Join us every Wednesday at 7PM for our weekly film viewing! Films are decided by popular vote on our Instagram page

Join us at 7PM in John Hume, Lecture Hall 2 on Wednesday, 4th March for a screening of 'Groundhog Day' For this event, we will be collaborating with Comedy Soc!

Join us at 7PM in John Hume, Lecture Hall 2 on Wednesday, 26th February for a screening of 'Call Me By Your Name' For this event, we will be collaborating with the Maynooth Pride Society

Join us at 7PM in John Hume, Lecture Hall 2 on Wednesday, 19th February for a screening of 'Psycho'  

'Joker' - Reviewed by Daniel Sheridan

In Todd Philips's controversial film Joker, we learn the past of the most infamous characters in comic book history. With an amazing performance at the centre of the film, Joker has a lot of amazing qualities going for it, yet it is too bad that these are held down by its many flaws.

I have always been a Joaquin Phoenix apologist from his strange performance art documentary I’m Still Here and his beautiful performance in The Master. Phoenix has proven to be one of the worlds most versatile actors and no more does it shine than in his performance of Arthur Fleck. His portrayal of a man broken down by society in this film is nothing short of mesmerizing. We follow his transformation from a man who only wanted to make people laugh to the sadistic character we all know from previous iterations. While I love Phoenix’s performance in this film I think he gave a far more realistic and nuanced performance of a man forgotten by society in Lynn Ramsey’s 2018 film You Were Never Really Here. Sometimes Fleck felt a bit uneven on his motives throughout the film, yet I do not put that down to Phoenix’s performance rather down to Todd Phillips and Scott Silvers script.

Two other aspects of the film I really enjoyed were the score and the cinematography. The way Lawerence Sher framed Gotham made it feel like a lived-in world. The gritty colour grading and close-ups made us more engrossed in Fleck’s struggles, while it moves out too well choreographed wide shots at moments of his triumph. Similarly, Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score added to both the claustrophobic nature of Gotham city and the dreamlike perception Fleck has on reality. It is so hard to find composers who use their music to drive forward the story through their music alone, yet that is how I felt every time Guðnadóttir’s haunting violins creep into your ears.

Where I feel the film falls flat is within its script and its direction. It is hard to separate Joker from the intertextual references that inspired its narrative as it is so ingrained in its DNA. When I watch Joker I never feel like I am watching something new, interesting or innovative because I have seen the same form of narrative done better in two Scorsese flicks. I am not saying it is wrong to have intertextual references and influences within works of art, for example, most of Hozier’s songs reference different Jazz standard artists that influenced his work and Yargos Lanthamos uses techniques similar to Stanley Kubrick to tell a story on the screen. Yet the difference between the likes of Hozier/Lanthimos and Phillips Is that they take their intertextual knowledge in order to create something new, which Joker never feels. Philips had nothing new to say so he called on films like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy to say something for him.

While I think you should see Joker I feel like it's not the masterpiece you have come to believe it to be. There is talent working on this film, yet they are squandered on a director that bit off more than he could chew.

'Sicario' - Reviewed by Daniel Sheridan

Suspense is a tool used in the film to make the audience fear, not just for the safety of the characters on screen but also for themselves. This tool is most commonly associated with horror, the creaking door and the slow walks through the hallway of an abandoned house. Yet it was in 2015’s Sicario, where suspense feels real.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Tyler Sheridan Sicario is a gritty tale of gang violence, American Colonialism and an FBI agent thrown into the middle of it all. Villeneuve’s direction of the film is nothing short of masterful, creating tension out of mundane moments in the film, with simple shots and cuts, making the viewer feel on edge at every moment of the film. This is only heightened by the excellent cinematography of Roger Deaken who turns this tale of gangs vs the CIA into a wide scoped western. The collaboration between these two men creates one of the most engaging tales in recent cinema history. Through visual cues, the two manage to create mystery about their characters through visuals alone, rather than through what they say.

Sheridan’s script also must be praised. Proving to be one of the most prolific thriller writers in recent history, Sheridan seems to have a fantastic understanding of the role mystery plays in a story. He never truly lets us understand the characters. With Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro, remaining an enigma throughout the entire run of the film, regardless of the fact that we learn quite a bit about him. Where I think Sheridan’s script falls flat is in his treatment of Emily Blunt’s Kate Macy. He introduces her as a hard-hitting professional character, yet once Josh Brolin and Del Toro are introduced into the script Blunt’s character loses all agency becoming essentially an extra in her own story. I think this is due to the fact that Sheridan has an issue with writing female characters, with his later film Wind River doing the exact same to Elizabeth Olsen’s character and High Waters having little to no female characters at all. It adds this uncomfortable air of misogyny over the film that does not sit well with me.

If you are looking for a film that will make you tense through every single frame of the film, Sicario is definitely a must. It’s a well-crafted mystery and beautiful cinematography and direction are enough to make this one of the more interesting thrillers of the previous decade, despite its flaws in the script.