Word: mcdonagh
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...What's an iguana doing on my coffee table?" wonders Nicolas Cage as Lt. Terence McDonagh in this dark, daft, vagrantly intoxicating melodrama. It's a sequel of sorts to Abel Ferrara's 1992 Bad Lieutenant, which starred Harvey Keitel as a nameless, coke-addled sadist who has visions of Jesus. Director Werner Herzog - who made great movies in the '70s, and whose oneiric documentaries landed him on this year's TIME 100 list - says he never saw the Ferrara film, and simply worked from a script by William Finkelstein, who's written more than 100 episodes of cop shows...
...breaks movies and lead performances into drama (where most of the serious contenders reside) and comedy or musical. For Globe-watchers, that's the fun part. How to find five comedies? This year the wild card was In Bruges, the madly violent crime farce from Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. The critics groups paid the movie no mind, but it and its stars, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson got Globe nominations. The Comedy or Musical category is also the consolation spot for actors nudged out of the more competitive Drama department; so James Franco, surely worthy of a Supporting Actor...
...sure, there is no evidence that Newman ever broke his vow of celibacy. British-based Catholic-affairs writer Melanie McDonagh noted in the Times of London this week that Newman "would have regarded gay sex as an abomination...
After a career spent in the wings watching others direct his work, McDonagh wasn't comfortable calling the shots at first. "The buck has never stopped with me before," he says. "It was terrifying." But the actors profited from his inexperience as a filmmaker. "Because he's a playwright, he's very particular about how the dialogue is spoken," Fiennes says. "The nuances, the rhythms, the repetitions are so specific, even with the four-letter words, that we wanted to get it exactly right. And we were excited by the challenge...
...excitement got to McDonagh, too, and he's looking forward to making another movie. But not yet. "Everything's been a whirlwind since my first play, and I haven't had time to step back and analyze that," he says. "I just need some quiet time to write, hang out and grow up." And to hone that twisted sense of humor. "I'd actually like to try a romantic comedy," he says with a grin. "A different kind. One with dead kids in it." Odds are, he's only half joking...