Director: S Craig Zahler Starring: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Udo Kier Running time: 132 mins
Vince Vaughn: Skull Cruncher. Liberator of eyeballs, improvised body disposal expert. That isn’t the full extent of Vaughn’s MO in S Craig Zahler’s unflinchingly violent Brawl in Cell Block 99 but it’s a start.
Dub Web Fest, now in its 3rd year, serves as a celebration of the storytelling power of the Internet. Uniting digital media and tech worlds, the festival provides a platform for original web series and short form digital content, as TV and Film production professionals come together in Dublin to showcase the best of what they can do online. This year, the festival makes its way to Smithfield, as the first details from the 2017 edition begin to arrive.
The latest film by Alex Gibney is set for release in Irish and UK cinemas on the 10th of November. The documentary director has courted both awards and controversy for films like Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks will be exploring the Troubles in his film No Stone Unturned.
October 31st will see the return of one of Dublin’s cinemas, as the Stella Theatre is set to reopen its doors very soon.
From October 27-30th, Dublin City will be host once again to the Bram Stoker Festival, a gothically inspired season of events celebrating the work of one of Ireland’s most prominent authors and the mind that gave rise to Dracula. From dance to parades to live performances, there’s plenty going on for vampire enthusiasts, but if you’re batty about film like we are (sorry, sorry), then you’ll want to be in attendance at the films that will be shown as part of Bram Stoker Festival 2017 .
Director: Hany Abu-Assad Starring: Kate Winslet, Idris Elba, Austin the Dog, Raleigh the Dog Running time: 103 mins
The Mountain Between Us opens on Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) with a skilled American accent and an arsenal of questions, a complete contrast to Ben’s (Idris Elba) British stoic suave. They are total strangers, thrown together by bad weather and circumstance. They arrive at the airport to find out all flights to Denver are cancelled, but with Ben flying out to perform a surgery and Alex trying to make it to her wedding, they can’t wait until the next morning. Alex charters a plane, piloted by a sweet old man and his faithful dog, and having overheard his troubles, she invites Ben to tag along. Disaster ensues.
Last year saw the Dublin Worker’s Film Festival join the ranks of the many film festivals taking place in Dublin that bring a varied selection of films of diverse and meaningful subject matter to audiences in the nation’s capital. Taking place on Pearse Street, the festival screened three films from the 60s, 80s, and 2010s that addressed issues of the working classes, and this year the festival expands, with a programme of 6 films this October. Whether you get up early enough in the morning for our Taoiseach’s liking we couldn’t possibly say, but you won’t have to be up at the crack of dawn for these films, which span just about 100 years and include some interesting sounding Q and As to boot.
Love horror? The Irish Film Institute has you more than covered for terror this Halloween with the IFI Horrorthon 2017, the full programme of which we’ve got right here for you. From frightening favourites to creepy cult hits to some petrifying premieres, the varied series has something for everything looking for a scare from October 26 – 30.
Director: Denis Villeneuve Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Jared Leto, Ana de Armas Running Time: 163 minutes
The advanced screening of Blade Runner 2049 and presumably, all advanced screenings of the film, began with a letter from the director, imploring those in attendance to keep tight lipped about the film’s various twists and turns, to “not spoil the magic”. And though there are plenty of spoilers that will, for the purposes of playing ball, be avoided in this review, Blade Runner and its sequel are not films about the plot details, not really. Despite the many story-changing cuts and decades of speculation and misleading trailers and advance screening advanced warnings, these are films whose true value lays not in the story beats but in the ideas and the images and everything else that a rogue tweet or a too-curious eye over a Wikipedia page cannot take away from you. From the outside, Blade Runner 2049 may look like yet another nostalgia cash-in, and an odd choice for one at that, but it’s no mere replicant of the original, providing a beautiful backdrop against which the series’ themes about identity, memory and autonomy are given further thought.
The third edition of the Greek Film Festival comes to a variety of venues in Dublin this October. Promoting Greek culture through a variety of films and events and showing the links between Greece and our own nation, the festival is a celebration of Greek cinema and Greek culture. One of many varied festivals in the fair city of film that brings international cinema to Irish eyes.
