The Morrigan review – spirit of pagan demon queen unleashed in Irish burial chamber horror

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Archaeologists blunder into an ancient and unwittingly release a vengeful monster – with predictable and conventional results In Irish folklore, the Morrígan is a powerful goddess of death and war. This horror movie imagines her as an actual historical figure: a pagan queen massacred with her followers by Christians. A quick scene at the start of the film shows the dirty deed. The Morrígan’s rage against misogyny has screamed down through the centuries – so it’s a shame the film frames her not as a feminist icon but a highly conventional horror movie nemesis; a malign vengeful female to be crushed and destroyed. There is nothing to punch the air about in the end. Saffron Burrows plays an archaeologist called Fiona who has been repeatedly passed over for tenure at her US university. When Fiona presents her radical theory that the myth of the Morrígan may have a basis in real life, her slippery colleague Jonathan (Jonathan Forbes) is made the lead on the dig. Fiona is forced to bring al...
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Old Dads review – Bill Burr’s angry, unfunny Netflix comedy

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The comedian makes his directorial debut with a bitter misfire about three older fathers railing against political correctness

Judd Apatow has spent much of the twenty-first century showing America how dudes become men, his films built coming-of-age-like narratives for overgrown juveniles well into legal adulthood. In Knocked Up, Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd respectively modeled irresponsibility for twenty and thirtysomethings, and with This is 40, Rudd’s character stared down the barrel of middle age; in all cases, they arrived at the crucial realization that they need to stop clinging to vestiges of immaturity so they can provide for the people they care about. For these schlubs, the desire to stay young forever meant smoking weed during the daytime, bumping Wu-Tang with your friends and going to rock shows without getting your wife’s permission. For an ensemble in their 50s, however, rejecting the onward march of time becomes a far dicier proposition.

In Bill Burr’s dire directorial debut Old Dads, our boys Jack (Burr), Connor (Bobby Cannavale), and Mike (Bokeem Woodbine) mostly pine for the past as a golden age when they could get away with anything, before wokeness came in and started pussifying all the alpha males. They literally deal in masculine nostalgia, as the cofounders of a throwback jersey retailer they’ve just sold to a dweeby millennial CEO (Miles Robbins) who will soon use cancel culture to oust them after they’re caught on a mic deadnaming Caitlyn Jenner. Fresh out of a job and each saddled with the duties of a different stage of parenthood, they must adapt or face the prospect of a long, cold and lonely future, a greying Apatovian rehash right down to the wake-up-call Vegas road trip nicked from Knocked Up’s second act. Of course they’ll get their collective act together, but they will not be happy about it, and as they continue to rail against a tolerant present they eventually succumb to rather than accept, neither will we.

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