Pictureland

Darkness, darkness.  Poor Father James (Brendan Gleeson) may be a priest in Count Sligo, but his parish seems more a hell on earth than the picturesque Atlantic Coast of Ireland. This apparently good priest is made to answer not only for the trangressions of his church, but all of the pent-up outrage of his country in the early 21st century. "You have to put up with shit like this on a regular basis?" asks his visiting daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly).  "There's a lot of it going around, let's put it that way," responds the weary man. Calvary is, among several other things, the result of writer and director John Michael McDonagh avoiding the sophomore slump much more nimbly than his brother Martin.  The younger McDonagh followed his highly original first feature In Bruges (2008) with the deeply mediocre Seven Psychopaths (2012).  Perhaps the moral of that brief story is to make sure that you have Brendan Gleeson at the head of your cast. Gleeson pl...

If there was ever a time that theatrical movie trailers were made in such a way as to be considered an art of their own, that era seems to have gone the way of the handwritten letter.   Or the letter, for that matter.   If you've seen the trailer for The Guard , you've heard its main character, Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) spout the likes of, "I thought only black lads were drug dealers...and Mexicans."  That decided bit of political incorrectness spoken to visiting FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), who happens to be a black man.  Later, while the two are discussing Everett's privileged upbringing back in the states, "You know, summer in the Hamptons, skiing in Aspen," Gerry lobs back,  "I thought black people couldn't ski...or is that swimming?"  The unconventional sergeant had earlier explained away his behavior at the briefing where he first met Everett,  "I'm Irish sir, racism is part of my culture."  Of...