Showing posts with label Fírinne McIntyre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fírinne McIntyre. Show all posts
Fírinne McIntyre ✒ writing in Being Human.
"Your hair has been destroyed, to prevent you from contacting your ship."
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia is a story that could have turned audiences away. The CEO of a powerful medical company is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien sent to destroy Earth.
The concepts behind its most considerable plot points could leave an audience groaning, shaking their heads as they leave the cinema muttering. If I were to explain the story arc to the layman, I would expect no reply other than, ‘Aw, c’mon. Really?’.
Bugonia could have missed its mark, but it was flawlessly executed. Execution is crucial, and Lanthimos has crafted a clean guillotine. The film borrows its plot from the South Korean film Save The Planet! (2003), and I wonder if I might find its execution as successful under another director.
A noteworthy piece of pre-release hype for Bugonia, including a bald-only preview screening, was that Emma Stone had shaved her iconic red hair, and sported a stubbly scalp for Lanthimos’ newest film - a sharp contrast to the remarkably black and ostentatiously long hair she wore in Poor Things. While the trailer revealed this bald-headed Emma, none of this prepares the viewer for the real-time hair-shaving scene.
Up close on 35mm film, I realised that Stone, a woman subjected to the beauty standards of 2025, had no prior idea what her scalp looks like. Watching felt like intruding. Stone’s performance in this film was beyond words, and without traversing too far into the land of spoilers, I found certain moments hard to watch.
Don, played by Aidan Delbis in his breakout role, was a real example of empathy and of the echo chamber - a character perfectly placed between innocence under manipulation and total complicity. Another hit from the guillotine of perfect execution.
To conclude, if you have seen Bugonia, please Google the children’s show Boohbah. It was the first thing I thought of upon leaving the cinema.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia is a story that could have turned audiences away. The CEO of a powerful medical company is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists who believe she is an alien sent to destroy Earth.
The concepts behind its most considerable plot points could leave an audience groaning, shaking their heads as they leave the cinema muttering. If I were to explain the story arc to the layman, I would expect no reply other than, ‘Aw, c’mon. Really?’.
Bugonia could have missed its mark, but it was flawlessly executed. Execution is crucial, and Lanthimos has crafted a clean guillotine. The film borrows its plot from the South Korean film Save The Planet! (2003), and I wonder if I might find its execution as successful under another director.
A noteworthy piece of pre-release hype for Bugonia, including a bald-only preview screening, was that Emma Stone had shaved her iconic red hair, and sported a stubbly scalp for Lanthimos’ newest film - a sharp contrast to the remarkably black and ostentatiously long hair she wore in Poor Things. While the trailer revealed this bald-headed Emma, none of this prepares the viewer for the real-time hair-shaving scene.
Up close on 35mm film, I realised that Stone, a woman subjected to the beauty standards of 2025, had no prior idea what her scalp looks like. Watching felt like intruding. Stone’s performance in this film was beyond words, and without traversing too far into the land of spoilers, I found certain moments hard to watch.
Don, played by Aidan Delbis in his breakout role, was a real example of empathy and of the echo chamber - a character perfectly placed between innocence under manipulation and total complicity. Another hit from the guillotine of perfect execution.
To conclude, if you have seen Bugonia, please Google the children’s show Boohbah. It was the first thing I thought of upon leaving the cinema.
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| Fírinne McIntyre of synth-pop duo “mischa and the bear” |
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| Alfie Gallagher |
Alfie, a chara,
I held my father’s hand as he shed a tear above your grave as the ornate box carrying the vessel that once held you was lowered into the earth.
I did not know you the way my father did, but I have seen how he loves you, and my love for you extends from that.
I watched your family welcome the world into their home to bid you farewell on your final journey. I watched your sister’s heart escape from her mouth in a cry of grief, and watched your mother find comfort in the many faces of those who loved you. I watched as they caressed her face with remnants of that love which will exist for as long as all who knew you shall live.
I got to know you so intimately in two long days through stories and memories shared over whiskey drank in your whiskey-sipping-chair in your childhood home, and can only wish that it had, and regret that it had not, happened before you were gone.
There is so much that can be said, and it brings a further sense of finality to stop speaking, but all things, good or bad, we know come to an end.
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Emerging Irish act are making waves with gritty electro sound
Dark, gritty, angsty pop with paranoid androids and great electro hooks. Welcome to the world of Mischa and The Bear.
And no, the Drogheda duo’s name has nothing to do with the old kids’ cartoon Masha and The Bear.
“No, everyone asks that, it’s actually from our middle names,” says Bear (AKA Fírinne McIntyre).
Danny’s middle name is Mischa and my middle name is Berneen. My parents have always called me Bear at home, so it kind of just seemed obvious. I didn’t realise the cartoon was so popular. We’ll have to put in our bio that we’re not affiliated!
Mischa is Danny Rooney, formerly of the band Modern Love, and together the pair have been working on music for the past year.
“It just kind of happened naturally. I’m constantly producing music and Fírinne would jump in at times when I’m working on something, ‘Oh I’ve a suggestion, you should do this…’” says Mischa.
It just spawned from there. We wrote loads of stuff and there were some angsty-er tracks, stuff that I’d never really done before.
Continue @ Irish Mirror.
Fírinne McIntyre ✒ writing in Being Human.
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“Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance." - Dir. Edward Berger
On the eve of my father’s 68th birthday, my family and partner sat down to watch Conclave. A film about the Catholic, or moreso, political process of electing a new pope.
Coming from a very atheist and very political background, my viewing of this film was initially hindered by two things: firstly, a notable lack of understanding of the Catholic hierarchy and the subsequent need to pause the film at multiple intervals, much to my father’s annoyance, to inquire as to who was who and what was up with the little hats they were wearing; secondly, I have a natural aversion to politics, like any child of political parents might, having had little interest or tolerance for political discussion for most of my youth. All of this is to say that Conclave was a film I would not have expected myself to enjoy, particularly in that it was also 2 hours long and I am a regular slave to the 6 inch screen.
The film was brilliant. Once it had been explained to me that I couldn’t refer to all of the priests as Popes because there was, in fact, only one Pope (and kind of the point of the film), it had a story that never quite faltered or failed to be interesting at every point. Sometimes a great film can fall a little flat when introducing its emotional arc, where a fine balance exists between emotion and pure cheese. But no fromage in Conclave, even where disasters strike at moments too obvious to be anything other than a sign from God. I saw myself and my father agreeing with the Catholics for perhaps the first time in our lives as they spoke of ‘certainty being the enemy of tolerance’.
I am the modern atheist who praises Conclave to high heavens. If there is one thing I am certain of, it is that Conclave is worth the watch, but it certainly requires one’s full attention.
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| Fírinne McIntyre of synth-pop duo “mischa and the bear” . |
BabyStep Magazine 🎸 Hailing from Dublin and emerging from the glow of their bedroom studio, this duo makes a bold first impression with their debut single “Deny” — a brooding, cinematic slice of synth-pop that lands with precision and pulse.
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| Mischa And The Bear |
Crafted by producer/bassist Mischa (Danny Rooney formerly of modernlove.) and first-time vocalist Bear (Fírinne McIntyre), “Deny” is a darkly hypnotic exploration of obsession, control, and the chaos bubbling beneath the surface. Think industrial textures, distorted beats, and a haunting intensity that lingers long after the last note fades.
Ahead of the track’s release on April 25th, we caught up with the pair to dig into the sounds, stories, and strange magic behind “Deny.”
Q: “Deny” is such a powerful debut—can you talk us through how the track came together and what inspired its dark, cinematic energy?
Bear: We were actually messing around with the bassline on another track when Mischa tried a different bass, and immediately it sounded like it was entirely its own thing and not the song we were working on at all. So we opened a new session, and I sang the first melody that came to my mind, and it just stuck - the “Oh”s, the “I”s and the “Can’t deny, deny” hook.
Ahead of the track’s release on April 25th, we caught up with the pair to dig into the sounds, stories, and strange magic behind “Deny.”
Q: “Deny” is such a powerful debut—can you talk us through how the track came together and what inspired its dark, cinematic energy?
Bear: We were actually messing around with the bassline on another track when Mischa tried a different bass, and immediately it sounded like it was entirely its own thing and not the song we were working on at all. So we opened a new session, and I sang the first melody that came to my mind, and it just stuck - the “Oh”s, the “I”s and the “Can’t deny, deny” hook.
Continue @ BabyStep Magazine.
Fírinne McIntyre ✒ writing in Being Human.
Spoiler alert
Rating: 5/10
Plot summary: FBI Agent Lee Harker plays cat and mouse with Longlegs as she hunts for the man behind murder.
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| Longlegs: Directed by O. Perkins. |
“Half-psychic is better than not psychic at all.” - Blair Underwood as FBI Agent Carter
Barren, snowy landscapes, cool-toned colour palette, with all the vibes of an underground Indie horror, and almost the feel of a foreign movie, Longlegs begins strong. The trailer helped set it up this way, along with intense praise for its fear-level gathered on TikTok.
Harker and her partner are on the hunt for a criminal, whose location she psychically ‘senses’. I had to catch my breath at the first taste of shock horror when her partner was ambushed. As Harker scours the outside of her gorgeous cabin in the woods for an intruder, we see through Harker’s eyes a glimpse of Longlegs skulking through her home.
Portrayed perfectly, the tension was absolutely eerie, and satisfying for the horror-lover.
Alas, the second half of Longlegs felt like more of a goofy Boo than a Bone-chilling horror.
Keeping its fear-worthy momentum until the movie reached its halfway point, it then lost its magic. Nicolas Cage, while I understand the intention behind his character’s design, did not scare me. I’ll admit, his scene with a girl in a store creeped me out, but there was something a little too clownish about him, and not in the Stephen King sense.
“But your work's over. It's done. And you're gonna be in here for the rest of your life,” Harker says to Longlegs in a standard interrogation room in the all-too-typical fashion of cheap, cheesy horrors.
Harker unintentionally comes across as a petty child playing cop, and as Longlegs begins to praise Satan, the film reveals itself to be a bit of a clichéd letdown. The sense of pettiness in Harker and the Devil being behind Botoxed Cage’s serial killer motives just felt . . . tacky. By the end, there were multiple scenes where I could not help but stifle giggles - and I‘d honestly been clinging to my seat for the entire first half. What could have been the perfect twist at the end didn’t hit above the goofiness.
Fantastically introduced but ultimately anticlimactic, I would rate Longlegs a 5 out of 10.
Half-horror is better than no horror at all.
Fantastically introduced but ultimately anticlimactic, I would rate Longlegs a 5 out of 10.
Half-horror is better than no horror at all.
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| Fírinne McIntyre is a fluent Irish speaker and has recently completed her Masters in Translation Studies. |
It led to a sudden dislike of Led Zeppelin's Rain Song because of its lyrics: Upon us all, upon us all a little rain must fall.
Even though I had a short umbrella in my bag, I knew it would prove useless against the wind that propelled the rain in my direction. So, in the bag it remained. This rain is a foreign product, all part of the Great Replacement that wants to replace dry Irish rain with invasive wet foreign stuff.
While it had poured out of the real skies earlier, not the imaginary heavens, the rain had stopped when I left the house to walk to the train station, listening to podcasts about fascism as I go. By the time I reached that destination, I was saturated from the waist down. Three schedules in various parts of Dublin deterred me from turning back and drying off. A fool and his folly are not easily parted despite the advice from my son that it would lash much of the day. Pelted by precipitation was my fate.
When I got to Dublin I met my daughter for our weekly Cappuccino. Her mood was even more grumpy than mine, the apple not having fallen far from the tree.
She had been frustrated by a few things including a failure of the internet at her place, exasperated by her feeling hangry. I offered her lunch but she opted for breakfast. And so the problems of finding eggs benedict began. I can't think of eggs benedict without at the same time having the joke from prison leap into my mind:
What did the two pregnant nuns say to the Mother Superior?
'Sister Benedictus.'
The first cafe we called to was so loud with rock music that we simply vacated our seats and went off in search of another. We found a quieter spot on the same street, took our seats only to discover that breakfast ended at 1130, but we could have a lunch menu. I wasn't for eating so it didn't much matter to me but I could see my daughter's face darken. Back out in the rain, not coming down so forcefully but still annoying, I told my daughter three strikes and we are out, that I had no intention of traipsing around Dublin in the rain just to find 'eggs fuckin benedict.'
In the last chance saloon she settled for dinner as eggs benedict went off the menu 'about twenty minutes ago.' Can Dublin be so dietary challenged that it is impossible to find eggs benedict after 1130? Somebody might blame those who scripted the 1916 Proclamation for that. How Pearse and Connolly didn't figure out what the real needs of the country were baffle me. They clearly lacked foresight. Instead of wasting time on human rights-speak and NGO-talk, promising to cherish all the children of the nation equally and all that, they should have focussed on eggs benedict.
The giveaway is to be located in the names of the seven signatories to the Proclamation: Tom, Thomas, James, Joseph, Pádraig, Sean and Eamonn but no Benny. Which I suppose might not be a bad thing given how it would be claimed by the Benny Hill-types who in their pariah parade strut their supposed patriotism on the streets of the capital, screaming 'nigger' at black workers who for some reason are to be excluded from the humanity proclaimed by the seven signatories and denied citizenship of this society.
A theme that eventually led to a discussion over lunch. My daughter is resolutely opposed to racism and was infuriated by remarks from Simon Harris which she felt blamed immigrants and refugees for the housing crisis. This, she said forcefully between bites of food, is a crisis brought on by a government of landlords looking after their cronies in the landlord business. When I replied that I didn't think it was a government of landlords, she quickly pulled the figures out from the phone. I responded that personal instinct is not what drives government policies but structural properties, that the class background of those who staff government is not the determining factor, and that no matter what party is in government, no more houses will be built. I was waxing Poulantzas while she was opting for a Miliband perspective. She then lashed out at the way black revellers were treated by An Garda during Culture Night events at Tola Vintage, in sharp contrast to how those racially abusing black workers at Coolock were treated by the force.
So, that is what we get when government claims its focus is on providing homes rather than eggs benedict. No sense of priority. And if things continue as they are eggs benedict will soon be served up without the yoke, wrong sort of colour for the racists.
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| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
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