Movie of the week – The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The Irish Film Institute opens a new season of classic science fiction with the excellent cold war British chiller The Day the Earth Caught Fire. After the US and USSR detonate nuclear missiles, the earth begins to move towards the sun. Can the planet be saved? Not just a great sci-fi flick, it’s also arguably the greatest depiction of journalism ever seen on screen.
April Fool’s Day
Tonight, fittingly, you can catch the ’80s slasher satire April Fool’s Day at the Lighthouse. A smart take on a genre that had worn itself out by the mid-80s, the film is known mostly for its controversial twist ending. The screening will be preceded by some shorts and a selection of ‘grindhouse’ trailers.
Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 epic Ran has been freshly restored and opens today at the IFI. Based on Shakespeare’s King Lear, Kurosawa’s film relocates the story to feudal Japan. With battle scenes involving 1400 extras, this is one for the big screen.
Victoria
With the awful Batman V Superman clogging up screens, it’s a quiet week for new releases, but one of the year’s best arrives this week. Victoria is a German thriller about a lonely Spanish girl seduced into a whirlwind of crime. Set in real time, the movie was shot in one uninterrupted take in the early hours of a Berlin morning. It’s an experiment that could easily have failed to justify itself, but in this case it works a treat. An exhilarating experience.
Mammal
Rebecca Daly’s Mammal is a moody Irish drama about a middle aged woman who embarks on an ill-advised relationship with a teenage thug. At times it resorts to clichés, but the performances and Daly’s direction keep us mostly captivated.
By Eric Hillis of themoviewaffler.com
