One of the best and most significant Irish films ever made has just arrived on Netflix. IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER reunited director Jim Sheridan with star Daniel Day-Lewis in a powerful biopic that examines the Irishman Gerry Conlon, who was wrongfully sentenced to life in prison for an IRA terrorist attack that killed four people.
Liam Neeson has told of how the script for his new movie – about a father and son who bond after their wife and mother dies – left his gut “churning” because it mirrored his own life. The TAKEN star said while the script for MADE IN ITALY wasn’t written for him, it was “near the knuckle” following the death of his wife, Natasha Richardson.
TOWN OF STRANGERS is almost certainly a documentary, but it began life as something like a drama. O’Brien arrived in the Co Galway town of Gort – also subject of the recent doc When All Is Ruin Once Again – with a mind to casting actors for a fictional film. She drives about in a van blasting out requests for the locals’ “loves and losses”, and, intrigued by the auditionees’ stories, decides to make them the subject of the picture.
U2 have announced online concert film series The Virtual World, that will be broadcast on the band’s YouTube channel. The series will showcase four of U2’s most legendary performances from over their four-decade career, kicking off on March 17 with the band’s 2001 concert at Slane Castle in County Meath. It will be the first time ever that three of the concerts have been made available digitally, and they will remain available to watch online for 48 hours after their broadcast.
WOLFWALKERS, made by Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, has been nominated for an Oscar. Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s Wolfwalkers, produced in Kilkenny, has been nominated as best animated feature for the upcoming 93rd Academy Awards.This is the Irish studio’s fourth nomination in the category and, locked in an apparent two-horse race with Pixar’s Soul, offers them their best chance yet to win the prize.
Irish football fans are in for a treat because Virgin Media has confirmed it will air the documentary FINDING JACK CHARLTON on March 28. Given the subject matter of the documentary which chronicles Charlton’s own battle with dementia, the broadcaster has also teamed with The Alzheimer Society of Ireland to launch a fundraising week from 22-28 March.
Liam Neeson is returning for another action thriller centred on an ageing assassin on a mission of vengeance. The Ballymena-born star is teaming up with Martin Campbell, whose previous credits include Casino Royale and Goldeneye, on the new film titled MEMORY.
Olivia Cooke can do no wrong — even as she’s doing lots of it in her latest movie, Irish new release PIXIE, where she plays the most intriguing femme fatale to come along in many a rising moon. PIXIE is a jaunty, Tarantino-wannabe contraption, loaded with double and quadruple crosses, genre-mashing diversions and loads of idiots dying sudden, violent deaths.