ElmoOxygen writes:
James Foley’s (At Close Range, Glengarry Glen Ross) first film, as well as Aidan Quinn’s, this flashy, empty, very 80’s movie features Quinn and Daryl Hannah in a midwestern, steel-mill version of Romeo and Juliet. Shot by Fassbinder, Scorsese and Redford’s DP, Michael Ballhaus, and written by Chris Columbus (Gremlins, The Goonies, director of Home Alone 1 and 2, the first two Harry Potter films, and the classic, Bicentennial Man), it is filled to the brim with hideous, yet hilarious dialogue, mostly via setting up “tough guy” Aidan Quinn and his motorcycle antics, who, no matter how old he was at the time, always looks 35, betraying the notion that he’s a high school student. Hannah looks amazing throughout (and nude), with this and Splash, one wonders if she ate at all in 1984. Features a very silly/spazzy/awesome prom dance sequence cut to “I might like you better if we slept together,” no surprise the guy who edited it ended up directing Purple Rain. This movie is the very personification of 80’s MTV. Be happy that you can experience it, because your life would be meaningless without it

1.57GB | 1 h 33 min | 853×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/82B5C69D9063333/Reckless.1984.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post James Foley – Reckless (1984) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Based on Patrick Galvin’s memoir, ‘Song for a Raggy Boy’ is set in the grey, grim surroundings of a brutal Irish reform school in 1939. While the storyline has unmistakable parallels with ‘The Magdalene Sisters’, it deserves more than to be dismissed as this year’s indictment of religious orders.

As the film opens, William Franklin (Quinn) has just been appointed as the only lay teacher at St Jude’s. This central character’s outsider status lets the audience see the enclosed world of the reformatory school through his eyes – and it’s not a pretty sight. The Christian Brothers, particularly the prefect in charge of discipline, Brother John (Glen), use verbal and physical abuse to control and terrorise the children, dehumanising them further by refusing to use their names and calling them by their identification numbers.

Franklin, who fought against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War, is opposed to the blind violence meted out to the boys. In his classes he tries to instil a love of poetry and learning in his students, but soon makes an enemy of Brother John when he interferes in a beating that he is giving new pupil Patrick Delaney (Newman). A defeated man when he arrives at St Jude’s, haunted by memories of his fellow communists and the wife he lost in Spain, Franklin gradually awakens to the boys’ plight and battles against Brother John to save these already damaged children from more harm.

Although the cast of boys was drawn more from boxing clubs than drama schools, their performances are remarkable, in particular Chris Newman and John Travers who plays the tragic Liam Mercier. Brooding widower William Franklin is a step up for Aidan Quinn from his last Irish role in the mawkish ‘Evelyn’ and Ian Glen’s portrayal of the heartless disciplinarian is chilling.

Director Aisling Walsh does not shy away from portraying the physicality of violence – there are moments of sheer brutality and a particularly harrowing scene of sexual abuse at the hands of one of the Brothers – but a happy ending, lifted straight from ‘Dead Poets Society’, is unworthy of what’s gone before.

It’s a tough film to watch but ‘Song for a Raggy Boy’ is a timely and important reminder of the tortures that thousands of Irish children suffered in similar institutions, pointing the finger not only at the perpetrators of violence but at those who facilitated it by their silence

700MB | 1:33:35 | 576*320 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/7A38447E108FDF0/Song.For.A.Raggy.Boy.LiMiTED.DVDRip.XviD-DiAMOND.avi

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Aisling Walsh – Song for a Raggy Boy (2003) first appeared on Cinema of the World.