Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - Kneecap, The Commitments, Good Vibrations

Ripley gene O'Shaughnessy maguire O'Shea Lynch malone. Well it isn't Korean, sweetie, and we're here to give you three streaming recommendations, and well two streaming and one theatrical, because that's how it's been working out lately. And as usual, we're gonna start

with the absolute most current one. Like I said, this one's still in theaters, and you should go get in the car, drive to the theater, buy a ticket, skip the concession stand because you've wisely stopped at a convenience store or a grocery store, and you've already secreted upon your person several candy bars and at least two cans of soda that are now so cold that they might

blow your cover. Now, of course that aroma of popcorn is alluring, but after three bites, it's going to be samey, and it's going to be greasy, and you're not really going to enjoy the rest of it. But you're going to keep on crunching away mechanically into the first reel. So now that we've avoided all of those pitfalls of the movie coming experience, you can enjoy the film. I think I'll have a hard time finding it's better this year.

This is kneecap.

as most Irish entertainment seems to do. But this first choice, Kneecap, is a contemporary film and it should be seemingly the most irrelevant, based loosely as it is, on the lives of a couple of former drug dealers turned unexpected hip hop superstars, but the film gives the mess look at life post troubles I've seen, and moreover actually gives us a glimpse of how fucked up the whole region continue used to be in the wake of those years of

division and hatred. Like the recent hit show Dairy Girls, it's giving a voice to a generation who previously only ever been portrayed as victims of the violence. And voice is an important thing. It's nearly the most important aspect of Kneecap. Voice and the language used here. That's Gaelic, a foreign language in its native land. It's about its importance as a national identity and as a form of freedom.

Remember that Goofy riverdance craze, that stiff armed, only moving below the waist dancing that developed during the years when all Irish culture was outlawed. You could dance on one side of a wall and be seen as standing still on the other. That's how hard and oppressed people will fight to feel free. When Kneecap hit the scene back in twenty eighteen, it was easy to dismiss them as a gimmick. Two white kids in Ireland rapping in English and Irish. It reminded me a bit of Blood of Abraham.

Remember them, I doubt it, but they were a solid group. They just had nothing to say anyway. Kneecap seemingly also had nothing to say. But it's the fucking way they're saying it. Resistance they came up against that forms the basis of the film. It's a fictionalized account of their formation and their rise amidst the real life events of a referendum in Northern Ireland to give the Irish language equal standing to English, a privilege the Welsh had been

enjoying since nineteen ninety three. Okay, time for an annoying autobiographical pause. Fond Malone's a pseudonym, But I'm pretty goddamned Irish and I grew up in Boston in the seventies and eighties. I was surrounded by Sullivan's and Splanes and McCoy's and Murphy's, and there was a period of my life in high school where I felt pretty well defined

by my Irishness. If it wasn't the Pogues or the water Boys, I wasn't listening, I'd be watching Mickey Rourke movies and reading about the troubles in the nineteen sixteen Revolution, devouring the works of Brendan Bayen and James Joyce, But even if you'd ask me then if there are any forms of film or TV out there expressing the actual feelings and frustrations of those living through those situations, I'd have said no. I'd have said it was all ponderous

purple prose, poor theatrical nonsense, no better than TV movie of the weekly artistry. Certainly, nothing is surefooted with a singular vision that allows flights of fancy equal weight to scenes of genuine, harrowing violence that we get here. This film could have been Spice World. It could have been Disorderlies, remember Disorderlies with the fad Boys. It could have been Purple Rain, which it mostly resembles. And when I saw

the trailer for Neecap, I assumed that that's all. It was going to be a Purple Rain or eight Mile style fictional biopic. Nothing too weighty, nothing too flighty, just an honest story of music lifting up a musician and bringing them glory and Kneecap Is that, oh my, yes, with enough fiction to even out the fact. But I know this is sacrilege. It's better than Purple Rain, not the soundtrack, obviously, I'm not an idiot. You got a mouth on you lately, We'll see how your attitude changes

at supper time, little lady. The three leads are charming as fuck, and they can act. Man. One of them has Michael Fassbender playing his dad, and he holds his own against him. The direction is ingenious and innovative. The script is smart and funny. The music is killer. Here's some.

How appropriate? I guess that means it's time for rips picks.

Thank you, HP, you have once again crystallized my thoughts exactly. Okay, here's the non ira A film in the bunch and I did see this in high school and while it didn't inspire me to start a band, I did run out and buy a bunch of Wilson Pickett records afterwards. This is Alan Parker's film of Roddy Doyle's novel The Commitments?

It's the story of Jimmy Rabbit, an enterprising young lad who decides to gather together a group of similarly directionless youth to form a soul band like Kneecap. It's the story of the oppressed finding their voice in the similarly oppressed culture of African American artists, a fact that is not lost on the characters of each of the films.

We're talking about cultural appropriation is a real problem when it's about using that bit of culture without respect and no other motive than a few miserable dollar bills with the aid of an aging trumpet player, a role originally meant for Van Morrison, but I guess after a disastrous meeting with Alan Parker, Morrison agreed to let him use his music and wanted nothing more to do with the project. Rabbit assembles a fearsome band or the makings of one.

I am a sucker for band formation films, particularly when the plot isn't predicated on their success. I don't mean artistically or creatively. I mean I don't need them to win a Battle of the Bands or get some crawl at the end informing us that there eventually were a massive success somehow. The stories of Ulso Rans or never was Those are way more impactful to me. I'm thinking about like that thing you do. He's speaking of fictional

bands in their biopinks. Can we get a figurin Dan in the Modal Nodes movie, you know, the Cantena band from the original Star Wars. Get them on like a road trip movie, like out on Tour, visiting all the dives in the Outer Rim trying to make it big on chorus ants someday just an idea. Anyway, The Commitments was made by Alan Parker. He was the filmmaker behind Bugsy Malone, where children star as adults in a nineteen thirties gangster drama that's also a musical with Tommy Guns

that you'd cream pies. And he made Pink Floyds to the Wall, that's a film everyone will tell you to watch when you're high and you will instantly regret doing so. And he made Fame, which I think is pretty much perfect except for casting Barry Miller as a praeto Rican. He's operating here from a place of pure musicale, which

is rare after films like Mississippi Burning and Birdie. There are no oppressive themes, no aggressive hatred, just a bunch of working class kids fighting for their own identity and fighting with each other to create something joyous in the midst of a crushing existence. None of the performances musically are going to replace the original artists on your turntable. If you have a turntable, what's a turntable? Oh God, what am I going to do with you? But just

like anytime you see someone performed live. There's something electric at play, and it should be noted that the performances you see in the film are in fact recorded live. Parker recognized that the scruffy, rag taggedness of the whole affair was its charm, and while ultimately music won't save them from their economic situation or even their social situations, it does show them a new way of thinking of surviving,

of thriving in the face of adversity. How it's impossible for anyone to keep you down when you have the strains of midnight hour thrumbing in your head. We're running an Irish time machine here, young We started now the contemporary age, and then we jump back to the early nineties. Where will we end up next? The twenties? Were you crazy? That's a little too old timey for the popular music

in Ireland theme we're going for here? Would you settle for the nineteen seventies a splendid because that's where we're going back to Belfast, back to the tunes, back to Terry Hooley and good vibrations.

they were aggressive. He watched the dreams of all the sixties peace and love disintegrate, and now all that was left was rancor on both sides, not just amongst the civilians, but the threat of violence from both the RUC and the IRA hung over everything. So Hooley did what any self respecting music lover would do. He opened a record

shop in the most heavily bombed street in Belfast. He was a visionary in the mold of Hilly Crystal, who opened a music venue to feature bluegrass and country music in the Bowery in New York City, which turned into CBGB's Hooley opened a shop featuring reggae when that would become Belfast ground zero for punk rock, with Holey eventually

producing and releasing a clutch of important Irish artists. The film is anchored by Richard Dormer as Hooley, a kind of musical ed Wood who pulls people into his sphere through sheer enthusiasm. It also has a young Jody Whittaker years from becoming the doctor as Terry's long suffering wife. It gets a bit formulating at the end, attempting to

expose Hooy's unsavory elements while simultaneously absolving him. It has one of those bullshit scenes you'll see in biopanks where every character who was wronged during the course of the film shows up to let them know that all is forgiven and they really understand that they didn't mean it.

And it's predicated on a concert that will save the shop. Yesh, But that's a small price to pay for the story that comes before and the music that you get to hear throughout, which, while leaning in the direction of punk, doesn't pretend that there weren't other forms of music going on at the same time. Anything that can get our lead on stage singing a cover of a sunny Bono

tune as an active defiance gets a pass. In my book, Good Vibrations was the name of the shop, it's the name of the film, and it's something I hope will be leaving you with today. That's because I'm corny. I'm Corny Collins. You should come on my show. Oh it's a dancing show. I'm sorry, you need rhythm and coordination in order to dance. See how that feels? Not very good? I'd say apology accepted. And you're a fine dancer, and you're a fine listener, and I mean fine. Thank you

once again for joining us here this week and every week, week in, week out. Tune in again on Friday midnight viewing the Horror Anthology podcast. We'll be back where will be taking a look at two episodes of Tanels from the Dark Side, two of the best Halloween Candy and the Satanic Piano. Do you want to drop me a line, go ahead at Father Malone seventy one at gmail dot com. If you want to support the show, head over to

Patreon dot com slash Father Alone. You get episodes early and commercial free, and we've got exclusives over there that you're not gonna hear on the regular feed. And if money's tight, I've got my money in the next room trying to make me diamonds. It's so goddamn tight. You're gonna help us immeasurably just by giving us a five star rating on whatever app you're listening to the show on, or just tell a friend to tune in on behalf

of myself and Ripley Gene. We'll sign off with a line from Kneecap that lad has made something of himself despite you, and if you're thinking of getting in his way, I'll show you a woman gone to war. Very fucking irish, speaking of fuck your.