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

Date: May 2021

Really enjoyed Double or Nothing. There are things I would’ve done differently, but they delivered a thoroughly entertaining show #aside

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Film review — Sputnik

This Russian sci-fi horror has a decent premise and appropriately bleak setting and all that, but the execution is half-baked, full of logic holes and worst of all terrifically dull. More…

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Film review — The Doors

This is not a knock on Val Kilmer or the rest of the cast, but two hours of Jim Morrison’s insufferable bullshit is just too much. Still, was nice to see Michael Wincott who is a gentleman and a scholar. More…

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Yeah, sorry not sorry, I’m not having this ‘don’t blame hundreds of people gathering in a small space in the middle of a pandemic’ BS #aside

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It’s Friday, I got a heap of stuff in the post from Asia Market (kimchi ramen!) and I’ve got both My Bloody Valentine analogue remastered LPs. That’s a win for me > @MacDara #aside

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I was hoping to find Sunwatchers in this selection and I wasn’t disappointed > @Bandcamp #aside

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Was just at the shopping centre to pick up something essential and…yeah. Say hello to Lockdown 3 in a few weeks’ time #aside

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Film review — No New Kinda Story: The Real Story of Tooth & Nail Records

DVD extra-standard hagiography of the pioneering US Christian rock label. I would have preferred a deeper examination of its place in the indie label environment and how it straddled the worlds of ‘Christian music’ (as a distinctly US phenomenon) and ‘secular’ rock, punk, hardcore, etc. That it doesn’t even bother to explain what the Cornerstone festival was shows the level we’re at here. I know more now than I did before, sure, but there’s another film to be made here. More…

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Film review — Piercing

You can’t just slap on the themes from Tenebre and Profondo Rosso like it’s the seasoning that makes your dish. Maybe work on the ingredients and their preparation first. More…

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Aaaaand Juno emails in the small hours that the MBV reissues are in stock so of course they’re sold out now > @MacDara #aside

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I don’t remember ever getting hay fever when I was younger; I always had bad sinuses. But the pollen count’s literally gone to my head, ugh #aside

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Just accidentally discovered a bumblebee nest in the back garden. Apparently they’re quite rare to find! #aside

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Got the double LP of Sons of Kemet’s Black to the Future in today’s post. I was worried as it’s major-label vinyl but it sounds pristine #aside

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Film review — Zappa

It’s clearly made by someone (noted Blind Idiot God fan Alex Winter) with a passion for the work. But the presentation seems overly drab and stuffy for a musician whose music has such a zany reputation. Maybe that’s a problem of being too close to the thing, to feel like treating it in anything but the most reverent manner would be too frivolous or inappropriate when the opposite is more likely the case. More…

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Just got confirmation that Jawbox’s London show’s been bumped to June next year > @MacDara #aside

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Film review — The Net

Finally saw the whole thing after half-watching from midway through on Channel 4 one weekday afternoon a million years ago. It’s actually a decent story as these things go, but hangs on a hook so preposterous that it could only have allowed suspension of disbelief if it were set years ahead of right now, let alone 1995. More…

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It’s six whole months since the launch of the Xbox Series X but you still can’t buy one retail in Europe #aside

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Found a woodlouse spider in the bathroom last night. I don’t think I’ve even seen one in the garden before, let alone the house #aside

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Film review — Billy Liar

My 1,500th film logged on Letterboxd, and perhaps not the wisest choice for Sunday night viewing. I feel alienated somewhat from the small-town ennui as Bradford is hardly a small town; I’ve been to smaller places than that in England’s Midlands and there’s a distinctly more connected-to-the-outside-world feel than what you’d often find here in Ireland, even nearly 60 years after this was made. But the world is what you make of it, I suppose. More…

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Soooo… there’s no way these Jawbox shows are happening next month, right? #aside

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Film review — In the Earth

Ben Wheatley essentially remixes A Field in England as a Nigel Kneale-style sci-fi horror for his most interesting project in years. More…

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Just got what I believe to be a spam call from someone purporting to be from Vodafone. Watch out, people #aside

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Never believe a politician when they tell you they’re ‘committed’ to doing anything. Unless they’ve drafted a Bill or they’re passing same, I don’t want to hear it > @rtenews #aside

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Don’t think we haven’t noticed that housing’s only become an issue since people who can get on the ladder found themselves at odds with policy #aside

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Shellac playing two dates in Dublin next April like they’re feckin’ Garth Brooks or something #aside

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The Raheny News is the first zine I ever read, without realising that’s what it was of course > @DublinInquirer #aside

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Looking forward to our refund for the cancelled (at last) NXT UK Dublin show as after all that happened last year, I didn’t want to support it anymore #aside

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Bee found the front basket for my bike that I bought years ago and never used but then I broke the bracket putting it on so I have to get a new one anyway #aside

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Film review — Rawhead Rex

This is genuinely great stuff. Way ahead of its time in being a horror movie that’s set in contemporary Ireland, and which nods to our genuine pre-Christian folklore, without selling to the Yanks with backwards stereotypes. The accents are all over the shop, mind, but I think we can let that slide. More…

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Watching baseball documentaries on Pluto TV because I ran out of things to watch on YouTube #aside

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Film review — Ape vs Monster

Why did I watch this?! It’s an Asylum production so I should have switched it off at the start; it’s a typically dull ‘mockbuster’ of theirs. I do have to say the two main women in the cast are pretty decent, especially given all the heavy lifting they have to do with the double burden of a rotten script and their shockingly poor male co-stars (Eric Roberts excepted, but he’s just there for the payday and the catering). More…

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