I really enjoyed ‘Man on Wire‘ (directed by James Marsh), which documented Philippe Petit’s daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City’s World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974. Marsh’s new film, Project Nim, is released in Ireland on August 12th and tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s. The trailer looks really good so I’ve got high hopes.

If there’s one festival more than any other that I’ve attended in recent years, it’s the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. I went along to the launch event on Tuesday evening in Tripod to get the lowdown. Running from the 17th – 27th February, the 2011 programme features over 130 screenings plus a myriad of special events, panel discussions, public interviews and industry masterclasses. It’s a tribute to the hard work of the festival team and sponsors that they’ve managed to pull together one of the best lineups the festival has ever seen. It’s even more of an an achievement when funding for the arts has been hit as much as it has over the past year couple of years.

Launching the festival programme were award-winning actors Maura Tierney (ER, Liar Liar), who is currently in Dublin for rehearsals of God of Carnage at The Gate Theatre, and Charlene McKenna (Raw, Dorothy Mills). The festival opens strongly with a debut Gala Screening of Richard Ayoade’s (The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh) Submarine. Audiences will also be treated to a succession of Irish premieres, including: George Nolfi’s action-packed The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon; Emilio Estevez’s second film starring Martin Sheen, The Way; the tense thriller Unknown, starring Liam Neeson and Aidan Quinn; Irish film Wake Wood from the legendary Hammer Films starring Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle and Timothy Spall; Ken Loach’s thriller Route Irish, set on the most dangerous road in Iraq, and his son Jim Loach’s first feature Oranges and Sunshine as well as two of the shortlisted films for best foreign language Oscar, Incendies (Canada) and Life, Above All (South Africa).

Brand new for 2011 is the Jameson Cult Film Club, a series of special screenings which take place in unexpected non-cinema locations. First up is Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects with none other than Oscar winning star Kevin Spacey flying in to discuss the film. Details for the screening will be posted on the JDIFF Facebook page so keep your eyes peeled.

Supporting Irish film is an integral part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, and this year the Irish programme includes 18 new features and documentaries and 20 short films. The 2011 Irish Talent Spotlight casts its gaze on the work of director Juanita Wilson, animator David O’Reilly and actor Aiden Gillen. There will also be a focus behind the scenes of the industry with a number of events: Screentest is a series of careers related panel discussions; a Screenwriting Panel discussion held in association with Dublin City Libraries, and the new screenwriting competition Untitled. Exploring the blurring boundaries between cinema and computer games, the Off The Grid event will also bring gaming ‘industry legend’ Charles Cecil to Dublin for a masterclass in interactive storytelling.

The festival celebrates the intrinsic role of music in many films with a captivating 90th anniversary screening of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse accompanied by a live score by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in the National Concert Hall. Many documentaries in the festival will also turn the lens on music, with Upside Down, the story of Creation Records, the label that brought us The Jesus and Mary Chain and Oasis; Good Cake Bad Cake: The Story of LiR, the band tipped to succeed U2; Kinshasa Symphony, a stereotype-dispelling view of the Congo through the eyes of L’Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste and Ballymun Lullaby, the inspirational account of Ron Cooney’s Ballymun Music Programme.

Each year, Festival Director Grainne Humphreys, spotlights a number of international seasons. This February the focus is emerging Romanian cinema, highlights including the fascinating The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu and the bittersweet comedy Hello, How Are You? The hugely anticipated Latin Cinema Season includes Diego Luna’s (Y Tu Mamá También, Milk) skillful directorial debut, Abel, and the extraordinary Preludio, shot in a single take and exploring the development of love. French cinema is also well represented, with a screening of Little White Lies, directed by the multi-talented Guillaume Canet (The Beach, Tell No One) and François Ozon’s multi- Cesar nominated sparkling comedy-of-manners Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu as the Closing Gala.

Augmenting all of the above will be the Discovery programme of new work from emerging filmmakers; Out of the Past showcasing the best in classic cinema and a fantastic array of documentaries including The Simpson’s Harry Shearer with his exposé of the reaction to Hurricane Katrina The Big Uneasy.

Before the main launch, we sat down with Grainne Humphreys who gave her top three of the festival as:

1) Werner Herzog’s 3D documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, with a post-screening satellite Q&A.

2) Le Quattro Volte: a playful yet philosophical documentary about daily life in a remote Calabrian village with a scene that will ‘have you laughing until the end of the festival’.

3). The Woman with the Five Elephants: A beautiful documentary featuring the indomitable 85-year-old Svetlana Geier and her quest to translate Dostoyevsky’s five novels into German. “A film that really had an effect on me and one that I really had a connection with”.

You can download the full festival programme in PDF here. Tickets are on sale now (from €8-18) from the web site at www.jdiff.com, phone on (01) 6877974 and the Ticket Office at Filmbase, Curved Street, Temple Bar. There’s also the Facebook page and Twitter (@dublinfilmfest) account.

Here’s The Cave of Forgotten Dreams trailer:

The film is based on the real-life story of boxer Micky Ward from Lowell, Massachusetts. Micky has grown up in the shadow of his older half-brother and trainer Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale). It’s clear that Dicky was once a fantastic fighter but over the years has slipped in with the wrong crowd.He’s still living off the prestige of his high flying days and believes that there’s still time for his comeback. If there’s a single film this year that manages to capture blue collar life as well as The Fighter does, I’d be surprised. Micky works on the roads and struggles to make his family realise that he deserves a genuine shot at success in the ring. It’s a testament to the spirit of the man, and Mark Whalberg’s performance, that he makes you believe he can go all the way. Charlene (Amy Adams), a smart local barmaid, becomes the stable influence Micky needs to make him realise that he can’t waste any more time. It’d be remiss not to mention the excellent performance of Micky’s mother played by Melissa Leo. Whilst being the foundation of her extensive family, she’s content to focus on Dicky to the detriment of his brother.

I’m always struck by how Christian Bale constructs his complete being into characters. Here he has lost weight and become a frail frame on which he hangs a delusional man, haunted by who he was and who he could be in the future. The interplay between Whalberg and Bale is utterly convincing of a sibling respect tested to the extreme by the choices Dicky is making. When Micky finally gets some fights under his belt it’s clear that he’s learning from the errors his brother made in the ring. The creative decision to use TV cameras for the fight scenes is inspired as it lends a visceral quality to the action. Ward takes a lot of punishment and I’ve never been more convinced of how brutal the sport is. I won’t go into any further plot details as I don’t want to spoil it. Suffice is to say that you’re treated to a fantastic acting ensemble, a sharp script and beautiful urban cinematography. The Fighter could go twelve rounds with Rocky any day. Highly recommended.

The Fighter is on general release from February 2nd.

The supporting cast are all very good with Andrew Garfield a standout as Eduardo Saverin, the guy who was with Zuckerburg from the start. He’s the voice of reason whilst also being naive to the business environment they’re emerging into. You can’t help but root for Saverin by the closing act (especially when contrasted to the Winklevoss twins). I’d recommend you catch the film and also read this New Yorker piece which, while quite big, provides great background on the man himself. The Social Network is released on 15th October.

This is a re-post of my Scott Pilgrim review from culch.ie

It’s probably a tribute to this film that I’m writing the review of a Sunday morning. There’s not many films that would be afforded that honour. You see I’m a geek and Scott Pilgrim vs the World is like manna from heaven to geeks. The six part graphic novel created by Bryan Lee O’Malley in 2004 has been an amazing success with the final book coming out just weeks before the films release. It’s within that universe that Edgar Wright has created Scott Pilgrim vs The World which is based on the second book of the same name.

Scott, a twenty something dude from Toronto, who is “between jobs” meets Ramona Flowers and instantly becomes obsessed. The catch? To date her he’ll need to defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends. Yes, that’s fight and defeat. You don’t need to be the smartest kid in the class to figure out that this will involve Scott growing up and figuring out how much he wants to be with Ramona.

Michael Cera takes on the mantle of Scott. He’s an actor that has been criticised by many for “playing Michael Cera’ in the past but I think this marks a progression. Scott is aimless, selfish and thoughtless so it would be easy for an audience to find him annoying but Cera manages to keep it grounded through good comedy. We’ve probably all seen aspects of ourselves in Scott’s character too. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the object of Scott’s affection. The minute she turns up on screen, you can understand why she has seven evil exes fighting for her. It’s not just the fact that she looks the way she does (changing her hair colour every 10 days btw) but Winstead makes the character mysterious, enigmatic and very cool.

In terms of performances, there are two real standouts. First up is Kieran Culkin, playing Scott’s gay roommate, Wallace Wells. Wallace can be equally as thoughtless as Scott, and perhaps even more selfish – he shamelessly steals other people’s (straight) boyfriends – but when it comes down to it, he reminds us that best friends are sometimes the ones to tell us to stop whining, get off the couch and do something about our problems. Culkin’s performance is easy, natural and hilarious. While a little too much focus is given to Wallace’s sexual preferences in the film, Culkin takes this facet of his character, runs with it and makes it his own. The other outstanding performance has to be newcomer Ellen Wong as Scott’s spurned girlfriend Knives Chau. Wong’s portrayal of the character is so wide-eyed and lost puppy-ish that it is almost impossible not to root for her.

Taking the helm of directing the madness is Edgar Wright in his first Hollywood film after the huge successes of ‘Shaun of the Dead‘ and ‘Hot Fuzz‘. Wright was offered a number of scripts but chose to embrace Scott Pilgrim and it’s easy to understand why – he’s a geek. In terms of style, the cuts flow smoothly into one another, with conversations sometimes taking place over several locations – crummy apartment, street to sleazy nightclub. Add to this blocks of comic book text that alternate between setting the scene, commenting on the action or describing sound effects and you have the perfect mix of comic book meets video game type action. The film is very much a love letter to video games, not only in the fight scenes, but through the little touches – the ‘life’ Scott gains, the fact that defeated foes turn into coins, and the Street Fighter-esque glowing ‘Vs’ that appears on screen before each fight. We really enjoyed the music queues too. Make sure to look out for Chris Evan’s introduction as evil ex #2.

Overall, the pace drops slightly in the middle, but it’s made up for in terms of the amazing action sequences and plot which keep you interested throughout. The supporting cast – Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick and the array of evil exes (in particular Brandon Routh, Chris Evans and Jason Schwartzman) – are fantastic and the soundtrack is filled with great tunes (so many in fact that they’ve had to split it over two CDs).

Scott Pilgrim was always going to be a difficult film to sell to the masses but it really is a great film for non-geeks too. The action sequences, comedy and story are worthy of the summer blockbuster status the studio afforded it. Scott Pilgrim Vs the World is the cinematic equivalent of Mario 64 that will stay with audiences long after the final epic battle.

Competition: Universal are offering an epic holiday to Toronto, Canada, where the movie was shot on location. One winner and friend will be attending Toronto’s hottest Indie-Rock music festival (June 13-19, 2011) and visiting the locations of Scott Pilgrim. To enter, check out: http://apps.facebook.com/spxchallenge

It’s almost a role that George Clooney was born to play. Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizer, a man whose job it is to break the life changing news to people across America that their “positions are no longer available”. Although the story that this script is adapted from was written a few years ago, the current economic environment has lent a new weight to it. Bingham’s home is in the air, chasing a target of air miles that only six other people have ever achieved. He packs like a ninja and is turned on by platinum cards. It’s that particular encounter in which we are introduced to Alex who is almost a carbon copy of Bingham, at one point uttering the words “Just think of me as you but with a vagina”.

Bingham finds himself developing feelings for her and relationships are not this man’s strong point. Complicating matters for him is the fact that he has a cocky new colleague in the form of Natalie Keener, whose determined to introduce a new video conferencing way of firing people. This threatens Bingham’s entire way of life and the sparing between the man who considers it an art form and the woman whose determined to push through change is fantastic. That brings me to the script. Written by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner it develops fantastic characters and is sharp throughout. Reitman, who also directs, is going from strength to strength after the success of Juno.

I honestly can’t recommend this film enough. Clooney is sensational, embodying a man who goes through a sea change in how he deals with others. I’ve seen it twice now and will probably see it a third time when it’s released here this Friday 15th. The closing monologue will stick with me but I won’t quote it here.