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Strange Career of Neil Jordan Fredrick Barton  Neil Jordan is
one of the most puzzling moviemakers currently at work in world
cinema. His film career has been wildly uneven. At his best, in
pictures like Mona Lisa (1986) and The Crying Game (1992), he
stands with a small group of preeminent filmmakers. At his
worst, in a trifle like the 1987 comedy High Spirits or in the
overblown, egregious Interview With the Vampire (1993), Jordan
seems not to know what he's doing. Lots of people laughed at
Interview With the Vampire which was supposed to be a highbrow,
multi-layered "literary" picture, but nobody laughed at High
Spirits. Jordan's current effort, Michael Collins, stands
somewhere in between his great work and his embarrassments. It's
a serious film that dares to tackle a difficult subject. But it
succeeds at few of its objectives. And though the director has
denied the charge with some