HBO's True Detective

Farrell is quite good in In Bruges, and holds his own with a couple great actors in Fiennes and Gleeson.

 

i enjoyed the series. didn't think it was greatest TV show ever.
curious for the group's reaction to the plagiarism charges recently levelled from the horror genre community

http://lovecraftzine.com/2014/08/04/did-the-writer-of-true-detective-plagiarize-thomas-ligotti-and-others/

 

Colin Farrell has a much more respectable résumé than Matthew McConaughey had before True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club. In Bruges is incredible.

 

Disagree that it is much more respectable. McConaughey started his career renaissance well before Dallas Buyers Club. I'd say it goes back to The Lincoln Lawyer, and certainly includes Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and Mud.

In Bruges might be my favorite movie of the past decade, but other than that, Farrell has been in a ton of bad and mediocre movies.

 

"Killer Joe," "Magic Mike," and "Bernie" were all in 2012. "The Lincoln Lawyer" was, too, I think. That was more of a pot boiler, but still a better showcase for him than the series of two-bit rom coms he had done for a decade. "Mud" was released within a few months, if not a few weeks, of "Dallas Buyers Club."

I guess I'd have to know when "True Detective's" initial cast was announced.

I'm on record, probably somewhere on this site, as saying that he had the best year of any actor in 2012, and that I sorely wished the Oscars had a best Body of Work award. (I suppose he'd also win a Best Body, full stop, award.) But, also, let's face it: "Killer Joe" didn't exactly set box office records, and "Magic Mike" was known as the Channing Tatum stripper movie. He was great, but he was a supporting character.

I guess what I'm saying is you really had to be paying attention to know where he was at around the time the first season of "True Detective" was announced.

 

I have IMDB as well. I knew when those movies came out. The Lincoln Lawyer came out in 2011. Also, Mud came out in the spring of 2013, many months before Dallas Buyers Club, which was released for Oscar season.

And having a respectable resume has nothing to do with whether those movies were big box office hits or not. In Bruges was released early in the year it came out, and was seen by hardly anyone in theaters.

 

Colin Farrell's best role was in "Horrible Bosses."

 

Not that it matters, but I remembered what year they came out specifically because they came out the year before "Dallas Buyers Club" and "Mud." Like I said, there's probably a post here somewhere - maybe the 2012 Oscars thread - where I mention what a good year he had that year.

If I were just trying to pass off an IMDB trip as my own knowledge, I wouldn't have gotten "Lincoln Lawyer" wrong.

 

And, anyway, what I'm trying to get at is whether McConaghey was announced as a "True Detective" lead before "Magic Mike" and "Killer Joe," because if he were, then the public may have questioned whether he could have carried the show.

 

I'm not sure when it was announced, but it's irrelevant, really. There was no bar set. Nobody would have questioned whether McConaughey could carry the show because it was a non-entity and there were no expectations to live up to.

That being said, I assume that since he filmed TD after he filmed Dallas Buyers Club that the cast was probably announced after Lincoln Lawyer, Killer Joe, Magic Mike and Mud had all been released.

Regardless of any of that, there are now expectations set and I'm not sure Farrell or Kitsch can come close to the level of McConaughey and Harrelson (who we have wrongly left out of this conversation).

 

Colin Farrell always steals the screen when he's on it. I have heard he's a pain in the ass to work with, though.

 

Also, when watching through FNL the second and third times, I appreciated Kitsch's work as Riggins much more than I did initially.