The Sigla Blog

Am very excited about seeing the new Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield. I spent many an afternoon in its predecessor on Abbey Street, and saw my first films by Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodovar, Atom Egoyan, Krzysztof Kieslowski (the Three Colours trilogy) and so many great directors. The Screen Cinema on D’Olier Street could always be relied […]

Two film nuggets that might be of interest:
1) Morgan Spurlock will be in Dublin this Saturday for a Q&A about his new film, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?. It takes place at 3.10pm at Cineworld, Parnell Street. Tickets can be bought on the day.
2) You may remember me posting about the […]

Last week, The New York Times

“Why are there no great female painters?”

Apparently all will be revealed in this Sunday’s Observer. Now, while I don’t expect the critics the paper polled to mention Mainie Jellett, Norah McGuinness or most of these women, surely Frida Kahlo would be considered a great female painter?
Experts will providing answers to that and questions like “What […]

Annette recently confessed that she’s addicted to Smith Magazine’s Six Word Memoirs, and challenges people to come up their life manifesto in the same amount of words.
I’ve posted before about Six Word Short Stories, and both the idea of summing up a person or a narrative in six words reminds me of something I read […]

In the crazy hoopla that is the Oscars, it’s fantastic to see Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova pick up the gong for Best Song for ‘Falling Slowly’. Bet Glen got a kick out of having John Travolta give him the award. And how nice was it of Jon Stewart to bring Marketa back out to […]

Starting tomorrow (Monday 25th), tune into Women’s Hour Drama on BBC Radio 4 to hear the radio version of Black Narcissus. I’ve never read the novel, but Powell and Pressburger’s film version is hugely affecting. It’s a psychological, eerie film about an order of nuns in the Himalayas being thwarted by desire, lack […]

Above is The Empire Strikes Back, as portrayed in Russian folk art. I also love the War of the Worlds one, The Matrix and Terminator. Some I can’t even figure out, but they’re adorable. My favourite is Spiderman. The full gallery is here:
Thanks to Martin.

…sitting in a cinema wearing funny glasses watching a U2 gig in 3D for 85 minutes. I’ll never get that time back you know.

Every time there’s a mention of the film Teeth, I can’t wait to see it. If you haven’t heard about it, New York Magazine sums it up as the story of “Dawn, a high-school student with a fanged, carnivorous vagina that exacts bloody revenge on all males who dare go near it.” Now the magazine […]

* Shane sent a shiver of remembrance up my spine with this post. The very same thing happened to me after interviewing John Banville, when the mini disc messed up while writing the recording to disc. When I got home and discovered it was blank, I felt ill. I found him pleasant if a little […]

Taking film as a fulcrum to pivot her argument around, Julie Burchill is spot on in many things she says in an article titled “Bring Back the red-blooded bitch”. She laments the loss of good bitching, something she believes is not about women criticising other women for their choices, because “envy isn’t what creates a […]