[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

"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

[Eccles]

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.

[Sven2]

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

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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/

[Sven2]

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/#

Some images in the game.

[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

• "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
$12.81.

[Sven2]

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

[Sven2]

First trailer of "Luck".
Luck In Production Feature (HBO)

[Sven2]

"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         

[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

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

[OceanFlower]

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

[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

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