{"id":268778,"date":"2026-02-01T14:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/268778\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T14:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:07:10","slug":"is-this-thing-on-nouvelle-vague-primate-and-rabbit-trap-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/268778\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This Thing On?, Nouvelle Vague, Primate and Rabbit Trap \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is This Thing On? \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Directed by Bradley Cooper. Starring Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day, Bradley Cooper, Christine Ebersole, Ciar\u00e1n Hinds. 15A cert, gen release, 121 min<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Cooper translates an origin story for Liverpool comic John Bishop to the unlikely surroundings of New York City. Arnett is the middle-aged Joe who, falling out with his wife (Dern), turns to stand-up comedy for a hobby. This feels like an old-school dramedy for grown-up viewers. They all act their socks off. The conversations have an improvised feel that allows supporting players such as Hinds, as the protagonist\u2019s dad, to properly stretch out. But the loose-limbed screenplay never settles down long enough to explain what exactly went wrong \u2013 and so what might again go right \u2013 in the central relationship. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/28\/is-this-thing-on-review-a-sincerely-felt-origin-story-for-comedian-john-bishop-moved-from-liverpool-to-new-york\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/28\/is-this-thing-on-review-a-sincerely-felt-origin-story-for-comedian-john-bishop-moved-from-liverpool-to-new-york\/\">Full review<\/a> DC<\/p>\n<p>Nouvelle Vague \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Bruno Dreyf\u00fcrst, Benjamin Clery. 12A cert, limited release, 106 min<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Linklater takes on Jean-Luc Godard (Marbeck, uncanny) and the making of Breathless, the French director\u2019s feature debut, in a project that bustles with the choppy energy of the titular new wave. The movement was, for all the adherents\u2019 Marxism, shamelessly in thrall to American popular culture. Linklater repays the debt in a beautiful film that eschews granular analysis for a broad celebration of Frenchness at its most proudly awkward. Sure, this version of the French capital is no less idealised than that in An American in Paris. But even the snootiest cineaste is allowed a moment of escapism. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/29\/nouvelle-vague-review-richard-linklaters-love-letter-to-an-iconic-era-of-french-cinema\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/29\/nouvelle-vague-review-richard-linklaters-love-letter-to-an-iconic-era-of-french-cinema\/\">Full review<\/a> DC<\/p>\n<p>Primate \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Directed by Johannes Roberts. Starring Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter. 16 cert, gen release, 89 min<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Move over, elevated horror. Following hot on the heels of Anaconda and Dangerous Animals, Johannes Roberts adds to the voguish new canon of creature features with this cheerfully disreputable slasher about a rabid chimpanzee running amok among affluent and nubile American youth. It makes no grand claims for itself, gestures briefly at ethical complexity, then pegs it towards efficient, blood-soaked mayhem. There are moments of wit, however, particularly the well-flagged stupidity of two late-arriving frat boys, and one carefully staged sequence involving a deaf father (a welcome Hollywood role for the Coda Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur). Monkey see evil, monkey do evil. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/28\/primate-review-johannes-roberts-creature-feature-offers-joyfully-disposable-entertainment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/28\/primate-review-johannes-roberts-creature-feature-offers-joyfully-disposable-entertainment\/\">Full review<\/a> TB<\/p>\n<p>Rabbit Trap \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Directed by Bryn Chainey. Starring Dev Patel, Rosy McEwen, Jade Croot. 15A cert, gen release, 87 min<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Chainey\u2019s stylish psychological horror arrives wrapped in the commendable swagger of a debut that knows how it wants to feel. Set in the Welsh countryside in 1976, the film follows Darcy (Patel) and Daphne (McEwen) as they retreat to a remote farmhouse to record the natural world. Any sense of idyll is dispelled when they encounter a strange child (Croot). Technically, Rabbit Trap is assured, particularly in its dense sound design. Emotionally, though, it remains hollow. For all its atmosphere, this is folk horror that makes the ears twitch yet rarely finds a way under the skin. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/29\/rabbit-trap-review-folk-horror-that-makes-the-ears-twitch-but-raises-few-goosebumps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/film\/review\/2026\/01\/29\/rabbit-trap-review-folk-horror-that-makes-the-ears-twitch-but-raises-few-goosebumps\/\">Full review<\/a> TB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is This Thing On? \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 Directed by Bradley Cooper. Starring Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day, Bradley Cooper,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[10841,39094,146,85,46,6404,140234,7213,397,6406,92217],"class_list":["post-268778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bradley-cooper","tag-dev-patel","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jean-luc-godard","tag-john-bishop","tag-laura-dern","tag-movies","tag-richard-linklater","tag-will-arnett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}