Keep in Touch

This Life column from Day and Night in today's Irish Independent

By now I'd imagine just about everyone in the country has seen the movie Superbad, a teen comedy about three underage guys trying to buybooze to impress girls at a party. It's a crude, funny but very sweet tale that has no doubt already penetrated (har har) popular culture sodeeply, that if you hear the word 'McLovin' one more time, you might just cry.

I have to admit that watching Superbad left me with a lump in my throat. On the surface, the film's all about sex and chicks, but really it's about guys and their friendships, and specifically, that moment when the realisation hits that life is about to take erstwhile best friends in different, often far-flung directions.

I think this movie has struck such a chord with audiences because nearly everyone can relate to that experience. It can be traumatic when the safety net of secondary school or college is whisked away and your whole network of friends is sundered and cast out into the world for the first time.

And as we all know, it doesn't end with school or college. On the dayI'm writing this, I have to wave off a friend who's heading to Australia for a year, and am on the way out to catch up with another ex-pat pal who's back for the weekend and whom I haven't seen properly in I don't know how long. On top of that, one of my oldest friends just moved to Manchester last week to start a whole new chapter in his life. I have to tell you, I'm beginning to feel it now.

One of the over-riding preoccupations of your twenties is just how to maintain your old and new friendships, when everyone is so busy travelling, or pursuing their career, or simply just living their busy lives. Of course, technology and low-budget (and even lower frills) air travel can be an enormous help, but it takes commitment. It's shockingly and tragically easy to fall out of touch with even really good friends.

Take pals who are living in two different countries. All it takes is afew hectic weeks on both sides, when the two of you miss that phonecall or forget to email, and before you know it, the gap between you has grown wider. Leave it too long, and that ocean that separates you begins to stretch more and more into the distance, causing you to inevitably wonder at what point a friendship can be officially declared missing in action.

However, the reassuring thing is that, while some friendships might fall by the wayside, many continue to prosper, despite the many modern obstacles. As the frantic coming and going of friends continues unabated, and even accelerates, you really do gain a better understanding of what friendship is.

For instance, I have a very good friend's wedding coming up. Many pals that I've known for years but haven't seen in a long time will be there. With these friends, and a select few others, I'm confident that within a few minutes of chatting, we'll have caught up on the headlines from each other's lives, and as the evening progresses, any gaps in detail will have been bridged and we'll be the same as we always were.

When you can pick up easily after even a great length apart – that's when you know you have something special. But you shouldn't ever take it for granted. Like Seth and Evan in Superbad, you don't want to lose that old friend who always had your back, or who you chatted to on the phone all the time (even when you were on your way to meet them), or who uncomplainingly carried you home from a house party when you were too inebriated to stand. They're the keepers.

Bad to the Bone(r)

Q&A with starsof Superbad, Michael Cera (19), Jonah Hill (23) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (18) from the Irish Independent, Sept 14

Why do you think a movie about the nerds and unpopular kids has struck such a chord with audiences?
MC: I think people can relate to it. Even if you were popular in school, you can relate to it. You knew these kids even if you weren’t them.
JH: I think people are also really sick of comedies with no sense of reality. It’s like when I first came across Freaks and Geeks [cancelled cult TV show]. I remember thinking, ‘ I can’t believe there’s a television show like this’. Then they axed it! But the fans who loved it were obsessed with it. That showed that people wanted something they could relate to, that seemed familiar or realistic.

Did the studio suits ever become nervous that the movie had too much swearing and sexual content for the US audience in particular?
MC: It was never an issue. We never had to censor ourselves either. Besides, it’s not that shocking.
JH: Judd’s earned a lot of confidence from the studios. If someone with less assurance had been involved, they probably would have had to tone things down.
CMP: Yes, like if Steven Spielberg had been making it.

What are your favourite comedies and who are your comedic heroes?
MC: I love Rushmore and Wes Anderson
JH: The Big Lebowski and the Coen Brothers in general. The Jerk is also one of the classics. Does Harold and Maude count as a comedy?
CMP: Dazed and Confused was awesome. I watched that a lot before starting this movie.

Are you guys getting any more action with the ladies since the movie’s success?
MC: I can safely say I’m getting the exact same level of action that I’ve always gotten.
JH: Really? That little?
CMP: Women like actors so there are those benefits. That’s all I’m saying.
JH: I seem to have gotten a lot more handsome in the past month.

Do you have any favourite chat-up lines that you like to use?
MC: I have an Irish-themed pick up line: ‘You must be Irish because my penis is Dublin’.
JH: ‘Is that a mirror in your pocket because I can see myself in your pants?’ No, I seriously don’t use that one. Ahem.
CMP: ‘Did it hurt when you fell from heaven’?
MC: Chris, remove yourself from my company please.

How long before the McLovin’ merchandise hits the streets?
CMP: There are T-shirts already!
JH: I’m waiting for the Superbad videogame. It all takes place on the one night and you go around trying to steal beer and increase your scoring ability – literally.
MC: I’m personally waiting for McLovin: The Album.
JH: McLovin’ Sings the Classics
MC: It could take other songs and replace key words like ‘love’ with McLovin’ - You’ve Lost That McLovin Feeling’.
CMP: I’m copywriting that.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you at a party?
MC: I have a whole lot of stories about other people at parties. Turn off the tape recorder.
CMP: A friend of mine fell asleep in the bath, but must have thought it was a toilet. Gross.
JH: I met a girl at a party in high school and we were fooling around. I thought I was being very cool, but I was so drunk that I got sick on her shoes. And I had just eaten Subway.
MC: The perfect 12 inch.
JH: No girl wants that 12 incher!

Finally, can you sum up Superbad in three words?
JH: Let’s all give a word.
CMP: Friendly
MC: Super.
JH: Bad. No wait, it’s good!

Switch Off

From Day and Night in the Irish Independent, Sept 14

The email of the species is more deadly than the mail. I wish I had been the smarty-pants that coined that quote rather than that hack Stephen Fry, because it perfectly sums up my love-hate relationship with "the electronic mail" of late.

Fry meant those words in the context of how email can destroy careers, relationships and even whole societies (probably) with one mistaken click. But I use the quote to throw email in the dock and charge it as the shameless, domineering time thief that it is. J'accuse!

You see, I think I have a problem (now now, be nice). I just might be addicted to email — as well as other online messaging services. Hell, throw in the whole internet in general. It's not enough for me to be available on email for 8-10 hours whilst at work 5 days a week. I'll come home at night and I'm straight back on it.

As soon as my laptop turns on, it automatically signs me in to MSN, which then notifies everyone I'm connected with that I'm online and ready, if not always eager, to chat. As soon as my Gmail account is open, I can become available to instant message every other Gmailer in my phone book. A quick sign-in into Bebo then opens me up for messages, mails and comments on that front too.

I think my email, compulsion let's call it, stems from the fact that it's my main contact point for work. It's actually possible these days to be employed by someone without ever once meeting them and so I've become accustomed to just constantly checking in to see if anything has come up. It's exhausting just describing that whole process, never mind actually participating in it. But this seems to be the reality of modern life anymore.

Even take mobile phones as an example. Mine seems to be constantly on the go, mainly due to my insane text message trigger-happiness. Even when I try get some peace by turning off my phone at night, friends can react with bewildered admonishment. "I was trying to call you at 2.30am," they say. To which I reply, a) that's why I turn it off in the first place and b) if George W. Bush can go to bed at 9.30 every night and not be disturbed until 6.30 the next morning, surely it's okay for me not to be contactable 24/7?

It seems that it's just impossible anymore to completely shut off for any length. That's partly my own fault, I admit, but the problem is, if everyone else is living this way, it can be very easy for you to fall way behind if you don't keep pace.

Or can it? I recently moved apartment and so didn't have broadband for the first few weeks. I was going up the walls waiting for it, but, after a few days of cold turk-E, I realised that I didn't really miss the time thiefs of Bebo, MSN or Facebook all that much.

What was I missing really? Hours spent trawling through friends' photos, doing their surveys, chatting idly over nothing in particular, looking up clips on YouTube, following link after link on various blogs?

All those things are fine in moderation, you'll agree. But what I can't escape is the fact that I don't seem to have the time to finish reading a book these days. Newspapers pile up unread. CDs purchased weeks ago are still in their packaging. That gym pass is turning yellow from age and neglect. I'm not getting enough time to myself, or enough sleep for that matter. And if all it takes is something as simple as pushing a button to achieve, why then is switching off — in every sense of the word — so damn hard?

Driving Offences

From yesterday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent

I haven't sat behind the wheel of a car since I was 18-years-old. I had received a gift of paid driving lessons for the birthday that marked my entry into manhood, and what better signifier of manhood could there have been than revving through town in a suped-up boy racer sexmobile with head-thumping, 'untz untz' music blaring out the windows? I was going to be so frickin' cool.


The first lesson went well – mainly because it involved just being stationary in the driving seat, getting used to the clutch and accelerator, and, you know, not driving. Lesson two, we practiced stop-starts, and then it was out to an undulating road to master uphill ignition.


It was all going fine until the instructor made me drive through the city centre. I freaked out, forgot everything he taught me, conked out several times and idiotically took my eyes off the road on more than one occasion.


The final straw came when I took the training car – which might as well have had stabilisers –up on a path and a young mother and her offspring had to literally jump into some bushes for safety. The instructor pulled me over and took the keys out of the ignition. My teenage boy racer fantasy was over.


Ever since then, I've deployed an exhaustive catalogue of reasons (PR-speak for 'excuses') as to why I've never gone back to get my licence: I was too busy with college, I had no money, no family member was willing to risk their life by getting in a car with me, and so on.


But now that I'm in my late twenties (that still doesn't sound right), my reasons are beginning to wear thin. Up until now, I wittily deflected the topic of not being able to drive with my cutesy line, 'I don't drive, dear, I'm driven', which was a variation on my, 'I don't queue, I'm queued for' bon mot that I wheel out whenever I have to wait in line for anything.


For me, learning to drive was filed away in the 'Things to Do By The Time I'm 30' folder, along with writing a book, taking up pilates, learning Spanish, living abroad, and finally getting round to playing a Wii.


I figured that when I finally made up my mind to get this driving thing done, I would buy a car, and the very sight of it sitting there, unused, wasting my money, would propel me into action. But that plan doesn't seem any closer to fruition either, even though I have various people telling me that I have to learn now before I get 'the fear' and lose my nerve.


The funny thing is, it would make a lot of sense for me to get my licence, seeing as I am Ireland's – nay, Europe's – number one critic of public transport, upon which I'm tragically dependent. I'm going to give myself an ulcer one of these days ranting and raving about buses and trains, and pursuing my one-man campaign for an EU-wide harmonisation of public bus timetables so ours can be more like the punctual Germans.


In that regard, it would be logical for me to take my transportation destiny into my own hands, but the other illogical, lazy side of me asks why bother, when I can just harness and exploit the enthusiasm of recently-licensed friends, who are so ready and willing to drive you anywhere for any reason just so they can get behind the wheel. It makes them happy and it gets me where I need to be, so we all win. I'm such a giver.


Maybe I'll just leave getting a car for another 20 years, when I can use the inevitable mid-life-crisis as my cover for trying to be a boy racer in a flashy, over-compensatory vehicle one more time.

Bigging it up

This Life column from yesterday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent

We all have at least one person who can effortlessly trip every insecure switch in our bodies and put us on the defensive the minute they come within an inch of our personal space. These are the people that you just have to out-do in everything because they thrive on thinking they are better than you, which makes you instinctively rise (or sink) to their game as a matter of pride.

This conscious PR overdrive to big yourself and your life up just so you can best this person at all costs is petty and childish, and borne of some grave injustice, or long-sublimated trauma that involved bullying and/or social exclusion, jealousy, envy or some kind of intense personality clash. For all those reasons, it's normally people from your schooldays who hit this raw nerve.

I have one such person. This is a guy from school whom I never got on with for a variety of reasons rooted mainly in sad secondary school politics and social divisions. We were polar opposites in terms of friends, pursuits and personalities, so inevitably disliked each other for the few years we were forced to orbit in each other's spheres.

It also made us competitive in a totally unhealthy way. He could always trounce me sporting-wise (which, in fairness, a hobbled, one-eyed badger could do), but in almost every other area it was a case of Cold War-style one-upmanship. But no matter how much I may have gotten the better of him, he always had this innate ability to reduce my victory to nothing with just one look or comment. Of course, I always thought of the right retaliatory comment or action about 4 hours later when it was too late.

Anyway, I ran into him in a shopping centre a few weeks back. I momentarily considered pretending I hadn't seen him. I could see him do likewise, until, after a few uncomfortable seconds, we both acknowledged each other and said hello. Now I hadn't the foggiest what this guy had been up to since we finished secondary school and I'm sure he held the same level of interest in me. But this was 7 or 8 years later: you'd think things would be different now that we were both grown-ups (in theory anyway).

It turns out that it doesn't work that way. There was faux civility as we caught up very briefly and I think I responded with the requisite amount of interest in what he told me. But I soon found all my news bouncing back to me off his old patronising, smug reflective shield. So my back went up and before I knew it, I had thrown in that I was in the process of buying an apartment (since he told me he was still renting) and that I had just bought a car (since he said he was on his way to get the bus to work).

The thing is, it's not like he was doing so much better than me in terms of career and so on that I had to embellish the truth like that. It's just I couldn't risk giving him any opening to pounce with one of the self-satisfied looks or condescending putdowns of his that I had come to know and loathe back in school.

However, I think I won this time round as he seemed genuinely stumped. So what if some of the things I told him were technically not real? It's just like adding a few minor stretches to your CV to make yourself seem the more attractive candidate. But hopefully I won't run into him again for another few years, because, just as with the CV, I need some time to nail some of those skills and achievements I've already laid claim to.-- http://lowlyjourno.blogspot.com/

Ode to San Fran

This Life column from last Friday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent.

Right now, I'm moaning to anyone who'll listen to me that I just want a week lying on a beach in the sun. I don't want to see anything, learn anything or talk to anyone. I just want to lie there, baking and turning intermittently like a rotisserie chicken.


But I know that's just the stressed-out, washed-out side of me talking. I think anymore that I'd just go mad after a few hours of doing nothing. Maybe it's the nature of my job, or, more likely, that I'm just an atrocious time-keeper, but my free time has become very precious to me of late.
It's almost gotten to the point where I can't decide on anything to do because I feel I should be maximising every last second of my time off on something that really matters to me. That mentality has inevitably seeped into the way I approach holidays too.


So earlier this year, four of us decided to hit the States for a round trip to Vegas, LA and San Francisco. It was an amazing experience: cultured (kinda), mature (sorta) and sober (not at all). But for me, the last part of the trip was more than just a holiday. It was more like a big gift wrapped in a giant rainbow-coloured bow had been handed to the little inner Declan (not him again!) who had dreamed of visiting the City by the Bay for as long as he could remember.


One of my all time favourite books, Tales of the City (Armistead Maupin's 78% gay ode to San Fran) opens with the following line: "Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time."


I was also twenty-five years old when I saw San Francisco for the first time, and while I'm not a woman named Mary Ann (not anymore, anyway), I was a singleton when I got there. So I took it that the connections between me, the book that I've loved for years, and the city that I've always wanted to visit were all mystically aligning themselves. Not bad going for a holiday.

I loved every second in the place, and if holidays are supposed to rejuvenate you, a holiday that's also the fulfilment of a youthful fantasy is the energising equivalent of pouring a bag of Skittles into a bottle of Coke, shaking it and downing it one.


People love San Francisco for all sorts of reasons, but for me, like so many other gay men, The City is like the mothership. It's a city where a quarter of the population are gay, and probably the only place on earth where straight folk are a minority - spiritually, if not statistically.


What's more, the images of the city are intricately linked in my mind to the TV adaptation of Tales of the City, which I saw when I was 15 or 16, and of trying to sneakily watch it, with my hand on the remote, ready to flick over to the Oireachtas Report the second anyone came into the room, lest they rumble what you were watching and perhaps figure it – and you - all out.
Of course, the content of that show is harmless beyond belief by today's standards, but when you're young and have found something that makes a little more sense of your life for the first time, that can take you on its own kind of holiday, the likes of which you've never experienced.


So walking those streets, visiting those landmarks, throwing myself into that city's indescribable essence – that did for me what no seven days attempting to get a farmer tan on a packed beach could ever hope to do. I’d recommend that everyone ask their own ‘inner Declan’ where they want to go next year.

A Moving Experience

This Life column from Day and Night magazine in last Friday's irish Independent (17 August)

I don’t know about you, but I love nothing more than having a gnawing knot of despair lodged in the pit of my stomach, a fountain of sleepless nights and involuntary weight loss that shoots stress right up through the whole of your body like Old Faithful. If all that really gets your motor running, then moving house is just the thing for you.

Of course, the term ‘moving house’ is somewhat misleading. That would imply that there’s a house to move to. No, what I’m talking about is house-hunting, the most dispiriting, soul-crushing, heart-breaking experience that ever the invention of man contrived.

It has taken over every waking minute of my day. I’ve become a property zombie, barely registering anything in my brain that’s not to do with ‘all mod cons’ or ‘full fittings’. In fact, I might not even be entirely conscious writing this so you’ll forgive me if… viewing is highly recommended.

But, as anyone who is renting in the capital will tell you, an extra layer of misery has been piled onto the whole experience. If you weren’t aware before, you should know that rent in Dublin has shot through the roof, owing (so we’re led to believe anyway) to the fact that nobody is buying due to mortgage rate increases and uncertainty over the status of stamp duty.

I don’t care about any of those reasons. What I do know having viewed a lot of these places with their shiny new rent increases is that, while the price of them may have gone up, the quality most certainly has stayed static. Right now you could take any old grothole and charge basically whatever you want for it, and someone, somewhere will have to pay it.

I’ve seen places without an actual fridge, bedrooms without windows and, my personal favourite, the “double room” that was really just a converted alcove above the kitchen, accessed by a ladder stairs. Seriously, it was like a hammock hung over the oven, and all for the bargain basement price of E750 a month. I’m not making that up – you couldn’t make it up.

Then there was the place that ticked all the boxes: great location, in our budget, the right number of rooms. But upon viewing, we were told that instead of being a 2 bed with parking as the ad clearly stated, it was actually a 1 bed with no parking. Simple mistake to make I guess, but this is what you’re up against.

But, without doubt, the worst aspect of the wretched smorgasbord of horror that is house hunting is the waiting. Sitting around the phone, waiting for that person who could change your life to call you back with those three magic words: “It’s all yours”.

And when this doesn’t happen, you’re plunged into the pit of depression and naturally start blaming yourself. “Why didn’t he call?” you wail. “I thought this was the one” you cry, until a smart, supportive friend pulls you aside and firmly tells you, “He just wasn’t that into you.”

So I guess you have to approach house hunting in the same way you do love. As I have stressed on these pages ad nauseam in the past, you have to stop looking, and not want the things you want in order to meet someone decent (that theory is still being scientifically tested).
I have been very needy with the landlords and letting agents I’ve spoken to over the last fortnight. Nobody is attracted to a Desperate Dan or a Needy Nora. It’s time to be mysterious, aloof, beguiling – just like I am when it comes to romance…

Lord, I really am going to end up on the streets.

You're So Vain

'This Life' column from the newly-designed Day and Night magazine in last Friday's Irish Independent(August 10)

Like all people who claim that they don't care about such trivial matters as their appearance or how they look, I really care a lot about important matters like my appearance and how I look. Of course, I would never have admitted that until very recently, when the full extent of my own preening vanity was laid bare for the neurotic freakshow that it is.


You might have noticed that there are new byline pictures on this page, which meant that new byline pictures actually had to be taken.The problem is I genuinely hate posing for photos. Years and years ofdisappointing and, frankly, disturbing snaps of myself have wiped out any scintilla of joy about the picture-taking process. I've even had friends return digital cameras thinking they were faulty after they saw how the pictures featuring me turned out.


So needless to say I had to pull out all the stops for OperationByline, seeing how I wasn't going to be able to avoid the pic for awhile. Afterall, my professional credibility was on the line here.
I should note at this point that every shallow and Bree Van DerKamp-esque thing you read from this point on, sadly, tragically, is in fact, true.


The first step was tackling the thick birds' nest that I call my hair.I went to get it cut three days before the shoot, so that if, by chance, there was some kind of catastrophic follicle folly, I would at least have a few days to engineer a back-up plan. Thankfully, it turned out ok, but only after 45 minutes of politely grimacing as thebarber made small talk, all while I silently screamed, 'Stop talking!Concentrate so that I don't end up with a cut like a GI from the1950s!'


Next up was carefully planning the shaving routine. I normally shave every 2-3 days, but if there's something involving a high degree ofself-consciousness on the horizon, then timing becomes even more crucial. If you shave the morning of the event, you end up looking like a man-child with chicken pox. So it had to be the night before, but early the night before, or else you're limiting the recovery time (have a headache yet?). Luckily, my skin's typical response to shaving – which is akin to an Agent Orange attack – was absent. I was in the home stretch.


Oddly enough, the outfit was the easiest part. I just kept it simple, like myself. My over-riding concern in this department was - how should I put this delicately - controlling my over-active glands in the arm pit area. Yes, it's been a long, sweaty summer (in name only of course), blighted by more than one snap of me sporting Lough Corrib under both arms.


Coming up with a plan to tackle this dilemma was when I really acknowledged just how vain I was. I wore one shirt on the journey down to the hotel for the photoshoot, knowing well the sticky state I'd bein by the time I got there. I brought two other shirts with me, and quickly changed in the hotel loo. But alas, my healthy glands beganworking their magic while I was waiting for the shoot to begin, necessitating another shirt change. Then I changed my mind a few minutes later, and changed back again, at which point the photographer, bless him, got some hotel staff to physically restrain me from any more costume changes.


I tell you, it was exhausting. But ever since that whole rigmarole, I've had a classic saying of my father's ringing in my head, a pithy piece of wisdom from a generation who wash with an old wire brush and shave with a sharp piece of roof slating: "After all that preening, you'd think you'd be good-looking at the end of it". Touché father, touché.

A Little Sumthing

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

I hate maths - probably more than anything on earth. All through school it was the bane of my existence. I had the same maths teacher for my whole time there, and Lord, if I didn’t age the man prematurely. I can still see the look of despair on his face as he tried to drum what a cosine was into my innumerate skull.


But what got me through it was knowing that once I left school, maths would cease to have any impact on my life, apart from basic addition and subtraction (which I can just about pull off).


But new research from one Dr Clio Cresswell has blown that assumption right out of the algebra-free water. Cresswell is a numerical sexpert – surely a first – who claims that there are very deep connections between love, sex and mathematics.


She maintains that maths formulas can be used to detect patterns in our love lives, and so can be used to guide the search for our perfect partner (Up until now, the only way maths infringed in that area of my life was when I tried to pose in clubs from my most a-cute angles).


So for instance, Dr Cresswell argues that you should make a list of all the things you’re looking for in someone and test them on 12 consecutive lovers - and reject them all. You then pick the best one that comes after that – a formula which, apparently, guarantees a 75 per cent chance of happiness.


Pure hokum? Maybe. But it would make sense in the context of my love life. I barely scraped through ordinary level maths in the Leaving, ergo I’m destined to scrape through an ordinary level love life. And there I was wasting my time on English and History!


So maybe I should buck up now, and put in the hard work I should have done in secondary school in order to change my dysfunctional relationship with maths. With a little help from my unsurprisingly non-dog-eared copy of Less Stress More Success, I’ll soon be an A1 love student, right?


I wouldn’t count on it.

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.

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?

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

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.

Local Heroes

From last Friday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent (22/6/2007)

When rising Irish director Graham Cantwell was starting out in the job, he was told something that speak volumes about making a living from the film industry in Ireland.

"I remember someone telling me when I was starting off, 'You're neither rich enough nor poor enough to be a filmmaker'," he recalls. "By that, they meant rich enoughto have the support to keep you going and poor enough to be used to livingoff nothing! It takes perseverance alright."

It takes extra perseverance when you have to film in the soon-to-be demolished Clancy Barracks on Dublin's northside on a cold early morning. Cantwell is speaking to me from the location shoot of a new low-budget Irish movie he's directing called Anton, a thriller based in the border counties in the 1970s and set against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The title character Anton (played by Anthony Fox, who also wrote the screenplay) is a young man who grows disillusioned with his dead-end life in Cavan and gets swept up in the resurgent terror campaign of the IRA. But as he and his friend Brendan (Andy Smith) become ever more immersed in the violence, Anton loses his faith in the cause, and looks for a way out, little realising that his family and friends have been dragged into the chaos also.

The dilapidated barracks in which the shoot is taking place is soon to be transformed into a swanky urban village, but for today, it's serving as a 1970s Parisian bedsit. It requires a good deal of innovation and imagination to effect such a transformation, but those are the qualities that Ireland's young filmmakers have in spades. What they don't have, as I discover on the day I visit the set, is funding and support.

The scene being shot is the morning after a drink and drug fuelled session in the apartment. Four actors are getting their make-up done, quickly changing into costumes to avoid developing hypothermia, and getting into a variety of sleeping positions. It's a slow, painstaking process, where the inconvenient and rebellious daylight outside the window threatens to delay the whole shoot.

Graham Cantwell is in a good position to express opinions on the Irish film industry, having worked as an actor, director and producer for the past 10 years. His short film *A Dublin Story *was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2004 and won the Kodak Tiernan McBride award at the Galway Film Fleadh.

"For filmmakers in Ireland there are two separate entities: the Irish Film Industry and the film industry in Ireland, which is foreign companies coming in," the articulate 30-year-old says. "The two really depend on each other. We need the larger American or English productions like *Becoming Jane* or *King Arthur* coming across to support the indigenous film industry because there isn't a hell of a lot of support for very low-budget Irish filmmaking."

He continues: "Film-making is tight everywhere, but the difference between us and England, say, is that they have a huge television industry and that supports people. It's not perfect, but it's easier for crews to get work, as there's so many regional bodies through BBC and Channel 4. Over here, we only have RTE and the Irish Film Board, who have very limited resources and can't fund everything."

Be that as it may, low budget Irish cinema has been thrown into the limelight internationally in recent months. Lenny Abrahamson’s forthcoming release Garage, written by Adam and Paul’s Mark O’Halloran and starring comedian Pat Shortt, won the prestigious CICAE Art and Essai Cinema Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. On top of that, John Carney’s musical romance Once continues to garner rave reviews in the US and has been rhapsodised in Time Out, Variety and the Washington Post. What’s more, the influential website OscarWatch has installed Carney as a favourite to be nominated for an Academy Award next Spring.

The backbone of success stories like Garage and Once lies in the tax incentive scheme known as Section 481, which has been in place since the early '90s and is secured until 2008. However, other countries – in Eastern Europe in particular –have adopted similar schemes, which, coupled with lower cost economies, hasdiminished Ireland's once shining standing from the heyday of the 1990s,when the likes of Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan were filmed here.

The Minister for Arts and Tourism John O'Donoghue awarded an extra €1.5million in supplementary funding to the Film Board in 2005 and increased its2006 budget by 21 per cent to somewhere in the region of €20 million.Needless to say, the issues of funding and making a living in the industrydominate any discussion with filmmakers in Ireland.

"It's understandable that the government only have so much financialresources to give over to the Film Board," Cantwell explains. "But there isa shortfall, a lack of support for Irish filmmakers. Plus considering thelevel that we're operating at, it needs to be subsidised if it's reallygoing to work. We need support if we're going to have a cultural voice, ifwe're going to be able to make films that compete on an internationalstage."

Anton's producer Patrick Clarke is the go-to man for the realities offunding in Ireland today. Clarke is a highly experienced actor and producer,having worked in New York and LA since arriving there illegally in the mid'80s. His well-receieved acting and writing debut *Beyond the Pale* (1999)took three years to finance. On Anton, Clarke realised that it's oftenjust a case of who you know and calling in some favours.

"I just came from Mountjoy becuase we needed to shoot there for an hour ortwo, plus they had garda uniforms from the 1970s in the museum there,"Clarke says. "You find people are very helpful when they hear you're tryingto do a film on limited funds.

"We were up in Cavan last, using three different farms owned by AnthonyFox's relatives so right away we didn't have to worry about locationsbecause it was all enclosed. It's when you come down to places likeDublin when you encounter problems. You're like the daddy for 30-odd people."

"I've worked a lot in America and what I find is there's no infrastructurein place here, no mechanism to support filmmaking on a greater scale," he adds.
"Here, there's only one company that provides lights for film. Otherwise youhave to import it. Also, there's only one place that provides cameras so youhave to book them way in advance. There's only about 20 people doing soundin the country, 10 continuity people, half a dozen gaffers. We couldn't puttogether a crew when we started filming last September because the peopleand the equipment just were not available."

As producer, Clarke is well-versed in the nuances of film funding andmake suggestions as to what can – and should - be done to make theprocess smoother forall concerned.
"Look at it this way," he explains. "There's the Film Board, whose entireannual budget to facilitate the development of filmmaking in this country isnot even the fifth of the budget of one Hollywood film.

"It's up to the Government to provide support , but it's also up to thefilmmakers too to make films that are interesting enough to reach wideraudiences internationally. Irish films tend to be just that - Irish films -with subject matter that's not very identifiable outside this country."

Clarke continues: "We may be loved in the US, but the reality is an Irishfilm never opens on a wide release in America. *The Wind the Shakes theBarley* and *Michael Collins* both opened in small niche markets in LA, NewYork and Chicago. I'd love to see Irish films in the mould ofHollywood movies where it's irrelevant whether the subject matter is Irish or not."

In terms of raising funding for Anton, Clarke pursued less traditionalsources of revenue. "There's a kind of welfare mentality toward filmmakinghere because everyone goes to the Government for money when they're starting out," he says.

"I think there's other ways to do that now. The Irish economy is awash with money, especially in the corporate sector and private sector so that's whatwhere we targetted essentially. We had €5,000 in the bank starting this. Sowe went out to people in the business community to pitch and they said,'Everyone needs a leg up' and 'We admire what you're doing so we'll help youif we can'."

As I point out to Clarke and Cantwell, the average age of everyone on theset of Anton is 30. Is there a new confidence in young people today who want to pursue a career in filmmaking and is that confidence justified?

Clarke answers that it is a great thing to see, but that a harsh realitysoon sets in for Ireland's most ambitious and talented filmmakers. "Yes there is more confidence, but where do they go to make their first film?", Clarke says. "I think it's tragic because we have tons of youngpeople who want to try something different, they want to try something inthe arts. They don't want to get into normal professions. They're going to realise that they're going to have to leave this country to go to where thework in film and TV is because it's not here. And that brain drain is tragicbecause they'll go away and someone else will get the benefit of that."

Director Cantwell takes a different slant on the question."To be honest,what any artistic career is about is perseverance and a belief in what you're doing," Cantwell states. "If you believe you have the talent, it'sreally about persisting over resistance and to keep at it against the odds.
"I've been making films for 11 years, but it's really only this year that things have started happening.

"It's good that so many young people are pursuing film as a career. The culture of a nation is captured in the art of the time, and cinema is the major art form of this day and age. The mass art at the moment is cinema andwe really need to be representing ourselves through that medium. Yes, there are commercial considerations, but at the same time we need to support those low budget features that try to capture something of our history and how we are today."

With that point in mind, my eye goes back to the actors waiting on the set and on one in particular. It's none other than Scottish author Irvine Welsh,a friend of Cantwell's, and whose novel Trainspotting was adapted into a hit1996 film that soon took on the moniker of Britain's 'state of the nation'movie for the 1990s.

I put it to Cantwell that perhaps Welsh's presence on set is a presentiment that *Anton* could be Ireland's state of the nation movie. Or perhaps that movie has come and gone already?
"I think we're on the cusp of something," Cantwell admits. "With the amount of non-nationals who have arrived her, it's a cultural hotpot inIreland now. It's going to be the greatest opportunity forIreland to embrace that and take it forward and to look at our reputation for being the most welcoming. Here's our chance to prove that or disprove that."

He continues: "I'd love to see a culture here that's fully integrated, thatembraces all the cultures that come in, and allows them to influence us andat the same time not lose our own identity. It's only through integrationthat we can develop, that you can create. The alternative is to stick to theold values and destroy something new that could really blossom. That'sreally where the film industry can capture something and portray it in acertain light to the Irish population and further afield. I don't think that has happened yet, but I think it will. Any day now."

Declan Cashin





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

Just His Luck

Interview with Eric Bana from last Friday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent (22/6/2007)

You might have seen and, if you’re anything like me, drooled over him in Troy, Hulk and Munich, but can you honestly say you know anything about Australian actor Eric Bana? He’s never in the press for bad-boy or difficult behaviour (unlike his fellow Antipodean Russell Crowe). He’s not out banging the publicity drums for temporarily fashionable charities. This 38-year-old self-effacing bloke is probably the most famous non-famous star working today. And that’s just the way he likes it.

“Fame is easy to me because, quite honestly, I’m not that famous,” he says in his strong accent. “I can go out right now for a wander and I won’t have a problem. Someone might occasionally recognise me, but I have a very easy level of fame and I wouldn’t swap it for anything. There’s a perception that anyone who’s even remotely famous has this crazy life and that’s just not true.”

Be that as it may, on this hot Friday afternoon in the St Regis Grand hotel in Rome, Bana is prompting a flurry of excitement among the gathered international press, particularly among the female contingen. There is no escaping it: Bana is an extraordinarily handsome man. He’s tall (almost 6’3”), dark, built like a Greek warrior (a physical hangover from his Troy days) and, on the day I meet him, immaculately attired in a light blue shirt, dark navy jeans and sporting the kind of designer stubble that no mere mortal man could achieve.

Bana is in the Eternal City to talk about Lucky You, a romantic drama set amongst the world of professional poker in Las Vegas. Bana plays Huck, an ace card player with a huge chip on his shoulder regarding his gambling legend father L.C (played by Robert Duvall). Huck’s life is all about the game and not making connections with other people in order to keep his edge. That way of life is challenged, however, when he meets aspiring singer Billie (Drew Barrymore), whose sweet honesty and emotional intuition forces Huck to confront his father around the table and away from it, and ultimately to learn to “play poker, but have a life too.”

Lucky You is directed by Curtis Hanson, the gifted helmer of such diverse movies as 8 Mile, In Her Shoes and his Oscar-winning magnum opus LA Confidential. The movie very much uses the game of poker to metaphorise key questions about life and love, and Bana relished the chance to play a romantic lead that audiences would have to struggle to empathise with.

“Huck is a bit of a d*ck at the start of the movie,” Bana tells me. “You can see he’s quite selfish and immature, but at the same time, I think there’s something envious about that. I think we all wish we could be so careless and self-centred, but life dictates that most of us can’t be. So I hoped people would relate to that.

“For me, I found the father-son stuff to be most interesting part of the film. It’s kind of like Greek mythology: that whole notion of the son defeating the father in order to become a man.”

While Huck and his father L.C might be in conflict with one another, it was the opposite for Bana when it came to sharing the screen with the legendary Duvall. “He’s my favourite actor in the world,” Bana reveals. “His consistency of great work all throughout his career is really inspiring to someone like myself. But it’s the way Bob embraces life away from his work that I admire most. I remember one day I was talking to him about the old days in the 60s and 70s and I asked, ‘How did you survive that crazy time with all your friends doing coke and going into rehab?’ And he just said [breaking into an uncanny impression of Duvall], ‘Hobbies, you got to have hobbies! I have horses. Go race your cars [Bana is an avid racing driver and fan], stick to your hobbies’. That’s a great lesson from someone like him to impart to a younger actor: having real interests outside the work keeps you motivated and keeps you fresh.”

Maintaining his life firmly outside of the Hollywood bubble has been one of the defining aspects of Bana’s career to date. Born in Melbourne to a German mother and Croatian father (his surname is actually Banadinovich), he set his heart on becoming an actor after seeing his fellow countryman Mel Gibson in the Mad Max movies (“Parts one and two are awesome…we don’t talk about the third,” he jokes).

He moved to Sydney to study acting and began doing stand-up comedy, landing TV roles in the sketch show Full Frontal and a short stint on his own titular comedy show. Bana made his big-screen debut in the The Castle in 1997, but it was his astonishing portrayal of the notorious Melbourne criminal Chopper Read in Chopper (2000) that seared Bana into the national and international consciousness.

It’s a role that still follows him around to this day. “It was a seminal film for me and I’m really proud of it,” he says. “For a movie that nobody made any money on, it sure has lived on! It’s the one film that always comes up and I’m always surprised that people have seen it.”

Ridley Scott cast Bana in Black Hawk Down soon after, but in 2003, he took his first steps into the mainstream by playing the title role in Ang Lee’s movie adaptation of the Incredible Hulk. The movie was panned by critics, and was deemed a commercial disappointment, so much so that the follow up movie, currently in production, has been taken over by a new director and star, Edward Norton.

I carefully broach the topic of the new Hulk movie, expecting it to be a sore point. Bana effects mock surprise and gasps, ‘What? There’s a new movie? Who’s in it? Edward Norton? Who’s that?!” He then laughs and says: “You know, if Hulk opened today and did the same business it did, everyone would say it’s a huge hit. It made $140m!

“But when Hulk came out, it was after the first Spiderman so everyone stupidly thought every comic book movie was going to make $750m and Hulk didn’t. The movie is very dark so it probably didn’t get as much as much of an audience as it could have. Personally I think the film could have been a little more fun, but that was the film Ang Lee set out to make and we all knew that.

“I’m really proud of it and I think it’s unique in that genre. There’s no ill feeling whatsoever. It was an amazing experience that created a lot of opportunities for me. Steven Spielberg said himself that’s what made him cast me in Munich. So I can’t have any regrets about it. And the fact that Edward Norton is doing the next one is the icing on the cake. He’s one of the great actors of my generation and I personally find that flattering. To be honest, there was never a conversation we had about a sequel, so I have no qualms about it.”

Bana still lives in Melbourne with his wife Rebecca and young Klaus (7) and Sophia (5). He categorically has ruled out moving to Los Angeles for his career’s sake and likes to take breaks in between movies so he can spend as much time at home as possible. But the star says that working pattern came about due to the nature of the projects he was involved in, rather than by any conscious decision to work less.

“So many of the movies I’ve done have been so long in production that it just turned out that way,” he explains. “You work on movies like Hulk or Troy and they’re huge. So if I have less product than other actors my age, it’s because I haven’t done movies that only took 2-3 months to shoot. I have done less movies than my peers, but I couldn’t have done it any other way. And there’s no point living in LA for me, because nothing is shot there. I just made a small movie back home [Romulus my Father] and my next one [The Time Traveller’s Wife] is likely to be shot in Canada. So if I moved to LA, I’d spend the whole time going, ‘Sh*t! Why the hell did I do that?!’”

Right now, Bana is an actor very much in control of his career and is extremely grounded in his attitudes to Hollywood and fame. “I never had expectations of Hollywood and I still don’t,” he states. “Essentially the benefit of working in Hollywood is that you have more to choose from. I now have scripts that come in from Australia and ones that come in from overseas. That’s the most you can expect.

“Besides, it’s too late for me anyway! I don’t think at my age you suddenly can pop and turn into a huge star. People never really get to see me as myself, in my own accent. For American actors, it’s different because people feel like they know them better. So I think the ability of the public to get hold of what I am is harder.” Bana pauses for a second and then laughs: “I’m optimistic that it will stay that way for me!”

Declan Cashin

Stag trumps Hag

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

The 'fag hag' is finally getting her moment in the spotlight, having spent decades playing a supporting role in the never-ending drama/romance/horror/satire that is a gay man's life.

Two out and proud ladies have edited a celebration of fag-haggery in all its glory, entitled 'Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys'.

For the uninitiated, a fag hag is a gay man's straight gal pal, who has at various points served as date, beard, pub/club companion and therapist to said gay man (and vice versa). Think Grace in Will and Grace — or Niles in Frasier!

I've long suspected that the gay man/fag hag dynamic has had its day, and I think one of the reasons why is hit upon in this book by contributor Simon Doonan. He claims that fag hags have become obsolete because "straight men are now less obnoxious to be around".

From the gay man's point of view, Doonan makes a good argument. Metrosexualisation – itself a byproduct of gay culture – has prompted a lot of straight men to embrace different lifestyles and cast off engrained attitudes. They know they cannot hold onto old prejudices and fears if they are to function in today's world.

As a case in point, I have a few straight male friends who have no problem going to gay bars with me. They're like my 'fag stags', if you will: guys who are either so secure in their own sexuality and/or are such good friends that they have no qualms about socialising in gay venues.
Gay and straight men have both been known to equally intimidate the other, but, with some very serious exceptions, this appears to be fading away. The simple shared experience of being men might just be enough to transcend sexual labels. I think both sides can gain things from these friendships. Except for the kissing of the girls. My straight friends can keep that one for themselves.

Rainbow Warriors

Greena Fail? Bertie and his Amazing Technicolour Dream Vote? Who'd have thunk it,eh?

Laa Laa politicians

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

As our recent General Election taught us, you really would have to be mad to be a politician. Sometimes, however, politicians prove to us just how mad they can be.



Take the latest development from Poland's frighteningly entertaining right-wing government. Ewa Sowinska, the State-appointed children's rights watchdog, wants the Teletubbies banned from Polish TV because the show seems to promote homosexuality.



Ewa was gravely concerned because the male Tinky Winky was seen carrying a purse, which apparently "may have a homosexual undertone". That's because gays carry purses, you see (at last! The excuse I've been waiting for!). Ewa's even recruited psychologists to assess the pink threat posed by the foursome.



The whole thing would be funny, if it wasn't sad and sad if it wasn't funny (as an aside, if the Teletubbies are guilty of promoting anything, it's drugs, seeing how surreal and trippy the whole show is).



Of course, this isn't the first time that kiddie's entertainment has been subject to our modern pink witch-hunts. March of the Penguins and SpongeBob Squarepants have also been attacked recently by evangelical right-wingers in the US for supposed gay leanings.



But seriously folks, relax. A lot of popular kids entertainment caries allegorical messages, some of which, admittedly, could be perceived as gay readings. To pick some recent examples, just look at Shrek (where Princess Fiona must conceal her true self) and both A Shark's Tale and Happy Feet (where a kid is rejected by disappointed parents and peers for being 'different'). Most comic book adaptations, from Spiderman to X Men, are also loaded with gay subtexts.



But if double meanings are present, they're not designed as part of some insidious plot to corrupt children's minds or push some agenda down their throats. If anything, it's the opposite.
For the most part, these kids' shows and movies simply communicate messages of tolerance, acceptance and being true to yourself — all pretty destructive and harmful things for kids to learn, I think you'd agree.





But why teach kids to be open-minded when you can further your political career by making them fear the Teletubbies instead? Politics is really just Laa Laa, isn't it?

Cash Me If You Can

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

I'm really stupid about money. I don't mean that I'm especially reckless with cash, but I just can't seem to get my head around the whole concept of managing it.





To be perfectly honest, money baffles me. I love having it — but that's where any relationship ends. Like the Taoiseach, I don't 'do'savings accounts, mainly because I don't want to have to go to a bank and get information about one (which I'm convinced was Bertie's real reason too).





Mention any economic-related topic to me and, like Homer Simpson, my brain just announces, 'I'm outta here', my eyes glaze over and I drop to the ground in a lifeless, lobotomised heap.The same goes for tax. When it comes to PAYE and PRSI, I aint got a clue — except that I'm paying too much of both.





My best friend has a Masters in Economics and he's tried to explain the system to me, but he's just given up, having copped that a tin of soggy spinach wouldgrasp what a tax credit is before I would.





I guess my ignorance – I prefer the term 'mental block' but whatever –can be traced back to being a student for so long. When I started working, the concept of money was so foreign to me that I had to hire a diplomat to explain my first pay slip.





Until very recently, my world of finance was limited to student discounts, promotional nights and rummaging on that shelf in the supermarket for the knocked-down items that go out of date by the end of the day before they presumably implode like Tom Cruise's secret assignment briefs in Mission: Impossible.





Being a money moron just scares me sometimes, especially when I see people my age — and even younger — buying property or other sensible investments. I can't ever see a day when I'll be that savvy to channel my funds in the right way and put it to good use. I guess all I can do in the meantime is continue in my wilfull ignorance and, like SpikeMilligan, beg for the chance to prove that loads of money can't make me happy.

I Bebo, Therefore I Am (a tweenage girl)

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

Being the easily peer-pressured, follow-the-herd merchant that I am, I caved into the online social networking craze from the get-go. To not do so would have signalled me out as 'different' and the Gods in heaven know I'll do anything to avoid that label.



I've been quite a consistent "social networker" since then, albeit not on MySpace (the officially 'cool' one), but rather on Bebo (the 'tweenage girl' one). "Social networker" is a phrase I find simply hilarious though. It's not so much a "social network" as a haven for the "excessively curious" ( i.e. nosy parkers) or "thorough researchers" (i.e. stalkers).





Bebo and the likes may have originally developed as a way to keep in touch with friends, but, lately, it's taken on a much wider remit. I had this confirmed recently while chatting someone up. He didn't ask for my number or even my MSN address.





Instead, he asked for a link to my Bebo page and he hasn't been the last person to ask something similar of me or others I know. What good is a number or simple text message anymore when you can gain far deeper insight into a potential love interest's life by way of their personal web page?





Bebo, for example, will have ample photos on display, lists of hobbies, evidence of who a person's friends and even their exes are, as well as a glimpse into the person's personality and sense of humour.





Why, it basically does all the hard work of a first date by getting all the rudimentary 'getting to know you' awkwardness out of the way, without actually having to go on a first date with someone. Talk about efficient time management.





So if you don't keep your personal web page up-to-scratch, you'd best get cracking. If things keep going this way, pretty soon nobody will form an opinion on you until they've auditioned you by way of your Bebo. And to think that so-called experts said the internet would destroy our ability to relate to other people on a human level. What a bunch of quacks, eh?