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.
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.
FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM is a major new six-part RTE series. Directed by DAVID HEFFERNAN, and featuring new interviews with the major players including Van Morrison, Bob Geldof, U2 and Siniad O Connor it traces the history of Irish music, from showbands to boybands and beyond. By PETER MURPHY.
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
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.
t certainly would, Joe. But you can have a toot on my megaphone if you like! Gavin Friday discusses the finer points of sexual politics not to mention the post-Freudian subtext to his stunning new meisterwork Shag Tobacco with Dr Joe Jackson. Our man in the white coat concluded: Gavin s time has come. But is the world finally read
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
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.
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.
Jim Sheridan’s wonderful In America forces us to think seriously about many things: family, children, immigration and the importance of making movies in Ireland.
This year there is one striking feature of the Dublin Theatre Festival which would suggest that the Capital’s two key theatres are not making too much of an effort for the event.
The Great Chat-Show War didn’t quite turn out to be the promised Mother of All Battles. Although in some ways it did: like Saddam’s first war, it was all over in less than a 100 days.
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.
Peter Sheridan, whose book 44: A Dublin Memoir has just been published to rave reviews, on Archbishop Desmond Connell, brother Jim, Samuel Beckett and Sean O Casey, and on the two key events one, an incident of sexual abuse, the other the death of a family member around which the whole book spins . Interview: joe jackson. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
Following on from Hot Press' extensive polling of musicians around Ireland, we herewith present The 100 Greatest Irish Albums Of All Time as voted by You, the population of hotpress.com
GAY AND LESBIAN FILM FESTIVALThe hot new Dublin-born, New-York-based director Jimmy Smallhorn, Desert Hearts and ER director Donna Deitch, and zany NY comedienne Reno will all be on hand to introduce their films at the 6th Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, which runs at the IFC in Dubin from July 30th to August 3rd.
Others may seek to inspire shock and awe – but Ireland’s leading designer John Rocha sees things differently. His thing is to make clothes that people really want to wear.
The Corrs hit paydirt with In Blue, an album of memorable pop songs that topped the charts in over twenty countries around the world. It gave them the breathing space they needed to re-establish their roots, to live a little and to reassess their purpose as a band. Now, with the release of Borrowed Heaven, they’re back in the music biz frontline – slightly older, considerably wiser, but still with the same hunger to make great and honest records.
With his work on the soundtrack to In The Name Of The Father bringing him into the full glare of media attention Gavin Friday takes this opportunity to put to rest any accusations of riding on U2’s coat-tails. Confident and brimming with ideas for his solo career, The Spotlight Kid gives the lowdown to an eager BILL GRAHAM.
Somebody up there likes us -that's for sure! Slane Castle 4pm on Saturday 25th August 2001 and the sun is shining down through deep blue skies like it hasn’t done all summer.
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.
Until now, that is! DAVID PUTTNAM is one of Britain s most successful film directors of the past 20 years. But, as the turn of the century approaches, he believes that the control exerted by Hollywood over the film, entertainment and information industries globally may yet inspire a violent reaction. Interview: CATHY DILLON
. . . 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
While 2004 has not been an especially spectacular year to date, there is good reason to believe that rocks big guns are likely to deliver the kind of records that will revive spirits in the industry. Chris Donovan previews some of the albums that are likely to top the sales – and the critical – charts before 2004 is out...
Despite the controversies in which she has recently bee involved, when SINIAD O'CONNOR starts talking music it becomes evident why she ran away to join the rock'n'roll circus in the first place. Citing Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Van Morrison as her ultimate trinity, she discusses the spiritual forces that drive and inspire. Interview: BILL GRAHAM
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.
This time he appeared with a string quartet, a sprinkling of keyboards, backing tapes and his various guitars, for a gig that was more restrained than usual.
Twelve months ago The Cranberries were unknown outside of the hippest rock circles, now with the platinum success of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? they stand as the first Irish band to genuinely crack America since U2.
Much of the media attention given to them has focussed on Dolores O'Riordan, a singer whose unique approach to her craft underlines the defiantly independent path the group has trodden all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. Here she talks to JOE JACKSON about what by any standards has been a perfect year. .
In the past, many Irish people suffered from an inferiority complex about their own culture – about the language, music, film and literature of this island. But music is one arena where things have changed dramatically. Report: Jackie Hayden
...or was it? U2's recent Irish dates were greeted with everything from wide-eyed adoration to open hostility. BILL GRAHAM was in the crowd at Pairc Uí Caoimh and the RDS and puts the Zoo TV experience into perspective. Pix: COLM HENRY
The Strokes? Pah! Last night's jammed Billy Bob Thornton gig in Vicar Street (stars on the stage, stars in the audience, queues round the block) is the current front runner for gig of the year. Hot Press, of course, was there (consider us your private radio)
Though their second album, All The Way From Tuam, has yet to hit the shops in Britain, The Sawdoctors are beginning to pack em in in the strangest of places like Norwich and Leeds. Bill Graham talks to Leo Moran about the band s phenomenal success to date and, against a backdrop of cynicism among rock s self-conscious cognoscenti, asks the perennial question: what is hip?
Ireland's most hyped event of the year, the MTV EUROPE AWARDS may have had as many gossip columnists as winners thanking God, but after hours it was IGGY POP and heavy friends who made the real headlines on a night when rock'n'roll bit back. Report: OLAF TYARANSEN and PETER MURPHY. Awards Pics: PETER MATTHEWS. Iggy Pics: Cathal Dawson
. . . 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
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.
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.
Er, perhaps not, but after 25 years of waxing, back-combing and tottering around on six-inch heels, Mr. Pussy has certainly earned the right to call himself ‘Ireland’s Most Misleading Lady’. LIAM FAY gets a lesson in cross-dressing from the man who’s stripped Bono to the waist, offered solace to Charlie Haughey and stuck a hairy appendage under Ringo Starr’s nose. PIX: Colm Henry
It’s a different world than it used to be! In this special extended birthday column, The Hog takes a necessarily selective – and typically colourful – look at the 30 most important influences on the process of change that has brought this country all the way from there to… well, where else but here?
In a presidential nomination field virtually devoid of candidates of real calibre and charisma, the name of ex-Boomtown Rat and Live Aid hero BOB GELDOF has cropped up again and again. Despite his outright denial that he will run for office, the rumour refuses to die away. Here, in an interview with LIAM FAY, he gives his assessment of Mary Robinson s seven years in the job, and his hopes for the future occupants of Aras an Uachtarain.
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
John Noonan, who played a pivotal role in the IRA’s military campaign against the British occupation of Northern Ireland, gives a revealing interview to Jason O'Toole.
Full profiles on Faithless, Antony & The Johnsons, Slayer, The Who, Bell X1, Status Quo, The Flaming Lips, 50 Cent, Madness, Christy Moore, Elton John and Lionel Richie.
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
IF PEDIGREE alone paid the rent, The Floors' mastermind David Donohue would be a made man. Always ten years ahead of his time, this Carlow-born film-maker, musician, songwriter and alternative entrepreneur first made his mark in 1989 with Put Blood In The Music, an excellent documentary study of a downtown New York downtown scene that included John Zorn and Sonic Youth.
The first day of The Music Show saw some hot debates, great music and Glen Hansard in stirring form.
Reporting: Peter Murphy, Celina Murphy, Niall Stokes, Stuart Clark and additional Hot Press reporters
30th Anniversary Retrospective: From indie flicks to Hollywood classics, Irish gems to world cinema masterpieces, Tara Brady here selects the top 101 films of the past 30 years.
The Music Show was a huge success, with people from all aspects of the music industry coming together to participate in an event which, as well as showcasing all the latest instruments and equipment, was rich in ideas, information and, above all, great music
But only if we let them. Draconian changes in the arts infrastructure have been proposed, the damaging effects of which will be felt for generations to come. Now is the time to shout: STOP!
AGNES BERNELLE s death last month brought a truly remarkable
life to a close. SIOBHAN LONG looks back, in the company of
Gavin Friday, Philip Chevron and Alan Amsby.
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.
It s not only the presence of the country s hottest publication that makes Trinity Street one of the coolest in the capital. Street scenes: Sasfi Hope-Ross
Twelve months ago The Cranberries were unknown outside of the hippest rock circles, now with the platinum success of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? they stand as the first Irish band to genuinely crack America since U2.-Much of the media attention given to them has focussed on Dolores O’Riordan, a singer whose unique approach to her craft underlines the defiantly independent path the group has trodden all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. Here she talks to JOE JACKSON about what by any standards has been a perfect year. Pix: Michael Quinn.
In the new Hot Press, Peter Murphy picks his 20 highlights from the last 35 years of home-grown alternative culture (in strictly chronological order!). Take a look and then have your say on the indie moments that rocked in your lifetime...
