NEW IRISH MOVIES

Is nothing beyond the reach of the Politically Correct brigade these days? Heck, you can’t even make a film featuring a few stereotypical paddies falling around the place after a few scoops too many.  Or can you?

The Sunday Times reports on Grabbers, a movie set on an island off the coast of Ireland where the locals realise the only way to save themselves from an invasion of blood-sucking creatures is to get stocious drunk.

Apparently, the Irish Film Board has a sense of humour because it has given €480,000 towards the horror-comedy production that carries the tagline: “In 1759 Guinness invented the pint. In 2011, it’ll save their lives.”

“One of the great things about being Irish is we have a sense of humour about ourselves and our perceived reputation,” said Kevin Lehane, a script-writer from Cork who wrote Grabbers. “I don’t think anybody gets offended when The Simpsons or Family Guy poke fun at us, as we know, it’s all in good fun.”

A film board spokeswoman described it as “a funny Irish horror film that we hope will resonate with audiences both in Ireland and abroad”.

Separately, the same newspaper reports that Brendan Gleeson looks like he has finally secured the €1m he needed to make an adaptation of Flann O’Brien’s classic novel At Swim-Two-Birds.

The movie, which will feature Colin Farrell, Gabriel Byrne and Cillian Murphy as well as Gleeson, is the first to receive seven-figure support from the film board since the downturn.

The movie is Gleeson’s first script and the actor had been hawking it around for four years before the film board came up with the goods. Production of the €8m movie is expected to begin early next year.