Sunday, September 19, 2010

Talking About A Dry County - Boardwalk Empire

Talking About A Dry County - Boardwalk Empire

For the past couple of weeks whenever True Blood started, they showed a preview for the next HBO series Boardwalk Empire and each week I got more and more excited. In fact, if you haven't been getting excited for this series then I'm not sure what your major problem is. You should probably go get that checked out though.

But what exactly is Boardwalk Empire, the series that starts on September 19th?
America in 1920: The Great War was over, Wall Street was about to boom and everything was for sale, even the World Series. It was a time of change when women got the vote, broadcast radio began and young people ruled the world.

On the beach in southern New Jersey sat Atlantic City, a spectacular resort known as “The World’s Playground,” a place where the rules didn’t apply. Massive hotels lined its famous Boardwalk, which featured nightclubs, amusement piers and entertainment that rivaled Broadway. For a few dollars, a working man could get away and live like a king – legally or illegally.


From the previews you should expect a generous helping of shooting, beatings, sex, swearing, snazzy old fashion clothing, 20's era-music, bootlegging, political corruption and other prohibition-era situations delivered as only pay cable can.



This is HBO's next critically acclaimed show, so much so that they spent $20 million on the pilot episode alone. You can't do better in making an opening than by getting Martin Scorsese to direct the pilot and oversee the show.

So I guess the next question is, who's in it?

- Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, The Sopranos, The Big Lebowski, a hundred other things)
- Michael Pitt (Bully, Funny Games)
- Kelly Macdonald (Trainspotting, No Country For Old Men)
- Michael K. Williams (Omar from The Wire)
- Michael Shannon (Shotgun Stories, Revolutionary Road, The Runaways)



- Stephen Graham (Public Enemies, This is England, Gangs of New York)
- Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man)
- Vincent Piazza (Rescue Me, The Sopranos)
- Dabney Coleman (hey screw you if you don't know who Dabney Coleman is)



- Paz de le Heurta (The Limits of Control, Choke, Enter the Void) - Lucy, a woman very, very close to Nucky.
- Gretchen Mol (The Notorious Bettie Page, Rounders, Life on Mars [the shitty US version]) - Gillian, another woman with unique ties to Nucky.
- Shea Whigam(Tigerland, All the Real Girls) - Eli Thompson, Nucky's brother; coincidentally, he's also Sheriff of Atlantic City.
- Anthony Laciura (actually a well-known opera singer making his acting debut) - Eddie Kessler, Nucky's longtime assistant.
- Aleska Palladino (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) - Angela Darmody, Jimmy's estranged wife.



If those names didn't attract your attention, then what the hell is wrong with you? I mean, Kelly Macdonald is in this. I could listen to her talk all day. I've had a crush on her since I first saw trainspotting. But hey, don't you girls just love declarations of adornment via public blogspots?
*clues up Atomic by Sleeper*



Besides, you can trust me on this one, this show will make you look like you read books. As you should know, they already made a book about this. Nelson Johnson's book is actually the basis for the show.

How can you not want to see this now? The pilot of this show cost $20 million alone. Given that they had to spend a lot of that on rebuilding the classic Atlantic City in exactly how it looked back then, it does say something about the show. The only way this could get any better is if they tied it together with the Sopranos and ended this show by having an aged Enoch Nucky Johnson walking into a Jersey diner with the intent of killing a certain titty bar owner..

I'll leave your interest peaked with this little making of feature..

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