• The Meg

    August 10, 2018 - By 

    Is it possible for a film to be not bad enough? Maybe that’s the wrong way to frame it. Shoddiness comes not just in quantity but in flavour: there’s good-bad, bad-bad, no-budget-bad, cheesy-bad, doomed-from-birth-bad. Producing high-yield schlock involves a precise cocktail of badness. The problem with The Meg, which feels like the frazzled product of heatwaved heads, is in its badness ratio: not enough fun-bad, too much boring-bad. The Meg, in which Jason Statham takes on a giant shark with growling one-liners and a steady harpoon arm, goes for two genre tones, and ends up splitting the difference. One is the…

  • The Olllam w/ Síomha @ Black Box, Belfast

    August 8, 2018 - By 

    When the Black Box has a good night it tends to have a very good night and the general atmosphere upon arriving to the last night of The Olllam’s tour of the island seems to indicate that we’re in for a very good night. Warm word of mouth reviews from all corners and word that Joe Dart of Vulfpeck has joined them on bass throughout the tour brings a buzz of expectation to the room, and more than couple of curious Vulfpeck fans out of the woodwork, too. The room is a touch warmer than it really needs to be,…

  • The Darkest Minds

    August 8, 2018 - By 

    A dwindling genre still pushed by naturally rise-averse studios, the young-adult dystopic takes the us-versus-the-world siege mentality of the average teenager and kits it out with hyperbolic, now-predictable apocalyptic flourishes. A mysterious virus; economic breakdown; savage totalitarianism; stirrings of revolution. Adapted from the first novel of Alexandra Bracken’s YA trilogy with a screenplay from Chad Hodge and direction by Kung Fu Panda’s Jennifer Yuh Nelson, The Darkest Minds pits adults against kids with a savageness that’s almost comic. Youngsters either drop dead, get hunted by psycho bounty hunters, or find themselves herded into concentration camps to scrub boots for sociopaths in balaclavas. Even…

  • The Top 10 Sets At All Together Now 2018

    August 7, 2018 - By 

    Starting for it’s first year ever All Together Now has brought together the best in Irish and international talent to a picturesque Waterford setting. For its first year, All Together Now is mostly superbly organised; it has one of the most stacked line-ups of the summer, excellent communication between the festival and its goers and a generally beautiful design. The organisers should be incredibly proud for establishing a new festival that should last for many years to come. Here’s the top 10 sets that we caught at this year’s inaugural outing. Words by Kelly Doherty. Photos by Patrizio Mancuso. Mura Masa…

  • Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

    August 3, 2018 - By 

    “More jokes!” After D.C. and Warner Bros’ ultra-sombre film debuts left them with box office egg on their faces, the cinematic DCU has been itching, ever gradually, closer to the light, well-received populism of the Marvel house style. Justice League’s most human moment was a Josh Whedon gag; Wonder Woman swung for idealism and fish-out-of-water larks; the trailer for James Wan’s Aquaman suggests a dopey beef-bro underwater odyssey, while Shazam!‘s leans hard on the comedy, and seems to work. The memo’s gone out: the sillier the better. By that metric, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies is D.C.’s best film yet.…

  • Mission: Impossible – Fallout

    August 2, 2018 - By 

    “I’ll figure it out.” Ethan Hunt’s reassurance, repeated through Mission: Impossible — Fallout, is the mantra of the eternal optimist, one embodied perfectly by Tom Cruise, contemporary blockbuster cinema’s most industrious instrument of can-do energy, only but one of the diligently-spinning cogs in Christopher McQuarrie’s meticulously constructed, if occasionally overwhelmed, return to the Impossible brand. If the traditional, Bondian image of espionage (pre-Daniel Craig anyway) is that of effortless ease — a silencer under a dinner suit, a wry one-liner with alcohol on the breath — then in Cruise we get the opposite: intelligence work as aerobic overkill. Under the instruction of the Impossible series’ five distinct directors (McQuarrie…

  • The 8 Best Sets at KnockanStockan 2018

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    KnockanStockan has long established itself as one of of Ireland’s biggest small festivals and with a line up of amazing homegrown Irish talent from all genres and movements, it appears to have exceeded expectations. While the line-up is stellar and the festival is endlessly appealing in terms of appearance and size, Knockanstockan 2018 struggles with one major stumbling block: disorganisation. With many stages running towards hours late, a lack of security around ensuring safety in campsites and production room, problems with clear signage indicating who is playing where and when and issues around officially booked transport to and from the…

  • Goodbye Mandela @ Mandela Hall, Belfast

    July 30, 2018 - By 

    So, the last gig at Mandella Hall. Probably a pretty great venue when you sit and list off all the great gigs you saw there. But nostalgia is for later. WASPS are a pleasantly rambunctious start to the evening, playing in Bar Sub they strike excitable silhouettes adrift in a haze of dry ice and some slick, stark lighting. They find their groove somewhere between desert surf and mathy punk and mine it to death, littering it with nice interplay and clever fills, throwing in some swampy rock riffs every now and then, too. They give an energetic and warm…

  • Ross From Friends – Family Portrait

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    What is it about the past that fascinates us? What is it that allows us to romanticise and dream of places that we can’t ever return to? Is it because they are out of our reach that so too is the disappointment that often arises from getting what we desire? Nostalgia is a fickle thing, and in its use we often become completely submerged in our own warped perception of the past, ignorant to all but the glamorous detail. When we incorporate this almost artificial warmth into the lucid and veritable memories of our families, the intoxication becomes all the…

  • The Ophelias – Almost

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    Very occasionally you hear an album that neatly demonstrates its full mission statement within seconds of starting. The opening number is normally a musician’s calling card, but generally this takes a few minutes to let the audience in on what’s being attempted. There’s a real delight in encountering music that is so self-assured and confident that it’s willing to show all of its cards as soon as the chips are drawn. To The Ophelias credit, they give you a nice ten-second window in which to decide if this is going to be for you. If you think that a high…