Bopping with Niall JP O'Leary

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Richard Widmark (1914 - 2008)
2008-03-28 01:18:00
Richard Widmark - from wikipedia.orgYet another obituary. Hollywood legend (yes, that's how I see him), Richard Widmark, died on the 24th March. It's crazy to think his film debut was 'Kiss of Death' (1947), crazy because he was so, so good in it (apparently he got an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe). That an actor who became a major leading man in the movies was so good playing a psychopathic killer highlights what made him so special in Hollywood; he was the original Two-Face. He could play the insane villain or the troubled hero, the man of integrity or the weak coward. Some of his best roles capitalised on this ambiguity. In 'Warlock' he held his own among such giants as Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn, playing a former criminal who becomes sheriff of a beseiged Western town despite the fact that all the baddies are his friends. 'Coma' too showed how he could play the avuncular doctor and the cold-blooded killer. Sam Fuller used this ambiguity well in 'Pickup ...
More About: Film , Richard , 2008

What Do You Do When the Monks Want to Eat You?
2008-03-26 23:10:00
From wikipedia.orgI've started to dread the credit "Written by Rod Serling" when watching The Twilight Zone. Don't get me wrong, I've sang his praises in the past and still do; he was a superb craftsman. Too often though he was just too damn matter of fact. Also he sometimes allows his prose to run away with him (a little like Ray Bradbury). Then there are those similar themes surfacing again and again (the little man with a chance of redemption, the Nazi getting his come-uppance, the nostalgic yearning for the past). I watched his later series, 'Night Gallery' recently (and more on that later), but even there the episode that got Emmy-nominated, Serling's "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" is a very close reworking of Serling's earlier Twilight Zone episode, 'The Trouble with Templeton'. It's also conspicuously out of kilter with the refreshing darkness of the rest of the series, being hopelessly maudlin (as usual, I'm probably in the minority on this one). Serling...
More About: Monks

Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008)
2008-03-26 21:51:00
Yes, I know it's a week since his death, but given my preoccupation with Sci-Fi lately, it's probably bizarre I haven't mentioned it before now. Sadly a giant of Sci-Fi, Arthur C. Clarke died on the 19th of March aged 90.The thing is I have never read an Arthur C. Clarke novel. I have read many of his short stories (obviously works like 'The Star', 'The Nine Billion Names of God', etc.), but I can't remember reading a novel. Then of course there was '2001: A Space Odyssey', but I think more of Kubrick when it comes to that movie. (My understanding is that Clarke explains much in the novel left mysterious in the film, and that's probably why the movie does me.) What I loved as a child was 'Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World'. THAT captivated me. I never missed it, with its Fortean elements (was that an Arabic battery from the Middle Ages?), monsters (ah, that Bigfoot home movie; the giant monkey sitting on the crate; the aerial shot of the giant snake; that weir...
More About: 2008

The Seedling Stars
2008-03-26 21:41:00
Of the four stories that make up 'The Seedling Stars ', James Blish's 'Surface Tension' is generally regarded as his best. It's certainly original. Following on with the concept of 'Adapted Men', humans genetically altered for alien planets, the story has a seeding ship crashland on a planet almost entirely covered by water. With no hope of survival themselves, and their cargo of colonising zygotes destroyed, the crew attempt to do the job themselves from their own cells. Creating an aquatic based version of humanity goes without saying, but given the ecology they find, the crew decide on a radical step; they make the new humans microscopic! It is the most successful story in the book. That it is enjoyable goes without saying; there is a certain fascination in the realisation of the recognisably human at home in such a bizarre context. Better yet are the few glimpses of the cosmology the colonists develop; it puts our own amazing predicament in the right light. The...

Nothing Lasts Forever.. Hold On, I've Only Started!
2008-03-25 00:52:00
From wikipedia.orgWell, after taking last week off, it's back to work tomorrow, and I ain't looking forward. Also a bit depressed at wasting the week. There was a lot I wanted to do, but I ended up watching old television series, reading and sleeping in. Not bad in themselves, but a holiday when I could ill afford one.Anyhow I'm reading James Blish's 'The Seedling Stars', a collection of four interconnected stories. Blish is a far more intelligent writer than Russell and manages to intertwine scientific and philosophical issues neatly. The central idea is about genetically altering humanity to exist in the harsh environments of alien worlds. Blish knows his science, but there is a major religious subtheme going on. The first story, 'Seeding Programme', involves an 'original sin' of sorts (the creation of the Adapted Men themselves); the second, 'The Thing in the Attic', deals with Man's eviction from Paradise (and going to Hell); the third, 'Surface Tension', w...
More About: Film , Science Fiction , Forever , Hold

A New Sci-Fi Chapter...or Two
2008-03-23 22:55:00
'Wasp' at wikipedia.orgLast Thursday I dropped into Chapter s just as they were putting out a batch of those yellow Victor Gollancz classic sci-fi books. In the past they had them reduced to ?5, but now they were ?2 a pop. Needless to say I had a large armload within a minute. The manager there let out an oath as I walked by - he'd just ordered them out - and took them from me with a "That's a heavy armload. I'll leave them at the till." He did, and I bought them very soon after.In my enthusiasm I failed to note that I had already read Michael Bishop's time-travelish 'No Enemy But Time' around four years back (that same edition is locked away in those book boxes at home). As I recall, it's well-written and intriguing, concerning a project to send a modern man back to our pre-modern ancestors on the African grasslands, or rather a peculiar recreation of that epoch (it has some slight similarities to Christopher Priest's forward-looking, but also ersatz, Wessex in "A Dr...
More About: Science Fiction

And I don't watch telly!
2008-03-21 23:54:00
There's been some interesting telly of late, so I gave 'Dirty Sexy Money' a chance tonight. Sorry, but I did watch 'Mad Men' a few weeks back and that sets a pretty high bar (and I still don't watch it). 'Dirty Sexy Money' doesn't come close. Diverting, but too light, too early. Maybe I should just tune back in to 'Mad Men'.And did you know Russell Mulcahy did a remake of 'On the Beach'? Much as I liked 'Razorback', I can't muster the enthusiasm (not a huge fan of the original). Besides Hal Ashby's 'Shampoo' is on (believe it or not, I haven't seen that).Actually the more I leave the box on, the more I understand why I rarely watch it.
More About: Watch

Who Hates?
2008-03-21 23:48:00
Die!!!!!! -t Coke. Does anyone sympatise with my complete and utter hatred of Coke ads? Not that I'd ever buy that evil brand, but those ads just make me get up off my ass and scream anger. And not just the 'Here's for the -' shite. There's that hypocritical games type ad and the lovely fluffy evil animation ad and - well, they're all evil. I was spitting blood when some car ad came on with the theme for 'The Flumps'. I HATE YOU TOO, YOU RIPPING-OFF VAMPIRES! Sorry, but I have a childhood to defend.And now they're using 'Blister in the Sun' for a beer ad. Is nothing sacred? There is a novel just in the ads, I tell you, a cynical, sad novel, but one nevertheless.

Last Embrace
2008-03-21 22:50:00
Just flicked on Jonathan Demme's early Hitchcock homage, 'Last Embrace ', halfway through and had to keep watching. Many directors have tried to ape the great director, most notably De Palma who has tried to make a career out of it, but to my mind Demme's effort is one of the best. Roy Scheider play a secret service man grieving for his wife who suddenly finds himself the target of a deranged killer (or killers). Scheider takes the role that normally would have been Cary Grant's, and excels (sad to see his recent death), but though the movie recognises Hitchcock's earlier romantic thrillers, as it progresses it takes in his later period, the age of 'Psycho', 'Marnie' and 'Frenzy'. We also get some cheeky echoes of the classics (a shot of Princetown mirrors 'Vertigo'; instead of Mount Rushmore the film ends with Niagara Falls). However, much as it pays tribute to Hitchcock both in story and style, this is still a Demme movie. I wouldn't class myself as a huge Demm...

Anthony Minghella (1954 - 2008)
2008-03-18 20:30:00
Image from wikipedia.orgI suppose like anyone interested in film, I was really shocked to hear of the death of Anthony Minghella today. An intelligent director and accomplished writer, he was an interesting, and admirable force in mainstream cinema. I saw him interviewed in Dublin several times, once, I believe, at a Film Festival screening of 'The English Patient', another time for 'Mr. Wonderful' (I think he was over again for a Beckett adaptation). He had a lot of experience and could communicate it lucidly, but as seems clear from the eulogies currently being made, he seemed to be a genuinely nice man (he even seemed to like the Weinsteins). On Channel 4 just now, I saw a visibly shaken Alan Parker discussing Minghella's work and the upshot was that here was a relatively young filmmaker (54) with his best work still ahead of him. His work until now though, seven films, were all worthy of viewing, and at least in the case of 'The English Patient' exemplary. It was a ...
More About: 2008

Curious
2008-03-11 01:23:00
I got a call today from a recruiting company enquiring about my job, as in someone with relevant skills was looking for it. Go figure.
More About: Curious

Ghost Rider
2008-03-11 01:06:00
I can't believe I'm even writing about this.If Oscar-winner Halle Berry had 'Catwoman', Oscar-winner Nicholas Cage had 'Ghost Rider'. I watched it tonight. Perhaps the worst film I have ever seen, with one small caveat: the Ghost Rider itself. Dreadful in every respect, the film had this wonderful icon at heart, an icon that rose above Cage, Mendes and the rubbish, and deserved far, far better than the surrounding farrago. A beautiful flaming light; an awful pile of shite.
More About: Horror , Film , Fantasy

Auf Wiedersehen, Weekend!
2008-03-04 21:11:00
That was a weekend! Friday's two parties didn't leave me with much yen to show two German tourists around our fair city, but that's just what I did on Saturday. They were quite taken with the place. And though Sonya was too exhausted to stay out past 12, I was obliged to sit through another hour and a half of traditional music for Rebecca. Next morning some proper sightseeing, before I left them to their shopping to go do the Mothers' Day thing. Back in to join the girls who were Bono-spotting in the Clarence. More live music ensued in Templebar (a place I tried to get them out of, but they just wouldn't leave). I made my apologies late and headed home. Monday was a flexi-day or I would have died, but I had my mother dropping by so it was mopping, washing and polishing that morning. She came in and said, 'There's an awful smell of detergent in this place.' Several of my old relatives are pretty ill at the moment, so out I went visiting. Walking from Dundrum to ...
More About: Weekend

Busy
2008-02-29 10:35:00
A busy few days ahead. Tonight there's a retirement dinner for one of my department from which I'll have to run (helps build up a thirst) to an eleventh year reunion for my multimedia class. Then tomorrow, Rebecca, one of the German girls I met in New Zealand, arrives for a few days. Monday I take off work (God bless flexi) - woohoo! then a conference later in the week.  And what illegitmate sadist dreamt up Mothers' Day for this Sunday!
More About: Busy

Offshore
2008-02-29 00:14:00
The Thames by Night - Fitzgerald's WorldA long time back I came across a volume of novels by Penelope Fitzgerald. After reading 'The Books hop', I knew she was someone special. After reading 'The Gate of Angels', I was putting the book away, keeping the last novel, 'The Blue Flower', as treasure, solace for a rainy day. Sadly that book is packed away now and finding it would be an ordeal. So when I saw a second collection of Fitzgerald's novels in Chapters recently, I treated myself. I finished 'Offshore ' last weekend.Fitzgerald was past 60 when she started to write, and she had an eventful life upon which to draw. One colourful period involved her living on a barge on the Thames, twice, twice being the victim of a sinking. This experience informs 'Offshore', lending it a beautiful authentic air. You can smell the rotten water that forms such a major part of the characters' lives.The story, such as it is, is slight. A collection of assorted misfits try to keep afloat, l...

Drink and the Insane Man
2008-02-27 21:39:00
The mid-week is my weekend, or so I tell myself while I drink. Last night I went to the Ruby Sessions in Doyle's of Fleet Street. Rebecca Collins, Gavin Glass, Shane O'Fearghail and Nigel Place stalked the boards, very successfully. On the way back from the basement jacks, I literally bumped into cousin Jan...and didn't recognise her. Only later, at 3 a.m., as we prepared to leave, did we recognise each other. We are definitely of the same stock, alcoholic though that might be. I have no right to complain about the hangover today. I knew it was before me. I also knew unrelenting meetings (and a presentation I had to give) were before me. It was a long day, all the more so because I've only just left that den of iniquity, largely by my own choice (the work builds up). As Dexter Fletcher once put it, madness doesn't just run in my family, it practically gallops.
More About: Drink , Insane

Poking Through the Paint
2008-02-26 11:10:00
It's a while since I last spent a Sunday in the National Gallery, so yesterday I made the trip stopping off a Read's new bookshop on Nassau Street (no great shakes). By the way, does anyone else out there get paranoid entering a bookstore knowing you have a volume in your pocket and nervous you'll somehow be accused of stealing it? Do you have that receipt? Would they allow you go home for it if you did? Does the book look old enough not to be theirs? Have they all their stock barcoded? I'm out of pills. There was a new Jack B. Yeats exhibit, so I took a wander there after my customary glance through the 20th Century Irish room (a new Paul Henry acquisition, 'Morning in Connemara (Killarney Bay)', is his best work I've seen; I'm not usually a fan). I tend to take Yeats for granted, but he really is the only GREAT painter we've produced. He is a complete original. This new selection really brought it home to me. The figures poke through the paint as from another...
More About: Paint

Oscars
2008-02-25 10:37:00
So no real surprises at the Oscars then. Even Cotillard beating Christie didn't surprise me at all (the Baftas showed the French element wasn't a factor). Should have put a few bob on them, not that the odds would have been that good.

Nature
2008-02-21 00:42:00
He always found it strange how they took such good care of their fingernails. Given that their very recent ancestors didn't have any, there was probably some strange racial pride at work. The whalepeople were just the kind of synthetic species to indulge in a fetish like that. This particular whaleman, Kevin, lounged in the great harness set up for his kind and gently rubbed his fingertips with a small nail file.'Can't you do that on your own time?''Break,' Kevin answered.Denzel smoothed an eyebrow in an effort to keep his composure.'Break ended twenty minutes ago. Come on, we have work here.'Without breaking a frown on his smooth white forehead, Kevin rocked his seat back and forth to generate some momentum before sliding quietly on to the floor. It was far too graceful an accomplishment for such a graceless form, Denzel reflected.'Wonderful! Try the Murphy load first. That's due back by six.''Sure,' rumbled Kevin and went into the back room to whale-iron the Mu...
More About: Nature

Von Clausewitz with a Dyed Head
2008-02-20 00:05:00
Part three of the O'Leary Thirtieth Birthday celebrations occurred tonight. I had to make that two bus trek out and I realised as buses passed by, idiots insisted on their two thirds of the seat, traffic kept us stationary and schoolkids sang shite tunes in the back of the bus, that I really should not have been able to take a two bus journey home as long as I did. No wonder psychiatry is a tempting option. I was late and not allowed forget it.Dropping by with champers and cake we interrupted my bro's enjoyment of Liverpool beating Inter tonight.I have not the slightest interest in football, save when it's an excuse to drink during work time, so my opinion is little sought after when it comes to soccer. However, even I could see, regardless of the 2-0 win, that Liverpool need a new manager. They were lucky. My other brother, Gavin, a fanatical Liverpool fan, was driven to support Benitez, claiming he kept on Kuyt with that first goal in mind. Rubbish! Gavin had been call...
More About: Head

So long and thanks for all the fish!
2008-02-20 00:04:00
I actually got a chance to text my brother that immortal line tonight as I went home with a pocketful of smoked colley.By the way, did you know there was such a thing as collie weed, used, among other things, for fish pie?
More About: Fish , Long

Mad Cow Disease
2008-02-19 19:31:00
Alfred Hitchcock never said actors were cattle. He said they should be treated like cattle. Shakespeare pointed out that all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. Reading between the lines explains a lot.
More About: Disease

If You Have Nothing Good to Say...
2008-02-19 00:37:00
Another birthday dinner for my brother tonight, this one with the family (and girlfriends). My dad advised that if we had nothing good to say about someone, then say nothing at all. 3 seconds later the evening was saved by my mother who broke the silence, permanently, completely, beyond the power of sellotape, toilet rolls or watch springs to mend.Cousin Jan got on the cover of the Sunday Indo the other day (new play, modelling dresses, the usual). Something funny in the caption though. Age 28! I think not. There I said it. The world now knows, you reprobate! Lying about your age in public!As part of Rag Week, DCU students tried to dunk senior staff into a vat of water for charity today. They were hopeless. It was left to staff member Ian to drop the Head of Student Affairs in it and break the mechanism (thus dunking everyone else from then on at the slightest provocation). Kids these days!I cannot comment on Kosovo as I simply am not well informed enough, but it does stri...
More About: Good

Back Catalogue
2008-02-19 00:26:00
Came across this in my pictures the other day; I'd forgotten about it. I always thought it deserved a little more attention than it got, being a nice little piece, if I do say so myself.
More About: Back , Catalogue

Dublin Film Festival 2008
2008-02-18 00:08:00
The Dublin Film Festival started on Friday. Not for me. In the past, the distant past, I used to volunteer to work in it. Later I'd fork out for the season ticket and live in a cinema for ten days, eating crisps and Yorkies and drinking as much free booze as my liver allowed (it was very generous) in the Festival Club later. Later yet, I'd take ten days off work for this pleasure. No more. The booze has lost its appeal. What's worse, they've cut down on the number of movies. I watched my fair share of dross back then, but there was always tonnes on. As Woody Allen put it in 'Annie Hall', "'The food's terrible here!' 'Yes, and in such small portions!'" Whatever is good is bound to surface sooner or later here, and more than likely in Cineworld, and seeing as a season ticket for the festival costs more than a year-long ticket for Cineworld (and I have my year-long ticket), what's the point? To see a few celebrities? To say they're hardly worth it, is to exag...
More About: Film Festival , 2008

Off Warbling Somewhere in Frenchy Speak
2008-02-17 23:29:00
Image from www.wikipedia.orgI really have to give up those 4 a.m. drunken bursts of written diarrhoea. In the end a good night was had by all, including, I am sure, the Cavan masseuse.You know there cannot be a shirt in my wardrobe that hasn't been besmirched by my love of olive oil. And as for that old chestnut about a hot iron and some brown paper, that's all it is, an old chestnut, and tree seeds have no place in modern laundry practice. I should know; I worked in a professional laundry for three years (well, summers). Blithely I emptied out the sacks of urine-soaked pyjamas and operating room balls of fat on to the conveyor belt. I had sacks of blood drip by my feet from the overhead rails. They even found an amputated hand where I worked (a week before I started). Yes, an industrial laundry that tackled hospital and hotel garments and linen. Anyhow I still never learnt how to iron a shirt.Believe it or not, short though it is, I only got round to finishing 'Three Men...
More About: Speak

Brie!
2008-02-17 05:08:00
That Brie I took out of the fridge should be ready now. Yum, yum. Where is Marion Cotillard when you need her though??????

It's just not fair!!!!!!!
2008-02-17 05:01:00
It's just not fairTonight was my brother's thirtieth birthday and we had a fabulous meal in the Trinty Capitol. Thank you, Mr H. Afterwards we went to Howl at the Moon. I was standing in the queue with this shithead of a poser woman pushing herself forward when the bouncer came down and apologised, but it would take an hour to get in. This didn't sound like my evening plan and I happened to mention a few names. To my immense satisfaction I was ushered beyond the queue and in. I take comfort in the knowledge that shithead woman froze.I met a Cavan masseuse who looked like Mary-Louise Parker. I have always had a thing for Mary-Louise Parker, and when she said she was thirty, and in my bracket so to speak, I was happy. I was happier when she said I was cute and I reciprocated. So where the f*ck did the boyfriend come from!!!! It's just not fair! Not fair at all. Damn it, we were getting on very well.And then there was that little one I missed because the bouncer kicked me...
More About: Fair

BAFTAs, BAFTAs, BAFTAs
2008-02-10 23:51:00
Marion Cotillard as Edith PiafI'm not really one for awards ceremonies, but I happened to flick on the BAFTAs; it's a strong field this year, what with 'No Country for Old Men', "Atonement", "There Will Be Blood", "This Is England", etc.. The BAFTAs got a lot of additional attention this time around after the writers' strike scuppered the Golden Globes and seemed like it might ruin the Oscars (the dispute has been resolved). Well, it wasn't totally without interest. NiceGreat to see Marion Cotillard get the BAFTA for Best Actress. Poor kid was nervous as hell, but deserved it (for 'La Vie en Rose'). Javier Bardem too (Best Supporting Actor); he did Chigurh justice in 'No Country for Old Men'. Pleasant too to see Danny Day-Lewis finally show a sense of humour. And though it all may be lovey-dom, I am glad that Anthony Hopkins got the Lifetime Achievement award. He's one hell-raiser still going. (And I just saw Roger Deakins got Best Cinematographer; sometimes they ...

Little Star
2008-02-10 22:12:00
After a little unpacking, I started listening to some keyboard variations by Mozart. On came 'Twelve Variations on the French Song "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman"' from 1781-82. I didn't think I was familiar with the song beforehand, but when 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star ' started playing, I realised I was all along. Funny where these things come from.