News

By Robert Lentini, MoreHorror.com

"Tucker and Dale vs Evil" is currently available via Netflix Instant watch. I saw a trailer for this film awhile back and couldn't wait to see it, then heard nothing about it, then saw it on the was available On Demand.

Since that day, I've watched this movie several times. I usually just force people I know to watch it. Some like it, some don't.. and the people that don't wind up in a body bag. Just kidding.

This movie reminds me a lot of "A Film With Me in It". If you haven't seen that flick,check it out. Keep in mind you have to love dark comedies to enjoy either of these films.

The plot is pretty simple in both of them, a bunch of people start dying around two characters and it looks like they have murdered all of them. The difference...

Irish short animation, 'Fear of Flying', has completed production in preparation for its premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh this July. Shot at Dublin-based South Studios, 'Fear of Flying' was funded by the Irish Film Board's Frameworks project, with RTÉ and the Arts Council. Conor Finnegan wrote and directed the short, while Ifta Award-winning producer Brunella Cocchiglia (Foxes) produced for Lovely Productions, flanked by cinematographer Ivan McCullough (The Eclipse). Mark Doherty (A Film with Me in it) voiced main character Dougal, while breakout actress of 'Behold the Lamb' Aoife Duffin co-starred...

Tribeca Film has acquired U.S. rights to "Death of a Superhero," which premiered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, the company said Monday. Andy Serkis, who received strong reviews for his work in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," stars in the film, which includes animated sequences. The movie also stars Thomas Brodie-Sangster ("Love Actually"), Jessica Schwarz ("Perfume") and Aisling Loftus ("Oranges and Sunshine"). Ian FitzGibbon ("A Film With Me In It") directed the movie, based on the novel by Anthony McCarten, who also wrote the screenplay. The movie is about Donald,...

★★☆☆☆ Irish director Ian Fitzgibbon impressed us last year with Perrier's Bounty (2009), a darkly funny crime thriller which drew inevitable but fair comparisons with In Bruges (2008), amongst others. But this, his debut from 2008, has only just made it to this side of the Irish Sea: the cheekily titled A Film with Me in It (2008), starring Dylan Moran Fitzgibbon's first effort treads a roughly similar path to his second, but the tone is darker, the pace is slower, the budget is noticeably smaller, and the success rate is generally lower - still, it has its moments.

Writer Mark Doherty casts himself in the lead as Mark, a down-on-his-luck, out-of-work actor who can't get a break. The shy, nerve-ridden, softly spoken man is ignored by casting agents, nagged by his girlfriend and harassed by his landlord (an odd cameo from Keith Allen). His only friend is neighbour Pierce (the terrifically watchable Moran), a...

I’m always down for a blood-soaked dark comedy, particularly if said production is littered with an abundance of mean-spirited humor and a fair amount of madness and mayhem. Writer/director Alan Butterworth’s upcoming feature-length debut “The Drummond Will” looks as if it will bit the proverbial bill quite nicely. And while it does seem to share several thematic qualities with “A Film with Me in It”, I’ll try not to hold that against it. Besides, “Very Bad Things” nailed the “accidental death” comedy years before either film was a sparkle in their respective creator’s eye. Before proceeding, a quick synopsis: Estranged brothers Marcus and Danny Drummond’s return to the English countryside for their father’s funeral takes a surprising and dangerous turn when they are forced to unravel the mystery surrounding his death and wealth. They are quickly entangled in a web of lies and deceit,...

A fascinating one to look out for here, coming from Ian Fitzgibbon - the director of A Film With Me In It and Perrier's Bounty.

Andy Serkis and Thomas Sangster - for my money one of the finest actors of his generation - star in Death Of A Superhero, a feature adaptation of the novel by Anthony McCarten.

With principal photography now wrapped in Ireland the picture stars Sangster as Donald Delpe, a teenage kid who - like most teenage kids - really wants to get laid. Complicating this somewhat is the fact that Donald is also terminally ill and retreating into a fantasy world as a way of coping. Here's how the picture is described by the Irish Film And Television Network:

'Superhero' is based on Anthony McCarten's novel 'Death of a Superhero' centres around Donald Clarke, a terminally ill teenager who craves sex and adventure, however his...

Because it amuses me to do so I include the trailer for low budget splatter comedy Death of the Dead beneath this official announcement from the first Dark Bridges Film Festival. It also pleases me to no end that they've programmed bleak Irish comedy A Film With Me In It. It's a personal favorite.

We are thrilled to be announcing our full festival schedule. The first annual Dark Bridges Film Festival is bringing you a collection of horror, action, western, sci-fi, comedy and cult feature and short films from around the world. The 12 feature films and over 20 short films will entertain film fanatics this September 24th to 26th at the Roxy Theatre in Saskatoon, Sk. Each of the feature films will screen with one to two short films. If you haven't already purchased your festival pass you really need to do so now. They are currently $60.00 and will go up...

Canada is getting another awesome genre film festival in Saskatoon's first annual Dark Bridges Film Festival! From September 24 - 26, 2010 programmer (and Row Three film blogger extrodinaire) John Allison presents the best in new horror, action, western, sci-fi, comedy and cult features from around the world.

I was going to hit the fest this year and cover the action, but can't due to a super secret project I'm working on. So, if you're a Quiet Earth reader from Saskatoon who has experience and wants to contribute reviews and updates from the event, leave a comment and we'll hook you up with a press pass.

Check out the line-up after the break.

Friday, September 24, 2010

7:00 pm

Centurion (Saskatchewan Theatrical Premiere) w/ Uncle Jack & Red Princess Blues

Opening Gala – Brutal Roman action movie from Neil Marshall

9:30 pm

Dawning (Canadian Theatrical Premiere) w/ Off Season & Wilted

Disturbing and terrifying cabin thriller.

12:00 am

El Monstro Del Mar!

Perrier's Bounty is a strange one. It doesn't seem fair it's largely been ignored, yet at the same time it's a little too obvious why. Director Ian Fitzgibbon (A Film with Me in It) hits all the right beats with the story of a small-time Dublin lowlife, his frantic attempts to pay off a minor debt to a vicious local gang boss and the escalating chaos that follows, yet an air of over-familiarity keeps the obvious talent of all those involved from impressing as much as it ought to have done.

Said lowlife is Michael (Cillian Murphy, Inception, Batman Begins, 28 Days Later) who, as the film begins, has only hours remaining before his debt to gangster Perrier (Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges) falls due. Michael's half-hearted efforts to scrape together enough cash don't look to bear fruit in time and when Perrier's henchmen corner him, an unexpected slip of the trigger...

Ah, those wacky Irish - always with the darkness and the violence and the well-spoken bad behavior. How can you not love their amusing gangsters? No, seriously - I can't get enough of the kind of black-humor-laced films and plays that come out of Ireland. I'm a big Martin McDonagh fan (In Bruges rules -- and don't miss A Behanding in Spokane before it closes on Broadway) - and my new favorite is director Ian Fitzgibbon, whose Perrier's Bounty" opens in limited release Friday (5.21.10). Fitzgibbon was represented earlier this year by an exceptionally limited release of his hilariously grisly movie, A Film With Me In It. Perrier's Bounty is a distinctly more ambitious outing, one with a more obviously star-studded cast - but with the same gruesomely funny sense of humor and surprising sense of action (in a script by Mark...

A stellar lead quartet of dramatic characters, the pretty blonde (Jodie Whittaker), the disheveled father (Jim Broadbent), the brooding young son (Cillian Murphy) who's in deep debt to Dublin criminals and the crime boss making his life miserable (Brendan Gleeson) make director Ian Fitzgibbon's crime comedy "Perrier's Bounty" twice as funny as recent Hollywood stabs at the genre (think "Cop Out"). Smart casting by Fitzgibbon, who worked as an actor before becoming a filmmaker, deserves most of the credit. "Perrier's Bounty" may be a familiar tale but watching Broadbent, Murphy and Gleeson butt heads makes it all worthwhile. IFC Films opens "Perrier's Bounty" in art-house theaters Friday as well as VOD. It's the second Fitzgibbon film to be released by IFC Films this year coming on the heels of his comedy "A Film With Me In It". The pair of films makes an impressive one-two punch and showcase Fitzgibbon's clear comic talents.

Special section / Saint Patrick's Day! Stories, music, videos, recipes, more! / Click here Back in 2004, Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe teamed up with Irish director John Crowley and a heavily Irish cast to film the underappreciated Intermission. The movie – which starred Colm Meaney, Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy – followed a band of bumbling tough guys, an egotistical TV newsman and a regular Joe whose lives unexpectedly intersect. A similarly impressive cast of Irish talent has once again come together for a Mark O’Rowe script. The film, entitled Perrier’s Bounty, stars Brendan Gleeson and Cillian Murphy, as well as Jim Broadbent. Directed by Ian Fitzgibbon (who directed Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the Irish movie A Film With Me in It), Perrier’s Bounty is set in the modern-day Dublin underworld of small- and big-time criminals. The film was slated to have its United Kingdom premiere at the Bradford International Film festival in late March.

Chicago – Foreign film fans and art house aficionados rejoice! The Annual European Union Film Festival is back at the Siskel Film Center, offering Chicagoans a rare and illuminating journey through contemporary world cinema. Sifting through five dozen titles may prove to be formidable for moviegoers deciding what to see. Let us guide the way.

This year’s edition, running from March 5th to April 1st, includes high profile films from world renowned filmmakers like Peter Greenaway, Jacques Rivette, Neil Jordan, Catherine Breillat, Amos Gital, Bruno Dumont, Jan Hrebejk and Caroline Link. Moviegoers should take note of the fact that several of these titles won’t be screened outside of the EU festival in Chicago, making their appearance here all the more priceless.

The 13th Annual European Union Film Festival includes 59 feature films, all of which are making their Chicago premiere. If you’ve had your fill with Hollywood, or are...

Grand Pictures have announced details of two new projects - a feature film co-production with Bavaria Pictures entitled 'Death of a Superhero', and a new six part TV series 'Trivia' with RTÉ and funded by the Bai Sound and Vision Fund. Directed by Ian FitzGibbon (A Film With Me In It), 'Death of a Superhero' is a movie about a terminally ill teenager's fight for life and pleasure. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Anthony McCarten. 'Death of a Superhero' is produced by Michael Garland (Spin the Bottle) and Philip Kreuzer (The Solitude of Prime Numbers) and the film's six week shoot is planned for late summer in Dublin. It is expected that the film will receive a theatrical release late this year. Cast members for the film are Tbc.

The new indie trailer I'm featuring today is an extended trailer for Ian Fitzgibbon's Irish gangster dramedy Perrier's Bounty, which I first saw at the Toronto Film Festival late last year (read my review). It's not exactly an incredible film, but it is pretty damn good. And the best thing about it is the fantastic Irish (and British) cast that includes Cillian Murphy, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, and Jodie Whittaker (who starred in that Peter O'Toole film Venus). If you couldn't get this from the trailer, it's about a kid who gets wrapped up in some mob debt and tries to clean things up. It's actually a lot of fun. Check it out below! Watch the first extended trailer for Ian Fitzgibbon's Perrier's Bounty: Perrier's Bounty is directed by Irish filmmaker Ian Fitzgibbon, who has an acting and writing background and last directed the feature A Film with Me in It...

Ian Fitzgibbon's A Film With Me In It is a personal favorite of mine, a biting dark comedy that features a stellar performance from Dylan Moran (Shaun of the Dead, Black Books) as one of the leads.  IFC sat on this one in the Us for a good long time but it's finally available and they've finally cut a new Us trailer for it. The good news about the trailer: It's bloody hilarious. The bad news? It's pretty much entirely made of footage from the back half of the film, which means the way it presents the film is not exactly how the film actually plays out. But, you know, daddy's got to eat and this'll sell tickets.

Mark (Mark Doherty) is having a bad day. A struggling actor, he's just been through the ordeal of yet another fruitless audition for a bit part in a movie. With his...

I have been very outspoken about my love for Ian Fitzgibbon's black comedy A Film With Me In It and while my love has a lot to do with Dylan Moran's performance in that film, Fitzgibbon's skill behind the camera has no small part in it as well.

And so I have been anxiously awaiting my chance to get a look at Fitzgibbon's next, the gangster comedy Perrier's Bounty, which features a stellar cast of Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and Jim Broadbent.  Synopsis? You bet:

On the run with his eccentric father, who's convinced he'll die the next time he sleeps, and an increasingly morose Brenda, Michael is about to lose his mind. But as the net tightens and the helter skelter chase reaches its climax he is forced to forgive his father and confront his true feelings for Brenda. With every hard man in Dublin on their...

It's tempting to lump Ian Fitzgibbon's A Film with Me in It in with a comically Grand Guignol-thriller like Shallow Grave. Or the plays (and film) of Martin McDonagh. But it would be wrong. For, while there is violence galore in A Film with Me in It, the lion's share is accidental. No, really -- they were accidents. That's the joke in this blackly humorous Irish film, which stars the film's writer, Mark Doherty, and stand-up comic Dylan Moran. People drop dead at an alarming rate in this movie -- and the deaths are unbelievably accidental, in the sense that so many bizarre accidents in so short a time simply has to look fishy to the authorities. So unemployed actor Mark (Doherty) and his would-be writer-filmmaker friend Pierce (Moran) must invent a set of circumstances that seem more likely than the freak occurrences...

Parallel Films' 'Sisk' is expected to start shooting in January 2010. Also known as 'Day of Rest', the film will star Ifta winning actor Liam Cunningham (Hunger, The Guard) and is scheduled for a Dublin shoot in the New Year with writer/director Brian O'Malley at the helm. 'Sisk', a feature length thriller-drama, is written by Brian O'Malley (Screwback), Mark O'Rowe (Perrier's Bounty) and Terry McMahon (Fair City) and will be directed by Brian O'Malley. 'Sisk' follows the final days of reformed Irish gangster Harry Sisk on his returns to Dublin after 30 years in the Us. Though he wishes to leave his criminal past behind him his old enemies force him back into the underworld he left behind and Harry becomes embroiled in their bitter feud with the Chinese mafia. The film is currently still in development and it is to be produced by Alan Moloney (Breakfast on Pluto) and Susan...

Ian Fitzgibbon's black comedy 'A Film With Me In It' has picked up the Special Jury Prize at the 28th International Istanbul Film Festival in Turkey. The jury, comprised of film-makers Goran Paskaljevic, Christian Mungiu and Umit Unal, Holland Film and European Film Promotion head nm2543621 autoClaudia Landsberger[/link] and Screen International's Mike Goodridge, described the Irish feature as "a rare comedy which keeps you laughing from beginning to end with its unusual story and dark, dark humour."...

A year on from acquiring their first Baselight Four system, Dublin post house Windmill Lane has purchased a second Baselight colour grading system. Upcoming features currently being edited at the facility include Neil Jordan's 'Ondine', Conor McPherson's 'The Eclipse' and Ian Fitzgibbon's 'Perriers Bounty'. A new Baselight HD with Gpu has been installed by the facility as part of the plan to replace the existing console in their Spirit suite as well as upgrading the existing Baselight Four with Gpu fast processors, which has increased the speed of the two machines. A number of projects have already been completed on Baselight including 'A Film With Me In It' for Parallel Films, the award winning 'Five Minutes Of Heaven' for German director Oliver Hirschspeigel and 'Single Handed 3' for Touchpaper TV.

SXSW is one of my favorite festivals of the year as it showcases some of the best and most innovative real independent films, and with this host of world premiers, it's also playing alot of Sundance material as well as genre fare from all over the world, many of which we've covered heavily in these pages.

From the Sundance lineup, we have films like Moon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, You Won't Miss Me, Grace, and Humpday, among others.

For the world genre material we've covered, there's Lake Mungo, The Square, Zift, and Awaydays.

I think you get the point that lots of great looking film will be playing. I'll leave a bit of the exploration to you..

Lineup after the break.

Narrative Features Competition

Artois the Goat

Director: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle Bogart

Lab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest...

London -- Marian Quinn's coming of age feature "32A," prison break title "The Escapist," Lance Daly's urban drama "Kisses," the Enda Walsh-scripted "Hunger" and Ian Fitzgibbon's dark comedy "A Film With Me In It" will battle it out for this year's best feature at the Irish Film and Television Academy awards.

Organizers announced the nominations across 37 categories in both film and television Thursday in Dublin.

Daly and Fitzgibbon will battle it out in the best film director category with Martin McDonagh ("In Bruges") and Declan Recks ("Eden"), organizers said. The event also will see the introduction of an award this time round in the newly created best feature documentary category.

The shortlist includes the musical "Dambe -- The Mali Project," "Gabriel Byrne: Stories from Home," Irish boxing documentary "Saviours," the asylum seekers story of "Seaview" and the surfing documentary "Waveriders."

The awards will be dished out in Dublin on Feb.

Oh, it does me good to post this one. A great favorite of mine at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival - and a film that nobody else particular seemed to notice - Irish comedy A Film With Me In It is a hysterically bleak piece of work that features brilliant Irish comic Dylan Moran (Shaun of the Dead, Run, Fatboy, Run, Tristram Shandy) in the most significant film role he’s ever had. I absolutely love this film but as much as I raved about it during the festival I wasn’t able to show anybody anything as the trailer hadn’t been cut yet. Well, now it has and you can find it below the break in the Twitch Player. It’s a little more spoiler-y than I would have liked - and a little lower resolution - but still pretty fantastic.

And in related news I...

Though it arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival as little more than a footnote in the massive program guide, a tiny film from Ireland that nobody paid much attention to before the fact, blacker-than-black comedy A Film With Me In It may very well end up departing as one of the fest’s big buzz titles, one of those left field arrivals that catches everybody off guard with it’s wickedly sharp sense of humor. The brainchild of writer-actor Mark Doherty - who stars in the film as a struggling actor named, conveniently enough, Mark - it is the deliciously mordant story of a man struggling to make it through the worst day in the history of all bad days with only the help of his perpetually inebriated would-be-screenwriter friend Pearce, played to perfection by Irish comic Dylan Moran (Shaun of the Dead, Tristram Shandy, Black Books).

When things don.t go our way in life - when we come to that rough patch or fall into that rut where nothing seems to work out, we all inevitably go through stages of self pity and ask questions like, .Could it really get any worse.? For Mark (Mark Doherty), life couldn.t get any worse. He.s an actor who can.t seem to impress anybody with his auditions, his apartment is literally falling apart and he.s behind on the rent, and his girlfriend Sally (Amy Huberman) is fed up and considering leaving him. Mark spends his days trying to coerce his writer best friend Pierce (Dylan Morane) to pen that .epic. movie that will propel them both to stardom. But Pierce is an alcoholic and a gambler, so the two friends merely waste away their lives only talking about doing something big, instead of actually attempting it.