Something For The Weekend: Terry McMahon's Cultural Picks

Terry McMahon is writer-director of acclaimed Irish feature films Patrick's Day and Charlie Casanova, both available on DVD.

His awards to date include the Director's Guild of America Finders Series Award, Grand Jury Prize at the Woodstock Film Festival, Best Film at the Galway Film Fleadh, the Irish Times Best Film of the Year, the Audience Award at the Cork Film Festival and the Grand Prix at Breaking Down Barriers VIII.

Terry has been awarded the RKO Pictures Hartley-Merrill International Screenwriting Award, the Tiernan MacBride Screenwriting Award, and the Irish Film and Television Award and has lectured in Trinity College, The National Film School, UCC, DIT, Colaiste Dhulaigh, Bow Street, Pulse College, Dundalk IT, The John Huston Film School plus The Casa del Cinema in Rome and The Kino-Teatr in Moscow.

Film: Leon (The Director's Cut)

Remember seeing this in the cinema and knowing nothing about it. As a popcorn movie with heart and balls few films can compare but the complexity of the relationship elevated this to the realm of the gods and the Director's Cut is even better.

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Many years later when Patrick's Day won The Grand Jury Prize at Woodstock Film Festival, Natalie Portman was sitting in the audience in front of me and I couldn't help mentioning such a dubious memory. It was great to see her double over in laughter.

Music: Almighty Love by Damien Dempsey

The voice of the dispossessed Damien Dempsey has yet to make a bad album and, depending on the mood, you can reach for any one of them. When we were making Patrick's Day myself and editor Emer Reynolds were looking for the perfect song to capture the heart of our story. Audiences think Damien's You're The Cure (from his Almighty Love album) was written for the film because it fits so perfectly. He allowed us use three songs for the film and we even physically featured the CD in a scene. His musical contribution is the engine.

Book: Man's Search For Meaning, by Victor E. Frankl

Stumbled across a tattered secondhand copy of this slim volume years ago half presuming it would end up among the pile of other unread books bought to satisfy some pretentious notion of educating oneself out of poverty and loneliness. Thankfully it found its way into my hand and was read in a singe sitting. Paraphrasing here but remember reading something like, 'Live your life as if you've already made the mistake that you are about to make and this is your second chance.' My fragile, lonely mind was blown.

Theatre: Quietly, by Owen McCafferty

At the world premiere of this a few years ago in Dublin's Abbey Theatre the audience seemed confounded by what they had witnessed but I believed we had just witnessed something stunning and, alone, among polite applause, I stood up and applauded like a madman on ecstasy. The play ran for a short time here and would have been forgotten except for the Edinburgh Festival. The Scots saw it and loved it. Then it was brought to New York and they lost their shit over it. A modern masterpiece Quietly is screaming out to made into a movie.

TV: Ray Donovan

An examination of a messed-up Irish-American bunch of crazies, Ray Donovan works on so many levels but it's Jon Voight's scene-stealing Mickey Donovan that generates the guiltiest of pleasures. An absurd fan boy of the show, I can't wait for the next season.

Gig: Damien Dempsey at Vicar Street

Our Poet Laureate of the streets nobody impacts an audience like this alchemist. A national treasure we should genuflect at the mention of the man's name. His concerts can swing from church-like spiritualism to anthemic transformations. Added to all that in reality he's a beautiful bastard and he generously allowed us use this entire song for the end of Charlie Casanova.

Art: Amanda Coogan

A living, breathing alchemist, Amanda doesn't just blow the cobwebs off every male dominated reductionism she sets them on fire and uses the flame for new awakenings. She's also the wife of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Lyric Theatre Artistic Director Jimmy Fay. Lucky bastard.

Podcast Kevin Pollak's Chat Show

Determined to allow things unfold organically, without some asshole editor cutting it to pieces, these conversations can go on for hours. Get the right guest in the right mood and magic can be captured. Wish he'd get rid of the bullshit babble from the sidekicks in the tiresome intros but, apart from that, there is gold in these conversations.

App: Music Tube

A complete moron when it comes to even the most basic technology of putting music onto a phone my kids had to download this for me but the joy of being able to access so much music made this old dog bark again.

The Next Big Thing: Home Sweet Home

When Dean Scurry got a bunch of remarkable people together in Dublin to take over Apollo House to help our most vulnerable nobody knew he had put in motion a movement that Fionnuala Flanagan would call "The most revolutionary event to have occurred in that city since 1916." Unions, Artists, and Irish Housing Network Volunteers smashed through the doors of Apollo House into the hearts of the nation and made us believe in magic again.

Portrait: Kevin Griffin

Something For The Weekend: Terry McMahon's Cultural Picks

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