The Angels’ Share

Paul Brannigan in The Angels' Share

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 5 March The Proclaimers born, 1962 On this day in 1962, the brothers Charlie and Craig Reid were born in Leith, Scotland. Later known as The Proclaimers, the identical twins were in a string of punk bands before forming their own band in 1983. One-hit wonders in many parts of the world, thanks to their song 500 Miles, the brothers have had a number of hits in their home country, ever since their debut tour, supporting the Housemartins in 1986. The song Sunshine on Leith is the anthem of Hibernian FC, of whom they are fans, and Charlie and Craig lent … Read more

Route Irish

John Bishop in Route Irish

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 January Operation Desert Storm starts, 1991 On this day in 1991, in what is now known as the First Gulf War, the troop and weapons mobilisation operation known as Operation Desert Shield came to an end and Operation Desert Storm, the invasion of Iraq, began. The invasion had been prompted by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, to seize oil fields and territory that Iraq claimed were rightly theirs – a dispute that went all the way back to when the borders between the two countries were drawn by the British in 1922. Kuwait and the international community didn’t take Iraq’s … Read more

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

Cillian Murphy and Pádraic Delaney in The Wind That Shakes the Barley

A polemic rather than a drama, about a blameless Irish lad who becomes a Republican after seeing with his own eyes what the British are up to. Cillian Murphy plays the lad, peaceable to the point of cowardice, the prospective medical student who is caught up in the struggle to get the Brits out of Ireland in the 1920s. His brother (Pádraic Delaney) meanwhile heads off in the other direction – initially bellicose but softening his stance when a political compromise (a “sell out”) is brokered. Director Ken Loach’s film is partisan to the point of ludicrousness – at one point the Brits are depicted swooshing by in cars with their heads tilted … Read more

15 April 2013-04-15

Mathilda Paradeiser and Linda Molin in She Monkeys

Out in the UK This Week She Monkeys (Peccadillo, cert 12, DVD) Vaguely marketed as a lesbian drama, this is in fact an instant classic of the twisted coming-of-age genre, a superbly taut story of a teenager called Emma (Mathilda Paradeiser) who meets a similarly blonde, similarly athletic girl (Linda Molin) while learning equestrian vaulting. Meanwhile, at home, Emma’s five-year-old sister is making her first advances into the world of sexual strategy. Friendship and rivalry, sex and power duke it out for supremacy in this superbly photographed, coolly understated Swedish drama recalling Let the Right One In in look, tone, ambition and effect. A gripper. She Monkeys – at Amazon The Spirit of … Read more