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THE BEAR: GARY (SPECIAL EPISODE) For a TV show about the restaurant business, it seems fitting that the creators of 'The Bear' have given us an appetiser for the final season. 'Gary' is a prequel of sorts for the Chicago based drama about a sandwich joint that becomes a fine dining restaurant. How consequential the appetiser is will only really be understood once the final season of 'The Bear' is devoured by fans on FX, Hulu and Disney+. But how does 'Gary' fare as a standalone episode of the show? 'Gary' centres on a road trip from Chicago to Gary, Indiana by Ebon Moss-Bacharach's Richie Jerimovich and Jon Bernthal's Mikey Berzatto. Set in the days when Mikey ran The Bear before taking his own life, it fills in some of the blanks about the big brother of Jeremy Allen White's Carmy Berzatto. Asked by Oliver Platt's Uncle Jimmy to deliver to Gary a box whose contents are not disclosed to them, we see Richie pack a handgun just in c...

BACKROOMS And now for something very creepy. 'Backrooms' is a psychological horror sci-fi film whose characters discover a secret passage into another world in a retail park furniture store. From the fevered imagination of 21 year old You Tube filmmaker Kane Parsons, it is based on a concept he developed into a web series where viewers watched "found footage" of characters exploring distorted, mostly vacant rooms. The 'Backrooms' web series he created in 2022 attracted a cult following and over 24 episodes became a "creepypasta" -  the name given to a cult online horror series that inspires its own lore. In the film version, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, the owner of a pirate themed furniture warehouse in a largely ignored retail park that you suspect has seen better days. Early on, we learn Clark is a failed architect whose marriage has fallen apart due to his drinking. Visiting Renate Reinsve's therapist Dr Mary Kline, she encourages him to rol...

THE DRY, S3 Some hit TV shows know exactly when to leave. Others overstay their welcome. But could the third and final series of  RTE and ITV's 'The Dry'  be a case of a show wrapping up too soon? For two seasons, Nancy Harris' eight part comedy drama about a dysfunctional Dublin family has really impressed. Centred around Roisin Gallagher's alcoholic eldest daughter Shiv Sheridan, Harris and her director Paddy Breatnach have delighted in showing why she's became an addict and just how screwed up and cruel other members of her family reallyare. Treated as the family screw up, Shiv might be a damaged soul but is she really any worse than her insensitive, hard drinking mother Pom Boyd's Bernie? Her laid back dad, Ciaran Hinds' Tom haa an affair with Helene Patarot's Mina and is subsequently punished by Bernie who forces him to live in a hut in the back garden of the family home while she flaunts her new lover, Michael McElhatton's odious, arrogant,...

  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...