Very Extremely Dangeous

Very Extremely Dangerous - une film de Paul Duane

The trailer for Paul (Barbaric Genius) Duane's new documentary on the very extremely dangerous Jerry McGill. It is currently doing the round of film festivals. Watch the trailer right to the end, where we here Paul's laconic cool shatter as he sees his final end and cries out like a Yankee -  "Jesus Christ, Jerry!"

Looking forward to seeing the whole film.

Grass grew on The Grass Arena

Just finished watching Paul Duane's intriguing and revealing documentary about the author of The Grass Arena - one of the starkest memoirs I have read of life on society's edge. The memoir tells of his life as an Irish immigrant with a violent father, as a boxer, a wino, a convict and then remarkably as a chess prodigy in his thirties, a game he learnt in prison.

The film is called John Healy - You Have Been Warned, although it has an alternate, and more poetic title Barbaric Genius.

The Rocky Road To Dublin

Review for Film Ireland - original post - Friday, April 07, 2006

The Rocky Road To Dublin
DIR/WRI: Peter Lennon • PROD: Victor Herbert • DOP: Raoul Coutard • ED: Lila Bird
What do you do with your revolution? I have long been aware of the almost mythical status of Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin and like almost everyone had seen the Father Michael Cleary excerpts around the time of that particular clerical scandal (now it seems a mere innocent indiscretion). As with any film that has been trumpeted in advance I approached it with some trepidation - almost expecting to be dissappointed. I wasn't. This film is, I feel, both an important, evocative document of an Ireland that has passed away, and a starting point for an examination of Ireland today. Watching it while the continued clerical control of the National Schools has finally become the subject of Dáil debate it seems that we have hardly changed.