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© RTE, ZDF Studios & Sundance Now Forget Ryan Tubridy's earnings . The 'Clean Sweep' beard is the RTE controversy everyone should be talking about. I mean, who in their right mind thought actor Adam Fergus should sport such weird, unnatural looking facial hair? It's so shockingly bad it feels like a breach of human rights. © RTE, ZDF Studios & Sundance Now Haven't a clue what I'm blethering on about? Then feast your eyes on Exhibit A in the photo below. Fergus' beard is the first of many unintentionally comical disguises deployed during 'Clean Sweep' - a relentlessly silly, po faced Irish thriller that for some bizarre reason has been picked up by BBC4.  Over the course of six episodes, Charlene McKenna's middle class mum with a past gets to don some ridiculous outfits. © RTE, ZDF Studios & Sundance Now Early on, she is forced to dress like a garden gnome who's a part time assassin. Later, she manages to spy on detectives investig

© © Universal Pictures After the sea of pink that greeted screenings of ' Barbie ' at the weekend, we now turn to the aroma of popcorn and Lynx. That's because of the overwhelmingly male presence at the IMAX screening  this reviewer attended of Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' at the Banbridge Omniplex. Many of those were teenage boys and that's probably a testament to a marketing campaign blitz that has seen Nolan's bulky biopic go toe to toe with Greta Gerwig's comedy in cinemas around the world. In the end, 'Barbie' took in a staggering $377 million on its opening weekend, while 'Oppenheimer' hoovered up an impressive $174 million in global receipts. © Universal Pictures It was never really in doubt that Gerwig's clever, high camp comedy was always going to outperform Nolan's ambitious, serious talkfest. Nevertheless opening box office receipts of $174 million are not to be sniffed at. It's way and above expectations f

© Netflix, A24, Raw TV, Motive Pictures & Ventureland Ever since Kevin Macdonald's 2003 feature ' Touching the Void ,' documentary filmmakers have had a fascination with sport stars or explorers who will go to dangerous extremes. ' Man On A Wire ,' ' Senna ,' ' Road ,'  Free Solo ,' ' Fire of Love ' and ' Finding Michael ' have documented high wire walking, motor racing, mountaineering and the photographing of erupting volcanoes. Now we can add Irish documentary filmmaker Laura McGann's 'The Deepest Breath' to the list which centres on the dangerous sport of free diving. Acquired by Netflix after it was screened to great acvlaim this year at the Sundance Film Festival, it is a nerve shredding study of a sport where competitors go as deep as they can go into to the darkest parts of the sea without an oxygen tank. © Netflix, A24, Raw TV, Motive Pictures & Ventureland Your nerves are immediately set on edge by a h

© Warner Bros And now from the ridiculous to the sublime. After the extremely silly but hugely enjoyable thrills of ' Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One ' we finally get the most talked about movie of 2023. Ever since the first teaser trailer landed last December for Greta Gerwig's 'Barbie' parodying Stanley Kubrick's ' 2001: A Space Odyssey,' excitement has been bubbling about the film. So much so that it has now reached volcanic levels, thanks to all the ' Blur versus Oasis'   media coverage about it being released on the same day as Christopher Nolan's ' Oppenheimer '. © Warner Bros Such has been the hype that attending a screening of 'Barbie' on its opening day was always going to be memorable. And so it turned out to be at a packed 6pm screening of Gerwig's comedy at the Odeon in Belfast's Victoria Square. An audience of mostly young adults donned pink t-shirts, pink blouses, pink dresses, pink skirts,