Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.


That’s tickets sorted for My Bloody Valentine next year, so #aside

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Set an alarm for before 5am tomorrow to be up for the F1 quali. The things you do for fandom… #aside

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Smart me scored half days every Friday for the rest of the year with my remaining annual leave #aside

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Film review — Red Dawn

That thing where you think you’re making a jingoistic war fantasy but you’ve inadvertently exposed the rotten heart of your own country’s interventionist military foreign policy. Y’know, when they cry “Wolverines!” it sounds a bit like “Mujahideen!” More…

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Film review — Exorcist II: The Heretic

Embarrassing to follow up one of the great horrors with this absolutely cornball codswallop. And yet, there’s a weirdness factor that makes it unforgettable. Like, what is up with that glass hexagon panopticon for kids with disabilities? The rooftop patio with open sides where one misstep is your demise? Louise Fletcher playing an exasperated goodie? So many strange, strange choices. More…

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Film review — Being the Ricardos

Nicole Kidman is no Lucille Ball, that’s for sure. But that’s only one of the problems in this very stagey production. Like, maybe it should give you pause when one of the heroes of your story is J Edgar Hoover… More…

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Dear weather apps: drizzle still counts as precipitation #aside

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Went to the shops for a new shirt and accidentally bought two winter coats #aside

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That São Paulo Grand Prix quali was eventful to say the least! #aside

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This fake Hallowe’en parade story has me like, every parade ever on O’Connell St has necessitated barriers on the roadside, so you’re telling me no one there clocked that? I despair at that level of gullibility #aside

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Genuinely considering a SAD light to get through the next five months. I really don’t like this time of year #aside

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Film review — Brainscan

Contemporary trappings like interactive CD-ROMs (and an early instance of the ‘it’s really about trauma’ trope) can’t disguise the fact that this is a run-of-the-mill demonic disturbance/possession flick like a million you’ve seen before, only this demon has a nose ring and a goofy hairdo and rocks out to Primus and TAD. More…

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Film review — The Substance

This Dorian Gray for the gloopy monster body horror set is far too long, especially for a film that’s so blatantly on the nose (and ironically pretty shallow) with its themes. But Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley give it socks despite their limited characters. And that ending is hilarious! You’ve gotta appreciate that ‘what the hell, let’s just go for it’ attitude. More…

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Film review — Battleship

It’s 2012 and we’re still doing the ‘Asians talk funny’ bit, are we? We’re so tone deaf we’re going into the end credits of a military propaganda picture with “Fortunate Son”? Really? I’m sighing so hard I almost ran out of breath. More…

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Flu shots and Covid boosters received. This week off is turning out to be pretty busy #aside

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That was a day: errands around the city, takoyaki for lunch, burritos picked up for dinner, 14,000 steps #aside

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Imagining the glee on Roots Manuva’s face whenever another fat royalty cheque comes in but let’s be honest, it should’ve been more than 20 years ago #aside

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Film review — Cameron’s Closet

I’d been searching for this one for so long! (A terrible transfer of the TV cut is on Tubi till the end of the month so now’s your chance, fellow non-USians with VPN accounts.) Was it worth the wait? Not really. It’s like someone was handed a grab-bag of iconic 1980s horror imagery and challenged to make a movie out of it. The results almost work — almost! — but the budget simply isn’t there; it plays more like a forgettable episode of Freddy’s Nightmares than anything else. Shame. More…

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Out of Office set; time to unwind for a bit #aside

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Film review — The Invasion

Some seriously skeevy politics in this fairly dull riff on the Body Snatchers theme that are most certainly magnified through the lens of these pandemic years. But Nicole Kidman looks great and Daniel Craig has a funny haircut so it’s not all bad. Apparently I watched this in 2017 but I have zero recollection. Maybe I’ve been snatched… More…

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Film review — Sphere

Thought you were gonna get a blockbuster underwater sci-fi thriller? Think again! It’s a bait-and-switch psychological hodge-podge that gets utterly lost in search of an ending. Never got around to seeing it at the time and I now remember why. More…

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This is pretty cool: Bandcamp Daily have a story up about an Irish band and they’ve posted it with a translation as Gaeilge. Níl aon focal agam but I won’t let that stop me sharing it > daily.bandcamp.com #aside

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Okay, I’m an induction hob convert. This thing is like magic #aside

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Film review — Versus

Twenty-three-odd years after walking out of a screening at the Irish Film Institute in utter boredom and I can finally say I’ve seen all of Versus. And I didn’t miss all that much. It’s still a samey cavalcade with flashes of ultraviolence punctuating extended segments of nothing. Think “Shadowrun nerds LARP in the park” and you’ve got the idea. The ambition is there, for sure, but it looks and feels both tiresomely self-indulgent and really, really cheap. Supposedly it wasn’t actually shot on DV but it sure as hell looks like it. More…

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Film review — Rat Scratch Fever

This isn’t a ‘good’ movie by any stretch, but it’s clearly made by someone who cares about what they’re making, leaning into the zero-budget aesthetics (from tabletop gaming miniatures to the gloriously OTT gloopy gore effects) without taking the piss or any other pretense that they’re above the material. That much I can appreciate. More…

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Gah, missed most of this year’s 24-Hour Horror Movie Mind Melter because I wasn’t following the right Twitch channel and didn’t get any notifications! Ah well, would’ve needed Monday off to recover anyway #aside

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Just learned that Dikembe Mutombo died earlier this week. He was only 58. I’m not a basketball guy and you may not be either, but if you’re my age, you probably played him in NBA Jam #aside

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Lidl were sold out of Football Special so I ordered a case online and… it’s grand. Like red lemonade mixed with cola, or a milder Irn-Bru. It’s no Dr Pepper or root beer, the kings of soft drinks, but I’ll take it #aside

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The crows and rooks outside are going nuts ’cause there’s a hawk with an entire pigeon in its talons trying to make a quick getaway #aside

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Rescued a frog from the back garden a little while ago; little thing covered its eyes when I picked it up like “Ahhhhh!” #aside

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Film review — Nemesis

No way the Wachowskis didn’t take inspiration from this one. Also, there are so many fuckin’ guns here. Like, a preposterous number and variety of guns. Albert Pyun must have been at the prop warehouse yelling “Gimme all ya got!” More…

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Limited-edition reissue of Double Nickels on Coke-bottle clear vinyl? I’ll be having that thanks very much #aside

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Had to knock off work early today (I wanted to pull all the teeth out of my mouth) but catching up on the Geoguessr World Cup is making me feel better #aside

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Aldi changed their cola bottles that used to be vegan with that lovely mushy texture and now they’re just bog-standard chewy gelatine ones, bleh #aside

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Just saw the trailer for the Smile sequel and boy, they really turned that one up to 11, didn’t they? #aside

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Just renewed my website’s SSL cert for another year. I made it easier on myself by remembering to keep a step-by-step guide, but what a convoluted process this is! #aside

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Randomly checked the site where I got my trail runners a few months ago; saw they’re having a sale and bought another pair. You never know, right? #aside

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I have been outside. Despite the dew point not matching the temperature, it is very humid #aside

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RIP to Sid, the master and ruler of the world #aside

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#NowPlaying Melt-Banana - 3+5 (the new album, their first in over a decade, and it’s a great one) #aside

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Right, that’s the Dutch Grand Prix done; now for six hours of wrestling live from Wembley #aside

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This same realisation may or may not have induced me to panic-buy a complete DVD set of DS9 #aside

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This came to mind upon seeing an ad on YouTube with a clip from Stranger Things and realising I’ve never seen even a minute of an episode, and most likely never will, I have almost zero frame of reference for it, and that’s the way things are now #aside

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Remember, in The Old Days, you’d click around channels on your TV and maybe happen upon a series you’d heard about but never caught when the hype was big and you watch for a few minutes to see if it’s for you, and maybe you’d do that a few times and discover things you ended up loving? Yeah, that kind of thing does NOT happen anymore #aside

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Film review — Cannonball

The story goes that after the success of Death Race 2000, Roger Corman asked Paul Bartel to make another car picture, but this time more ‘real’. Bartel had no interest but he needed the money, hence this rehash that strips out the dystopian setting and vicious satire — as well as the gore and mean spirit — for a lighter action jape across America, loaded with cameos and familiar faces and one especially witty scene (Bartel’s favourite, as it happens) where the director plays a Cole Porter pastiche on the piano while Dick Miller gets the shit kicked out of him. More…

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