- Smalltalk

- Treeclimber

- The Boy with the Ever Open Jaw

Filmbase is a non-profit resource center for filmmakers here in Dublin. I am able to rent equipment, take training courses, network, and participate in a number of Irish film industry events.

Once a month they host Shortspace, which is an evening screening of 5 or 6 Irish short films, and a Q&A afterwards with the filmmakers themselves.

Short films have all of the same headaches and heartaches in terms of the struggle to get them made, just smaller budgets and a much more limited production scale.

This particular evening was focused on writing and the Q&A session was with the writers (Jamie Hannigan, Michael Kinirons, and Pierce Ryan).

Quite an enjoyable experience I must say.

All of these films were funded by competitive grants from Filmbase, the Irish Film Institute, and the Irish Film Board. This is another way of saying that the Irish government helps to support the arts and without this help the majority of these films would not have been made.

A big thanks to these writers, the filmmakers, and the Arts Council...

Daily walks

Just a few random photos that I've taken during some of my daily walks...

Walking gives me time to think, to dream, to have some special time with God, and of course to get some exercise.

I highly recommend it...

Restrepo

A documentary made by journalist Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) and photojournalist Tim Hetherington while embedded for a one-year Vanity Fair assignment with the Second Platoon unit of the 503rd Infantry Regiment (airborne) in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan.

The documentary format brings a realism and credibility to what our troops are experiencing in this region, far from the western comforts of our living rooms and offices. This means the heightened adrenaline rushes of a firefight, the daily drudgery of manually building a new outpost, and the boredom that may permeate for days or weeks at a time.

There are moments of life at its fullest for these young men and yes, there is death...

A sobering companion to last year's The Hurt Locker, I don't believe that this film has a political agenda whatsoever.

A documentary is often limited by the footage shot while covering the subject. The "story" is then written in the editing room. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of footage here, however, my only criticism, and it's a slight criticism, is that the final story (which is best defined by Aristotle as simply a beginning, middle, and end) was not as strong as I expected. Ultimately this film allowed the viewer the opportunity to partially experience what our soldiers are dealing with in Afghanistan. This is an open, honest, and credible depiction of current conditions for this particular Platoon.

It won the top documentary prize at Sundance last year and has been nominated for an Oscar this year.

I saw this on DVD and of particular interest are the extras, the interviews with some of the soldiers themselves, and an update on where they are now -- after their 15-month deployment in Afghanistan.

Mesrine (Part 2)

The second part of this 4-hour Mesrine biopic.

In this second part of the Mesrine story, we follow this criminal as his crime's escalate to fulfill his need to stay relevant in the media. He becomes infatuated with his status as Public Enemy No. 1.

He robs banks back-to-back, he kidnaps judges and slum lord millionaires, and he violently murders a journalist that publicly humiliates him.

Part Dillinger, part Robin Hood, Mesrine is a criminal that does capture the imagination of the masses. His daring knew no bounds, once even remarking that "death is nothing to someone who knew how to live." Maybe it was this attitude that is captured so well in this film and that so many people may find enticing.

The end of this film brings a fitting end to this gangster's life as delivered by one of France's anti-gang units.

An extremely well-made film about someone who represented humanity's dark side to the fullest extent.

Part 1 probably glamorizes crime a bit too much and portrays this criminal in a sympathetic light but Part 2 certainly puts the viewer in the position of understanding that Mesrine deserved the fate that awaited him...

Mesrine (Part 1)

Jacques Mesrine was one of France's most notorious criminals of the 1960's and 1970's. He robbed banks, charmed women, murdered many, was imprisoned on several occasions, later escaped from those same prisons, and ultimately became France's Public Enemy No. 1, which is the subtitle of the second part of this 4-hour biopic.

In short, he was a gangster with charm.

Mesrine is brilliantly portrayed by French actor Vincent Cassell (who also appears as the ballet director in the recent Black Swan) and this first two-hour installment highlights Mesrine's journey from soldier in Algeria to his indoctrination into the French criminal underworld and ultimately into becoming a career criminal of escalating boldness. Gerard Depardieu portrays an underworld criminal kingpin with equal brilliance.

Sometimes violent, sometimes very touching, always entertaining, this is a well-made film that convincingly tells the story of one of France's most notorious criminals...

Black Swan

You'd have to be living in a bubble not to be aware of this film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman.

The story of a ballet dancer cast to play both the white swan and the black swan in a performance of Swan Lake, this film focuses on the delicate inner life of a performance artist who is pushed to her emotional limit and then some...

This film has received a vast number of accolades and awards already and may win a few more come Oscar time. The praise has mostly gone to Portman herself for this performance.

Aronofsky is one of the few directors working at the top of his game right now (Christopher Nolan is another) and has made some of my favorite films in recent years such as Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Wrestler.

While I enjoyed this film as a visual experience I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed in this much hyped film as my expectations might have been a bit high, especially with respect to the story.

Natalie Portman has been much praised for her performance in Black Swan, however, I'm not so sure that she's so deserving of it all. She delivers a good to a very good performance here rather than what many consider to be a great performance.

And it makes me wonder... have our standards fallen considerably with respect to our expectations of an acting performance for it to be considered great, or even remarkable? I think back to the heyday of the 70's and all those great films and their corresponding acting performances from the likes of Pacino, Brando, Duvall, Streep, DeNiro, Hackman, Hoffman, Nicholson, Spacek, Rowlands, etc...

Maybe it's just that too many entertainment outlets today have dumbed us down and lowered our expectations.

I wonder...

Conviction

Yet another film based upon a true story.

Brother and sister (Kenny and Betty Anne Waters) do not have the ideal childhood but they have each other and the bond that they develop will last a lifetime.

Kenny always had a wild streak in him and they were separated at one point and placed with separate foster families. But this probably only strengthened their bond...

Kenny is falsely accused of murder and suffers the consequences by having to spend the rest of his life in prison. Meanwhile Betty Anne, convinced of his innocence, happens to be a high school dropout, is married, and has two children. She vows to get him out of prison and somewhat like 127 Hours she does something that every viewer will ask themselves after experiencing this film -- if I were in her shoes, could I have done what she did?

What exactly does she do?

She uses the legal system to exonerate her brother. She first gets her GED. Then she goes to college part-time while working in a bar (keep in mind that she's raising two children at the same time) and gets a college degree. Her husband leaves her because he can't understand her obsession with getting her guilty (in his mind) brother out of prison. She can't afford to pay for an attorney so she goes to law school herself to be able to represent him legally. Remember, she's now a single mother raising two children, working part-time, and attending law school.

This is around the time that DNA evidence became more prevalent in cases like this and she pursues this with the help of the nonprofit organization known as the Innocence Project to find the DNA evidence needed to indeed exonerate him.

He entered prison in 1983 and was released in 2001... that's 18 years that she pursued an education to allow her to fight for her brother's release. And she... well, especially he, or better yet, they... won.

A story of struggle and triumph. Hillary Swank and Sam Rockwell gave two excellent, very worthy performances.

My only issue with this film is that the story, the way it was written and directed, seemed better suited as a top notch cable movie rather than a theatrical release. But that's a minor point...