PDs are bad for Ireland.
In the first part of an extensive two-part interview, writer and director Jim Sheridan explains how 90% of what he creates is rooted in the tension that existed between himself and his dad. By Joe Jackson.
The Mexican-Canadian Dark Angel starlet Jessica Alba gets all grown up with a lasso and leather bra in the Rodriguez/Tarantino directed film adaptation of Frank Miller's neon noir Sin City.
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.
In advance of his latest movie, From Hell, in which he plays a policeman investigating Jack The Ripper, American superstar JOHNNY DEPP is adopting a low-key profile. Here, however, he talks extensively about on-set pranks, the lure of acting, sobriety versus excess and how movies, movie stars and moviegoers might cope with the world after September 11.
Words: JANE GARDNER with additional input by EARL DITTMAN
what good was rock’n’roll in 2001? No good at all – and yet we couldn’t have got through without it.
Peter Murphy reflects on a year in which some old codgers stood up to be counted and many of us lived “on songs and hope”
With ‘Yellow’, Coldplay captured the imagination of even the most resistant of hard-boiled rock’n’roll cynics. Now, as A Rush Of Blood To The Head achieves lift-off in the U.S., even the sky is no longer the limit.
His novel "Atomised" was a controversial pornographic parable and its follow-up platforme led to him being denounced by Muslims and going into hiding, while his wife endured a nervous breakdown. Notoriously difficult, the County Cork-based French author here discusses – between pauses – monogamy, open marriages, drugs, politics, literature, the World Cup and his desire to be a wolf
In a candid interview, Sylvester Stallone talks about his lost years and explains why he’s happy that America’s Christian right has embraced the new Rocky movie as a ‘spiritual’ film.
Dave Grohl looks back on 20 years of playing music and talks about the birth of his daughter, the trapped Beaconsfield Miners and why Neil Young is his hero.
For close to a decade, Lillie’s Bordello has been the nightclub of choice for the famous and not-so-famous of Dublin cultural life. But with the passing of the Celtic Tiger era and the current uncertainty over the club’s future, can Lillie’s retain its position as the capital’s number one celebrity haunt?
Or will we? Pete Townshend's solo career has been marked by an increasingly ambitious search for more "mature" forms of saying what he's got to say. His latest project, psychoderelict, is no exception. So just why has the former powerhouse behind The Who, and much-acclaimed spokesman for a generation, lost confidence in the rock 'n' roll music he did so much to define in the '60's and '70's. Liam Fay goes up before the beak.
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.
Damien Rice has emerged as one of the most distinctive and independent voices of recent years, achieving a remarkable level of success and artistic respect with O – the debut album that was recorded on a shoestring in his own bedroom. Famously media shy, he agreed to talk to Hot Press about the Free Aung San Suu Kyi 60th Birthday Campaign, and the beautiful tribute single ‘Unplayed Piano’, recorded with Lisa Hannigan. But, tape rolling, he talked about a whole lot more, giving the most candid and complete insight yet into the real Damien Rice.
The godfather of the modern Irish gothic tradition, Patrick McCabe, has released what critics are hailing as his darkest, and arguably finest, novel yet, Winterwood.
Following the lukewarm reception accorded Jackie Brown six years ago, Quentin Tarantino reached a crossroads in his career. now, following a prolonged retreat from the media spotlight, a rumoured struggle with writer’s block and his break-up with Mira Sorvino, the most influential film-maker of the nineties has made a stunning return to form with the explosive samurai thriller, Kill Bill. Craig Fitzsimons travelled to london to meet the director and discuss the film he describes as “the movie of my geek boy dreams.”
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.
The Edge talks to Bill Graham about his soundtrack album "Captive" - and about the hidden reservoirs the band are charting in their search for the follow-up to "The Unforgettable Fire"
He was soccer s hardest man. Now he s in the process of becoming a genuine Hollywood star. Here VINNIE JONES talks to STUART CLARK about being mates with Madonna and Brad Pitt, his years with the Crazy Gang, and why he dislikes Johnny Giles
Despite being peerless at his chosen profession, CHRIS MORRIS has been sacked from more jobs than most people will have in a lifetime. He announced the death of Michael Heseltine on live radio, was responsible for a debate about non-existent drugs in the House of Commons and once screamed Christ s fat cock! at Cliff Richard during an interview. BARRY GLENDENNING examines the career of the broadcaster commonly regarded as Britain s foremost media satirist.
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.
Every year thousands of film fans make the trip to the southern capital for the feast of cinema that is the Cork Film Festival. Hot Press looks back over the history of one of Europe’s longest-running cinematic events and checks out what this year’s packed programme has to offer. Report: Patrick Brennan
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
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?
A smart, savvy actress with a wry take on the vagaries of fame Sarah Michelle Gellar has her feet planted more firmly on terra firma than the average Hollywood starlet. In an exclusive interview with hotpress, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer star discusses her blood-curdling new movie The Grudge, being a teen icon, marriage, celebrity and much else besides. Just don’t mention the English coffee.
As one half of D’unbelievables, Jon Kenny became one of Ireland’s most famous and successful entertainers. but the hard touring took its toll and, he believes, may even have contributed to the cancer which threatened not only his career but his life. now fully recovered, Kenny is back as a solo artist but one still hugely inspired by small-town Ireland and its rich crop of characters. Photo Cathal Dawson
Sex? Yep. Drugs? Uh-huh. Rock 'n' Roll? Yesireebob! Aerosmith were no strangers to the unholy trinity of debauchery during the '70's and early '80's but find that having cleaned up ten years ago they're now cleaning up with the punters. Not that they're beyond having fun, fun and, er, more fun as our resident boogiemeister Stuart Clark finds out.
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
CHRIS DONOVAN looks at the incremental progress of the would-be King of Slane, who tells him about life, love, Christianity, veganism and scoring for films Plus: Profiles of Slane s other attractions, MACY GRAY, MEL C, BRYAN ADAMS, THE SCREAMING ORPHANS and DARA. Also: A Quickie with LORD HENRY MOUNTCHARLES
Re-telling the story of September 11 with a measured hand and lightness of touch hithertoo unhinted at, director Oliver Stone proves a more serious thinker than his paranoia-soaked canon would suggest. Here, he explains how his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam framed his outlook on life and art.
Helena Mulkerns catches up with the charming Dublin-based chanteuse on a tour of East Coast college campuses, and finds a wilfully free spirit at ease with her sexuality – if not with the industry’s categorisation of such guitar-wielding women.
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman, especially when it involves piling on layers of latex, strapping on corsets, and getting to grips with false eyelashes. And yet, whether it's Kurt Cobain donning a scruffy frock, Robin Williams in full matronly guise for Mrs Doubtfire, or the 6'7 Ru Paul co-presenting The Brits, transvestism seems to have acquired a stronger multi-media allure than ever before. Andy Darlington examines the portrayal of TVs in cinema and the arts, and considers the sexual and social implications of the ancient art of cross-dressing.
While the path to rock n roll stardom is never smooth, RICHARD ASHCROFT has experienced more ups and downs than most. In a wide-ranging interview with DAVE FANNING, he talks about drugs, The Verve, his new solo album and why the old hometown doesn t look so bad.
The still vibrant 64-year-old on why Morrissey’s like Father Frank, why Iraq is like Vietnam, and on her meetings with Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Bono, Phil Spector and a whole Oval Office full of presidents.
That a bonefide Irish film industry actually exists is no small achievement, but with a new Minister For The Arts now in place, this is hardly the time for complacency. To ascertain how best the industry can be maintained and developed, Hot Press film critic, cathy dillon, canvassed the views of a number of key players.
By popular demand, ULRIKA JONSSON is coming back to Belfast to co-host this year's heineken-hot press awards. olaf tyaransen meets up with television's Golden Girl and hears about the world of the small screen, the men in her life, the poet behind the party animal, tabloid intrusion and the importance of Van Morrison in keeping her head straight.
In Dublin for the Brown Thomas International Fashion Show,
supermodel CHRISTY TURLINGTON
meets OLAF TYARANSEN.
On the agenda: drugs, sleaze in the fashion
industry and the pressures of celebrity.
Or, Augusten Burroughs And The Art Of Magical Thinking. Peter Murphy talks to the bestselling author about his troubled upbringing in rural Massachusetts, the long and strange series of events that led to him becoming a writer, and why his current personal and professional happiness may just mean that his extraordinary story has a happy ending after all. Photography by Emily Quinn.
Berlin s LOVE PARADE attracts over one million people for an event mixing techno and hedonism.
Olaf Tyaransen went there with high expectations, but found something empty at the heart of it all. Pics and handcuff props:
PETER MATTHEWS.
One of the most familiar faces and voices in Irish broadcasting, Dave Fanning has interviewed just about every rock and movie star worth knowing. But here Olaf Tyaransen goes behind the public image to unearth some of his more secret history: working with the disgraced “Captain” Cooke; nude interviewing with U2; getting ripped off by the nanny; and much more.
In the magical, wind-swept landscape of Ireland's remote north-west the cameras roll as U2's Bono and Maire of Clannad make the video for their collaborative single "In A Lifetime". Bill Graham joins the entourage at work and at play and talks to the main protagonists.
Astrology. an ancient science or a load of cosmic nonsense?
FERGUS GIBSON is probably ireland's best-known astrologer, a man who gave up a hit-making career in music to concentrate on another kind of stardom. Here her talks about his astrological work with David Bowie, Iina Turner and Garth Brooks, explains why your aura always reveals the truth about your love life, describes his own encounters with strange and inexplicable phenomena and, finally, gives our own STEPHEN ROBINSON a personal palm reading. star gazer: Cathal Dawson
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.
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
The rise and fall of chef CONRAD GALLAGHER was Icarus-like – one moment the toast of Dublin’s glitterati, the next a virtual pariah.
but unlike Icarus, Gallagher has fought his way back, bloodied but unbowed and determined to pay off all his debts
Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN
Comic book artist and file clerk turned movie star, Harvey Pekar must be one of the most unlikely and somewhat reluctant celebrities of our time. An ordinary man whose work has produced extraordinary art, the anti-hero of American Splendour here talks about his friend Toby, Robert Crumb, James Joyce, David Letterman, fame and misfortune, surviving and more.
As the only Dail representative of the Green Party, newly-elected TD, Trevor Sargent, has become the most high-profile public face of Irish environmentalism at a time when the entire movement is going through a period of re-definition. In this wide-ranging interview, Sargent argues that the Greens are more than a single issue pressure group and defends the party against changes of innate conservatism and built-in obsolesence. Not surprisingly, however, he also comes out fighting on issues such as animal rights and the ongoing threat of Sellafield.
Graham Knuttel talks about his fight with the bottle, his friendship with Sylvester Stallone and why he doesn’t want to be surrounded by his own paintings.
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.
pat mcCABE is on a roll. Neil Jordan s film adaptation of his acclaimed novel The Butcher Boy has been rapturously received. His latest meisterwerk Breakfast On Pluto about a border county transvestite is about to be published. He s going on the road with Jack L. And what s more he was recently named Monaghan Man of the Year! Interview: liam fay.
Pics: Mick Quinn
NIALL STOKES takes a very personal journey back through the music and memories of a friendship with a man he was proud to have known
THE DRIVE to Cork was a lonely one. Ry Cooder on the deck, that sweet slide guitar shooting off tracers: the memories, stacked up like a vast
rack of on-line CDs, kept slipping in and out of the engagement slot. No need ever to press the play button. Now and then I had to hold back the
tears as the music of past friendship flooded the car and, with it, a terrible awareness of all the things that might have, but hadn't, been done.
The news of Rory Gallagher s tragic death has sent seismic shock waves through the music world. Here was a man who managed to combine the gift of being an authentic creative genius with the even rarer gift of being a genuinely decent, honourable human being. Over the next six pages, Hot Press pays tribute to both the legend and the person, with contributions from the stars, friends, fans and colleagues who were touched by the Gallagher magic, and takes a trip through the backpages of an extraordinary career.
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.
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.
It’s been a long, strange trip for David Grohl, from Nirvana drummer to Foo Fighters frontman, via Queens Of The Stone Age and Tenacious D. Now he’s back with a new Foo album, he’s buried the hatchet with Courtney Love and he’s still as rock’n’roll as ever
30 years after the savage Tate/LaBianca murders that epitomised the dark side of the American hippy dream, CHARLES MANSON aka God aka The Devil, continues to exert a potent influence on popular culture. In part one of a two-part feature, PETER MURPHY recalls the twisted vision of a charismatic man whose personal interpretation of The Beatles Helter Skelter helped give rise to one of the crimes of the century.
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the dissection of the rock ‘n’ roll year that is the Hot Press Summit. Gathering round the table are the good and great of Irish music, but who let Podge & Rodge in?
There’s no pipe of peace – in fact no pipe at all from the non-smoking sinn féin leader – as Olaf Tyaransen asks if, given Osama Bin Laden’s use of terror as a political weapon, Gerry Adams might not have some sympathy for the world’s most wanted man. that question and other contentious queries relating to the IRA, Jean McConville and the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe are dealt with in an interview which also takes in Eoghan Harris, George Bush and Bono, and ends with the interviewee humming a familiar Monty Python tune.
He may well be RTE s only living intellectual but ANDY O MAHONY, host of The Sunday Show, will long be remembered by many as the man who asked Deirdre Purcell if she ever did the bold thing with Gay Byrne. JOE JACKSON gets the self-styled closet determinist to come out of the closet. Pix: Colm Henry
He was a literary sensation, a writer with the outlaw charm of a rock star. But when rumours began to circulate that JT LeRoy was nothing more than a post-modern media prank, Peter Murphy, a friend and confidante, found himself caught up in an extraordinary story.
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.
Well when you've conquered the world, what else can the biggest band on the planet do except go into space? BONO and LARRY discuss matters cosmic and personal with Olaf Tyaransen
From dark age to middle age, Nick Cave is such a far cry from the blood-spilling junkie of rock legend that these days you’re likely to encounter him commuting to his 9 to 5. Except of course that his job is writing and making music, his new album is called Nocturama and there are, he admits, some sizeable blow-outs in the memory banks.
brian hayes is a 28-year-old Fine Gael TD who represents the constituency of Dublin South West. At the last general election, he virtually tripled Fine Gael s vote in the Tallaght area. He opposes the legalisation of cannabis, claims that feminists need to have a fundamental re-think on their current position, feels guilty about not attending Mass regularly, and reckons that You need order in society . . . you need people who know what they re about . Is this the face of young, politically aware Ireland? Interview: liam fay.
Pics: colm henry.
DENIS LEARY, sultan of sneer, is en route to Dublin to star in the Murphy s Ungagged Comedy Festival. By way of a little limbering up, and proving that there s no smoke without fire, here he lets rip on Noraid, The Kennedys, The Royals, Bill Hicks, Dean Martin, Oasis, Father Ted, drugs in Kerry and, oh yes, why he d like to go to Riverdance with a sniper s rifle . Interview: LIAM FAY.
EMINEM s Marshall Mathers LP has gone 12 times platinum in Ireland. He s been voted Time magazine s Man Of The Year. And, having broken through into the mainstream with the remarkable Stan , he s just been nominated for four Grammys. So why is the world suddenly falling at the feet of a venomous bottle-blonde rapper who s penned some of the most repugnant, hate-filled lyrics since the invention of the gramophone record? Peter Murphy tells one of pop music s most extraordinary stories ever
He may well be a prime target for the jibes of other Irish comedian-types, but right now brendan o carroll is
riding the crest of a wave of popularity of quite phenomenal proportions. With three best-selling books to his credit, a smash hit play and a movie already in the offing, he s back on the road with his sell-out one-man show The Story So Far. Here, in a startlingly honest interview, he talks about his addiction to gambling, his contempt for the theatrical establishment, the fear and paralysis that is endemic in RTE, Father Ted, the Catholic Church, groupies and (cue fanfare please) his plans to become an M.E.P. Tape recorder: liam fay.
Pix: MICK QUINN
The recipient of a Late Late Show tribute and the outgoing presenter of The Arts Show, MIKE MURPHY avails of a timely opportunity to reflect on the highs and lows of his personal and professional life and to assure JOE JACKSON that, contrary to certain popular mythology, he is neither a marshmallow nor a flowerpot man
IN THE FIRST PART OF A WORLD EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW IN THE LAST ISSUE OF HOT PRESS, BONO UNVEILED THE NEW U2 ALBUM, SPOKE ABOUT ITS GENESIS IN CYBERPUNK LITERATURE AND THE BAND'S HUNGER TO PUSH ROCK'N'ROLL TO ITS LIMITS. HERE HE ELABORATES ON HOW U2 GO ABOUT WRITING THEIR SONGS AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF GLOBAL CHAOS, HIS ARTISTIC REFERENCE POINTS OUTSIDE MUSIC, THE SUBVERSIVE POWER OF HUMOUR, AND HOW HE ADMIRES THOSE WHO 'PARTICULARLY AGGRESSIVELY' DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD. AND THEN THERE'S THE STORY ABOUT JOHNNY CASH AND THE EMU. CAN THIS MAN BE FOR SURREAL? INTERVIEW:JOE JACKSON.
For close to twenty years, MARTIN CAHILL led the forces of law and order a merry dance. Known as the General, he was suspected of masterminding virtually every major crime committed in Ireland – but for as long as matters, the Gardai had been unable to pin anything on him. And when he was brought to court on petty charges, he posed outside for press photographers, dropping his trousers to reveal a pair of Mickey Mouse boxer shorts. Last week, however, the game was cut brutally short when Cahill was blown away within 100 yards of his South Dublin home by an IRA hit squad. Report: NEIL McCORMICK.
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.
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
Tired of overcongested roads, traffic noise and gridlock? Fancy getting out into the sun for a change? Reclaim The Streets throws exactly that kind of party on May 6th
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.
Want to be a singer/dancer/actor (circle as appropriate), do you? Or are you just an attention junkie? Either way, Ireland's first-ever Showbiz Bootcamp (featuring your guide, "life coach" Judymay Murphy) will sort you out
Maps are hardly promising material for movie adaptations, representing only the surface of things with no attempt to reveal their character or real flavour. You read the lines of a map, not between them.
City Of Men allows you to enjoy the gun totting favelas and favelados as they strut around the streets of Rio De Janeiro without ever allowing you to forget that their lives are hellish and brief.
Retrosexuals ahoy. Like Sin City, Zack Snyder’s pounding adaptation of Frank Miller’s Greco-Roman graphic novel falls somewhere between live action and anime had the illustrations been provided by Tom of Finland.
Katie Kirby may be only in her early 20s, but a healthy appetite for acting means that her appearance in Great Expectations at Dublin's The Gate will cap a prolific year.
Hot Press has long been a fan of Dublin songwriter Myles O'Reilly, aka Juno Falls – but it seems he's recently picked up a more high-profile admirer...
THAT BREED of cinemagoer known as the war-movie freak will, in all probability, find The Trench a mammoth disappointment. Not enough explosions; not colourful enough; no rousing martial music – no fun at all, really.
The Cooler’s pace never relents throughout, which keeps it lively enough to mitigate the bombardment of gangster-flick clichés that disfigure the proceedings. There’s certainly no earthly reason to see it twice, but for unfussy devotees of the genre, this might do the trick.
While the title would seem to hint at another turgid, ultra-dull, join-the-dots courtroom thriller of the John Grisham variety, A Civil Action actually has much to recommend it.
It soon becomes apparent very early on that Death Watch, perhaps a fine idea in the first place, flounders sadly without the benefit of remotely accomplished direction or a script worthy of the name.
Born in England but of Irish descent, Lucy Gaskell got to learn first hand about the class tensions that followed the War of Independence while preparing for The Big House.
She has won rave notices – and more than a few awards – for her turns in Bloody Sunday and Hamlet. Now Kathy Kiera Clarke is to star in The Abbey’s new production of George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer.
She has won rave notices for her turns in Bloody Sunday and Hamlet. Now Kathy Kiera Clarke is to star in The Abbey’s new production of The Recruiting Officer.
Pop quiz, hot shots. You’re a diminutive supernova pushing on in years (say 43) who has recently been voted the Most Irritating Movie Star of all time. There’s been some unpleasant publicity of late, concerning your wacko religious cult and increasingly barmy behaviour. Not one, but two directors have left you in the lurch with your great, big fuck-off film franchise. What do you do? What do you do?
Here's something that doesn't happen everyday, or even any day, but is a staple of that alternative universe located somewhere between Hollywood and dreamland: a stranger rolls into town and is immediately mistaken for a contract killer.
A lazy, manipulative, smug and thoroughly calculated rom-com/road-movie with no heart to speak of and both eyes firmly fixed on the box-office, Forces of Nature is another market-driven exercise in summertime schmaltz.
Ice Cube continues his surprisingly impressive acting career with this likeable, lightweight, totally inconsequential chronicle of the trials and tribulations that attend his ownership of an inner-city Chicago barbershop.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Directed by and starring Kenneth Brannagh, with Richard Briers, Michael Keaton, Robert Sean Leonard, Keanu Reeves, Emma Thompson and Denzel Washington)
A woman encouraging her boyfriend to “shit his leg off” during bad sex, doctors diagnosing symptomless comas, death through prolonged ejaculation – looks like Chris Morris is back on TV again. investigating the nocturnal goings-on: Paul Nolan
While more enlightened critics have noted that Dogville has important points to make about exploitation, degredation, self-righteousness and self-serving iniquity, Moviehouse must urge caution about whether such treasures are really worth the three-hour wait.
Its industrial swamp rock production is also largely unrepresentative of the rest of the album, but Mütter is full of meticulous attention to sonic detail.
Brought to you by the makers of Human Traffic, SW9 often plays like its predecessor’s older, more world-weary sibling. Its thematic preoccupations may be similar, but it’s a less frenetic and free-wheeling affair.
Jaume Collet-Serra’s exhilarating horror-thriller eschews the chin-stroking of early bad seed B-movies, but retains enough classicism to stand out as an exemplar of the sub-genre.
Just when you started to suspect that The Shawshank Redemption was a remarkable fluke, up pops Frank Darabont with one of the most discombobulating adaptations of Steven King literature since The Shining.
It’s a pleasure to report that Guerin’s hair-raising story has finally been committed to celluloid in a manner that does the tale justice, and the result is a gripping and supremely-acted piece of work.
Subtle and quietly uplifting, Matchstick Men never threatens to materialise into a classic, but easily knocks the crap out of like-minded recent efforts like Confidence. Cautiously recommended.
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).
THE STUDIO will probably make a mint on this one, depressing as it is to report - Ordinary Decent Criminal is, of course, a Hollywood-friendly account of the life and times of Martin 'The General' Cahill,
Racing Stripes blends live action and animatronix for a narrative about a zebra who wants to be a racehorse trapped in a movie that wants to be Babe. It’s nowhere near, I’m afraid, belonging instead to a genus that includes Ice Age or Shark’s Tale - you know, family features seemingly designed to help the Pixar people cackle themselves to sleep on mattresses stuffed with thousand dollar bills.
For those who’d prefer not to listen to the shrill cockney choruses of Carol Reed’s 1967 musical version, this slavishly faithful adaptation should hit the spot, if, of course, one feels inclined to revisit such an overly familiar Dickens’ tale.
Directed by Greg Mottola. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig. [107mins. Cert 16.]
Opens September 11
For those of you with blissful enough lives to be unaware of his existence, The Rock (lest we forget, his real name is Dwayne Johnson) is the biggest phenomenon by far in the lunatic world of American professional wrestling – a standing which should ideally equip him for a career in the movies, given that wrestling itself is entirely a (somewhat heightened) form of behaviourist acting.
A DELICIOUSLY subtle, slice of cinema at its most unhurried and carefully-crafted, Cider Rouse Rules represents a resounding return to form for Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom, best known for his supreme coming-of-age drama My Life As A Dog
Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a brief, uncredited appearance in The Story Of Qui Ju as a poster jockeying for position amongst the ubiquitous images of Chairman Mao.
Elephant is though, quite an accomplishment in filmmaking terms – it’s brilliantly atmospheric, with the music of Elgar wailing over images of footballing youths.
The Dark Is Rising, an adaptation of Susan Cooper’s massively influential children’s classic, is a big, plodding dud that bares little or no resemblance to the book that inspired it.
Perry Ogden’s fine film – a loose series of naturalistic vignettes following its eponymous traveller girl – doesn’t entirely avoid romanticizing its subject.
This year’s Hollywood hymn to tainted hippy-era rock’n’roll excess – think Boogie Nights meets Drugstore Cowboy – the overblown but highly engrossing Wonderland provides an unexpectedly riveting memorial to the life and times of legendary ’60s and ’70s porn-star John Holmes.
Swords fly, blood splatters and comely wenches wobble like never before in glorious motion capture animation. You wonder why the filmmaker didn’t, you know, go and make a real film.
A mind-bogglingly sentimental ‘feelgood’ affair, in accordance with all the traditions of American sports movies, Radio stars Ed Harris (easily the film’s strongest link) as the grizzled old head coach of a high-school American-football team, way down in the deep heart of Southern redneck country.
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
It was a little piece of Off Broadway in Dublin. Now Andrew’s Lane is closing and Irish theatre shall be the poorer for its going. Pat Moylan reflects on the end of an era.
The most breathlessly exhilarating cinematic joyride of its kind since Pulp Fiction, Doug Liman's follow-up to the much-loved Swingers is an instant cult classic which could be hailed in many quarters as a generation-defining masterpiece.
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.
It was Tennessee Williams' first real masterpiece. The Glass Menagerie, now in revival at Dublin's Gate, also saw the playwright baring his soul as never before.
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.
Inexplicably subjected to a recent barrage of lukewarm-to-hostile reviews, The Luzhin Defence is, in my much-sought-after opinion, the single sweetest love story of the last five years or so, and mandatory viewing for anyone with a brain and a heart.
None of the obituaries to Frank Sinatra that I read mentioned that he'd been accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee of being a communist. Maybe few are interested in the political aspect of Sinatra's complex and colourful life. But to ignore it entirely is to miss a salient dimension of the man.
Inspired by Colm Toibin's novel about Henry James, director Liam Halligan has brought one of the horror master's most singular ghost stories, The Turn of the Screw back to the stage.
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
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.
Rough Magic is back with another barnstorming production, Don Carlos, a tale of deceit and corruption set in 16th century Spain. The play’s Rory Keenan explains why its gloomy message has a 21st century resonance.
NEIL JORDAN's twelfth movie to date, and in many respects his bleakest, The End Of The Affair is British period drama at its most harsh and unforgiving.
Stephen Robinson meets Paths To Freedom creators Ian Fitzgibbon and Michael McElhatton to discuss their latest collaboration Fergus' Wedding, a comedy that looks at Dublin's growing swingers scene
In an ideal world, nobody would have been allowed to write anything about The Blair Witch Project before its release, and everybody could have experienced the shock at maximum impact. That might have carried its own dangers, however: people might literally have died from the terror.
The actors who became cult heroes for their recreation of the tribunals on Tonight With Vincent Browne are bringing their show to the stage. Interview: STEPHEN ROBINSON
He’s an odd fish is Todd Solondz, and Palindromes – his most politically charged and controversially comic horror to date – will surely and calculatedly polarize folks even more than the cruel soap-opera of Happiness and Storytelling. Some punters will undoubtedly find Palindromes’ brilliantly caustic treatment of abortion and paedophilia to be funny ha-ha, while more sensitive (and possibly humourless) others will deem Mr. Solondz’s efforts as funny-get-the-mace-spray-out-peculiar.
"...the Coen brothers work their magic unseen. They’ve always been too secure in their talents to bother with showboating and here their deft touch has never seemed surer."
A musical set in modern Dublin? Starring The Frames’ Glen Hansard as a love-struck busker? Nobody believed in John Carney’s Once but, following a rave debut at the Sundance film festival, it might just prove to be the biggest Irish movie of the year
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.
Galwegian comedy writer and sometime stand-up Karl MacDermott is the man behind Straight To Video, currently running on Network 2. He spoke to Nick Kelly
Oh, how I’ve prayed for this day. George Lucas’ increasingly unappealing franchise has spluttered its avaricious last and not before time. May the force be gone. True, Revenge Of The Sith, the final instalment of this tweenie space opera is infinitely preferable to the previous two films (in much the same way as an enema is nicer than a bullet in the head) but the same old problems are annoyingly in evidence.
If you're under 25 and out of work for six months, watch your back. That's the message from the Tánaiste Mary Harney, who announced plans last week to cut people off the dole after six months
If you're under 25 and out of work for six months, watch your back. That's the message from the Tánaiste Mary Harney, who announced plans last week to cut people off the dole after six months
He found fame with his dorky turn in The Office. Now Rainn Wilson is trying to make it on the big screen. And yes, he's aware that it's easier said than done.
Still scratching your head over The Sopranos’ enigmatic final curtain? To help you make sense of it – and to look back over its eight years – we talk to Frank Vincent, aka wiseguy Phil Leotardo.
New comedy Dan And Becs casts a cruel but hilarious eye on south Dublin’s privileged brats. But don’t mistake the show's star, Holly White, for her shallow alter-ego.
Rosa Luxemburg once wrote that anyone who steps needlessly on a worm on the road to revolution has committed a crime. But even she might be dismayed by how daft the British media sometimes go about animals.
STEPHEN ROBINSON hears RTE’s Commissioning Editor for Entertainment BILLY McGRATH’s plans to bring more home-grown comedy talent to our screens this autumn
Nick Kelly talks to the king of camp, Dublin-bound comedian and actor, Harvey Fierstein, about homosexuality, Woody Allen, The Simpsons and life in general.
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.
The party’s over, and the less well-off are expected to pick up the tab for the excesses of avaricious millionaires. But there are constructive things that can be done to turn the tide...
The life and work of Stephen Gately was brilliantly remembered at his funeral service by the members of Boyzone. There is a lesson in this for all of us.
There is no question about it. He may look as if he's been dipped in a bottle of red ink but it is Adam who stands there bollock naked before the camera and the world on the back sleeve of the latest, long playing opus from the band whose name begins with U and ends with 2. And is that Eve who hovers topless behind Bono on the front?
Now that the Leaving Cert results have been fully digested, people are looking afresh at their options. colm o’hare explores some interesting opportunities for career advancement.
Comedian Brendan O Carroll brings his new stand up show to Dublin s HQ in November.
Here he talks to Stephen Robinson about comedy, criticism and, uh, starting his own airline. Pics: CATHAL DAWSON.
D UNBELIEVABLES are probably the most popular comics in Ireland. As preparations continue for the opening of their new show, Olaf Tyaransen talks to the duo about rural Ireland, negative press, and whether they have yet made their fortune.
The relationship between drugs and creativity has always been a hotly debated subject. But narcotic indulgence has proven to be the downfall of many a gifted artist.
Colm O'Hare turns over a new leaf or two from the huge variety of publications on the shelves this Christmas, from rock biographies to more general Irish published works. So, for those of you who like your entertainment between the covers, read on . . .
