At @secondwindgroup.com, I wrote about Billie Eilish and James Cameron’s concert film collaboration “Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D).” In particular, how Cameron uses his trademark 3D to offer a meditation on mediation. READ: www.patreon.com/posts/column...

I was down at a wedding in Tralee a few weeks ago, at Ballyseede Castle. A beautiful day for two beautiful people in a beautiful part of the world. Worth shouting out the incredible staff.

A completely ordinary recording session which starts on the rails and over which I maintain tight control for the duration of the runtime.

New episode of The 250, with @ciaramoloney.bsky.social and @deanbuckley.bsky.social joining us to talk about Kirk Jones' "I Swear." And "Michael." And "The Boss Baby." And what "The Long Good Friday" has in common with "Spiceworld." soundcloud.com/the250/446-i...

#NowWatching #MortalKombatII

Not a bad week.

Thinking about Curry Barker’s “Obsession”, and in particular the film’s very clever repeated obscuring of women’s faces as a piece of thematic and visual storytelling, about how the protagonist (and many men) see women.

Oh, saw the new trailer for “The Odyssey” on a big screen last night. It looks like it has a very real possibility of completely reinventing the swords and sandals epic for the twenty-first century. Two words: “Let’s go!”

I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said there are two tragedies in life: not getting what you want, and having your own need reflected back to you by a blank projection. Had a great time with #Obsession, a skin-crawlingly uncomfortable and occasionally spine-tingling funny horror.

#NowWatching #Obsession

I had a very good time with (deep breath) “Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D).” boxd.it/eeRmBd

Not necessarily the greatest proof that media literacy is dead, but still a chilling reminder of how bad the situation is, astounded by how many “wHaT dO yOu MeAn FiSk-As-MaYoR iS a TrUmP aLlEgOrY?” replies I’ve gotten in the past twenty-four hours.

Sometimes, I am so on the money it’s scary.

#NowWatching “Trad” #FindYourTribe

Predictably a big fan of this

Now that the season finale of "Daredevil: Born Again" is out, can I just say that between "Wake Up Dead Man", "Hoppers" and "Born Again", it is fascinating how so much Second Trump Era pop culture is about how the evil people who have killed and want to kill you deserve "grace."

I do appreciate "The Odyssey" unlocking a new Christopher Nolan anxiety. The classic "what if my wife died, that'd be the worst thing I can imagine, right?" replaced by "what if I can't get home in time to stop her sleeping with Robert Pattinson?"

Backdrop--it's a SUPER show!

To help my analysis of that latter fact, I referenced @darrenmooney.bsky.social’s discussion of the Demon Slayer film on his podcast The 250, as well as @felipepepe.bsky.social’s excellent article on acknowledging non-US gaming culture and history. (2/3) felipepepe.medium.com/the-gentrifi...

New episode of The Backdrop, from myself and @janjozone.bsky.social at @secondwindgroup.com! This week, looking at “Invincible”, and how it’s able to grapple with something most superhero show can’t: consequence. WATCH: youtu.be/lQVEsN7KYPA?...

In this week's episode of The Backdrop, @darrenmooney.bsky.social digs into the latest season of Invincible, and how it's the rare superhero series that's actually about consequences. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQVE...

As somebody with no real relationship to Billie Eilish, I was impressed with “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” In Cameron’s meditation on mediation, Eilish casts herself as subject and object. Cameron takes a singer who, even in concert, is primarily projected on 2D screens, and renders her in 3D.

#NowWatching “Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft”

This really is it.

Oh boy, film journalism is in a state. Trying to find some good writing on the rather blatant Christian imagery of "Project Hail Mary", and Google gives me this as the second result. "I asked ChatGPT if it was religious and it said yes."

And we all know that nothing from the thirties can elicit complicated or mixed feelings today. (To be clear: I think those complicated or mixed feelings are good. It’s where friction lies, and trying to strip out that friction to make readers feel better about what they enjoy is just… dull.)

As has been the way lately, genuinely overwhelmed by the response to my video on “Michael.” However, the most surprising aspect of the response has been discovering there are ride and die Bonaporte stans who are *so* angry at the portrayal of their li’l French guy in that “Napoleon” movie.

is really interesting to argue that an Irish writer doesn’t count as Irish because at the time the British had come over here and just taken everything for themselves. More than one hundred years, and nothing has changed. Unreconstructed colonialism.

I was reading the “Batman by Chip Zdarsky Omnibus” that came out last week. It is amazing how *insistent* modern Batman comics are that the billionaire vigilante who recruits child soldiers and beats criminals to a pulp is *not* problematic. Striking terror into the hearts of criminals, wokely.

It is quite something to watch "The Devil Wears Prada 2" pat itself on the back for declaring that "journalism f%!king matters", knowing that critics were squeezed out of previews to make room for influencers. (The movie is fine, as twenty-year-later sequels go.)

There was always an element of this in biopics but it's particularly horrible these days. Also reminded me of toe-chewingly, God awful Bohemian rhapsody was.

Yep. @darrenmooney.bsky.social justice put out a great video about how movie biopics have been turned into advertisements for corporate brands where the main characters are agents and dealmakers rather than even creators of those corporate brands: youtu.be/uOdKV8iRMTE?...

In his latest Patreon column, @darrenmooney.bsky.social digs into the recent trend of sin-eating sequels with IT, Wicked, and Michael. www.patreon.com/posts/157074...

God I'd never seen that clip of Pierce Brosnan as Brendan Ingle. The thing is you get that Brosnan knows what an aul lad Dublin accent and how it should sound, but because he is Pierce Brosnan, it can never sound authentic. Because he's forever doomed to be Mid-Atlantic. The Peter Lawford of Meath.

One of the great things about holiday flights is having time to catch up on all these great films, and finally being able to go back and read Darren's columns without fear of spoilers.

im gonna call these hagiographies buy-o-pics from now on

I’m quite enjoying “Widow’s Bay”, the new Apple TV+ show, which is a lot like “Jaws” if it were told from the perspective of the mayor.

No, Mooney! Go back to the positive videos! I liked the Lim-Hor (I don't think this one works) one which confirmed my choice for Week 15 of my Movie-A-Week Adventure (Exit 8) as being a good one. Oh, fine. Go on. Educate and depress me. In equal measure, please.

At @SecondWindGroup.com, we took a look at #Michael as a prime example of the new celebrity biopic. Less a story of a life than a feature length commercial. The Celebrity Buy-O-Pic. WATCH: youtu.be/uOdKV8iRMTE?...

Had a good time with #Hokum, essentially a haunted house movie about the healing power of magic mushrooms. A little overextended, a little jumpscare-y, but - to be fair - they’re very well-executed jump scares.

#NowWatching #Hokum

#TheSheepDetectives is GOATed. Had a great time with this cosy mystery. As one might expect from the writer of “Chernobyl”, it has a bit of bite to it. Funny, smart, sincere and unexpectedly moving. The adults at the screening left comparing it to “Babe”, high praise indeed.

#NowWatching #TheSheepDetectives

Really like that a significant number of comments under this week’s video on “Exit 8” are people who watched the movie *because* of the video.

15 minutes! Marty, @sigmagears9.bsky.social, @prettygrimgames.bsky.social, and I either finish Dokapon Kingdom... or die trying. I legitimate don't know how long we'll be streaming... Thanks for your contuong support of us at @secondwindgroup.com! www.youtube.com/live/t5vA1af...

The Venga Bus is always coming. But never here.

undertone is a solid horror movie about the search for connection in a digital age. @darrenmooney.bsky.social's latest column is live now on Patreon -- www.patreon.com/posts/column...

The further we get from it, the more I admire “A Complete Unknown” for being the rare music biopic is largely about how little taste the masses have.

Rewatching “Steve Jobs.” It’s strange to think that this is an underrated film in both Sorkin and Boyle’s filmographies. Boyle’s remarkable good at visualising Sorkin’s “characters having three conversations at once, across decades.”

Staring at a map, trying to figure out how Chicago is “the Midwest?” By my back of the envelope calculations it is (at most) “the Quarterwest.”