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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Manny from Heaven

From Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent, July 20

You might have gauged in recent weeks that my love life has experienced somewhat of a downturn – a crash, some might say. Seeing how my romance budgeting has proven to be somewhat sloppy, I am seriously considering outsourcing the running of my love life to someone else in order to restore my competitiveness on the market.


Think about it. People hire professionals such as personal stylists and life coaches all the time to help them make decisions about things that they can't, won't or shouldn't do for themselves.

My plan would be to take one of my closest friends – one who knows me inside and out – and appoint him as a Love Czar to take over my dealings with the unfair sex (i.e. men). The role would essentially involve nannying me from men – a Manny, if you will.


So, for instance, if someone wishes to chat me up — and vice versa — it would have to get through my Manny's strict vetting process first. If that happens to be successful, any future correspondence with said romantic target - texts, emails and calls - would be relayed through the Manny.


Tolerance of bad boy behaviour or signs that you’re not being treated like a gentleman would be flagged early on and your Manny could stage an intervention to extricate you from the dangerous situation, and all with minimum impact on your precious self-respect and humanity.


Arguably where the Manny would be most useful is in dealing with exes. This especially slippery group will have extra ability to get under your skin and wiggle their way back into your affections, even though you should know better. Your Manny will intercept these overtures, battle them at the coalface and drum it into you why these people are exes in the first place.


You might laugh, but need I remind you of the alternative? Do you really want to be dealing with this crap for the rest of your life? My romance capital is low due to a series of bad investments. Until I build back up the finances, I see no harm in letting a prudent head save me from myself for a while.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Moliere the merrier

Review from Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

The French comedy Moliere is a post-modern take on the formative years of the legendary Gallic satirist and author of such canonical works like The Misanthrope and Tartuffe. The action of this jaunty confection of a movie focuses on a short spell in the writer's life when he mysteriously disappeared for a number of months and imagines him in a scenario where he essentially becomes a character in the type of farce he later became famous for.


Moliere opens in Paris in 1644, where the 22-year-old actor Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Romain Duris) – also known as Moliere – is struggling to keep his Illustrious Theatre Troupe out of the red. His problems with various creditors see him imprisoned and released on a regular basis, until, after finally being cleared by his jailors, Moliere disappears for several months.

Real-life historians have been unable to account for the writer’s activities in those missing months, and this is where Moliere unashamedly lets creative licence runs wild. The movie supposes that the broke actor came under the debt of wealthy aristocrat Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini), who wanted the young thespian to teach him how to act in order to win over a potential mistress. If his teachings bear result, Jourdain tells Moliere he will pay off his debts.

Jourdain installs Moliere in his stately home disguised as a private tutor named Monsieur Tartuffe. Once there, however, Moliere becomes embroiled in a series of comedic schemes involving all manner of cartoonish and duplicitous characters that would later form the plots of his famous works. At the same time, he also begins a passionate affair with Jourdain’s opinionated wife Elmire (Laura Morante), a romance that’s doomed to end sadly for all.

Director Laurent Tirard brings an assured hand to Moliere, borrowing heavily from the successful in-joke formula patented by the multi-Oscar winning Shakepeare in Love. However, Moliere lacks that movie’s accessibility, mainly down to the esoteric nature of Moliere’s life and work, making this a tougher sell to non-French audiences.

Nevertheless there is still a lot to enjoy in Moliere, notably the strong lead performance from Duris, who made a striking debut in last year’s quirky festival hit Dans Paris. Moliere also successfully milks the narrative’s many farcical misunderstandings for all they’re worth, as well as landing some good digs at the pompous hypocrisy of the social, sexual and class divisions of the time.

Moliere might not be the back-up option if Die Hard 4.0 is sold out on the night, but it’s worth a look nonetheless. Rating: 3/5

Old Farts

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

You might remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that I had just turned 26 and I was kind of, er, troubled about the prospect of getting older. I was defiant that I was going to be the same young buck in my late twenties as I was before, despite slagging from friends that I was now 'middle-aged, free, single and gay'.

However, it pains me to report that age might very well be catching up with me. The night of my actual birthday, I found myself in a club in silent agony because of the pain coursing through my body (I might even have moaned about having to stand and the loud music).

You see, I was still a bit fragile from the festivities of the night before, plus I had a cold. None of which would have stopped me in the past, but this is what the advancing years do to a body I guess.

Thankfully, one of my best friends, who was staying with me that night and is of a similar vintage, was equally decrepit. One hangover and a few sniffles were enough to fell both of us. We carried our tired, creaky frames home at 2am.

When we got to my place, I made us wait up a few minutes while the electric blanket warmed the bed for us old fogies (I don't have a spare bed and he's too fussy for the couch). Slowly we began the painful process of getting into bed, all the while our old bodies creaking like the Tin Man before he found his oil can. Once we were settled in bed, I dispensed out our potentially dangerous cocktail of flu-fighting pills to take, nagging him to take his medicine now or he'll pay for it tomorrow.

We then lay there lamenting our aching carcasses, but more so our youth, which was clearly now far behind us. That was how I spent my first few hours as a 26-year-old. The signs for my planned late-twenties renaissance of youthful vigour are not good, are they?

Saturday, July 07, 2007


From yesterday's Day and Night magazine in Irish Independent


It's impossible to know how to behave in the first few weeks you're seeing someone, isn't it? You have to be interested, but not needy; available, but not clingy. You have to open yourself up, yet retain some mystery. You must spend time together, but not compromise the other's independence.


The whole Game is just one giant head-wreck and, as I was reminded recently, I still apparently haven't mastered the rules yet. It's not all my fault of course, but I can't help thinking that I made the most rookie mistakes yet again. This is after spending years telling myself I would learn from the bitterly-acquired experience of every failed romance just how to do it right the next time.


But with nearly every new man-venture, I seem to be living the reincarnation of every previous courtship for the good, and, especially the bad. Old wine in a new bottle, if you will (and some guys would drive you to the bottle).


Yes, I'm in a bitter phase right now, but my best friend reassures me that it's all about kissing frogs to find a prince. Yet it seems to me that more and more frogs are slipping through the vetting process, and it's becoming harder and harder to distinguish between man-phibian and royalty.


I tell you, it's enough to make a man cynical. But something tells me that's not going to help matters. Sarky eye-rollling, pithy asides and a suspicious response to all nice gestures will expedite the end of a potential relationship just as quick as jumping into it all too soon will.


The solution is obviously some half-way point between the two mindsets: healthily-cynical kinda-availability with a non-man-phibian. I'm still figuring it out, and, burned as I am at the moment, I'll hopefully gain a little more temporary wisdom before I inevitably make the same mistakes all over again.

Golden Door review from yesterday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent


Golden Door (Nuovo Mondo)


Golden Door opens in Sicily in 1904 where peasant Salvatore (VincenzoAmato) decides to sell everything he owns to move his sons and hisold, superstitous mother to America. Propelled on by visions of gigantic food crops and coins falling fromthe skies, Salvatore and his family make the arduous sea journey on anemigrant ship to the US.


During the sailing, he falls for a mysteriousEnglish passenger (Charlotte Gainsbourg), whom he arranges to marry.But leaving the Old World behind — literally and figuratively — proves to be much harder than he thought.


Director Emanuele Crialese certainly has an ambitious, sweeping visionfor this magic-realist tale, but its fallow characterisation, and inert middle section, robs the film of any real emotional punch. Golden Door is most affective in the final section where it depicts the admission procedures the immigrants meet at Ellis Island, but the rest of the movie, like the characters' sea journey, is a long and uneven ride to that point.

Rating 3/5

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Family Man


From Day and Night magazine in last Friday's Irish Independent


Antonio Banderas is suffering from serious jet lag - not that you'd be able to tell from the level of energy he invests in his interviews to promote Shrek the Third. "This junket isn't so bad because we don't have to defend the product," he says. "Sometimes on these things a journalist will say something harsh about the movie and you think, 'He's absolutely right', but you can't say that because your producer is right there!"


I'm talking to Banderas in the Dorchester hotel in London, where he has just flown into from LA the night before. The Spanish star is taking part in a frantic European promotional tour for the threequel to the mega-successful, pop culture behemoth Shrek (the first two movies have grossed $1.4 billion and sold 90 million DVDs, while Shrek the Third earned $122.5m in its opening weekend in the US).


Banderas reprises his role as the Casanova-esque feline side-kick Puss in Boots, a role that Banderas says he was more than happy to return to.
"I love him. He's kind of dangerous," Banderas says. " He's very irreverent, which is weird for a kids movie, but we're very careful about how far we can go with the character. You don't want to mess up the kids! He's a Casanova, a Don Juan in the body of a pussy cat which is absurd, but because it's absurd, it's funny. I think that contrast between what he is physically and what he is in his mind is a constant source of comedy."


In Shrek the Third, the green ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) and Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are reluctantly thrust into the roles of stand-in King and Queen of Far Far Away when King Harold (John Cleese) suddenly (or not, as you will see in the movie) croaks. Proving to be a disastrous and clumsy monarch, Shrek decides to shake off the role by finding the only other heir, the King's teenage nephew Arthur (voiced by Justin Timberlake). While Fiona and her scene-stealing Princess buddies try to foil a coup d'etat by the dastardly Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), Shrek sets off to Artie's boarding school to bring the nerdy teen back to be King, accompanied by his loyal companions Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss.


Banderas relished the chance to develop Puss' character and to deepen his pivotal (and hilarious) relationship with Donkey. "In Shrek 2 we had to introduce the character because he came into the movie to break the group," he explains. "Little by little, the concept of Puss fell into place. Initially, he wasn't to be a recurring character, but he connected very well with audiences and here we are.


"I think he's such a good pairing with Donkey, because, at heart, they are both so lonely. They are sole characters. They don't have anyone around so they have to fight for and conquer Shrek as their only friend."


Indeed, such is the popularity of Puss that a movie spin-off for the seductive kitty is in the works. "It seems it's going to happen," Banderas reveals. " We have the script, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. What I've heard is that it will tell his story from his time when he was little until the time he, probably, becomes a noble killer. It will be fun and will bring more colour to the whole story." Banderas will also reprise his voicing duties in a half-hour TV special called Shrek the Halls, and, of course, Shrek 4, which has just been greenlit by producer Jeffrey Katzenberg.


It can be easy to forget just how long this ineffably handsome and charming actor has been knocking around in this business. Today, he looks deceptively younger than his 46 years, with the only signs of ageing being a few greying chest hairs spurting out of his opened blue shirt. Banderas was born in Malaga in Spain, and moved to Madrid at age 19 to pursue acting. He soon became a huge star at home by making five movies with acclaimed auteur Pedro Almodovar over an eight year period.


Banderas arrived in America in 1990 without a word of English, but slowly built up an impressive resume of work in The Mambo Kings, Philadelphia and Interview with the Vampire. Banderas continued to play a wide range of roles, from the sweaty action of Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, to acting and singing Madonna clear off the screen in Evita. Banderas' star rose higher with his roles in the Spy Kids franchise, The Mask of Zorro and its sequel, and a highly successful stint on Broadway with the musical Nine.


Despite his status as a Latin sex god, Banderas is very much a family man. He has one of Hollywood's most surprisingly stable marriages to husky actress Melanie Griffith (since 1996) and is a devoted father to two children. Indeed, the over-riding theme of Shrek the Third is fatherhood, and, in particular, Shrek's terror at becoming a dad. Was that how Banderas felt when his own daughter Stella came into the world?


"No it was the opposite," he replies. "I was so happy for the whole nine months. I was just waiting, waiting, waiting for my baby. So the night of the birth was one of the most beautiful nights of my life. Just being there to recognise parts of her that are mine, like 'Oh my god, she has the same hands as me'. It was magic. I even remember the exact time she was born, 9.18pm."


As in the other Shrek movies, the lesson imparted in the third instalment is that beauty is on the inside and that we must all accept who we are. It's a philosophy that Banderas is eager to instil in his children.


"I want my children to be free, independent and to have an opinion about things," he explains. "I don't want them to be manipulated. We're living in very confusing and violent times, and I worry more because I have two girls. My step-daughter is now 17, and she's having a hormones festival.


"My 10-year-old Stella is a straight A student, and I don't where she got that because I wasn't like that, or her mother either! In But she gets very upset when she gets a B+ and I have to tell her, 'Hey, failing is fine'.


"I'm afraid sometimes that she thinks the world is ruled by the same perfectionist spirit that she puts onto herself and I don't want her to live life that way. So as a father I seem to go in the opposite direction of most dads. I say, 'You don't have to study so much!'
"I just want them to be strong. I don't want them to find people like Puss!"
What would you do if one of your daughters came home with someone like Puss? Banderas breaks into laughter. "Oh I'd put on my Zorro suit and sort him out," he replies.


Banderas is equally passionate when it comes to discussing his marriage and how he makes it work. "Melanie and I love each other – it's really that simple," he says. "Both of us came from failed relationships and we both learned from that.


"And she's an expert on Hollywood. She was born there, her mother [The Birds star Tippi Hedron] is also an actress and Melanie paid a price for that. She paid for the divorce of her parents. One was in New York, the other in LA so she was like a little package between both worlds.


"When we met each other, we fell in love and we just went for it. I know that people didn't give a penny for our relationship. I remember reading the papers, thinking, 'Wow these people know more about us than we do ourselves'. People actually betted that we wouldn't last three months." He smiles slyly. "I should have taken those bets. I'd be a millionaire now!"


Attitudes in Hollywood towards international stars have also defied expectations in recent years. More and more non-English speaking actors –particularly Hispanic ones - are triumphing in Hollywood, as evidenced in the 19 nominations for polyglots at this year's Oscars. Banderas welcomes that cultural shift, but also sees that change as being somewhat inevitable.


"It wasn't like that when I started out," he states. "I remember shooting The Mambo Kings, and the other Hispanic actors saying to me, 'If you're going to stay in this market, you're going to play delinquents, narcotics traffickers and bad guys. There's no space for us to just play normal characters and heroes and stuff like that'.


"People say, 'Antonio B anderas opened the door for us', but I think that change is due to many different factors, not only from the art world, but also social and political influences. The Spanish community in LA come from countries with a lot of injustices, lots of poverty, hunger, you name it. They work very hard to put their kids in university and all their kids, the second and third generation, have come out and now they can occupy any position in American social life.


"That's very different even from when I arrived there. There's more acceptance of the Spanish community in America, and I just happened to get there at a time when the wheels started to turn in a different direction. It was good for me because I got a lot of roles that were meant for someone else. For instance, Zorro was offered to Tom Cruise before me."


Right now, Banderas is very happy with his lot in life. He has set up his own production company specifically to make film projects in his native Spain and to provide the kind of support and encouragement to young filmmakers that wasn't there when he was starting out. He's also comfortable enough in his career to not follow the safe, easy track.


"I don't worry about box office anymore," he says. "I'm absolutely sincere when I say this: my life is financed. I invest my money. I have more than enough for me and my family, and my kids when I die. So now I'm looking for projects and roles I can chew on.


"I'm very much considering going back to Broadway next [in a musical production of Don Juan de Marco]. I think the best time I had in America was not in front of a camera, but on the stage on that theatre on 49 th Street with Nine. I had a blast for 138 performances and it was just so beautiful to find the material I was looking for in movies, on the stage.


"Theatre is the source of where I am as an actor, it's where I started. But I abandoned the stage for 16 years because I got so caught up in movies and Hollywood.


"And it's risky. Broadway is a merciless place. But it's exciting. If you don't do things you're afraid of, then what's left? You'll be immobile. That's not me. My whole life, I've taken risky decisions and I have to respond to those expectations of myself."


However, Banderas also recognises that he can't work at the same level that he's been operating at up until now. He's content to shun Hollywood glitz and glamour to spend time at home, but also to move away from action roles for material that reflects and acknowledges how comfortable he now is in his own skin.


"It is an age thing, mostly," he tells me, as we get up to leave. "Melanie is 50 this summer and I am heading towards 50 too. We're on the same path. There are certain things that your body asks at certain times and you can't ignore that." He pauses, and then delivers his best feline smile again. "I wasn't always like that. In the '80s, I was very wild. I was much more like Puss in Boots."


Declan Cashin, 2007





-- http://lowlyjourno.blogspot.com/

Birthday Boy

From Day and Night magazine in last Friday's Irish Independent

By the time you see this dear reader, I shall be another year older and wiser (Well, I'll be older anyway). Of course, any self-respecting gentleman would never reveal his age, which I think more than qualifies me to tell you that I will have turned 26 years young.



As of writing, I have no plans for the event, though its general timing does conveniently coincide with this year's Gay Pride parade. The two have blended into the one potent cocktail — literally and figuratively — in the past so I assume this year will be no different.



I'm weird about birthdays though, espcially this year. The trend over the last few years has been that my odd-aged ones have tended to rock (my 19th, 21st, and 25th were great), whereas the even ones, as Bart Simpson would say, managed to both suck and blow (J'accuse 20th and 22nd!). So even the birthday gods deem that I'm happiest when I'm odd!





My main beef with the birthday this year is this however: I just don't like that I won't even be considered an 'early twenty-something' anymore. In fact, it seems to me that the ages of 26-29 simply cease to exist by themselves once you enter that age bracket.





I'm discovering that everyone just rounds up those ages to 30. "26 you say? Sure you're practically 30 now". Geez, I know we live in an accelerated culture, but could you please give me a chance? I have a whole set of objectives and goals that I intend to have met by the time I reach 30. I'm not going to be robbed of those crucial years.





So for that reason, I think it's time for everyone in this age group to reclaim the Lost Four Years by politely slapping anyone who dares round up from now on. They have to learn.





Sure, people might get mad (friends, relatives, judges). But you can use your newly liberated latter twenties to atone for it, so by the time you actually turn 30, you'll be a fully functional, contented grown up. See, I've got it all figured out.Just leave my four years alone and we'll all get along fine.