HBO did the same thing with Rome by using Titus Pullo and Verunus although they were excellent fictional characters. I'm a little disappointed in how Luciano is depicted. He seems kind of stupid to me. This is a man who brought together all the New York families while he was a young man, but he seems like a fool, ruthless he was, stupid he wasn't.
Last nights episode.... Eh what can I say, still feel like Im waiting for something to happen. I like that Capone is a sick fuck though, makes it entertaining. It still seems like theyre trying to set the characters up. How old is Jimmys mother supposed to be? God damn.
I'm enjoying it, it's a nice period piece, beautifully filmed and the production is great, Steve B. is interesting to watch, but you're right. Nothing is happening. I'm starting to tune out. If not for Capone and Jimmy there would be nothing to look forward to. The only reason I'm tuning in next week is to see the obvious retaliation that's going to ensue.
I was thinking the same thing. I mean Jimmy is what 22-24? She looks like she's maybe in her late twenties. This is a slow ass show though, even more so than Mad Men was in season one, except with out a powerful central character carrying it. It looks like Jimmy will have the most interesting of all the stories. As his character is written Nucky just isn't sparking anything in me. So far he just seems like a competent yet only mildly successful underworld figure with no real stand out characteristics. Anyone really care that the Irish girl is after him? After watching season one of Deadwood Id say this show has a lot of catching up to do in many departments to be as wildly acclaimed.
I think Jimmy is supposed to be 20-21. I guess it wouldnt be out of the realm of possibility for her to be 35 or so. It would kind of make sense with the stuff that would go on in that era. Some rich, powerful figure like Nucky knocking up a teenage girl and having an illegitimate child she kept quiet in exchange for him watching over him as a mentor / father figure. Atleast thats what I think is going to happen. Maybe the characters arent compelling enough is the problem. Michael Pitt plays the same character in every single movie hes in and as for Buscemi, Im waiting for John Goodman to come out of nowhere and tell him "SHUT THE FUCK UP DONNY". Spoiler Luciano was weak as hell last night, hes going to go kill someone but instead fucks their mom? What a bad ass gangster.
The way I see it, he's getting close to Jimmy's mom in order to find out where he's hiding. Two birds with one stone, really.
I'm still kind of bothered about how Luciano and Capone are kind of being portrayed as village idiots. I'm thinking Luciano thinks that he is stalking Jimmy's wife, not mom. Which should make him wonder why a guys wife who didn't trust him right away is now grabbing his cock. I know Capone is younger and know for ruthless violence, but he had to have some kind of head to lead the Chicago mob. It seems Jimmy is the only one who can read a person's actions.
I like the Capone character. If every mobster was portrayed like Rothstein it would be a lot less interesting and realistic. One thing the Sopranos did well was eventually let people in on the “big secret” that a lot of these guys are just sociopaths who care about pretty much nothing but this game. The smart play for Capone might have been negotiating with that guy now and attempting to take over his territory later like Jimmy advised him. But once Capone was able to easily push him to the lower percent he jumps up to 50% because he is just an aggressive asshole. In some ways it might seem like it is all about money, but how did the retaliation really hurt Capone? Jimmy’s girl got sliced up and he is angry, but now Capone has a reason to inflict even crazier violence on them as well. I think that would make him much happier in the short run than getting to sell more booze to some Greek guys. Sometimes certain figures skew more towards ruthless and charismatic than smart and calculating. This is a big theme when watching something like American Greed on CNBC about tons of different financial scammers and crooks.
Yeah, I saw her grab his dick and thought Jimmy's mom is just a slut. But Luciano all but threatened to kill her at her apartment, and she wants to fuck him still?
Gretchen Mol is what, 38 in real life? So if she plays a woman her actual age, who looks better than average for her age, then its not that ridiculous. Though she is a pretty epic GILF at this point.
I'm really glad they toned down the dialogue for Chalky and actually gave him something substantial to say and do. His lynched carpenter father and the lack of "mothafuckas" in his scene really made his character a whole lot more believable. Call me crazy but I love the music, but then again I'm a freak in that I'll gladly listen to pop music from the entirety of the 20th century. How can you have a show set in the Roaring 20's without jazz and vaudeville and ragtime? I think they've been handling the soundtrack really well with the limited period they have to work with. It isn't like The Soprano's where they basically had 60 years of music to pick through. Like everyone else though, I'm wondering where this show is going. We all know that we can't judge a show until it gets at least a full season out of the way, but at this point I'm not rooting for anyone except Buscemi and that has more to do with my love for some of his other work than attachment to his character.
The thing about Luciano and Capone is that they were the 'new' mobsters. At the time, there were the old guys who acted a hell of a lot more like Rothstein, and the young guys, who acted more like Capone and Luciano. In other words, the old guys would have meetings, threaten people, but rarely got their hands dirty themselves. They treated it like a game of chess, and they were the kings. The new guys, Luciano and Capone, were just kinda fucking nuts. The truth is that Luciano doesn't become the biggest mob boss in history until he learns to be a mix of the psychotic and the stoic. Luciano eventually learns that Rothstein's way isn't perfect, and occasionally you have to be ruthless and borderline psychotic, but what I hope they're trying to portray is Luciano's learning curve under Rothstein: Starting off with a very short temper and being borderline psychotic to learning how and when to reign in his psychotic tendencies for his own benefit. Capone is just fucking crazy, I don't think that changes much.
Dude, I'm going to have to call you crazy. The music absolutely belongs in the show but do I like it? I find it hilarious. The music pure and simple has no soul, no real heart and it all sounds the same. That song that was done live an episode or two ago "I like my girls dumb" or something close to that reminded me of a cheezy stand up comedian. Considering your avatar is one of the best writers of all time I'm not going to wonder about your taste but I am a little surprised.
It's more of a historical appreciation than it being something I'd listen to everyday and vaudeville is cheesy of course and pretty dated, but c'mon. No variety? You got jazz, dixieland, ragtime, some of the best blues in the 20th century, classical composers that still mattered. No soul? I guess you have to go to the black folk for that but it was there. You're going to tell me that freaking Bessie Smith doesn't have soul? You'd better not try and tell me that Blind Willie Johnson doesn't have soul, or I'd have to question your taste, good sir. Spoiler Regardless of what you think of it, you have to appreciate its musicianship. No fucking autotune/synthesizers in those days. If you gave me the choice of listening to "1920's Golden Hits Radio" or the steaming, festering pile of shit that passes for pop music these days, it'd be absolutely no contest.
Well I think thats kind of the point. I agree that compared to what we have now, it has no soul. And yes, that music in the 20s was god fucking awful, but I think the people back then were less concerned about the soul and feeling of their music and more interested that they have sounds coming out of their new-fangled radio. It sucks, but it gets points for authenticity. However if that kind of music was on the radio now, I would have jammed a screwdriver in my ear a long time ago.
Okay, I have to pipe up here about the 20s music. You can't judge the past on the merits of the present. It doesn't work. You have to listen to the music of that era with an open mind and remember they were using primitive recording equipment. By the way, the man who was singing the song, "I like my girls dumb" was Eddie Cantor, a huge star of the day who was inspired by Al Jolson, and during that era Jolson was GOD on Broadway and in popular music, hell, he pretty much invented popular music. Most of the singers of the day were trying to sound and be like him. There is just way to much to go into about the musical history of that era to get into here. Does it suck by today's standards, some of it maybe, but there is a lot that was awesome and ended up influencing much of the music that followed.
Finally watched the fourth episode. Yeah, it was the weakest of the bunch, but still perfectly watchable. My biggest gripe was not with the pacing, but rather, that Luciano, a big-time mob boss who we were told is worth $500k (a fortune in the 1920s), is the one sent to assassinate Jimmy as if he were some common, low-level thug. That's ridiculous; it would be like Nucky lugging in the bootleg alcohol by his lonesome. I don't understand the general apathy towards the series, though; it's still good, interesting, and miles ahead of the other shows I have seen on HBO. I don't really understand the comments about the music, either. Would I listen to in my spare time? No. However, calling the songs, especially the ragtime ones, "fucking awful" is really goddamn ignorant; in terms of complexity, melody, and sound, those tunes are superior to pop music today, if anything. Also keep in mind that the music was a simplified adaptation of classical music for the masses. It fits the mood of the series perfectly, and while antiquated by our tastes, is by no means "bad".
I'm a little confused, the vaudeville crap they have been playing is Jazz? I really don't know. It's hard to believe some of the stuff we hear on that show eventually inspired Miles Davis, I really don't see it. I'm specifically referring to the type of music that was song by that guy who was running around the room saying he like's his girls dumb. Maybe their was a couple songs that were regarded as classics that I missed but the music that sounded like what that guy was spewing out of his mouth, that was crap. I will stick to my guns to that having no soul or emotion whatsoever. As for Blind Willy? Well, I'll take yours and KImaster's word for it that men like that and some of the other musicians that might have been featured on the show were truly talented but went over my head. Maybe you could point a couple out specifically? Honestly most of the songs are not only lousy they are comical, if I walked into one of you guys listening to that I would burst out laughing. I consider myself to have a very open mind when it comes to music, the only thing I can't truly stomach is country. When I listen to some of these songs they lack the substance of what I feel makes music good ( of course so do half of the present day bands as well) I'm not going to claim to be an expert this is of course totally my opinion and we know they are just like assholes as far as everyone having one. However I don't think I'm the only one that would turn down the volume if the Boardwalk Empire Soundtrack came on at a party. I also am not trying to pigeon hole all music from the 1920's but the music on this show in particular has not impressed me.
That was supposed a purely humorous, entertaining song that highlighted how different that era was from ours. It wasn't meant to be a serious musical composition. Which songs did you consider "comical"? Anyways, you're certainly free to dislike them (I wouldn't listen to them on my own time, either), but a good song can be a lousy accompaniment to a film scene, and vice versa. In this case, the music fits together very well with the show, its general style, and aura, regardless of how enjoyable it is by itself. You could write the exact same thing about 95% of soundtracks out there, including some classics. (2001: A Space Odyssey comes to mind) And again, there are some individually great songs that make for an awful soundtrack, and a lot of otherwise average/unremarkable that make for a damn good one. The question you have to ask is this; has the music detracted or improved any particular scene? In my opinion, there are no instances of the former, and several of the latter.
Just to add one more thing before I shut up about it, so much of the music in the 20's is downright melancholy by a lot of pop music standards. Partly because of the recording techniques at the time and the image of the "Roaring 20's" that was the high water mark for the Depression era, but there is something very ghostly about it. I'm guessing we're going to see a lot of scenes with sentimental 20's music underscoring some very violent stuff going down on screen, much like the Opera Anyway, all those people you hear singing and playing on or listening to those recordings....they're dead and gone and only those people know what that music really meant to them. I guess if you're having trouble enjoying it just realize that it's supposed to take you back to the era the way that no other music could. Kubrick, for one, realized the potential of the music to back nostalgic scenes.