Ugh, in the last year and a half I've only posted once. With the move to Ireland, starting a new job, and then using too much Google+, I forgot about this blog thing.

So, to start with something easy, I'll tell you about some films I watched recently. This weekend I had a marathon of films, after sometime without watching any, I watched two at home and two at my favourite cinema in Dublin: the IFI, which I recommend to anyone living here.

First, on Friday, I watched Brazil, the 1985 classic from Terry Gilliam. It was a long overdue obligation to watch it, and some discussions with a friend about cinema made me finally do it. It was an amazing film. Among the many memorable scenes, and cinephile winks, I liked the one copying the famous Odessa steps sequence. The problems related to its US release reminded me a bit of the problems with the edition of Touch of evil, although in the case of Brazil, what the big studio did to the film was to butcher it.

On Saturday I continued on the Gilliam streak and re-watched 12 Monkeys, which I had forgotten completely. Another great film, with a clearly bigger budget, it does not rely on the money but in the plot, art, and acting to be memorable. Also, I love the main theme, a tune from Astor Piazzolla called "Suite Punta del Este".

Just after finishing the film, I read that some people from the local Couch Surfing group were meeting at the IFI to see one of the many features of the Polish film festival that took place this weekend. So I went and saw A short film about killing, a powerful and shocking movie about the death penalty. Considered by many to be one of the most horrifying depictions of a killing (two, in fact), it didn't shock me as much as some other films had done, maybe it was because of the cinema overdose... Anyway, it was another must-see. IMDB asserts that the Polish government suspended the death penalty in Poland for five years after the release of this film, but I could not find sources to confirm this.

This morning I woke up pretty early, which is completely uncommon for me on a Sunday. So I decided to use the tickets offered by the IFI for a pre-screening that I had assumed I would not use, since I had to be in the cinema at 11! This time it was an Irish documentary about Bernadette Devlin, called Bernadette: Notes on a political journey. It was really interesting, even if I had never heard about this important figure of Ulster politics in the sixties. Sadly, because of my ignorance on the topic (and some northern accents that I have trouble understanding), I missed many parts of the film. In any case, it has increased my appetite to know more about the Troubles, which had started when I visited the Republican neighbourhood of Belfast, specially Falls road.