It’s strange to write about the 20th anniversary of a film that is actually 45 years old. Released in cinemas in America on St. Stephen’s Day 1973 and around the world in early 1974, The Exorcist is celebrating an anniversary this year in…

The cinema where I grew up closed in the mid 1980’s, as was the case in most Irish towns at the time (it would be almost 30 years before another popped up in its place), but that decline was met by the rise of the “video shop”. Maybe we…

"...as dark as midnight and as sombre as the grave" 1948 was a good year for film, without doubt. Among the thousands produced were classics of cinema such as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bicycle Thieves, Oliver Twist, The Red Shoes,…

It’s well known along the Headstuff corridors of power that I have a habit of rambling. Not today. If I have learned anything from watching William Freidkin’s latest film, The Devil and Father Amorth, it is how to be succinct as this is a…

Curracloe, 1997 In the summer of 1997 I was 14 years old. School was out and as June crept into July the weather began turning fine, into what I might now refer to as “halcyon days”, where I hadn’t a care in the world. Wexford had…

Detective Kieran Temple is woken by a 4am phone call from his ex-partner, Mia Burrows. She’s just killed her boyfriend. Compelled to investigate the death, Temple finds he must do so behind the backs of his superiors and his wife. All…

Directed by Romana Testasecca Written by Tom Moran Starring Danielle Galligan and Tom Moran In my reviews I enjoy building a good preamble, opening with a story or an anecdote from my own experience, trying to add what I suppose is an…

“Ah, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts.” I first saw John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre when I was very young,…

For film goers of my vintage (mid 30’s), mention of Alec Guinness will conjure only one image, namely that of a cloaked, grey bearded old man known as Obi Wan Kenobi. For me (oddly enough, considering I am a Star Wars fan) any mention of…

My initial reaction on seeing Cop Land for the very first time was “why can’t every film be like Cop Land?”. The central characters are so well defined, the writing is so strong and the direction so clear that you have to wonder why films…