• The Purge: Anarchy

    July 30, 2014 - By 

    2011’s The Purge, written and directed by relatively green film-maker James DeMonaco, was a concept in search of a movie. The ropey home invasion flick was built around an irresistibly trashy hook: in less than a decade from now, America is a sort of Tea Party NRA wonderland where, for one night a year, violent crime is legal. Murder is not just allowed, but promoted as a civil duty, all the name of spiritual self-renewal. It keeps the crime and population numbers down and the welfare rolls under control (dead people don’t claim the dole). The low-budget but decent-grossing film…

  • Volume Control: The Emerald Armada, Joshua Burnside, Jamie Neish & Matthew Duly @ Oh Yeah Centre

    July 29, 2014 - By 

    For the last week Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre has been home to three summer camps for journalism, photography and music, all of which build up to tonight’s Volume Control show. Volume Control is a programme run by the Oh Yeah Centre for teens aged 14-18 to organise and promote their own gigs and tonight is anticipated to be their most successful gig of the year; with a line-up like tonight’s, what else is to be expected? The VC team have a huge weight on their shoulders pulling off this show and from first thing this morning it seems problems…

  • Boyhood

    July 29, 2014 - By 

    Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is both an aesthetic and logistical triumph. That it exists at all is a victory of sorts, considering the (much-hyped) eccentricities of its production. The film is an impressionistic time-lapse of human development, charting the growth of a young Texan boy from primary-school to college age and the evolution of his surrounding family. To achieve an honest chronicle of this temporal stutter effect, Linklater returned to the small troupe of actors every year or so for eleven years to shoot a handful of scenes, guessing ahead and developing the narrative on the fly. In a neat folding…

  • Arnocorps, Scimitar @ The Speakeasy, Belfast

    July 28, 2014 - By 

    “GET TO THE CHOPPA!”, an excitable fan bellows outside Queen’s Students Union as I’m getting out of a taxi. At least, I can only assume he’s a fan. Not only is his hollered missive straight out of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 classic muscles-n-monster movie, Predator, but it is delivered in a faux Austrian accent with a decidedly South Belfast twang. Oh, that and the fact that he is dressed from head to toe in military style tactical gear, his side-arm swapped out for a Nerf Maverick revolver. And he has a squadron of similarly attired comrades backing up his six. At…

  • I am Divine

    July 28, 2014 - By 

    Prolific filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz turns his attention to the life and career of drag artist Divine, the cinematic muse of John Waters’ signature films. Divine didn’t invent the idea of being a drag queen, but she did reinvent it, challenging expectations, boundaries, society’s idea of ‘beauty’ and just plain decency and taste, and she did it like nobody else before. As Waters quips in the film, “Divine took it to another level, a level of anarchy”. The film begins with perhaps the crowning moment of Divine and John Waters’ long professional partnership – the premiere of Hairspray in 1988 –…

  • Watch Dogs (Ubisoft, Multiformat)

    July 24, 2014 - By 

    After being stuck in development for what seems like a lifetime – at least, in gaming terms – this much-vaunted open world adventure drops onto both current and next generations promising great things. Fantastic things. Unbelievable things. Press releases predicted an iconic central character, unparalleled depth of gameplay, and complete freedom in a living, breathing city. Naturally, much of this is promotional hyperbole, but what Watch Dogs does offer is something quite different from the usual titles – a fresh spin on an increasingly stale genre. It might not hit all the targets bang on but when it does work, it is…

  • Judas Priest – Redeemer of Souls

    July 24, 2014 - By 

    Judas Priest have always had a ‘balls to the wall’ sound, largely courtesy of guitarists KK Downing and Glenn Tipton. So when Downing decided to abandon ship in 2011, it was the musical equivalent of Priest losing a bollock. Kicking off their seventh album, ‘Dragonaut’ positively tears out of the speakers, leaving you in no doubt that if this is Priest on one bollock, it’s still better than most other things. Redeemer of Souls is very much Judas Priest being ‘Judas Priest’, delivering molten slabs of classic heavy metal, stories of warriors, machines, and beasts. And by adhering to the…

  • Festival Diary: With Full Force 2014

    July 19, 2014 - By 

    What better way to kick of the July than with German beer, super sunny skies, BBQs and some hardcore and metal? Takingplace on the first weekend of July in Roitzschjora Airfield, Löbnitz, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, With Full Force sees its twenty-first outing this weekend, packing in some of the very best acts in their respective, varyingly heavy fields. I fly in to Berlin the day before to avoid the bulk of people who normally arrive on the first day, catching a coach down to Liepzig and spending the journey joking and discussing bands with two other festival goers. Having met with…

  • Cat Power, Arborist @ Empire Music Hall

    July 16, 2014 - By 

    The queue waiting outside Belfast’s Empire Music Hall to buy tickets as doors open tonight shows there a lack of belief Chan Marshall would make it to Belfast again but she still manages to attract a crowd. Ranging from suited-up hipsters to middle-aged couples dressed for a night out, there is a massive amount of interest in seeing the reinvigorated Cat Power make up for the cancelled tour dates of 2012. As the room fills there is a sense of anticipation building in the intimate venue to see what Chan Marshall delivers. The support for the evening is Belfast-based band…

  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

    July 16, 2014 - By 

    The first of this Planet of the Apes trilogy, 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, benefited enormously from the goodwill produced by exceeded expectations. The original series of films, based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 sci-fi novel, existed in the public mind primarily as a vague collection of B-movie twists and lines of dialogue, ripe for sly parody. The first attempt at a modern remake, Tim Burton’s 2001 film, was muddled and saddled with an obtuse twist ending. There was room to go further. Rise, in which James Franco’s scientist raises the hyper-intelligent ape named Caesar and unwittingly develops…