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Irish eye on hollywood
Tom Deignan
 The Irish
and boxing are longtime Hollywood staples, from John Wayne as the reluctant
slugger in The Quiet Man right up to Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man and
Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. In December, a Cork-born writer-director
and quirky American actor are going to take their shot at the genre with
Strength and Honor.
Buzz on the film is solid. True, one gossip web site said the film combines
a couple of genres – the “poor and miserable Irish people
movie and the boxing movie,” but Strength and Honor (written and
directed by Mark Mahon) did win Best Picture and Best Actor at the recent
Boston Film Festival.
It was the first time a single movie nabbed these two awards. Strength
and Honor is about an Irish-American boxer (Michael Madsen, best known
for his psycho ear-chopping role in Reservoir Dogs), who may have to break
a promise he made to his wife when he finds out his son is dying.
The wife, by the way, is also dead. So, yes, it appears this movie is
heavy on the Irish trauma. It also explores the underground world of Irish
travelers and their penchant for bare-knuckle boxing.
Strength and Honor was filmed in Mahon’s native Cork last year and
also stars Patrick Bergin, Richard Chamberlain and Vinnie Jones.
After his triumph at the Boston Film fest, Mahon said: “To win top
awards at such a prestigious festival is surreal – competition was
fierce this year with a large number of high profile titles competing.
We’re absolutely ecstatic that Michael Madsen won for his superb
lead performance.”
Meanwhile, the Irish ring chronicles continue with buzz building about
a Brad Pitt-Mark Wahlberg pairing. The dynamic duo is slated to star in
The Fighter, a film based on the life of “Irish” Mickey Ward.
Pitt is expected to play Ward’s half-brother Dickie Eklund, a tough
boxer in his own right, who pushed Ward to the top of the fight game.
 Critically-acclaimed
director Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream) is shooting
the movie. In recent interviews, Wahlberg has said he idolized Irish Mickey
Ward while growing up in working-class Dorchester, Massachusetts. Ward
grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts.
“Mickey Ward was, in my opinion, one of the greatest champions of
all time, and the biggest heart that ever stepped into the ring,”
Wahlberg recently said. “I am committed to making him proud, and
I know that Brad feels the same way about portraying his brother Dickie.
We are going to make it real.” The Fighter is slated for release
in 2009.
It’s not exactly a happy holiday film, but Daniel Day-Lewis’
epic There Will Be Blood is set for release the day after Christmas. Directed
by hip auteur Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk
Love), the movie is based on a novel by muckraker Upton Sinclair and looks
at corruption following the discovery of oil in Texas. Oil? Corruption?
Texas? It’s safe to say a few reviewers are going to see echoes
of the present day in this historical movie.
Colin Farrell will star alongside Ewan McGregor in Woody Allen’s
next movie Cassandra’s Dream, due for release in late November.
In yet another British-set movie for the New York directing legend, Cassandra’s
Dream follows English brothers lured into a life of crime.
The movie “is simply a story of some very nice young people who
get caught up because of their weaknesses and ambitions in a tragic situation,”
Allen said after the film premiered at the Venice film festival. “They
mean well. They were raised decently, but it turns out that their own
events and own actions bring them to a tragic demise at the end of the
movie.”
Initial reviews of the movie are not very inspiring. Word is that both
Farrell and McGregor sport accents reminiscent of Dick Van Dyke’s
in Mary Poppins, while The Independent newspaper in Britain said, “To
many critics, it seemed feeble and dispiriting fare – the work of
an old master in decline.”
The Oscars will not be held until February 2008 but the Irish film community
is already making cinematic history.
The Irish movie Kings, starring Colm Meaney, Brendan Conroy and Donal
O’Kelly, has become the first movie from Ireland to be submitted
to the Oscars for consideration as top film in a foreign language.
Written and directed by Tom Collins, Kings explores a group of Irish-speaking
men who leave the west of Ireland for London in the 1970s. They are so
filled with hopes and dreams, they believe they can someday be “kings.”
 The men
meet up 30 years later when one of their pals dies. “I know it’s
always dangerous to have messages in films, but I hope people will watch
Kings and empathize with the whole experience of emigrants in a foreign
land and how hard it is for them to find their way home,” director
Tom Collins said. “This is a universal story – it’s
not just about paddies.” Kings was shot in Belfast, London and Dublin
last year.
“Kings is a powerful and moving story that transcends its native
language and can communicate universally with its raw and honest storyline,”
Aine Moriarty, CEO of The Irish Film and Television Academy, recently
said.
Each year, the Academy Awards accept one foreign language film from eligible
nations. The five finalists will be announced in January.
Speaking of Colm Meaney, he will join fellow Irish actor Jason O’Mara
on the ABC TV show Life on Mars. The show is a remake of a BBC show based
on a time-traveling cop. Look for it mid-season on ABC.
Actor Paddy Considine cemented his reputation with Irish film fans in
Jim Sheridan’s New York immigrant tale In America. He’s also
appeared in blockbusters such as The Bourne Ultimatum. Now, Considine
says his own Irish Catholic background (his dad was born in Limerick)
has inspired him to make his own short film Dog Altogether. The film is
a loosely biographical look at Considine’s dad, who in the film
is played by Scotsman Peter Mullan.
The film had its world premiere earlier this year in Edinburgh and looks
at Irish immigrants living in Britain. Considine recently said: “Within
an Irish Catholic background often you do inherit a sense of guilt even
though I’m not practicing. Sometimes you think of things you have
done and want forgiveness. You think – ‘I did something wrong
and I should be punished.’ I suppose that’s inherent in me
and the film.”
 The plight
of immigrants is also at the center of The Visitor, the latest movie from
Irish-American director Tom McCarthy, best known for his indy smash The
Station Agent starring Javier Bardem.
In his latest work, which generated lots of buzz at the Toronto International
Film Festival, a widowed and weary college professor (Richard Jenkins)
drives to New York City for an academic conference, and finds an immigrant
husband and wife squatting in his vacant apartment.
McCarthy said his own immigrant past led him to ponder the difficulties
of life as an immigrant in America today. “Our new Ellis Island
is our detention centers,” McCarthy said.
A slew of movies with Irish themes and talent hit theaters in September
and October, so if you missed them, you should make an effort to nab them
now that they are coming out on DVD.
First there was the new George Clooney movie, Michael Clayton, in which
the hunk Clooney plays a “fixer” for a powerful law firm.
The movie makes a lot of Clayton’s Irish-American background. His
dad is a retired cop, and there is a strong tradition of civil service
work in the Clayton clan. It’s even implied that Michael’s
work for the elite is somehow a betrayal of his upbringing.
Also look for Terry George’s latest writing/directing work, a dead-child
weepy starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connolly called Reservation
Road.
Another dead child pops up on the mean Irish streets surrounding Boston
in Ben Affleck’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, based on a novel
by the master of Irish- American suspense Dennis Lehane.
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