Information thread about the show, its creators and their lives after JFC
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TV this week Oct 21-27
Barry - Boston Legal
Cass- ER
Palaka - Entourage
Butchie - The Ex-List
Any I missed?
Articles
"7 Days with Nathan Fletcher", Surfing Mag, August 2008
(Nathan is Greyson's uncle, and references his how he did not endorse JFC)
"This I Beleive", Surfing Mag, July 2008
(One page shot and profile with Keala)
"~Bali, 10 years later", Surfer Mag, Collectors issue, August 2008
(Update on Christian Fletcher's [Greyson's dad and the rough characterization of Butchie] adventures in Bali and mention of Greyson. Also a great shot of Christian.
Surfline.com
You can always check into IB on Surfline.com.
Go under Cams&Reports, Southern Cali, San Diego,Imperial Beach Pier NS or SS. You get a free 20 second clip of live wave conditions with a corner of surf hedge.
Under Women tab and Travel archieves, keep an eye out for the photo/article series "According to KK:" (keala)
Books
"West of Jesus- Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief", Steven Kotler
"Surf is Where You Find It" Jerry Lopez
(Great essay on the Fletchers)
Please keep posting other reading/video of interest.
Surline.com
IMPERIAL BEACH SANDBAGGING
Dredge and fill project could affect surf shape and water quality
TV
10/28 Austin Nichols- One Tree Hill- looks like a multiple episode arc
Surfline.com
IMPERIAL BEACH SANDBAGGING
Dredge and fill project could affect surf shape and water quality
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/dredge-and-fill-project-could-affect-surf-shape-and-water-quality-imperial-beach-sandbagging_19208/ (http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/dredge-and-fill-project-could-affect-surf-shape-and-water-quality-imperial-beach-sandbagging_19208/)
Surfline.com
THE CON THAT GOT AWAY... AGAIN
Man posing as Gerlach tries to con Jersey surfer out of airfare to Bali
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/man-posing-as-gerlach-tries-to-con-jersey-surfer-out-of-airfare-to-bali-the-con-that-got-away-again_19615/
Gerlach, i.e. "Sonny Mac"
Good references to the Fletchers
surfline.com
According to KK:Bali
http://www.surfline.com/womens/photo_bamp.cfm?id=19694&ad=1
Keala's latest photo essay on her trip to Bali.
John Hawkes (Sol Star in Deadwood) speaks about Milch and Deadwood.
JH: I think that was the best job I've ever had. Amazing group of actors, and [creator] David Milch is a genius. I don't know how else to put it. He's by turns intimidating and altruistic; it's all a bundle of contradictions. He's never mean or anything, but he's just such a smart, confident man. It was great. It felt like he really knew how to tell a story. He really oversaw all the writing on the show, I would say. Although a lot of people's names are on scripts, I think every line of dialogue on that show went through his filter. All the story points and things like that.
He would come on the set and—I guess he's legendary for this from other shows he's been on—he would "Milch it." He would come on the set and watch a scene, and then he'd quote Blake, or tell a story of trying to wrongfully sue a casino, or a joke about a drug buy, or he'd recite a piece of a Shakespeare sonnet. You just never knew what it was going to be. I know every actor on that show has the experience of getting the scene they're about to do the next day, making some decisions, figuring out what they were going to do, and then having David come in and just by telling an anecdote that seemingly had nothing to do with the scene, everything would change. The dialogue wouldn't change, but suddenly the scene would mean something totally different to you that you never ever could have imagined. It's kind of thrilling, the way he works. And then he would leave, once the scene was in a place he wanted it to be. At first it was like, "Well, we've got one director, and now this guy's coming on the set and messing with things." Then later, we'd be freaking out if he wasn't showing up right before the camera was rolling. We wanted him there.
AVC: Between the sets, the cast, and the writing on Deadwood, it probably wasn't so hard to get into character.
JH: You could just put on the wardrobe! It was so amazingly done by Jane Bryant, who does Mad Men now. She's one of the most amazing wardrobe designers I've ever met. You'd get your stuff on, and if you were lucky, you had an early call. I think it was Molly Parker who said that if you walked out on that street before anyone was there, and the sun was just rising, there was a strange, palpable sense of transportation to another time. I know that myself, sometimes I'd shoot for 14 or 15 hours, and then I'd go back to my home in the armpit of Hollywood and walk to the 7-Eleven with cars screaming by on Sunset, and even at 35 miles per hour, it felt like they were going 90. It felt loud and crazy. [Laughs.] I'm not a Method guy, but sometimes I'd come home from work and feel like I'd been displaced and dropped from an old time to a new time.
It was just an unbelievably great job. I don't have anything but positive things to say about that cast and that whole experience. Great cast and great stories and great crew. The Perfect Storm was an impressive set—and I've worked on a lot of Hollywood movies with bloated budgets and big sets—but Deadwood was a set unto its own. It was several blocks of deer carcasses hanging and bleeding, and horseshit everywhere. People would come to the set to visit, and if they wanted to watch a scene, they had to walk through mud and urine. [Laughs.] A lot of people made short visits. It was just fantastic. We shot, I think, 25 miles north of L.A. on the old Gene Autry Melody Ranch, and I never once drove onto that set without a smile on my face.
AVC: It's too bad the show ended so soon.
JH: Yeah, man. I agree. That one would have been a lovely feature film, I think. It's too bad they didn't make one of those. Wrap it all up in two hours. But I don't think that's happening. The sets are all gone. [Laughs.] Even though not a week goes that someone doesn't ask about it still, years later, wondering if it will come back.
Quoted from:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/john-hawkes,41960/ (http://www.avclub.com/articles/john-hawkes,41960/)
Greyson Fletcher, age 19. 2010
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3ZvPgeH0sfo/S_lwAx8lVJI/AAAAAAAAtOU/CEp6xB2XjA8/s1600/Greyson_Steele_0196+copy.jpg)
Greyson Fletcher 2010
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3ZvPgeH0sfo/S_lwYE5R35I/AAAAAAAAtOc/WgiYFo6D7pQ/s400/Greyson_Steele_0182+copy.jpg)
Dead in the water but not forgotten,
old commentary, posted on August 15, 2007. Still sounds true.
"HBO has pulled the plug on John From Cincinnati, the existential surf noir from David Milch (creator of the brilliant Deadwood). While it can't be called a surprise, it saddens me greatly because I grew to be quite fond of the head-scratching series, and the whole Yost clan -- the dysfunctional family of surfers. Not to mention the weird alien boy John, and the cast of misfits at the motel. I especially liked seeing denizens of Deadwood pop up from time to time in this show. Milch definitely made the show difficult to embrace, each episode grew maddeningly weirder. But that's what I grew to love about the it. Dead in the water but not forgotten."
--Dennis Dermody, Papermag
http://www.papermag.com/2007/08/rip_john_from_cincinnati.php (http://www.papermag.com/2007/08/rip_john_from_cincinnati.php)
That's a longest ever conversation on some blog or whatever, I will edit it eventually, I just didn't want to lose it.
"Let me just say: it seemed to me that John from Cincinnati was vastly underrated. Deadwood was good, but it was weighted down by its gimmick, which frankly Milch's writing transcended nearly from the beginning; the entire old west think seemed pretty lame to me before long. John from Cincinnati didn't have the same problem, and ended up pretty transcendental.
--koeselitz
I love JFC but disagree that Deadwood was gimmicky. Deadwood is easily my favorite television show eer and is also among my favorite stories in any medium. I would love to see his Johns Hopkins thing get done--he speaks about it more extensively here, which is also where I took the title of the post from.
Recently, Milch's personal assistant gave me some transcripts of a series of lectures he gave--which are mentioned in this article, and which I haven't found online. If Milch permits it, I'll post them on my site. I find his speeches and talks fascinating and inspirational on many levels.
--dobbs
David Milch writes in formula and uses game theory predictably. And it's nearly perfect every time somehow. I've been watching his work for years and years and I think I know a bit of how he keeps his boilerplate shiny.
--Junie Lowry-Johnson.
John from Cincinnati was vastly underrated.
Amen. What an amazing, challenging, fascinating show; my roommate and I were so pissed when HBO didn't renew it for a 2nd season; I gave up HBO and haven't gone back since. I'll never forgive mainstream TV critics for panning it (I remember the New Yorker was particularly savage right at the start). I mean, here's this odd, new style of TV storytelling, really taking some chances and giving jaded watchers something unusual to chew on, and the only thing critics can think of is to slam it for not being straightforward enough. Jesus. We were so pissed.
--mediareport
Milch has been working on Luck in one form or another for a long time, and I'm so glad to see he's found a way to work it final form. I read the pilot script a while back and it's both (1) very Milch and (2) not Deadwood, so the usual complaints will apply from the usual folks.
John from Cincinnati was an astonishing piece of work but hard to categorize, predict, or map onto other contemporary TV shows. For one thing, it's an extremely optimistic show; its plot is 'God figures 9/11 is just the beginning of these idiots destroying themselves, so he sends an autistic Jesus to visit some junkies and washouts in a surfing town to give them helpful don't-destroy-yourself advice.' Its story, meanwhile, involves said washouts and junkies accommodating divine experience and discovering their own interdependence and inseparability. It's a generational story, closely observed in interpersonal terms, yet (this is the hardest part) its strategies of representation are in no small part iconic and evocative.
Which is to say the entire show has the hallucinatory intensity and spiritual focus of the Season One Deadwood finale - in which Cochran prays for God's pity and forgiveness and (for reasons both biographical and metaphorical) Swearengen bestows it - but without the generic reassurances and archaism-tolerance settings of that earlier show. It helps to see JfromC as a companion piece to Deadwood, clarifying and expanding on its 'metaphysical' themes. It's a Gospel, more John(!) than Mark, but it's also a Revelation story - and (here's the tough bit) the symbolic and (let's say) 'characterological' or realistic dimensions of the show exist in unfamiliar proportions. Without the assortment of conditioning signals and prefatory gestures that Westerns and cop shows provide, you've gotta take everything about the show on faith.
Which is (surprise!) one of the main points of the show itself anyhow.
If you're interested in Milch, you should unquestionably listen to his Writers Guild lectures from a couple of years back - during the writers' strike - found here. Scroll down to the PODCAST entries and the videos below them. After a couple of listens you start to get a sense for how comprehensive and serious the man's thought is - in six hours of lectures he doesn't say anything, not a word, by accident. They're fucking great.
--waxbanks (see the next post below)
I can't agree with much here beyond that first sentence, which I absolutely agree with -- though JFC had the stumbling block of often seeming aimless and unfocused. I think it would have resolved into a hell of a show once Milch finished sifting through his many, many ideas and found the ones he cared about enough to develop. As it stands, I found JFC to be a really great show now and then -- how great was that scene where John stopped time? how good was, amazingly enough, Ed O'Neill? or really, most of the cast, some of whom were not professional actors at all but you'd never know? -- but a frustrating one, as some storylines veered into anticlimax and other storylines were given screentime they didn't really deserve and...writing-wise, it was all kind of brilliant-first-draft.
As much as I love Deadwood, I found that it had the same problems as JFC, but Milch was fortunate enough there to have the spine of documented history to keep the show from straying too far into the weeds. JFC is more like Milch is out there on the bleeding edge of his own imagination, and sometimes what he struck was gold, and other times...less so. I would have liked to have seen more, frankly, but I don't get the sense of being robbed that I got when HBO killed Deadwood, because Deadwood set up so many situations I wanted to see reach a conclusion, whereas JFC...? I have no idea where that was going, and that's sort of exciting, but it's also maybe not a way you should feel about a TV show after it's had ten hours of your life. I think its ending is kinda elliptical and mystifying and neat, much like the show as a whole, and fitting, even if it wasn't meant to be the end.
--kittens for breakfast
I'm really, really surprised to see all the JFC love here. I thought Deadwood was a brilliant TV show, but JFC was a potentially interesting idea weighed down by TERRIBLE acting (Sorry, but those non-pros were just abysmal, and they sucked the energy out of everything) and a self-indulgent love of its own quirkiness. It wasn't that it wasn't straightforward enough, but that its experimental storytelling didn't have a point. Or maybe it did, but they just threw everything in, trying to hammer you over the head with "this is mystical and important! examine the nature of the universe!" Honestly, I would have liked the show more if they had paced it more slowly, letting things develop more organically instead of trying to fill the plot with as much shit as possible (My same problem with season 2 of Carnivale, which moved too quickly and tried to cram in too much plot vs. the far superior, more bizarre, but more involving season 1).
--Saxon Kane
How is having a show take place in a different time period a gimmick? I'm honestly curious. I think Milch has a lot of gimmick's despite my love for what he does, but I don't see how working in a genre (and subverting the hell out of it) is one of them.
--haveanicesummer
Well, I never saw Deadwood, but I know on the TWoP forums people were excited about JFC because of Milch's involvement. There was a wide variety of disappointment or love from those TV junkies about "John from Cincinnati", and the critics didn't seem to like it, but me personally? I loved that show, and was so sad it got canceled!
I thought the value of HBO is that they could give a show a good long leash (this is the same network that had Arli$$ on for years, right?). JFC had a humanity in its story, and I thought very honest acting even from the non-actors (except Shaun, who was more stiff and wooden than the surfboards they rode on). Some of the scenes and explications of pain and trauma and longing and guilt were just so gutfelt and honest, I was just blown away. And yeah, the symbolism/word play gimmicks, whether the reference to John Frum cargo cults, or the camera work and wording as they turned that old motel into a gathering of misfit apostles, or the supernatural sequences and John's speeches/videos about 1s and 0s, was all a bit heavy handed, and the finale was a bit unfulfilling... but it still worked in a new and interesting way that most TV does not, and I suspect a lot of its shortcomings were from not having even found their second or third season footing before having to wrap up the series by the 10th episode.
--hincandenza
John From Cincinnati was a pretty big disappointment for me. I thought it was ramshackle (and not in the good Waitsian way), inconsistent, over-written but too often not well (yes, I know, relatively speaking) written, populated with characters that seemed less characters than writerly devices, and much of the 'lookit all this quirky smartness splashing around here' stuff was clumsily telegraphed and obvious and not nearly as smart or quirky as it thought it was.
Still, better than 90% of the crap out there.
Ah well. Maybe it was just the casting choices. Man, what a parade of relentless unlikeability there.
--stavrosthewonderchicken
See, this is why I come here for intellectual discourse, as opposed to other parts of the net.
JFC is not for everyone, I think we could all admit that - but here, those that didn't like it will give reason for their opinions rather than saying "it's garbage and anyone who likes it is a moron."
I, for one, found it (as other said) interesting, challenging, sometimes willfully obtuse, quirky (and not just for the sake of it - however, the fact that it was cut down so quickly and not allowed to give reason for its quirks made a lot of it seem that way) and overall well cast and acted - I even suspect that the amateurs would have eventually found their footing, and not just on the surf.
I don't deny people their opinions on the show, agreeing with me or dis, however, to this day I still can't hide my disappointment in HBO for giving the show the axe before it had even really shown its direction.
--cerulgalactus
from
http://www.metafilter.com/91755/Resting-transparent-in-the-spirit-which-gave-him-rise (http://www.metafilter.com/91755/Resting-transparent-in-the-spirit-which-gave-him-rise)
Wax Banks
Milch, Luck, John from Cincinnati, there you go.
"A recent MetaFilter comment of mine, reproduced for fanciful/archival reasons:
Milch has been working on Luck in one form or another for a long time, and I'm so glad to see he's found a way to work it final form. I read the pilot script a while back (thanks T. --wa.) and it's both (1) very Milch and (2) not Deadwood, so the usual complaints will apply from the usual folks.
John from Cincinnati was an astonishing piece of work but hard to categorize, predict, or map onto other contemporary TV shows. For one thing, it's an extremely optimistic show; its plot is 'God figures 9/11 is just the beginning of these idiots destroying themselves, so he sends an autistic Jesus to visit some junkies and washouts in a surfing town to give them helpful don't-destroy-yourself advice.' Its story, meanwhile, involves said washouts and junkies accommodating divine experience and discovering their own interdependence and inseparability. It's a generational story, closely observed in interpersonal terms, yet (this is the hardest part) its strategies of representation are in no small part iconic and evocative.
Which is to say the entire show has the hallucinatory intensity and spiritual focus of the Season One Deadwood finale - in which Cochran prays for God's pity and forgiveness and (for reasons both biographical and metaphorical) Swearengen bestows it - but without the generic reassurances and archaism-tolerance settings of that earlier show. It helps to see JfromC as a companion piece to Deadwood, clarifying and expanding on its 'metaphysical' themes. It's a Gospel, more John(!) than Mark, but it's also a Revelation story - and (here's the tough bit) the symbolic and (let's say) 'characterological' or realistic dimensions of the show exist in unfamiliar proportions. Without the assortment of conditioning signals and prefatory gestures that Westerns and cop shows provide, you've gotta take everything about the show on faith.
Which is (surprise!) one of the main points of the show itself anyhow.
If you're interested in Milch, you should unquestionably listen to his Writers Guild lectures from a couple of years back - during the writers' strike - found here. Scroll down to the PODCAST entries and the videos below them. After a couple of listens you start to get a sense for how comprehensive and serious the man's thought is - in six hours of lectures he doesn't say anything, not a word, by accident. They're fucking great".
08 May 2010
from:
http://waxbanks.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/milch-luck-john-from-cincinnati-there-you-go.html (http://waxbanks.typepad.com/blog/2010/05/milch-luck-john-from-cincinnati-there-you-go.html)
04/20/10
Keala Kennelly Signs with Dragon
Dragon is proud to welcome aboard Keala Kennelly. Keala joins an all-star squad including top female athlete Chelsea Hedges, along with Mick Fanning, Rob Machado, and elite big-wave chargers Shane Dorian and Reef Macintosh.
"I am so pumped to be joining the Dragon Alliance team," says Keala. "Their eyewear is so fresh. I actually have a hard time deciding which pair to wear everyday, because they are all so HOT!"
Keala's style and spark embody the image of the brand. Credited as the first female to charge Teahupoo, Keala is undoubtedly one of the most iconic and fearless women in surfing. But more than just a big-wave phenomenon who happens to charge 10-foot Teahupoo, this former World Tour surfer has a long list of accolades that includes everything from DJing to acting in mainstream TV shows and Hollywood flicks.
"We are stoked to work with someone as creative and unique as Keala. Over the course of her career, she has pushed the limits of women's surfing and is still at the forefront of big-wave surfing. I look forward to seeing what is next," says Rick Irons, Global Brand Manager.
Keala has been nominated for the Billabong XXL "Girls Best Overall Performance" award. To see Keala's tow-in action at Jaws go to <http://billabongxxl.com/nominee_site/girls_performance/index.html> . The awards go down this Friday April 23, at 7pm. Check back then to see the results.
from:
http://dragonalliance.com/blog/?p=6217 (http://dragonalliance.com/blog/?p=6217)
Funny that JFC is recommended as some "beach reading" , but it is a good, grateful mention anyway.
Ryan McGee
"Onto TV and music suggestions inspired by this week's episode! On the TV front, what better series to recommend in the wake of a spiritual/mystical revival on a beach than HBO's "John from Cincinnati." It's my life's goal to double this show's number of fans. Currently, it seemingly stands at two. But my wife and I are willing to welcome more. If you think "Lost" is confusing, wait until you get a load of what happens halfway through this short-lived, completely misunderstood series. The line and the circle are BIG, people. Trust me."
from:
http://blog.zap2it.com/lost/2010/04/lost-course-corrections-for-everybody-loves-hugo.html (http://blog.zap2it.com/lost/2010/04/lost-course-corrections-for-everybody-loves-hugo.html)
Horse Injured and Euthanized While Filming on the Set of 'Luck'
DENVER, May 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During the April 30, 2010, filming of the new HBO series pilot, Luck, a racehorse stumbled following a short race sequence and fell on its shoulder, causing a severe fracture. The two veterinarians on the scene deemed the condition inoperable and determined that the most humane course of action was euthanasia. An American Humane Certified Animal Safety Representative™ was monitoring the animal action on the set when the incident occurred.
"This was an unfortunate accident that was in no way a result of any mistreatment or negligence on the part of HBO," said Karen Rosa, vice president of American Humane's Film & Television Unit. "We are all sincerely saddened by this accident that happened after the final shot on the final day of filming for this show. Throughout filming, HBO has been extremely collaborative and responsive to the many safety guidelines and precautions we put in place."
Luck revolves around the culture of horseracing. "The pilot is about a bunch of intersecting lives in the world of the horseracing track," David Milch recently told Daily Variety. Milch is the creator and executive producer of the show, along with executive producer Michael Mann. Milch is able to professionally view horseracing from every angle, as he owns close to 100 horses and has won several Breeders' Cup races.
In the 70 years of oversight by American Humane for the film and television industry, countless animal injuries and deaths have been prevented by American Humane's presence on the set. Sadly, despite all precautions, accidents do occasionally happen, but as long as animals continue to be used in film and television entertainment, American Humane will continue to monitor their treatment and work to ensure their safety."
from:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/horse-injured-and-euthanized-while-filming-on-the-set-of-luck-92914014.html (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/horse-injured-and-euthanized-while-filming-on-the-set-of-luck-92914014.html)
Emily Rose in Sy-Fy "Haven"
Star says why you've got to watch Syfy's "Haven"
"Stephen King's novella "The Colorado Kid" is coming to Syfy as Haven, and its leading lady, Emily Rose, recently spilled some beans about the show, which will premiere in July.
"It's definitely based on the characters of 'The Colorado Kid,' but I would say it's about a girl named Audrey [Parker], who's an orphan and becomes an FBI agent," Rose (Jericho, John From Cincinnati) said last week in an exclusive interview at Syfy's upfront session for advertisers in New York. "She ends up getting sent on this case up in Maine. When she goes up there, she kind of starts having these things happen to her, and she sort of starts feeling like she's been called home. Paranormal things happen, and some exciting things happen for her, and it's not only her unraveling this murder case, but kind of unraveling the case of herself, honestly. It's pretty fascinating."
More specifically, Haven is a small town in Maine that is literally a haven for cursed people, many with supernatural powers, and when the curses start kicking in again, it's up to Parker to help put a halt to them. In addition to Rose, the cast includes Lucas Bryant (Odyssey 5, Queer as Folk) as Parker's wry partner, Wuornos, and Eric Balfour (24) as Duke Crocker, a mysterious local.
"She's a strong-willed girl," Rose said of Parker. "In order to identify with her, I have to think, 'What's it like to really not have a family, to not have a place to go home to for Christmas or not have anyone you belong to?' And she ends up finding belonging within the FBI, and that's kind of fascinating to me. That drives her, the mystery of self, the mystery of belonging somewhere."
The show, which has a 13-episode commitment from Syfy, will be executive-produced by the Dead Zone team of Lloyd Segan and Shawn Piller, while their Dead Zone partner Scott Shepherd—who also worked on Tru Calling—will serve as show runner. Production on Haven is set to begin soon in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the series should premiere on Syfy this summer.
Haven will represent Rose's first major credit, with her name at the top of the call sheet. It's a challenge she welcomes. "It's a big responsibility," she said. "The great part of that responsibility is that you really get to set the tone for the show. You get to set an excitement to be there at work, to look around you and really rally everyone. It's a huge responsibility, but one I am so excited to take on."
from:
http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/its-star-says-why-youve-g.php (http://scifiwire.com/2010/03/its-star-says-why-youve-g.php)
Let's return to the beginning: that was posted June 11, 2007.
"If Chris Albrecht hadn't already lost his job as HBO's chairman and CEO for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend last month at the MGM Grand, the outcry from "Deadwood" fans this week would have sealed his fate.
It's not that it's bad, it's that I'm already three episodes into "John" and I have no idea what's going on.
A levitating surfer? A bird that brings the dead back to life? Rebecca De Mornay playing the grandmother of a 13-year-old?
Still, all of that makes more sense than the title character.
Looking like an extra from "The Flamingo Kid," John (Austin Nichols) shows up in Imperial Beach, Calif., with a vocabulary consisting primarily of "The end is near." Everything else out of his mouth is something he parrots back, nonsensically, from other people, which automatically paints him as one of TV's three magical A's: alien, angel or autistic. No one's saying which.
And while it's nice to see some familiar "Deadwood" faces -- Jim Beaver (Ellsworth), Dayton Callie (Charlie Utter) and Garret Dillahunt (Jack McCall/Francis Wolcott) -- "John" lacks that traditional sense of excitement and grandeur that's missing from HBO's latest crop of original series."
from:
LIFE ON THE COUCH: Puzzling 'John From Cincinnati' makes viewers ask 'Huh?'
http://www.lvrj.com/living/7934367.html?submitted=y (http://www.lvrj.com/living/7934367.html?submitted=y)
"Zoe's (protagonist in Caprica) proud smile as her father unknowingly commented her prowess. I'm somewhat at a loss for explaining exactly what the Zobot is doing right now, except to note that the treatment of her character in the show – how different people see her in very different ways, how she might be an angel or a devil or nothing much at all – bears a striking resemblance to the titular character in John From Cincinnati. Everyone hates that show, so I'm not going to say anything, except this: everyone, you're wrong."
from:
Darren Franich,
(Made me want to watch Caprica (SyFy), and I love Ender's Game. Saw 2 episodes of Caprica so far, Paula Malcomson was good, the rest - deafening music and constant flashes.)
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Very long but very interesting article, written by Kevin Olson (you may remember him, he joined our JFC fan club on Facebook.
Revisiting "John from Cincinnati", Part One: His Visit Day One and Two
David Milch's enigmatic and philosophically/theologically elusive (not to mention extremely mind-bending and short lived) follow-up to "Deadwood" remains one of the most misunderstood television experiences of the last ten years. "John from Cincinnati" is a show full of ideas, and in typical Milch form the fact that those ideas are never quite fully fleshed out or explored are beside the point...this is a show that is meant to be experienced, contemplated, and pondered for days after watching it. Sure the religious allegories and deep, twisting metaphors for the soul and life may seem like the least inviting way to spend an evening in front of the television; however, it never seems that Milch – who is a brilliant man almost to a fault – is interested in whether or not we "get" what we're watching (or more to a point that we're "entertained" by it), but is more concerned with our cognitive experience while watching it. Milch is interested in stretching our brains with a show that seems like the most basic of premises, but beneath its salt water surface are deeply profound themes about what we believe, how we came to believe it, and who told us to believe it. To some that may seem extremely frustrating, but for me it's liberating. Here's a show that allows you to soak up the symbolism and questions, allowing them to marinate in your mind for days, like its surfers soak up the rays and waves.
I'll spare you the episode-by-episode synopsis. If you're interested in that just check this out. What I want to explore are some of the shows deep themes, what Milch may be asking us, and why it amazes me that a show like this made it past episode one. Here's a quick and dirty rundown of main characters, the actors that portray them, and general idea of what the show is about (for the uninitiated):
The show takes place in Imperial Beach – a coastal town tucked in the corner of the western states and a stone's throw away from Tijuana – a surfing community where our main characters, the Yost family, own a surf shop. Mitch and Cissy (Bruce Greenwood and Rebecca DeMornay) have a son "Butchie" (Brian Van Holt) who was once a great surfer before he became a victim of drug abuse. Mitch was also a renown surfer in the 70's before a career ending knee injury made him an afterthought. Butchie has a son named Shaun (Greyson Fletcher) who is raised by Cissy and Mitch...Shaun is a surfing and askating prodigy and is highly sought after by a promoter/agent named Link Stark (Luke Perry). Link has a connection with the Yost family as it was his vision and promotion that caused Butchie to become an addict. Mitch is opposed to Shaun "selling out" out of fear that he'll end up like his father; however, Sissy is more than interested in letting Shaun do what he wants to do, which is competitively surf.
A stranger enters the community named John (Austin Nichols), and Butchie immediately takes a liking to him as he initially mistakes him for a drug runner who owes him money, but as Butchie and everyone else living in Imperial Beach realize...there's something strange about this John character, and it isn't long before weird things begin to occur as John becomes a part of these people's lives. Other important characters include Bill (Ed O'Neil), a retired and obsessive police officer who helped raise Shaun after he busted Butchie for drugs; Kai (Keala Kennelly), an employee of Cissy and Mitch's surf shop who knows Shaun and was once friends with Butchie; Freddie (Dayton Callie), a Hawaiian drug lord who has connections with Butchie; Barry buys up the dilapidated motel where Butchie stays, he knew Butchie in grade school and has recently won the lottery...a blow to the head as a young man causes him to have epileptic seizures and have visions of ghosts at the motel; Meyer Dickstein (Willie Garson) plays a lawyer in charge of the sale of the motel, he's also a huge surf fan and admired Butchie before he become an addict; Dr. Michael Smith (Garret Dillahunt) plays the neurologist who treated Shaun after a surfing accident and who begins to question everything he knew after witnessing a miracle; Cass (Emily Rose) a filmmaker formerly employed by Linc Stark who was initially assigned to seduce Mitch and break up Mitch and Cissy's.
Whew. Okay, so there's your principal characters (there will be more that I'll introduce later), but let's get to what's more interesting about this show: even though it is as entertaining an hour your likely to spend watching a show about surfers, "John from Cincinnati" really just uses its rather generic plot and setting as a vessel for Milch's fantastical philosophies.
The first disc covers John's first two days in Imperial Beach. In these two days Mitch levitates, Butchie no longer feels "dope sick", Shaun breaks his neck and is presumed dead...only to regain consciousness after Bill's parakeet kisses him, Mitch levitates some more, John gives Kai an orgasmic and telepathic vision where she sees what all of her friends are doing at that very moment, and Bill's aforementioned parakeet is brought back to life after Shaun touches it. Yeah, it's that kind of show. Some may be rolling their eyes and others may be intrigued; and others may be thinking: 'well it's the guy that did "Deadwood"...it can't be that silly or that bad'. If you haven't seen the show yet my hope is that the themes that I'll be discussing here and (hopefully) in the comments will compel you to pick it up for cheap on Amazon (it's only $9.99) or off of Netflix.
Here are some of the main themes that are introduced within the first three episodes. My thoughts follow and I hope we'll continue this discussion in further posts and comments. I'm going to just do the following outline and thoughts on the theme in lieu of a "traditional" review. Like I said...if you want a more traditional television recap you check out the link above or click here for the consummate pro of television recapping and his take on the show. Onto the themes:
Arbitrary remembrance:
"I try to cast as many people who are as identifiable from a single role as a way of mobilizing the viewer's sense of impossible arbitrariness of how we remember things. Oh, you know 'that's Rebecca DeMornay, she gave Tom Cruise a handjob...or whatever it was'...the difficulty that we have individuating our experience in the present moment as opposed to interpreting it through...in terms of arbitrary associations with the past."
The above quote is from the commentary track by Milch on the first episode. Two minutes in and Milch has already blew my brain into a million pieces. He talks about the arbitrariness of casting specific actors; for example when people see Luke Perry they don't think about Link, the character he plays, they think about the fact that he's the guy from "Beverly Hills, 901210"; when people see Rebecca DeMornay they think "oh, there's the girl who gave Tom Cruise a handjob." All of this speaks to the bigger theme of "John from Cincinnati", this arbitrariness of symbols and such. It's something that is compounded upon with each subsequent episode, and it's one of the most fascinating things that seems to swimming around Milch's head. Now...I don't know if I even caught a whiff of that that upon second viewing, but I feel okay in my stupidity here because here's a show that Milch himself admitted we weren't necessarily supposed to "get".
Edges and Borders/Fringe Characters and Outsiders in the Community:
The characters are often filmed close up, to the left of the frame; or there are usually characters crowding the frame to suggest that there's always a lot being seen, but never anything being said. Milch "pushes" thing to the edge – even his setting here, Imperial Beach, is literally on the edge of the coast – to suggest that these characters are not normal, not people we would encounter in normal communities. Like "Deadwood" Milch creates a community of characters that seem otherworldly in the sense that these are people who can only function within their very specific community. One man can easily convince them to do whatever they want to because this is a community that doesn't ask questions, but just accepts things for the way they are (again, the parallels to "Deadwood" seem clear enough). This also ties in with biblical metaphor of the show: Jesus (John) and his disciples were radicals, seen as outsiders who threatened the very traditions that the Pharisees tried to hold over everyone else as Law in the Jewish community. Also edges and borders suggest fringe characters, outsiders...or a rather apt symbol would be an alien. John, at times, seems more like Starman than Jesus, a character clearly from another place (perhaps world) that is called a "shapeshifter" by Freddie. John apes everything the characters do, and rarely does he have something to say that he hasn't heard another character say.
Religious Allusions:
Ah...the biggest and most obvious one. The signs are clearly there (and rather overt) for a religious interpretation of Milch's show. In fact I would bet he insists on it. His characters surf (which often bears the appearance of walking on water); Mitch levitates after meeting the mysterious John; John is from Cincinnati so the initials match up (or as I like to say, in Milch speak his initials add up to J.F.C., or "Jesus Fucking Christ"), not to mention John's last name is Monad (Monism anyone?); John seems to have the power to heal and "resurrect" characters; John is constantly being led by the hand, or he if he isn't be led by the hand he's offering his hand...a strong Christian symbol; characters "see God" which momentarily gives them psychic powers; and finally you could make a case that there are 12 main characters and John is at the center of all of them, (re)connecting (this point becomes pretty in obvious in the series' shining moment which happens later in the series) them and in some cases mending broken souls.
You could also look at it through a different lens if you don't want to think of John as a Jesus figure since one of his first lines of the show is, "the end is near", you could interpret his character as a herald...a John the Baptist type prophesier. His characters are also privy to a bevy of miracles in the first three episodes: Shaun resurrects Bill's parakeet, the parakeet resurrects Shaun, John's "magic pockets", Butchie doesn't feel dope sick, and Kai's out-of-body experience. However, all of these characters seem to be initially surprised, but ultimately dismissive (except for Bill) of these miracles. Again once can make a connection to the parallels in the bible and the miracle stories found in the Gospels, and how they were perceived by those in the Jewish community (both with awe and disbelief...and sometimes with an aloofness). The (lack of) response to these miracles -- ranging from small (John's pockets) to large (Shaun's resurrection) -- is one of the more overt and interesting unifying themes of the first three episodes.
Central to the theme, too (and this is true of any Milch endeavor), is the idea that these character are constantly asking themselves how to live. These characters are also as stupid as it gets. In a lecture he gave to a USC classroom Milch states that his idea was to dump someone like John into the world in order to change it...so where did he need to place him to affect the most change: "with the stupidest fucking people in America...the surfers!" This is relevant here because Jesus was sent to affect change, too, and the people he came in contact with (the disciples mostly) were somewhat bumbling in the way they tried to understand what was happening. On the night before his capture Jesus asks a few of his disciples to stay awake with him and pray, and twice they fall asleep unable to stay up with their master. In the gospels you have a group of people who rarely ask the right questions, and when they aren't asking questions they simply just accept the way things are. This isn't just Milch giving Christianity the business...it's all religion, whether that religion is God or television...we've become a society of surfers in Milch's mind. Now the religion metaphor also evolves into a much richer and murkier one as the show progresses. We'll get into that later, but it's definitely there, and there's a quote from the aforementioned lecture that I'll post on here for the final disc review where Milch tries to explain what the show was all about (and what I hint at in the opening paragraph).
Classic storytelling tropes:
On a different, stylistic note Milch's tendency to rely on classical storytelling tropes is also in need of mention. Milch is a genius, I don't think there's denying that, and as is the case with most people who think and create on a whole different level than the rest of us there is almost always certainly some eccentricity sprinkled in with brilliance. Never has Milch's eccentric ways been more apparent than with "John from Cincinnati". Here's a show that essentially has a Greek chorus (Barry, Dickstein, and Ramon – played by the always great Luis Guzman – often stand outside the motel and narrate the action, filling in the contextual blanks for the audience...proving that Milch isn't interested in banal expository practices.). The characters can also be frequently seen speaking in soliloquy. Bill often fills in the blanks about the Yost family while he stands in his house and talks to his parakeet. This gives the show that odd charm that Milch was no doubt going for, but it also helps in making the necessary background information somewhat interesting as well as clarifying information for the audience about the community of Imperial Beach that we haven't been privy to. In "Deadwood" he did the same thing with Swearengen talking to himself – in a sense explaining the action by thinking out loud – from his balcony, and here he not only uses Bill's character, but Freddie (the drug dealer from Hawaii) too as he is constantly talking to himself, and in one scene (episode 3) – while sitting in his car outside of the hospital listening to the Phantom of the Opera on CD, visibly upset that it's not the "right" version, in a hilarious moment of juxtaposition – he is describing the crucial action at the hospital and the interaction of certain characters...again he's acting as a Greek chorus because we can't hear what he characters are saying, but we have Freddie there to speculate with us.
The show kind of wanders from character to character in the first few episodes. Milch is clearly interested in leaving us in the dark, and I think the effect he is going for here is to try and get us to think of the show in different terms than something we would normally watch. We've been trained to watch a show and understand all of the characters and their back story and how they relate to each other within the first handful of episodes. Even if a show doesn't explicitly lay it all out there for us at least the seeds have been sown. Not so with "John from Cincinnati". This is a show that isn't interested in any of the standard storytelling devices. Milch, it seems, almost has no regard for basic character development; rather, we're thrown into this grungy world to fend for ourselves...in fact I'd say it's safe to say that the only character we're supposed to understand is John...because we're just as much as an alien in regards to trying to figure out what this show is all about.
Meandering and eccentricities aside, the show is fascinating in its opening episodes as it's clear that Milch wants to focus more of his time on odd goings-on and deeper questions that haven't quite been fleshed out yet in the first three episodes. One thing is for sure: I'm really looking forward to re-watching the rest of this series. It's one of the deepest and most peculiar seasons of television I've ever seen. Somehow it seems appropriate that such an esoteric and ambiguous show, with its odd mixing of the sacred and the profane, didn't last past 10 episodes, because any attempt to answer these deep questions Milch broaches would have fallen flat; they would have made the show seem too...ordinary.
from:
[url=http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/revisiting-john-from-cincinnati-part.html]http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/revisiting-john-from-cincinnati-part.html (http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/02/27/caprica-recap-they-say-the-bad-sleep-well-here-in-new-cap-city/%5B/url)
I love it when JFC gets mentioned, and in a positive way. there's been more and more of that lately, taking a second look at this one season series that was thoroughly thrashed by the critics at the time, yet it had such an impact on so many.
Let's see some of the past comments and reviews, we've lost the whole thread of info on the old HBO BB.
This review of every episode is condensed and easy to read.
by Tom Gilmore
Day One.
"Much like the title character in John from Cincinnati, there are some things I know and some things I don't. For instance, I certainly did not know what was going on throughout the entire first episode and I have no idea what to expect for the future of this series, and yet, for some reason I know that I enjoyed what I saw.
It might have something to do with the fact that I'm drawn to anything having to do with the beach lifestyle. The environment is like a character in itself, and in my opinion movies or TV shows that showcase the surfing lifestyle are even better. Call me crazy, but I actually feel refreshed after watching them. Last night before bed, it was almost as if I had spent the day reclining on a sun-drenched beach instead of watching TV in a house with no air-conditioning. Those waves just do it for me, man!
I have to admit, when I first signed on to blog this show, I didn't really know what to expect. I first heard it described as a surf noir, but really, what does that tell ya? Let's break the description down a little bit. It doesn't really take a whole lot more than a few well-sculpted boards and bodies to be considered part of the surf genre, and the prerequisites for a film noir are pretty cut-and-dry, what with the dark lighting, bleak settings and contemptuous characters. But to mix the two together? I could only picture Keanu Reeves' Johnny Utah from Point Break shouting "I am an F.B.I agent!" through a billowing cloud of cigar smoke, all the while obscured by shadows in a dark alley.
I guess it's a little too early to tell how I feel about the show. The awkward John Monad appeared out of nowhere to utter the first words of the episode: "The end is near." What the heck does that mean? Hopefully for David Milch, the creative force behind earlier hits such as NYPD Blue and Deadwood, they won't serve as a prediction of the series' fate.
The rest of John's dialogue was just as confusing. His endless parroting of other's words could have been a lot more annoying if not for Austin Nichols' casual performance. I definitely cracked up when he told Butchie "I'll bone her" and later on when he challenged Ed O'Neill's character, Bill, by raising his voice and shouting "No, I have my eye on you!" It should be interesting to see if the writers can maintain good dialogue for such a potentially boring character throughout the rest of the series.
Various weirdness of note throughout the episode:
Mitch's noncancerous levitation
Zippy the bird's death and subsequent revival
John's pockets producing whatever someone happened to ask him for
That lady handing Mrs. Yost something in jail
John and Shaun communicating via foot scribbles
The name John Monad. My immediate impression was that it must have been an anagram for nomad, but then I looked it up in the dictionary and saw that one of its meanings is "a divine spark." Given what I know so far, that sounds about right. "
Day 2.
Well I'll start by saying that even though I still don't fully comprehend what's happening in this series, I am even more intrigued after watching the second episode, and I'm excited to see where this show goes. I never really got into NYPD Blue or Deadwood, so I can't pretend to be all that familiar with David Milch's previous work, but I am completely aware of the respect he deserves for his contributions to television by creating shows that challenge viewers to think. Milch is not known to spoon feed his viewers predictable drivel, and I, for one, wouldn't bite if he did.
As far as the episode goes, here are my thoughts on round two
Maybe John's gifts aren't limited to what comes out of his pockets. Doesn't it figure that as soon as Mitch relented and allowed Shaun to compete in the surfing competition, Shaun fell off his "stick" and broke his neck? I was very interested by the fact that this happened almost immediately after Freddy slapped John in the face and John asked, "What do you want, Butchie?" Perhaps Shaun's fall is what Butchie wanted, at least subconsciously. Maybe the thought of his son eclipsing his own fame proved too much for that drug-addled mind of his. Either that or he was worried that Shaun would end up losing everything like he did.
And what were with those mental whispers while John was looking through the telescope on the pier? Butchie asked him why so many weird things were happening as if he knew John were the reason behind them. Perhaps that scene was a prediction of an interaction to come.
If, in fact, John did initiate Shaun's fall, I don't think we can really blame Butchie for John's literal translation of his thoughts. Surely Butchie couldn't have intended for his son to get hurt. He probably just wanted him to lose the competition. After all, it was only after John asked Butchie what he wanted while they were in the hospital that Shaun's eyes opened. The fact that Zippy happened to be pecking his lips at the time seems inconsequential to me, even if the bird did come back from the dead just one day earlier. In my opinion it was an intentional misdirection designed to cloud the picture. But what do I know? That's just my theory. It's still too early to tell.
Other happenings of note in Episode 2:
For some reason Linc wanted Cass to get close to Mitch. Maybe he thinks the bad publicity that would inevitably come from a messy divorce brought about by infidelity would once again shed the limelight on the Yost family and draw attention to his Yost prodigy. Either way, Cass could represent a very sexy encounter for Mitch in the near future. I do have to say, though, Rebecca De Mornay still looks incredible at 46. Mitch would be dumb to stray from the girl who taught Tom Cruise how to be a man in Risky Business.
Butchie has yet to get dope sick. He did prove that he still has a taste for liquor and cardboard cutouts, though.
Eccentric lottery winner and hotel owner Barry Cunningham opened the door to room 24 only to back away in horror. He told Ramon and Meyer that the room is haunted, which means John was right when he said "The dead will come alive in room 24."
Barry admitted that he often has visions after having a seizure. "Teddy and I had quite the siege." Ha! Matt Winston brings a lot of humor to the character of Barry. You might recognize him as the pageant emcee in Little Miss Sunshine, in which he played pretty much the same character, only less tormented. Then again, I've heard horror stories about those pageants.
John apparently doesn't go to the bathroom unless he's mimicking someone else's behavior. When Butchie begrudgingly allowed John to "dump out" ahead of him in the beginning of the episode, John simply sat on the pot waiting to get an "A-plus for fume control". I laughed out loud when he shadowed that stranger's every move in the hospital bathroom, imitating every sound the guy made in the adjoining stall.
Butchie tells Bills he was more of a father to Shaun than he ever was, touching the hearts of millions of viewers who have been faithfully tuning in for two whole weeks.
Day 2 continued.
Instead of dispelling the theory that John might be Jesus or some other heavenly entity, the events in the latest episode seemed to substantiate that possibility. Much to Dr. Smith's amazement, Shaun was healthy enough to go home with his family, sans Mitch, who took off with Cass after his argument with Cissy. Meanwhile, John recounted Shaun's recovery to Kai and Linc in his usual cryptic sentences, even though he was with them the whole time and had no way of knowing what happened.
John politely informed Kai several times that he was still planning on boning her. When he announced the same to everybody at the Yost house, and added that he might have to "break her jaw first" for some reason, Butchie told him to make her see God. Kai took him to the surf shop and called his bluff on the boning by inviting him to feel her up, but "t--s don't ring a bell" with John, so she took him back to her trailer instead.
Once there, it started to look like she might bone him after all, even though she admitted to having misgivings about taking advantage of a slow, hot guy. Surely this is a dilemma most women encounter at least once in their lifetimes, I have to imagine. Anyway, this is when John told Kai to see God, her eyes crept into her head, and the visions began. Add that to the levitation and the reanimation of the dead and I think John has enough miracles under his belt to qualify for sainthood at the very least.
When Kai came to, she said it felt like her piercings were in a furnace while she was under John's trance. John replied, "See God, Kai," in a tone that seemed to remind her of the immensity of such an experience. It looked like all of the people she saw in her visions had a similar reaction. At least he didn't break anyone's jaw though, right?
The visions:
- Butchie scoring drugs
- Vietnam Joe clutching his knee as he fell to the ground outside of the Yost house
- Ramon waving his hands at his chest as if it were hot, while Barry gathered a package of what I can only imagine was spilled soup off the ground
- Butchie attempting to shoot up, only to end up clutching his head in severe pain
Butchie later told the doctor his implants got hot. What implants might he be talking about here? Hair implants? Metal plates from a surfing accident? It was mentioned so casually I felt like I should've known already. Dr. Smith responded by saying the burning sensations might have been caused by intravenous drug use, but quickly added that he wouldn't dismiss a more paranormal reason, and cited Shaun's recovery. Butchie then filled him in about his dad levitating and John's magical pockets.
I should also mention how Cissy flipped out on Butchie for having the audacity to presume he has the right to give his son permission to skate again so soon after nearly dying. Talk about powerful acting by Rebecca De Mornay! And I thought she had a point when she accused Mitch of thinking of no one but himself. What kind of jerk won't go see his grandson after a day like that?
There's a lot happening in this show despite the fact that it's only the third episode, but there hasn't been much development as to what John's purpose is. Just what I need, another mysterious show like Lost! Ah well, I'm already hooked. Besides, next week's episode looks great. Did I really hear Cissy tell Linc that she needs him? Could that be out of context or what? Also, Mitch levitates in a hotel room he's sharing with Cass. Again, out of context or are those two going to be doing some God-seeing of their own? Also, John is going to have an altercation with a gang of young ruffians he hitches a ride with. One of them pulls a knife on him, clearly threatened by his autistic nature. I wonder what special power John will rely on this time.
The writers do a good job of cutting the tension with lots of humor. Here are some moments that cracked me up this week:
- Freddy's anxious rant in the car about cutting the newsman into "50 f---in' pieces"
- How Freddy unnecessarily broke Palaka's wrist so he could get inside the hospital to find out how Shaun was doing. At least he had good intentions, right?
- When Barry asked Meyer and Ramon if the cardboard cutouts were animate or inanimate
- Bill and Freddy's argument outside the Yost home as Palaka savored every second
- When Bill and Freddy teamed up against Barry, Meyer and Ramon by not allowing them to bring the Yosts soup. "I don't care if you're bringing a Sikorski helicopter!"
Day 3.
Apparently Mitch had one that changed shape, too... for Cass. Oh yeah, I said it! Linc put her up to bedding Mitch so he would have to move out of his house. Is that so he could move in on Cissy or just because then he wouldn't have to worry about Mitch standing in his way again? We shall see, I guess. The previews that aired after last week's episode led me to believe that there would be a little more interaction between Cissy and Linc (for example, her telling him she needed him), but no such luck. I guess we'll have to wait to see that in a future episode. He did clean her house, though. That Dylan McKay turned into such a nice guy!
Oh yeah, so John got stabbed by a gang member. I guess that deserves mentioning. First off, it amazes me how tough repetition can make a person seem. I have to give credit to the writers, not only for moving this series along at a pretty steady pace, but also for not turning John into the black hole he so easily could have become. With that said, I also admire the actors for their convincing performances. I take back what I said about repetition making a person seem tough. There needs to be a little attitude, too. Austin Nichols had just the right amount in his portrayal of John. He scared the driver but didn't shed character. Not even when he was getting stabbed in the chest repeatedly. That boy is one tough cholo!
Vietnam Joe just happened to be driving along and stumbled across John lying in the woods after he was left for dead by the van full of rabid street toughs. Yeah right. As if anything on this show just happens. Once Joey got John in the van, John put Joe's hand on his chest and told him that he could help. By the time they arrived at the hotel, he was in a panic, not only because John's life-threatening injuries were gone, but because they seemed to remind him of an incident that happened in Vietnam. From what I could gather by what he said, things didn't turn out so well there. He did seem to calm down a bit, however, when John assured him that "tomorrow is another day."
Dr. Smith described John's wound as "healed up with fresh blood." I wonder if that means he could see a scar. If so, then at least we can scratch Wolverine off the list of things John might be. Shortly after that impromptu diagnosis, the doctor turned with John to look at the hotel as Butchie and Kai were emerging from his room. John told the doctor that he's in the right place. I wonder if that meant physically, mentally, spiritually or all of the above. I always had such a tough time with multiple-choice questions!
OK, so Cass witnessed Mitch levitate and all of a sudden she's in on the mysterious vision kick, too? I wonder if there's a reason why she and Kai are the only two characters to have had visions so far, or if there will be more down the line. I also wonder how many piercings Cass has and where those are located.
When Cass brought John back to her hotel room, Mitch asked him if he needed to stand aside while he passed or if he'd simply part like the Red Sea. Just another biblical reference I felt was worthy of mention. John, however, moved aside. Could that have been Milch's subtle way of dismissing that theory?
So was that hot blonde in the Mustang Shaun's mom or what?
Excellent dialogue from the episode:
"May this pain come to Clinton for disgracing the Oval Office," Bill said after tearing the duct tape he accidentally applied to his lip. The man has a way with words!
"Are you related to the Yosts?" Dr. Smith asked Linc.
"Not by blood," Linc replied.
"Maybe you just smell it in the water."
"Well my testicles are on display to the neighborhood," Bill said as a way of inviting Butchie and Kai inside his home.
"Is that too overtly gay?" Barry asked Ramon and Meyer after asking them if they would like to become permanently associated.
"My god, you have an erection!" Bill said to Butchie after walking in on him and Kai.
"I wanna bring down the hammer back at your place," Butchie said to Kai after Bill's interruption.
"Bill's not Freddy's first Bill," John said to Dr. Smith while watching Bill and Freddy argue. Shortly after, he added that "Freddy's not Bill's first Freddy." Ah, well that explains that!
"I'm here on orders from my bird," Bill said to Freddy after bringing coffee and donuts as a gesture of good will. Once a cop...
continued in the next post.
Day 5.
Wow! I'm not exactly sure what to say. That was some weird television! So apparently John can be in more than one place at a time, and apparently he can orchestrate events so that others can travel with him (Bill and Vietnam Joe arriving at the hotel, despite being in the van). Oh, and he can also remove dead people from hotel rooms. The Shining would have played out totally differently had John been around!
OK, consider my brain officially twisted. I know Milch is supposed to be going somewhere with all of this, but I would like for the road map to be a little clearer. Just a little bit. Is that too much to ask? It certainly seems like the religious angle is the one to focus on, though, what with John continuously mentioning his "father" towards the end of the episode, and his ability to heal/help those around him. I have to ask though, did Cissy really molest Butchie? That's certainly how it sounded to me! Man, these people are even more screwed up than I thought!
I have to say, as murky as the plot has been so far, the dialogue and acting have served as beacons of hope for what this series could become - or, at the very least, rocks to cling to so as not to get dragged too far away by the cloudy waves.
The previews for next week looked good. Milch sure likes casting old teen heartthrobs for some reason. And yes, I understand that Mark-Paul Gosselaar also starred in NYPD Blue, but I will forever remember the guy as Zach Morris from Saved by the Bell. I grew up in the '90s. What can I say?
Also in the near future, a morose Freddie sits by what looks like Palaka's deathbed and tells his minion he doesn't want him to go. Could it be gangrene or might Freddie have simply beaten his lackey a little too badly this time?
Oh yeah, and apparently, according to John, Shaun's going to be "gone" again. The kid's already been gone twice, what with the surfing incident and his running away from home - if you can call a trip to the skate park running away from home. Then again, I ran away from home as a kid, and the farthest I got was the front porch. And as long as we're drawing comparisons, my mom didn't have anything to do with "Moist Thighs, Pink Bottoms 3." Ugh! It pains me to even mention those two in the same sentence!
Day 6.
This episode added more intricate designs in the spider web that is John from Cincinnati. I have to say, right now I can't help but feel a little entangled, but I hope to stand back and admire the beauty when all is said and done. The complexity of the character interaction certainly makes this show fun to watch as the many seemingly unrelated (but definitely related) events keep building toward whatever climax Milch has planned for us.
Here are some things I enjoyed about this episode:
Dwayne mentioned to Butchie that his website had 1,244 hits in the past 24 hours and referred to it as the "halo effect." Yes, this is a widely used term used to define the carryover popularity between two closely related things (or in this case, people), but I'm guessing it was inserted into the script for obvious reasons. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the HolyZippy? Could be... Could be...
When a very sick Palaka showed up at the surf shop with the lawyer right behind him, I loved how Cissy immediately jumped to the conclusion that the lawyer was an ambulance chaser. Talk about skepticism! If that really were the case, I'd almost have to applaud his tenacity.
I don't fully comprehend the Linc-Tina relationship. She admitted to Jake that the deal she reached with Linc amounted to 4k per month as long as Shaun remains under contract, but was that part of her wily ruse? Shaun isn't actually under contract with Stinkweed, as we were reminded during the awkward confrontation between him and Butchie outside the surf shop in the beginning. Also, how come Tina was so loyal to Linc anyway? It didn't seem money motivated; she genuinely appears to like him. Might there be history between those two that we aren't aware of at this point? Oh, and as an aside, when Jake was interviewing Tina in the hotel room, I couldn't help but notice the resemblance between her and Shaun. Those two could definitely be related!
I love when Barry saw Dr. Smith smoking and asked him if all the fuss about smoking was over nothing. Now that I think of it, Barry had a few funny moments in this episode. Matt Winston utilizes his whole body to convey his character. If you blinked, you might have missed the way he pranced timidly about the hotel room like he was afraid he was going to break when the doctor was attending to Palaka.
John once again appeared in multiple places at the same time: Cissy's, Bill's, the hotel, Cass' room (she finally appeared to see the magic), and the ocean with Shaun and Butchie. I noticed a weird moment while Ramon was attempting to play the trumpet and John was easily visible behind him. The camera cut to Dr. Smith for a second, who happened to be looking at Ramon (and consequently John), but when it flashed back to Ramon via Dr. Smith's point of view, John was nowhere to be seen. Intentional? I have to imagine Milch and company scrutinize every frame to ensure continuity, so I'm going to assume that meant something. Could Dr. Smith even see him at all during his little "visit"?
Day 8.
OK, so Shaun, John and Zippy disappeared, although Shaun's doppelgänger still found time to scare the living hell out of Barry at the hotel bar. Are his visions of Shaun simply dreams, as he tells Dr. Smith later in the episode, or is that just wishful thinking on his part? Seems to me they could be more accurately categorized as "visions." Well, I'd actually be more likely to go with psychotic episodes brought on by trauma, but in this show, with this subject matter, I think "visions" works just fine.
I liked the scene when Butchie and Kai shared their thoughts on John, who they both agreed is on some kind of autopilot and simply parrots what he hears from other people because he is programmed to mimic emotions. As they discussed, it would certainly explain why he repeats such idiotic phrasings as "A+ for fume control." What do they think, though, that the guy is some kind of robot? I guess that could be interesting. I certainly wouldn't have been expecting that.
The stick figures that represented John and Shaun online, and that so freaked everyone out all of a sudden, appeared on the Avon catalog that Ramon showed Barry and Dr. Smith, but it didn't really seem like any of them actually noticed the stick-figure graphics. Their reactions seemed to be reserved for some other magic regarding the catalog, but it wasn't clear what that might be. And yes, they're all a little too old to be finding such joy in the Avon catalog, naturally. Plus, Barry's about as gay as can be.
Mitch finally showed up in Imperial Beach, just after recruiting the sage advice of his favorite chemist, who interestingly enough was played by Howard Hesseman, the star of WKRP in Cincinnati. Clearly, David Milch has a sense of humor, however subtly it may present itself. Get it? John from Cincinnati WKRP in Cincinnatiwell, I thought it was funny, anyway.
Oh, and after Cissy told Butchie to find a way to screw himself on the way to the ocean (in much more colorful dialogue, of course), the look on his face told me he was about to ask her, in as sarcastic a tone as he could muster, to help him out, considering she did exactly that when he was a teenager and she was completely out of her gourd on acid. Anyone else expecting that?
It's getting near the end. John from Cincinnati will soon be gone, be it until next season or forever, depending on whether or not HBO sees fit to grant the series more airplay. Will Freddie's prayers be answered? Is Shaunie going to be OK? Will Mitch and Cissy work out their differences? Will we ever find out if John is Jesus, an alien, a robot, etc.???
Day 9
Well, there goes the first season. And just when I thought that John was Jesus, the writers went ahead and threw in a bunch of hints to make me think he might actually be an alien. "You're all going to be toast," he told Linc. "We're coming 9/11/14." Could it just be a coincidence that their arrival is scheduled take place on the anniversary of the attacks on America? Then again, could those numbers actually represent the bible passage 9:11-14 that describes salvation through the Lord? There are just so many ways this could go!
I'm interested in finding out more about this Cincinnati place that John took Shaunie to, and why Shaunie couldn't recall much of his visit other than the fact that they, whoever they are, want to sponsor him. And even if they are aliens or simply the all-powerful celestial beings that occupy heaven, what exactly do they find so useful about the Yost family? If their true goal is to redeem mankind, then perhaps these alien gods are of the mind-set that the Yost family would serve as the best example to the rest of the world of just how redeeming they can be. But there is still that whole "you're all going to be toast" thing to consider.
What exactly did Dwayne and Jerri see on the live streaming video on Butchie's website? Their reactions caused me to believe that there was more than met the eye. Did they hear John's father's voice? I wonder if he sounds like Barry White.
I thought it was great how Freddie is this big, tough drug-runner, but he had to send Palaka over with an opening line to disguise his ulterior motive of finding out what Barry and Ramon would be wearing to the parade. Palaka's the perfect lackey for the job, too. To paraphrase: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Look at the bears. That's right. You wearin' that to the parade?"
The scene at the car lot was interesting. What did it mean when the salesman told John, or "Country," as he referred to him, that he was taking him offline? Could he be part of John's people? His speech was almost as murky as John's, and he even referred to the Cissy and Butchie incident, which I didn't think was common knowledge.
What was that ending about when Dr. Smith showed up 20 years younger from Cincinnati and Cissy apparently got pregnant? I bet Stephen Hawking would know, but I have about as much an idea of what is going on as Bill Jacks does of social relations. I did enjoy seeing Kai tear it up on her board, though. The girl's got some skills!
Anyway, that concludes the first season of the show, and also my blog. Thanks for reading, everybody! I hope you enjoyed my weekly musings."
from:
http://qa.tvguide.com/tvshows/john-cincinnati/recaps/287999 (http://qa.tvguide.com/tvshows/john-cincinnati/recaps/287999)
Thanks, Sven. So what exactly was the date of the first show, I know the anniversary is coming up soon!
Hi Skor!
The original air date was 10 June 2007. I thought it was on the 20th but I just checked two sources that say it was the 10th.
Surreality TV: Inside HBO's Quirky John from Cincinnati
When you work on a show like HBO's John from Cincinnati (Sundays at 9 pm/ET), it can screw with your head. Recently, Austin Nichols, who plays the enigmatic John, was memorizing lines for a scene when he had a premonition. "I knew in my heart that I should scream, 'Stare me down!'" he says. "The next morning when I arrived to shoot the scene, I looked at the revised script and those exact words were staring me in the face. It took my breath away."
HBO hopes its surreal new drama has the same "Whoa, dude!" effect on viewers. Set in the border town of Imperial Beach, Calif., about 130 miles south of L.A., John rips through the turbulent waters of three generations of a down-in-the-dumps surfing family — grandparents Mitch (Bruce Greenwood) and Cissy Yost (Rebecca De Mornay), their druggie son Butchie (Brian Van Holt), and his surfing-prodigy son Shaun (Greyson Fletcher). They encounter John, a bizarre Elvis look-alike entity who is either an alien, an angel, an idiot savant or none of the above. The only thing we know for certain, says Ed O'Neill, who plays Bill, a friend of the Yost family, "is that his name ain't John, and he's not from Cincinnati."
John starts off weird and doesn't get any saner. Mitch meets John on the beach and soon finds himself occasionally floating above the ground like a human hovercraft. Meanwhile, an unstable lottery winner named Barry (Matt Winston) moves to town to avenge a wrong done to him by the Yosts more than 20 years ago. Add to the mix a sleazy surfing sponsor (Luke Perry) who wants to sign Shaun, a balding drug dealer (Dayton Callie) trying to shake down Butchie, and a surfing competition with a shocking outcome... and you get the picture.
The surfing safari is led by David Milch, a junkie-turned-TV-writing legend who's behind such classics as NYPD Blue and Deadwood. John is loosely inspired by the philosophies of William James and Gustav Fechner (both were early influences on modern psychology) and by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it was the execs at HBO who asked Milch if he could set it amid a surfing subculture.
So he donned his writing wet suit, teamed up with surf noir author Kem Nunn, and surrounded himself with a team of rad surfing consultants. The result? A show that captures the dirty, dark underworld of surfing. "It's the most authentic show I've ever seen about surfing," says Van Holt, who grew up hanging ten in Huntington Beach. "From the setting to how people talk — they don't look or sound like your poster child Orange County/Blue Crush pretty people."
Milch was so focused on getting it right that after meeting two of his potential surfing consultants in person, he cast them in major parts: Fletcher is a 16-year-old skateboarding phenom (and son of surfing revolutionary Christian Fletcher) who's never acted before, and Keala Kennelly, who plays surf-shop board shaper Kai, was the second-best female surfer in the world last year. Even the show's "real" actors have aquatic chops. Nichols is the son of a surfing dad and a champion waterskiing mom. Van Holt used to surf competitively but quit after many of his board buddies became drug addicts. "So I'm not a junkie but I play one on TV," he says.
If all this seems rather odd, that's just the way Milch likes it. He usually gives his actors their scenes the day they're shooting so they have zero time to prepare. "Last I heard, you don't get too many rehearsals in life," he says with a wicked smile. De Mornay recalls being handed a big speech as she was walking to the set. "I've never worked like this before. It was scary in the beginning," she says. "I know where my character, Cissy, started, but I have no idea where she's going."
She's not alone. Ask any cast member to explain the show's many mysteries and you're likely to get a scratch of the head. Who is John, for example? And what do all his ominous phrases ("The end is near") mean? Why does Mitch levitate? And what's the deal with Zippy, Bill's miraculous parrot?
The cast has spent countless hours debating these issues. "Every day we go to the bar and talk about the day's craziness," says Van Holt. So is the show destined to be another Lost, which keeps raising questions while offering few answers? Milch will say only this: "More will be revealed, but that doesn't mean I know what it's going to be."
by Jonathan Small
Jun 14, 2007 04:00 AM ET
from:
http://www.tvguide.com/news/surreality-tv-inside-38190.aspx (http://www.tvguide.com/news/surreality-tv-inside-38190.aspx)
Our friend from Facebook, Nicholas:
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Photos: El Camino Motel, Imperial Beach ("John From Cincinnati's" Snug Harbor)
One of my favorite TV shows in recent years was HBO's brilliant, criminally-unwatched "John From Cincinnati." Set in Imperial Beach, California, much of it was actually also shot there. The exterior of the Snug Harbor Motel, hands down the show's most important set was filmed in IB's El Camino Motel.
Run down, abandoned, and left to rot off Palm Avenue, I finally decided to get a few shots there. I spoke with neighbors at two different businesses; no one claimed to know who owned it.
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I've read that the cabins on the grounds where Butchie lived were built by the production company. I suspect that's true, but even now they look as if they've been there all along.
As an avid fan of David Milch's looping, baroque "Milchspeak," I loved the show dialogue, particularly the reflective, swirling way that John himself usually spoke. This is just a little taste from John's famous "Sermon at the Motel" - and yes, it's just a bit, and it's clean.
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"Joe is a Doubting Thomas. Joe will save Not-Aleman. Joe will bring his buddies home. This is how Freddie relaxes: cup-of-Joe and Winchell's variety dozen...
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...Fur is big, mud is big, the stick is big. The Word is big. Fire is huge. The wheel is huge. The line and circle are big. On the wall, the line and circle are huge. On the wall, the man at the wall makes a man from the circle and line. The man at the wall makes a Word on the wall from the circle and line. The Word on the wall hears my Father."
from:
http://thewriterswashroom.blogspot.com/2010/01/photos-el-camino-motel-imperial-beach.html (http://thewriterswashroom.blogspot.com/2010/01/photos-el-camino-motel-imperial-beach.html)
Follow-up to the above post:
San Diego Foreclosure Listings Now Include More Hotelby Elizabeth Rush on November 16, 2009http://www.foreclosurelistingsnationwide.com/blog/article/1015/san-diego-foreclosure-listings-now-include-more-hotels (http://www.foreclosurelistingsnationwide.com/blog/article/1015/san-diego-foreclosure-listings-now-include-more-hotels)
QuoteIn January, there were only two hotel foreclosures in the San Diego area. In September, there were 4 hotels which went into foreclosure. They were Pacific Coast Inn, Mount Woodson Hotel in Ramona, El Camino Motel and Harbor House in Little Italy...
Over the past months, the hotels that have gone into foreclosure were all the San Diego branches of Extended Stay America,
______________________
Hotel chain's bankruptcy filing extends industry's woes.http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Hotel+chain%27s+bankruptcy+filing+extends+industry%27s+woes.-a0208110221 (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Hotel+chain%27s+bankruptcy+filing+extends+industry%27s+woes.-a0208110221)
QuoteExtended Stay Hotels' recent bankruptcy filing has cut a swath through California's lodging industry, adding 78 properties to an already bulging list of loan defaults...
The 46-room Pacific Coast Inn in Pacific Beach; 20-room El Camino Motel in Imperial Beach; and 11-room Harbor House Inn in downtown San Diego were foreclosed on, Reay said.
Amazon.com review of JFC
by Jason Wilkerson
(.....)"John From Cincinnati is a very ambitious TV show that appears to only have lasted one season. The big question is: did it deserve more.
I would say so. John From Cincinnati is brilliantly written taking twists and turns not common for TV, making it a very original show. Touching on moments of existentialism, belief in God, drug abuse, redemption, and so on, John From Cincinnati is the type of show I wish would be made more often. The characters are well developed, with their own quirks, hangups, and problems that all feel real and fit the actors perfectly, and the storyline takes twists and turns that you'd never expect. This isn't your typical cliched television show.
The acting is superb, and in many cases I would say that it's some of it's actors best work. Of these, the two standouts in my mind are Ed O'Neill and Brian Van Holt. Ed O'Neill as Bill Jacks, a former cop and friend of the Yosts, plays a man who is still adjusting to life without a badge and without his wife. He gets the meatiest lines of the show, and, in my opinion, gives some of his best acting work apart from his performance as the patriarch in Modern Family. Brian Van Holt has a little more of a wall to climb playing the drug addicted failure of a son who's heard one too man times that he's a loser and needs to get off the drugs, but the way he portrays it makes you feel every tick from messed up to jonesing and beyond. You feel him when he tries to redeem himself and find his way back into a better relationship with his son.
But I have to fault the series for being a bit too impenetrable at times and even a tad bit pretentious. At times the show is too clever and self aware of it, Milch and his writing seem to be trying to send a message, and try to hard to rap the message in an enigma in something of an attempt to show off. I still can't tell you that I know what all of it means, and maybe I will eventually figure it out on future viewings and while the rewatchability factor is a strength of the show, it's also it's weakness.
All in all, I would highly recommend the show. The dialogue is brilliant and just fun to listen to, and the acting is superb. The movie works on various levels from comedy to drama and beyond and is highly entertaining."
from:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R227WJM6SCC2XB (http://www.amazon.com/review/R227WJM6SCC2XB)
That "preliminary" review of JFC at the time it was first aired on June 10, 2007 has everything wrong and very little right, still it's part of JFC history, interesting to read and should be saved, if not for anyone but us.
"John' explores surfing's dark underbelly
A few scenes into the second episode of HBO's new "John From Cincinnati," one of the characters starts a long, rambling discourse about his life.
After a bit, another character raises his eyebrows and says, "You're getting a little hard to follow."
That may be how many viewers feel about "John" at just about the same point. The series, which debuts this Sunday at 10 after the series finale of "The Sopranos," certainly is unique, not only in its setting but in its tone and ambitions. But it also is maddeningly elusive in its vision, and could be frustrating to anyone seeking a central story line or even sympathetic characters to hang on to.
Set in a seamy Southern California beach world, "John" has been something of a Frankenstein's monster in its evolution. Creator David Milch ("Deadwood," "NYPD Blue") originally intended the show to be set in New York City, far away from the waves.
But HBO thought his concept might fit into an idea brought to the cable channel by Herb and Dibi Fletcher, the patriarch and matriarch of a well-known surfing family in San Clemente who bear something of a resemblance to the Yost family in "John." Along the way, Milch tacked on input from Kem Nunn, whose surf noir novels (such as "Tijuana Straits") have developed a cult following.
The result is a series about surfing that bears absolutely no relationship to the sunny world immortalized by the Beach Boys. Imperial Beach is a town of shuttered motels, dilapidated
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duplexes, needle-strewn beaches and lost souls. Life is gnarly, as twisted as the driftwood littering the sands.
The three generations of the Yost family, surfing legends who call Imperial Beach home, are awash in self-pity, with the exception of grandson and surf-champion-in-training Shaun (played by Grayson Fletcher, the Fletchers' real-life grandson).
Grandfather Mitch (Bruce Greenwood of "I, Robot") revolutionized the sport but now surfs in the early morning mists to avoid his fans. Grandmother Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay, "Risky Business") struggles to keep the family together with a surf shop and pushes Shaun to compete in surf contests - against Mitch's wishes. Mitch and Cissy's son Butchie (Brad Van Holt, "Black Hawk Down") has degenerated from top pro athlete to a loser who staggers from drug score to drug score.
Swirling around the family is a rogue's gallery of users, abusers and enablers. There's a lawyer (Willie Garson of "Sex and the City") who doesn't exactly serve high-end clients, a motel manager (veteran character actor Luiz Guzman) who gives Butchie a place to live and deal, and the new motel owner (Matt Winston, "Little Miss Sunshine") who is equally fond of his guns and his teddy bear.
A slightly-addled ex-cop who talks to birds (Ed O'Neill of "Married With Children") provides Shaun with something of a father figure. A slimy surfing promoter (Luke Perry, "Beverly Hills, 90210"), who Mitch blames for Butchie's addiction, is trying to get his hooks into Shaun.
About the only adult with a measure of focus in her life is Cissy's assistant at the surf shop (real-life pro surfer Keala Kennelly) - and she's got the hots for Butchie, hardly a winning proposition.
And then there's John (Austin Nichols, who played Morgan Earp on "Deadwood"), who is more likely from Mars than from Cincinnati. His first line - actually, the first line in the series - is "the end is near," before he goes on to offer such pronouncements as "Mitch Yost must get back in the game."
John is less a character (one of the problems with the early episodes of the series) than a symbolic device conjured up by Milch to alter the lives of the Yosts and - perhaps - to redeem them.
He is an emotional sponge who has no feelings (or anything else) of his own, but his presence on the beach gives rise to a series of miracles, including Mitch levitating and one of Bill's birds, a parrot named Zippy, bringing living things back from the dead.
In his past work, particularly on "Deadwood," Milch always has challenged audiences with his ideas and constructs. But "John" is so densely surrealistic and metaphysical, with glancing references to everything from Sept. 11 to German philosophy - and its setting and characters so initially unrelatable - that it's hard to grasp exactly what Milch has in mind.
In a recent interview, the ever-erudite Milch paraphrased the 19th century American philosopher William James in suggesting that the series is all about "lawless intrusions in what we take to be reality."
That's fine as a storytelling concept, but even the finest flights of fantasy need some grounding. My wife - whom I often use as a barometer on new shows - lasted through two episodes of "John" before turning to me and asking, "I care about these people precisely why?" It's a good question, likely to be raised by other viewers.
Still, I found enough mesmerizing moments, bits of character and sharp Milch dialogue in the opening episodes that I'll probably stick around to catch a few more waves.
Certainly, the cast is uniformly good (Greenwood and O'Neill stand out) and the direction by Mark Tinker on two of the first episodes, including Sunday's, is lovely. (Tinker, one of TV's best directors, has worked with Milch on "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood," so he knows his way around the writer's profanity-laden, often dense passages.)
But at some point fairly quickly, Milch is going to have to give me and other viewers a little more than a quirky, albeit sometimes fascinating, tone poem and engage us with his storytelling. It's one thing to say your series is about something; it's another to convey that in a concrete way to the audience you are trying to reach."
Sunday, June 10, 2007
from:
http://yourien.blogspot.com/2007/06/john-explores-surfings-dark-underbelly.html (http://yourien.blogspot.com/2007/06/john-explores-surfings-dark-underbelly.html)
Very interesting interview with Chandra West (Tina Blake), where we can confirm that JFC is still remembered with love and interest and "HBO still sucks" (Waxon's words on Facebook, not mine!, and said very well!)
What I liked most was the journalist setting respectful tone in his questions about JFC. Doesn't happen very often.
posted by Al Norton 06.19.2010
"Al Norton: Do people still come up to you and ask why HBO cancelled John from Cincinnati? I ask because it's something I still hear from readers at least once a month.
Chandra West: Yes they do. People absolutely come up to me and say, "God, I loved that show. I was so bummed out when it got canceled", or "I didn't quite get it but it was really interesting." I loved doing that show. David Milch is a genius. The show was a bit wacky but it was so fun and such a good cast.
Al Norton: You mentioned fans saying they liked it even though they felt like they might not be getting it; did the cast ever turn to each other on set and say the same thing?
Chandra West: Yeah (laughing). That definitely happened. It's funny, working with David Milch, it's almost like people are under his spell a little bit. It's like drinking the kool-aid. You get on board with him and he's so smart, you could just listen to him talk all day long, although I'm certainly not smart enough to understand what he's saying the whole time. You want to just go with it. Things were a little hectic and he does things very spur of the moment, very last minute, and everyone does it without question because they're there for the process and the journey with him.
Al Norton: You'd been acting for a while when you got your NYPD Blue job but was it still intimidating joining a show that was such a well oiled and successful machine?
Chandra West: It was. That and John were my two favorite jobs of my career. I had a great part on NYPD Blue and being able to sink into something helps but it really was intimidating. My first day on set, the first scene I did was with Mark Paul (Gosselaar) and Dennis (Franz) and when Dennis first turned to me and said something I almost started giggling like a little school girl. It was Sipowicz! It was so surreal to be there talking to him. "
Chandra West has a part in the vampire/werewolf show "Gates" that premieres on ABC on Sunday. River of (True) Blood reached networks, what else is new! Death and sex sells.
from:
http://www.411mania.com/movies/columns/142758/411Mania-Interviews:-Chandra-West.htm (http://www.411mania.com/movies/columns/142758/411Mania-Interviews:-Chandra-West.htm)
Thanks or posting this review, Sven. It makes me sad that JFC was unrecognized at the time. I always felt that the first reviewer who didn't quite "get it",and therefore slammed it, started a snowball of negative criticism. It was almost absurd the way writers would never give a morsel of praise to the show. Now, of course, it is too late, but with the release of the DVDs and the airing in other countries,we find new fans and positive voices not influenced by that lynch mob mentality. Hooray!
This video has a story. As you could find out on YouTube it was posted very recently, January 26, 2010. The young man, only 23, says he made the video as "a tribute to the short lived, and widely misunderstood, John From Cincinnati." Would be interesting to ask him to say something about JFC. He is an aspiring musician and a filmmaker, his tastes in movies lean towards Sci-fi, so his perception of JFC may be as of something like "Starman". Now the video. The song used is "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas.
John From Cincinnati (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDCA-K7qhbE#)
Quite old comment, from 2007, that hasn't lost its merit. The frustration at the unanswered questions in the show that some people declared a flaw is equaled to.... Well, read.
"Great show, great writing, great actors, great mystery:
John's identity can only be defined by identifying his father and we are undertaking our quest to define John without that crucial knowledge.
In that great mystery lies the primary attraction of the show. In every episode we are sorting and sifting dialogue, actions, scenes and storylines for just a little bit more information from John or about John that will allow us to identify his father, and thus let us know precisely who and what John is and what his objective is. When we don't get enough information to allow us to solve the mysterious identity of John's father and/or when we get contradictory/ambivalent evidence that does not advance our quest, we are driven to the heights of manic frustration. I know just how Cass feels!
But isn't that precisely the frustration that humankind has had through the ages? Although always searching for clues,information and facts that would help us mortals know and define a supreme being (along with identifying and clarifying the supreme being's grand plan) the information presented to us is never concrete enough for many to find the answer and to be at peace with it. Some need only the Bible and it's teachings as the evidence to define the supreme being and his plan, some are satisfied with other holy books, teachings and creeds, mathematics, science, etc. Acceptance of these forms of evidence relies solely on the believer's faith in the evidence.
Many others, the "doubting Thomases", aren't satisfied by faith in these types of evidence alone and require more tangible evidence. These are the folks who are still on the quest. These are the folks who daily experience the frustration of knowing there may be some higher power but are stifled in their search because if that higher power exists, it is not doing anything to directly make that fact known.
Then, while the quest is ongoing, one person appears bearing a strange message; a different way of thinking, like nothing that any of the searchers are used to. It makes no sense. And in the end, the searchers ignore the message because the speaker is odd and because of their inability to grasp the simplicity of what appears to be nonsensical. This is the second aspect of the show that has us all hooked. And, because we can't define who or what John is, and because he is bringing his father's message in a strange fashion ("parrot talk"), he is being ignored, despised, persecuted and held in suspicion.
Now, I have to ask Vietnam Joe how that herb is treating him."
--KWarner722
from:
Blogspot Post (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0KRN69leV-Q/RqQ-OPlRVDI/AAAAAAAAAeE/tma4Pb5cSCk/s400/jfc17a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html&usg=__TFV6ZAATLtXjVjgzG0ahmwrtLn8=&h=288&w=400&sz=24&hl=en&start=15&itbs=1&tbnid=viViBMGgiICUAM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbarry%2Bcunningham%2Bjohn%2Bfrom%2Bcincinnati%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1)
The news feed never stops.
This review has many accolades to JFC, but I am sorry for the lengthy post! I am afraid that something happens and we once again will lose those interesting thoughts about our beloved series. That would be irreversible.
"John from Cincinnati – A Quick Intro to the HBO Series
by admin on June 22, 2010
When the Sopranos finale aired about a month ago, some loyal viewers camped out on their sofas watching HBO and hoping John From Cincinnati would fill up some of the emptiness. Alas, John From Cincinnati offers one hour of the least concrete show I have ever seen, in fact the show is a genre unto itself. I do want to say though, that it is also one of the most intriguing and original shows airing right now. After watching a show, you can log onto a few of the preferred forums and see people breaking it down – into themes, quotes, characters, references. After attributing the dialogue as best as they can, the viewers then work on theories – what does it all mean if the extinguish is near and the Internet is big? What about the word on the wall? What about Cass's Camera? What about John? Perhaps the weirdest show on television right now, John From Cincinnati hits you hard – leaving you feeling like one of the Yost surfers after being wiped out by a wave. I'll cover the basics here – but don't dare miss an episode! You'll be left feeling more lost than Mitch Yost.
Who Done It?
The show was created by the acclaimed David Milch (responsible for HBO's Deadwood) and Kem Nunn (the surf-noir novelist) who make John From Cincinnati feel like the Imperial Beach of television – not quite in this world, but not quite out of it.
The Place:
The indicate is perfectly located in Imperial Beach (IB), California – the last stretch of surf territory before entering Mexico, and an spot which captures that desolate, end-of-the-world feel. It's hard to tell whether it's the perfect place for the Apocalypse or a miracle. The cast is spread out around the territory, convening at one major space – the Snug Harbor Motel. The other regular locales include the Yost home, the surf shop (also owned by the Yosts), Kai's trailer, Bill's home, the coffee shop, and the motel where Linc and Cass are staying.
The Family:
Unlike the Sopranos, John From Cincinnati focuses on a (somewhat) traditional family. Enter the Yosts, the nexus of the IB failures, misfits, and shady characters. The three generations include Mitch and Cissy Yost, their son Butchie, and his son, Shaun. While it is obvious Mitch and Butchie each had their own reign in the surfing world (and Shaun, only 14, who has Butchie's surf skills is likely to have his too), now the Yosts face an onslaught of dreadful luck, anger, addiction, and pain. But there is hope and that hope lies with John.
The Stranger:
John Monad (From Cincinnati). John Monad is a stranger, who isn't really from Cincinnati, and he is something else. After his arrival, the Yosts are touched by something otherworldly – something greater than anyone of them can imagine – and John seems to be the source. John's presence has already broken boundaries of time, space, and logic and one can only imagine what's next.
The Extended Family:
Bill Jacks is still a cop, even if he is no longer with the police force, even if he has completely isolated in retirement, grieving over his wife Lois. His house is chunky of parrots and cockatoos that encourage him through life and he tries to remain strong enough to fill the gaps that Butchie has made in Shaun's life. Kai is like the glue holding what's left of the Yosts together. She maintains the surf shop, takes care of Shaun and Butchie, and generally keeps things as level with the family as possible. Tina Blake gave birth to Shaun, but abandoned him on Cissy's doorstep because she knew that he would have a better life that intention. After leaving IB, she became an adult film star and only returned when she saw Shaun's accident on the news. She's hoping to have a second chance in Shaun's life, but Cissy is far from blissful about her return.
The Remaining Astronomical Players:
Meyer Dickstein is the lawyer (engaged to a fiancé that frightens him) that loves surfing and is dedicated to helping Butchie stay alive and well. He serves as the local law expert, although he does focus on Butchie. Barry Cunningham, the new owner of the Snug Harbor Motel, won $11 million in the dwelling lottery and returned to IB with the hope of making friends, improving the Motel, and overcoming the past to create a better future. Linc Stark customary to represent Butchie in his prime and comes back for a second helping of the Yosts after seeing Shaun's tape. Linc has a lot of obstacles to overcome before the Yosts will allow him to portray Shaun, especially since Mitch blames Linc for Butchie's downfall. Cass is supposed to be all about vintage, but she's about a enormous deal more than that. Her camera will hold the key to questions that haven't even been proposed yet. Originally posing as a filmmaker for Linc, she has since become a free agent and has changed her focus from Mitch to John. Exact Freddy Lopez knows Butchie from Hawaii, before Butchie became a heroin addict and misplaced his talent. While Freddy is ultimately a tough criminal, he has a soft spot for Butchie and his family and will do his best to protect them."
from:
http://californiapublicrecordsearch.org/103/john-from-cincinnati-a-quick-intro-to-the-hbo-series/ (http://californiapublicrecordsearch.org/103/john-from-cincinnati-a-quick-intro-to-the-hbo-series/)
http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/06/some-thoughts-on-john-from-cincinnati.html (http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/06/some-thoughts-on-john-from-cincinnati.html)
This is a blog that was written when the show originally aired. He gives commentary on each episode.
Santa Anita bets on HBO's "Luck" to win
07/03/2010
"Cast members of David Milch's pilot for HBO called LUCK, including Dustin Hoffman, left, who presented the winner's trophy to Ann and Jerry Moss after Zenyatta's victory in the Grade I $250,000 Santa Margarita Invitational Stakes Saturday, March 13, 2010 at Santa Anita. (Courtesy Benoit Photo)
For Santa Anita Park, Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, writer and producer David Milch and HBO might be just the trifecta the historic racetrack needs.
Most of the HBO horse racing pilot "Luck" was filmed here last spring and if the popular movie channel "greenlights" it as a full-fledged series, it would be an around-the-world promotion for the track and the declining horse racing industry as well, racetrack officials said.
"It's beyond the word boost," said Dennis Mills, CEO of the Aurora, Canada-based MI Developments, which acquired the racetrack in April. "They are featuring Santa Anita in all of their shots, in all of their series. It's like, by the time that series is finished - if it ever finishes... everyone in the world will know Santa Anita."
HBO officials say their programming department has yet to make a final decision as to whether the pilot, which was written by Milch of "Deadwood" fame and directed by Michael Mann, will be picked up as a series.
But racetrack officials believe there is "a very strong possibility" that HBO will go forward with the high-stakes drama, which would also star Nick Nolte as a horse trainer.
"They have told me it's not official yet but they have been asking a lot of questions about how to make a series work here," said Pete Siberell, director of special projects at Santa Anita.
HBO officials have even discussed a potential fast track with Santa Anita, in which shooting would start as early as this fall during the Oak Tree meet, and a slow track, in which filming would start during the racetrack's winter meet, he said.
HBO shot 20 out of 25 days of its pilot at the racetrack this spring, and would probably shoot about 10 hour-long episodes for its first season, Siberell said.
"If it's like what HBO has done on other shows, like `Deadwood' and `The Sopranos,' it's cutting edge stuff," he said. "We'd be hitting a whole new audience that we've never hit before, fairly affluent younger people... We can expect a lot of people coming to Santa Anita just to see where the show was shot. It would also raise interest in the sport."
In Deadwood, South Dakota, tourism and gambling revenues shot up after the HBO historical Wild West fictional series based on the small mining town began to air in March, 2004, business officials there said.
"People were amazed that this town existed up here," said Lee Harstad, marketing director for the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce. "It was a very big boon to our economy, to the area."
Deadwood's total gross gaming and slot machine revenues increased from about $62 million in 2003 to about $84 million in 2005, a measure of the increased tourism that the town generated at that time, Harstad said.
The town, which has a population of about 1,300, receives about 2 million visitors a year."
from:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_15436783 (http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_15436783)
Some flatly declare our beloved show "the most daring". (We'd agree!) Judging by their lexicon, they're young, perhaps know few things about pot and don't read Tim Goodman and Co. Good for them.
It's a short exchange on some TV blog.
"...--This one had to be a two-part answer.
John From Cincinnati is- just flat out is- the most daring show ever to be on television. It's slow moving. It has very challenging dialogue. And nothing is fully explained. And it got better and better and better as it went along. I really wish I could have seen more.
--yay, glad to see you on the train!
I have never heard of this John From Cincinnati thing...sounds interesting, what is it actually about?
--a guy who may or may not be the second coming of christ shows up out of the blue and lives with/around this very troubled family of famous surfers and the other ancillary people in their life. He has magical powers and crazy things happen. People come back from the dead, have visions, levitate... it's nutty. And the dialogue is insane. It's just so weird and awesome and takes a while to digest. I adore it.
--I love John from Cincinnati soooo much."
from:
http://cornelius-mcfee.livejournal.com/146089.html (http://cornelius-mcfee.livejournal.com/146089.html)
Not about JFC, still useful info.
"Want Ian McShane? Watch the new Starz series starting July 28. PILLARS OF THE EARTH. Eight parts. Based on the Ken Follett best-seller. McShane plays a major character. Another ruthless manipulator. (grins). Waleran Bigod. Funny hairdo, but I'll at least try to watch anything he's in. "
from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/10/tv-characters-weve-lost-w_n_630038.html#comments (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/10/tv-characters-weve-lost-w_n_630038.html#comments)
Jul 14 2010
Hollywood Reporter
Milch, Mann, Hoffman land HBO series
HBO has given a series order to "Luck," a new drama with an A-list pedigree.
The series has "Deadwood" scribe David Milch writing the script, Dustin Hoffman in the lead role and Michael Mann directing the pilot. (With those kind of auspices, you don't need much luck to secure a greenlight).
"Luck" is billed as provocative look at horse racing – the owners, gamblers, jockeys and diverse gaming industry players.
"Michael Mann delivered a pilot from David Milch's brilliant script that took our breath away," said HBO programming president Michael Lombardo. "We are truly excited that these two artists, and our extraordinary cast headed by Dustin Hoffman, will be bringing 'Luck' to life."
The show begins production this fall at Santa Anita and other Los Angeles locations.
The rest of the cast: Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, Kevin Dunn, Richard Kind, Jason Gedrick, Ritchie Coster, Ian Hart, Tom Payne, Kerry Condon, Gary Stevens and Nick Nolte.
Executive producers are Milch, Mann and Carolyn Strauss; co-executive producer Henry Bronchtein and producer Hoffman.
from:
http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/07/hbo-orders-horseracing-drama-starring-dustin-hoffman.html (http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/07/hbo-orders-horseracing-drama-starring-dustin-hoffman.html)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EW.com
HBO orders new drama 'Luck' starring Dustin Hoffman
by Lynette Rice
HBO announced today that it has picked up the new drama series Luck that stars Dustin Hoffman. The project from David Milch (The Wire) and Michael Mann (Heat) focuses on horse racing. "Michael Mann delivered a pilot from David Milch's brilliant script that took our breath away," said Michael Lombardo, president, HBO programming. "We are truly excited that these two artists, and our extraordinary cast headed by Dustin Hoffman, will be bringing Luck to life."
Luck will begin shooting this fall at Santa Anita Park and other Los Angeles locations. It also stars Dennis Farina, Jason Gedrick and Nick Nolte and features guest star Jill Hennessy.
from:
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/07/14/hbo-orders-new-drama-luck-starring-dustin-hoffman/ (http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/07/14/hbo-orders-new-drama-luck-starring-dustin-hoffman/)
More details about "Luck".
"Cable network Home Box Office has approved writer/producer David Milch's new series, "Luck," described as a cutting-edge depiction of life on the racetrack, for an inaugural season with shooting to commence at Santa Anita either this fall or early in 2011.
Daily Variety, in announcing the decision July 14, said that highly placed executives at HBO have indicated that "Luck's" first season will consist of a pilot and seven to nine additional weekly episodes.
Milch, who created "Luck," is also a prominent Thoroughbred horse owner who has won two Breeders' Cup races.
The pilot for "Luck," which is due to air on HBO late next year, was shot primarily at Santa Anita this past March and April. Milch enlisted the services of major director Michael Mann, whose credits include "Miami Vice," "Ali," and "Public Enemies." Mann is to remain in an advisory capacity for the upcoming series.
Milch also procured the services of actors Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, and John Ortiz for the pilot. Although they will not all remain series regulars, it is believed those actors who contributed to the pilot will maintain a presence as "Luck" develops in seasonal episodic form.
"It's hard to quantify how much we feel this could mean to Santa Anita and horse racing in general," said Pete Siberell, Santa Anita's community and events coordinator. "Anyone who's watched 'Hill Street Blues,' 'NYPD Blue,' or 'Deadwood' knows what David Milch is capable of. He has a heart-felt passion for racing and although he'll be delving into to some dark areas on occasion, we feel strongly that "Luck" has the potential to have a similar impact to that of "The Sopranos,'" which also aired on HBO.
"This is great news and it couldn't have come at a better time," Siberell added. "Horse racing is experiencing many challenges right now, and now, more than ever, we need to be reaching out to new people in a creative and innovative way. "Luck" is going to generate a lot of buzz and it is going to get people talking about racing and about Santa Anita, which is fantastic.
"From what we understand, the people at HBO are absolutely thrilled with what Michael Mann has been able to put together thus far and we feel that people are going to view horse racing as they've never seen or imagined it before, with a compelling plot line, dynamic acting, and film production that Mann is famous for."
from:
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/57934/hbo-oks-first-season-for-racing-drama-luck (http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/57934/hbo-oks-first-season-for-racing-drama-luck)
A very long and very interesting article from New Yorker about Mr.Milch life and work, appeared February 14, 2005.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact_singer?currentPage=all
There is a blog devoted to all about Garret Dillahunt with the latest news and trailers.
http://www.garret-dillahunt.net/ (http://www.garret-dillahunt.net/)
Unfortunately he is constantly cast in roles of psychopaths and murderers. Dr.Smith is such a rare and beautiful exception, the part is so well suited him, that soft and kind demeanor, quiet and calming. "I am so happy" - I will not forget that scene.
Latest news about "Luck" and the usual smear of JFC.
"How do they make sure that "Luck" is more "Deadwood" and less "John From Cincinnati"?
Lombardo makes it clear that "John" was developed before they were in their seats. David Milch has a clear vision for the first season. (of "Luck")"There's a confidence in the storytelling that was enormously compelling," Lombardo says. They love the script and love the world. "There's no question that we take the journey with him," Lombardo says. Plepler adds that Milch is writing "Luck" from his gut, while "John" may have been more from his head, more cerebral. Both men agree that the show will be accessible even if you aren't a horse-racing fan. Lombardo emphasizes that it isn't all about gambling. There are trainers and jockeys and owners.
How did the "Luck" pilot go? "This will either be magic or mayhem," Lombardo recalls thinking before they shot. But he felts it was ultimately magic. He says that the creative environment was productive and that Dustin Hoffman and David Milch loved working together. "With Dustin, he has a producer credit," Lombardo says, pointing out that the Oscar winner wants to be heard."
from:
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-the-fien-print/posts/press-tour-live-blog-hbo-executive-session (http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-the-fien-print/posts/press-tour-live-blog-hbo-executive-session)
The author's, Daniel Feinberg, questions are in itallic.
Emily Rose, (Kass) who is playing Audry in "Haven" on SyFy (Kass) speaks about Mr.Milch and JFC.
EMILY ROSE: Yeah. I mean, I think with genre stuff, it's quirky, right? JOHN FROM CINCINATTI is a great one. I feel like whenever you're doing longer-arc things, it's about being true to what the writers' desires are on that and what's been cool about JOHN FROM CINCINATTI and what's cool about this one [HAVEN] is, [JOHN FROM CINCINATTI creator] David Milch doesn't tell you where it's going, so you have to trust the process, which as an actor is very scary. Because you want to be really prepared – you want to be as prepared as you can be. David Milch is very much like, "Here's your script, now go do it the day of." So you just have to trust. And in [HAVEN], too, I feel like I'm very much having to trust as it unfolds, because I don't know what's going to happen in this town of Haven – they haven't laid it all completely out for me, so I just have to trust it. I think the whole new take with Syfy about changing their brand and "Imagine greater" and that whole thing is so cool, because it's broadening the genre. I think a lot of people maybe felt like it was very niche and very [concerned with outer] space, and what's exciting about Syfy is that it's really broadened how it's doing its genre, so it's more accessible to everybody and I'm glad, because I want to be able to have accessible characters. I think Syfy's shows are really interesting, because they really do encourage the imagination and there's not a lot of stuff out there encouraging that.
Do you have any idea what the producers saw in you that made them go, "You're Audrey?"
ROSE: I think I have a spunky tenacity [laughs]. When I get in a room [to audition or perform], I really want to do the best I can do and I'm very strong-willed about it. And I think maybe that's what they saw.
from:
http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=3937
She definitely wants to "work here". The reviews are mixed though. Is anybody watching "Haven"? What do you think?
Happy Birthday, Ramon!
"Luis Guzmán (1956, 54, Latino character actor seen on TV's Oz, John from Cincinnati and How to Make it in America; Greendale Community College on the sitcom Community erected a statue of Guzmán on its campus in tribute)"
What is the sitcom "Community", does anyone know? ("How to Make it in America" feels fake to me, I only could stand two episodes, is anyone watching it?)
Quote from: Sven2 on August 29, 2010, 10:46:36 PM
("How to Make it in America" feels fake to me, I only could stand two episodes, is anyone watching it?)
I watched the first season. I wouldn't be sad if it didn't come back for another season. I think it's a interesting premise... Young talented but poor guy with an in to a wealthy crowd and a good-guy-hustler as a best friend try to make it in the apparel industry of NYC. I like the street shots of NYC and I always like Guzman. We'll have to see if it matures in season 2.
Sorry, "I was remiss", so that's the "yesterday" news.
JENNIFER GREY – will be "Dancing With the Stars". "A beloved actress of both film and television, Jennifer Grey is best known for her starring roles in the iconic movies "Dirty Dancing" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Grey starred as Frances "Baby" Houseman in the award-winning box office hit, "Dirty Dancing," which is widely considered one of the best dance movies of all time. Some of her other films include the Ben Affleck movie "Bounce," "Red Dawn" and "The Cotton Club." She starred in the television sitcom "It's Like, You Know..." and has made memorable television appearances on such shows as "Friends," "John from Cincinnati," "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and an upcoming episode of the medical drama, "House". Grey has also starred in various television movies, including "A Case for Murder," CBS's "The West Side Waltz" and the Lifetime original movie "Road to Christmas." The daughter of Tony® and Academy Award® winner Joel Grey, she resides in Los Angeles with her family, actor/director Clark Gregg and daughter.
Read more: http://www.spoilertv.com/2010/08/dancing-with-stars-all-new-lineup-of.html#ixzz0zA55bovI (http://www.spoilertv.com/2010/08/dancing-with-stars-all-new-lineup-of.html#ixzz0zA55bovI)
The actress was diagnosed with cancerous lump on her neck, the tumor removed and Ms. Grey will dance in the company of Michael Bolton, Bristol Palin and some others.
(I didn't see a single episode of DWS, so got no opinion or interest)
Mr.Milch certainly has a lot to teach. If anyone is in LA in October, has desire and an entrance fee, here's your chance to hear the master.
"Los Angeles, CA—The 2010 Screenwriting Expo is set to kick-off October 7-10 at the Hilton LAX, with an acclaimed Guest of Honor line-up, featuring screenwriters John August, Shane Black, David Milch and Jennifer Salt. Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. "
from:
http://www.prlog.org/10920982-the-2010-screenwriting-expo-announces-speakers-john-august-shane-black-david-milch-jennifer-salt.html (http://www.prlog.org/10920982-the-2010-screenwriting-expo-announces-speakers-john-august-shane-black-david-milch-jennifer-salt.html)
Garret Dillahunt
'Raising Hope'will premiere on Fox on September 21, 2010. The half-hour single-camera comedy is set to air on Tuesdays at 9 pm.
"That guy!: Where hasn't he been on TV? Dillahunt has had recurring roles in 'Burn Notice,' 'John From Cincinnati,' 'The 4400' and 'ER,' played two characters -- Jack McCall and Francis Wolcott -- on 'Deadwood' and was John Henry/Cromartie on 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.'
Now playing: He's Burt, who, with wife Virginia (Martha Plimpton), had son Jimmy when they were 15 years-old. Now, 23-year-old Jimmy is about to become a single dad (his babymama is in jail), and he's bringing his new daughter home to live with his (unhappy) parents."
from:
http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/09/08/fall-tv-2010-that-guy-that-woman/ (http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/09/08/fall-tv-2010-that-guy-that-woman/)
Luke Perry recently starred in a Canadian direct-to-DVD film, Final Storm, which a biblical apocalypse thriller.
The review is here, if you're interested. Seems a dud.
http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/final-storm-the-2010 (http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/final-storm-the-2010)
I get the feeling that Luke Perry takes projects for money and not the writing/directing/etc. It's too bad. I really liked him in "Jeremiah".
I am willing to watch about anything with Garrett Dillahunt.
"He has another regular gig, on "Raising Hope," Greg Garcia's new FOX comedy about a young slacker (Lucas Neff) who decides to turn his life around when he inherits the baby girl he fathered with a Death Row inmate. (It debuts Tuesday at 9 p.m.) Though I think a little of Garcia's "My Name Is Earl"-style humor goes a long way, I did laugh several times during the "Hope" pilot, including some things Dillahunt does as Neff's none-too-bright father".
He speaks about his career and Milch:
Why did you want to be an actor? Who are some actors you admired?
I originally (wanted) to be a writer. I wanted to be journalist. My degree is in journalism. I don't know that I'm a very good writer, but this is very similar, I've found. Sort of like writing live or something and I feel like a similar itch is being scratched, you know? And it might also be why I love writers so much, because I always feel I need a writer and I need to find a way to make those words work. I'll go there before I try to improve or go off script.
I think your reasons (for going into acting) change, but in college it was a great therapeutic thing for me. My brother passed when I was very young, when I was 16. And I was just determined after that to do something that I loved and not that I felt I had to do or just to pay bills. Life became very short and very fragile all of a sudden and I think the acting thing was very therapeutic for that and then it became a lot of fun. I enjoyed standing in a lot of different people's shoes, which is very annoying politically because you sort of feel like, "Well, I see this side, but I kind of see this side too," but I just like it. I like experiencing different things and meeting new people and change. I like change.
Speaking about the change in writing, Milch famously will not only give new pages at the last minute, but give new dialogue like right before the camera would roll. How was that experience for you?
I love it. I know it's difficult for a lot of people but I find that I think It's the perfect kind of atmosphere for doing what we do. And the reason he does that is because he's seen you do something that sparked an idea in him, so that he throws it back. So it's this thing where everyone on-set is awake and proud and really trying to do something unique. And it's kind of happening on "Raising Hope" as well, because Greg will see you do something and then we'll do a riff on that. And who knows which take he'll use, but he'll be like, "Now try this line, and try this line, and try this line," because he will have seen you do something. I think that's the best kind of atmosphere to be in for what we do".
from:
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/interview-raising-hope-co-star-garret-dillahunt (http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/interview-raising-hope-co-star-garret-dillahunt)
Possibly Dillahunt will take part in Milch's "Luck":
"Al Norton: Are there shows that you watch that you'd love to appear on?
Garret Dillahunt: I've been really digging what I'm seeing for Boardwalk Empire. I'd love to be on that thing. It's just a monster cast. David Milch talked to me about playing a part on Luck but I'd already signed for Raising Hope so I'm hoping maybe to guest on it. There are a lot of great shows out there. It'd be nice to play a role where I get a girl legitimately, not by force."
from:
http://www.tv.com/raising-hope-interviews-andndash-show-premieres-tonight/webnews/152239.html (http://www.tv.com/raising-hope-interviews-andndash-show-premieres-tonight/webnews/152239.html)
As we "talked" in e-mails with Ocean Flower, (who was previously known by a different name), this place presently looks like a mausoleum, in need of nothing, lest a breath, but against all odds.....
Some still speak about "John from Cincinnati" with love, unexpectedly, irrationally, the way it is only possible to speak of love.
You already know that HBO ordered the second season of "Boardwalk Empire", after only one episode, and comparisons of that show with Mr.Milch "Deadwood" abound, but JFC?
From a blog about television by TIME's TV critic James Poniewozik.
"Because I watched advance screenings, I had yet to see the opening titles, an HBO specialty. They were nothing like what I'd have guessed—a surreal, dreamlike sequence in a very naturalistic series; they recalled less The Sopranos than the opening titles of John from Cincinnati (which I loved)."
from:
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/09/20/boardwalk-empire-watch-land-of-opportunity/ (http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/09/20/boardwalk-empire-watch-land-of-opportunity/)
Would it make one think if the show might be interesting to watch? Probably not so. Although "Deadwood" "Femme Fatale", Molly Parker, appears in a photograph as late Nucky's (protagonist) wife, I'd assume she has a part in some future episodes.
Who wishes to learn more about the ancestors of Sopranos - that's your chance.
Couldn't believe my own eyes, finding a question about JFC on - hold your breath - "best birding binoculars for birdwatching.com"! No rational explanation as to why, of all places, birdwatchers would be discussing JFC! It must be because of Zippy.
Anyways, here's the short Q and A:
"Anybody watch HBO's John from Cincinnati? What's going on here?
Where is 'John' from?
Why does Mitch float?
What does 'The End is Near' mean?
Why did Shaun have the power to bring life to the dead bird?
There are so many things going on in this show, which is entertaining, but when will ANY answers come? They just keep adding to list of characters, drama and story lines. I don't have a clue, do you?
1. Sara W says:
I'm in the same boat! I watched the making of special and I know that the director is setting up John to be an example of how each person he interacts with can be his or her best, identifying their flaws, etc. "The End is Near" -to me- means that the end of goodness in humanity is coming. Shaun is the only character in the show – with the exception of John- that still has innocence (life). What I love is John's pants! What else can he pull out of those pockets? Watch the making of special on HBO on Demand, if you have it. Hope that helps!"
from:
http://bestbinocularsforbirdwatching.com/anybody-watch-hbos-john-from-cincinnati-whats-going-on-here/ (http://bestbinocularsforbirdwatching.com/anybody-watch-hbos-john-from-cincinnati-whats-going-on-here/)
The "wish fulfilling" article of clothing that John wears made quite an impression on Sara W.!
"The end is near" is a tough one. So, is it about the end to our world when the "goodness in humanity" is gone?
I'll be watching those birdwatchers and report any news on the subject of the end of anything. ;)
Some tidbits about Luck and Michael Mann, from a rather long article that you can find here:
http://www.fox4kc.com/entertainment/la-ca-1010-michael-mann-20101010,0,7418144.story (http://www.fox4kc.com/entertainment/la-ca-1010-michael-mann-20101010,0,7418144.story)
"Mann and Milch, who each have an executive producer credit on "Luck," have been described as talented tyrants when it comes to putting their visions on the screen. "They're very respectful ... but, as Michael describes it, 'not great with committees,'" said David Lombardo, the HBO programming president who brought the pair together. Hoffman, who is not exactly meek himself, says he sits back and watches it all.
"The sharing of the paintbrush is always a tenuous thing," Hoffman said. "In film, the writers hand over the paintbrush, but in television the directors have less power. But with this one, Mann is more active because he's not just a one-time director, he is the [executive] producer of the show too. It's exciting to see Mann do some scenes there and then talk to Milch and Milch is glowing because it's just wonderful work."
Milch was uninterested in any projected clash-of-egos subplots: "There are challenges in every collaboration, and a challenge is an opportunity in disguise." When asked what Mann brings to the project, Milch did have a glow in his growl. "He brings what he brings to every piece of work of his that I've seen. He's an extraordinary shooter. Michael realizes the visual possibilities of the material with a compression and an intensity that is very, very gratifying. The final product is extraordinary.
Mann said he went for a ride with "Luck" for one reason alone: "Milch's script is one of the best I've ever read."
Mann said the Milch script for "Luck" was one of the richest and most compelling that had ever crossed his desk. Milch certainly is no tourist when it comes to the subject matter — he owned Val Royal, the French-bred colt that won the 2001 Breeders' Cup Mile — and Milch said it only increases the pressure to get the voice, vocabulary and vibe just right.
The pilot opens with a career bookmaker named Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Hoffman) leaving prison and wearing a shirt that still has the department store packaging creases. Waiting for him in a Mercedes is Gus Economou ( Dennis Farina), an old crony who's ready to help the parolee with his mysterious revenge plans. At the track, the show introduces a conniving trainer ( John Ortiz), jockeys and the betting regulars who seek their fortune at a venue that is sinking into bankruptcy. Underpinning all of it is the juxtaposition between the majestic horses and the desperate people who exploit them and one another.
Mann is especially pleased by the shadows in the plot. Who is the target of Bernstein's vendetta? What is the past of Nolte's secretive loner, a trainer who confides only in the horses when he speaks of a dark past on the East Coast? All of it is a puzzle to be solved, and Mann, the detective, seemed giddy to be on the case.
"To make these characters be alive, you have a sense of them intuitively and viscerally," Mann said. "The challenge of it is obvious, but the economy of it is wonderful — if you can make it work."
Interview with David Milch about "Luck"
David Milch aims for 'visceral experience' with HBO's 'Luck'
October 13, 2010 | 7:00 am
"HBO hit the trifecta with the creative team for the upcoming series "Luck" — writer David Milch, director Michael Mann and star Dustin Hoffman bring a lot of Hollywood horsepower to a series about racetrack culture and the dark deals made by gamblers and gangsters. Los Angeles Times reporter Geoff Boucher wrote the first major piece about the show on Sunday with a major profile of Mann, but here's more: A Q&A with Milch, the creator of "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood" and a fan of racing who also has owned champion horses.
Q: It's intriguing to see you collaborating with Michael Mann. What can you tell us about him as a creative force so far?
A: He brings what he brings to every piece of work of his that I've seen. He's an extraordinary shooter. Michael realizes the visual possibilities of the material with a compression and an intensity that is very, very gratifying. The final product is extraordinary.
Q: Are there any special challenges you've seen in this partnership so far?
A: You know, you say "challenges" — there are challenges in every collaboration. I think a challenge is an opportunity in disguise. There's always a process of adaptation that goes on. You try, given the coordinates of the relationship and the situation, you try to maximize the end product. I hope you'll agree that the end product is a pretty compelling and inviting piece of work, inviting in the sense that you want to see and get more.
Q: It must be exciting for you to build a show around Santa Anita Park. You've spent a lot of time in your life at racetracks ...
A: No, that was a cousin. I had a cousin who spent a lot of time at racetracks. [Laughs] The setting is exciting, yes, but there's some nervousness in making it too. You want to get it right. You always feel a particular duty of care to whatever world you're trying to portray, but then you especially feel it when there is a lived experience against which you're measuring the activities of the imagination. I think that sense of responsibility is compounded. That's one of the reasons I was so grateful to Michael, to bring that separate eye. That really enriched the end product.
Q: The pilot is very unhurried. There's a lot of mysteries and histories that are left unexplained ...
A: Yeah, a lot like life.
Q: Clearly, but it's nice to see that television, especially cable drama, has reached a place where you don't have to explain every single aspect of a character the moment they arrive on screen.
A: Yeah. I think that as far as any kind of ambiguity or obscurity that registers as calculated, I don't have much time for that. There was a wonderful jazz muscian, and they asked him why the pace of what he was doing was rather slow, and he said, "It just took that long to say it." For the pilot, for whatever is unresolved, I hope you do have a first-level visceral experience and it's a world you want to come back to.
— Geoff Boucher
from:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/10/david-milch-hopes-for-visceral-experience-with-hbos-luck.html (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/10/david-milch-hopes-for-visceral-experience-with-hbos-luck.html)
De Mornay - not in a big part.... as a mother, with a "vintage" hairdo and dress, in a teenagers' love story "Flipped" (2010)
(http://www.g-static.com/files/imagecache/500x500_scale/uploaded/AllPhotos_90944_90944_bk_72583.jpg)
(http://www.filmsnmovies.com/media/thumbs/1280244250.jpg)
It seems that Milch has got interesting episode writers. This one, Bill Barich, is from Ireland.
Not clear from this article, if the idea of a horse racing show was conceived by Milch himself even, although that's not very important for the viewers.
"Bill Barich has taken up temporary residence on the back stretch at Santa Anita, where, after spending much of his adult lifetime in the company of fellow broken-down horseplayers, his ship appears finally to have come in.
No, he didn't make a big score backing a longshot nag. Barich might be one of the most astute and analytic handicappers I know, but as a punter he tends to err so heavily on the side of caution he was never going to become rich – or poor – based on the whims of a four-legged animal.
But earlier this year the expatriate American writer got a phone call from California. To his surprise, given the modest commercial success enjoyed by the nine critically-acclaimed books he had authored over 30 years, the executives at HBO liked the idea of a racetrack-based mini-series he had floated, on spec, from Dublin, and wanted him to come out to Hollywood to put the finishing touches on a proposed pilot episode.
Nine months later he's still there. HBO has ordered a full season's worth of Luck, and signed Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte for its principal roles. With David Milch and Michael Mann, both of whom have shown a Midas touch, at the helm, the racing series will debut in January.
"If all goes well," Barich wrote from California with word of his good fortune, "this gig, as opposed to my books, may keep me out of the Trail's End trailer park in Santa Rosa."
Whether the reflected buzz surrounding Luck will help focus attention on Barich's latest book, Long Way Home: On the Trail of Steinbeck's America , published this month, remains to be learned, but one suspects that however widely it is read, Long Way Home may turn out to be as widely misinterpreted in certain quarters as was the half-century-old classic that inspired it."
from:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/1021/1224281619785.html (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/1021/1224281619785.html)
(The book mentioned here recreates Steinbeck's trip across the country in "Travels With Charley".)
Details about the pilot episode of "Luck":
In the pilot episode of Luck, Dustin Hoffman's character, Ace Bernstein, is freshly released from prison and revered by his friends who greet him on his return to the outside world. But he is stiff, rigid and so tightly wound he looks ready to explode. On the other hand, Nolte's character Walter Smith is alone, sad and fixated on a racehorse that looks like it has champion potential. "Nolte exudes a sense of isolation, shame, some scandal in his past without you knowing anything about it," says Mann afterwards.
Mann's ability to crank up the tension is evident even in the few minutes of the Luck episode that I see. The viewer is thrown into the middle of a horserace at the Santa Anita track, horses panting, hooves pounding the dirt".
Hoffman about his role:
"Luck is Hoffman's first foray into television drama. He plays the central character, Ace Bernstein, a seasoned gambler fresh out of prison. He explains that the role necessitated a change in the way he approaches character development.
"I had to rethink the way I've been working for the last 40 years. A play is a play, a film is a film – that's all I have done. But the preparation is different [in television].
"When you're doing a play or a film, you have to declare who you are as a character. If it's a play, you can grow from performance to performance. You grow into the part, even though the lines are the same.
"In film, you can't do that. But with television, you can continue to develop and alter the character. Nothing is set in stone ... where you would not make a left turn with a film character, suddenly you can make a right turn."
The Bernstein character will change and grow with the writing as the story progresses week to week and as new obstacles and challenges are placed in his way. Michael Mann wanted Hoffman for the role because he thought it would test a side of the actor he hadn't seen before. "When I had the first meeting with Michael Mann and David Milch, Mann said, 'I looked at your work and you tend to be a counter-puncher.'" Hoffman's characters, the director told the actor, "tend to react to something that's taken place".
But Mann envisaged a different character in Ace Bernstein. "He told me, 'Here, you instigate things ... you are the aggressor.' And I thought that was interesting."
M.Mann about "Luck" and Mr.Milch:
"It's one of the best pieces of writing anyone has ever passed to me," says Mann matter of factly, when I ask what drew him to the project. It has a motley crew of characters, including a quartet of degenerate gamblers who could have walked straight off the pages of a Charles Bukowski novel."
from:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f71b5774-dd62-11df-beb7-00144feabdc0.html (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f71b5774-dd62-11df-beb7-00144feabdc0.html)
'Luck' Resumes Production at Santa Anita
"With the pilot for HBO's highly anticipated "Luck" already complete, production for season-one will resume at Santa Anita Oct. 31. Both the pilot and first season are scheduled to air in the fall of 2011.
"Luck" is the creation of writer/producer David Milch, who also created such blockbuster hits as "Hill Street Blues," "NYPD Blue," and "Deadwood." Milch, who is also a multiple Breeders' Cup winning Thoroughbred owner, is an ardent supporter of horse racing and has long wanted to do an episodic series of this nature, which will take the audience inside the sport in a very creative and in some cases, stark way.
The pilot, which was shot almost entirely at Santa Anita, was enthusiastically received by HBO executives and the cast, including actors Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, and retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, will remain intact for season-one. It is also expected that current jockey, Chantal Sutherland, will appear in a number of episodes.
"Touch wood, I think it's going to be an incredible series," said Stevens, who made his highly acclaimed debut as an actor in 2003's blockbuster hit movie "Seabiscuit. "I'm very excited about production resuming. This is going to be a very candid and very vivid look at our sport. 'Luck' has every right to be a winner on every level—from the acting to production, directing and writing, I really think this series is going to blow people away."
The first episode of season-one will be shot at Santa Anita and at Rod's Diner, a nearby coffee shop on Huntington Drive. Filming will also take place at the 100 to One Club, a cocktail bar just east of Santa Anita's Gate 5.
Action in the first episode includes interaction at Santa Anita's Clockers' Corner, box seat area, winner's circle, paddock and barn area. Action will also emanate from Santa Anita's press box, and racing and operations offices.
Action will shift to Santa Anita's main track as soon as the all-natural dirt surface project that is currently underway is completed and it is deemed safe for horses to compete.
Production for season-one of "Luck" is scheduled to continue throughout Santa Anita's upcoming winter/spring meeting, which runs from Dec. 26 through April 17."
from: BloodHorse.com
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/59551/luck-resumes-production-at-santa-anita (http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/59551/luck-resumes-production-at-santa-anita)
Joan Allen has signed on to HBO's forthcoming drama "Luck".
"The multi-episode arc will be Allen's first TV series gig. Luck, produced by Michael Mann and David Milch, examines the horse racing world through the owners, jockeys and gamblers. The cast includes Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte and Dennis Farina.
(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_01/JoanL0412_468x395.jpg)
Allen, 54, will portray a woman who runs a program that uses prison inmates to care for broken-down racehorses.
The three-time Oscar nominee most recently appeared in the Lifetime TV movie Georgia O'Keefe, which earned her an Emmy nomination earlier this year."
from:
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Joan-Allen-Luck-1025051.aspx (http://www.tvguide.com/News/Joan-Allen-Luck-1025051.aspx)
The approximate dates for the first airing of "Luck", from Plepler and Lombardo interview.
How are David Milch and Michael Mann working together on "Luck?"
ML: I will say they are working really well together. I think they learned a lot about each other during the pilot.
And Michael is involved with the whole series?
ML: Yes. He will be running the production on the show, the visual and production on the show, for the first season at least.
How far will it delve into the nuances of horse racing? Will the general public be able to pick it up immediately?
RP: Absolutely. It's accessible to the non-horse racing aficionado. I know nothing about horse racing, and it was a very, very clear translation for me, and I think the viewer will feel the same.
And when is that set to air?
ML: Again, we're looking at either fourth quarter of '11 or first quarter '12.
from:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118026455?refCatId=14 (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118026455?refCatId=14)
More familiar faces will appear in "Luck", "Earl Brown is reteaming with David Milch on the HBO horse racing series "Luck." Brown, who played Ian McShane's henchman Dan Dority on the Old West series that ran for three seasons, will play a trainer in a multi-episode arc in "Luck."
(http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/6/61/Deadwood201-shotgun3.jpg/600px-Deadwood201-shotgun3.jpg)
from:
http://celebrifi.com/gossip/Deadwood-thesp-in-Luck-with-HBO-3962981.html (http://celebrifi.com/gossip/Deadwood-thesp-in-Luck-with-HBO-3962981.html)
Since "Caprica" was canceled, Paula Malcomson (Jerry) played a small part (I'm not sure if she'll be in future episodes) in "The Event". She plays a journalist investigating government efforts to hide presence of aliens on Earth.
(http://www.nbc.com/assets/images/promotes/2010/11/05/3831_event_279_malcomson_001.jpg)
Quote from: Sven2 on November 19, 2010, 01:09:17 PM
Since "Caprica" was canceled, Paula Malcomson (Jerry) played a small part (I'm not sure if she'll be in future episodes) in "The Event". She plays a journalist investigating government efforts to hide presence of aliens on Earth.
She also plays the Irish lover of the now deceased patriarch of the Sons of Anarchy biker gang.
Yes, here she is:
(http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjI2NjUxMjA1N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjY4NjMwNA@@._V1._SX640_SY426_.jpg)
Thank you, Trishah!
" Just in time for the holidays, HBO's brilliant "Deadwood" has been chosen for induction into the complete series Blu-ray catalog of the most important TV network in the last twenty years.
Very few HBO series are available in complete series HD sets from HBO ("Band of Brothers," "Rome," "The Pacific") and while fans of "The Sopranos," "The Wire," and "Six Feet Under" may finally have their day next holiday season, this one belongs to David Milch's masterpiece.
The 36 episodes of Milch's brilliant deconstruction of the TV Western have been segmented on 13 discs — four per season and a disc of bonus material. Essentially, this is nothing more than an HD translation of what was released two years ago on standard disc. If you're still dreaming of that oft-rumored movie that would tie up all the loose ends of this canceled-too-soon program than you'll have to keep dreaming.
One of the best programs of the '00s is named after the real American frontier town that serves as the dramatic backdrop for a convergence of law, greed, love, the past, and the future. Deadwood was the first melting pot, a place where businessmen, soldiers, Chinese laborers, prostitutes, and gunfighters all struggled to survive. Milch's incredible drama was riveting from first episode to last, not just a great TV Western but one of the best of its genre of any medium, film and fiction included.
"Deadwood" won multiple awards, including Emmys (all technical although actors Brad Dourif, Robin Weigert, and Ian McShane were nominated) and a Peabody Award, and was massively critically-acclaimed but it fell victim to something of a house cleaning at HBO as they were trying to find their identity at the end of the '00s and cutting high-budget programming. Series like "Carnivale," "Rome," and "Deadwood" were all cut tragically-short.
Everything you'd find in the individual season sets have been imported to the complete series set along with the new special features available on the 2008 release. The best of that set was "The Meaning of Endings," a 23-minute discussion with Milch about the controversial end of the show in which the creator walks the set and talks about where he was planning to go in season four. The other features on the extra disc include "The Real Deadwood: Out of the Ashes", "Q&A With Cast and Creative Team", "Deadwood 360 Tour", and "Al Swearengen Audition Reel (as performed by Titus Welliver)"
What more is there to say about "Deadwood" other than that I still miss it? I like what HBO is doing nowadays but they don't seem to be taking the creative risks that they once did with shows like this one or "Carnivale." Let's face it — "True Blood" is fun but it's a relatively-obvious hit with its mix of sexuality and the genre trend of the day. "Deadwood" was daring, something that I'm not sure HBO is as much as it used to be. It will be again. But we'll always have these three seasons to remind us of what can be done when a brilliant TV creator is given creative freedom and when a network takes chances."
From: http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/12586/blu-ray-review-hbo-s-deadwood-the-complete-series-archives-incredible-drama#ixzz15zNlOkDH (http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/12586/blu-ray-review-hbo-s-deadwood-the-complete-series-archives-incredible-drama#ixzz15zNlOkDH)
Amazon.com price $137.99
Quote from: Sven2 on November 22, 2010, 12:37:21 AM
Very few HBO series are available in complete series HD sets from HBO ("Band of Brothers," "Rome," "The Pacific") and while fans of "The Sopranos," "The Wire," and "Six Feet Under" may finally have their day next holiday season, this one belongs to David Milch's masterpiece.
I guess JOHN doesn't count... grrrr :'(
The cast of "Luck" is growing, it would be great seeing old acquaintances that follow Mr. Milch to the new show.
Titus Welliver who played Silas in Deadwood Now, "speaks hopefully of making an appearance in "Luck," HBO's upcoming drama from Milch.
(http://i53.tinypic.com/opr0hs.jpg)
Welliver this season has raised Cain on FX's motorcycle-gang actioner "Sons of Anarchy." He plays Jimmy O'Phelan, a cold-blooded Irish Republican Army gunrunner who will stoop to anything, including child abduction, to get the job done."
from:
http://www.indystar.com/article/20101126/ENTERTAINMENT/11260316/Welliver-s-a-busy-busy-guy?odyssey=tab (http://www.indystar.com/article/20101126/ENTERTAINMENT/11260316/Welliver-s-a-busy-busy-guy?odyssey=tab)|topnews|text|Entertainment
Matt Winston's (played Barry Cunningham) famous father... I had NO IDEA!!
Stan Winston Studio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je5jCDRLkHk#)
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/Poniverse/news/?a=20918 (http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/Poniverse/news/?a=20918)
QuoteMatt Winston, actor and son of legendary effects master Stan Winston, attended the 2010 San Diego Comic Con to launch the Studio's newest venture; which is designed to both educate visual effects students and honor his father's legacy.
Stan Winston needs no introduction amongst movie fans. The four time Academy Award winner was responsible for the amazing visual effects in dozens of films, including the Terminator, Alien, Predator and Jurassic Park series. Not to mention Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Pearl Harbor Constantine and the recent hit movies Iron Man and Avatar. Upon his passing in June 2008, his son, Matt Winston, knew it was up to him to continue his father's legacy in the industry. He has chosen to do just that by educating the next generation of visual effects hopefuls:
The Stan Winston School of Character Arts
Founded by the Winston Family, the Stan Winston School of Character Arts offers a training curriculum that covers the entire spectrum of character arts, from practical to digital. Each student can customize their own curriculum through a range of online videos, DVD lessons and hands-on workshops held in association with world-renowned Winston partners. From the first day of training, the Stan Winston School transports students to the realms of robots, aliens, dinosaurs and monsters as they learn to bring their imaginations to life on the silver screen.
Thanks, Trishah! Stan Winston was, is - a legend in his field, kudos to his family for the school in his memory. Fascinating, how much work and hundreds of people it takes to make practically every single movie. (Still could be a terrible flop though!)
Here's the recent Mr.Milch article in its entirety. Published 12.02.10
The final and deepest gift from Zenyatta
By David Milch
"The idea of a horse retiring undefeated has an enormous appeal which ultimately, I think, does a disservice to all of the deeper connections that have been generated between the people who are privileged one way or another to participate in the horse's career.
If you identify the emotion that one feels in the aftermath of, say, a horse's first victory, the impulse is to feel, "Well, I've now been associated with unalloyed, unqualified, excellence." But as time goes on, problems show up, and some of them are inherent in the horse's excellence. That both liberates the capacity for adoration and, if we are humble enough, reminds us that the feeling of being in the presence of unalloyed, uncompromised excellence is an illusion – but it's the most wonderful illusion to have.
It's the same sort of illusion felt if we are lucky enough to be blessed with children. When you see a baby you feel that whatever tragedy will ensue, at that moment tragedy is a stranger. The longer we are able to sustain that sense of a horse's uncompromised, unqualified, transcendent excellence the more we become aware that it is an illusion, and every time that the horse seems to transcend the limits we know ultimately will express themselves, the more deeply we feel simultaneously joy and the sense ultimately that joy, for all its genuineness, is predicated on a sense of being and feeling which life will not sustain.
Very infrequently is there a horse who so utterly and wholly seems to embody excellence, but if you spend time with animals you learn to appreciate particular sorts of excellence which don't inform the animal's whole being. I once had a cheap horse named Marvin's Policy. If you look up "ugly" in the dictionary there is a small picture of Marvin's Policy. He had the worst action you ever saw, and one could not help loving that horse. He got beat, but he never liked it, and he won more often than he should have. He was always getting hurt and always coming back, so in that case one learned to feel that sort of uncompromised appreciation for bravery and for persistence, and for a kind of indomitability.
Zenyatta is a horse who transcends in her excellence every limiting category, including the category of gender. She is that extraordinary. Not only is she a girl, who at the end was running against boys, but she always came from out of it so she was always in effect conceding luck as an important variable. No matter how good she was, if she had enough bad luck getting around horses, she wasn't going to win. And the more variables one can introduce and still sustain a sense of absolute indomitability, even as one is brought to experience with absolute certainty that that sense of indomitability is an illusion, the more precious the illusion becomes.
In watching Zenyatta, going into a race there was almost a sort of perverse gratification that you felt – "Good, now she's going to show just how much better she is than them."
But knowing she was going into was her last race, one allowed oneself to hope: "Let her get the best of it for once." And of course she didn't.
In the course of her moving down the stretch the first time, her action was very choppy. It seemed like she couldn't get hold of the track. And yet, as the race progressed, she seemed to enact exactly the same course that she enacted in every one of her previous races. Although the jock had to wait a bit before he got out, once he did, at the head of the stretch, it looked as if she had enough ground left to run that she could make it. And she closed beautifully. She had dead aim on that horse that beat her. He is a very, very good horse, period, and he needed every bit of racing luck that he had to put him at an advantage against her.
We had been working all day that day on the third episode of the show, and working seven days a week for a long time. In terms of the transferability of high-emotion, if you're tired, when you begin to feel a different emotion you feel it with the same extremity that you feel tired. I really started pulling for that filly the last eighth of a mile even as one had the sense that it didn't look like she was going to get there. And yet, one remembered, even from her previous race, it was precisely that flickering doubt that was one of the last and best ingredients of the experience of watching her run. Every time you thought, "She can't get there," one felt too, "When she does, it will be even that much more wonderful."
Of course she didn't get there, and in the aftermath I was bawling like a baby and had been from the head of the stretch in gratitude for the opportunity to appreciate what she was doing. It seemed to me in the aftermath of the race, the last gift which was given had to do with the separation of that feeling of appreciation from the illusion of invincibility. The final and deepest gift that she had to give was the opportunity to accept all the qualifications of our finitude without having that dilute or alloy the joy she made available to us.
In other experiences, if one is lucky, we get that same last chance to distinguish between what joy comes to us and what I imagine is the laughter of the gods. I forget who it was that said, "Every victory leaves something drastic and bitter in the cup." In that sense, it took all of her races and the conclusion of her career to come to the last draught of what was in the cup. And to realize still, that in what one experienced as drastic and bitter for a moment was the final essence of victory. The victory was in the flowering of humility as the last component of the mix of feelings that she had made available, and how absolutely irrelevant her defeat is to the experience that she gave us, for all that period of time."
David Milch, the Emmy Award-winning creator of the HBO television series "Deadwood" and "John From Cincinnati," is the owner of two Breeders' Cup winners and an Eclipse Award champion. He is currently at work on a new HBO series set in the world of horse racing called "Luck," scheduled to debut in 2011.
from Daily Racing Forum
http://www.drf.com/news/final-and-deepest-gift-zenyatta (http://www.drf.com/news/final-and-deepest-gift-zenyatta)
Thanks for finding and posting this, Sven!
Harry Potter fans would rejoice, Dumbledor (II) will play a part in "Luck."
"Michael Gambon jumps from big to small screen and he's making his first U.S. television debut at the same time. The Brit is to take a recurring role on HBO drama series "Luck" which is about several characters who are tied to the same horse-racing track.
Produced under David Milch/Michael Mann collaboration, "Luck" puts Dustin Hoffman in the lead role named Ace Brenstein. Now Gambon is to play a yet-to-be-named character who is "a nemesis or worthy adversary for" Brenstein. Gambon previously worked with Mann in Oscar nominated film "The Insider".
Joining Gambon as recurring character is Patrick J. Adams ("Friday Night Lights", "Pretty Little Liars"). The 29-year-old is set to be Nathan Israel who works closely with Bernstein, Deadline said. Joan Allen had also been selected to take a supporting role.
Gambon expanded his fame Stateside when starring as Professor Dumbledore in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", replacing Richard Harris who died in 2002. He is the depicter of King George V in the upcoming Oscar hopeful "The King's Speech"."
(http://images.blog-24.com/840000/837000/837294.jpg)
from:
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00037314.html (http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00037314.html)
'Luck' Pilot, First Two Episodes Complete
"Production on the pilot and first two episodes of Home Box Office's (HBO) highly anticipated series, 'Luck,' has been nearly completed, and production and shooting for Episode Three will resume at Santa Anita on January 10.
Luck, which stars several 'A-list' actors, including Dustin Hoffman, is the brainchild of world-renowned writer/producer David Milch, and is being shot in large-part at Santa Anita.
"Their production crew completed two weeks of work on and around the racetrack last week," said Santa Anita Community and Special Events Coordinator Pete Siberell. "The pilot was completed several months ago and this will enable them to finish their work on the first two episodes."
Among the notable actors involved in Episodes One and Two are Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, Gary Stevens and (jockey) Chantal Sutherland.
Siberell noted that Milch, who has also created such blockbuster hits as 'Hill Street Blues,' 'NYPD Blue,' and 'Deadwood,' is excited about the recently shot content for the first two episodes.
"David said that everything went extremely well and he was particularly happy with the racing action they were able to simulate. He also said that his directors, Terry George and Allen Coulter, were very pleased as well."
Both George and Coulter are considered industry 'heavyweights,' as evidenced by their work experience. George's professional credits include 'Hotel Rwanda,' 'Reservation Road' and 'In the Name of the Father.'
Coulter has directed 'The Sopranos,' 'Sex in the City,' 'Law and Order,' 'Boardwalk Empire,' and 'Rubicon.'
Siberell said that when HBO returns in January, superstar actor Hoffman, who played a prominent role in the pilot, will again be on hand as production begins on Episode Three.
"Hoffman and most of the other regular cast members will be here as well," said Siberell. "This episode will be directed by Phillip Noyce, who's also worked on shows like 'The Quiet American,' 'Salt,' 'Clear and Present Danger' and 'Patriot Games.'"
(Santa Anita)
from:
http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/12-23-10/luck-pilot-first-two-episodes-complete.html (http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/12-23-10/luck-pilot-first-two-episodes-complete.html)
Earl Brown about Deadwood, Dority, Mr.Milch, etc.
My apologies for posting such gargantuan segment of text, I'm doing it in hopes to protect the info from disappearance, as a lot of priceless thoughts and ideas have already become lost when the links to the original articles stopped working for one reason or another. So, here it is, a lot about Deadwood, Mr.Milch's style, a little bit about JFC and Luck.
"W. Earl Brown: When I was in acting school, my friend Jeff Still—who was in August: Osage County, written by his roommate Tracy Letts—said something gold. He said, "I don't really care about money, fame, and that stuff. What I want to do is something that has an impact. Something that will last beyond the two hours that somebody's watching it." And Deadwood was that for me. Franklyn Ajaye said it best when he joined the cast in the second season. He said, "You know what? I've been doing this for 30 years, and this is the first show I've ever been on that when people sign out, they stick around." It was that kind of creative cauldron. It wasn't all happiness and butterflies—you know, there was a lot of stirring of the pot and sometimes contention. Not in a negative way. But we knew we had something unique, and you wanted to be there at every turn, because you didn't know what was going to happen. And ground zero for that is Milch, the mad genius.
When Ricky Jay left after season one, I got the actor-slash-writer chair. So I got to be there for the process from the very beginning of episodes, and David would be writing today what we were gonna shoot tomorrow. Truth be told, everybody wrote on every episode. You were always pitching ideas, you were always writing things. And then David would reprocess—you'd get "Milched"—and you never knew how it would go through that brain. So it was exhilarating. Which made it all the worse when we got our knees cut off like we did. None of us saw it coming. I did Justified with Tim [Olyphant] recently, and we spent the whole week and a half bemoaning, like, "Can you fucking believe that?" [Laughs.] I still keep in touch with pretty much all those guys. I talk to Ian [McShane] occasionally. I think it was, for everyone involved, something really, really special.
AVC: As far as "everyone had their input," did that go for every actor?
WEB: David Milch, twice I got lectures from him about the theory of writing. I told my wife one night when I got home, "I feel like I'm being paid to sit at the feet of Aristotle." He was trying to sell me on a future to focus on writing, because you're a vessel. Stories have a way of telling themselves. He said, "You gotta set your ego aside and listen, and that story will tell itself through you." And knowing David the way I got to know him, the part that he loved was the thrill of not knowing where the story was gonna go. He really felt like whatever was happening in his subconscious at the last minute was the way the story wanted to be told. He listened to everybody.
Richardson—you know, with the horns? He was a background guy, Ralph Richeson. David saw one take where Ralph responded naturally instead of acting, and Ralph had that hangdog look and David just loved it. He goes up to Ralph and says, "Who are you? I mean who are you in Deadwood? Come up with a background story. Write two pages. Let me see that." David, the whole horns thing and all of that—he loved the idea of Iago having a whipping boy. E.B. [Farnum] wasn't really Iago, he was the Fool. But the Fool in [King] Lear—shit rolls downhill, so there's someone for the Fool. So that's how Richardson came about. With David's mind, that was part of the story that wanted to tell itself. Absorbing everything from everybody. There was no disagreeing with David. You could make your case, and you'd sometimes, you know... And then some days you just stayed away, because David was really leading the pack. That said, he was open to input from everyone. And what made it exhilarating was that it was alive at every moment. It was a live process. Because he's writing it, and 12 hours later, we're shooting it.
AVC: Dan is a tough guy, but he also has a childlike vulnerability. Was that something you brought to the role?
WEB: They had sent me the script to Deadwood and said, "We want you to read for Dority." I had guest starred on Six Feet Under. Same casting people, same production team. Well, I read it, and as I said to my agent, Jack McCall was the role that jumped out—because I knew McCall was only going to be three or four episodes. He was going to kill Wild Bill and be gone. I said, "You know what? I want to audition for McCall. It's more fun. I don't want to be the thug in the shadows for seven years. I'm really not interested." So I go in, and Libby Goldstein, the casting director, came out and she said, "Okay, you got Dan." I said, "Yeah, I got it. But I want to read McCall." [Laughs.] She goes, "Hang on." She goes in and comes back out and says, "Okay, do McCall and then we'll do Dority." So I read McCall. Then David, I see him stick his head out and he goes, "You got Dan right? Let's do that scene." There's little dialogue, next to nothing. So we do it. And I see him look over at Walter Hill, who was directing the pilot, and he says, "Think about this." And he starts giving me this whole litany of my history with Swearengen. And what dawned on me—it sunk into me, sitting there in that room—is that David doesn't write thugs and shadows. There are no simple thugs and shadows in anything he creates. That was the point where I just gave over, like, I can trust this guy.
........
Then, a year later, Steve is a Deadwood fanatic, and I introduced him and Milch. We had breakfast together. They're a lot alike. They got this mind—this voracious mind that just goes 180 miles an hour—and both of them were junkies for years. And within five minutes, they start telling junkie stories, and they hit it off. We had like, a two-hour breakfast. At the end of it, Milch goes, "So Steve, I know you did The Wire. You did some of [David] Simon's show?" Steve says, "Yeah, like four episodes or whatever it was." "Would you like to do our show?" "Yeah!" "I'm gonna write something for you. Next season I want you to come and do an episode or two." So next season rolls around, we're a few episodes in, and he comes to me and he goes, "Hey, call your buddy Steve. I got this idea. He's Hooplehead Steve. He's a guy that's been screwed out of his claim, and they want to tar and feather Jarry, but they can't 'cause he's a rich connected white guy, so they find Franklyn. They're gonna chase down the General and they're gonna tar and feather him. It's funny, but it's creepy."
So I call Steve. He had, like, a week and a half available between the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and the beginning of his tour. I mean, touring is how he makes his money. So I gave David the dates—didn't work out. So David brought in Michael Harney, who he'd worked with before, and Hooplehead ends up being on all the rest of that season and the next season. So the next episode rolls around. I was at home. I wasn't in for that—I don't know if I had taken the afternoon off, 'cause I was usually there every day, either in the trailer or on set, in the writer's trailer. I get the sides sent to me, and I call Steve and say, "Hey man, what's going on?" "Oh man, just got the night off. Just stayin' on the bus. We didn't get a hotel." And I say, "You might be glad your schedule didn't work." He said, "Why the fuck would I be glad? I ain't glad. I want to be on that show, man. Why would I be glad?" I said, "Because at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning you'd be going to work to fuck a horse. Bullock has humiliated Hooplehead, and Hooplehead Steve can't face him, so he goes to the livery and fucks Bullock's horse for revenge." "You shitting me?" I said, "Well, he can't bring himself to actually stick it in so he just beats off on his haunch." [Pauses.] "What kind of impression did I leave on Milch at that breakfast?"
So I tell anybody if you ever encounter him, call him "Hooplehead Steve the Horse-Fucker." And he said it's happened to him twice, that somebody's come up and said that. And he goes, "Yeah, you know Earl Brown."
AVC: Did your experience working as a bouncer help you prep for Dan?
WEB: I was a bouncer, when I was in DePaul in Chicago at the theater school. I threw drunks out of bars—unless I had a play running that weekend. But I only had two actual fights. Some were like out of old Westerns.
AVC: How was it taking over the scriptwriting reins on "A Constant Throb"?
WEB: Well, like I said, everyone wrote on every episode. [Milch] had already conceived the idea—we were over budget.
AVC: Like all the time, right?
WEB: Yeah, but we were way over at this point. He said, "All right, episode 10 is yours. I got a problem. Come up with a way to solve it. Keep as much of the episode inside the Gem as you can, because we're so far fucking over budget we can't afford to shoot outside." He already had Alma being shot at. He said, "We're gonna start with where they're trying to bait Ellsworth, so Pinkerton's gonna fire at her. She needs to talk to Al about it." So all of the stuff in the Gem—again, everybody's pitching ideas. Someone once commented, "That speech of Jane's at the end is so beautiful." Well, Regina Corrado wrote that, I didn't. Likewise, there were things in other episodes that I had conceived that got twisted and turned.
AVC: Anything you want to take credit for?
WEB: No. Because again, David twists it. Example: that eyeball fight. David told me two weeks in advance, "We're gonna have this fight with you and Turner. You're gonna almost die, but it's gonna turn at the very end. You're going to survive and kill him." First of all, I put my fat ass on a treadmill. [Laughs.] We had three days of rehearsal with just me and Allan Graf, Mike Watson the stunt coordinator, Dan Manahan the director, and Milch. Milch says, "I got three rules. Number one, I want it completely realistic. I don't want cowboy roundhouse, flying-through-plate-glass bullshit. Number two, every time the audience thinks they're gonna be able to draw their breath and relax, I want it to escalate and go to the next place. Just when they think they can't fucking take no more, you give them more. Third, I want something I never seen before. Make it up." So Manahan goes, "We've never been in the meat market. That is such a great set, and I love the primacy of fighting amongst raw meat." I said, "We've gotta drown in horse piss."
But we didn't have an ending. I had written a thing in season two called "Son Of A Bitch." It's based on my grandfather, who would not allow anyone to call him a son of a bitch. And my mother's first husband did. Long story, but my grandfather hit him. My uncle witnessed it when he was 9 years old. He hit him so hard his eyeball popped out. And then my grandfather grabbed a chunk of coal and was about to brain him. And my uncle, who was 9, grabs him by the chest to make him stop. Because my grandfather's eyes would go black, man. His pupils would dilate. I witnessed it three times—the devil comes. He was dangerous. He was loving—again, I love my grandfather. I worshipped him. But there was a broken part of him. A lot of that was in Dority.
So I had written "Son Of A Bitch" for me and the soap-seller, who Milch never got around to using. We had some old rodeo cowboys who were advisors on the show. There was one guy who shall remain nameless, but he had been Benny Binion's enforcer. When you owed serious money to Binion, that's who came to visit you. He used to remove people's eyeballs with his thumb. That's what Milch told me: "Some people that were in serious trouble lost one of their eyes to him." That's how this cauldron of eyeball-ism starts. [Laughs.] We had rehearsed for two days, and we still didn't know what we're gonna end it with. I play cards with Jerry Cantrell, the musician. Jerry's in it—he's in the first season. He and Rex Brown are in the background in one scene. Like Billy [Gibbons] and Dusty [Hill] are in it, Lemmy Kilmister's in it, Scott Ian—all my metalhead buddies. So Jerry, I told him about the fight, about the eyeball gag. He goes, "You know, that happened to my brother David. He's in a biker bar in Oklahoma, he got into a fight, this guy's got him on a pool table by the ear, and he's cracking his head. David said it was like tunnel vision—he was just trying to push the guy off of him and he felt some soft tissue, and he jammed it, and he popped the guy's eyeball." The next day I go to work and I say, "I got an ending!"
AVC: There's never going to be a Deadwood movie, is there?
WEB: You know, it took me 14 months to stop beating a dead horse. I was the guy who literally, on a notebook, kept track of who was doing what. Because how do you just stop? It threw me for a loop. It threw a lot of us for a loop. Personally and every which way, because you feel like, "This is seven years!" Only in the third season did the money start being pretty good. It had a huge impact on my family, it had a huge impact on my career. You wanna talk about the worst fucking 12 hours of a career? Bloodworth, we were in pre-production, so I'm riding high, man. I'm in pre-production on the first movie that I've written, we've got a $5 million budget, we got some attachments from stars, and I'm a writer and one of the supporting leads on the hottest thing in television, which I think is sheer genius.
Within a 12-hour span of time, right after I left a casting session for Bloodworth, I had a message from Milch: "Hey Earl, call me at home when you get the chance." He didn't like to be bothered at home. Fuck. Dority was actually murdered, but not until 10 years later, and I thought, "I bet he's gonna up the murder. Dority's gonna die next season." So I call him, and he says, "Earl, I hate making these calls, but the show's over. It's cancelled." I pulled over to the side of the road and said, "What'd you say?" "Yeah, we were offered two movies or six episodes to wrap it up. But I don't want to mess with what we've already created by this truncated timeline. Fuck it, it's over. It's cancelled." I got a tattoo that night, and the whole time I'm getting the tattoo, I'm focusing on the pain. Have you ever gotten a tattoo? You take your mind elsewhere so you don't think about how much it hurts. But not that night. It was like, bleed. Fucking hurt.
The next morning, I called our line producer on the movie. Gibson was getting us some guitars, and I said, "I need a check to cut to Gibson." He says, "Problem. Can't cut a check." "Why can't you cut a check?" "We've lost our money." We'd lost one of the actors that got us the money. So within 12 hours I go from, like, "Look at me!" to completely unemployed. [Laughs.] That was not a good 12 hours. It was 14 months of depression. It was like, you can't wait to go to work, you know you're doing something, it's a hit, it's the second-biggest show on the network, Golden Globes, Emmys, we're about to step up, we got the nominations, we're gonna win—and then the rug's pulled out from under you.
Where it really ended is, I went to visit the set of John From Cincinnati, because they shot their interiors up on that lot. Sean Bridges [Deadwood's Johnny Burns] and I both met. I didn't want to be on John From Cincinnati, because it felt like our show was killed for that show—even though it wasn't. David planned on doing both. It was much more complicated reasoning than that. But Sean and I sat on the steps of the Chez Amis—because we had built the Chez Amis. That exterior, we added it to the back lot. We sat there for half an hour, never said a word. Literally, we met in the parking lot, we walked up the main street, and we sat there on the steps of the Chez Amis. That was my morning. I was in the graveyard and the last shovel of dirt had gone in. And after that, the burden lifted.
There's always talk and rumor and who knows. David's doing the new show [Luck] with Michael Mann, which is a nitroglycerin combination of personalities. If it ever happens, I'll be the first in line to say, "Count me in." But I'm not ever holding up hope for it happening. But Michael Lombardo, the head of HBO, in a recent interview they were talking about the success of True Blood, and how HBO now, with Boardwalk Empire—which is phenomenal—they're becoming a water-cooler network again. He said, "Looking back, it was a mistake to stop Deadwood. I felt like there was more of that show to go." And it was the first time anyone had acknowledged, on any level, that it was not a good decision. So that was kind of healing. To read that and go, "Okay. Yeah, it was." And now I've let it go. Like I said, I would gladly be back. But I don't have a lot of hope of that happening.
from:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/w-earl-brown,49370/1/ (http://www.avclub.com/articles/w-earl-brown,49370/1/)
Well, true love doesn't die - of a good TV that is! As a conclusion to comments on the huge Box office success of True Grit, here's a call to bring Deadwood (sorry, not JFC!) back. Who knows, based on the recent public acknowledgment by Mr. Lombardo that Deadwood demise shouldn't have happened (oh, but whodunit?) there could be life after death - for Deadwood at least.
"Like musicals, westerns are often considered a bastard genre among feature development execs. But as True Grit and No Country for Old Men have thrown open the doors, oaters don't have to be a risky venture. It's the story, stupid. All the more reason why Clint Eastwood should devote himself to one more western and why HBO should pony up dollars to David Milch for a Deadwood theatrical feature."
from:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2011/01/09/true_grit_surges_past_100_million_at_sleepy_box_office_cage_and_paltrow_pic/ (http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2011/01/09/true_grit_surges_past_100_million_at_sleepy_box_office_cage_and_paltrow_pic/)
"David Milch Does Not Believe in Genres"
The creator of Deadwood (it's not dead — he swears!) on True Grit, the future of the Western, and HBO's next great masterpiece (it's great — we've seen it!)
By Julian Sancton
It's supposed to happen with every forgotten genre: a blockbuster, a culture awoken, and a bunch more just like it. It's effective. And while the Coen brothers' success in remaking True Grit might not guarantee any Golden Globes on Sunday, one thing's for sure: we're going to see a lot more Westerns in the next few years.
To get a sense of what those movies might look like, we caught up with the creator of the last great Western, Deadwood, which — like too many great genre masterpieces of the last decade — was actually on TV. Not that there hasn't been talk of a big-screen coda for his masterpiece of Shakespearean eloquence (give or take a "cocksucker") since it was canceled in 2008. "I don't know that the last word has been said on the subject," Milch told us this week during a break from his new HBO series, Luck (more on that later). "I still nourish the hope that we're going to get to do a little more work in that area."[/i]
Thing is, despite having thoroughly researched the lawless days of the last gold rush, Milch is no scholar of the Western. He hasn't even seen True Grit. He does, however, profess great admiration for the Coens's work, particularly the fact that their sensibility, like his, doesn't change with the scenery. And that may say a lot more about the future of our culture — our flaws and our stories may outlast our successes and our remakes — than any script doctor with a sidearm and an eyepatch. And that future might just start in your living room.
"It's a more open-ended medium, and you have fewer people pissing in your ear," Milch says of his predilection for the small screen. "I try to do the story the way I feel the story should be done, and how that folds in to whatever larger sorts of categories or questions is really none of my business."
In the 1980s and '90s, Milch made his name on Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, big-business cop shows without good guys and bad guys — just complex human being making sense of the chaos — that paved the way to the modern age of intelligent, novelistic TV. No David Milch, no Wire.
He first approached HBO with the idea of a series set in the time of Emperor Nero, without realizing the network had already green-lit Rome. Asked if he could explore the same themes in a different world, Milch said, Why not? Rome became the American West; the Christian Cross and its promise of salvation became gold. The constant was society's organization around a single illusion. "The extent to which the truths of a story engage," Milch says, "it's because they are universal truths rather than confined by any particular setting or time frame."
The setting of his next show isn't so arbitrary. Scheduled to air later this year on HBO, Luck takes place in the world of horse racing, which Milch knows only too well. "When I was a kid," he says, "my dad used to take me out to the race track and so many formative experiences have to do with associations like that. My relationship with the track was, I would say, at least fractionally as complicated as my relationship with my old man. So it kept me coming back."
The organizing illusion in Luck is the notion that a horse crossing the finish line before another can truly change a man's life. As with Deadwood, the show's characters include all the men and women even peripherally invested in that illusion: jockeys, owners, trainers, low-lifes, misfits, criminals both petty and grand — notably Chester "Ace" Bernstein, played by a triumphant Dustin Hoffman. Milch's world of horse racing is different from his cops-and-robbers past, and not because the jockey genre is currently limited to, like, Seabiscuit. Because Deadwood is much the same, too — every man for himself, as long as every man agrees it's a prize worth winning.
Watching the Michael Mann-directed pilot, it's hard not see Hoffman as the counterpart of Deadwood's Al Swearengen, — the anti-Sipowicz, even: a deeply flawed, admittedly destructive man happy not to play by the rules, but ultimately more decent than he'd liked to admit. But Milch isn't out to repeat himself, or please the fans of his previous shows.
"To think in terms of what the effect of a story is going to be as opposed to trying to discover its inner logic, is one of the fundamental dangers in the process," he says. "I'm just going to try and hit the ball straight and we'll see what field it turns out to be on."
from:
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/qa/david-milch-luck-interview-011411#ixzz1B86DlS1B (http://www.esquire.com/the-side/qa/david-milch-luck-interview-011411#ixzz1B86DlS1B)
I was just reading a Wikipedia article on luck, the noun not the teevee show. I'm quite interested to see how David Milch is going to treat the theme. One thing we know. 'LUCK' will be about horse racing like JFC was about surfing (or Hamlet was about the Danish Royal family). I wonder what DM might have to offer us on the following:
In a world of gambling is 'luck' seen as something one entrusts oneself to as a force by definition beyond one's control? Why on the other hand do some gamblers seem to believe, as their myriad superstitions indicate, that our actions somehow influence our luck? Don't some gamblers believe implicitly that random events are not unpredictable? Does a belief in luck indicate that one somehow can intuit order in what appears random? I have no idea, but this is Milch, so ...
Add to all this Dustin Hoffman. We know how brilliant he can be. Hoffman and Milch together. What possibilities! Now, also add Nick Nolte and Dennis Farina. Stir ... and all this could be magic.
Me? I'm hopeful.
And there's horses too.
The strange and unexpected news, although Milch is the one who doesn't fail to surprise us.
David Milch adapting 'Heavy Rain' game
Project being developed through Unique's deal with Warner Bros.
By Dave McNary
David Milch is heading into "Heavy Rain," signing to adapt the noir-style videogame with Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne producing through their Unique Features banner.
As first reported on Variety.com, "Rain" is being developed via Unique's first-look deal with Warner Bros., which is fast-tracking the project. Milch will start writing "Rain" once he's finished work on the first season of HBO's horse-racing series "Luck," on which he's creator and exec producer.
"Heavy Rain," based on the Sony Computer Entertainment game released last year, spans four days of mystery and centers on the hunt for a murderer known as the Origami Killer. Four characters, each following his own leads and with his own motives, take part in a desperate attempt to prevent the killer from claiming a new victim, with each character's decisions affecting the plans of the other three.
Milch has a big following from his role as creator/exec producer of "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood." "David Milch's incredible ability to transform intense and complex storylines into gripping, popular drama makes him the perfect partner for us to have on 'Heavy Rain,' " Shaye said.
The game was created by Paris-based Quantic Dream, developers of "Indigo Prophecy," and built around a 2,000-page script written by founder and CEO David Cage.
from:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118030985 (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118030985)
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DEADWOOD Creator David Milch Signs on for Video Game Adaptation HEAVY RAIN
by Brendan Bettinger
Heavy Rain sounds like it has a chance to be the first decent movie based on a video game ever. The game itself is inherently cinematic — a suspenseful noir thriller in which the Origami Killer drowns his victims on exceptionally rainy days and leaves behind folded paper calling cards. But that potential could easily fall apart at the script stage. The chances of such happening have just reduced tenfold, as Variety reports David Milch has signed on to pen the adaptation.
Milch has created/co-created two seminal television series in Deadwood and NYPD Blue*, so if he can't turn in a quality script, we should probably give up on trying to turn these things into movies. Milch will get to work on Heavy Rain once he finishes work on season one of Luck, the HBO series headlined by Dustin Hoffman due later this year.
The game synopsis follows.
"How far will you go to save someone you love? In Heavy Rain each player discovers their own answer to this question as they experience a gripping psychological thriller filled with innumerable twists and turns, where choices and actions can and do result in dramatic consequences. Spanning four days of mystery and suspense, the hunt is on for a murderer known only as the Origami Killer – named after his macabre calling card of leaving behind folded paper shapes at crime scenes. Even more chilling is the fiend's well established pattern of killing his victims four days after abducting them.
The public is gripped with fear as the police seem powerless to stop the carnage, and another potential victim — Shaun Mars — has gone missing. Now four characters, each following their own leads and with their own motives, must take part in a desperate attempt to prevent the killer from taking yet another life. "
from:
http://collider.com/david-milch-heavy-rain/72902/ (http://collider.com/david-milch-heavy-rain/72902/)
More about 'Heavy Rain' original plot.
"The game follows four characters—an investigative journalist, a private detective, an FBI profiler and a father searching for his missing son—as they hunt for a serial murderer known as the Origami Killer. The game was widely praised for its 'mature' storytelling (which, as usual in the game world, seems to translate to polygonal shower nudity and lashings of badly-voiced swearing) and its Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style narrative structure, whereby the plot could branch off into a number of directions. "
from:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/01/27/deadwood_writer_david_milch_to_pen_adaptation_of_video_game_heavy_rain/# (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/01/27/deadwood_writer_david_milch_to_pen_adaptation_of_video_game_heavy_rain/#)
Some images in the game.
(http://www.dealspwn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Heavy-Rain-%C2%A331.95-@-John-Lewis-PS3-Games-photo.jpg)
(http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/937/937800/heavy-rain-impressions-20081211033058054_640w.jpg)
(http://amazonys.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/5e1d1_500x_heavy_rain_playboy.jpg)
DEADWOOD SHOCKER: Star Ian McShane Says 'Never Count Anything Out' For Show's Return
It's been more than two years since "Deadwood" fans got the news they'd been dreading...the critically-acclaimed HBO Western was as dead as the decomposing bodies in Wu's pig pen. The two planned TV movies -- originally announced to wrap up loose ends -- would not be happening, and viewers sobbed in dismay as the show's elaborate sets were broken down. It seemed the history was written on one of the best shows of all time. Or was it?
In an interview with MTV News, star Ian McShane, who portrayed menacing bar owner Al Swearengen, reveals that "Deadwood" creator David Milch has been talking about a return to Sheriff Bullock's dusty town, which is in stark contrast to the dead-as-a-doornail comments we've heard in the past. "You never know," he told us. "Don't say no."
The Irish actor said he's spoken to Milch about a "Deadwood" resurgence but the creator has yet to approach HBO. "I've always have a sneaking thing in the back of my mind that that would be the best comeback ever," said McShane, who's soon to be seen onscreen as the iconic buccaneer Blackbeard in "The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides." "There's unfinished business. It was a great show."
Milch famously jumped from "Deadwood" to his second HBO series, the single-season "John From Cincinatti," and is now working with the network on "Luck," a horseracing drama starring Dustin Hoffman and co-produced by Michael Mann. As to what form a potential "Deadwood" comeback would take, McShane was tight-lipped. "I can't give it away," he said slyly. "So we'll see."
from:
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/02/01/deadwood-shocker-star-ian-mcshane-says-never-count-anything-out-for-shows-return/ (http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/02/01/deadwood-shocker-star-ian-mcshane-says-never-count-anything-out-for-shows-return/)
• "Spark: How Creativity Works" by Julie Burstein and Kurt Anderson
"How better to learn about creativity than to talk with some of the world's most creative people. Yo-Yo Ma, David Milch, Isabel Allende and Joshua Redman, among others, weigh in. Burstein, producer of Anderson's Public Radio International show "Studio 360," culled these talks from 10 years of the show.
"One of the artists interviewed said, "If you wait for clouds to part and be struck with a bolt of lightning, you're likely to be waiting the rest of your life. But if you simply get going, something will occur to you."
From one of the reviews:
These are a series of biographies drawn from the various guests on NPR's Studio 360 (an awesome show, btw). It's divided thematically,
The first section, Engaging Adversity, is about why people create, what drives them, what needs the activity answers. Donald Hall, for example, writes poems to grieve the loss of his wife.
Modern Alchemy is about how the wizards do what they do. In one article, Beb Burtt explains how he made the sound effects for Star Wars.
The Cultivated and the Wild deals with nature in art. I particularly liked the section on Julie Bargmann where she goes into ecological wastelands, landscapes them, cultivates them, and heals them.
Going Home is about place, and here the standout is Alexander Payne and his love of Omaha.
Imagination's Wellspring is the section that comes closest to fulfilling the promise of the book's subtitle. Richard Ford tells about how events from his childhood (including a very disturbing incident with the family cat) made their way into his novels.
The remaining sections are: Mothers and Fathers, Creative Parners, Rewaeaving A Shattered World, and, my favorite, Getting to Work.
Link to Amazon.com page:
http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Creativity-Works-Julie-Burstein/dp/0061732311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298310392&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Creativity-Works-Julie-Burstein/dp/0061732311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298310392&sr=8-1)
$12.81.
Winter's Bone's John Hawkes on His Oscar Nomination and Deadwood-Inspired Cussing
Prior to earning an Oscar nomination for his menacing, mercurial turn in the Ozarks meth drama Winter's Bone, John Hawkes, a scruffy dude from rural Minnesota with an expansive résumé of roles as underdogs and lowlifes, was simply That Guy. That Guy who was the romance-starved fisherman in The Perfect Storm. That Guy who was the awkward shoe salesman in Me and You and Everyone We Know. That Guy who was the even-keeled Jewish man in love with a saloon hooker in Deadwood. That Guy who was the soft-spoken foil to brother Kenny Powers on Eastbound & Down. That Guy who got killed by Sayid on Lost. We caught up with Hawkes a couple of days before the Academy Awards to discuss losing his "That Guy" status, Winter's Bone, how he never understood Lost, and his Deadwood-inspired fondness for saying "don't queer the game."
You don't strike me as the kind of person who watches the Oscars.
I've never seen the Oscars all the way through. I come from theater and bands and art and things. I'd catch some of the speeches, I guess.
A small paper in Minnesota interviewed your mom, who said she's taken aback by some of the characters you play.
I don't kill people. I'm not a felon. So yeah, I play a lot of intense people who are viewed as unkind. The first things she ever saw me do were comedy. So I think that she would love to see me do funnier roles. But I don't think a lot of people think I'm capable of [that]. But she loved Winter's Bone. She thought the character was suitably menacing.
How do you think casting agents perceive you?
Hopefully as someone who has a wide range. I'm not sure how they see me, actually.
In Winter's Bone , your character, Teardrop, seems to have a good arc; he almost has a personality makeover.
What's interesting to me is that people see that as some sort of character arc that doesn't exist. I think he's the same person as when you meet him. Character actors, and audiences, are always looking for the epiphany of the characters, the a-ha moment. He's just trying to protect his family and uses different tactics throughout. I don't think he has some kind of revelation in the movie and becomes a better person at all. That interests me. I like that the perception of the audience changes.
Did you base him on anyone?
I went to places to look for Teardrop-like people to observe. Certainly in my little town growing up, there were plenty of those there, too. Rough people. People you'd be afraid of. There's a book called Almost Midnight that spoke about bars that tourists shouldn't go to that are in the [Ozarks] area. It's a true-crime book about a meth murder — very different from Winter's Bone. I drove to those small-town bars before I started to shoot there. I'm from a little town, so I don't find little towns creepy. I find the people there interesting and ... overlooked.
You used to be in a band, Meat Joy. Was it your suggestion to play the banjo in Winter's Bone?
I've never really tried to shoehorn music into my movies. I briefly questioned [Winter's Bone director] Debra Granik asking the night before if I would play banjo. My feeling was that if Teardrop had musical ability and an outlet, he probably wouldn't be the guy he is today. I don't know how to play the banjo, it was impossible to keep in tune, and it had high action — the strings are far from the neck. I just kind of made something up the night before.
It's interesting that Winter's Bone, which is so quiet, is up against the very talky Social Network for Best Picture. Did you see The Social Network?
Yeah, I did. It was hard to find somebody to root for, but I thought it was really well done, well-acted. I'm not part of the social network. I don't even have e-mail. I just guess I don't need to triple the amount of people I can't keep up with.
I noticed your former Deadwood co-star Garret Dillahunt is in Winter's Bone.
He's a wonderful actor, and that tells you his range right there. That was a wonderful group of people on Deadwood. I didn't have a showy role. It wasn't a scenery-chewing kind of part. But I loved being part of that ensemble. And I loved David Milch's writing. Dense script.
Did being on Deadwood make you cuss more?
I pretty much cussed a lot before that show ever started. More so, I think odd turns of phrase like "and the like" and "don't queer the game" entered my vernacular in joking with friends.
Do you have any idea why there were so many Deadwood alums on Lost?
No idea. Maybe [producer] Carlton Cuse was a fan of Deadwood? I love Carlton Cuse. He's a wonderful guy. But it was just a big machine where I could never quite figure out what I was doing on the show. But, like, the show would've been fine without the character. And those are not the parts I wanna play. I wanna play parts that matter to the story a great deal. I'd never really see the show, so I didn't understand it. Since my character didn't know much, I think it worked out fine.
Do you remember in From Dusk Till Dawn when your liquor-store-clerk character says he deserves an Oscar for keeping his cool during a stickup?
There's a few characters that've said that over the years that I've played! And that one popped into my head a couple of days ago. I laughed about that.
Has being nominated for an Oscar changed your life?
No. I'd been working pretty steadily before that. I just hope that more doors open, for sure. I'm glad people care. I just kind of feel like my strength has been people don't know who I am, so it makes me nervous.
from:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/john_hawkes.html (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/john_hawkes.html)
First trailer of "Luck".
Luck In Production Feature (HBO) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8yOQJ288GQ#ws)
"It's been a smack-down from Day 1," says a talent rep associated with the ambitious drama series.
For writer-producer David Milch, the HBO gambling drama Luck is personal. He has owned dozens of racehorses and joked that he has lost millions on the sport.
So when Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice) agreed to be an executive producer on the series and direct the pilot, Milch said he felt ... lucky.
But as happens so often, things can go south at the track. Surprising probably no one, two of the most brilliant, quirky and titanic personalities in Hollywood clashed so relentlessly that, according to sources, Mann at one point had Milch banned from the set.
"It's been a smack-down from Day 1," a talent rep associated with the project says. "You had two very strong-willed people, and there's a lot of ego there."
HBO acknowledges that the two butted heads in the early going, when Mann closed the set while directing the pilot. "There were clashes on the pilot, although never about the content of the show or its vision," HBO programming president Michael Lombardo tells THR in an e-mail. "However, these two enormous talents, after viewing the pilot together, figured out a way to collaborate and make this work going forward on the series."
After what an HBO source describes as "serious" discussions, Milch has the final word on scripts, but Mann decides everything else, from casting to cutting to music. Clearly that is not a situation to which Milch, the Emmy-winning writer-producer of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, has lately been accustomed.
This insider laments that Mann has taken control of the editing process, saying: "David's used to writing on the page and in the editing room. And David's very good in the edit. It's a whole other writing process."
But Mann and Milch, in a joint statement to THR, say they are happy with the working arrangement: "We both have the highest admiration for each other's work. After the pilot was finished and both of us liked what we did, we decided -- as two men who have been around for a number of years -- we ought to be smart enough to figure out a mechanism that would enable us to work together to our and the series' benefit. And we did."
But the duo acknowledges the split responsibilities.
"Like any good partnership, we collaborate with each other frequently on story, editing, etc.," they say. "But ultimately, the writing has to be David's domain with final decision-making, just as the filmmaking is Michael's."
A couple of observers involved with the project say that even leaving personalities aside, this kind of pairing was fraught. "In most of television, the writer/executive producer is at the top of the hierarchy," one says. "When you suddenly have a nonwriting executive producer who actually is at the top of the hierarchy, friction is going to happen. I look at HBO and say, 'You did anticipate this -- right, guys?' "
Of course, the outsize personalities increased the potential for trouble. Mann is unapologetic about his reputation as one of the most demanding and difficult directors in town. He's gifted enough that actors entrust themselves to him -- in the case of Luck, Dustin Hoffman is the lead, playing a mobster, and Nick Nolte is a trainer. But Mann has a penchant for dressing down cast and crew and making constant changes on the fly. He pours instructions to the crew into a small recorder and has them typed verbatim. If his directions are unclear or contradictory, few dare speak up.
Milch is also greatly talented but intense, cerebral and obsessive. "He's a total control freak," says one producer who has worked with him. Like Mann, he uses a recorder to capture his thoughts. "He lies on the floor, and he's got writers writing down everything he dictates," this former associate says. "It's all stream of consciousness, and it's very bizarre." Another agrees: "He's maddening and frustrating. If you try to get a straight answer from him, you'll blow your brains out."
Milch is also known for delivering scripts on his own schedule; HBO will have nine episodes of Luck as opposed to 10 because material has come at Milch's pace.
At this point, work is in progress on that ninth episode. HBO has yet to determine when Luck will premiere, but it likely won't debut until early next year. The network aired footage April 17 giving a first look at the series.
"The racetrack is a place of incomparable beauty," Milch says in that promo, "but it's a rough racket."
from:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-mann-david-milch-split-181092 (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-mann-david-milch-split-181092)
Does it warrant a honorable mention? We'll have to see. Based on a trailer it is trying hard to imitate, or is influenced by Deadwood.
'Hell on Wheels' Trailer: AMC Goes West
"In March of this year, the show Hell on Wheels, a Western set during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, started shooting in Alberta. The series is AMC's latest foray into Big Television — ten episodes have been ordered to begin telling the story of a man seeking to avenge the death of his wife at the hands of Union soldiers. See the first footage, after the break.
The cast includes Anson Mount (Hick, the Straw Dogs remake) as Cullen Bohannon, a Confederate soldier in search of revenge; Dominique McElligott (Sam Rockwell's wife in Moon) as Lily Bell, "a housewife caring for her ill husband," and Common playing Elam, a freed slave. Additionally, Colm Meaney, Ben Esler, Eddie Spears, and Philip Burke are cast. You'll see most of them here, in glimpses at least.
So how does the footage look? Not bad, so far. There's some good stuff here, but it is difficult to crawl out from under the massive shadow cast by Deadwood. The modern TV Western is so defined by David Milch's show that anything else has to work harder than normal. So let's give Hell on Wheels some time — it won't be out until later this year. Besides, Common looks like he might be a standout here, and that would be pretty alright."
from:
http://www.slashfilm.com/hell-wheels-trailer-amc-western/ (http://www.slashfilm.com/hell-wheels-trailer-amc-western/)
Country united in a state of illusion
By Noelle McCarthy
The great television writer David Milch talks about "illusions, agreed upon" as the things we organise ourselves around.
Milch is the man who created Deadwood, and before that Hill Street Blues, a brilliant writer with a genius for characterisation and dialogue that is at once naturalistic and gloriously ornate.
A few months ago I saw a video of a talk he gave to graduate students at the University of Southern California. Watch it on YouTube if you ever have time, it's great.
There's David Milch, swigging on energy drinks, talking in his genial, rapid-fire gabble about everything from Kirkegaard to surfing, but especially illusions, agreed upon, because these are the things a TV writer needs to build a world.
The "illusions" in question can be anything, he says. Everything from Brad Pitt to the cross of Christ. In the story of Deadwood the illusion is gold. It is gold, and the money from gold, that binds the people of Deadwood together, that the community builds itself around. The illusion is a symbol, obviously, and it doesn't really matter what it is.
What's important is that we come together to choose the symbol, and invest it with its value. It's a group decision, deciding to make this thing, whatever it is, bigger than the sum of its parts. The illusion, once agreed upon, binds us together, gives us something to organise ourselves around.
In the killing of Osama bin Laden, we have witnessed the death of an illusion, agreed upon this week.
Bin Laden, as illusion, was agreed upon nearly 10 years ago when the attack on the Twin Towers traumatised the western world. He wasn't just an illusion, of course. He existed in real life.
A terrorist mastermind, bold enough to plan an outrage on American soil, the father of al-Qaeda, a good-looking member of the Saudi elite. He's the man the Americans have spent the last 10 years hunting, who gave them the slip at Tora Bora, who's dead now, at what's generally agreed to be the age of 54.
That was bin Laden the man, the one who was killed this week. But there was another Bin Laden who came out of the soot and filth of Ground Zero, and it was this bin Laden that America had to kill.
The man with the plan, the maniac who had the nerve. A mythological nemesis, brought to life as the towers came down. Those towers were a symbol as well, of course.
A symbol standing, and a symbol in smoking ruins on the ground. That is why they were chosen, and that is why bin Laden will be forever linked to them and why his fate was sealed the day they came down.
The towers and the mastermind, the conflagration and its creator, one of the most powerful dualities of the 21st century. Since September 11, those two images have had to exist as a pair.
The charnel house in Manhattan, and the doe-eyed ascetic in the snowy white robes. A heavenly looking devil, and a picture of hell on earth. These symbols were given to us by an act of pure mania. Having bound itself around them, it's not surprising what America did next.
And so to the hunt. It was the deaths of thousands that gave bin Laden stature, and in the face of wholesale murder, the people of America had licence to hate. They may not all have hated him, but everyone made him bigger.
He was bigger than his biography, his own personality, his deadly plan. This bin Laden sprung to life as a ready-made symbol of all the things America could fear and hate.
The killing of civilians, a hellish attack from a clear blue sky, and the shadowy forces massing against them in all the distant corners of the world. That is what he stood for, a hated, treasured fugitive, as he withstood years of pursuit.
For a decade he haunted the war story, a murderous inspiration for generations of terrorists, the granddaddy of mayhem, holed up in some dank mountainous cave. That the truth had him in the altogether more salubrious setting of a comfortable compound in Pakistan is no matter really, what matters for the story is that he's dead.
And the power of that victory for the Obama Administration rests not in the tactical or military importance of his dispatching (what of Ayman Al Zawahiri, his second in command?) but rather in the unifying potential of the illusion, agreed upon, finally put to rest. These illusions bring us together, says David Milch, allowing us to relate to one another, irrespective of race, class, or economic divides. It's about unity, fraternity, connection.
In other words, political gold. This week, Barack Obama got to tell America they'd killed their greatest fear. It's bound them together, it's made him their Chief. In terms of political capital, it's priceless. Which is lucky, because he'll need it. It's not hard to imagine that for America there are plenty more monsters on the way.
from:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10723627 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10723627)
whew! gonna have to grok this to the fullest. . . my first response is: the pain and suffering and yes, terror that asshole and his little rag tag army perpetrated is no illusion... that was & still is as real as real can get.... thanks Sven for posting this
Excerpts from Earl Brown interview, where he speaks about Mr.Milch and Deadwood.
What did you learn from your time on Deadwood, working with David Milch, that you feel strengthened you, as an actor and as a writer?
BROWN: I've had a few mentors in my life. When you get out of college, you think, "I've learned all I need to learn." Well, that wasn't the case with David. You'd pitch him story ideas and he'd say, "Yeah, I like that. Go write three scenes and develop and arc." So then, you'd go do it and come back, and sometimes he wouldn't like it and sometimes he would, and then he's rewrite everyone. I would be like, "Oh, this is a great story idea!," and then he would take it and turn it 180 degrees, and it would be so much more interesting. I love David. Anything he asks me to do, I'll be there to do it. I learned a lot from him. I got lucky in that twice I got one-on-one lectures from him, sitting in his trailer for a couple of hours, talking about his theory of writing. He was encouraging, in that he said, "It's obvious that you have an ability to tell stories. As an actor, you are here in service to the story that is coming through the writer. Stories have a way of telling themselves. You just have to set your ego aside and listen." I told my wife once, "I feel like I'm getting paid to sit at the feet of Aristotle." Some people are like, "You're comparing David Milch to Aristotle," and yeah, I am, but I'm not Plato.
Are you working with him on Luck (the HBO series about horse racing)?
BROWN: As an actor, I did a couple of episodes. I play Chris Mulligan. He's a trainer. He's based on a real guy. There's a continuation of the arc, but we didn't get to it this season. There's a slim chance that there might be more Deadwood, or at least a film to wrap it up. That might happen. He wants to, and everybody wants to. It's a matter of scheduling and trying to get everybody. Hopefully, someday, that will happen. Top to bottom, every actor on that show was extraordinary. Every writer that was working with him was extraordinary. I miss them all. I'm doing a movie with [John] Hawkes right now, as an actor, and when we get together, there's that comradery that time has not eroded. We didn't get branded, but we got close. We almost got identical tattoos.
from:
http://collider.com/w-earl-brown-interview-bloodworth/91684/ (http://collider.com/w-earl-brown-interview-bloodworth/91684/)
HBO's Luck tipped as the next Sopranos
LA SCREENINGS: Buyers who attended yesterday's HBO screening here in LA are tipping HBO's Luck as "the next Sopranos."
HBO screened the show to channels yesterday. One buyer reported: "It's absolutely beautiful. It really could be the next Sopranos."
Other buyers fresh from the screening also raved about the show.
The series is executive produced by Michael Mann and David Milch and stars Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte in a hard-hitting story of organised crime, horse racing and gambling.
from:
http://www.c21media.net/resources/detail.asp?area=147&article=60904 (http://www.c21media.net/resources/detail.asp?area=147&article=60904)
Some technical details on how Luck is being shot:
Philip Noyce on HBO's Luck:
Philip Noyce: Recently I did a HBO series with Michael Mann written by David Milch called Luck where we used the Alexa camera which is a real breakthrough. I can say after working with that that film unfortunately is dead, because you can do everything on the Alexa camera that you can do on film. It can look exactly like film when it's projected. We were shooting exterior L.A. streets no lights. It's become a situation where night shooting is actually quicker than day shooting now with the new cameras. Whereas night shooting you'd say, 'Oh, you'll shoot 11 shots at the most.' Now you can shoot 60. It's really fast. It was the freest shooting I've ever been involved with. Michael Mann has chosen the three operators from experience, so they're all really inventive. Usually you finish early because the crew are living in terror of Michael turning up on set. So they're fast like a wild horse that's been broken in. So they're director friendly.
from:
http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/169799-laff-news-on-captain-america-luck-and-more (http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/169799-laff-news-on-captain-america-luck-and-more)
There is La Film Festival where Mr.Milch participated in a panel discussion. No more info on that yet though.
News that would make Deadwood fans positively ecstatic:
from Twitter, posted today:
MT @MrsAlSwearengen: David Milch said tonight at a SAG lecture that he plans to do the 2 Deadwood movies after 'Heavy Rain'.
PBS Series to Explore U.S. Primetime TV
By Mansha Daswani
July 12, 2011
ARLINGTON: PBS has announced a new four-part series, set to premiere in late October, that will take an in-depth look at American prime-time television, offering up interviews with a slew of creators, among them Shonda Rhimes and David Shore, as well as stars like Michael C. Hall and Hugh Laurie.
America in Primetime, which will run over four Sundays from October 30 to November 20 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., is a production of WETA Washington, DC, and The Documentary Group, in association with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, with funding provided by the Annenberg Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS. Each episode will focus on a key character archetype that has remained a staple of prime time through the generations.
"Man of the House" will feature interviews with Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner, David Chase, Bryan Cranston, Ron Howard, Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke and Patricia Heaton, among others. The lineup for "The Crusader" includes Alan Alda, Steven Bochco, David Milch, Chris Carter, Gillian Anderson, Bob Cochran, Joel Surnow, Michael C. Hall, Shawn Ryan, Michael Chiklis, David Shore and Hugh Laurie.
In "Independent Woman," those featured will include Roseanne Barr, Candice Bergen, Robert and Michelle King, Julianna Margulies, James L. Brooks, Mary Tyler Moore, Shonda Rhimes and Sandra Oh.
The last episode, "The Misfit," will feature Alec Baldwin, Diablo Cody, Greg Daniels, Larry David, Mitchell Hurwitz and Garry Shandling, among others.
from:
http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/30593 (http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/30593)
The "Deadwood" movies?? WOW!!!!!! That is some news!
Luck, the horse-racing drama starring Dustin Hoffman that was created by Michael Mann and David Milch, will premiere in January 2012.
First, 47 seconds trailer of Luck.
Luck: Season 1 Tease (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLvtAl_t2sI&feature=player_embedded#ws)
The only one more or less coherent mention in the press:
"The first trailer for Luck is here, and the Michael Mann–David Milch horse-racing drama looks more or less how one would expect (in a good way): intense and lush, with plenty of clenched jaws and men about to snap. Dustin Hoffman stars as Ace, a gambler recently released from prison, and Nick Nolte plays a horse trainer looking for his next big win. Let the jowly face-offs start! Milch writes inventive, thrilling dialogue, yes, but underneath the elaborate exteriors are characters seeking redemption, another chance, or a fresh start. These are people in transition; that was my old life, but this is my new life. It was true on Deadwood, it was true on the maligned John From Cincinnati, it was true even on the more traditional NYPD Blue, and Hoffman's wide eyes seem to convey that it's true here, too. Luck will likely premiere in January, HBO confirms."
from:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/09/luck-trailer-dustin-hoffman-hbo-mann-milch.html (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/09/luck-trailer-dustin-hoffman-hbo-mann-milch.html)
To keep us imagining until January 2012:
"The network has unveiled the first teaser trailer for the upcoming horse racing world drama "Luck" and yeah, it looks fucking great. As if pairing up director Michael Mann and writer David Milch ("Deadwood," "NYPD Blue") wasn't enough, HBO as usual have gone out and cast the shit out of this thing. Dustin Hoffman leads the cast as the ruthless ex-con gambler, Ace Bernstein, with Michael Gambon as his nemesis; Dennis Farina plays Ace's right-hand man; Nick Nolte as former famous trainer named The Old Man; John Ortiz plays a Peruvian trainer with a seedy reputation known as 'Escalante'; Joan Allen plays a woman who runs a prison program that uses inmates to care for broken-down racehorses; Richard Kind is a forty-something jockey's agent; Ian Hart is a loudmouth gambler who runs into some cash with Kevin Dunn, Kerry Condon, Tom Payne and Patrick J. Adams rounding things out."
from:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/watch_teaser_trailer_for_michael_manns_hbo_drama_luck_starring_dustin_hoffm/ (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/watch_teaser_trailer_for_michael_manns_hbo_drama_luck_starring_dustin_hoffm/)
NYPD Blue Creators Bochco and Milch Reunite for New NBC Drama
by Michael Schneider
Nearly 20 years ago, Steven Bochco and David Milch changed the face of primetime drama with NYPD Blue. Now, Bochco and Milch have reunited to sell a new drama to NBC.
Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox TV are behind the project, a legal drama set in Washington, D.C. The show follows the exploits of a charismatic "rainmaker" lawyer in D.C. with a dark secret. Says the studio: "This is a series about how we negotiate with our demons and the price we pay for those alliances."
The drama sold to NBC with a sizable penalty. Bochco and Milch would executive produce along with Imagine TV's Francie Calfo and Brian Grazer. The drama actually originated as an idea from Grazer, who then reached out to Milch and Bochco.
But before the deal could be done, Milch had to make an arrangement with HBO to take a break from his commitments at the pay channel. That's because Milch is behind HBO's upcoming horse racing drama Luck, and is winding up his most recent overall deal there. HBO execs wanted assurances that the collaboration with Bochco wouldn't eat into his work on a second season of Luck. Milch is expected to renew that HBO deal, but in the meantime will take a month or so to huddle with Bochco on the NBC project.
Bochco and Milch co-created NYPD Blue, which launched to immediate critical acclaim on ABC in 1993. The show's edgy content was unusual at the time for a broadcast network — and led several advertisers to boycott and affiliates to drop the show. But NYPD Blue became an Emmy winner and a ratings powerhouse — and eventually the advertisers and stations returned.
Milch began his career working on Bochco shows such as Bay City Blues and Hill Street Blues in the 1980s, leading eventually to their partnership as co-creators on NYPD Blue. Besides NYPD Blue, they last worked together on the short-lived shows Brooklyn South and Total Security, both in 1997. But since then, both producers have been busy with their own shows. Bochco's recent credits include TNT's Raising the Bar, ABC's Commander in Chief and FX's Over There, while Milch was behind HBO's Deadwood and John from Cincinnati. Luck, which stars Dustin Hoffman and is also executive produced by Michael Mann, premieres in January 2012.
from:
http://www.tvguide.com/News/NYPD-Blue-Creators-NBC-1038708.aspx (http://www.tvguide.com/News/NYPD-Blue-Creators-NBC-1038708.aspx)
More details on the fate of "Luck" and the stormy relationship between Mr.Milch and Mr.Mann that could potentially affect the outcome. It seems "Luck" will need all the luck it can get to last more than one season.
"18 years after NYPD Blue premiered on ABC, David Milch and Steve Bochco are teaming up again to create a new NBC legal drama that's "set inside DC's hottest law firm" and centers on a star litigator...with a past. Before NYPD Blue (which he left in 2000 after seven seasons), Milch was Bocho's story editor on Hill Street Blues and wrote an episode of L.A. Law, but the reunion raises questions about the status of Luck, the horse racing drama Milch and director Michael Mann are making for HBO. Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports says the NBC show "won't interfere with Milch's duties" on Luck, which he'll return to after the NBC pilot is completed, with Bochco serving as show runner if it makes it to series. That's something of a surprise, since by various accounts Mann and Milch clashed making the pilot ("[A] smack-down from Day 1," a talent rep involved with the project told The Hollywood Reporter), with Mann supposedly banning Milch from the set. After watching the pilot, they hammered out a power-sharing agreement in April whereby Milch would get the last word on scripts, while Mann has the final say on "everything else, from casting to cutting to music...not a situation to which Milch, the Emmy-winning writer-producer of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, has lately been accustomed." (Not being involved in the editing process is particularly distasteful to him, says a pro-Milch show insider.) In July, Milch switched his representation from Creative Artists Agency, which also reps Mann, to International Creative Management. That should take care of the issue of divided loyalties in any subsequent standoffs with Mann, but Milch could find he's more wanted at his new gig. Deadline notes that when Imagine's Brian Grazer called Bochco and asked him to come discuss the project, he also "asked him whether he could bring his former collaborator Milch with him." He did. If David Caruso can bolt NYPD Blue after one season, David Milch can find a way to get out of Luck before season two."
from:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/10/milch-still-luck-bruce-willis-needs-new-son/43698/ (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/10/milch-still-luck-bruce-willis-needs-new-son/43698/)
Ian McShane is still hoping for the return of Deadwood....
Many Deadwood fans — myself included — were horrified at the unexpected departure of Al Swearengen from our television screens. Is there even the slimmest possibility of seeing him again?
I.McShane: Well, you never know with that. Never say never with something like that. It was such a great experience. The best ever. I mean, three years of maybe the finest show ever on television. Everybody talks about The Wire and whatever. I've watched all of them and I just think Deadwood has something the others didn't. It concentrated on the town. It was as big a character as anybody in it.
David Milch, who created it and who I love dearly, he still wants to do it. I guess it will come down to if it's feasible. It was a hugely expensive show. That was the reason why it was taken off. It wasn't just HBO involved, it was Paramount TV and David and the contracts. There was a load of stuff that went down. But he would love to see it come back. He would like to do two two-hour movies to finish it off.
When was the last time you spoke with him about this?
I.McShane: I speak to him on a regular basis, as a friend. I had lunch with him a couple of months ago and he was wishing that, you know... But he's got this new show coming out with Michael Mann called Luck on HBO. So we'll see. You never know!
from:
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/10/17/ian-mcshane-johnny-depp-pirate/ (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/10/17/ian-mcshane-johnny-depp-pirate/)
The Spotlight: Patrick J. Adams cast in "Luck"
(http://verycoolpictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/patrick-j-adams-pictures-21.jpg)
Who do you play in "Luck"?
A financial prodigy named Nathan Israel. I like to think of him as a baby shark in a sea of great whites.
Have to ask: How was it working with Dustin Hoffman?
Our first scene was his character interviewing me for a job. Of course I'm terrified. All I can think of is how I don't belong there. On the first take, I just said the lines and got through it. The director comes out and tells me, I want to see that you're more nervous. Dustin clocks that note. Take 2: I say my first line and Dustin just stares at me. And then he rips into me. All improvised. How worthless I am. How I don't know the first thing about acting. There are 70 people standing around watching. The cameras are still rolling. I go white hot. I can't remember who I am. I want to vomit. But it became this dance. I would say a line, and he'd say, "I see you acting. Start over." It was a miniature master class. He just rode me nonstop. He gave me the gift of saying out loud all the garbage in my head. It was so painful and scary. I went home and thought I was going to be fired. But the phone didn't ring and the phone didn't ring. And then it was time to go to set again.
from:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/10/the-spotlight-patrick-adams-in-nine-circles-at-the-bootleg-theater.html (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/10/the-spotlight-patrick-adams-in-nine-circles-at-the-bootleg-theater.html)
'America in Prime Time' review: Culture reflected
with David Milch as one of the commentators, starts Sunday on PBS.
"The title of the new PBS documentary "America in Prime Time" may suggest it's only about the history of television. In fact it is much more than that: By examining the genesis of four distinct character types in TV over the past 60 years, the four-part film tells us as much about the evolution of American culture and values during that time as it does about TV itself.
Premiering Sunday with the hour-long segment "Independent Woman," "America in Prime Time" continues for the following three Sundays with "Man of the House," "The Misfit" and "The Crusader." Don't mistake this for the kind of once-over-lightly TV nostalgia show PBS programs for pledge weeks: "America in Prime Time" is a thoughtful and thought-provoking keeper.
TV's role has been to play catch-up with what's been going on in the real world. As Jerry Seinfeld used to say, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." In fact, this is how television has not only functioned but also thrived. What the medium does best is to raise its finger to test wind direction, and then to explain us to ourselves, in a way. And, with commentators such as Moore, Brooks, Roseanne Barr, Warren Littlefield, David Milch, Diane English, Matt Weiner, Jon Hamm and Mary-Louise Parker, just to name a few, "America in Prime Time" charts exactly how the medium has done that."
from:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/24/DDKQ1LJM50.DTL#ixzz1bjaZDpLW (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/24/DDKQ1LJM50.DTL#ixzz1bjaZDpLW)
Luck will now bow on Dec. 11, at 10:00 p.m., following the season 2 finale of Boardwalk Empire.
First Horse Out of the Gate: HBO to Sneak-Peek Luck Pilot
By James Poniewozik
HBO has announced a premiere date, Jan. 29, for its David Milch / Michael Mann horseracing drama Luck. But should you care to lay odds on it early, the network will run a sneak preview of the pilot episode on Dec. 11, after the season finale of Boardwalk Empire. Then HBO will hold its horses, so to speak, for a month and a half, when it runs the full nine-episode season.
I haven't seen the series yet, but hopefully HBO will send out review copies to critics before the air date. It's certainly my most-anticipated series on the horizon right now; Milch and Mann can make remarkable TV separately, but who knows what the combination of their, er, strong artistic temperaments will accomplish together?
Are you champing at the bit? And will I run out of lame horse puns before January?
From:
http://entertainment.time.com/2011/11/02/first-horse-out-of-the-gate-hbo-to-sneak-peek-luck-pilot/#ixzz1cZm1lJsM (http://entertainment.time.com/2011/11/02/first-horse-out-of-the-gate-hbo-to-sneak-peek-luck-pilot/#ixzz1cZm1lJsM)
The article copied from NYT in its entirety, to let our readers get a better understanding or Mr.Milch personality.
The Writing Seminar from Hell, Inspired by David Milch
Posted by Michael Schulman
Imagine the scariest writing teacher you've ever had—disparaging, unpredictable, merciless—and you've got Leonard, the character played by Alan Rickman in the new Broadway play "Seminar," by Theresa Rebeck. A veteran of stage and television (she is the creator of the upcoming NBC show "Smash"), Rebeck has an ear for writer-on-writer brutality. The play follows a private workshop at an Upper West Side apartment, where Leonard, a disgraced novelist turned literary editor, terrorizes his students. He calls one story "perfect, in a kind of whorish way." Of another, he says, "I don't have to go past the first five words because I already know enough and I don't give a shit."
"It's interesting to me how many people are shocked by what Leonard says," Rebeck told me, "because many of those things have been said to me over the years by one person or another." One of those people is David Milch, the creator of "Deadwood" and the co-creator of "NYPD Blue," where Rebeck was on the writing staff for three seasons. "There's a restlessness and drive that you learn from that guy," she said. "It was the hard-knock school of learning. But there was a lot of charm in it." One scene in "Seminar" is lifted from an encounter with Milch. "I had to go and talk to him about one of my scripts," Rebeck recalled. "I sat in his office and he went off on it. I realized in the middle that he was talking about somebody else's script. I just sat there, waiting to tell him, 'That's David Mills's script.' Then he said, 'What am I doing? This isn't your script, it's Mills's script.' And then he continued to give me notes on Mills's script."
Like the students in "Seminar," Rebeck occasionally pushed back. One time, Milch was lecturing her in the hallway, with about eight people looking on. "I said, 'Can we take this into my office or is the public humiliation important to you?' Everyone was dead silent. And then he said, 'She's fantastic, isn't she?' " Despite her bravado, Rebeck said, "He made me cry three times. I'm not a cryer. It took me so long to get his hand out of my brain that I think I erased most of it. It took me two years."
Reached in Los Angeles, Milch said he hadn't seen or read "Seminar," but he remembered Rebeck fondly. "She was an enormous asset to the company of writers working on the show," he said. He didn't regard himself as an annihilator—"I would regret to learn that the parts based on me were the ones in which the author gets torn down"—but the David Mills story about struck him as plausible. "I'm capable of that solipsism and worse, on occasion. I hope I was right about the script!"
Asked about his own mentors, Milch spoke of Robert Penn Warren, who taught him at Yale and whom he assisted for seven years on an anthology of American literature. "I guess his most important lesson—I gather I may not have learned it completely—was the lesson of civility," he said. "It's absolutely crucial to maintain a level of respect for the materials in question and the author in question."
But in Mark Singer's 2005 Profile, Milch recounted a distinctly Leonard-like exchange when he was despairing about his writing and brought a chapter of his novel-in-progress to Warren's home: "Now, I've interrupted his dinner, he's been very gracious, and I say that, and he looks me in the eye and says, 'Understand, David. I don't give a shit who writes and who doesn't.' In other words: If you, David, are soliciting from me 'Oh, you must,' I ain't gonna say that, because that's up to you." In "Seminar," Leonard recalls being taught by Warren at Yale: "He was ruthless and religious about sound." Was that another Milch reference? Rebeck said yes. "It was my little homage to both great men."
from:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2011/11/the-writing-seminar-from-hell-inspired-by-david-milch.html#ixzz1dzpKcr4Z
Here's the latest "Luck" trailer, in case you don't have HBO. Scroll down a little.
http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/11-21-11/new-luck-trailer-released-premiere-announced.html (http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/11-21-11/new-luck-trailer-released-premiere-announced.html)
Milch has a renewed contract with HBO, and here's one more project he'll be working on. Unfortunately, it also signals the end of hopes for Deadwood movies or a TV conclusion.
David Milch Strikes Deal to Bring Faulkner Works to HBO
By DAVE ITZKOFF
David Milch, a television producer who knows a thing or two about sound and fury, has concluded a new production deal with HBO that will allow him to produce television shows and movies from the literary works of William Faulkner, the cable channel announced on Wednesday.
"I'm not, probably, the first person they would have thought of approaching them," Mr. Milch said in a phone interview, referring to his months-long discussions with the William Faulkner Literary Estate. "But a number of conversations were fruitful and here we are."
William FaulknerAssociated Press William Faulkner
In his television career, Mr. Milch is best known for creating Emmy Award-winning series like "NYPD Blue" (with Steven Bochco) and "Deadwood," the vulgar and violent (and never properly concluded) western that ran on HBO.
But before he started putting colorful words in the mouths of Andy Sipowicz and Al Swearengen, Mr. Milch made his literary bones as an undergraduate at Yale University and a graduate student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa; he worked with Robert Penn Warren (who shared a biographer, Joseph Blotner, with Faulkner), Cleanth Brooks and R. W. B. Lewis on a history of American literature, and contributed fiction and criticism to publications like The Southern Review and The Atlantic Monthly.
More recently, Mr. Milch said, his daughter Olivia had been studying Faulkner's novel "Light in August" at Yale and "renewed my engagement with the material," eventually leading to discussions between his company, Red Board Productions, and the William Faulkner Literary Estate.
Under the terms of their agreement, Mr. Milch and the estate's executor, Lee Caplin, will work together to choose from 19 novels and 125 short stories by Faulkner that could be adapted for film or television. (Olivia Milch will be a coordinating producer on the adaptations.) HBO said in a news release that it would have the first opportunity to finance and produce these projects.
"My hope is to steer the project, as much as to be its source," Mr. Milch said, adding that "conversations were ongoing" with other writers and artists who would handle the adaptations of specific Faulkner works.
Mr. Milch's new exclusive deal with HBO will also cover his new drama series "Luck," which stars Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte.
Just don't hold out much hope that this pact will lead to a long-awaited ending to "Deadwood," which broadcast its last episode in 2006.
"Every man's entitled to hope," Mr. Milch said with a laugh. "It looked like we were getting close, about six months ago. It's a complicated transaction, so we're moving forward in other areas."
from:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/david-milch-strikes-deal-to-bring-william-faulkner-to-hbo/?ref=arts (http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/david-milch-strikes-deal-to-bring-william-faulkner-to-hbo/?ref=arts)
Milch to cover Faulkner for HBO
By Verne Gay
David Milch, pretty much the premiere TV writer of his generation, has an HBO deal to adapt over a hundred novels and short stories of William Faulkner, pretty much the premiere writer of his.
Some deal indeed, and highly unusual - maybe unprecedented. Of course, many Faulkner novels have been adapted for the screen like "The Reivers" but rarely for TV for the simple and obvious reason that they are difficult,dense, complicated and - hence - not exactly commercial TV material. But if anyone can make this work, Milch is certainly the man. Come to think of it, "Deadwood" was kind of like Faulkner - "As I Lay Dying," for example. Check out the statement below - some of the books could yield movies or miniseries.
Per the HBO release: "Under the terms of the agreement, Milch will partner with Lee Caplin, the executor of the William Faulkner Literary Estate and CEO of Picture Entertainment Corp., to choose which works to develop, package and produce. Both Milch and Caplin will act as executive producers of those projects, with Milch serving as the executive writer in charge of adapting the works. The agreement gives HBO an exclusive first opportunity to finance, produce and distribute the projects as movies, miniseries and series. Olivia Milch will serve as coordinating producer on the projects."
Milch's Dustin Hoffman starrer, "Luck" will be previewed in a week or so.
from:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/tv-zone-1.811968/milch-to-cover-faulkner-for-hbo-1.3356512 (http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/tv-zone-1.811968/milch-to-cover-faulkner-for-hbo-1.3356512)
Excerpt from an interview with Mr.Milch regarding Faulkner, Deadwood, etc., printed in LA Times.
"David Milch, the man behind "Deadwood" and "NYPD Blue," has signed a deal with HBO and William Faulkner's estate to produce TV series and original movies based on Faulkner's writing. The agreement, which has been brewing for 18 months, is tremendously broad, encompassing 19 novels and 125 short stories by one of American's most challenging writers. Faulkner won the Nobel prize for literature, the Pulitzer Prize and was even a screenwriter in Hollywood. Milch, who has won four Emmys and is currently at work on HBO's "Luck," a horse racing series featuring Dustin Hoffman, spoke to Carolyn Kellogg by phone.
What was the first William Faulkner work you read?
I think it was [the short story] "The Bear," when I was in high school. In college I started to get soaked in the materials. Subsequently I worked with R.W.B. Lewis, Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks on a history of American literature -- I did that for seven or eight years. In the course of that work, my interest in Faulkner deepened, and has been sustained ever since.
Do you have a favorite Faulkner novel?
I guess if I had to pick one I'd pick "Absalom, Absalom!" but [laughs] a lot of them are pretty good.
People have said that he's an unfilmmable writer.
I've never understood that. To me he seems enormously cinematic. But I've heard that, once or twice.
In "Deadwood," you were known for coining a unique language, and Faulkner did that as well. What do you think of the texture of Faulkner's prose, and of his dialogue?
They are superb, and compelling, and absolutely authentic. They're so contemporary. You know, Faulkner wrote for film, and his ear is just impeccable.
What attracted you to Faulkner in particular?
For me, he is a distinctive voice in American literature in the last century. The variety of the work, and the richness of its perspectives on the great themes. Faulkner speaks to us on the questions of race, the challenges of modernity and modern man's dilemma in all of its aspects. That he is able to specify among those and bring those themes alive is one of his great gifts. There are so many different kinds of pleasures one gets from encountering those materials. I remember when I was reading "The Bear," I was reading as a kid. All these years later one returns to that for an entirely different reason. That's true of so many of his works.
Do you know which of his works you'll start with?
We haven't made those decisions as of yet.
Have you visited Oxford, Miss. (where Faulkner lived, and his home is preserved as a museum)?
I haven't, but my daughter Olivia lives down there, and has generated a friendship with several people connected with the estate. It was through her good offices that I most recently became aware of the possibility of entering into this type of connection.
Faulkner himself, apart from his work, seems like a really interesting character. Biographically, is there anything that could make its way into your upcoming HBO project?
By refraction, that might be the case. It's important, I feel, to separate the man from his work. He lived a fascinating life, but my teacher Robert Penn Warren was emphatic on the separation of the man and the work. I guess I'll stick with that."
from:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/11/david-milch-on-william-faulkner-and-his-new-deal-with-hbo.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ShowTracker+%28L.A.+Times+-+Show+Tracker%29 (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/11/david-milch-on-william-faulkner-and-his-new-deal-with-hbo.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ShowTracker+%28L.A.+Times+-+Show+Tracker%29)
Ah, it still makes waves...
from SurferMag message board:
"Killer show. Great writing. Wish it was back. David Milch is a genius. Remember when the kid (Grayson) mysteriously hurts himself surfing a contest, then shows up healed, then later that night is skating a ramp as if nothing had happened? They framed it like it was an act of God - an act of God that he healed spontaneously, or that a human being can float in mid air and return to earth on top of a small, almost weightless object? It's surfing really an act of God? That show was able to capture the mystery of surfing more effectively than any other movie about surfing (not talk about surf flicks) could do... I guess, except for North Shore. "
posted 10/15/11 by Ibc980
as per Zen on Mars request, here's the link:
http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Number=2165729&page=0 (http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Number=2165729&page=0)
This picture I've found on Tumblr, together with some accolades to JFC. Here is an example:
"Remember this show that aired on HBO a few years ago? It contained surfing, Lynchian mind screw nonsense, Ed O'Neill in a virtuoso performance as an ex-cop who talks to birds, and an amazing opening sequence featuring this song by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros", by kurtispopp
The picture was posted by fuckeahaustinnichols (got to give credit to the two gals that run the blog dedicated to Nichols)
(http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llcjobnUqh1qf9bv2o1_500.png)
from:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/john-from-cincinnati?before=1309293666 (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/john-from-cincinnati?before=1309293666)
Sven2,
Any links for either the SurferMag or Tumblr articles? The internet is Big. :)
Zen, look up, the links are added as you wished. (Apologies, being a mod I invaded your post, so it would stay as the last on the thread. Good to see you, BTW. How's life?)
Sven.
Thanks, Sven! And yes life is good. :)
It's a long article, it didn't fit in the allotted space, so it's broken in two parts.
Wildly Enigmatic Case File #7: John From Cincinnati
by Nathan Rabin
January 18, 2012
On the evening of June 10, 2007, a culture-wide roar of agitated confusion swept over this great land. From satellites in outer space, an audible cry of "What the fuck? No, seriously. What the fuck?" could be heard ringing out loudly, followed immediately by, "You've got to be shitting us, right? I mean, seriously? What the fuck? You have got to be kidding us with this bullshit!" The cause for this tidal wave of anger and confusion was an exquisitely, maddeningly, insufferably, gloriously enigmatic surfing drama from David Milch, the cultishly revered creator of Deadwood and co-creator of NYPD Blue. John From Cincinnati's premiere followed the series finale of The Sopranos—no pressure there—which engendered some complicated emotions of its own among loyal viewers.
When John From Cincinnati was greenlit and cast with every recognizable face known to man, Milch had a reputation not just as a peerless television writer and producer, but as a genius, a poet of profanity who went beyond creating shows to creating vast, nuanced, intricate universes. Along with peers David Chase and David Simon, Milch was among those heralded with elevating television to unparalleled heights. Deadwood and its HBO compatriots The Wire and The Sopranos were often trotted out as exhibits A, B, and C in pieces about how television, or more specifically HBO, was churning out art so transcendent it made cinema look like a giant pile of horseshit by comparison. They weren't just praised for being cinematic; they were being heralded as better than the best films.
Milch was a groundbreaker. Yet despite the accolades thrown its way, Deadwood was cancelled after three expensive seasons, and plans to continue the saga with a pair of television movies never came to fruition, to the disappointment and anger of the show's devoted fans. HBO wasn't willing to take a chance on continuing a story that resonated strongly with a small but devoted cadre of viewers, yet it was somewhat puzzlingly willing to take an enormous, even insane chance on a Milch-co-created project unlike anything anyone had ever seen, a television show so preposterous-sounding and peculiar it occupies a subgenre of one: supernatural, metaphysical, spiritual surf comedy-drama-noir.
Milch described his role on John From Cincinnati less as a conventional show-runner, creator, or executive producer than, as he told the New York Times, "an instrument of purposes that I don't fully understand," not caring how grand or silly it might sound. "Time will tell whether I am a wing nut or a megalomaniac," he added. "The difference between a cult and faith is time. I believe that we are a single organism, and that something is at stake in this particular moment." HBO agreed that something was at stake (in this case, a fuck-ton of its money and reputation), but in a different fashion. Even the artiest and most progressive pay-cable channel could not afford to disregard completely the dictates of commerce. Yet John From Cincinnati ignores the screaming, insatiable demands of commercial television as defiantly as any show this side of Wonder Showzen.
In an interview with Ocean Drive magazine, actor Austin Nichols, who appeared on both Deadwood and John From Cincinnati, described Milch as, "pretty much clinically insane." He goes on:
"He's a lunatic. It's sometimes very difficult to be around him, and other times it's just the greatest thing ever. You have to stay on your toes... It's all moment to moment. Our production shares the [Alcoholics Anonymous] credo, 'One day at a time.' We literally don't have a plan, we don't have a shooting schedule, we don't have a script. We get pages the night before, or we may get to the set and improvise or David will dictate lines to us on the spot. It's very in the moment. But I've always craved spontaneity in my work, so this has been the greatest thing ever."
That approach is evident in the show itself. At best, John From Cincinnati's Jean-Luc Godard-like working methods lend the show an exhilarating spontaneity and sense of possibility. It's quite literally a show where anything can happen. At worst, it feels clumsily put-together on the spot by actors groping to comprehend a master plan even a super-genius like Milch doesn't seem to understand.
In a move of staggering perversity worthy of John From Cincinnati itself, HBO said "no" to giving Milch more money to continue a proven, beloved property like Deadwood only to spend what I can only imagine was a vast fortune on John From Cincinnati. That's a little like nixing a Saw sequel in favor of a $300 million experimental film featuring extensive bisexual bestiality. There hadn't been a surfing show for a long time before John From Cincinnati, yet Milch brought surfing back to television in the unlikeliest possible fashion. But it wasn't just surfing that made John From Cincinnati such unlikely TV fodder, even for HBO. It was also rather nakedly a show about spirituality, a subject that has never gained much traction on American television. As if all that weren't enough to scare potential viewers, the show boasted a title seemingly designed to chase away the few viewers it didn't confuse into a stupor. Who was John From Cincinnati? What was John From Cincinnati? And what kind of a name is John From Cincinnati for a television show about a depressed Southern California surfing town? It's as if Milch and co-creator/novelist Kem Nunn couldn't wait for the actual premiere of John From Cincinnati to confuse and disappoint audiences (especially those seeking a surf-world Deadwood), so they figured they'd get a head start with a maddeningly cryptic, counterintuitive title.
It worked. Despite airing after one of the most talked-about and watched pay-cable finales of all time, and possessing a cast that includes Bruce Greenwood, Rebecca De Mornay, Ed O' Neill, Luke Perry, Luis Guzman, Willie Garson, Jennifer Grey, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Howard Hesseman (as a burnout LSD manufacturer, of course), John retained far less than a third of the audience for The Sopranos. And that was in its first week, when anticipation was at its highest and culture-wide confusion about the show had not yet sunk in.
If I were to delineate all of John From Cincinnati's crowd-alienating perversities, this piece could stretch to book length. So I will merely single out one of the show's most glaring eccentricities: For a television show about surfers, John From Cincinnati features little in the way of actual surfing. John From Cincinnati's pilot waits more or less until the end for surfing footage that reminds audiences that central family the Yosts are something more than a miserable, shouty, and aggressively one-note aggregation of has-beens, junkies, and burnouts leading glumly tragic existences in the endless shadow of their former glory. Surfing is the Yosts' superpower. It's a place where they can abandon the limitations of a corrupt material world and attain a higher, more profound state of consciousness. So perhaps it's appropriate that these broken, exhausted, and defeated survivors can only really practice their art form when nobody is watching and the stakes couldn't be lower.
There is, however, an awful lot of surfing in what almost invariably qualifies as the most accomplished, artful, successful, and moving 87 seconds of every episode: a beautifully downbeat opening-credits sequence that sets up the show's setting and subject, but more importantly establishes a fragile, sad tone of broken-down grace, of half-mad stumbling for transcendence. This perfect fusion of sound (in this case Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros' "Johnny Appleseed") and image goes a long way toward determining the show's greatest asset: a hard-to-quantify mood of resigned sadness and cosmic resignation. And it's got soul. That counts for an awful lot. John doesn't lose the plot so much as angrily throw it away, but it's always got soul.
At the nucleus of John From Cincinnati lies a pair of beautifully mysterious blanks around whom the cast rotates unsteadily. Professional skateboarder Greyson Fletcher stars as Shaun Yost, a cherubic teenager whose preternatural talent for surfing threatens to resurrect a surfing dynasty that has lain dormant ever since Shaun's similarly gifted father Butchie (Brian Van Holt) crashed and burned spectacularly after trading surf stardom for a grubby, ramshackle existence as a heroin addict. Butchie is the son of patriarch Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood), a legendary surfer who retired from the public eye after nearly losing part of his leg in a surfing accident, much to the chagrin of an adoring and uncomprehending public. Mitch never recovered. He dishonors his gift by surfing only in private, far from the prying eyes of surf fans who never forgot him or stopped mourning his wasted potential. He's weighed down by an almost unbearable heaviness until one day, for reasons that remain unfathomable to him, he begins to float. Literally. He doesn't soar; he simply floats a few feet above the ground, trapped in some weird limbo between the material world and the heavens. This is where the mystery begins. It's not certain where, if ever, it ends.
The Yosts' glory is irrevocably intertwined with its shame and fall. The characters are stuck in an endless loop where they're doomed to forever repeat the mistakes of the past, which makes a victim of nearly every one of the show's characters. Physically and emotionally, Shaun is unfinished and unformed, a sun-baked innocent with a dead-eyed stare and an affectless monotone, yet he's still oppressed by his family's legacy of failure and ruin. History repeats itself as both comedy and tragedy.
Mitch and Butchie deal with their personal downfalls in antithetical ways. Mitch leads an ascetic existence. He denies the world the pleasure of watching him surf and himself the rewards that would come with letting others share his gift. Butchie, in sharp contrast, denies himself nothing; after years, even decades of moral rot and physical and emotional decay, he's become a grubby creature of habit and need, a junkie whose life begins and ends with scoring that next fix. Milch was an obscenely high-functioning heroin addict for three decades, even as he soared to the top of his profession, so John From Cincinnati's portrayal of the pathological neediness of addiction has a lived-in sense of authenticity.
Butchie wants only to get high, but the fates have other plans for him and the desperate souls around him. Butchie isn't able to score at all throughout John From Cincinnati—the best he can manage is what Milch refers to as a "beat bag," a bogus package of smack—yet he never gets dope-sick either, because he is under the care and protection, after a fashion, of the title character and other beautiful blank (Nichols), a tall, handsome enigma with the leanly stylized look and pompadour of a '50s greaser.
John's surname is Monad, in what Milch described in a talk at his alma mater Yale—where he was both a student and a teacher who collaborated with writer/mentor Robert Penn Warren, whose ideas and aesthetic would go on to have an enormous influence on Milch, and John From Cincinnati—as an homage to 17th-century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz's idea of "monads." I am not nearly smart enough to understand Leibniz's conception of "monads," but it seems to refer to an incredibly loose metaphysical conceit involving God and the oneness of everything in the universe.
On the surface, John Monad appears autistic. He seems incapable of making connections and associations on his own. Instead, he engages extensively in echolalia, the ritualistic repetition of words and phrases. In that respect he's less a window than a mirror that constantly reflects the other characters' words, thoughts, and ideas back to them in ways that inspire both anger—to the unenlightened, John's repetition can come off as mocking and bratty—and soulful introspection. Monad doesn't just possess an unusually strong link to the divine; he is divine, a slick surfing Asperger-y Christ figure seemingly sent to earth by his "father" to reconnect the Yost family to their lost spiritual core. John has no past, no connections, no family beyond his heavenly "father." He consequently is the only character able to live in the moment and not in a tragic past.
John arrives in the Yosts' hometown of Imperial Beach, California, and suddenly their grubby, low-rent lives are inundated with unexplained phenomena. Shaun breaks his neck surfing, then is miraculously cured soon after, much to the bewilderment of Dr. Michael Smith (Garret Dillahunt), the neurologist who treats him after his accident. Mitch begins floating periodically. Characters begin having mystical visions and vivid hallucinations.
John From Cincinnati simultaneously occupies two realms: the spiritual and the physical. In the spiritual realm, grace and transcendence are becoming glorious possibilities as John cryptically points the way toward peace and consciousness beyond our rational understanding. In the physical realm, meanwhile, Luke Perry's cold-blooded surf-gear magnate Linc Stark is looking for a way to monetize both Shaun's gift and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his resurrection. To that end, Linc has a filmmaker named Cass (Emily Rose) seduce Mitch in an attempt to get Shaun to sign with his company, and lures Shaun's mother Tina Blake (Chandra West), a pornographic actress and prostitute, back into Shaun and Butchie's life to nefarious ends.
Ah, but the women in John From Cincinnati aren't all prostitutes, porn stars, and cynical opportunists willing to use sex to further their careers. There's also what is referred to more than once, and with ample justification, as the worst ball-buster in universe: Shaun's mother Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay). While high on LSD decades earlier, Cissy stumbled onto a young masturbating Butchie, fresh off his latest surfing triumph, and finished him off with a handjob. She has consequently never stopped punishing herself or the universe for her transgression by becoming the most insufferable shrew in existence. De Mornay seems afflicted with a terrible case of the Botox shouts: She can't use her frozen facial muscles to express emotion anymore (Cissy's emotions run the gamut from anger to rage to blinding fury), so she uses deafening volume and frantic mugging to overcompensate. She's Imperial Beach's low-rent answer to Lady Macbeth, and the only character here engaged enough in the world to be angry all the time. (On his wonderful commentary track, Milch says, "I tried to cast as many people who are very identifiable from a single role as a way of mobilizing viewers' sense of the possible arbitrariness of how we remember things. Oh Rebecca De Mornay. She gave Tom Cruise a handjob or whatever it was. They also starred together in Risky Business!" That might seem disrespectful, but he does later compliment De Mornay for having a great ass, so he's not all rough edges and leering sexism.
from:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/wildly-enigmatic-case-file-7-john-from-cincinnati,67835/1/ (http://www.avclub.com/articles/wildly-enigmatic-case-file-7-john-from-cincinnati,67835/1/)
continued:
My World Of Flops
Wildly Enigmatic Case File #7: John From Cincinnati
Part Two
There are a lot of parasites in John, primarily Linc, who is all naked guile and scheming calculation in a frustratingly one-note role and performance. Even more perplexingly, Mark Paul-Gosselaar shows up much later in the series—Milch wasn't kidding about wanting to cast actors known only for one role—as Linc's business partner and delivers more or less the exact same one-note, glowering performance as Perry. They're even costumed to look nearly identical.
The Yosts' talent and legacy invites avaricious attention of parasites, but it also invites the protectiveness of Ed O'Neill's Bill Jacks, a retired police officer who has adopted the Yosts as a surrogate family and spends much of his time conducting elaborate, animated, and understandably one-sided conversations with a collection of birds that may or may not have magical powers. Luis Guzman also costars as Ramon, a worker at a fleabag motel that has been purchased by eccentric, gay lottery-winner Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston, in a performance that seeks to transcend the retrograde stereotype of the tragic, melodramatic queen by embodying it to a grotesque degree) with the intention of tearing it down because it was the site of his worst adolescent traumas. Like so many of the show's characters, Barry is doomed to shadowbox a past that's more real and tangible to him than anything in his present life. Barry wants to tear the motel down, but surfing lawyer Meyer Dickstein (Willie Garson), who arranged the sale, keeps it intact almost exclusively so that it can provide a home to Butchie, whom Dickstein idolizes and Barry despises for abusing him when they were children. In playing a man who hopes against all hope that all the random weirdness and freaky occurrences will eventually lead to a big payoff, monetarily and otherwise, Guzman comes perilously close to serving as an audience surrogate. I'm not sure that's something John ultimately wants or needs. John From Cincinnati angrily defies edification. It wants us to get lost and find our own way out.
Nowhere is this more apparent than during an epic monologue in the sixth episode where John Monad issues a series of cryptic proclamations that, in keeping with the show's modest scope and humble aspirations, connect the characters and the seminal moments where they each went awry with the evolution of mankind and the cultivation of civilization through the millennia.
By this point in my John From Cincinnati journey (it really is a spiritual journey more than a television show), I was exhilaratingly lost. I had stopped trying to understand or figure out the show and given myself over to it completely. That's ultimately what John From Cincinnati is about: forsaking the rational in favor of the unknowable. John From Cincinnati at times feels more like a waking dream or a visual poem than a conventional TV series. It's a weirdly alive series of powerful contradictions, a sordid melodrama about life's most profound questions. It's less a show divided against itself than a program that embodies its central split between the mind and the body, the spirit and the ego. It's about abandoning the search for answers and giving in to the divine and unknowable.
To the surprise of no one, John From Cincinnati was cancelled after only one season, though as he reveals on the audio commentary, Milch was thoughtful enough to have John Monad rattle off what would have happened in a second season, had the show miraculously renewed. (Spoiler: A bunch of freaky-ass shit would have happened that would have had people all, "Say what?!!!") John crashed and burned, Butchie Yost-style, but Milch has proven extraordinarily resilient. In 2011, HBO signed a deal with Milch to produce a series of William Faulkner adaptations. The same year, HBO picked up Luck, a Dustin Hoffman-starring drama centered on the world of horse-racing that's one of the year's most eagerly anticipated dramas.
John From Cincinnati is a ferociously imperfect show, a strange, unwieldy combination of pulp fiction and cracked spirituality. Yet it's gloriously unlike anything that had become before, in television or elsewhere. In the words of A Serious Man (and my colleague Scott Tobias' fine essay about the superlative last year in film), it invites us to "accept the mystery" of existence while stressing the interconnectedness of all things. Enjoying John From Cincinnati requires a massive leap of faith, a high tolerance for quirkiness and self-indulgence, and an awful lot patience, but its rewards and cockeyed charms are as substantive as they are beguilingly ethereal.
from:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/wildly-enigmatic-case-file-7-john-from-cincinnati,67835/1/ (http://www.avclub.com/articles/wildly-enigmatic-case-file-7-john-from-cincinnati,67835/1/)
Probably it's not news at all, doesn't belong here, etc., etc., but I have to tell - to everyone who wants to hear - that there is a vibrant, regularly updated, discussion about JFC on IMDB. I am completely enamored by this discovery. The most recent posts there are from the end of January and there is an abundance of intelligent, emotional comments about JFC. This board unfortunately petered out, as the influx of fresh voices slowly dried out and completely ceased, but on IMDB you'd find the people that still get amazed by John's visit and they speak well.
So, go and see for yourself:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814164/board/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814164/board/)
If you still have the urge to discuss JFC - go for it, you'll find yourself in good company!
Wildly Enigmatic Case File #7: John From Cincinnati
by Nathan Rabin January 18, 2012
On the evening of June 10, 2007, a culture-wide roar of agitated confusion swept over this great land. From satellites in outer space, an audible cry of "What the fuck? No, seriously. What the fuck?" could be heard ringing out loudly, followed immediately by, "You've got to be shitting us, right? I mean, seriously? What the fuck? You have got to be kidding us with this bullshit!" The cause for this tidal wave of anger and confusion was an exquisitely, maddeningly, insufferably, gloriously enigmatic surfing drama from David Milch, the cultishly revered creator of Deadwood and co-creator of NYPD Blue. John From Cincinnati's premiere followed the series finale of The Sopranos—no pressure there—which engendered some complicated emotions of its own among loyal viewers.
When John From Cincinnati was greenlit and cast with every recognizable face known to man, Milch had a reputation not just as a peerless television writer and producer, but as a genius, a poet of profanity who went beyond creating shows to creating vast, nuanced, intricate universes. Along with peers David Chase and David Simon, Milch was among those heralded with elevating television to unparalleled heights. Deadwood and its HBO compatriots The Wire and The Sopranos were often trotted out as exhibits A, B, and C in pieces about how television, or more specifically HBO, was churning out art so transcendent it made cinema look like a giant pile of horseshit by comparison. They weren't just praised for being cinematic; they were being heralded as better than the best films.
Milch was a groundbreaker. Yet despite the accolades thrown its way, Deadwood was cancelled after three expensive seasons, and plans to continue the saga with a pair of television movies never came to fruition, to the disappointment and anger of the show's devoted fans. HBO wasn't willing to take a chance on continuing a story that resonated strongly with a small but devoted cadre of viewers, yet it was somewhat puzzlingly willing to take an enormous, even insane chance on a Milch-co-created project unlike anything anyone had ever seen, a television show so preposterous-sounding and peculiar it occupies a subgenre of one: supernatural, metaphysical, spiritual surf comedy-drama-noir.
Milch described his role on John From Cincinnati less as a conventional show-runner, creator, or executive producer than, as he told the New York Times, "an instrument of purposes that I don't fully understand," not caring how grand or silly it might sound. "Time will tell whether I am a wing nut or a megalomaniac," he added. "The difference between a cult and faith is time. I believe that we are a single organism, and that something is at stake in this particular moment." HBO agreed that something was at stake (in this case, a fuck-ton of its money and reputation), but in a different fashion. Even the artiest and most progressive pay-cable channel could not afford to disregard completely the dictates of commerce. Yet John From Cincinnati ignores the screaming, insatiable demands of commercial television as defiantly as any show this side of Wonder Showzen.
In an interview with Ocean Drive magazine, actor Austin Nichols, who appeared on both Deadwood and John From Cincinnati, described Milch as, "pretty much clinically insane." He goes on:
"He's a lunatic. It's sometimes very difficult to be around him, and other times it's just the greatest thing ever. You have to stay on your toes... It's all moment to moment. Our production shares the [Alcoholics Anonymous] credo, 'One day at a time.' We literally don't have a plan, we don't have a shooting schedule, we don't have a script. We get pages the night before, or we may get to the set and improvise or David will dictate lines to us on the spot. It's very in the moment. But I've always craved spontaneity in my work, so this has been the greatest thing ever."
That approach is evident in the show itself. At best, John From Cincinnati's Jean-Luc Godard-like working methods lend the show an exhilarating spontaneity and sense of possibility. It's quite literally a show where anything can happen. At worst, it feels clumsily put-together on the spot by actors groping to comprehend a master plan even a super-genius like Milch doesn't seem to understand.
In a move of staggering perversity worthy of John From Cincinnati itself, HBO said "no" to giving Milch more money to continue a proven, beloved property like Deadwood only to spend what I can only imagine was a vast fortune on John From Cincinnati. That's a little like nixing a Saw sequel in favor of a $300 million experimental film featuring extensive bisexual bestiality. There hadn't been a surfing show for a long time before John From Cincinnati, yet Milch brought surfing back to television in the unlikeliest possible fashion. But it wasn't just surfing that made John From Cincinnati such unlikely TV fodder, even for HBO. It was also rather nakedly a show about spirituality, a subject that has never gained much traction on American television. As if all that weren't enough to scare potential viewers, the show boasted a title seemingly designed to chase away the few viewers it didn't confuse into a stupor. Who was John From Cincinnati? What was John From Cincinnati? And what kind of a name is John From Cincinnati for a television show about a depressed Southern California surfing town? It's as if Milch and co-creator/novelist Kem Nunn couldn't wait for the actual premiere of John From Cincinnati to confuse and disappoint audiences (especially those seeking a surf-world Deadwood), so they figured they'd get a head start with a maddeningly cryptic, counterintuitive title.
It worked. Despite airing after one of the most talked-about and watched pay-cable finales of all time, and possessing a cast that includes Bruce Greenwood, Rebecca De Mornay, Ed O' Neill, Luke Perry, Luis Guzman, Willie Garson, Jennifer Grey, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Howard Hesseman (as a burnout LSD manufacturer, of course), John retained far less than a third of the audience for The Sopranos. And that was in its first week, when anticipation was at its highest and culture-wide confusion about the show had not yet sunk in.
If I were to delineate all of John From Cincinnati's crowd-alienating perversities, this piece could stretch to book length. So I will merely single out one of the show's most glaring eccentricities: For a television show about surfers, John From Cincinnati features little in the way of actual surfing. John From Cincinnati's pilot waits more or less until the end for surfing footage that reminds audiences that central family the Yosts are something more than a miserable, shouty, and aggressively one-note aggregation of has-beens, junkies, and burnouts leading glumly tragic existences in the endless shadow of their former glory. Surfing is the Yosts' superpower. It's a place where they can abandon the limitations of a corrupt material world and attain a higher, more profound state of consciousness. So perhaps it's appropriate that these broken, exhausted, and defeated survivors can only really practice their art form when nobody is watching and the stakes couldn't be lower.
There is, however, an awful lot of surfing in what almost invariably qualifies as the most accomplished, artful, successful, and moving 87 seconds of every episode: a beautifully downbeat opening-credits sequence that sets up the show's setting and subject, but more importantly establishes a fragile, sad tone of broken-down grace, of half-mad stumbling for transcendence. This perfect fusion of sound (in this case Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros' "Johnny Appleseed") and image goes a long way toward determining the show's greatest asset: a hard-to-quantify mood of resigned sadness and cosmic resignation. And it's got soul. That counts for an awful lot. John doesn't lose the plot so much as angrily throw it away, but it's always got soul.
At the nucleus of John From Cincinnati lies a pair of beautifully mysterious blanks around whom the cast rotates unsteadily. Professional skateboarder Greyson Fletcher stars as Shaun Yost, a cherubic teenager whose preternatural talent for surfing threatens to resurrect a surfing dynasty that has lain dormant ever since Shaun's similarly gifted father Butchie (Brian Van Holt) crashed and burned spectacularly after trading surf stardom for a grubby, ramshackle existence as a heroin addict. Butchie is the son of patriarch Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood), a legendary surfer who retired from the public eye after nearly losing part of his leg in a surfing accident, much to the chagrin of an adoring and uncomprehending public. Mitch never recovered. He dishonors his gift by surfing only in private, far from the prying eyes of surf fans who never forgot him or stopped mourning his wasted potential. He's weighed down by an almost unbearable heaviness until one day, for reasons that remain unfathomable to him, he begins to float. Literally. He doesn't soar; he simply floats a few feet above the ground, trapped in some weird limbo between the material world and the heavens. This is where the mystery begins. It's not certain where, if ever, it ends.
The Yosts' glory is irrevocably intertwined with its shame and fall. The characters are stuck in an endless loop where they're doomed to forever repeat the mistakes of the past, which makes a victim of nearly every one of the show's characters. Physically and emotionally, Shaun is unfinished and unformed, a sun-baked innocent with a dead-eyed stare and an affectless monotone, yet he's still oppressed by his family's legacy of failure and ruin. History repeats itself as both comedy and tragedy.
Mitch and Butchie deal with their personal downfalls in antithetical ways. Mitch leads an ascetic existence. He denies the world the pleasure of watching him surf and himself the rewards that would come with letting others share his gift. Butchie, in sharp contrast, denies himself nothing; after years, even decades of moral rot and physical and emotional decay, he's become a grubby creature of habit and need, a junkie whose life begins and ends with scoring that next fix. Milch was an obscenely high-functioning heroin addict for three decades, even as he soared to the top of his profession, so John From Cincinnati's portrayal of the pathological neediness of addiction has a lived-in sense of authenticity.
Butchie wants only to get high, but the fates have other plans for him and the desperate souls around him. Butchie isn't able to score at all throughout John From Cincinnati—the best he can manage is what Milch refers to as a "beat bag," a bogus package of smack—yet he never gets dope-sick either, because he is under the care and protection, after a fashion, of the title character and other beautiful blank (Nichols), a tall, handsome enigma with the leanly stylized look and pompadour of a '50s greaser.
--see next:
--continued
John's surname is Monad, in what Milch described in a talk at his alma mater Yale—where he was both a student and a teacher who collaborated with writer/mentor Robert Penn Warren, whose ideas and aesthetic would go on to have an enormous influence on Milch, and John From Cincinnati—as an homage to 17th-century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz's idea of "monads." I am not nearly smart enough to understand Leibniz's conception of "monads," but it seems to refer to an incredibly loose metaphysical conceit involving God and the oneness of everything in the universe.
On the surface, John Monad appears autistic. He seems incapable of making connections and associations on his own. Instead, he engages extensively in echolalia, the ritualistic repetition of words and phrases. In that respect he's less a window than a mirror that constantly reflects the other characters' words, thoughts, and ideas back to them in ways that inspire both anger—to the unenlightened, John's repetition can come off as mocking and bratty—and soulful introspection. Monad doesn't just possess an unusually strong link to the divine; he is divine, a slick surfing Asperger-y Christ figure seemingly sent to earth by his "father" to reconnect the Yost family to their lost spiritual core. John has no past, no connections, no family beyond his heavenly "father." He consequently is the only character able to live in the moment and not in a tragic past.
John arrives in the Yosts' hometown of Imperial Beach, California, and suddenly their grubby, low-rent lives are inundated with unexplained phenomena. Shaun breaks his neck surfing, then is miraculously cured soon after, much to the bewilderment of Dr. Michael Smith (Garret Dillahunt), the neurologist who treats him after his accident. Mitch begins floating periodically. Characters begin having mystical visions and vivid hallucinations.
John From Cincinnati simultaneously occupies two realms: the spiritual and the physical. In the spiritual realm, grace and transcendence are becoming glorious possibilities as John cryptically points the way toward peace and consciousness beyond our rational understanding. In the physical realm, meanwhile, Luke Perry's cold-blooded surf-gear magnate Linc Stark is looking for a way to monetize both Shaun's gift and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his resurrection. To that end, Linc has a filmmaker named Cass (Emily Rose) seduce Mitch in an attempt to get Shaun to sign with his company, and lures Shaun's mother Tina Blake (Chandra West), a pornographic actress and prostitute, back into Shaun and Butchie's life to nefarious ends.
Ah, but the women in John From Cincinnati aren't all prostitutes, porn stars, and cynical opportunists willing to use sex to further their careers. There's also what is referred to more than once, and with ample justification, as the worst ball-buster in universe: Shaun's mother Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay). While high on LSD decades earlier, Cissy stumbled onto a young masturbating Butchie, fresh off his latest surfing triumph, and finished him off with a handjob. She has consequently never stopped punishing herself or the universe for her transgression by becoming the most insufferable shrew in existence. De Mornay seems afflicted with a terrible case of the Botox shouts: She can't use her frozen facial muscles to express emotion anymore (Cissy's emotions run the gamut from anger to rage to blinding fury), so she uses deafening volume and frantic mugging to overcompensate. She's Imperial Beach's low-rent answer to Lady Macbeth, and the only character here engaged enough in the world to be angry all the time. (On his wonderful commentary track, Milch says, "I tried to cast as many people who are very identifiable from a single role as a way of mobilizing viewers' sense of the possible arbitrariness of how we remember things. Oh Rebecca De Mornay. She gave Tom Cruise a handjob or whatever it was. They also starred together in Risky Business!" That might seem disrespectful, but he does later compliment De Mornay for having a great ass, so he's not all rough edges and leering sexism.
There are a lot of parasites in John, primarily Linc, who is all naked guile and scheming calculation in a frustratingly one-note role and performance. Even more perplexingly, Mark Paul-Gosselaar shows up much later in the series—Milch wasn't kidding about wanting to cast actors known only for one role—as Linc's business partner and delivers more or less the exact same one-note, glowering performance as Perry. They're even costumed to look nearly identical.
The Yosts' talent and legacy invites avaricious attention of parasites, but it also invites the protectiveness of Ed O'Neill's Bill Jacks, a retired police officer who has adopted the Yosts as a surrogate family and spends much of his time conducting elaborate, animated, and understandably one-sided conversations with a collection of birds that may or may not have magical powers. Luis Guzman also costars as Ramon, a worker at a fleabag motel that has been purchased by eccentric, gay lottery-winner Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston, in a performance that seeks to transcend the retrograde stereotype of the tragic, melodramatic queen by embodying it to a grotesque degree) with the intention of tearing it down because it was the site of his worst adolescent traumas. Like so many of the show's characters, Barry is doomed to shadowbox a past that's more real and tangible to him than anything in his present life. Barry wants to tear the motel down, but surfing lawyer Meyer Dickstein (Willie Garson), who arranged the sale, keeps it intact almost exclusively so that it can provide a home to Butchie, whom Dickstein idolizes and Barry despises for abusing him when they were children. In playing a man who hopes against all hope that all the random weirdness and freaky occurrences will eventually lead to a big payoff, monetarily and otherwise, Guzman comes perilously close to serving as an audience surrogate. I'm not sure that's something John ultimately wants or needs. John From Cincinnati angrily defies edification. It wants us to get lost and find our own way out.
Nowhere is this more apparent than during an epic monologue in the sixth episode where John Monad issues a series of cryptic proclamations that, in keeping with the show's modest scope and humble aspirations, connect the characters and the seminal moments where they each went awry with the evolution of mankind and the cultivation of civilization through the millennia.
By this point in my John From Cincinnati journey (it really is a spiritual journey more than a television show), I was exhilaratingly lost. I had stopped trying to understand or figure out the show and given myself over to it completely. That's ultimately what John From Cincinnati is about: forsaking the rational in favor of the unknowable. John From Cincinnati at times feels more like a waking dream or a visual poem than a conventional TV series. It's a weirdly alive series of powerful contradictions, a sordid melodrama about life's most profound questions. It's less a show divided against itself than a program that embodies its central split between the mind and the body, the spirit and the ego. It's about abandoning the search for answers and giving in to the divine and unknowable.
To the surprise of no one, John From Cincinnati was cancelled after only one season, though as he reveals on the audio commentary, Milch was thoughtful enough to have John Monad rattle off what would have happened in a second season, had the show miraculously renewed. (Spoiler: A bunch of freaky-ass shit would have happened that would have had people all, "Say what?!!!") John crashed and burned, Butchie Yost-style, but Milch has proven extraordinarily resilient. In 2011, HBO signed a deal with Milch to produce a series of William Faulkner adaptations. The same year, HBO picked up Luck, a Dustin Hoffman-starring drama centered on the world of horse-racing that's one of the year's most eagerly anticipated dramas.
John From Cincinnati is a ferociously imperfect show, a strange, unwieldy combination of pulp fiction and cracked spirituality. Yet it's gloriously unlike anything that had become before, in television or elsewhere. In the words of A Serious Man (and my colleague Scott Tobias' fine essay about the superlative last year in film), it invites us to "accept the mystery" of existence while stressing the interconnectedness of all things. Enjoying John From Cincinnati requires a massive leap of faith, a high tolerance for quirkiness and self-indulgence, and an awful lot patience, but its rewards and cockeyed charms are as substantive as they are beguilingly ethereal.
from:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/wildly-enigmatic-case-file-7-john-from-cincinnati,67835/ (http://www.avclub.com/articles/wildly-enigmatic-case-file-7-john-from-cincinnati,67835/)
Interview with David Milch tonight, at 12.30 e.t. on Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson on CBS.
TWEETS about David Milch (retweeted by Matt Zeitz, a TV critic:
"The second time you used a David Milch GPS, it would make so much more sense".
"A David Milch-scripted GPS service would be abstractedly beautiful. And get me lost every time."
"A David Milch GPS would also complain about the arch speech patterns used by other GPS units (also written by Milch)".
I find it beautifully funny as truth often is.
I know we're doing 'Luck' here, and glad we are, but I have to post here, right here! I saw Brian V. Holt, Butchie, now Bobbie surfing tonight, in the same ocean, and he's looking so good on that board!!
I watch the tv show Cougartown because he is in it, and he plays towards Butchies good parts, tonight, they had him teaching another member of that cast how to surf. At the end? Everyone was out there in a wetsuit on a board.
It was, suh weet!!
Gee, it'd be nice if I remembered to share where to see BVH surfing again!
It's abc.go.com/shows/cougar-town
He surfs just a little maybe 10 or less minutes into the 24 minutes, but at
the end, you could believe, for a little bit, you were watching Butchie, healthy
on the waves again. In IB.
sniff
Interview: 'Luck' creator David Milch on the series' premature end
Would he have made the call to cancel? And how does this compare to the 'Deadwood' finale?
By Alan Sepinwall Sunday, Mar 25, 2012 10:09 PM
Though there are a few moments in tonight's "Luck" suggesting creator David Milch had a premonition that the series would be abruptly canceled due to the third horse death during production, Milch told me in an interview on Friday that he never had it in his mind that this would be a series finale. (You can read my finale review here.) In fact, if the ultimate decision-making power on this fell in Milch's hands, the show would have continued, though he says he understands and supports what HBO chose to do.
Instead, it became the third Milch series that HBO has canceled before he was finished telling his story, following "Deadwood" (and he had some illuminating things to say on that subject) and "John From Cincinnati." Because my old partner Matt Zoller Seitz did such a thorough job interviewing Milch and Michael Mann about what exactly happened to the horse, the safety precautions the show took, and about allegations that the horses were mistreated, I didn't go over that ground again. I highly recommend reading Matt's interview before this one. And if you want to know even more details of the approach team "Luck" took to horse safety, I've been given a copy of the show's official safety protocols, plus this note from Milch and Mann:
Here are LUCK's protocols and safety procedures. They were stricter than anywhere in the equine world and were in place during the production of LUCK's 2,500 horse/runs at Santa Anita. This is in response to the distortions and fabrications stated by PETA about the care of horses on the LUCK production and on behalf of the horse trainers, wranglers, exercise riders, veterinarians and grooms who – with concern and caring – looked after those horses
In the 15+ years I've been interviewing Milch, I've never heard him as emotional as he sounded on Friday. I'm not sure it quite comes across in text, but the best way I can put it is this: like the college professor he used to be, Milch is generally expansive with his commentary, sometimes to a fault, where here he kept his answers brief because it wasn't an easy subject to discuss. This project is something he's been hoping to make for a very long time, a marriage of his vocation and his avocation, and not only did it disappear out from under him in a snap, but he's now being accused of mistreating horses, when he's had a deep love for horses going back to when he was a little boy. There was a lot of pain and sadness — but not, I should say, anger, as he understands why this happened — in his voice as we spoke about the decision to halt production permanently, the differences between this and the "Deadwood" finale (including a fact about that episode that I never knew before), what might have come later, and a whole lot more, all coming up just as soon as I'm an airport profiler...
What were the conversations like that day, between the time when production was suspended and when the decision was made, "Alright, we can't go forward anymore"?
Angry incredulity.
Who was it who ultimately made that call? Was it you and Michael? Was it HBO?
It was HBO, definitively. There was back and forth about it, but their feeling was so clearly that the situation was untenable, that there was really no protracted dispute. We were presented with an accomplished fact. And I don't say that with any resentment. They made the decision they felt they had to make.
But had it been up to you, would that have been the decision?
No, I guess I would have continued. In no way was there any irresponsibility or failure of care in the treatment of those horses. I satisfied myself with that repeatedly. I don't know if you're familiar with the details of how this horse died —
I read the interview you and Michael did with Matt Seitz, so I know a little.
This was an incident equivalent to you walking down the street, being frightened by something, taking a misstep and falling. The horse was not being asked to do anything remotely dangerous or that would put him in jeopardy. In any case, this was something that generated its own momentum and fed off itself. Corporately, I absolutely understand what HBO felt were the necessities of its position. But substantively, there was no dereliction at all on our part.
One of the questions I've heard asked in the wake of the cancellation was whether you could have continued the show without filming new racing scenes, whether using CGI horses or some kind of stock footage.
That was a possibility that was examined. The horses are of the essence of the piece. We really weren't doing anything — you need the horses around. It's like asking an actor to act in company with a cartoon. Long-term, it would've been an erosion of the credibility of the material.
Given your passion for this world and how long it took you to get this on the air, how does it feel to have it go away this quickly?
It's a sick feeling. You realize, what Swearengen used to say, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." We're creatures of forces so other than and more powerful than we are, that it's an illustion to believe anything else, and it's an occasion for gratitude wen you're able to sustain your endeavor and fate and experience accommodates it. I say that with no bitterness at all towards HBO. As I say, I think they were in an untenable position.
How do you mean? Just the bad publicity?
Yeah. Anytime something happened, as it would inevitably have happened, they were going to get lambasted again. Corporately, they just can't withstand that.
I watched the finale again yesterday, and there are a number of moments and lines that feel prophetic — like Marcus saying, "Today's the day they take it all away from us," or Ace's speech at the end — like they were designed to be in a series finale. And that's always how I've viewed the last "Deadwood" episode; like it was a series finale without being intended as one. Were you ever thinking as you wrote this that there would be a chance you wouldn't get to do more?
No, there was no sense of that on my part. By way of contrast, I absolutely knew when I was writing the last "Deadwood" that it would be the last, and I wrote it intending it as the finale.
Interesting. I had never heard that before.
That's the case. I was trying — the last images of Swearengen scrubbing the bloodstain and saying "Wants me to tell him something pretty," that was as close as I felt I could come to a concluding speech.
So you knew even at that point in production that HBO was not going to go forward?
Yes, I did know that. How did the episode hold up for you?
The "Luck" finale? Very well.
Yeah. (pause) We would have found our stride. I don't think that we had conclusively, but the materials were moving in that direction. It was too bad. It was too bad.
What do you think were some of the things that needed to be improved? Or what were the parts of the show where you felt you were close to that direction?
The extent to which the character of Bernstein was living in self-deception was in the process of being revealed. As he encountered that fact and lived into the necessities of his situation, I think he was going to become a more transitive character. And that was very much in the process of being realized. But I try not to think about it too much. (laughs)
(Note: When I interviewed Milch and Mann at press tour in January, I asked Milch whether Ace and Walter never sharing any scenes together in the first season was by design, or if — like much of his work — things just turned out that way.
He responded, "It wasn't planned, but these are characters who have not discovered themselves as yet such as to make their intersection fruitful. They come together right at the beginning of the second season and it is every bit as provisional and tentative a coming together as you would expect, but these are both you know. You know Dickens used the expression "mind- forged manacles." These are isolates of one kind and another and they have a civil exchange with each other, but to expect more from them would be unrealistic. They have to find more of themselves first." Which leads us to this... )
At the end of the interview in January, you and I spoke about how Ace and Walter would come together at the start of the second season. Looking back, Ace's story is largely separate from everyone else's. Was that something that you realized as you were going on that maybe he was too far apart from the rest of the world?
Yes. I agree with that. It assumed a little bit too much of the viewer, I think.
Since we're not going to see it play out, what exactly was Ace's plan in regards to Mike? The best explanation I've seen was from one of my commenters, who suggests that Ace wants Mike to steal the casino deal out from under him, and that Mike will go to prison as a result because it's crooked. Is that it?
Yeah, that's pretty close. When you compress it, invariably you distort it. You obviously have to do what you think is appropriate, but my own preference is not to linger too much on the would have beens of this show.
Okay, then let's look back on what was instead. In these nine episodes that you were able to make, what do you feel were the strengths of it? What are some scenes you would point to as the show you had in your head all these years?
That's a good question. Everything that demonstrates the human capacity for perseverance and self-deception simultaneously. Those are the scenes that I like. I recall with affection so many of the scenes with the degenerates and that connection. And I enjoyed very much writing the scenes between Gus and Bernstein. In some ways, I felt that those two sets of relationships mirrored each other.
Watching the show, it really did feel like your heart was particularly in the scenes with the four degenerates.
That's right. If I were to point to a favorite scene, I guess it would be the Niagara Falls scene, where they were doing the exegesis of Niagara Fall as opposed to Niagara Falls, and what the might possibly mean.
Now that this is done, are you moving full-force onto the William Faulkner project?
Yes. We were just working on the concluding section of "Light in August" when you called. I had the privilege of working on that with my daughter, Olivia. So it's a compounded pleasure. I'm hopeful that HBO will be receptive. I have no reason to think they won't be.
This is the third time now you've done a show for them and the third time it's ended before you were intending it to end. Are you still okay with the relationship?
Absolutely. Each set of circumstances was unique. You'll have to ask them whether they are (laughs), but to this point, they have been as supportive a partner as one could want or imagine. It's my experience that it isn't a useful exercise to try and figure out the other fellow's state of mind. I'm going to keep carrying the water, and we'll hope that the exercise is well-received.
from:
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/interview-luck-creator-david-milch-on-the-series-premature-end (http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/interview-luck-creator-david-milch-on-the-series-premature-end)
Mr.Milch promises?
"Milch has moved on from the series "Luck," although perhaps not from the complex, unfinished tale that he and Mann said was intended to evoke "the spirit and magic" of thoroughbreds. There is talk of a novel, although Milch said it's early and "typically not very realistic."
from:
http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=715471 (http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=715471)
Old and possibly watched already leacture by Milch.
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=meccsa;6008ed72.1204&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter (https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=meccsa;6008ed72.1204&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)
Needs another click.
An easier access to the same video.
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2012/04/23/reaching-out-milch-s-teaching-voice-genius (http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2012/04/23/reaching-out-milch-s-teaching-voice-genius)
Deadwood and John From Cincinnati: Societies of Faith and the Incognito God
Andrew Russ
"Hawthorne said that man's accidents are God's purposes.
We miss the good we seek and do the good we little sought"
"...if you bring the right arc to it, any word can be the path to God."
David Milch
David Milch's series Deadwood, (and even more obviously John From Cincinnati), provide
us with an exploration of the possibilities of social redemption through emotional chaos; of
faith as the primary organizing principle of social life, before abstract codes of law and order
supplanted the binding functions of love and grace. This was Milch's stated aim, having been
so rehearsed and learned with the vicissitudes of law and order in his previous cop shows,
Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, he wished to show a society that organizes around other signs
and motive powers. Television has not seen a writer who speaks so candidly about society as a
"cohabitation of the spirit", who speaks about God's power as carried through words, and words
as paths to God without our knowledge, and who spurns the modern belief in the isolated self as
"fundamentally an illusion".
This chapter will explore Deadwood, John from Cincinnat, and David Milch's own testimony in
articles, interviews, lectures and DVD commentary, on his aim of demonstrating to his audience
the idea that society gains strength from faith, not law, and is the disguised workings of a power
we have come through obscure acknowledgment to call "God" or "Spirit". It is essentially a
look at Milch's masterful and entertaining exploration of how faith harnesses and orientates the
energies, talents, faults and purposes of individual people into a body politic, how they come to
"rest transparent in the spirit which gave them rise".
from:
http://fama2.us.es/fco/previouslyon/16.pdf
The article is long, in PDF format, so here's just the first two paragraph, to present the ideas of the author. Not sure where and when it was published.
Dear Monadistas,
As you may know, our SaveJFC campaign also supported WildCoast as Mitch Yoast did PSA's for them. Here is the current fundraising effort they are engaged in...
(http://johnfromcincinnati.net/site/wp-content/themes/john/graphics/wildcoast_bash_2016.png)
Dear WILDCOAST Friend,
On behalf of WILDCOAST, I am excited to invite you to our 4th Annual BAJA BASH Fundraiser!
Join the fun as we celebrate our success in preserving the most beautiful and pristine bays, beaches, lagoons, islands, and coral reefs in California, Mexico, and now Cuba. So let's celebrate our conservation impact together!
This year we are ecstatic to announce that we have been named "Non-Profit of the Year" in the 78th Assembly by former Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and that we have preserved tens of thousands of acres of pristine coastal wilderness.
Join the action! Participate in an electric boat team competition, an opportunity drawing, and silent auction. Taste the cuisine from four of the best chefs in Baja while you enjoy a selection of beer, margaritas, Baja wines, and the live music of El Jarabe Mexicano.
BUY YOUR TICKETS TODAY! Early Registration $65 per ticket, after May 31st, price will be $85 per ticket.
Sincerely,
Serge Dedina
Executive Director(http://johnfromcincinnati.net/site/wp-content/themes/john/graphics/bajabash_back_postacard.jpg)
Ten years ago, a mafia don faded to black.
A young man appeared, bringing hope, healing, forgiveness and laughter.
Where is that man now?
Let's remember and celebrate.
Wow. 10 YEARS. Monadistas Untie :D
Still Remembered.
Revisiting the Strange, Occasionally Sublime 'John From Cincinnati'
The 2007 series is still confounding as plain television—but the surfing is transcendent
By Rob Harvilla Aug 29, 2018, 9:57am EDT
"Do you know what it's about?" The year is 2007. The setting is The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. The inquisitor is Ferguson himself. The topic is an imminent new HBO series called John From Cincinnati, a metaphysical surf-noir situation that is already proving difficult to explain or even describe. Ferguson's guest is series cocreator David Milch, a deified TV guy whose credits run from NYPD Blue to the rhapsodically profane HBO Western Deadwood, which ran from 2004 to 2006 and established him as the thinking man's prestige-cable impresario. But Cincinnati is a tough sell, very much by design.
The studio audience laughs nervously. "Well, we have mutual friends who speak of a slow unfolding," Milch begins, by way of explanation. This is unhelpful. "We're not in any kind of creepy, weird cult or anything," Ferguson assures the audience, which laughs more nervously.
Milch tries again, sort of. "The answer is no."
FERGUSON: "You don't know what it's about."
MILCH: "I don't know what it's about. I don't know the bottom line."
FERGUSON: "Right."
MILCH: "But, uh. [Long pause.] If god were trying to reach out to us."
FERGUSON: "Right."
MILCH: "Uh, and if he felt a certain urgency about it."
FERGUSON: "Right."
MILCH: "Umm. [Brief pause.] That's what it's about."
The studio audience's anxiety is palpable. "And, surfing," Ferguson prompts. Milch makes a pained, apologetic, yeesh face, and sheepishly concurs: "That's the bonus!"
John From Cincinnati premiered on HBO on Sunday, June 10, 2007, immediately after the series finale of The Sopranos, which is a Hall of Fame lead-in in terms of audience bewilderment. "Don't Stop Believin'." Cut to black. Roll Sopranos credits as a nation of millions blurts out, "What?!" in flabbergasted unison. And then, one of the most gorgeous and arresting title sequences in TV history.
The best thing about giving yourself over to John From Cincinnati is that you get to watch that title sequence 10 times. It's sumptuous and eerie and joyous. It has a bleached-out vintage feel that evokes exquisite pangs of nostalgia even if you've never set foot in southern California. It's got a killer soundtrack (Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros's "Johnny Appleseed"). And it makes surfing look like the most beautiful and spiritually fulfilling thing you can possibly do. It is the best thing about the show by orders of magnitude.
Milch was taking a big swing, but with no clear sense of what he was even trying to hit. "What is this show about? It is about itself," he'd told The New York Times' David Carr in late 2006. "The smart money is that this show is about a stupid subject."
It bricked. Reviewers were confused and often appalled: The New Yorker called it "stunningly dull" and lamented that "it's maddening to see a show this bad from someone so talented," while The Boston Globe offered the unwelcome poster quote "If Gary Busey were a TV series, he would be John From Cincinnati." HBO canceled it the day after the season finale—which did not exactly end on a cliff-hanger, as that would imply the presence of an arc that implied the presence of a cliff—and made do with the likes of Big Love, True Blood, and Entourage until Game of Thrones came along to reassert the channel's dominance.
Deadwood, too, had been abruptly canceled in 2006 after its third season, but die-hard fans were aghast, and demand for some sort of closure was intense and prolonged enough that in July, HBO finally gave the green light to a Deadwood movie. (Milch has struggled in the interim, including with the 2011 HBO horse racing series Luck, canceled after one season due to animal-rights concerns.) No such revival awaits John From Cincinnati, a singularly confounding and frustrating experience that doesn't qualify as a forgotten classic or anything of the sort. But it doesn't quite deserve to be forgotten, either. The surfing is not the bonus—it's the show's whole, or at least best, reason for being.
Every so often pop culture will attempt to evoke the sacred majesty of surfing, but the results inevitably disappoint. AMC's new cheerful burnout dramedy Lodge 49, starring Wyatt Russell as a down-and-out surfer adrift in Long Beach, waves in that direction, but as the series begins, Russell's character is still laid up after a snake bit him in Nicaragua and the ocean is the mystical utopia he can't or just won't return to. "Stop being a pussy and come back out with me," his exasperated friend at the donut shop tells him. "You gotta get back in the water." The series has its surreal charms, but there's no guarantee you'll ever get to see him catch a wave, in part because the series is mostly shot in Georgia.
Whereas John From Cincinnati, cocreated by novelist Kem Nunn, is steeped in its setting of Imperial Beach, a bucolic and romantically shoddy town fewer than 10 miles from Tijuana. The best you can say is that the show leaves you transported; the worst you can say is that the show transports you and then abandons you. There are worst places to be stranded, though, even if—maybe especially if—you've never surfed a day in your life.
"I'll tell you, a lot of people can paddle out there and get that rush," the predatory would-be manager tells the 14-year-old surfing wunderkind. "But to be able to give them a taste of it just by watching—no, that's something different. And I never had that. Not like you."
The manager, Linc Stark, owns a multimillion-dollar surf-gear company called Stinkweed and is played by Luke Perry; the 14-year-old wunderkind, Shaun Yost, is played by real-life pro surfer and skateboarder Greyson Fletcher, one of several John From Cincinnati actors seemingly hired as much for surfing ability as acting ability. At the show's best, this realism proves invaluable; at its worst, it can feel like you're stuck with a whole theater troupe of A.J. Sopranos. The brainy and cryptic script, furthermore, does nobody any favors. "The thing itself, that's the thing," Linc goes on to tell Shaun, already pushing it metaphysically.
John From Cincinnati is the story of the Yost family, a crumbling surfing dynasty laid low by bitterness and dysfunction. Mitch (Bruce Greenwood) is the crabby patriarch who mysteriously levitates in the season premiere, giving the show its ubiquitous promo image. His son, Butchie (Brian Van Holt), is the ex-wunderkind and heroin addict. Shaun is Butchie's son, raised by his grandparents, Mitch and Cissy (a wild-eyed Rebecca De Mornay, who is compelled to scream at least 30 percent of her dialogue).
The Yosts, as well as various friends and enemies and hangers-on—including Ed O'Neill as a quirky ex-cop who talks to birds, Emily Rose as a flustered videographer, and real-life surfing royalty Keala Kennelly as an extravagantly pierced surf-shop employee—are visited by John Monad (Austin Nichols), a strange and very explicitly Christlike figure whose arrival triggers all sorts of mystical phenomena. This ranges from Mitch's levitation to Shaun's miraculous full recovery from a broken neck suffered in a surfing accident. (One of Ed O'Neill's birds kisses him.)
Galaxy-brain high jinks ensue, and enrapture a whole second tier of support characters—played by the likes of Luis Guzmán, Matt Winston, and invaluable Deadwood alums Garret Dillahunt and Dayton Callie—who are mostly stuck milling about the grounds of a grimy seaside motel. It took me several episodes to accept that Willie Garson's lawyer character was actually named "Meyer Dickstein." I can tell you the precise moment when I bailed on this show during its initial 2007 run, which was a lengthy and baffling scene in Episode 6 in which John starts teleporting around, convenes most of the cast at the motel, and gives a sermon, of sorts. I watched all 10 hours of this show (eventually), and I promise that this makes no more sense to me than it's gonna make to you.
Rewatching John From Cincinnati in 2018, one immediately striking thing is that the cheerfully oblivious John, who at first mostly just repeats whatever anyone else says to him, is the clear antecedent to Dougie Jones. Yes, the bizarre and enraging Kyle MacLachlan character that delighted and/or terrorized fans of 2017's Twin Peaks: The Return for weeks on end. John is clearly not from Cincinnati; whether he is god, or a space alien, or mentally unstable, or something else is never, of course, confirmed. Mitch keeps levitating; Shaun keeps falling into and out of danger as the plot, such as it is, dictates. Shaun's porn-star mother, Tina (Chandra West), shows up and is subjected to much porn star–based abuse, most of it from (a screaming) De Mornay. The single best scene from this series might in fact be this DVD extra of Milch himself, script in hand, standing on the set of the motel sermon and attempting to explain the scene to the actors themselves.
This explanation addresses cave paintings, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and "the capacity of art to reorganize experience, to reorganize our sense of reality." It's a much better summary, anyway, than the one Milch gave Craig Ferguson. The cast takes it in as best they can, but on their faces you sense a trace of unease, a stray thought they dare not speak aloud: "I thought this was a surfing show."
Indeed, John From Cincinnati perks up whenever somebody picks up a board: Butchie, a former teenage champion now miraculously cured of his heroin addiction, eventually gets back in the water, one of the few points when this show gets conventionally sentimental. Semi-climatically, Shaun goes missing overnight, only to reappear in the morning out on the waves, with John surfing right beside him to the triumphant strains of Bob Dylan's "Series of Dreams." If nothing else, it's the show's most effective unconventionally sentimental moment.
This is hardly the best depiction of surfing in pop culture history. That honor still goes to, you guessed it, Point Break, which captures both surfing's steep learning curve (think of Keanu Reeves doggedly jumping on his board again and again, right there on the sand) and capacity for cheeseball transcendence. (Think of Patrick Swayze in the movie's infamously perfect final scene.) John From Cincinnati lacks, to put it mildly, a well-made action flick's forward motion and coherence. Nor does it quite manage to capture the highbrow lyrical beauty of longtime journalist William Finnegan's beloved 2015 memoir Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. But you can sense the show reaching for something on that spectrum, an attempt all the more noble for the fact that it doesn't manage to actually grasp much of anything. Lodge 49 is a better show—most shows are, really—but it is no kind of surfing show. Milch could never really explain his ambitions, much less achieve them. But as for the pure transcendence of the act of surfing itself, he gives you a taste of it just by watching.
From:
https://www.theringer.com/tv/2018/8/29/17795462/revisiting-john-from-cincinnati
With passage of time, these mentions are rare finds, something a wandering shell collector might discover far from the seashore, in the dunes, or in the dry grass. It's a surprise they are there, small relics of the now distant past.
One doesn't have to take the shows seriously, they are presented with irreverent humor. It's better to remember yesterdays that way, with a smile, isn't it?
Sven
Nine shows to stream on HBO Max right now
By Bill Frost
"If you were an HBO Now subscriber, you may have noticed that it somehow became HBO Max seemingly overnight this summer. Or not — it's sheer confusion in the land of HBO streaming. Maybe you still have HBO Now, which is just HBO... now, or HBO Go, which is HBO Gone.
Anyway: HBO Max is the New Hotness, because it streams all the HBO shows, plus some exclusive originals, though the only one worth mentioning is Doom Patrol, the greatest series ever—seriously, you need it in your life. The rest are just HBO Meh.
The real draw of HBO Max is its deep library of classic shows from HBO and corporate parent WarnerMedia, which is owned by AT&T, which in turn is owned by ... 5G Satan? Could be, but they don't pay me enough here for that kind of investigative journalism. We'll never know.
Here are nine series from HBO past and present worth discovering, or revisiting, on HBO Max (or regular ol' HBO). Then watch Doom Patrol — have I mentioned how fan-damn-tastic Doom Patrol is?
Los Espookys (Season 1, 2019)
A group of 20-something friends run a business staging supernatural illusions in an undisclosed Latin American country, with support and wisdom from their stateside uncle (show co-creator Fred Armisen). Los Espookys is a loveably weird comedy that packs 60 episodes of story and dialogue (almost entirely subtitled Spanish) into six, establishing a distinct set of quirky characters immediately. Don't be put off by the subtitles; you'll be laughing too hard to notice.
A Black Lady Sketch Show (Season 1, 2019)
Another new series from last summer, A Black Lady Sketch Show is more than just a female version of Key & Peele or Chappelle's Show: it's the first-ever TV show acted, written, and directed entirely by black women (it's not just a clever name). Co-creator Robin Thede leads the cast and numerous guest stars through benign-to-brutal sketches from a fresh (read: usually overlooked) perspective. It's "edgy" without even trying, and universally hilarious.
Boardwalk Empire (Seasons 1-5, 2010-2014)
Everyone's lists of HBO prestige dramas — The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, Carnivale, Watchmen, etc. — always seem to gloss over Boardwalk Empire. The sprawling 1920s period piece about Atlantic City mobster-politicians, fronted by Steve Buscemi at peak cragginess, is more relevant today than ever — at least the elected criminals of Boardwalk Empire were subtle. A 58-episode masterpiece that's among Terence Winter and Martin Scorsese's best.
John From Cincinnati (Season 1, 2007)
Speaking of acclaimed showrunners, David Milch closed up Deadwood and jumped right into John From Cincinnati, a single-season "surf noir" series that immediately confused the hell out of everyone. JFC is more of a "vibe" than a coherent drama, like Twin Peaks set against the backdrop of Imperial Beach. Is mystical newcomer John an alien? Jesus? Insane? Doesn't matter. The scenery is stunning, as is the surfing — just go with the flow, bro (yeah, sorry)."
Bored to Death (Seasons 1-3, 2009-2011)
Before he stole the show in The Good Place, Ted Danson swiped Bored to Death from Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis. A Brooklyn writer (Schwartzman) begins moonlighting as an unlicensed private eye, occasionally dragging his editor (Danson) and comic-artist friend (Galifianakis) along on cases. Bored to Death is charming, smart, droll, and all the other adjectives that get series canceled, but these actors have yet to top it. Where's the movie?
Enlightened (Seasons 1-2, 2011-2013)
Another lauded actor who arguably peaked with an HBO series, Laura Dern absolutely owns every second of Enlightened, even if no one noticed. Dern plays Amy, an office drone whose destructive lifestyle leads to an ugly meltdown and a stint in a holistic therapy center. She emerges ready for positive change, but her world is still negative AF (we've all been there... or currently reside there). Enlightened isn't really a comedy or a drama, but it is all heart.
United Shades of America (Seasons 1-4, 2016-2019)
Comedian W. Kamau Bell was on the journalistic racism beat four years ago — the first episode of United Shades of America was a friendly-ish hang with the KKK! Bell's docuseries also places deep focus on prisons, gangs, gentrification, megachurches, gun owners, LGBTQ rights and, in a prescient 2016 episode, policing tactics. But, United Shades isn't a downer, thanks to Bell's quick wit and hopeful outlook — good luck the next couple of seasons, W.
Arli$$ (Seasons 1-7, 1996-2002)
The Sopranos wasn't the first HBO original, and neither was Oz: In the olden days of 1996, there was Arli$$. HBO funded 80 episodes of sports agent Arliss Michaels (Robert Wuhl) sitcomming it up with real-life jocks and celebrities, and at least half of 'em turned out funny — not a bad return. Arli$$ is mostly notable for being an already-sharp Sandra Oh's (Killing Eve) first steady gig, as well as calling out Donald Trump's bullshit before it was cool/civic duty.
Dane Cook's Tourgasm (Season 1, 2006)
Just a sobering reminder that Dane Cook was once a thing.
from:
https://www.inlander.com/spokane/nine-shows-to-stream-on-hbo-max-right-now/Content?oid=20164642
No one I assume would hold their breath hoping to restart a conversation about the meaning of the final scene in John From Cincinnati. Or maybe, just maybe, there are some souls, still searching, still contemplating, what do we know.
Here's one at least.
from:
6 unresolved cliffhangers from television that still haunt us
The A.V. Club
Just because I can't tell you what happened in the season-one finale of John From Cincinnati doesn't mean I didn't want to see where it was going. David Milch's notoriously impenetrable surfing drama was canceled by HBO the day after it aired its final episode, an unceremonious end for a show that may or may not have contributed to the premature end of Milch's Deadwood. And while JFC is no Deadwood—what is?—I grew to love the way Milch's lyrical soliloquies flowed from the mouths of his seaside eccentrics and deadbeats. But, while the cast always intrigued me more than the story's miraculous healings and prophetic visions, I still find myself returning to that first season's parting shot. John, the mysterious, Christ-like figure at the center of the narrative, intones, "Mother of God, Cass-Kai," as Kai, a relatively minor character played by Keala Kennelly, surfs across the screen. I've turned it over again and again in my head over the years, weighing it against the show's Christian allusions and explorations of community and miracles, but every time I come up empty. Milch got a chance to wrap up Deadwood with a movie, maybe he can do the same with JFC? I'm not holding my breath. [Randall Colburn]
from:
https://tv.avclub.com/6-unresolved-cliffhangers-from-television-that-still-ha-1845371166
John from Cincinnati and Post-9/11 Bible Studies
by Sean Parker
Sopranos may be the biggest and arguably the best show HBO has ever brought to television. I was playing catch-up back in 2007 before the airing of the second half of its final season. Airing moments after the series finale of The Sopranos, a weird and interesting new show was set to take HBO into a new era, but John from Cincinnati was doomed from the moment Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros' "Johnny Appleseed" started.
How HBO thought following up David Chase's heavily atmospheric gangster drama with a breezy, supernatural dramedy about spirituality and surfing just minutes after fans' reactions to that Sopranos finale is beyond me. The only thing the two shows share in common is the resilience of their strong performing female leads: Rebecca De Mornay as Cissy Yost and Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano. Imagine your favorite show of the past 7 years closing on something of a dark, ambiguous puzzle and then being brought to sun-filled sandy beaches in Imperial Beach, California where, lo and behold, you have more puzzles to decipher. Sopranos fans were likely walking into John from Cincinnati angry and despondent that this was the show set to take over their precious Sopranos timeslot.
David Milch, creator of Deadwood and NYPD Blue, even threw fans of his shows a curveball with John from Cincinnati, which was a departure from the grit they were used to from a show bearing his name. Co-creating the show with one-time Deadwood collaborator Kem Nunn, the show seemed more like a baffling quirky character study—comparably speaking, it's the SoCal version of Twin Peaks. Characters in both shows behave whimsically, like drug dealers listening to opera in their cars who care about the ailing family of the man they sell their drugs to; a bird conveys its thoughts to its owner much in the way that a woman might converse with a log; an internet café is a good stand-in for the Double R Diner; a run-down motel acts like The Great Northern Hotel, where strange occurrences seem to bring many of the characters together.
The heart of John from Cincinnati is the dysfunctional, broken Yost family who, on the arrival of phrase-repeating John (Austin Nichols), begin to reconnect and heal. In some ways, Nichols's character feels very similar to Peter Sellers's Chance the gardener in Being There. Both are eccentric and simplistic, arriving in situations that require care and yet also helping the people around them. As John's and the Yosts' lives become more intertwined, more people seem to gravitate to them, becoming involved in their story and being drawn into the central location of the show: The Snug Harbor Motel.
John from Cincinnati starts weird with an interaction between John and Linc Stark (Luke Perry). John appears, as if out of nowhere, while Mexican immigrants find their way across the border behind him. "The end is near," John tells Linc, and it will take most of the season for the audience to learn what that means. Linc ultimately puts together that John is "the end" and he is standing "near" Linc, but that reveal only begs more questions. There is a lot going on from the first few minutes of the show, and not paying attention at any time in any episode can cost you pieces of the puzzle. When the show aired back in 2007, I'd always re-watch the episodes and find new connections. I've seen the show multiple times now and I'm still catching new things, even thirteen years later.
Linc Stark arrives on that beach to appeal to Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood) by allowing him permission to sign his surf prodigy grandson, Shaun (Greyson Fletcher), to a sponsorship with his Stinkweed brand. Mitch recognizes Linc as the responsible party that allowed his son/Shaun's father Butchie (Brian Van Holt) into the lifestyle of an addict. Mitch is told to "Get back in the game" by John, and when Mitch asks Linc, "Is he with you?" the audience, looking for a clue, can recognize we have our hero and our villain showing up in the same place at the same time in an angel versus devil or light versus dark dichotomy. Luke Perry should also be recognized for his criminally under-acknowledged role in John from Cincinnati. The late actor was absolutely brilliant in his portrayal of the cutthroat, greedy, capitalist-incarnate Linc Stark, operating him at a level where you despise his manipulative nature but continually enjoy watching the character.
Mitch steps on a needle while walking to his car, and from then on Mitch randomly levitates. The show becomes blatantly Biblical, though religion never gets jammed down the viewer's throat because these events take place in the modern age—hell, there's enough violence, swearing, and sleaze in this version of John to make the Pope blush. But it is an interesting setup to see these Jesus-era characters and events written into modern-day storytelling and seeing the "what if" surrounding Joseph, Mary, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus as people living today and not as just a 2,000-year-old interpretation. These are imperfect people living in an imperfect time, witnessing modern miracles, all connected, it would seem, by nature.
We witness the beauty of nature interacting with the Yosts through the ocean, of course, but also before and after Shaun's accident with Zippy, one of Bill's (Ed O'Neill) birds. During an interaction with Zippy, Shaun resuscitates the bird; later Zippy revives him in the hospital during Bill's "Hail Mary" attempt at saving Shaun's life after suffering a broken neck at a surfing competition—Lazarus be damned. And it isn't a preposterous idea to see Mitch meditating and consider his path to enlightenment working in tandem with nature, especially where Mitch pleads in PSA promo ads for the show for an end to illegal sewage dumping, calling the ocean is his church, his sanctuary.
There's also a very interesting scientific aspect to the actions of the characters in the show being based on Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Waves break in and they crash back out.
Mitch catches a good wave.
Mitch wipes out.
Mitch wipes out Cissy.
Cissy shows Butchie how to do that.
Cissy wipes Butchie out.
Butchie hurts Barry's head.
Mister Rollins comes in Barry's face.
My Father runs the Mega Millions.
It is very butterfly effect in general: one tiny act can cause a ripple effect that affects the world. And I often wonder where this was going in terms of making it a surfing metaphor, with John's constant attempts to get Mitch and Butchie Yost back in the game, as if this small butterfly-flap chain reaction might somehow save the world. That last line of John's father running the Mega Millions also serves as the end of the ripple as it resonates back to its point of origin. Not only is John saying that his father has the power to make Barry (Matt Winston) a millionaire, but he also initiated a way for the characters to return to each other (and not in a Lost "we created this island" sort of way). Barry buys the motel where Mister Rollins's ghost and Butchie reside. Barry has to face his ghosts and Butchie now is forced to deal with his parents. Mitch Yost should get back in the game, closure can be found, and the ripple can calm.
So, what was the point of it all? I don't think we'll ever know where the show was headed, but to understand where it was coming from, you'd have to take yourself back to that post-9/11 era of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and that helpless feeling in the aftermath of the falling towers. From the first episode, we learn that the new owner of the motel has had a terrible tragedy in this place and seeks to cleanse the place of its ghosts. More and more people become drawn to the Snug Harbor Motel either by pilgrimage or just showing up at the location looking for ways to help the Yosts. The motel becomes symbolic of how people from miles away volunteered at Ground Zero during the devastating aftermath of 9/11, drawing people from everywhere to come help. It's not unlike how a star may have guided three wise men (Willie Garson, Luis Guzmán, and Matt Winston) to Bethlehem, though now they're running the inn. Doctor Michael Smith (Garret Dillahunt), and drug dealers, Freddie (Dayton Callie) and Palaka (Paul Ben-Victor), begin orbiting around or staying as well, observing and assisting in ways that seem counter-intuitive, at least in Freddie's case, knowing that something special is taking place and they need to be a part of it. And similar again to the way a ripple in the water starts from a droplet and becomes a reverberating wave, more people become drawn to the motel by the presence of John, something I think would have continued in Season 2 as the motel would continue its rebuilding efforts and slowly fill up.
When John shows himself in front of a black sheet with a stick figure on it saying, "Shaun will soon be gone," it stirs fear in the hearts of Shaun's loved ones. It's very reminiscent of the al-Qaeda terrorism videos made during that time and sparks thoughts in the Yosts' minds about who the hell John even is. It's easily seen that after his return, this was John's way of asking for permission, or more like telling the Yosts that he was taking Shaun away, but in the moment the action is threatening. The lesson here is more one of understanding than one of fear. We live on a small rock in the middle of space, and we all have a communication problem on this planet. Racism is represented throughout the show between Butchie's views on Tina's (Chandra West) choice of film costars, Joe's (Jim Beaver) take on Mexican immigration, and also in a particular phrase of Joe's referring to Muslims "going to get themselves blown off the planet."
John repeats many unkind things the characters around him are saying when he asks, "if my words are yours, can you hear my father?" I believe many questions are being asked at the same time: if I repeat your words back to you, are you appalled by those words? John acts like a small child when he's repeating the words of the other characters, almost acting like this is what the next generation might hear. When he repeats that Muslims are "going to get themselves blown off the planet," it's almost as if a child is repeating the hateful speech of their parents, and it makes a valid point in the argument that these notions of hate are learned because a child takes the word of a parent as gospel. Shaun is brought back unharmed after the pair's secret trip to "Cincinnati," and by the end of the show concession and forgiveness are made on many sides.
Linc helps the Yosts out of a jam and is asked to "get in the game" by John. The invitation to Linc to join the Yosts is really a fantastic metaphor for what John from Cincinnati is about: hope and forgiveness. John is riding down the boulevard to the pier with someone who was once his enemy, he recognizes the faces of the "vatos" on the street that stabbed him and left him for dead, he changes the mind of the most suspicious ex-cop who gets detained for his efforts, and most importantly he unifies a family through the healing power of community. Jesus didn't change his world on his own—he had disciples, he had help. And the Yosts, like New York City, are not fixed by the end of the series; they're working on recovering and getting stronger together.
There's also the matter of John asking Cass (Emily Rose) to capture everything with her camera, as if asking her to spread the good word and write a gospel through the modern medium. And what is it Cass captured on that camera? John walking through an international festival, smiling with people, dancing to their cultural songs, and getting in a wrestling ring with a luchador and hugging him instead of fighting him. The message is simple if you can see the world the way John sees it—the way a child might.
John from Cincinnati is a beautiful, weird, and transcendent 10 episodes that to this day gets overlooked as "the show that came on after The Sopranos." The fact is that the series was judged too harshly in 2007 when it was likely ahead of its time. This is the type of show that would likely have been cheered in the streaming era because of its interconnectivity and the depth of its characters. The show boasts a fantastic cast and a wonderful continuing story where every episode somehow deepens the mystery surrounding who John is by revealing pieces to the puzzle. We never do find out what was planned for 9/11/14, or if that relates to John being "the end," or even what John actually is, and I suspect we never would have had the show continued. He could have been anything: a horseman of the apocalypse or a fallen angel, an extraterrestrial or a shapeshifter.
In the words of John, there are some things I know and there are some things I don't. Many questions go unanswered and many set-ups for a second season were made but never realized—including a pregnancy for Cissy, Kai (Keala Kennelly) becoming the mother of God, the mysticism around the Snug Harbor Motel Bar, if the El Camino guy that spoke a lot like John was his father, and what the shuffleboards signify. I can make some guesses based on the clues, but I never think there's enough evidence.
The grace the show proposes we have in the face of tragedy and the measuring of ourselves to say what we mean with kindness in our hearts will forever be its message and legacy in my eyes. Even now—in the muddied political climate that we currently find ourselves in, where the United States has never been more divided and people mistake sides of the aisle for religious conviction without the consideration that people's opinions and ideals have to be considered—the show serves as a reminder to communicate. John from Cincinnati was a big believer in perspective and having an open enough heart to welcome people into our lives and not cast them out. As we ride one wave out of 2020 and catch the one into 2021, I think it's important to keep our faith in people. You never know whose father may be running the Mega Millions.
John from Cincinnati is now streaming on HBOMax.
from:https://25yearslatersite.com/2020/12/31/john-from-cincinnati-and-post-9-11-bible-studies/
10 HBO Shows That Should Get A Many Saints Of Newark-Style Origin Movie
The Many Saints of Newark has opened the doors for more justified prequel pictures to grow out of older HBO classics.
By Daniel Kurland
Published October 23
10.Carnivale Deserves A Return To Its Twisted World
Carnivale is arguably the closest that HBO has gotten to achieving the surreal magic of something like David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Carnivale's Season 1 is a masterpiece in patient storytelling and the payoffs that occur in the second season are truly awe-inspiring and indicate the massive scope of the series' ongoing war between the forces of good and evil.
There's such intricate lore to Carnivale that a prequel movie could be used to explore ancient Avatars, or it could focus on the exploits of a younger Brother Justin before he embraces his position as a Creature of Darkness.
9. John From Cincinnati's Endless Mysteries Would Benefit From A Prequel Full Of Answers
John From Cincinnati is one of the bigger blank checks to be taken on by HBO. The series was the highly anticipated follow-up series from Deadwood's David Milch, but the eccentric "surf noir" series left many audiences confused. John From Cincinnati is a truly bizarre story about the mysterious John Monad's indoctrination of a surfing community in California.
Much of the mystery in the series revolved around John's odd nature and what exactly was up with him. A prequel movie could dig into his origins and provide some closure in a way that the one-season canceled series never could.
8.The Wire Is Full Of Rich, Real Characters With More Stories To Explore
David Simon has turned out a number of prestigious series for HBO, but his five-season examination of Baltimore and its vulnerability to the drug trade and struggling infrastructure is still regularly considered to be one of HBO's magnum opuses. Each season of The Wire expands the story in a beautiful, natural way where it'd be easy to find areas to return to this world.
Curiously, The Wire did engage in some brief prequel stories that revolve around Proposition Joe, Omar Little, and McNulty and Bunk's first meeting. These are all excellent jumping-off points for a full prequel venture.
7. Oz Built A Brutal Playground That Has More Socially Relevant Stories To Tell
Oz deserves a certain level of reverence since it's one of HBO's very first original dramas. The unflinching look into a maximum-security prison lasted for six seasons and functioned as an enlightening character study and vehicle for social commentary.
Most of the characters in the series are truly burnt out by the end of the show, but a prequel that turns the clock back and looks at the start of the Oswald State Correctional Facility could be truly fascinating. The titular prison in Oz was as important of a character as any of the inmates or jailers.
6. Boardwalk Empire Is Filled With Fascinating Criminal Players
Stylistically, a Boardwalk Empire prequel film feels the closest in line with what's happened with the Sopranos' companion piece, Many Saints of Newark. Boardwalk Empire has a lot of the same creative team from The Sopranos and it expertly unpacks Prohibition-era Atlantic City through the lens of Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson.
The 1920s are so integral to Boardwalk Empire that the series' five seasons are quite focused on that decade. All of the characters have such fully realized histories that are rich with prequel adventures. A Boardwalk Empire prequel movie would have endless opportunities to explore.
5. The Larry Sanders Show's Perfect Deconstruction Of The Entertainment Industry Is Timeless
The Larry Sanders Show is pretty close to a perfect comedy and it's still one of HBO's very best, most consistent, and eerily prescient shows. The comedy adopts a mock behind-the-scenes aesthetic at a late-night talk show, which allows the fabricated on-screen veneer of Garry Shandling's host to come in contrast with his narcissistic true self.
4. Flight Of The Conchords Could Find Huge Laughs With A Look To The Past
Some of the best shows on HBO are the ones that don't overstay their welcome. Flight of the Conchords is exceptional comedy that helped put everyone involved with the series on the map and confirm their status as comedy legends. Flight of the Conchords is entirely content to engage in small-scale, absurdist storytelling that melds together with unconventional musical numbers.
Fans are hungry for more Conchords, so a prequel film that presents them as younger and even more clueless has lots of potential. It's completely unnecessary, but that's part of the reason why it'd make for such an odd delight.
3. There's More Human Drama To Mine In A Six Feet Under Prequel Film
Six Feet Under was a landmark show that lasted for five emotional seasons. It can get a little aimless in its middle years, but it absolutely sticks the landing and has a series finale that's widely considered to be perfect. After that conclusion, there's no reason to extend the story with a sequel, but a trip back to the past of the Fisher family's funeral home could actually be interesting.
A prequel movie that focuses on a young Ruth and Nathaniel Fisher as they begin their business and start their family is an interesting way to return to this world.
2. True Blood's Bon Temps Is A Hotbed For Paranormal Activity
True Blood became one of HBO's biggest shows for its seven steamy seasons. Horror programming has become the norm on television, but True Blood got in there ahead of the curve with its pulpy take on vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural beasts.
HBO has announced a reboot of True Blood, which indicates that there's clearly still an audience for the property. The original series effectively depicts Bon Temps as a beacon for strange activity. A prequel film that looks at Bon Temps' past, or the younger years of Bill and Eric, would be a big hit.
1. Entourage Is Ready To Detail Vinnie Chase's Salad Days
Entourage is one of the few HBO series that has gone on to release a sequel film after its conclusion. Entourage's depiction of the cavalier lifestyle of an actor on the cusp of their big break might have often felt disposable, but a strong network of characters was created.
Entourage was always at its best when it came down to human moments, not excess and wealth, which is why a more humble prequel film could be an entertaining pivot. Vinnie Chase's days as a struggling indie actor are discussed in Entourage, but it's rich enough to fully dive into that world.
from: https://www.cbr.com/hbo-shows-deserve-origin-movie-like-many-saints-newark/