POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR: "THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN" and What's Making Us Happy

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in another Martin McDonagh joint. (Fox Searchlight)

I was happy to join Bedatri D. Choudhury and host Stephen Thompson on Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk The Banshees of Inisherin, playright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh’s latest feature. I was one of the few defenders of his prior film the highly divisive Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri five years ago, but I was mostly here as a stan for McDonagh’s plays, which are what Inisherin recalls far more than any of his prior movies. My reviews of some of his plays seem to have blinked out of existence, but I reviewed Constellation’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in 2015, and Keegan’s The Lonesome West and Forum’s The Pillowman, both in 2016. When we got to the What’s Making Me Happy segment, I had several good candidates, but I chose — defaulted, really — the most Irish of them. Because McDonagh.

I went with the Most Irish of my Happy candidates on today's INISHERIN-themed @pchh, but: QT's CINEMA SPECULATION, Bechdel's THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, & on @criterionchannl BLACULA & THE FAN*.

*scenes wherein Lauren Bacall rasps her way through Broadway rehearsals only pic.twitter.com/UHO8blcQ7D

— Chris Klimek (@ctklimek) November 4, 2022

Hat's all, Folks: Live By Night, reviewed.

Elle Fanning and Ben Affleck face off. (Claire Folger/Warner Bros.)

My NPR review of Live By Night, writer/producer/director/star Ben Affleck's second adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel, is here. It aspires to be a sweeping period gangster film in the tradition of The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in America, Miller's Crossing, and so many others, but it tries to bite off too much of Lehane's book to really resonate. It's the weakest of the four films Affleck has directed. Too bad.