January 2012
4 posts
24 tags
30 tags
ALL THE OTHER MONTHS (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER MOVIES)
September
Kill List
A chilling and gory tale of two hit men, this unique horror movie shocks and terrifies until the very end. It’s superbly acted and its singular direction and sound make it possibly the strangest, most interesting film of the year.
4/5
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Jane Eyre
I haven’t seen any other versions of this much-adapted story but this version felt definitive. It was visually bland but well acted...
8 tags
August Movies
Arrietty
Below average Ghibli but still has charm by the bucketload.
3/5
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Beginners
Outstanding movie from Mike Mills about the coming-out and death of his Father. A distinctive aesthetic, a singular sense of humour, a moving performance from Plummer and a couldn’t-make-this-shit-up story combine to make this a quietly impelling and funny ode to love, loss and relationships. A...
1 tag
December 2011
5 posts
3 tags
July Movies
I was in the gaeltacht for the majority of this month so I didn’t see many films. Two of the my most eagerly anticipated of the year turned out to be two of the worst…
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2
So the film I was anticipating most of all this year turned out to be kind of crap. It wasn’t awful, it was just a bad way to end the series. Such an iconic...
12 tags
June Movies
The Runway
AWFUL - WHY DO PEOPLE GIVE MONEY TO OTHER PEOPLE TO MAKE THIS SHIT!? Giving Irish cinema a bad name. It was just inexplicably bad.
1/5
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Senna
Over-rated but tense documentary about Ayrton Senna. It unfortunately tries to make villains out of people for doing their jobs, however, and that took away massively from my enjoyment of it as a film. Neutrality is what makes a good...
12 tags
May Movies
One Hundred Mornings
Irish film about the end of the world. It follows 4 people who, after a societal breakdown, are now living an isolated and scared life in the mountains. It doesn’t focus on what happened to cause the breakdown of society (global warming is implied.. yawn…….), instead it focuses on 4 quite uninteresting people (or was it just bad acting?) and their...
11 tags
April Movies
Source Code
Duncan Jones’ second film, a thrilling, emotive and never repetitive train-ride. Lacks any kind of the definitive style, however, that Moon had in buckets.
3/5
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Snap
Incredible and psychologically penetrating debut feature from Irish playwright Carmel Winters (whose play B For Baby is also incredible). It follows a woman whose son kidnapped a child, causing a national...
November 2011
1 post
1 tag
October 2011
1 post
5 tags
March Movies
I’m telling you, alliterating the titles of these posts is so much fun!
As If I Am Not There
Directed and adapted by Juanita Wilson (who is Irish!!!!!!!), this film follows a teacher in Sarajevo called Samira and how, upon moving to teach in a mountainside village, she and all the other women in the village are captured by Serbian soldiers and the horrific treatment they’re...
September 2011
3 posts
2 tags
7 tags
February FIlms
The idea of writing these blogs in the same way that I wrote the January Movies post is kind of daunting so these reviews will be much more concise.
Never Let Me Go (dir. Mark Romanek)
It’s September right now and this is probably still my film of the year. Emotionally touching and devastating in equal parts and flawless film-making. It is beyond any reasoning how this film...
2 tags
August 2011
9 posts
6 tags
5 tags
2 tags
1 tag
2 tags
Lads
I feel like this piece of news merits posting on the ~real blog.
My brother’s fiancé had a baby today at 18:59. Her name’s Alexis.
New niece like!
VEDA coming soon…
1 tag
1 tag
3 tags
June 2011
1 post
6 tags
Rabbit Hole
Here is my review of John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole.
So having seen the trailer for this (it follows a couple whose son has been killed in a car accident and how they cope with it) I was quite looking forward to it. Yeah, it seemed to be selling itself on the whole ~it’s going to be ok~ side of things but it still looked appealing to me.
I was surprised by how good this film was. I...
May 2011
6 posts
6 tags
“… I should cease looking back so much, adopt a more positive outlook and...”
– The Remains of the Day | Kazuo Ishiguro
3 tags
End of Classes
I am now officially finished attending classes for this school year. Transition Years finish before everyone else in the school so there was little to no build up to the final day. It was surprisingly unemotional for me.
But now I am kind of devastated. However, this is not my massive ~*end of TY*~ blog.
So have a photo that accurately reflects how I feel
5 tags
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
The IMMA is showing a selection of paintings from the above artists and I went along to see them at the weekend.
I don’t know the first thing about art but I’ve recently found that going to galleries is a great pastime. The New Gallery in the IMMA is really well laid out. It’s like a a house with various different rooms and also a basement they call the “reading...
9 tags
2 tags
What constitutes a post here anymore?
I really don’t know.
If I have followers who fear I am dead/wonder why I never post:
I post daily on my 365 blog (quite proud of this one, not gonna lie)
365pieces.tumblr.com
and reblog crap here
otherpieces.tumblr.com
But yes, I am alive and well. I have ten more school days left and a lot of work due for tomorrow that I haven’t done. I want to do well seen as it’s the end...
2 tags
"We got him!" You have to be joking me
Just a quick thing but it has to be said.
He was an awful man, yes, but this celebration of his death has to be the most stomach-turning thing I have witnessed in a long time. No one can condone what he did but it is sickening seeing people rejoice at someone’s murder. I just don’t understand it. It’s difficult to comprehend how much this man is responsible for but I really...
April 2011
7 posts
6 tags
My Mind Taking Flight Like a Butterfly
In French class in school our teacher shows us a bit of a French film every week. We’ve seen a good few since September with La Haine, Harry un ami qui vous veut du bien, Joyeux Noel, Tell No One and Le Placard. Most of them were great but Le Placard should be burned in the pile marked “Just why?”
Anyway, we recently watched Julian Schnabel’s The Diving-Bell and the...
2 tags
Causey Farm
Last Wednesday our year went to the Causey Farm in Meath. It’s a proper farm but the people who run it have made a clever choice by making it somewhat of a tourist attraction. I think that Transition Years have been going to it for a good few years now and they always enjoyed it but I was kind of apprehensive.
I mean it is literally a farm. With a bog nearby. It doesn’t sound all that...
4 tags
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Intergenerational Photography Project & Exhibition... →
Click the link you guys!
Our exhibition opens on Thursday and I’m really excited for it. After the 5 months of on-and-off hard work, it has all come together. I wrote about the theme of the exhibition here so go read it!
As I’ve said, I’m unbelievably excited for this thing. It will be the first time we all get to see the final prints of our photographs framed and on a wall....
25 tags
January Movies
Monsters
This is the first film I saw in 2011 and it was a near-perfect way to start the year. I already wrote about this film here so I won’t repeat myself but it’s one of the most original love stories I’ve ever seen as well as one of the best monster movies (probably) ever. Great sex scene too.
4/5
127 Hours
I was really looking forward to this one. The premise was...
8 tags
5 tags
Variety Night
Every year in my school the transition year classes put on a show of all sorts. It’s called the TYP Variety Night and it’s just that. There’s dancing (a lot of it), singing, comedy and umm… violinning. It’s nothing revolutionary in terms of structure or content - get the students who can play/sing/dance to do so in front of a paying crowd and that’s that. Ours...
March 2011
2 posts
7 tags
Glendalocked!
Yeah Stephen essentially wrote this post days ago but I want to get it out of me. Also, let’s just ignore the title and move on ok.
As part of the Gaisce Award some of us do in Transition Year we have to organize and complete a 25km walk or hike. I had no part in the organisation thank god (I am so lazy that we probably would have walked around the lake 20 times to get the distance covered)...
6 tags
Fight Night
So last night I was competing in a “fight night”. Basically everyone in the karate dojo I train with was fighting someone from another dojo (or in some cases, like my own, we fought someone from out own club). The night was organised by the people who founded the clubs so the whole thing was friendly. It was competitive obviously, but we’re “one big family”, and you...
February 2011
4 posts
3 tags
Work Experience 2
I finished my second week of work experience last Friday. Yeah,this is another late blog post from me. Holla etc etc. It was a five day long placement from Monday to Friday. I applied to a load of cinemas and some newspapers but was rejected every time. Ouch indeed…
Because I had nowhere else to go my Dad was able to get me a placement in a credit union (he has connections, what can I...
3 tags
V-Day
So it’s was Valentine’s Day and I don’t think I’ve ever written down my thoughts on the occaison. The thing is, I don’t really have much of an opinion on the whole thing.
However…
Valentine’s Day is a day for couples to buy nice things for each other and be extra soppy and sentimental. That’s really it. I mean, what else do couples do on...
30 tags
Oscar Nominations
Yeah, this post is almost two weeks late. Oh well…
So the Academy announced their nominations for what they thought were the best movies/actors/every other category the best part of two weeks ago and I have to say that, despite a few major snubs, they did a great job. As always, they nominated the films that were made to be nominated for awards shows, but 2010 was a great year for Oscar-bait. If...
7 tags
First Memory
Just in case you missed it, here’s my Project 365 blog.
As part of the (deep breath) Intergenerational Photography Project that I’m part of, we’re making/creating/doing an exhibiton. The exhibition will be hosted by Draíocht between April 7th and May 28th.
But plugs aside… The theme of the exhibition is that of memory. And more specifically, first memories. We each had to...
January 2011
4 posts
2 tags
In Motion (Well, trying)
I wasn’t in school today. I hadn’t been feeling to well for the past few days so it’s nice to be able to sit at home and catch up on some work that you should have done weeks ago. At 8 o clock I woke up and informed my Dad I wasn’t feeling well and he said “Well we’ll see how you’re feeling in school”. I think my jaw hit the floor because then...
1 tag
Back To School
Here I am, again, trying to make this blog more active. I was meant to do some form of a “My 2010” post but that never happened so I’m just gonna jump right into new year blogging. Or maybe I’ll do a 2010 one in the next few days… The uncertainty is too much!
I feel like I’m concentrating far too much on posting about movies. I enjoy it and all but when about 6...
15 tags
My Films of the Year
Last year I only did a top 5 but I have seen far more movies this year (and more good ones at that) so this year I’m doing a top 10.
There has been a lot of talk of how this year wasn’t a great year for movies but I have to disagree. Maybe it’s because I saw more than I normally would have but there seemed to be something worth going to see every weekend.
As well as that, there...
365 Pieces
I have decided to take on Project 365. I’m sure you all know what it it as this stage, but just in case you dont: You take a photograph everyday as a way of documenting your year. I regret not doing it in 2010 because it was such a great year for me so I’m taking it up now.
You can find it here:
365 Pieces
Anyway, I would really appreciate it if you followed the blog and journeyed...
December 2010
12 posts
12 tags
My Albums of the Year
So I just did a piece on my favourite songs so you can guess that most of the following albums will feature some of those songs. I amn’t particularly great at articulating how I feel about music so I’ll just write a small bit on each album.
They’re ordered in terms of preference (except like backwards, you know? 10 -1 like) but it’s a very rough order. For example: if I...
15 tags
Choonz of the Year
(Titles stolen from Meg’s “Choonz 2k10”.)
I know, 16 songs seems a bit like over-kill doesn’t it? Guess what guys, I don’t care! Here are the singular songs that soundtracked 2010 for me They aren’t ordered by preference. They’re arranged in the order in which I discovered them. Albums post to come soon.
Run - Vampire Weekend
Contra was the first album...