Caprica

Review at Player Affinity

The Green Mile

The Green Mile is a good movie trying very hard to be a great one. It's Frank Darabont's second film from the 90s, and like The Shawshank Redemption, it is a period drama set mostly in a prison in early 20th century America, featuring a bond that forms between a white man and a black man, and based on a story by Stephen King. It also features a strong cast, and is undeniably well made even if you don't like the story. The film has an extremely stately pace and feel, almost to excess, and tugs very hard on your emotions, although it's not quite the same as Shawshank. One of the biggest reasons is that the plot actually has a supernatural element, one that would actually qualify the film as a kind of fantasy story, and one that I imagine would greatly surprise anyone who came into watching it blind, especially since this element doesn't actually surface until a full hour into the film. A lot of things are like that though, since it's three hours long when the story seems like it could have been told in two. I wouldn't say it was too long exactly, or that it ever really got boring, I just don't see what the benefit was to giving every single bit of story as much time as the producers would physically allow to develop.

So Tom Hanks is in charge of death row at a prison. Most of the prisoners are decent guys who did wrong, but the two that get brought in after the movie begins are different. Michael Clarke Duncan is a saintly giant, the ultimate version of the magical negro. Sam Rockwell is a deranged, freakish bastard. Hanks is the boss of several recognizable faces as the other guards, who are mostly good men like he is, except for Doug Hutchison's character, a privileged piece of shit with family connections who wants to watch a couple crooks fry before transferring to a better paying job. Sam Cromwell plays the warden, and Patricia Clarkson is his wife dying of a brain tumor. Those are pretty much all the pieces that will be shuffled around, as the guards learn more about Duncan's abilities and realize why he ended up getting sentenced to death for the rape and murder of two young girls. The acting is good all around, especially the two leads, with Hanks' weariness over what his job is doing to him and Duncan's otherworldly innocence, despite the stereotypical nature of the character. It really is a well produced film, and I liked the mixture of fantasy bits with an old fashioned southern drama. But it seems like the kind of thing I'd struggle mightily to ever watch again, and the whole movie is quite possibly just a bit up its own ass. Still, I liked it.

Deadwood - Season 3

How about that Barack Obama? It's weird, while the country was making its final decision and getting ready to vote, I was watching Deadwood's third and final season, which featured a running side plot about the camp's elections for sheriff and mayor. They both culminated yesterday, as America elected their first black President in history and the votes were cast in Deadwood's last episode. Unfortunately, there won't be as much closure on the latter. There were plans to finish the series properly with two special movies, but they have yet to come to fruition and at this point probably never will, leaving an actual conclusion to the great show out of reach. Things weren't looking too good either, with the series' meanest villain yet sitting pretty at the expense of the rest of the town.

Overall, the third season was up to par with the first two as far as quality of production and writing. It was more of a departure plotwise, with the newly introduced characters playing a larger role than the new ones from the second season did. I wasn't a big fan of the thread involving a troupe of actors, but they provided a flowery change of pace from the usual hard-drinking rough-talking inhabitants of the place, and George Hearst was a pretty great antagonist most of the way. Race also played a bigger role, as a big dispute erupted over control of the stables. It's just unfortunate that things worked out the way they did, because while it was still good television, it doesn't really feel like it probably would if the creators knew it would be the last of Deadwood that people got to see. It didn't have the chance some other HBO shows got, but it's still one of the better ones.

Deadwood - Season 2

The second season of Deadwood continues the show admirably, keeping what makes it interesting while expanding the cast and preventing the story from getting stagnant. It begins a little crazier than the show ever was in its first run, with the arrival of Olyphant's family coinciding with a fight that turns into an all-out brawl leading to several characters in various states of recovery for quite a while. McShane in particular has a tough time, especially after another ailment hits even worse, which produced scenes with the most painful thing I've ever had to watch that didn't actually appear on screen. It's not that long though before he's back and as mean as ever.

There's plenty of drama to go around, with the arrival of new people whose business interests conflict with established personalities. Plenty of blood ends up getting spilt, but as it was before, those are momentary diversions from the show's real meat, the backroom deals and conversations laced with venom. It's impressive how they can make characters as slimy as EB Farnum likable just by making their choice of words so uniquely entertaining. The women get into it too, not as gruffly as or as vulgarly as the men, but in their own fun way. Deadwood doesn't have the family or social aspects that make it as relatable as HBO's other top shows, but it's still a good intellectual watch.

Deadwood - Season 1

Deadwood is similar to a few other great HBO shows. It has the deliberate pace and brilliant writing of The Wire, the period debauchery of Rome, and all of them owe something to The Sopranos' high watermark of quality and willingness to show anything. They're all the definition of entertainment for adults, and I wish other networks were able to match their high level of production. Deadwood is a somewhat historically based drama about a camp that springs up in the 1870's and eventually turns into a town in the Dakota Territory. It's pretty much the quintessential Western, with plenty of lawlessness and tough sons of bitches. The cast is great, especially with Ian McShane and Powers Boothe as two rival businessmen and Tim Olyphant, who looks kinda doofy as a bald guy but fits the role of a rough hardware man-turned sheriff quite well. McShane's really the star though. Everything bad in the town revolves around him, and he owns every scene he's in.

The show was created and a lot of it was written by David Milch, who's been in the game for a while. He knows what he's doing, and the dialogue is always entertaining and sometimes masterful. There was some stuff made of the anachronistic swearing, but I think it works as intended. We know they didn't use these words, but it achieves the effect of conveying the intended mood of a line and doesn't sound out of place, unless years of cowboys never cussing in movies has affected your thoughts on what they sound like. When doing something in the past, it's hard to keep it sounding authentic without it getting hokey and still managing to make it interesting to the modern ear, and the writers nail it. When you have a great cast and just seeing and hearing the characters speak is so intrinsically interesting, you don't have to do much more to have a good show. As I mentioned before, the show moves kind of slow, with episodes only covering about a day's worth of events. There's still enough backstabbing and shifting alliances to keep things moving, and you're always curious to see what's next. I know the series doesn't have a real ending, but unlike a lot of shows that rely on the carrot on a stick of seeing where it's all leading, the fun of Deadwood is just watching it.