Did any of you guys catch the first two episodes of John Adams? I did. Very well done. Love the casting. But not a first.
At first I thought, “Ah Gawd, Paul Giamatti as John Adams! How am I ever gonna take this seriously?” Not that there’s anything wrong with Giamatti, but I must just have him typecast, which isn’t fair. Anyway, he is very believeable as Adams and Laura Linney is great no matter what role she plays, but she’s a nice fit for Abigail. Then the Ben Franklin character comes on and I see the actor and again, the negative thoughts set in. “This is General Cornwallis (from The Patriot). How am I supposed to believe he’s an American patriot now. hmmph!”
But this mini-series is off to a great start. I was literally entranced by this thing. Prediction: All kinds of Emmy’s and other awards (for what they’re worth these days) for this one. You can’t go wrong with David McCullough’s cred backing you. And this casting sure don’t hurt.
IMO it’s good stuff. I had reservations about Paul Giamatti too but he sold me.
One thing I noticed tho is that they’re moving fast through the narrative. I guess I’ve been spoiled by the pace of the Tudors on SHO. FWIWIMO, Rome, on SHO (I think) was great. Same pacing.
Anyhow all those shows put me on Wikipedia checking the accuracy. Love it. History, yes.
Rome was on HBO and it was AWESOME! I saw something about The Tudors on ONDEMAND but didn’t know it was on SHO. Don’t have SHO. Thought that might be good since we don’t have Rome anymore. I think there are plans to bring it back next year or the year after. It’s gonna take some doing to outdo what they had with those characters tho. Were they hilarious or what? I know it was supposed to be serious, but seriously, wasn’t it funny?
Rome was one of the few shows I could watch with my husband and we both loved it. Do you know what i mean? It had somethings that appealed to women, some to men, some to both. As far as going to Wikepedia for the accuracy, certainly they took liberties with Rome. Nobody knows all the details, so we have to make some of it up.
OTOH, a lot more is known about John Adams life and adventures because he and others wrote so much about that period. Plus, David McCullough stands by what they’ve done with his book. Did you watch “The Making of John Adams” after the show? They used a good deal of computer technology for the scenery. And there was McCullough saying how pleased he was with the end result.
Yeah, i too noticed that they’re skipping forward pretty fast with John Adams. The book is humungous. Not sure that i ever finished it, but i understand why they have to move so fast. Anyway, if you’ve read the book and/or if you know anything about that period of American history, you can fill in the blanks and you know where they are in a given scene.
My wife and I too watch these shows together. That’s saying something since we have two satellite boxes!
I missed the making of John Adams. The computer generated establishing shot of Lisbon in the Tudors caught my eye because I’ve been there. It would be fascinating to watch the collaboration of the historians and artists and look at the actual digital files to see how it’s done. I mean it looks fantastic, it would be geek heaven for me.
I don’t remember Rome being funny. Maybe because my wife’s Italian and I was sucking up to her?
Every time I see Paul Giamatti I like him less. He was perfect as Harvey Pekar in “American Splendor.” By “Sideways,” he was Johnny One-Note and lucky for him that note harmonized with the character.
Of course, the idea of his character sleeping with Virginia Madsen was an inspiration to out-of-shape middle-aged bald guys everywhere. Yet the illusion wore off pretty quickly.
The last thing I saw him in was “The Illusionist,” and I thought he almost ruined the movie with his constant mugging and Inspector Clouseau-like eyebrow raising. Meh.
I spent the last couple of nights watching “Inland Empire.” More on that after I figure out just what the heck was going on.
Andy, Rome had some hilarious dialogue. I can’t remember the name of the lead female character, but she was funny. Not funny “haha”, but funny sarcastic, funny in how hateful and vindictive she was, funny in how poorly she treated people, that kinda funny. And don’t you remember that one particularly hilarious line Mark Antony made one morning when that woman was trying to get him out of bed and he said he wasn’t getting up until….uh…”something” happened. So she tells one of the servants to “go get that German whore from the kitchen”. Then there was that big brute guy, again i forget his name, but he cracked wise a lot too. Maybe if you watched again you’d remember some of this. I mean, we laughed at some point at every episode.
Tom, I get where you’re coming from about Giamatti. He’s limited yet overrated for some reason. This role of John Adams happens to work for him for some reason. They surely could’ve found someone just as good or better. But this is what we’ve got.
I didn’t like “Sideways” and didn’t think he made much of an impact in “The Illusionist” either. Really, i’m not a Giamatti fan at all. Didn’t see those other movies you mention, but Giamatti with Virginia Madsen?! That’s just gross. I’ve always thought she was one of the prettiest actresses. Don’t know why she isn’t used more. She’s aged very nicely. She does a lot of work on the Lifetime networks tho. I like her brother Michael Madsen too. We call him “Sonny Black”.
I was just pondering over why does Giamatti fit so well into this role and it occurred to me: he’s obnoxious. John Adams was notoriously obnoxious and not very popular either, and chubby too.
At one point in the series he’s explaining to Thomas Jefferson why he, Jefferson, has to be the one to draft the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson is like, “why me? I’m busy with some legislation pertaining to Virginia. I ain’t got time for this.”. And Adams replies “Look, we need the South to be behind this thing and Virginia is the largest Southern colony, yada yada”. But i remember in the book it was like that, but the backstory was “you’re 32 years old, Tom, we’re older, and we say you’re it! So get busy.”
Cont’d:
However, Giamatti doesn’t play obnoxious in this role. He’s not his usual over the top self. Altho he tells Jefferson he’s too obnoxious and disliked to be the one to write the Dec of Ind, his character doesn’t come across as obnoxious. He plays it very low key most of the time except during the Congressional meetings where he is practically the only guy pushing for action instead of more talk.
He plays it very tenderly when he’s with his family. He’s amicable to Jefferson and Franklin. He done good this time, really.
OK Shari I know what you mean now about Rome being “funny”. I must have been in one of my very rare sour puss moods when I watched it.
The third episode of John Adams was the best one so far. For anyone not watching, you’re missing out on something good.
I see Rome is being re-broadcast. Yay, I’ll try to catch some episodes and laugh :).
I’m sure you will laugh. I might hit a couple episodes myself. Still enjoying John Adams tho. And the teasers they showed for next weeks episode…oooh…can’t miss that!
Have you heard about the Lifetime Movie Network original movie “The Capture of the Green River Killer”? Maybe not because it’s on LMN. It’s a two-parter. It premiered already but they’re replaying it. I recommend it. I’m talking engrossing.
I suppose the reason it was on LMN was because all 51 victims were women, but this is not a chick flick thing. It’s really interesting. The focus is not on the killings so much as on the investigation of the persistent Det. Dave Riechert that lasted 20 years, culminating, of course, in the capture of that evil SOB.
We caught “North Country” on Lifetime last night. Great cast, Charlize Theron, Sissy Spacek, Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson.
North Country was good. Saw it when it came out on DVD. I don’t remember those others being in it tho. But again, it’s been awhile.
Haven’t heard of the “Capture of the Green River Killer”. Sounds interesting.
The top three. shows in our household right now are:
Tudors, Adams, The Riches
Besides Adams all we watch around here is basketball. And i watch South Park when i remember and if i can stay up that late. Never heard of The Riches. Will check into that.
The last episode of John Adams aired last night on HBO. It was brilliant, thought-provoking, and sad. And i learned that Adams hated that painting of the Second Congressional Delegates signing the Declaration of Independence. He ripped the painter a new one and told him it happened nothing like that. That the members came in during the summer whenever they happened to be in town and signed the thing. And this should be no spoiler, as you might imagine the ending was Adams and Jefferson both dying/dead on the 4th of July, 50 years after the signing of the DofI. Just like Rome, I’m gonna miss this one.
Wouldn’t have been much of a painting if he depicted it that way! He probably would have especially hated the musical “1776.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
It made Jefferson such a dashing, cultured and romantic hero; and made Adams look like, well, Paul Giamatti.
So you did watch?
Yeah, i think Jefferson was more of a dashing, cultured guy than Adams was tho. So that much was true. I mean, if you can overlook the slave thing and the Sally Hemmings thing. He was most definitely the more gentlemanly one. And Adams was the obnoxious, Giamattiesque type, yes. I know this because David McCullough said so. Plus i’ve read a lot about Jefferson.
Have you been to Monticello? It’s a nice place, but I like Mount Vernon much more. Monticello is overrated IMO.
I liked the show. Only saw about half of it.
One thing that I couldn’t help notice was all the tilted (not level) hand held camera shots. Was that an attempt to give an otherwise straight forward/historic portrayal a rock-n-roll edge or something? Just minor niggling that I drive my wife crazy with as she tries to watch.
Oh no you di’int? You talked during the show?! Oh my, you men …. It’s just like little kids who don’t say a word to you til you’re on the telephone. My husband is like that too. He doesn’t say much to me until i’m engrossed in a good movie or John Adams episode. He’ll be jibbering away or asking me to explain what just happened or going on about how dumb Adams was to be fixing his own roof when he could’ve paid someone to do it. Drove me nuts too.
When Gilmore Girls was running, i had only two rules for 8-9pm Tuesday nights. #1 No talking during Gilmore Girls. #2 NO TALKING DURING GILMORE GIRLS!
I noticed those angled shots the first few episodes. It bugged me just a little cuz you almost feel like turning your head to get the straight up perspective. Musta got used to it, cuz i didn’t notice it after awhile. A rock-n-roll edge? hmmm, could be? But speaking of music, the theme song was kinda catchy, as was the one with Rome. Remember that one? The Adams song sounded similar to that. Maybe it was the fifes?
Are you gonna try and catch the rest of the episodes? It kept getting better. Except for the second to the last episode (#6) which was hard to follow. I wasn’t quite sure what Adams was doing/thinking wrt the war with France and/or England that they were expecting. It moved too fast. It was almost like they had an episode before that that they scrapped. Or maybe it was just that my husband was TALKING TOO MUCH. Maybe you’ll see what i mean about Episode 6.
All I remember about the music was that it started simply and sparsely and as it went along it burst into a fully orchestrated thing that made me want to yell Yay America!!!
:)
BOO-RAH.
(I never got around to watching, but your enthusiasm is contagious)
Yeah, the music really had that patriotic thing going on. Yay America!!
I read the short story, which was pretty engaging (Stephen King is always at his best when he keeps it shorter). I saw previews for the movie, and I feel like it loses something when you can see exactly what’s lurking out there. As always, what’s in your imagination is always scarier.
I started watching a movie last night called “The Mist”. I fell asleep half way thru it. Not cuz it was boring but because i was tired. It was engrossing tho. I’m gonna finish it tonite. If it turns out that it is as good in the second half as the first i’ll be letting you know, because, Tom, i think this is your kind of movie.
That’s true. But i didn’t read the book. In fact i didn’t even know it was Stephen King, but i felt like it was about 3 minutes into the movie. I thought that I should’ve rewound it to see if i was right.
The cast was real good. I’m gonna go finish watching it now but i’ll probably fall asleep again. I didn’t work last week because i was in OH and i’m not working next week cuz i’ll be in Vegas, so basically i was trying to accomplish 3 weeks work in one week. And i’m bushwacked!
I see that this series won an armful of Emmy awards last night. Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti for best actress and actor, and the series itself for best mini-series.
Yeah, we saw it and were really happy about it. Altho, i didn’t see any of those other mini-series, i just thought there was no way they could’ve been better than JA.