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AT ROUGHLY THE same time last year, just before my wife, son and I travelled back to Boston, I compiled a list of 10 movies in this space that I planned to inflict on family and friends while relaxing in my frigid home town.
As I said then, my tastes are far from refined. The reaction to my choices was decidedly mixed.
After perusing the comments and social media posts, however, I realised that there were at least 10 others that make for awesome viewing – in my humble opinion – on the halcyon days sandwiched between Christmas and New Year’s that seem designed for doing as little as possible.
Although we’re staying in Wicklow in 2022, here goes again, in no particular order.
Let’s forget the debate as to whether this action-packed thriller, starring Bruce Willis as John McClane trying to rescue his wife and her colleagues from terrorists in Nakatomi Plaza, is a Christmas film. Regardless, it’s brilliant.
There are plenty of great scenes and some memorable lines.
As for the latter, the pathetic Harry Ellis’s attempt to negotiate with the men holding him hostage – “Business is business, you use a gun, I use a fountain pen, what’s the difference, am I right?”
And the retort of one FBI agent to a colleague who shouted that their helicopter ride was similar to a tour of duty in Vietnam – “I was in junior high, d**khead” – are gems.
Die Hard 2 is pretty damn good, too.
To most, the legendary Jimmy Stewart will eternally be synonymous with It’s a Wonderful Life, but he is superb in this 1939 classic, considered one of the best political motion pictures ever made.
Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, a totally naïve boy scout-type who is appointed to a vacant seat in the United States Senate and battles endemic corruption.
Countless advocates for political reform have since argued that Capitol Hill needs a senator like him.
I’ll never understand why this oft-repeated, annual cable television staple in the US never really caught on elsewhere.
It recounts the 1940s childhood of nine-year-old Ralph Parker, who frenziedly wants a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle from Santa.
Poor Ralphie is told by nearly everyone: “You’ll shoot your eye out.”
This central element of the plot is supplemented well with instances of hilarity, including the protagonist’s father’s obsession with a risqué lamp, fights with schoolyard bullies and a “triple dog dare” that leaves a young boy with his tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole.
Eddie Murphy – Prince Akeem from the fictional African nation of Zamunda – provides a comic masterclass in this unlikely fantasy in which a royal eschews an arranged marriage in favour of working at McDowell’s (a fast food rip-off of McDonald’s) in the Queens borough of New York and finds love with the owner’s daughter, who had been courted by a rather ridiculous suiter, Eriq La Salle, of subsequent ER fame.
Murphy, along with talk show host Arsenio Hall, played multiple diverse characters to uproarious effect throughout.
It may engender the ire of some critics, but this 1993 film featuring Harrison Ford as Dr Richard Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy US Marshal Samuel Gerard is, to me, one of the few productions of recent decades that warrants the epic moniker.
The acting is terrific. It is beautifully shot and captures the essence of Chicago.
And while the pursuit of Dr Kimble, convicted of his wife’s murder, is far-fetched in certain respects – for instance, how does he, when cornered by Deputy Gerard, survive jumping hundreds of feet off a dam into flowing rapids? – The Fugitive is still believable enough to be gripping from start to finish.
Remaining in the environs of the Windy City, this romanticised, delightfully over the top portrayal of Ferris (by a young Matthew Broderick) and friends “playing hooky” or “mitching” – depending on which side of the Atlantic one hails from – at a suburban high school is relentlessly entertaining.
I will always think the phone call from the kooky Cameron, pretending to be a bereaved Mr Peterson, to the hapless principal, Ed Rooney, is the funniest bit. But there are many to choose from. Save Ferris!
Paul Kersey is a mild-mannered New York architect turned vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter raped by robbers who attacked them on their walk home from a grocery store.
Made in the 1970s, when many American cities were plagued by escalating crime rates, Charles Bronson, as Kersey, became something of a folk hero.
And it’s hard not to root for the main character as he methodically eliminates bad guys on the streets of the Big Apple.
Once he is finally apprehended, the police opt not to arrest Kersey and instead forcibly relocate him to the midwest. An incessant series of sequels of declining quality followed the original.
Another violent picture set in New York, this one is directed by and stars Robert DeNiro, whose impressionable son Calogero falls into the company of and is “adopted” by a gangster, Sonny, at the beginning.
DeNiro, a bus driver, is desperate to keep his son from criminality and deeply wary of Sonny, expertly played by Chazz Palminteri.
The best vignette in the middle is when a group of motor bikers, purporting to be gentlemen, come into a neighbourhood bar asking for beers.
Granted entry initially by the locally omnipotent Sonny, their rowdy behaviour results in their being locked in to the establishment, and not in an enviable way. “Now youse can’t leave”, portends the bloody beating they receive.
There is a definite set of ideals that animate – or formerly animated – us lawyers. One of them is that no one is above the law; even the most powerful people in the world can be held to account.
Here, Colonel Nathaniel Jessup ordered a “code red” leading to the death of an allegedly deficient soldier at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
Daniel Kaffee is the military lawyer known for plea bargaining who morphs into a crusader for justice in his defence of the two Marines charged with the killing and takes down Jessup in the process.
In my estimation, Tom Cruise as Kaffee and Jack Nicholson as Jessup both put in the best performance of their careers.
Yes, I am biased. Yet this is among the essential Boston films.
It tells the story of a gifted kid from Southie, a place that has been transformed utterly by gentrification in the intervening period since it attracted wide acclaim in 1997.
Perhaps the dispositive element of the Boston movie genre, for natives anyway, is that those endeavouring to represent the city we adore get our accent right.
Needless to say, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck execute to perfection. And the late Robin Williams, as the mentor to Damon’s Will Hunting, is extraordinary.
Damon bashing the window with his palm and roaring “Do you like apples?” at a Harvard snob is a signature moment.
I’ve already re-watched four of the above movies. Six more to go.
No matter if you see some or none of my favourites, I hope you are enjoying the Christmas holidays and have a fantastic 2023.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with The Journal.
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But…but…but… the news said everyone paid!
So if everyone paid, they still only collected €160million?
And didn’t the ‘water grant’ cost €94 million?
So they actually only collected, and need to refund, €66 million?
How in sweet jaysus was that going to “safe-guard our water network”. I think they were telling porkies!
@Good Early:
How can anyone in this country have respect for Fianna Gael after this embarrassing fiasco? Leonard lying again today in Leinster House after Paul Murphy rightfully demanded an inquiry into the mass perjury by gardai during the “Jobstown” trial. The “thugs” Leonard referred to are himself and his colleagues. They will pay for their corruption at the next general election.
It would be rank hypocrisy for loyal FG and Labour voters to look for a refund. Ye were so vociferous in support of IW, Hogan and Kelly so don’t go looking for it back!
@DaisyChainsaw: But you know they will because that’s the sort of people that support FFG and Liebour.
@DaisyChainsaw:
Totally agree. Some of that money should be used to compensate the victims of the Jobstown stitch-up.
@Frank Cauldhame: that comment has to be a wind up !
@Suzie Sunshine: Oh no it does’nt ! The whole “show” trial was nothing but a pantomime by the establishment to put manners on good citizens who done nothing wrong as was established by the unanimous verdict by a jury of their peers. The victims had to endure 6am dawn raids in front of spouses/children/mothers/fathers/sons/daughters, some lost their jobs, incarceration at garda stations and all were lied about. I’d seek compensation.
Anyone who willingly paid into this corrupt scam and cheer led it on deserves nothing. The half wits should have stood in solidarity with the rest of the population that had the intelligence to see this corrupt, fake billing company for what it was.
@Ronan Sexton: You couldn’t sell your house without paying it. Do you think people should put their lives on hold over a very small charge?
@Ronan Sexton: we were forced to pay in order for the sale of our apartment to go through. There was legislation that wouldnt allow the sale to go through with outstanding property tax and a water bill. So we were forced to pay it. A refund would be lovely. I was forced to pay it
I said “willingly” Words are important.
@Ronan Sexton: So are you going to stand and judge who should get a refund? How much should we spend figuring out who is worthy of a refund?
@Kal Ipers: Which was an absolute lie it turned out. The barrister in the Land Registry said it was a charge on a property that has no basis in Irish Land Law.
It turns out that the Land Reg would never even ask for proof of payment or registration. To put a charge on a property there’s a lengthy process you would have to go through.
So, unless Irish Water were to take someone who was selling their house, to court, claiming they didn’t register, and the judge agreed, THEN a charge could be placed on the property stopping the sale, and this would be registered by Irish Water with the Land Registry.
Since no such legal charge was placed, it was absolutely lawful for anyone to sell their property without registration.
The government basically got solicitors to go along with the scam. Shows how inept they are if they didn’t read up the law on it.
Go figure. They lied.
@Kal Ipers: Jaysus, a simple tick the “I willingly paid into this blatantly obvious corrupt scam” box or the “I was forced to pay into this blatantly obvious corrupt scam” box would do the trick.
@Kal Ipers: And that came for Liz Pope. The head of the Property Registration Authority Ireland
@Good Early: You really don’t know what you are talking about. Just because a barrister said that doesn’t mean you can ignore it. You would have had to fight it in court and/or your solicitor. You had to pay it to sell in the real world
@Kal Ipers: If the head of the Property Registration Authority says it, it is true. I work there ya numpty!
There are also Constitutional issues regarding a private company, or even the government, neither of which are party to the sale, interfering on such a level. The only way it could be done, is if it was a tax by the government. If it wasn’t paid they could put a lien, via the court, on your property. But it’s not.
Just because something is legislated for, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s lawful, or enforceable. According to the Land Registry, if ANYONE, had of challenged the legality of it, it would have be knocked in a second.
Again, this was a typical case of “if it looks real, and the people believe it, so be it”. It was a bit like saying they could garnish your wages, even though there is no legal basis in Ireland, from which they could do so.
@Good Early: Yet nobody did challenge it because in the actual world where you are selling your house delays are not what you want. In the real world you had to pay it even if it was just for convenience. Doesn’t matter a damn what a barrister says about it until there is a challenge to assert it.
@Kal Ipers: Fair enough. But my point is, your buddies in Fine Gael were caught lying, again. Everything they do is underhanded. And then they labelled all of us against this double-tax; terrorists, “sinister fringe” and other such nonsense.
Makes you wonder why know one in the media, and I mean no one, read any of the Acts, and challenged either Phil Hogan or Alan Kelly on the legality of their claims/statements.
One thing working in the PRAI has taught me is that the vast, vast, majority of solicitors who work in conveyancing, haven’t a clue what they are doing! Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the legal framework of the State, when they can’t get a simple form correct.
@Good Early: I think of all politicians are pretty much the same and have no favourite which you obviously do. You didn’t learn not to judge people in your job
Have to say it’s positively wonderful watching Fine Gael eating humble pie.
Ironic benefiting from the actions of water protesters, if you felt the payment was just, forget it ….
They shouldn’t br refunded no way …thwy were told not to pay so let them live without a refund
@Laurence O Neill: Told? Was that by the people threatening workers or the group that stopped people going home from work?
Excuse me if I don’t listen to mobs.
@Kal Ipers: I think he probably meant they were informed of the corrupt scam.
@Ronan Sexton: Didn’t you just say words are important? He didn’t say what you are claiming
@Kal Ipers: Get a life like a good lad.
@Kal Ipers: “probably”
Many people that paid, did so under pressure and scaremongering. It saddened me to hear some people did pay but I completely understand why. Those of us that didn’t must stand together with those that did and not let this divide us.
@Dante Marquinhos:
Elderly folk paid their bills when Big Phil the Fine Gael Bully Boy threatened them with disconnection.
He should be brought back from Europe and dragged through the streets.
@Mark DeFriest: Of course and then consider how far the government were prepared to go. Joan Burton and the Gardaí lying in court. Alan Kelly aggressively pushing water charges, while his brother was buying up water infrastructures all over the world but very few would point out the conflict of interest. Among a myriad of other examples that could be given.
If you still think that Irish Water was not being set up to be privatised, then you are partly whats wrong with this country.
It’s funny they have such a hard time calculating how much should be given back. I’d imagine it’s pretty close to the amount they collected. In the opposite scenario, they’d know well how much they’d be getting and they’d be freely adding millions onto their figures.
Sur what’s a couple of million difference to a grouping of incompetent politicians who manage to quadruple the state debt from 50 billion to 200 billion!
Any news on when Irish Water will be abolished in its entirety.
I don’t mind paying for water (which I am doing currently anyway).
But as a company IW is an unmitigated disaster and needs to close down entirely.
@Colin Morris: ah sure the councils have done a stellar job over the last 30 years
@Colin Morris: We shoud shut down Irish water and fire all of the people in the local authorities who mismanaged our water and sewage systems for decades.
FF FG Liebour destroying the majority to benefit a few. This will continue untill we change it …
The Irish people should done the same thing with the property tax but it is possible !!!
looks like everything bad in the economy is down to the refunding of a 2nd tax which was pretty sneaky considering the plan was to sell off the water company. you (the politicians) caused huge financial penalties(billions on crappy 2nd hand water meters) at a time the contry hadnt a penny now we still havent a penny yet it is our fault???
hard luck pascal can still see through your waffle
Let the Irish Water saga be a lesson to the maggots in leinster House that the vast majority of people will not tolerate being ripped off any longer. The same applies to bin charges and tv licence increases. Its time the pocket stuffing shysters in the Dail realised who they’re employer is.
So how are water services actually being paid for now?
Oh ye, through taxation like allways.
And yet FG Alan sourpuss kelly and big phill wanted us to believe that it wasnt a double tax.
Irish people have thankfully started to see through their lies
Well in fairness they are entitled to a refund but they should not have paid it in the first place and let it up to other people to do their dirty work for them . They should have stood up for the Irish people instead of kissing the Irish governments ass but if they have a conscious they should give it to the homeless as the government is doing nothing at all
Older citizens paid because of all the threats and propaganda and people forced to pay to sell their property .,The rest were sheeple who were not willing to stand up to re-charging of water .If it was possible to separate those who were frightened into paying from those simpering gutless fools who paid without a whimper to get their money back from the super quango Irish Water i would be happy the rest ha ha .Organize a protest to get your money back .
Don’t deserve it.
Fg,FF, labour, corruption has destroyed the country.remove them from local council’s and Leinster house.doesnt matter with who, anything would be better to what we have suffered.
Da bunch of saps da paid should go out and protest for their moola back
Refund should come with a letter of apology, for bullying, threatening, antagonising, stress,anxiety, loss of sleep,blood pressure,arguments it causes coughs ,cold ,flu they cause to poeple marching in the cold wind and rain to stop the complete and utter nonsense of a audi, bonus culture quango called IW
@Ronan Sexton: your very ill informed – I could not sell my house unless I paid up to date my water charges- One of the first things my solicitor asked me!
@Dominick Lodola: Where did I mention anything about selling a house?
Just received a boil notice this evening. Some water
You don’t deserve what the criticism !
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