[Sven2]

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

There is La Film Festival where Mr.Milch participated in a panel discussion. No more info on that yet though.

[Sven2]

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'.

[Sven2]

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

[skor]

The "Deadwood" movies?? WOW!!!!!! That is some news!

[Sven2]

Luck, the horse-racing drama starring Dustin Hoffman that was created by Michael Mann and David Milch, will premiere in January 2012.

[Sven2]

First, 47 seconds trailer of Luck.

Luck: Season 1 Tease

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

[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

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

[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

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/

[Sven2]

The Spotlight: Patrick J. Adams cast  in "Luck"


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

[Sven2]

'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

[Sven2]

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

[Sven2]

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

[Sven2]

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