On the third night of this year’s GAZE Film Festival, I listened to Queer historian Tonie Walsh introduce Gregg Araki’s 1992 film The Living End by listing historic events contemporaneous with its release around the city. He talked about how … Continue reading Growing Old at the GAZE Film Festival What is it like to be an old gay?
●●●○○ I am a big fan of Taylor Swift. I would go as far to say that I am a Taylor Swift connoisseur. I understand the nuances, all of the references that she scatters through her work and social … Continue reading Taylor Swift: Miss Americana // Review
●●●○○ Studio 54 is a place spoken of in mythic tones — a den of sin and extravagance that surely couldn’t ever live up to its legends. It’s a place you’ve definitely heard the name of, even if you know … Continue reading Sex, Drugs and Disco Studio 54 owner Schrager tells the story of the ultimate nightclub.
‘It was absurd, it was completely absurd, but somehow it worked.’ It’s January 2017 and Jim Carrey is sat in the living room of his Los Angeles home directing a steady and immediately transfixing gaze into the camera. For the … Continue reading “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” – review The method in the madness of Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman in Netflix’s documentary on the making of the 1999 biopic “Man on the Moon”
●●●●● I have not been so moved by a film in a long time. Director Pieter-Jan De Pue’s feature cum documentary film delved into Afghanistan’s lost history and society since Western intervention began; however significantly it mediated on the year … Continue reading The Land of the Enlightened- review
Reel Art is an Arts Council initiative that awards funding to two experimental documentaries each year. Further Beyond, the Reel Art commission from film duo, Desperate Optimists (Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor), screened at the IFI in February as part … Continue reading Making Reel Art
●●●●○ Continuing the trend of revealing music documentaries of the past year, along comes Janis: Little Girl Blue. While an honest, engaging and quite touching biopic which collates a wide variety of primary sources about Janis Joplin’s early life, career … Continue reading Janis: Little Girl Blue
●●●●○ “We were making history, and it wasn’t nice and clean”. So says the first interviewee in Stanley Nelson’s portrait of one of the most mythologised groups in North American history, the Black Panther Party. The film opens with an … Continue reading Black Panther: Vanguard of the Revolution- Review
●●●●○ Those involved in the making of The Queen of Ireland admit that it has been blessed with extraordinary good fortune. During production of the film, which focuses on the life and work of Rory O’Neill and his drag alter-ego … Continue reading The Queen of Ireland – Review
In April of 2012, rebel forces under the name of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (the MNLA) seized control of the northern territories of Mali. Presenting itself as a movement of independence for the ethnic Tuareg people, … Continue reading They Will Have To Kill Us First
●●●●● It is well known that there were many facets to the Cold War US-USSR rivalry. the Korean war, the Space Race and Fischer v. Spassky all became symbolic of the larger ideological struggle. Red Army, a cracking new documentary … Continue reading Red Army – Review
Tadgh Healy speaks to director Tadhg O’Sullivan about his new film The Great Wall. Shot across a number of European locations, and set against a reading of Kafka’s At the Building of the Great Wall of China, the documentary considers … Continue reading Breaking Boundaries – Interview with Tadhg O’Sullivan