CRITICISM / CULTURE / CINEMA
Films that stay with you.
Writing that looks a little closer.
Explore the collected reviews of Linda O’Brien.
Lost in translation.
The Americanisation of foreign language cinema is hardly a new phenomenon but lately the issue of Hollywood whitewashing has become a hot topic. At times, this criticism is levelled somewhat unfairly but…
Read review ↗
Love hurts.
Nestling in between the big releases of the holiday season is a little, unpolished gem called Girlfriend which has been doing the festival rounds quite successfully since 2011. The film follows a…
Read review ↗
Living in a bottle.
Given the fact that the Irish are renowned for their skill at storytelling, it’s always been a mystery to me that so much of Irish filmmaking is hopelessly cloth-eared when it comes…
Read review ↗
Gleeful.
The title Glee: The 3D Concert Movie is a little misleading. The Glee club singers are all present and correct and technically there’s some 3D in there somewhere but a movie it…
Read review ↗
Gnome sweet gnome.
Much like Snakes on a Plane, I suspect that Gnomeo & Juliet began as a water cooler joke before finding life as a feature film. The title was undoubtedly the best thing…
Read review ↗
God awful.
Let me paint a clumsy metaphor. In this metaphor, Warner Bros. is Godzilla. Huge and powerful, it plunders the landscape with scant regard for those who are trampled underneath. Director Gareth Edwards,…
Read review ↗
This is a (walking) stick up!
The auspices for Going in Style were mixed to say the least. On the one hand, the cast is impressive (I have a particular soft spot for Alan Arkin) and screenwriter Theodore…
Read review ↗
Gone but not forgotten.
Gillian Flynn’s international bestseller Gone Girl was not exactly high art but it was riotously entertaining; a pulpy page-turner about a toxic marriage with a plot twist that hits you right between…
Read review ↗
Pucking awful.
I have been assured by those in the know that ice hockey is a complex, skilful sport. Little of this is on display in Goon, a comedy written by Evan Goldberg (Superbad)…
Read review ↗
Zero G-enius.
Despite the heavy weight of hype on its shoulders, Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity shows no sign of obeying its own law by crashing to the ground. From the looks of things, this will…
Read review ↗
Anarchy in the U.S.
I saw Green Room at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning; a time when my sleepy brain can just about handle some gentle comedy, or perhaps a documentary about pandas. The latest…
Read review ↗
Lightweight.
Everything about Grudge Match is ridiculous; the awkwardly photoshopped poster, a concept that could be boiled down to the phrase “Rocky and Raging Bull get their bus passes” and of course the…
Read review ↗
Bad habits.
Bruno Dumont is a very serious director with some very serious ideas. For his first film La vie de Jesus, he wrote an entire novel rather than a traditional screenplay in order…
Read review ↗
Schoolboy errors.
The queer subversion of the coming of age romantic comedy is nothing new and hardly surprising. The teenage years are a minefield of hormones, social pressures and seemingly insurmountable problems – add…
Read review ↗
Toil and trouble.
The mantra of mainstream movies at the moment seems to be "Maximise your audience." It’s the reason that Taken 2 made voluntary cuts to receive a 12A rating and why the latest…
Read review ↗
Two left feet.
I can see the appeal of Happy Feet. Penguins, even the non-animated variety are adorable, inherently comic creatures. Having them sing and dance along to a collection of pop hits makes them…
Read review ↗
The final chapter.
It’s all turned out rather well really. After global domination in printed form, the film versions of the Harry Potter books were always going to be a success in box office terms…
Read review ↗
And now, the end is near...
These are dark days. Voldemort is rising, the boy wizard is running for his life and soon countless British actors will find themselves out of work. Yes, the saga that has kept…
Read review ↗