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  POWER BALLAD John Carney's movies have a certain schtick. They're usually about down at heel musicians struggling to make their mark. They tend to be set in Dublin - although occasionally they take place in the US. Carney's films often blend live music with elements of light comedy and relationship drama. And whether it's ' Once ' or ' Sing Street ,' ' Begin Again ' or ' Flora and Son ,' he proves every time be has a formula that clearly works. Carney's films are tremendously entertaining. They're also very funny, heartwarming and very authentic. As someone who played bass in  Glen Hansard's The Frames,  he instinctively understands the struggles of musicians and the dynamics of what it's like to be in a band. His ninth film to hit the big screen is 'Power Ballad' - a low budget $10 million tale about a singer in a wedding band and his betrayal by a former boyband star. Paul Rudd plays Rick Power, a former up and...

DISCLOSURE DAY Great filmmakers are great storytellers, managing to make the most incredible tales seem credible. At the age of 79 and with 35 features under his belt, no-one would dispute Steven Spielberg is a great filmmaker. ' Jaws ,' ' Close Encounters of the Third Kind ,' ' ET: The Extra Terrestrial ,' ' Schindler's List ,' ' Jurassic Park ,' ' Saving Private Ryan ,' ' Munich ,' ' War Horse ' and ' The Post ' are testament to that. But even if you look at Spielberg movies that don't quite hit those heights like ' Duel ,' ' Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom ,' ' Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ' ' Empire of the Sun ,' ' Catch Me If You Can ,' ' Minority Report ,' ' The Terminal ,' ' War of the Worlds ,' ' Ready Player One ' and ' The Fablemans ,' they are all work that other directors would love to have on their CVs. A...

  DEAR ENGLAND Every two years, it's the same. An men's international football tournament kicks off. If a Celtic nation qualifies, they hope to make it beyond the first stage of the tournament and everything from there is a bonus. If England qualifies, well... England expects. Nothing but the last four will do and if England doesn't make it, the manager and the squad gets slaughtered by football pundits, tabloid writers and by some supporters on radio phone-ins and social media. When the World Cup kicks off in Mexico City this Thursday, expect pundits like Gary Neville, Ian Wright, Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton to wax lyrical about the attacking threat of the England team but also fret about whether their defence is strong enough. Expect Scotland fans and their pundits to simply hope their national squad can somehow manage make it through the initial group phase. The pressure on Thomas Tuchel's England team will be immense and if they put in some mediocre performances a...

  THE CAGE Is there any actor working onscreen these days with sadder eyes than Michael Socha's? The ' This is England ' and ' Toxic Town ' actor is brilliantly deployed as a down on his luck, casino employee in Tony Schumacher's latest Liverpudlian drama 'The Cage' and he squeezes every bit of sympathy from us as his  character walks into one disastrous decision after another. Socha's Matty is a decent soul with some kind of magnetic pull towards trouble - a drug addict with a gambling addiction who is stealing from his employer who also happens to have links to organised crime. The thing is Matty's not the only employee who's robbing the casino. Sheridan Smith's struggling mother of two, Leanne is doing it too as she tries to keep her family together. And when she realises Matty's thieving too, they become co-conspirators. The problem, though, is Barry Sloane's thug Gary is laundering drugs money through the casino and is lookin...

  KYLIE Inevitably, a streaming service has a documentary about Kylie Minogue. Why wouldn't they? Celebrity documentaries are surefire hits, with oven ready audiences ready to lap them up. Over the years, we've seen docuseries on  The Beatles ,  David Beckham ,  Charlie Sheen ,  Arnold Schwarzenegger ,  Wham ,  Martin Scorsese ,  Steve Martin  and  Simone Biles . Some are tightly controlled affairs - especially if the subject is executive producing.  Others are bit more loose and revealing Irish filmmaker Michael Harte's three part documentary 'Kylie' has landed on Netflix after the Australian pop singer negotiated a deal with the streaming service on 2024. Like 'Beckham,' which Harte produced, it's never going to wield a cudgel as it pores over her life. You know from the off that in all likelihood, it will paint her in the best possible light. However it feels like a little less controlled, as its subject opens up her archive and ...

  LEGENDS In recent years, Dundee writer Neil Forsyth has been making a name for himself as one of the best television dramatists working in the UK. The creator of the much loved Brian Cox led sitcom ' Bob Servant Independent ,' he caught a lot of critics' attention with the BBC4 television film ' Eric, Ernie and Me ' in which Stephen Tomkinson played the comedy Eddie Braben who worked for Morecambe and Wise. Fellow Scot Mark Bonnar, who played Eric Morecambe in that drama, teamed up with Forsyth again for three series of the dark BBC Scotland comedy drama ' Guilt ' with Jamie Sives, Emun Elliott and Ruth Bradley. A show about two brothers in Leith who get sucked into Edinburgh's underworld after being involved in a hit and run accident, it was both a critical and ratings success. Forsyth further cemented his place as one of British television's best contemporary dramatists with ' The Gold ' on BBC1 with Hugh Bonneville, Emun Elliott, Charlot...