Hooked on Deadwood

[ellen_datlow]

Last night I watched Season 1 disk 4 and I admit that I'm finally hooked. I love the ever changing relationships between the characters and I am certainly hearing the poetry in the language of McShane's character. It still jars when some of the other characters throw out a "cocksucker" though.

I also watch Lara Croft, Tomb Raider--and loved it! Yeah, a very guilty pleasure but I enjoy watching Jolie and I thought it was a lot of fun. And Daniel Craig was in it too! Whoopie! I just added the second one to my queue for later (much later) light entertainment.

Comments

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Tomb Raider is a fun movie. The second one isn't as good, but the spousal unit appreciates the Butler bloke, apparently.

[psamphire.livejournal.com]

I love Deadwood. I started season 2 a few weeks ago, and it's just as good. One of the things I like about it is that it doesn't follow that normal episodic structure of series. Episodes just kind of stop rather than having a complete arc. It's refreshing.

I do think they've made McShane's character a little less horrible and murderous recently, though. More of a hero.

[aqeldroma.livejournal.com]

I got into Deadwood in January and have since watched it through til its last season (Season 3). In fact, that was Monday...

It's awesome up til about halfway through the last season. My frustration with the show is that it didn't wrap anything up--and it's not likely to be ever finished.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Deadwood is a series I must own someday. Ian McShanes's Al swearengen is captivating. There's one episode that actually presents as a Shakespeare play, but I can't remember which one. It might be in season four. The music is good too. As for language, I can imagine the writers were sparing the viewers, given the nature of those at large in the old west. They were, and are, a crusty crowd. I always feel sorry for women and children in these circumstances. A woman had to be tough and mean and know her way around danger to survive.

[ygolonac.livejournal.com]

I agree, Swearengen is much more of an ogre in the early part of the series.

Lara Croft

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

My favorite line of hers (to the postman as he stares around her wrecked house): "Somedays I wake up and I just... hate... everything!"

And then that balletic battle scene on ninja wires!

[livia-llewellyn.livejournal.com]

The Tomb Raider movies are a guilty pleasure of mine - I have them playing on my TV quite often as background noise, along with such craptacular films as "The Core", "Independence Day" and anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger and lots of guns.

[scottedelman.livejournal.com]

Keep watching Deadwood. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I've been tempted to rewatch it in a marathon session—but who has the time?

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I'm finding that at least in season 1, they do seem to continue from where they left off.

He's been an interesting character almost from the beginning. With odd inklings of humanity (very rare, but still).

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

There are only three seasons.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I loved some of the music...not sure I'd want to listen to it away from the movie, but the score was perfect.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I just finished Season 3 of Deadwood. There was supposed to be a movie, to finish it out, but I haven't heard anything of it. HBO just cancelled it without any real ending.

Re: Lara Croft

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yes, that battle scene was very nice.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

No time to reread. Little time to re-watch. ;-)

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Three seasons, yes. It's been a while, and memory doesn't serve me as well as it used to. But I do remember good, when I see it.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I'm about 1/3 of the way through season two of Deadwood, and absolutely delighted by it.

Tomb Raider, OTOH, didn't grab me, despite Angelina's obvious charms; the director actually boasts that it's a "post-content" movie, and it has better action scenes in the first half of the movie than in the second - to the degree that it would better paced (and make at least as much sense) if it were shown backwards.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Well, Tomb Raider opens with a bang as such a movie should. You didn't like the Angeline ninja swing scene? I thought that was grand.

[camillealexa.livejournal.com]

Once I got used to the idea the series Deadwood was not going to be anything like the book (a longtime favorite of mine), I loved it too.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I had no idea it was based on a book!

[camillealexa.livejournal.com]

Yes! A great book by Pete Dexter. Deadwood.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh. I hadn't even associated the two.

[jeff-h.livejournal.com]

I don't know that it's based on the book as much as it is based on real life. Seth Bullock, Sol Star, Charlie Utter, Al Swearingen, EB Farnum, and a few others were real people in Deadwood.

Also, I just finished season 3 and I am so bummed out the way the series just up and ended. With so many great characters left in the lurch. Just as shit was coming to a head. Ugh.

Last I heard they were dismantling the set, so any chance of continuing the series in any manner is probably lost forever (at least with the established actors).

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I'd heard they just stopped and kaput. Too bad.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I only remember 4 scenes from the movie - the fight with the robot, the fight in the garage, the Tomb Raider scene, and the conversation between Lara and her father (which I probably would've forgotten if they hadn't cast Jolie's own father) - and I'm only mostly sure they happened in that sequence.

From Tomb Raider 2, I remember Angelina in spandex, Angelina in bikini, the flying suits, and Angelina using the rifle to parry a sword or something similar.

That's barely enough enjoyable moments to make an enticing trailer or music video, much less two movies with essentially the same plot - IMHO, of course.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I love cotton candy (or what is called fairy floss in the UK --I don't know what it's called in Australia) and eat it once a year. It does what it's supposed to--I enjoy it but don't expect either nourishment nor memory of its taste a month after I eat it. That's how I experienced Tomb Raider. When I want another hit of something weightless and fun, I'll either watch # 2 or something equally entertaining and mindless.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

And, to be honest, I found the scenes with her father creepy (even more so because indeed Voight IS her dad and they've been estranged on and off for years)

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Here it's called fairy floss, and I can't remember the last time I ate the stuff, though I loved it as a kid. I have movies I enjoy the same way, but most of them are musicals, where suspending disbelief is less of a problem.

Admittedly, I can remember a friend coming over to borrow a movie from my collection, and complaining that the most lightweight comedy I owned was The Madness of King George, which I thought was a little unfair (I also owned Clue, Caveman, Tank Girl and Young Frankenstein... and Naked Killer, though I suspect she wanted something she could watch with her kid.)

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

I don't remember finding the scene creepy, but it didn't seem to fit the tone of the rest of the film.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I thought they acted a little TOO close for parent and child (I'm not sure if it was in the scene or their references to each other throughout).