From Fassbender's Macbeth to Farrell's Lobster: Donald Clarke's first picks for Cannes 2015The Irish Times will be keeping a close eye on all the happenings up and down the Croisette at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, here are a few of the movies whetting our appetiteWed May 13 2015 - 15:24
Mad Max: Fury Road review: a post-apocalyptic western of the highest orderYou wait 30 years for a new Mad Max to come along, then Charlize Theron turns up and steals the showWed May 13 2015 - 14:32
Mad Max 4: ‘The film you couldn’t kill with a stick’Interview: The French were the first to see Mad Max as a western on wheels, says director George Miller. Forty years later, he’s back in Cannes with the explosive fourth part, Fury RoadWed May 13 2015 - 08:15
Donald Clarke: Why won’t old bands leave us alone?‘We’ve bought houses, given birth and developed an interest in gardening. Stop trying to suck us back into the uncertain foolishness of adolescence’Sat May 09 2015 - 00:02
Donald Clarke: away with horse-trading, in with bets on next Labour leaderThe most unpredictable election in a generation, they said. TV coverage proved that, for sureFri May 08 2015 - 14:45
Kit Harington: when it Snows, it poursWork has been non-stop for London-born Kit, with a ‘Spooks’ spin-off just the latest of several movies. And then there’s a certain Northern Ireland-shot fantasy blockbuster called Game of Thrones...Fri May 08 2015 - 06:00
Girlhood review: good girl gone mauvaiseA black teenager finds true friendship when she falls in with the ‘wrong’ crowd in this energising French drama set amid the Paris banlieuesThu May 07 2015 - 22:00
Spooks: The Greater Good review: mid-ranking spy stuffCompetent cinema sequel to BBC spy series struggles to break out of its comfort zoneThu May 07 2015 - 21:00
Phoenix review: a preposterous narrative played with such sincerity all reservations are forgottenA scheming husband comes face to face with his supposedly dead wife in this high-end Germany melodramaThu May 07 2015 - 18:00
Big Game review: Samuel L Jackson has never been more gameSlick action and ripe dialogue put zip in this Lapland adventure - though it’s not entirely clear how much of Big Game is funny on purposeThu May 07 2015 - 16:39
Donald Clarke: There’s something about NicolaSNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is an old-fashioned politician, in tune with town-hall politicsSat May 02 2015 - 07:26
Ivan Kavanagh: Cries and shivers for The Canal’s directorIvan Kavanagh went bananas over Ingmar Bergman at a young age. His eerie new Irish horror film The Canal, which knocked ’em dead at Tribeca, recalls the great man’s chilly aestheticFri May 01 2015 - 09:00
Unfriended review: imaginative and genuinely unsettling horror classicImaginative, unsettling dissection of online discontents is a minor horror classicFri May 01 2015 - 08:00
Get Up and Go review: more than a little missing from its soulThere are worse ways of spending a modest budget than having your characters walk and talk their way around a major city as some contrived deadline loomsFri May 01 2015 - 07:30
Far from the Madding Crowd review: sex and the single heiressThis lightweight but gorgeous looking version of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 classic is certainly a film of its timeThu Apr 30 2015 - 16:00
Ifta 2015 film and drama nominees announced‘Frank’ with Michael Fassbender and ‘Patrick’s Day’ with Moe Dunford top nominationsWed Apr 29 2015 - 16:02
Donald Clarke: Down with that sort of thing: ‘Father Ted’ at 20At the time, the sitcom seemed to reflect a happy confidence in our eccentricitiesSat Apr 25 2015 - 05:00
The Good Lie review: Collapses under the weight of its worthinessThis is the sort of achingly worthy film that, when shown to schoolchildren in civics class, causes the poor tykes to yearn for double maths.Fri Apr 24 2015 - 08:00
The Emperor’s New Clothes review: selling his own BrandRussell Brand is merely preaching to the converted in Michael Winterbottom’s new filmThu Apr 23 2015 - 22:00
Avengers: Age of Ultron review – fighting super-fatigueThe latest big-bang Avengers romp may have the cast and the quips, but superhero mania is surely on the waneThu Apr 23 2015 - 12:00
Child 44 review: confusing Soviet boreComplicated mess of a screenplay ruins potentially one of the year’s best thrillersMon Apr 20 2015 - 13:22
Donald Clarke: Game of Thrones star Kit Harington’s Belfast apology‘Good sleggin’. We love this sort of thing. Surely, murals of Kit Harington were set to appear on gable walls throughout the occupied territories?’Sat Apr 18 2015 - 01:00
Glassland review: a suitably muddy enigmaThoughtful study of a family struggling with alcoholism is harrowing but ultimately upliftingFri Apr 17 2015 - 11:18
Gente de Bien review: small scenes from the class warThis socially aware film from Colombia can’t settle on a storyFri Apr 17 2015 - 10:30
Toni Collette: ‘The story is what makes the job worthwhile. It would be pointless otherwise’Her Tallaght accent is rapid, she’s been on the tear around Dublin with Jack Reynor, and she took little convincing to make Glasslands. Australian actor Toni Collette talks to Donald ClarkeFri Apr 17 2015 - 09:00
Irish co-production ‘The Lobster’ for Cannes Film FestivalFilm starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz selected for main competitionThu Apr 16 2015 - 13:24
Donald Clarke: Cameron and Miliband fight it out over posh nosh race to the bottomWhy does being ordinary have to be a virtue when it comes to British elections?Sat Apr 11 2015 - 00:01
Paul Blart 2 review: so mordantly witless that it has the quality of a bleak art-house tragedyThis film adds to the looming sense that mainstream US cinema comedy is deep in a Dark AgeFri Apr 10 2015 - 19:00
Japanese Film Festival: Film samurai head for Irish townsNot content with one town, the Japanese Film Festival is touring its work to seven Irish venuesFri Apr 10 2015 - 14:30
Jauja review: beautiful faux-western from Lisandro AlonsoViggo Mortensen stars in and scores this well-crafted Patagonian nightmareFri Apr 10 2015 - 10:30
John Wick review: the car – or the puppy gets itThis Keanu Reeves film captures the relentless excitement of ‘shoot ‘em up’ video gamesFri Apr 10 2015 - 05:00
Good Kill review: more of a conversation piece than a fully formed filmImportant questions about murderous US drone strikes but the film is a botched operationFri Apr 10 2015 - 04:30
Tallaght community stars in a remarkable film about suicide clustersFrank Berry has moved into the first rank of Irish film-makers with his naturalistic first dramatic featureMon Apr 06 2015 - 06:00
Donald Clarke: A trigger warning about trigger warningsWarning: this piece contains facetious jokes about precious bloody students and tedious middle-aged snorting on the ‘state of the world today’Sat Apr 04 2015 - 01:01
I Used To Live Here review: live and don’t let dieFrank Berry, director of the super documentary Ballymun Lullaby, tackles an incendiary issue in his first dramatic feature.Fri Apr 03 2015 - 10:00
Altman review: mish M*A*S*HFilm buffs will want to see this fairly interesting, but also fairly pedestrian, documentary on the legendary director of M*A*S*H and NashvilleFri Apr 03 2015 - 09:00
While We’re Young review: the young and the fecklessNoah Baumbach’s new comedy sees him laugh at his peers but positively howl at the generation coming upThu Apr 02 2015 - 16:00
The Water Diviner review: loud, brash and manipulative - but stuffed with humanityFor his directorial debut, Russell Crowe has delivered exactly what you probably expectedThu Apr 02 2015 - 13:13
Russell Crowe: ‘I respect the gods of film’Self-effacing he isn’t: Australian national treasure Russell Crowe tells Donald Clarke why he is the acting equivalent of a FerrariThu Apr 02 2015 - 12:45
New James Bond trailer unveiled in fittingly covert style‘Spectre’, starring Daniel Craig and Monica Bellucci, is set to be released in OctoberSun Mar 29 2015 - 17:28
Donald Clarke: Accept no substitute for Irish EnglishDo the math on cookies, popsicles and garbage – it all adds up to a US verbal assaultSat Mar 28 2015 - 00:02
Life of Riley review: a diverting trifle with a sliver of mortal terror at its heartAlain Resnais’ final film displays a joie de vivre that remained with the director to the endFri Mar 27 2015 - 12:50
Dior and I review: nicely made, but where are the rampant vulgarities?And Dior himself comes across like a suburban golfer taking a weekend jaunt to the hardware storeFri Mar 27 2015 - 12:18
Seventh Son review: The highs and lows of ‘bad acting’Julianne Moore could learn a thing or two from her co-star Jeff BridgesFri Mar 27 2015 - 08:00
Damián Szifron: one director, several storiesWith ‘Wild Tales’ Argentinian director Damián Szifron has singlehandedly revived the often ignored art of the portmanteau film. The secret is to have just one person making the whole thing, he saysFri Mar 27 2015 - 05:30
Cinderella review: A glass slipper more than half-fullUnironic simplicity. Gentle familiarity. No 3D. Kenneth Branagh’s step back in time to Disney’s heyday may just be the great leap forward we’ve been waiting for Hollywood to takeThu Mar 26 2015 - 17:00
Tana Bana review: Fruits of the loom | JDiff 2015A day in the life of an Indian silk weaverTue Mar 24 2015 - 18:00
A Master Builder review: Scandi angst transplanted | JDiff 2015The grinding gears of the drama fairly shake the spiritTue Mar 24 2015 - 11:08
Force Majeure review: Pitiless, pessimistic, but funny | JDiff 2015A sour, blackly comic Swedish drama on the nature of masculinity and the fragility of human relationsTue Mar 24 2015 - 11:03
Danny Huston: why this Danny boy was always destined to toe the family lineIn Dublin to promote his latest film, the grandson of Walter, son of John and half-brother of Anjelica, admits that it was always going to be hard to avoid entering the ‘family business’Tue Mar 24 2015 - 01:00
