Their next big project is something I’m particularly excited about.  They are performing a brand new stage version of George A. Romero’s classic horror, Night of the Living Dead, from 24th – 28th July at the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny. It will be the first time any version of the work has been performed in Ireland. 

The original 1968 movie is one of the greatest horror movies of all time and regarded as the template for political commentary in horror cinema. It also gave birth to what has become known as the ‘zombie’ genre of movies.  This production is written by Devious Theatre’s own John Morton and Connie Walsh and uses the original script by George A. Romero and John A. Russo as a jumping off point.

It has been transposed from a farmhouse in rural Philadelphia in 1968 to a ghost estate in the south east of Ireland in 2012. It tells the story of a group of disparate strangers, trapped in an abandoned house after an unknown incident causes the dead to come back and attack the living.  The country is dying and dying fast. Able-bodied young people are emigrating in droves. Their elders are barely surviving, just waiting and watching as things go from bad to worse. Families are falling apart. No homes, no money, no prospects: ripped apart as units and if they’re really unlucky, limb from limb. The undead are the only ones rallying together in this country. And soon there’s going to be more of them than there is us. 

This new theatrical version uses the story to examine present day issues in a fear-gripped modern day Ireland. Like the original movie, it is a darkly comic satire that depicts the capacity for horrific acts in normal people during times of crisis.

Okay, okay, but what can I do to help?

I’m glad you asked. They need money. They need your money. And they’ll give you plenty in return. They’re trying to raise €5,000 to help stage the show in Kilkenny this July. The funds raised will go directly into the production – from set design to costumes and beyond – every penny raised will be visible on the stage to make this the biggest and best production they’ve staged in their six years to date.

You can pledge online, anywhere from €5 to €1,000 and pick up some great rewards including advance tickets, poster sets, programmes, soundtracks or – if you’re brave enough – you can fund your way into the show and join them for a half day rehearsal and makeup and appear on stage with the cast on one of the public performance nights. How frickin’ aweosme is that??

You are responsible. Help these Devious Creatures make Night of the Living Dead the highlight of Irish Theatre in 2012. Fund-It now.

© Darren for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Devious Theatre, fun-it, night of the living dead, zombie

Dark Shadows was a groundbreaking 60s and 70s gothic soap opera that has amassed a cult following over the years. Attempted revivals on television in the nineties and naughties fell flat, but with fans such as Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, it was only a matter of time before we would see them bring it to the big screen.

Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a cursed patriarch to a magnificent legacy. Rich and happy with the woman he loved in the late 1700s, he is cursed by a witch whose affections he spurned. His love meets with a less than joyous ending and Barnabas himself is transformed into a vampire who is then  doomed to live forever chained and buried in the earth.

And that’s how the movie opens. It’s quick and altogether pointless because it’s only after we sit though that preamble that we get into the meat of the movie. 200 years later and the film bursts into life with a colourful welcome to 1972, complete with Moody Blues’ Nights in White Satin. We are introduced to Barnabas’ descendants, the current keepers of the now ruined Collins name, including Elizabeth, played by the still-gorgeous-after-all-these-years Michelle Pfeiffer; Roger, a slimy-yet-satisfying Jonny Lee Miller; Carolyn, the guaranteed-to-win-an-Oscar-some-day Chloë Moretz. Naturally, there is a part for Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton’s ever-present wife (I do love her, but I always feel she phones in her Burton movies). She plays Dr. Hoffman, the live-in psychiatrist for Elizabeth’s troubled nephew, David.

The arrival of a new nanny for David coincides with the resurrection of Barnabas, who vows to return the family name to good stead. Throw in the delicious Eva Green as the bad-guy and our premise is set.

High-jinx aplenty ensue, with a number of bloody deaths mixed in with jokes about Depp’s 200+ year old vampire being at odds with 70s life, and the whole movie hops along. However, the plot I happily hopped along with in the cinema now seems full of holes. Burton has, as he did with Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Clocolate Factory (not to mention the apalling Planet of the Apes), shown us some larger-than-life characters but sacrificed plot and storytelling in favour of letting them shine. Think back to Beetlejuice, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands – Burton clearly knows how to couple great story with wonderful characterisation. I don’t know why or how he has managed to mess that up repeatedly in recent years. Perhaps it was Seth Grahame-Smith‘s fault. At this stage, he’s almost synonymous with great premises but poor follow through – the novels Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter for example.

There’s too much going on and not enough time to do it. The movie’s 113 minutes couldn’t do justice to all the subplots and backstories. So, we get a choppy, badly paced script which leaves out some of the more interesting character developments in favour of showing Depp being a vampire out of his time.

And he is fantastic. Depp is nearly always fantastic. Once again, he throws himself into a roll and has given us a wonderful character to watch and enjoy. But much like Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, there is such a thing as overkill. The screen time should have been shared.

I want to give a particular mention to Eva Green. One: she’s ridiculously hot. Two: that girl can clearly act, because she brings gravitas to what is, on paper, an extremely two-dimensional roll. And three: she has such a stunning screen presence – she steals every scene she’s in.

The movie’s climax saves it from being shelved away in that awkward hard to reach part of the cupboard beside Alice, Charlie and those dreadful Apes. A mixture of Death Becomes Her, Carrie and The Addams Family, I loved the big finale. Plenty still went wrong (Chloë Moretz deserved more screen time and better dialogue) but it ensured that I left the movie feeling invigorated with adrenalin firmly pumping.

Dark Shadows is out now. It’s fun and silly and full of b-movie camp thrills. If you loved Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, you’ll really enjoy this goofy horror-for-kids. If you’re expecting Edward Scissorhands, you’ll be let down.

© Darren for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dark Shadows, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Review, tim burton

On entering the room Nigel Cole enquires, “are you going to ask me why did I decide to make a film that was a play?” Me: No. Nigel “Ah yes you have ten minutes then”.

 Your background was strongly grounded in documentary and current affairs, why the move into feature film?  Was this something you have always wanted to do?

 Nigel Cole:  All I have ever wanted to do is tell stories and work with actors.  I had worked in the theatre a little bit; I wanted to be an actor.  I just wasn’t very good.  (Laughs)  It seemed like a small thing but you know…  I don’t think I looked like a movie star.  That was a bit disappointing.  I spent a long long time failing to tell stories with actors.  I didn’t mind if it was television drama or what it was.  My aim had always been to make good TV drama.  I got out of university thinking this is what I will do.  Ten years later, I still hadn’t achieved it.  I had done everything!  Location manager, Assistant Director, Driver, Producer, Production Manager, I had every bloody job in the film industry!  I had not persuaded anyone to let me direct.  I was almost close to giving up.  I had been doing commercials, I had done these documentaries, nothing quite got me any closer.  One day I managed to persuade a wonderful woman called Michelle Butler to let me direct an episode of Peak Practice and although it was series six of a very long running TV series, it was like I had King Lear!  Somebody died in the episode and people cried!  I approached it like it was a movie, like it was my life’s ambition to make it great.  I got spotted just from this one episode of Peak Practice and by the end of the year I was doing the first series of Cold Feet. 

 I loved Cold Feet…

 NC:  It was a gift!  It was one of those great shows.  It was beautifully written and had a great cast.  I always wanted to be a storyteller and I was well into my 30’s before I achieved it.  And out of Cold Feet, I got this TV film for Sky Television called Saving Grace.  I didn’t even think of it as a movie, it was a full length TV film.  20^th Century Fox decided to release it in cinemas here.  We took it to Sundance and at the time I didn’t even know what Sundance was!  Within 48 hours the movie was a hit.  We sold it for a fortune, I can’t remember how much.  Several million dollars, I think.  And then we win a prize!  Overnight, I went from completely unknown TV director to an international movie director overnight.  It’s like someone just said, “you’re in.”  I went straight from Sundance to L.A. and hung out in Hollywood for a few months.  I couldn’t quite believe that. 

 With All in Good Time, you worked with a lot of the cast from the play, did you want to put a completely different spin on the subject material or did you want to bring the play to the screen?

 NC:  I wanted to capture the same magic that the play had captured.  I knew I would have to do that in a slightly different way.  If you try to capture magic, it’s slightly mercurial anyway.  You might not be able to do it.  I knew the play had this weird ability to suck you in with a kind of strong broad comedy and then completely surprise and shock an audience by the way it turns in the second half. 

 When you get to the last ten minutes, you feel like you have to watch the entire film again…

 NC:  Yes!  That’s the whole idea!  And you will!  It almost has a Sixth Sense twist!  I knew how brilliantly that had worked in the theatre.  I thought, I want to try and get that too.  I want to capture that sense of this being a real surprise.  I wanted it to really work its charms on the audience and then when you least expect it, throwing them a curve ball.  I didn’t want to deviate from that in any way.  Clearly, in a film you have a wildly different set of techniques to achieve that but we have more time, more scenes, less talk and more action.  You can get right in close to those eyes and see what’s going on.  The rhythm of it, the structure of it, it’s different, it flows in a different way. 

 A lot of people have commented that you are a feminist director, would that be correct?

 NC:  Yes. Absolutely.  I much prefer women.  I am more beguiled and fascinated by them.  I am a guy…  And I don’t find men nearly as interesting.  Since I was a child, I’ve been absolutely delighted by women.  I think also, if you make women’s films you are seen as different.  I don’t want to make the same films as everyone else.  I just don’t do guns and cars.  (Both of us laugh) I’m not interested.  I’m not interested in cars in my own life and I’ve never seen a gun, never mind hold one.  That rules out 90% of films for me!  I don’t disapprove of them!  I love them and I watch them but I just don’t do them.  And they are boring to shoot!  Car chases are really boring.  Get in the car, drive from A to B, what’s interesting about that?!? 

 Meera Syal

 Meera, you really knew your character inside out.  You had played her for nine months in the play on stage.  Did you try and reinvent her in any way?

 MS:  I think the play changed a little.  I know it was the same story but on film you have a chance to play things so differently.  You can play things a lot more subtlety and you can have a lot more that is unspoken that the camera picks up.  Obviously, you don’t need as many words, so you’re just using your eyes to say a lot of things.  It’s such a completely different way of working. 

Towards the end you feel like you have to go back and watch the film more closely, but this is especially true in relation to your character, was this always intentional?

MS:  Oh yeah, all the way through.  Obviously with my character, her big secret isn’t revealed until the closing moments of the film and suddenly, there’s that “oh my god” moment where everything makes sense.  We had to be so careful about how we threaded that into the story, giving enough hints but not giving it away.  Also, the playing of it, you had to believe that this was a woman who had lived with this secret for about twenty years.  How could you live with something like that day to day?  When the spotlight is on you, how much can you let out?  I think very little if you’re used to carrying a secret around.  You know there’s a scene where she almost spills the beans and I feel like that is how it would be in real life.  You wouldn’t tell anybody, it wouldn’t come out that quickly, it would be wrenched out of you.  So you see a little chink and you get a horrible sense of a whole world of pain inside and then she shuts it back up again.

 With Harish and the fact that you had worked together for so long on this project, wa

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Post tags: All in Good Time, Amara Karan, Meera Syal, Nigel Cole, Reece Ritchie

*** Competition Closed – Winners will be notified shortly ***

*** Congratulations to Colin, Gary, Dave and Caroline ***

I am a huge fan of Jeff Dunham. Yes, like everyone else, I fell in love with that cookie little go-getter, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, long before I knew that Jeff Dunham likes to stick his hand up a variety of characters, but he has grown to become one of my all time favourite comedians. I love his Comedy Central specials, I own the DVDs and I even have an Achmed doll. Yeah, I’m that guy.

So…I was thrilled to hear he’ll be in the O2 Dublin this Saturday on his Controlled Chaos tour with all of his usual friends Walter, Bubba J, Achmed, Peanut and José the Jalapeño on a Steeeek and a few more besides. I can’t wait.

If you fancy joining us on Saturday, I have a few pairs of tickets to give away. Just drop us an email to competition@culch.ie with your full name and a contact number. The competition closes on Thursday, so spread the word swiftly. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter.

If you don’t win, tickets are still available on Ticketmaster.ie at €49.50.

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Post tags: achmed, Achmed the dead terrorist, bubba j, competition, jeff dunham, jose, O2, peanut

Harking back to the close of Season 4 I couldn’t but wonder whether history was repeating itself in how Don’s latest engagement and presumed marriage was coming to be; Melanie was hopeful, charming and appealed to Don is ways that probably even he can’t explain but that certainly put him at ease – had Betty been this type of person when they first met, did she seem the perfect role-model wife which Don thought might fit the life he wanted to construct? What had gone wrong and would the same fate befall Melanie? Getting to know Melanie this episode, now recently the third Mrs. Draper, she seems no less complex than any of the women she shares screen time with by virtue of being at odds with them in their thinking and problems, but she is distinguishable from Betty by attaching herself to a liberating future to come, rather than the constrained strictures and maternal shadow Betty has always struggled with. Don has put his trust in her, revealing some if not all of his Dick Whitman past, and while they are instinctively drawn to each and do work, there is still an uncertainty when at peace and in conflict as to how to engage with each other. The outright highlight of the episode, in one full of many lights, is a moment between the two, after a surprise birthday party of mixed results where Don refers to his Whitman self and Melanie asserts, not in an intentionally hurtful way, that no one loves Dick Whitman. The sudden change to Jon Hamm’s face is masterful; it exposes Drapers unending ability to process the ties to his past , his new wife’s words telling his story in a nutshell, the man he was, at ease with in California looking for jobs to fix cars and re-paint living rooms and nobody loves this version of him. 

The full treatment of all characters in the opening episode is a prime grounds to suggest this show belongs to more than Draper: Joan is out of her depth as a single mother, missing a husband not all that pleasant to be around, Pete has all the pieces of his life in place, akin to Don 4 seasons earlier yet still can’t command the control he wants, Peggy is at her best in the confines of the office and Lane is circling the liberty a State-side existence offers him. A wonderful sequence sees Joan re-visiting the office, helming baby but looking to reassure herself that she has a part to play in the office. All the interplays work; Pete and Peggy awkwardly left with a buggy; Joan letting down her defences in conversation with Lane and of course Roger, king of the quip, dropping either knowing or unknowing clunkers about his baby. The histories these people share is prime for more story and Mad Men has made a sure-footed return. 

Some thoughts:

What of Betty? Can she find relevance (and fans) being so disconnected from events on Madison Avenue?;

How strong a theme will the issue of race play in the episodes to come?;

Can Lane please do a silly dance every episode?;

Peggy: “I don’t recognize that man. He’s kind and he’s patient.” – where two for Peggy and Don and their camraderie with Melanie now under Peggy’s stewardship. 

© willok for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: don draper, January Jones, jon hamm, mad men, TV, tv show

The Barefoot Wine Expression Session: 29^th June–1^st July

Taking place during the festival weekend the ‘Barefoot Wine Expression Session with Billabong’ has €3000 worth of prizes including an 11 day sumatrian ‘Surf-cruise’ worth €2200 for best Irish Surfer. The main event will feature an event of Europe’s Top Waveriders! The event will be captured on video and posted online. But the event itself has very limited entry. You don’t just rock in folks so if you’ll be at Sea Sessions and are interested in getting involved drop them an email at seasessionssurf@gmail.com.

Barefoot Retro Surf: 30^th June

Retro Surf is on the Saturday of the festival weekend and is free for all surfers to take part in regardless of proficiency. The emphasis here is more on style than substance and capturing the sixties vibe of surf parties on the beach. There’ll be lots of prizes so it’s definitely worth checking out, even for the non-pros. You do have to request entry via email though their gmail address seasessionssurf@gmail.com

Now I’m no surfer but the Retro Surf event sounds like something I’d definitely don a floral shirt, grab a few cold drinks and head down to the beach to catch. Sounds like a perfect spectacle to entertain a slightly tender festival goer the morning after the opening night?

Barefoot Beach Olympics

Ah, now here’s something that’s more my bag. Maybe yours too, if you’re not too adept at that surfing lark. The Beach Olympics are Bundoran’s answer to London 2012. Held across the weekend the 2012 Sea Sessions Barefoot Beach Olympics will feature spot prizes and the title of Sea Sessions 2012 Olympian. Which leads us on nicely to…

Barefoot Beach Sports

Run by local clubs there’s €500 on offer for the winning beach soccer, beach tag rugby and (new to this year) beach handball teams! Definitely worthwhile entering if you’re heading up to Bundoran with a few mates from your team of whatever your chosen sport. And as we all know sand makes the fun, well, sandier… This is always hugely popular part of the weekend so register your team or your team place by emailing the lads on seasessionsbeachsports@gmail.com.

 If the line-up hadn’t already convinced you, we reckon the sports-related craic should. See you on the beach!

Weekend tickets for Sea Sessions 2012 are just €88.50. Day tickets Fri/Sat/Sun are €50.

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Post tags: beach olympics, bundoran, june 2012, Sea Sessions, tickets

The result is roughly three minute, single shot performances. Filmed in HD the post-production is gorgeous with subtle colouring and focus blur. I like them. Then again I may be biased because I happen to think Mr Walsh is pretty insanely talented. I’ll let you decide. So far there have been a total of eight Livesets videos from five different musicians / musical groups and Gerard is always on the hunt for more. See below for my top 3 fave.

The Youtube channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/LIVESETSWMM/videos with a combined total of hits for all the videos of over 10k this is definitely something to consider getting in touch with Gerard about if you’re a Dublin-based band interested in getting some exposure.

Twitter – @gertgwtc

Champion Jim – A Party of Our Own

Seán Riddick – We Had The Snow

Diana Baciu and Vanessa O’Reilly – Your Love Never Fails

© seanear1ey for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: champion jim, diana baciu, gerard walsh, livesets, sean riddick, vanessa o'reilly, walsh mixed media, walshmixedmedia

Molly Crabapple is an award-winning New York artist, author and all round kickass lady whose Victoriana-steampunk-Rococo work has appeared in places like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Marvel comics. Forever finding ways to fund and create personally fulfilling art projects, in September of last year she locked herself into a hotel room for a week, covered the walls in paper and filled every available square foot with her gorgeous, intricate brand of art. The project was called Molly Crabapple’s Week In Hell, it was funded by myriad backers on Kickstarter, and has since been turned into a book. Not one to stay idle for long, right now she’s in the middle of Shell Game, another Kickstarter-funded project, this time an art show inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the assorted global economic disasters, which will result in nine huge paintings that will deal with themes such as Greece, Anonymous, bankers and the American healthcare system.

She’s also the founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, the largest chain of art salons in the world which takes alternative models, cabaret performances and life drawing and smashes them all together in a glorious combination of decadence, art, prizes and cupcakes. The next Dr. Sketchy’s Dublin takes place on Saturday, 28th April, from 3pm-6pm upstairs in 4 Dame Lane. The theme for the April session is “Disco Inferno”, so it’ll be rollerskates and mirrorballs a-go-go, and as if that didn’t already sound like eleven kinds of craic, the ridiculously talented Molly Crabapple herself will be in attendance. I squeaked a bit when I heard this news, as I’ve become such a fan of hers, although there’s a very real danger of me completely losing the ability to do anything other than stare at her in wonder if I did actually get the opportunity to meet her. Nevertheless, I’ve bought my ticket and I’m very much looking forward to what promises to be a whole heap of fun, even though I haven’t done life drawing since the Leaving Cert way back in the heady summer of 2002 (I’ve just realised that’s ten years ago. TEN YEARS! How did that happen!?) so to say I’ll be rusty is something of an understatement.

Admission is €15 / Students / Seniors €10 with valid ID. Over 18s Only.

Ticket information for Dr. Sketchy’s Dublin April Session can be found here and the “Disco Inferno” Facebook event page is here.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

On Sunday, 29th April at 3pm in the Centre for Creative Practices, Molly will give a talk on art and entrepreneurship, sharing her thoughts and experiences and signing copies of Week In Hell, which will be on sale at the venue. It will be a great opportunity for anyone creatively inclined to hear from such a hugely successful artist and thoroughly interesting woman.

Tickets for the talk are €12 (€10 for students) and are available here. Facebook page here.

For more on Molly, check out mollycrabapple.com

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Post tags: Art, cabaret, Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School, Dublin, event, life drawing, Molly Crabapple

If there’s one sport franchise that was well overdue a reboot, it was FIFA Street. The original game, released in 2005, and it’s subsequent titles weren’t really taken seriously and they were quite cartoonish. The past five years has seen a major shift in football games with the rise of FIFA as the dominant, accurate simulation (for my money anyway). The advances they’ve made in terms of player models, game engine, variety and depth are really something to be admired and they’ve brought that passion to the reboot of Street.

The focus here is all about individual ball skills, trick dribbling, faking out opponents and building up fluid momentum while moving the ball up pitch. The controls are similar to the main FIFA franchise and the left-stick, for example, is used for flicking the ball around to produce heel-chops, feints and step-overs. Some practice and rotating it in set patterns produces pirouette moves, rainbow flicks and a host of other nifty tricks. When you get a flowing move together and score, it’s a fantastic feeling as everything is tight and contained. Defending isn’t easy either and you’ll need to stick to your opposing number like glue. There’s no slide tackles but you can execute standing tackles to barge and put them off balance. Street has inherited the tactical defending system plugged into FIFA 12 so players under AI will contain and jockey too.

This isn’t a shallow game and has the type of depth we’ve come to expect from its big brother. The World Tour mode offers a mixture of challenges and tournaments and lets you build a team as you go, levelling up and it blurs the line between online and offline too, downloading the real teams of other players to fill out your campaign. There’s multiplayer with online divisions and cups (I’ve had some crackingly close games) so you’ll spend many an hour there. There’s also different types of games. There’s basic 5-a-side and 6-a-side options in walled arenas, Futsal (no walls, bigger goals and fouls are penalised – they never are elsewhere), Last Man Standing (each time you score you lose a player and the winner is the team reduced to zero first), and Panna, a 2-on-2 mode where you earn points each time you beat an opponent and then bank them by scoring in a small net.

There’s no doubt that this is the street football title we’ve been waiting for. It’s got all the polish and panache of FIFA 12 and erases the memory of the shallow past attempts at providing a companion for the 11-a-side titles. Highly recommended.

© Anto for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
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Myself and Peter popped along to the Spirit of Folk festival launch last week in Whelans. We were treated to a brilliants night of entertainment with TRAZ, Bunoscionn, The Young Folk and The Hot Sprockets. We had a chat to Martin & Natasha Duffy who are behind the festival on what they have in store for 2012:

Tickets are on sale now with day tickets for €35 and a weekend one for €65/family €120. You can find them at spiritoffolk.com, on Facebook here and Twitter at: @spirit_of_folk

© Anto for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
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Post tags: aidan coughlan, Aidan Cuffe, derek byrne, Goldenplec, irish independent, kaiser chiefs, Sea Sessions

Irish detective web-series Vultures returns with a new series to your local computer screen. Probably the one you are looking at right now. Aye, we see ye.

We at Culch.ie love a good detective story particularly one with the word ‘dicks’ in the title. The new episode features student detective Janine Drew as she makes a documentary about unemployed detectives in Ireland and tries to find out what happened to the former dicks of Vultures Private Investigations. Starring Suzanne O’Brien (Janine Drew), Sean Hackett (Niall Tennyson), John Morton (Jim Vultour) and David Thompson (Dan McGrain) it’s worth a look. The first of four; episodes will go online monthly between now and June.

Produced by Mycrofilms, Vultures has been widely acclaimed since its online debut in late 2007. One of the first Irish webcoms produced, it frequently rests at the top of the comedy video podcasts chart on iTunes. The team have been shortlisted for the Digital Comedy Lab. Rest assured this is a big deal. The winning projects (one from Ireland and one from the UK) will be announced at Cannes Film Festival this year and will receive a budget of €50,000 to make their own original ‘mockumentary’ feature film. Get them.

You can watch Vultures on www.vulturesPI.com, you can subscribe to their feed via iTunes and you can follow their YouTube channel www.youtube.com/VulturesPI.

© Laura for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Comedy, Ireland, Video Podcast, Vultures, webcom, youtube

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“I wish I were big”

Not “I wish I was an adult” or “I wish I looked like that bloke from Splash! – his face is exceptional”. No. He wants to be ‘big’.

Of course they had to work the movie title in somewhere but it’s an odd choice of words. “I wish I were big” could easily be interpreted as “I wish my underpants were a little tighter” but one would doubt that would merit a PG rating. Perhaps Josh meant “I wish I was 7ft 11” which makes more sense since Josh was turned away from a theme park ride because he was too short. I digress.

Big (1988), if you somehow managed to skip childhood, tells the story of young Josh Baskin. Whilst at a funfair, Josh makes the aforementioned wish at a machine called ‘Zoltar Speaks’. It is scary beyond all reason. The next morning, Josh awakes as a 30 year old Tom Hanks. His mother is absolutely horrified that Tom Hanks is in her house and naturally assumes that he has kidnapped her son and put on his pyjamas as a symbol of victory. Josh, with the help of his best mate Billy, rents a shitty hotel room and gets a data entry job at MacMillan Toy Company. Because apparently getting a job is that easy. Being the child that he is, Josh demonstrates to the MacMillan boss his knowledge of toys and enthusiasm for the products and subsequently gets promoted to company toy tester. Meanwhile, Josh attracts the attention of Susan, a toy executive with a large stick rammed up her bottom and an icky romance between the two blossoms. Hilarity ensues. At the end, having confessed to Susan that he is not actually Tom Hanks after all, Josh suggests that Susan wish to become a child herself. Susan says no. No doubt Josh made a very sad diary entry that night.

Watching Big as a child was enlightening. It made us look forward to adulthood not as the monotonous, unrelenting march to the grave we feared it to be but the chance to have a trampoline in our bedroom. It also made us wonder, if jobs like Josh’s existed and were so obtainable, why more adults didn’t do it.

Watching Big as an adult however makes me rather depressed. The overall message is “Enjoy your youth for adulthood is nothing but a grey, miserable existence. You probably won’t be able to afford the mortgage on a house with ceilings high enough to accommodate a trampoline anyway so best just make do with jumping on those scales you fat mess”

You probably work in an office. If you do, you’ll know how horrible it can be. We ALL want an exciting job. A job that might stimulate us or challenge us creatively so that we leave each night happy and fulfilled rather than going home to huddle in the corner in our greying underwear crying into a cup of instant noodles cursing the God that has forsaken us. Comparing Josh’s ‘adult’ life to mine makes me sad in my face. Josh starts off with an entry level position and with just one trip to FAO Schwartz he suddenly he has his own office with walls and windows and toys and a secretary you could communicate with via a button on your desk. Do I get to go to executive functions in a snappy white suit? Do I fuck. Do I get to play with toys for a living? Does battering a repeatedly faulty printer to death using my bare hands count? Can I play ‘Chopsticks’ on a giant piano? I’m lucky if I can get out of a chair without fainting from the sheer herculean effort involved.

He is a CHILD. He’s barely adjusting to the hormonal head fuck that is puberty and he acts like a promotion is the easiest thing to obtain in the world if you want it. Screw you Hollywood and your dream jobs. I for one would love to see a protagonist that maintains spread-sheets and nothing else 40 hours a week. What about someone who just does the bins for the council? If a CHILD can wander into a dream job, what the hell is wrong with me? Oh yes, that’s right. I’m lazy beyond all definitions of the word.

According to Big, I have truly failed as an adult and so have you.

Unanswered Questions Include:

1. How, given the fact that she reacts to the brilliance of Josh’s apartment as if he’s harvesting the organs of orphans, did Susan get a job solely designed to give pleasure to children? How, given that her imagination clearly left her decades before, was she still employed? More to the point, how were any of the other executives still on board? A robot that turns into a building? In the name of good God that’s crap. Children would get more pleasure out of a trip to the dentist.

2. Imagine the kind of insufferable little prick Josh would be having had all his experiences as an independent adult? You can just see it. Every “Josh, clean your room” would be met with a “Fuck you Ma. I used to be Tom Hanks”. Even if he didn’t become a little gobshite; how could he ever successfully return to his childhood?

3. Why did no one question why Tom Hanks was spending all that time with a young boy?

4. Why, upon realising that they have stumbled upon a magical wish granting machine did they not use it again? Why not wish for his Ma to win the lottery? Better yet, why not wish to erase the memories of the traumatic few months she thought her son was being held captive by Tom Hanks thereby saving her from years of pain and expensive therapy Josh you selfish little bastard?

5. Speaking of therapy, how long can we assume Susan was in recovery after not only witnessing her boyfriend turn into a small boy right before her eyes but the realisation that she’d been in an actual relationship with said small boy the whole time? She probably hit the drink. There’s a charming aftermath for you.

In conclusion: Big. Tom Hanks. Underlying hints at paedophilia. Scary men who live in machines. I give it 10/10.

© Laura for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Big, Do Over, movie, nostalgia, Tom Hanks

We won’t lie. News of the Titanic Lockdown Festival made us genuinely concerned we’d piss ourselves with excitement.

Launching Belfast’s Titanic celebrations on the 31st of March; Titanic Lockdown is billed as a ‘boutique’ festival in the heart of the docks. The (FREE!) daytime programme will feature an indoor village with street art, urban sports demos, fashion & jewellery making workshops, ‘Stare Wars’ (Que?), Wii Olympics, Magic, Face painting, Fire & Light Shows, DJ sets, live performances from leading local acts and a continental food market.

The day events are taking place between 12pm and 6pm at T13, the enormous skate park/cultural space building in the Titanic Quarter. Come 7pm, ticket holders can see performances from Roots Manuva, Gilles Peterson, London’s Soul Jazz Sound System and many more to be announced. That’s not bad for £25 eh?

The outdoor events take place under the great big yellow Harland & Wolff cranes, Samson & Goliath, on the 1st and 2nd June 2012. With confirmed acts including Happy Mondays, Anna Calvi, Ghostpoet, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Error, Factory Floor and NEW effin ORDER (hence the aforementioned excitement); this will be a unique concert experience for all who can be arsed to make the trip.

Early bird passes for the dates in June will be exclusively available at the March 31st Launch Festival. Weekend passes for June will go on general release on Monday 2nd April via www.titanic-lockdown.com and Ticketmaster.

We’ll see you there – you’ll know it’s us as we’ll be the ones with faces covered in sauce having ate so much we’re ashamed of ourselves.

© Laura for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: belfast, Events, Festivals, Food, Free Events, Happy Mondays, New Order, Roots Manuva, Titanic, Titanic Lockdown

For those of you lucky enough not to be blessed with two left feet (yes, I’m talking about myself here), the artform of the dance is a wonder to behold. These super talented people can skip, dance, jump and move (like jagger, we’re told) with such effortless ease that it’s just not fair. Still, regardless of whatever credibility you have on the dance floor, you’ll surely love the Dublin Dance Festival.  

The Dublin Dance Festival are delighted to announce their deadly dancing (see what I did there) programme for 2012, offering audiences a wealth of experiences from the diverse, creative, sensuous and adventurous worlds of contemporary dance. From May 11th – 26th in venues across Dublin, lovers of dance will be treated to an array of exciting festival shows that will definitely sweep you off your feet. Festival events will appeal to audiences of all ages and tastes in venues from the Abbey Theatre to the streets of Dublin. 

The programme will feature a number of Irish artists. Junk Ensemble (winners of Best Fringe Production 2011) will premiere The Falling Song, Brokentalkers will revive their urgent work about institutionalised child abuse The Blue Boy for the festival, and there will be sharings of The Burning House, a work-in-progress reflecting the life and imagination of Patrick Pearse.  In its 40th anniversary year, the pioneering Trisha Brown Dance Company from New York will be performing at the Abbey Theatre in its Irish premiere.

The Festival will also offer Dublin audiences a sense of what Europe is watching, with a programme of new work and significant European choreographic personalities, with artists from France, Norway, Brussels, Germany, Latvia, Russia, and the UK.

But it’s not just about dancing. For film buffs, there will be a Sunday afternoon of Dance on Film shorts in collaboration with the Irish Film Institute. For those interested in music, there will be a chance to hear works by artists ranging from Laurie Anderson, with styles varying from Irish Trad to classical music.

For full ticket information and all that jazz, see www.dublindancefestival.ie. Never has there been a better time to get your dancing shoes out!

To show you what’s in store here is the promo for your viewing pleasure:

© Jen McShane for Culch.ie, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Art, Dublin Dance Festival, Events