Tyrone Power had much better known films than The Luck of the Irish during his all-too brief film career (tragically cut short at the age of 44 due to a heart attack) such as The Mark of Zorro, The Razor’s Edge, and Nightmare Alley, but his turn as newspaper man Stephen Fitzgerald romancing a pair of women ably demonstrates that he was a star in spite of what was otherwise silly material better suited for a 1980s sitcom than a vehicle for one of the biggest box office draws of his time. Continue reading “The Luck of the Irish (1948)”
Category: Leprechauns
The Luck of the Irish (2001)
The Luck of the Irish is a made for Disney TV movie whose preachy message of tolerance and diversity is nonchalantly tossed overboard in the final act of the movie so that its conventional fantasy movie plot of recovering a powerful object from the villains can be served.
A lame attempt to rehab things in the final scene by bludgeoning the audience over the head with the star’s ill-advised attempt to make Irish step dancing cool and in one of the more cringeworthy moments in the history of film, then having him sing “This Land is Your Land” while members of the audience join in only serves to possibly explain why you never heard of any of the actors involved ever again. Continue reading “The Luck of the Irish (2001)”
The White Pony (1999)
Unlike a lot of Olivier Gruner films, The White Pony concludes with a climatic dressage competition that sees an evil teenaged girl sabotaging her cousin’s riding equipment, abusing her own horse and whacking her cousin with a riding crop. And also unlike a lot Gruner’s films, he stands around the whole movie with his thumb up his ass while his daughter treats his niece like so many road apples. Okay, to be fair, he does snicker a bit when his niece falls off her horse and lands in a horse pie, but he doesn’t get any credit for that because any of us would have done the same. Continue reading “The White Pony (1999)”
A Very Unlucky Leprechaun (1998)
Molly’s life is full of sad backstory that you normally only find in routine country music songs. Her mom died (a mother’s survival rate in so-called “kid friendly” leprechaun movies like this always approaches zero) and then she is forced to move to an old cursed relative’s home in Ireland because her loser dad Howard can’t seem to sell his newest “how to” book and went and lost their house. Of course, it turns out that there is a significant amount of back taxes owed on the house in Ireland which Howard also can’t afford. Maybe for his next “how to” book Howard should write about the wisdom of staying in America and just renting an apartment. Continue reading “A Very Unlucky Leprechaun (1998)”
The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold (1981)
Is it really possible for a Christmas special not to be the dumbest in the world when everything happens because a sea captain forgets to pack the ship’s Christmas tree for the long holiday voyage? Or that the captain detours his ship to a small island because he saw a tree he liked and orders the obviously learning disabled cabin boy ashore to dig the thing up? Or that said cabin boy continues to dig up the tree even after he sees that the island is full of leprechauns! Continue reading “The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold (1981)”
Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
At the risk of having one of the wee folk put the come hither on me and replace my kids with changelings, I’m going to go ahead and declare that Darby O’Gill And The Little People was nothing so much as a lot of potato-breathed blarney that even an Irishman full of cheap stout could not have enjoyed. Continue reading “Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)”
Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns (1996)
It’s easy to say that Spellbreaker: The Secret of the Leprechauns is like some kind of mediocre wish granted for having endured its puny predecessor, Leapin’ Leprechauns!
If you recall, that film followed an old man and his stowaway leprechaun and fairy friends as he visited his douche son and family in Denver. Douche dad was trying to scam old man into letting him build the Irelandland theme park on Fairy Hill. No one believed old man about the existence of the wee folk at first, but everyone came around eventually.
If you don’t recall any of that, don’t worry because Spellbreaker wastes its first two minutes having douche dad’s creepy son, Mikey, narrate it all, accompanied by flashbacks. This is easily the worst part of Spellbreaker. That’s not really a compliment toward Spellbreaker so much as a reminder of what a pile of pooka droppings Leapin’ Leprechauns! was. Continue reading “Spellbreaker: Secret of the Leprechauns (1996)”