• Every Saoirse Ronan Film Ranked

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    The release last month of Mary Queen of Scots marked the twentieth on-screen role for Saoirse Ronan, who has, especially in the past few years, carved for herself a reputation as one of Ireland’s most talented and versatile actors. Press interviews with the 24 year-old, who first appeared as a 10 year-old on RTE’s The Clinic, often invoke her dual geographical upbringing—born in New York to Irish parents, later raised in Carlow and then Dublin—as a way to talk about the complexities of belonging, a theme which, it will be clear, runs through her work. Here is each of Ronan’s credited films, excluding voice…

  • Nazi Town, USA: Welcome to Leith’s Desperate, Unending Relevance

    July 13, 2018 - By 

    What would you do if Hitler moved in next door? Two years ago the Foyle Film Festival screened Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker’s documentary Welcome to Leith, a harrowing, stranger-than-fiction tale of Neo-Nazis trying to take over a tiny North Dakota town. I used to think about it about once a month. Now I think about it every day. Leith, Grant County is three square miles in size. You can fit the whole population in one train carriage. Its mayor is also the school bus driver. In 2012 it gets a new resident: a quiet, scraggy-haired older man…

  • The Pirates Don’t Eat The Tourists: Jurassic Park, 25 Years On

    June 14, 2018 - By 

    John Hammond is Steven Spielberg. Yes, it’s an obvious analogy: Richard Attenborough’s bio-engineering CEO and the maestro who directed him are both bearded childlike innocents, starry-eyed dreamers, alchemists who conjure stunning spectacles for an adoring public and make serious bank in the process. And both have seen their legacy squandered. In the twenty-five years since Jurassic Park’s release, across four sequels, the parks and their improbable animal attractions have been misused and mistreated, spiralling, in an inevitable logic Dr. Ian Malcolm would appreciate, towards chaos. In this month’s underwhelming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a burst of volcanic violence snuffs out…

  • London Korean Film Festival Comes To QFT

    November 17, 2017 - By 

    As part of the UK tour of the London Korean Film Festival, this weekend Queen’s Film Theatre will be presenting a selection of new and contemporary Korean gangster cinema. First up is Die Bad (Friday 17th, 6.20) the wild 2000 debut from Ryoo Seung-wan. Made on a tight budget, it’s a wild gang saga stitched together from a series of shorts. Next is writer-director Park Hoon-jung’s crime drama New World (Saturday 18th, 6.20), a thoughtful, intricate cops and criminals clasher. Finally, there is the chance for NI audiences to get a look at The Merciless (Sunday 19th, 6.20), a swaggering crime-action…

  • An Old Friend For Dinner: Remembering Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

    April 28, 2017 - By 

    Paul Thomas Anderson was once asked by Criterion, the American home video distribution company, which three directors had influenced him the most. Anderson replied, “Jonathan Demme, Jonathan Demme and Jonathan Demme.” Demme was one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation; and certainly one of the most talented. Few directors could shift as effortlessly between filmmaking styles – and as naturally between genres – as Demme, who dabbled fluently in comedy, horror, indie, drama and documentary. But, as well as being incredibly prolific, Demme was also enormously experimental with the medium, pushing cinematic techniques to new levels of sophistication…