Thompson is still a restlessly curious, active musician, and a raucous one live: his shows often have the power and fervour of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He’s worked with Werner Herzog and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and kept busy in the pandemic, releasing two EPs (
Bloody Noses and
Live from London), and doing live streams from home for the Royal Albert Hall. An eight-CD box set compilation of all his work, including demos and rarities, with Linda,
Hard Luck Stories, was released in October; he also recorded a Christmas message for his local venue wearing a Santa hat.
Bloodlands is more restrained, but trust me, it serves up a couple of lethal doozies.
Although you can follow the action without knowing the historical backstory, it helps to remember the basics. Starting in the late 1960s, Northern Ireland lived through a de-facto civil war between Catholics and Protestants, and the violence killed many thousands of its citizens. The conflict ran until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which brought about an uneasy peace in a small, intimate land where nobody was left untouched by bloodshed.
Bloodlands begins 20 years after this truce when a car is fished from Strangford Lough with what seems to be a suicide note in it. Assigned to the case is bottled-up police detective Tom Brannick (James Nesbitt) and his partner Niamh well-played by the sympathetically offbeat Charlene McKenna. Tom spots a connection between this note and an unsolved case and not just
SYNOPSIS:
Private investigator Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is asked by his old pal Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) for a ride to Mexico. He obliges, and when he returns to Los Angeles is questioned by police about the death of Terry’s wife…
The cat. A feature of many memorable moments in cinema.
Alien and
Inside Llewyn Davis immediately come to mind. The tabby-cat seen in
The Long Goodbye joins the ranks of unforgettable feline friends. Our introduction to Elliot Gould’s mumbling, loner Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is, as he’s woken at 3am, by his meowing, hungry, cat. Interestingly, in the source novel, Marlowe has no pets. Roger Ebert explains that this disposable sequence “establishes Marlowe as a man who is more loyal to his cat than anyone is to him”. Clearly,
THIS WEEK’S MOVIES A-Z
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Bloodlands Review: Thriller Doesn t Trivialize Northern Ireland s Troubles : NPR npr.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from npr.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.