Movie of the week – Journey to Italy
Having left Hollywood to hook up professionally and romantically with Italian director Roberto Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman gave one of her finest performances in their 1954 collaboration Journey to Italy, which you can see on Sunday afternoon at the Irish Film Institute. Bergman and George Sanders play a couple struggling to keep their marriage together while holidaying in Naples. Not a date movie perhaps, but a must see.
The Outsiders
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of SE Hinton’s novel The Outsiders plays at the Lighthouse Monday. A coming of age tale set in the world of teenage gangs in small town America, it introduced audiences to a host of future stars including Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and Matt Dillon. One of the highlights of Coppola’s patchy post Apocalypse Now career.
Highlander
There can be only one place to be on Friday night, and that’s at the Lighthouse for a late screening of 1986’s fantasy classic Highlander. Sean Connery may not make a convincing Spaniard but it’s a fun piece of ’80s blockbuster cinema regardless.
Ishtar
The IFI’s Elaine May season concludes with the film that ruined her career (and some say created a huge obstacle for women filmmakers in general), the 1987 comedy Ishtar, starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty. One of Hollywood’s biggest financial flops, it’s considered by some critics as one of the worst films ever made, but it’s nowhere near as bad as its reputation suggests.
Lord of the Rings
If you have 11 hours to spare, the Lighthouse are screening the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies. That sounds like my idea of hell, but those movies certainly have their fans.
Julieta
The best of the week’s new releases is Julieta, the latest offering from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar. Thankfully removing the camp elements that plague most of his work, this is a melancholic tale of a middle-aged woman who reminisces over the events that led to her teenage daughter’s disappearance.
War Dogs
War Dogs is a true life tale of a pair of young American men who struck it rich as arms dealers in the wake of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Decent performances from Miles Teller and Jonah Hill can’t save this uninspired Goodfellas clone.
By Eric Hillis of themoviewaffler.com
