Mon 1st 7pm programme: you’ll like Mondays now
We’re back to Monday nights at the weekly free ‘picture show’ screenings at our usual venue in Ranelagh this week, but we start at an earlier time this Monday. The programme for Monday 1st September kicks off at 7pm with the usual Irish Short Films Slot starting the show but at 7.30pm we show ‘Yellow Gate Women’ (dir Margaretta D’Arcy (2006); running time 60 mins), a documentary about the Greenham Common Women’s protest that began in the early 1980s against the siting of Cruise missiles at an airbase in England and went on for years. The film was screened at Galway Film Fleadh last year (and again this year, I believe) and it was shown a while back at the Portobello Film Festival in London and has been shown elsewhere.

Following the Q&A and any ensuing discussion we’ll be screening ‘Happiness’ (dir Conor Horgan (2005); running time 27 mins), which involves a wide variety of people all around Ireland expressing their idea of happiness to camera. I expect this film to start screening at 9.30pm, if not earlier. We screened Conor’s award-winning first short ‘The Last Time’ on 26th May and again more recently. His latest film ‘About Beauty’, a documentary about Irish artist Dorothy Cross, is being broadcast on RTE1 later on the very same night that our ‘picture show’ is showing ‘Happiness’ ie this Monday 1st (at 10.30pm or thereabouts) and will be screened at the IFI during the forthcoming ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ Documentary Film Festival 2008 in late September. (Conor has kindly agreed to our showing ‘About Beauty’ after that festival screening and will be doing a Q&A about it with us then.) The rest of our programme for this Monday night will be detailed later.

Commentary on a mural by the ubiquitous Maser, seen on a hoarding beside the Bernard Shaw.

The audience made it what it was- nearly all were (just) pre-menopausal women, and by all that is holy and profane did they love this film. Over to our right one of them was howling uncontrollably from about 15 minutes in, and when Pearse Brosnan opened his mouth to mangle the opening bars of S.O.S, the rest of them just …lost their minds. This is a genius bit of casting, as it seems that nothing will have a woman of a certain age snorting into their popcorn quite as readily as the sight of a very, very good-loooking man singing very, very badly in order to impress a woman of a certain age. And the most wonderful part of his performance is that he knows he can’t sing, which gives it a kind of nobility.

Go. No really, just go. You’ll thank me later.

Seen in the window of Russell’s pub in Ranelagh

Howard Linnane is screening The Last Time and Happiness as part of his film club this week, followed by a Q&A with yrs truly. In Russells of Ranelagh, Wednesday 9th July at 2 o’clock, free entry. If you’re there, do say hello.

Clips from both films here

The main feature is ‘The Hollywood Librarian‘ (dir Ann Seidl; 2007, U.S.), a full-length documentary examining the cinematic stereotypes of the librarian in American films down through the years, including clips from the films linked by commentary from Seidl.

I went to one of Howard’s screenings in Russell’s pub in Ranelagh last month - it was fun, he showed two shorts and Godard’s La Chinoise to mark the anniversary of May ‘68. Rather than cutting-and-pasting the info in the document he sends out to his mailing list, I’m posting a screengrab of the actual mail as it gives a flavour of the rather wonderful, very intense film fan that is Howard Linnane. I love that “4:30 to 6:15 or so”.

Formerly known as CHIPPER, it’s just down the road from PUB, PUB and PUB. Only a few minutes walk from ARTHOUSE CINEMA and PURVEYOR OF OUTRAGEOUS PADDYWHACKERY

On the corner of Lower Grangegorman and North Brunswick Street

Hi

In my enthusiasm, I rather charged in without introducing myself, so here we go: I’m conorh, a former waiter, pizza chef, puppeteer, and geo-electrical surveyor in the Northern Rif Mountains of Morocco. More recently I’ve been a presenter on the late, lamented Jazzfm and now seem to spend most of my time being a flaneur around town. My personal blog is here, my Flickr is here and if you’d like to say hello feel free to drop a line to deadpanfilm at themailofg dotcom.

Crispin Hellion Glover is in town for the Darklight Festival. There should be a few tickets left, including mine which I had to give up as I’m double-booked. If you get there, let us know how it went.

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