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Irish-American Movie Hooley Returns To Gene Siskel Film Center This Weekend

By Howard Ludwig | September 26, 2017 5:10am
 South Side raconteur Mike
South Side raconteur Mike "Houli" Houlihan will again coordinate the Irish-American Movie Hooley this weekend at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
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THE LOOP — The Irish-American Movie Hooley returns to the Gene Siskel Film Center this weekend with three movies and follow-up discussions with the Irish writers and producers behind them.

Mike "Houli" Houlihan is coordinating the third annual film festival at 164 N. State St., which takes its name "Hooley" from the Irish slang for a party. Houlihan also co-hosts "The Skinny and Houli Show" on WCEV-AM (1450) with James "Skinny" Sheahan.

It costs $11 to attend each showing. Students can view the films for $7 each and film center members for $6. Tickets can be bought at the box office or online for an additional $1.50 surcharge.

The movies include:

"The Dunning Man" — Showing at 8 p.m. Friday

The film center describes the film as: "Out of work and jilted by his girlfriend, Connor Ryan returns to his native Atlantic City, tail between his legs, to manage the apartments he owns in a dumpy low-rise complex at the foot of a luxury casino. Based on Kevin Fortuna’s critically acclaimed short story collection, this comedy-drama plumbs the black-humorous depths of Connor’s existential despair when a harried single mother complains of noise, bringing the reluctant landlord face to face with his other freeloading tenants, including a high-living rapper with an active love life and a pair of sinister Chechen animal trainers moonlighting as gangsters."

"Emerald City" — Showing at 8 p.m. Saturday

The film center describes the film as: "The hardscrabble world of a clutch of New York Irish construction workers unfolds in this tale rife with humor, pathos, love and tragedy. Small-time contractor Pat Mack struggles to keep his hard-partying crew focused on his perpetually behind-schedule rehab jobs while hiding the problems with booze, money and the law threatening his marriage. He’s got all the charm of the Irish without the luck, and his guys, including ex-boxer Podge and church-going teetotaler Richard, keep the plot simmering with high drama. Director/writer Colin Broderick, born and raised in County Tyrone, has lived it all, and he fittingly plays Collie, the dreamer who yearns to be a writer. Executive produced by Brendan 'Mr. Bates' Coyle of "Downton Abbey" fame."

"The Young Offenders" — Showing at 5 p.m. Sunday

The film center describes the film as: "This wacky, rough-and-ready comedy, a runaway hit on home shores, is loosely based on the real story of Ireland’s biggest drug bust. Taking exceptional advantage of Cork’s picturesque vistas, it’s a buddy movie with a road-movie caper plot featuring Conor and Jock, a pair of restless lads from the wrong side of the tracks,who nonetheless harbor millionaire dreams. Their naiveté is borne out in a half-baked scheme to ride to the coast on stolen bicycles in search of a bale of cocaine gone missing in a shipwreck. With a ruthless gangster poised at one end of the equation and an obsessed cop who’s in hot pursuit on his bike at the other end, the boys soon find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place."