With no more films on in Limerick that I could make and that I was interested in, I checked what was on in Ennis, for yesterday - and lo, The Father is on there, also in the afternoon. This is one that did really well in the Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Anthony Hopkins, who plays the title role of a man developing dementia (the theme of the weekend, evidently), and a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Olivia Coleman, who plays his daughter. Also nominated for best picture, best film editing, and best production design. Sounded worth seeing - again, I was the first person to have booked, and this time they blocked out six seats around me! I'll say something for social distancing - it'll make it a lot less annoying to be in the cinema when others in the audience are eating popcorn! Four more seats were booked by the time I left, with all seats immediately around them blocked. More expensive than Saturday's, and with a booking fee, but hey..
I set off with a little time to spare - but what with slow-moving traffic and trouble parking, I didn't have any to spare at all! As I say, this cinema has no parking adjacent - I headed for the Abbey Street car park, which is the closest. Really summery vibe there, with all the outside tables, people sat eating and drinking at them - of course, this is because they're not yet allowed inside. Plus, it meant the car park was packed! I was really lucky to get a space - someone pulled out just as I was doing a circuit of the car park and about to give up. Then I got lost on the way to the cinema - and had to navigate some serious roadworks on Parnell Street, where the cinema is. They seem to be doing a complete excavation. I finally reached the cinema just at showing time!
A hand sanitiser in the lobby turned out to be empty. I'd never been in here before, so had to figure out that the business end of the cinema was upstairs - there is also a lift. At the top, the one-way system - roped off - took me past the concession stands, where I wasn't going to stop, except that the girl behind the counter asked whether I'd prebooked. Eh, yes. So she asked what my booking number was, and she'd print off my ticket (ironically, although Saturday's QR code didn't come through but this showing's did, they don't have scanners here). So I got a physical ticket, which the guy at the ticket desk tore, and in I went.
An ad for Top Gun: Maverick entertained me - again ironically, I saw something about the original film recently. In this sequel, Tom Cruise is still a US Navy fighter pilot - amazingly successful, but enough of a, well, maverick not to have been promoted. Otherwise, I guess it's more of the same. I loved the original - might well check this one out (it's not due till next winter).
And so to the feature. Another film about dementia, but so different - this is much more of a puzzle, filmed, as it is, from the old man's point of view! So we get to know his daughter - then suddenly, in one scene, another woman entirely seems to assume the role, and we're as confused as he is! She's married to Rufus Sewell - or maybe not. She spends one scene explaining to her father how important it is for her to go to Paris to live with the man she loves - and in another scene, looks completely perplexed when he mentions the same.
It's obviously a representation of his own confusion, and how he gets facts and times mixed up. But it turns into a helluva conundrum, as he keeps leaving his bedroom to find people he doesn't know - and it's a real test for the audience as well, trying to keep the story straight, until we get a kind of conclusion at the end. And it is a sad ending - but this is in no way as much a weepie as Supernova. A tour de force by the ever-charismatic Anthony Hopkins, with the able support of Olivia Colman, looking suitably bewildered as her father comes out with ever-stranger statements.
Afterwards, I did have it in mind to check out Supermac's. Now, that's somewhere I really hadn't been in ages - in fact, I don't think I'd been since I moved to London! (It's not in the UK.) Jeez, but I used to love their cheeseburgers. I moseyed down Parnell Street, which has always had a selection of restaurants - and still does. Again, most had outside seating, most of that under marquees. I decided fairly quickly, though, that I wasn't in the mood for anything major. And I was really, really curious about those cheeseburgers. So I looked up where Supermac's was, and made my way there. Again, a one-way system - and in the short queue, I checked that yes, they still do cheeseburgers. So I ordered one, and waited in the waiting area on the other side. It wasn't long - I took it away with me, ate it on the way back to the car: and DING DING DING! Yes, after all these years, that sauce is as great as ever.. and they do give you plenty of it; it got everywhere.
I'll tell you this though, all those people eating and drinking outside left an impression on me. I don't think it'll be too long before I'm eating out properly. As to eating indoors - it'll first be available to those with digital covid certificates, available to the fully vaccinated, and those who can prove they've recovered from Covid. Watch this space - still waiting for mine. Mind you, driving back, caught in a downpour as I was, I was glad I hadn't eaten at that one restaurant that had uncovered tables and chairs outside..
Last night, I had work to do for an early morning meeting - so no time to blog. Nor during the day, it was so insanely busy! This afternoon, with a gap in what was on tv (which I tend to have on in the background), I turned to the St. Patrick's Festival website again, for something quick to watch. Next up was The Hill of Uisneach Tour, in which we are led around a sacred Neolithic site in the centre of Ireland, as we are instructed. Packed with legend and superstition, it's interesting - yes though, that large statue he passes is contemporary.
More interesting yet to me, though, was the 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour - an atmospheric tour around relevant sites in Dublin, with lots of anecdotes that I hadn't heard. A most welcome distraction from all the **** I had to put up with at work.
For Saturday, well, Cultureseekers will have another quiz, but it hasn't been announced yet. Or there's the St. Patrick's Festival website..
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