[Sven2]

Any "lucky" guess about the upcoming show?

[Sven2]

In anticipation of "Luck", I checked the HBO show site and the BB. Dismal three threads with about 19 posts, and of course all, as it was, in pitch black.
Maybe when the show starts the place will be livelier, we shall see. Waxon suggested we might get together for a discussion when such time comes, here or somewhere else.

[Sven2]

I will post news about Luck here as well.


TV scribes rejoice: All of 'Luck' arrives next week

HBO is spreading the word of its David Milch-Michael Mann horseracing series "Luck" in a big way.

Pay cabler is sending out the entire nine-episode season to critics and TV writers next week, rather than the two- or three-episode advance that is usually the case, offered in hopes of whetting the appetite of scribes.

The full-season delivery is a rarity for HBO, which has done it only twice before: The fourth season of "The Wire" — known informally as the Corner Boys season — and for the World War II miniseries "The Pacific."

HBO insiders are sending out "Luck" because they believe the series — about the inhabitants of racetrack life — has the potential will be one of the net's great accomplishments.

Net, in reaching out to its audience beyond TV writers, will sneak the pilot of "Luck" this Sunday immediately following the season finale of "Boardwalk Empire." The show's regular run begins Jan. 29.

Series was created by David Milch, who is avid horseracing fan and has longed to bring his equine passion to TV. While the thought of bringing on Michael Mann to add the cinematic vision of the Sports of Kings sounded like a perfect accompaniment for Milch's script, the two have often tangled and HBO execs have had their fair share of headaches intervening between the two. Yet, Milch said he and Mann have worked out their differences for the greater good.

"You get to a point where you realize that it's a shame on you if you can't make things work, and we did," Milch said. "It was not an uneventful experience, but finally the responsibility has to be for the work."

What HBO is also hoping with "Luck" is to erase the memory of "John From Cincinnati," the surf noir series that always seemed an uneasy fit with Milch at the controls.

Milch, whose broadcast resume includes "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue," is best known these days for his Western opus "Deadwood," which after three seasons was cut too soon in order to make room for "John" — a decision that everyone involved likely deeply regrets.John-ortiz-photo

What "Deadwood" did for Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant and Paula Malcomson, "Luck" could possibly do for little-known actor John Ortiz, who is phenomenal playing a Latin American trainer, partially based on real-life trainer Julio Canani.

What it also possibly may do is make a TV star out of Dustin Hoffman, a bigscreen giant for decades. Hoffman's character is a bit mysterious in the pilot, but he's clearly an individual with great power and is coming out of a prison term and looking to get back in the game.

Milch, who is preparing for another season of "Luck" — HBO hasn't yet greenlit a second season, but it's extremely likely and production needs an early start due to shooting at Santa Anita — and is looking forward to telling more stories.

As track announcer Trevor Denman says several times each race day at post time, "And away they go."


from:
http://weblogs.variety.com/on_the_air/2011/12/tv-scribes-rejoice-all-of-luck-arrives-next-week.html

[Sven2]

A horse racing blog post about Luck with some interesting details.

HBO's LUCK pilot show to air this Sunday at 10 p.m. ET
by Jennie Rees

A Santa Anita press release. According to hbo.com, the LUCK pilot will air this coming Sunday at 10 p.m. ET. I've got to find a friend who has HBO. I'd love to see it.

ARCADIA, Calif. (Dec. 7, 2011)—HBO's highly anticipated LUCK, which stars Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz and many others, will air for the first time in a sneak preview unveiling of its pilot on Sunday, Dec. 11, following the season's final episode of "Boardwalk Empire."

Created by world renowned writer/producer David Milch, LUCK is also directed and produced by the highly acclaimed Michael Mann and has been filmed in large-part at Santa Anita.  The series will feature race scenes and characters from The Great Race Place including retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens and current rider, Chantal Sutherland.

The official LUCK pilot premier on HBO is Jan. 29 and that will be followed by eight episodes which will comprise Season One.

Milch, a longtime Thoroughbred owner who has also created such blockbuster hits as "Hill Street Blues," "NYPD Blue," and "Deadwood," has described LUCK as his "love letter" to horseracing.

LUCK marks the first-ever time the Academy Award winning Hoffman has starred in a television role and that alone makes its debut compelling viewing.

"We believe LUCK has tremendous potential for us here at Santa Anita," said Santa Anita President George Haines.  "This is going to be a look at horseracing that has never been provided.  It's going to at times make people uncomfortable, but in the end, we believe it has the potential to cultivate and create many thousands of new fans for us.

"It's no secret that the people at HBO are very excited about this series and we're going to do everything we can to personalize what folks are watching and help them relate what they see to real-life horsemen, fans, employees and scene locations here at Santa Anita.

"We've begun construction on a LUCK LOUNGE on the main floor of the grandstand and we've scheduled a grand opening for it on Sunshine Millions Day, Jan. 28, which is the day before the official premier on HBO," Haines added.

from:
http://blogs.courier-journal.com/racing/2011/12/07/hbos-luck-pilot-show-to-air-this-sunday-at-10-p-m-et/

[Sven2]

My DVR didn't record it.

Here are the best, in my opinion, reviews of the pilot episode written with some evasive eloquence and understanding of the nature of horse racing as the subject and Mr.Milch, as a writer.


A Little Bit of Luck
HBO makes a micro-event of the pseudo-premiere of David Milch's promising new horse-racing drama.

By Troy Patterson


Last night, after the season finale of Boardwalk Empire, HBO aired the very fine pilot of Luck, presenting an early look at a horse-track drama that properly debuts on Jan. 29. To be sure, the channel's primary goal in this scheduling was to instigate some word-of-mouth marketing—to make a micro-event of a pseudo-premiere of a series created by two major talents, David Milch and Michael Mann, and starring genuine movie stars not yet put out to pasture, Nick Nolte and Dustin Hoffman. But nor can we escape the impression that HBO was generously offering viewers a kind of early warning. If you were gripped by the episode's thrilling race sequences and tense moments of drama but remain fuzzy on its nuances, then you've got a whole month and a half to figure out how your TV set's closed-captioning works.

Luck, with its bright light by turns buttery and frigid and its pace sometimes ambling contentedly and sometimes trotting hotly, boasts a distinctive voice. In terms of literal voice, what is most distinctive is that the rhythmic dialogue gets delivered in a fashion confidently approaching the edge of unintelligibility. The textured paddock patter and gambling slang were easy enough to sort out, but then there was the gallery of marble-mouths dripping pearls of wisdom. The Latin-American accent of the trainer played by John Ortiz was thicker than a high-roller's bankroll and a matter of comment within the episode, with one character suggesting that the trainer played it up as a matter of bewitching and bewildering various gringos. The dense muttering of Dustin Hoffman's character indicates the power of a gangster accustomed to being listened to by people whose lives depend on understanding his every word. And Nick Nolte, mumbling and grumbling as a ruminative trainer who enjoys a metaphysical bond with his horse, might as well be communicating by rolling the balls of the feet over gravel to trace out runic script.
Advertisement

It's worth mentioning that the surname of the trainer is Escalante (which has the ring of a present participle hurtling itself to allegorical heights), that the nickname of Hoffman's character is "Ace," and that Nolte is portraying a person listed simply as "The Old Man." It is an indication of Luck's terrific tonal control that this stuff is not totally ridiculous.

Because the show is grounded in the grim specifics of the life at a fantasy version of Santa Anita Park—and because it minimizes its sentimental mistiness about equine nobility and human hopefulness—it wears its archetypes handsomely. Why, it doesn't even grate when Jason Gedrick, playing the greasiest and most degenerate of a crew of Pick Six bettors, stands up with perfect posture (for the first time in decades, it seems possible) and starts mumbling "America the Beautiful" when his long shot crosses the finish line. Listen closely and you'll hear the elegant approach of a machine built to refresh a myth about the goddess of fortune.

from:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2011/12/hbo_s_luck_with_dustin_hoffman_and_nick_nolte.html


Television review: 'Luck' on HBO

By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Television Critic


Anyone who has been to Santa Anita in the early morning hours knows it is a place of poetry and pathos. Those time-weathered men, their eyes lined in mutual squint, gathered in sacramental silence to watch the horses move by, haloed by steam and sending dirt up in clods rich and dark; the sound of the hooves is like the beating pulse of the Earth itself.

But how to tell the story of such a place without lapsing into overworked extremes, the sentiment of bond between human and horse, the simplistic adrenaline of a champion's tale, the heartbreak of gambling's larcenous core?

Ve-ry slow-ly and without much concern for convention is the answer, at least if you are David Milch, whose new and much-anticipated series "Luck" got a sneak-preview premiere on HBO on Sunday night. "Luck" will officially debut in January, but the folks at HBO hoped to leverage the viewership for "Boardwalk Empire's" season finale.

It may work, it may not, though it's surprising that Milch went for it since, after yanking the still-mourned "Deadwood," HBO debuted his next series, "John From Cincinnati," right after the finale of "The Sopranos." The howling vacuum left by that now-famous final scene was not why "John From Cincinnati" failed, but it certainly did not help.

The juxtaposition of "Boardwalk Empire" and "Luck" is similarly jarring, but then it's difficult to imagine any show that would prepare an audience for the first episode of "Luck," which moves with slow and often maddening deliberation, showing the occasional glimpse of astonishing power, like a thoroughbred moving around a morning track under an iron hand. Much is revealed, and nothing at all, as characters are introduced with little or no context, midconversation as it were, in a place that few viewers will find familiar, speaking in small, seemingly nonessential sentences that have meaning only to the other characters.

The show opens with Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) being released from prison into the care of his driver, Gus (Dennis Farina). Ace has, apparently, taken the fall for certain colleagues. He is now, it seems, setting up some sort of payback that involves a horse Gus now "owns," courtesy of Ace, who cannot afford to be seen too much around the track.

The site is where an orchestra of colorful characters make their carefully timed entrances. There's the short-tempered trainer Escalante (John Ortiz), dressing down a chatty jockey named Goose (Jeffrey Woody Copland), whose agent, nicknamed Porky Pig and played by a stammering Richard Kind, tries to talk some sense into him while eyeballing a potential Derby winner — who is owned by "The Old Man," a laconic Nick Nolte muttering vague self-indictments into his white whiskers.

Meanwhile, a quartet of down-and-outers, led by Kevin Dunn as the oxygen-huffing, wheelchair-bound Marcus, attempts to hit a big win and provide a Greek chorus on the wily and fractured nature of luck and the disparate nature of the souls it ensnares.

All the big seeds are planted — love, power, self-destruction, betrayal, revenge, redemption — though planted so deep one can't imagine them blooming anytime soon. Even the master of the multiple storyline, Charles Dickens, took pity on his readers and appointed a protagonist, but Milch and director Michael Mann steadfastly refuse, though Ace and the Old Man quickly emerge, if only through sheer star power.

At this point in his career, Hoffman can and does act using only the back of his head. He keeps Ace so carefully (and barely) under control that he doesn't allow him a single smile (although the scene in which Ace's temper flares is ultimately very funny), and Farina provides a perfect foil in Gus, who communicates with his boss in the same almost wordless way a jockey communicates with his horse.

Nolte's Old Man is a rumpled, even weepy mess by comparison, and if neither character has the standard trappings of hero or antihero, they each shiver and smoke like volcanoes no longer dormant.

And that's about all you're going to get, ladies and gentlemen, at least until January, and even then it will unfold in its own sweet time. It is a great and perilous experiment, this "Luck," with Milch relying on the patience of HBO and HBO counting on the track record and talent of its creator and stars to draw viewers into a show that speaks its own cryptic language and steadfastly refuses to reveal its intentions.

The assumption is that this is game-changing TV, which makes one wonder that in consideration of the real power being summoned here, a better series title might have been "Faith."

from:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-hbo-luck-20111212,0,339190.story

[Sven2]

Watch and listen to it, while YouTube/HBO didn't terminate the account and removed the video, as they did to the episode someone uploaded previously. Why - isn't it what HBO tried to do by a sneak peek - spread the word, attract more viewers? Seems counterproductive to me.

The song is "Splitting the Atom" by Massive Attack.

Luck HBO series opening theme

There is one more song, played in one of the trailers, Rich File -"In Time"

"In Time" by Rich File (HBO Luck)

[ZenOnMars]

Am I the only one here who SAW the premiere?  Now, correct me if i"m wrong, but isn't the show not set to air until January?  They will undoubtedly re-air this pilot?

OK........    that being said,  ???  ........  I do not wish to talk about Luck right now. (Even though it was VERY well done, and I will probably keep watching it.) 

What I DO wish to say is:  I was right again!!!  Lol...  Long time ago, they said JFC was too expensive to warrant a second season.  Remember that?  Even Milch said that.  Well, let me tell you, folks, this show Luck must have cost them (seriously) about 100 times the operating budget.  Wait till you see this.  It is grandiose beyond imagining.

No spoiler alerts from me.  You watch it in January, and as you do, think about what they spent on this.

[Sven2]

Yes, Zen, it might very well be that you were the only one! (I think Skor had also watched it, maybe she would share here what's her take on the sneak-peek.)

Would you please, explain, what do you mean by saying "I was right", is that too much to ask? I know - Christmas, busy time, etc...
You got me very intrigued, is that something you mentioned here, on the JFC site, on the now extinct HBO JFC BB or somewhere else? Was that concerning production costs of Deadwood or JFC?

On the side note - remember, with the cancellation of JFC, the official explanation was that the audience of 3.5 million was not enough to renew the show. Preview of "Luck", as it's been already reported, had the audience of 1.1 million.

However, Hung, or How to Make it, or Bored to Death  attract even lesser number of viewers, but I recently had read an article stating that now HBO would cancel a show only if the show runners or writers don't wish to continue with it themselves.

I guess in 2007 the time for John didn't come yet.
Prophets, as it happens, usually come way before their time, do they not?   ;)

[ZenOnMars]

Gosh, I tried to find a link or two for you, but I have failed.  But please believe me when I say I heard David Milch himself say that HBO was worried about the budget.  I absolutely recall the phrase "cost overruns", and thinking "bull, this show was not that expensive to make, at least by HBO standards."

Yes, and we sure know the HBO ratings con:  "They're not TV numbers, they're HBO numbers" :)

So, when you watch Luck, think of the cost compared to the Snug Harbor budget.  It will amaze you.

And yes, John was ahead of his time, too.  But time will fly!  :)  Remember, "WE are coming 9 11 14"

[Water Lily]

Gosh, the show hasn't started ....let's see what a few more million have to say! . I remember someone going on about the cost?  2008 seems so , so long ago!

[skor]

I really liked "Luck." I have always been attracted to the racetrack scene. I grew up near Monmouth Park and loved to go to the truck when I lived there. Like in the restaurant business, there is a "front of the house" and a "backside", a mystique and the underbelly. So "Luck" held my interest, and with Nick Nolte and Dustin Hoffmann and Dennis Farina. etc., excellent acting, tight writing. I will watch. Nonetheless, it is nothing llke JFC, and watching this new pilot only made me miss the IB gang. I loved the smallness and the realness of JFC. The "Luck" pilot sowed the seeds for future episodes and multiple subplots. These seem to be variations on what we see on just about every TV show these days- extortion, murder, blackmail, double dealing intrigue. JFC was unique, with its message of hope and promise of redemption. I don't watch TV these days other than listening to MSNBC, so maybe I am off base, there are so many shows I haven't seen, and here I am making generalizations.  Still, "John From Cincinnati" was something very, very special. Thinking back to the JFC summer on the BB, it was just so exciting and fun, there we were, all abuzz. Our little hive.

[Water Lily]

I always liked the atmosphere of the tracks. The cheers and screams of a big win. I'm a people watcher and there are all kinds of characters at the track.
I was mainly in Hot springs Ark and Fairlawn in E. St. Louis, so yeah an underbelly..  I hope to get see the show. This time maybe get in on the first season., could be interesting. Then again maybe not...we'll see.  Sven2 keep me posted...lol

[Sven2]

Wow, guys, long time no see and -Wow!  :-* :-* :-*

For the ones who, like me, had to watch Deadwood and JFC quite few times to understand the language Mr.Milch's  characters speak, I'm re-posting here a long explanation of the preview episode that I found on HBO BB. This post would get lost there in the flow or deleted eventually by HBO moderators, while it could be useful for our readers.

The author's screen name is Bobby C.403, that's his foreword:

"I wrote a long post on twoplustwo dot com, in the thread where this show was being discussed. Twoplustwo is a site for advanced poker players, so it's full of very smart people, supposedly very knowledgeable about gambling....but the consensus there was that nobody could follow what was going on in this episode. Since I've spent more time at the track than all of them combined, I typed up what I called a "commentary track" for the episode. The feedback indicates that many of them found this very useful."

[Sven2]

Warning - SPOILERS!

6:15  This is the toughest scene in the show to follow, because of
Turo's accent.  Escalante gives Leon (bug boy) his instructions,
stripping him of his riding crop:  "You don't need no stick.  I've got
to stay here.  Jog him around once the wrong way around (the track),
loosen him up for his race this afternoon."  The kid remarks, "We run
big with this horse today."  Now Escalante has to make sure the kid
understands the instructions he was just given--the last thing we need
is some idiot jockey sprinting around the track and wearing out the
horse before the race.  "What???  Is this morning today?  Or this
afternoon?"  The kid has no idea what the problem is.  Puzzled, he asks,
"What?"

Escalante is a busy man and has no patience for this kid's nonsense.
"Pinhead, is this morning today so far?"  When the kid replies in the
affirmative (with the brilliant, "I guess sir, yes so."), Escalante
repeats the instructions, "Then jog him once the wrong way around, and
shut up on what you don't know, before I call Porky Pig on you."  The
kid takes it, bites his lip, and rides off.

The vet, making conversation, asks, "You met the limo driver yet?"
Escalante scoffs, "And buys this horse for $2M?  You pro'ly too think
they really landed on the moon."

The blues music cranks, and Turo engages in this tough-to-hear exchange with the groom.



ESCALANTE:  Yap, yap, yap, esta nino.

GROOM:  Senor HablaMucho.

ESCALANTE:  (chuckles) HablaMucho, si.



9:00  Nolte remarks to the night watchman, "I was wonderin' if maybe the
last quarter (mile) the girl should loosen up, let him stretch the hell
out."  Then he asks the horse, "Feel like stretchin' out?"  Then, as
the music indicates something important is about to be said, he
instructs the girl, "Maybe you'd let him stretch out a little in the
lane."  The girl can't hide her excitement.  "Great!  Cuz he's been
pullin' my arms off!"  For you horse newbs, this is her way of letting
US know that she's been holding the horse back, and letting NOLTE know
that this is an incredibly strong horse.

11:15  The Big Horse isn't just farting around any more, he's settling down into a jog.  God, this music is kick-ass!

12:17  Marcus is studying his form, we see a brief close-up of his
program, opened to the 4th race, a $12.5k claiming race (which would
make these some of the cheapest horses on the grounds at a major-league
track like Santa Anita, or the classiest horses on the grounds of a
****hole like Suffolk Downs or Mountaineer) 1 Mile on the main track (on
the dirt, not the turf course).  



He's got a circle around the 2-horse; a ton of notations around the
4-horse, which the program tells us is the 9-to-5 favorite; and a couple
of cross-out marks in the blank spaces around the name of the 5-horse,
Mon Gateau.  The program lists each horse's owner, trainer, jock,
morning line odds, and weight to be carried (the fine print at the top
of the page, "the conditions", give a two-pound allowance to any horse
who hasn't won at this distance since January 24, and one pound for
every $1000 the owner knocks off the claiming price, up to two pounds;
I'll explain claiming in the following post).  Of the eight horses we
see listed (the bottom of the page is out of frame), only one is
carrying the entire 123 lbs.  A couple carry 121, a few carry 119, and
two stand out for carrying 113--each of these is a longshot with an
apprentice jockey.  The 3-horse's jockey has an asterisk next to his
name; our 5-horse, Mon Gateau, trained by Turo Escalante, is ridden by
Leon Micheaux, who has THREE asterisks next to his name.  In army terms,
he's not even a Private First Class yet, he's an E-1.  You wouldn't
think a 6-10 pound difference would matter much to a strong young horse,
but in racing, it's a big deal.


14:08 The Big Horse is really starting exert himself now as they begin to turn for home. The rhythm of the hoofbeats has picked up substantially (14 minutes into the first episode, and ship the Sound Editing Emmy--the same sound editing you guys hope they "clean up" before the show runs in earnest???). The rider has her feet up on the dashboard, which means exactly what you think it means: she's dug in, trying to hold this horse back. Another nice touch: you'd have to pause it to see it, but the blanket under the saddle says "WS". Nolte's character is named Walter Smith. The camera angle makes it seem like the horse is coming around the turn so fast, he's fish-tailing like the cars in a Steve McQueen chase scene! I'll bet that little photographic stunt caught the attention of the novice viewer.

14:20 The moment they pass the quarter-pole (which marks a quarter-mile from the finish--it drives me nuts every time Chris Berman calls Week 4 in the NFL "the quarter pole", when there is still THREE-QUARTERS of a season to go!), the girl drops her fanny and crouches as low as she can, loosens the reins, and starts "scrubbing" the horse's neck, urging him to take off. Nick Nolte hits the stopwatch, and the horse literally JUMPS at the chance run as fast as he can. It's what he was BRED to do! His trainer has been bringing him along slowly--not a scam like Escalante pulls later in the episode, this is what a responsible trainer does with a young horse who's not nearly ready to race yet. He's not being whipped or kicked or shouted at, he's not being forced to perform under any duress--all that's happening is he is being given the opportunity to run as fast as he wants in a wide-open space. What more could a strong young horse want? The background is flying by in a blur, every muscle on this running machine is flexing...does tv have a cinematography Emmy?

15:39  "You singled the fourth?  I had the fourth a semi-spread."  "For a
triple-bug apprentice who hasn't won ten races in his life, he's going
to single a horse that hasn't run in two years."  The quick close-up of
the DRF text tells us young Micheaux L has 48 career mounts, 6 wins, 7
places, 3 shows, a win % of .12--not bad for a bug, but not HOF numbers,
either.  That's an average WEEK for some jocks!  The chances to get on
the track are few and far between for a bug at a big-league meet.



16:55  When Porky Pig is done chewing out the kid for running his mouth,
the kid promptly runs his mouth.  He drops his voice to a whisper, and
confides that this horse is really fit.  The kid just doesn't get it.
Beneath the saddle is a red blanket with the initials "TE" on it.



17:15  "Mr Walter, listen, this guy's got nine more gears!", she pants.
Riders get in sync with their horses, she knows what she's talking
about.  She knows that when she asks for it, the horse will be able to
give her even more--a LOT more.  This horse is a monster.

23:41  First authenticity problem:  Kagle holds out a $50 bill for
Jerry's picks.  Everybody knows horse players think $50 bills are
unlucky!  (Lest anyone hold Milch in contempt for this oversight: in the
script I read, it was $10!)

27:57  Escalante gives his instructions: "Listen to me: you keep'n'm
covered up, so he don't go; when you ask o' him, you take'n'm WIDE, so
you don't get'm stopped."  He later repeats, "He gonna finish for you.
Get'm'n WIDE, don't get'm'n STOPPED."

34:04  The kid's trapped on the rail (not bad riding, totally bad luck).
When he sees an opening on the rail no wider than the horse's nose, he
doesn't hesitate, he LUNGES for it!  An incredible move for any jock,
let alone a bug.  This only makes Escalante's chilly reception in the
Winners Circle even funnier.

39:45  Nolte mentions to the horse that he might be ready to race in a few weeks.

43:30  "What's her name?"  "Tattered Flag."  This is called
"foreshadowing".  Milch may as well have called her, "Purina Dog Chow",
cuz that's what she'll be by the end of the week.



43:50  My favorite sound editing yet: as the starting gate moves into
position, we hear chains dragging, a tractor puttering, and those gates
creaking and slamming, each and every one of them.  In this shot, the
SOUND is setting the scene even better than the PICTURE is!



44:01  For the first time, we hear the voice of track announcer Trevor
Denman in the background as the horses go into the gate.  I'm hoping we
hear a lot of Trevor over the course of this series.  He's the best ever
at what he does.  He was featured prominently in Richard Dreyfuss'
horse race comedy "Let It Ride", a film that I highly recommend
(shocker!).  Hey, it's funny.  Ask anybody.



47:28  The kid is making his move, Gary Stevens urges from the stands,
"The outside's the upside, bug!", the music is building to a
crescendo...and I can't make my palms stop sweating, because I know
those sound editors are standing by with a stalk of celery to make the
sickest sound effect in all of sports.

47:33  SNAP!  The crowd gasps.  Even Gary Stevens has to turn and look away.


48:43  The boys win.  The rising music obscures one of my favorite
lines: we hear Lonnie shout "Champion of the World!  Heavyweight
Champ!", but it's tough to hear my favorite part:  "Everyone
kiss...my...ass!"

49:00  They may have cut out Kagle offering a 33% kickback of the IRS
withholding, but they didn't cut it out of Marcus' summary:  "$2.68
million and some, plus 33% of the withholding, plus 15 consolations."



??:??  I went back to add this, after I had finished watching.  I've
never seen a "night watchman" watching a single horse overnight before.
"He slept through the night...licked his bucket clean"???  There's
usually Track Security prowling the grounds, that's it, and they're not
there to watch any one particular horse.  I've also never seen a trainer
hang around the barn all day, doing nothing, never leaving his horse's
side.  I don't know what happened to this horse's daddy 2000 miles away,
or what Nick Nolte was supposed to do about it back then, but he sure
seems intent on not letting it happen a second time.


54:11  Dustin Hoffman is talking to himself.  You'll note I haven't
mentioned him once in this write-up.  As far as that arc goes, you guys
are on your own.



The link, for as long as it works:

http://www.hbo.com/#/luck/talk/forums/item.html/eNrjcmbOYM5nLtQsy0xJzXfMS8ypLMlMds7PK0mtKFHPz0mBCQUkpqf6JeamcjIysiWWZqbYGpmampsbGiWrGrkYJRqlAilDw1RDIGVpYmEEpAwMjIwMLc1SzI1NUtkY2RgB6uAdkQ==

With my apologies for possible typos, etc. I didn't see the episode, so I had to restrain myself from reading the post.

[wavewatcher]

I've had the pilot sitting in my DVR and haven't watched it yet. I will, but have to say that with everything I have read about the tension between Milch and Michael Mann, I am a little reluctant to commit to another Milch/HBO endeavor.