Film clips - Can only the Irish laugh at themselves?

Finally got to the elegant Cine Albéniz (photo) in historic Málaga Spain last night to see Living, the new Brit film starring Bill Nighy. Nighy is great and a departure from some of his more offbeat and comedic roles, given how serious and steadfast the character is. But surprised the film, directed by Oliver Harmanus, hewed so closely to Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 original. Somehow that film worked. But this rendition seems claustrophobic and could have used a few variations to open it up.

I subscribe to Manhattan Short, an in-theatre and online worldwide competition of short films, and one of the six on view this motnh was from Ireland, An Irish Goodbye (Tom Berkeley and Ross White), which just won a BAFTA. It likely will win here as well. I voted for it even though my heart was in one or two others – the production values couldn’t be denied. And, like the currently well-reviewed The Banhees of Inisherin (Martin McDonough), up for nine Oscars, it’s further confirmation that the Irish must be the only ethnic group not afraid to make fun of themselves and double down on age old negative (if charming) stereotypes. You know, idiots who can barely get a sentence out and whose imaginations are warped by ridiculous superstitions. Brendan O’Neill in the Daily Mail took McDonough’s movie to task for its “two-hour sneer at Auld Ireland and its mad inhabitants” where the Irish are “drunks, imbeciles, gossips and scolds.” Yet it’s still acclaimed, Hollywood’s PC credentials be damned. “The Irish remain fair game in the world of the woke,” O'Neill wrote. The same holds for An Irish Goodbye, also up for an Oscar, a kind of Banshees in miniature, about two brothers mourning – or moaning – the death of their mum. Hilarious, yes, but more of a certain pandering Paddy.

It was a stretch for some TV commentators to say that last year’s White Noise (Noah Baumbach starring Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver), based on the Don DeLillo book, was shot in exactly the same place as where the tragic and possibly toxic, train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, has occurred. But the film, about exactly such a derailment and residents’ fear and flight, is indeed uncanny. Okay, it wasn’t filmed exactly in East Palestine, but about an hour away in Akron.

Here in Spain, I can get a handful of English-language TV channels, including Britain’s top five. I tuned in the other night to the famed The Graham Norton Show on BBC 1 because he had a star-studded line-up and I wanted to see what a Brit iconic TV show was like. Guests were Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Eugene Levy, Hugh Jackman. Michael B. Jordan and Judi Dench. One thing about talk shows is they reveal people, famed or not, as to who they really are. I was fascinated by Dench. Despite her legendary status, she seemed shy and uncomfortable, a wallflower at the party.