There are few of us who don’t consider The Wizard of Oz one of our favourite movies. This week, friends of Dorothy can see it on Dublin’s biggest screen, Cineworld’s giant IMAX. The catch, unfortunately, is that it’s only being screened in 3D. The issue of retrofitting classic movies in 3D is a controversial one, akin to the practice of colourising black and white movies, a disgraceful trend in the 80s that was ended thanks to campaigning by filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Personally, I’m against 3D full stop, as I don’t feel it adds anything to a film. Conversely, wearing what amounts to sunglasses means you lose 30% of the movie’s light. For a film as colourful as The Wizard of Oz, this means you’re losing much of the visual splendour the film is known for. It would be great to see the movie on a huge screen like the IMAX, but the addition of 3D makes it merely a reluctantly recommended movie of the week.
The Lighthouse cinema is hosting an 80s double bill on Saturday night with back to back screenings of The Breakfast Club and Real Genius. Pull on your legwarmers, put aside your Rubick’s Cube, and get on down there.
The highlight of this week’s new releases is the espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man. This is your last chance to see Philip Seymour Hoffman in a leading role, and it’s a fitting performance for the acclaimed actor to exit on. The film deals with a German counter-terrorism unit and their struggle to work on their own terms without the interference of the CIA, who disapprove of their long-term methods. It’s a slow burner, but one deserving of your patience.
In recent years, thanks mainly to the success of the Dragon Tattoo novels and their resulting screen adaptations, we’ve seen a wave of Scandinavian crime thrillers hit our shores, in both cinema and TV form. The latest is In Order of Disappearance, a mediocre comic thriller that shows this fad may now be scraping the bottom of its Nordic barrel. It’s a revenge movie that begins as a grim, snowbound thriller, but soon lapses into the sort of bad gangster parody you expect Danny Dyer to show up in.
By Eric Hillis
Image: Movie of the week, The Wizard of Oz
