BFF 19: Float Like A Butterfly
April 18th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
“It’s not about how many times you get hit, it’s abut how many times you get back up.” A flash …
Author Archives: Conor Smyth
BFF 19: Birds of Passage
April 17th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
Plagues, locusts and temptation in the desert: Birds of Passage is biblical in its grandeur and moral ruin. The current …
BFF 19: A Bump Along The Way
April 15th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
Opening the 19th Belfast Film Festival, Mark Cousins, newly installed Chairperson and mega-watt generator of cinematic enthusiasm, advertised the rectangular …
Happy as Lazzaro
April 9th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
Reality slips and slides in Happy as Lazzaro (“Lazzaro Felice”), the third feature from Italian film-maker Alice Rohrwacher, a …
Shazam!
April 9th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
Bam! A flash of lightning hits and, just like that, D.C.’s moviescape jolts into life, pumped up on the wisecrack …
The Dig
March 28th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
The Irish bog is fertile metaphorical soil. It’s dank, ancient, unforgiving. It brings you down and sucks you in and …
Minding the Gap
March 20th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
For about a half hour, Minding the Gap lulls you into a false sense of security. The opening passages of …
The Kindergarten Teacher
March 15th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
For a film about a frustrated, unhappy child educator, The Kindergarten Teacher is surprisingly quiet. No chaotic scenes of brats …
Tyrel
March 11th, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
Like Sebastián Silva’s previous films, Tyrel walks the tightrope between psychological drama and out-and-out horror. Interpersonal conflicts come to the …
Capernaum
March 1st, 2019 | by Conor Smyth
“My life is dogshit.” Zain El Hajj, the young protagonist of Nadine Labaki’s third feature Capernaum, which competed for the Foreign …
