"Lonesome Dove" is in the top ten of TV miniseries. I also would say that, besides other attributes, there are actual events and real characters in HBO's "Deadwood" that it is a Western series that will resonate as strongly as LD in TV history.
My brother-in-law raves about Deadwood but it's a little too raw for me.
My father was a really big Lonesome Dove fan. He loved that mini-series and wouldn't even take phonecalls from clients while it was on.
Those were the kinds of performances that you could just snuggle up on the sofa for the rest of the day with. Tommy Lee and Mr. Duvall were exceptional. The entire cast was terrific.
wiz-We unsubscibed our HBO at a time when Deadwood was showing (big issue with the satellite service and crappy reception), so we missed it. I heard that it was a really fine series. I guess Im gonna have to wait till the DVD is out or , now since we got rid of the W Va state flower and are on cable, well start getting HBO again so maybe theyll reshow season I ( It, like the Sopranos is scheduled for another season. YES?)
PS, Im lovin this digital cable , weve had 3 major snowstorms this calendar years and havent lost one second of TV or webhosting
I believe season one is out on DVD. eoe has pointed out that one should expect explitives at the frequency of "The Sopranos," in fact one episode went a bit over-the-top with Swearengen (a real saloon owner in the actual Deadwood) spouting out the F words amongst others at a clip of one every few seconds at the end of one episode. The researchers claim this is authentic and if one reads the real history of Deadwood it's an expose of how anarchy would really work.
That would be a film where the main character is watching life again and again!
I can deal with the cursing. Well, if it's just for the shock value, that would be aggravating after awhile also, to be honest, but it's the blood and guts and the raw nastiness of it that quivers my gut.
"CSI" has more blood and guts than "Deadwood" and that seems to be catching on with every cop drama series on TV. One is trying to outshock the other with gruesome body dissections and graphic murder scenes. "Deadwood" is actually not nearly as way-out in that department.
But everyone just looks so dirty and sweaty.
Movies to watch again and again
The quick list:
Silence of the Lambs
Kiss the Girls
Playing by Heart
The Goonies
Napoleon Dynamite
Robin Hood--Disney Version
The Goonies
I have been watching that one for years!
eoe wrote:But everyone just looks so dirty and sweaty.
That's likely the real Old West, not the John Wayne sqeaky clean, full of a dubious mix of Western drawl talk and eloquent speechifying that jars the sensibilities. This belongs in the TV forum but "Deadwood" is dead on, IMHO, dirt and sweat and all.
Have at it. Just not my cup of tea.
It's just simply the greatest Western to come along since "The Unforgiven" and, on TV, "Losesome Dove." I still puzzle about your sensititivity to it -- too depressing maybe? Yes, it's not something for a steady diet -- "Carnivale" is dark and allegorical with a lot of dirty, sweaty people. Perhaps the themes are more attractive. I think the raw Old West is something we should look at and appreciate that some of the content of "Deadwood" is allegorical to the life in the streets today (perhaps even in the high life of the business world). There's more than one way to assassinate a person other than killing them. One of my favorite characters is Calamity Jane who shows behond her male roughness is a humanitarianism that isn't falsely sentimental. Probably besides Swearengen, the most intriquing performance by an actor on the series. But back to the movies:
The westerns I can see again and again are:
"The Big Country" a real Western epic loaded with psychological suspense -- looks great in its newest hi-def restoration.
"The Searchers" Wayne's best film and often on the critics best ten films of all time.
"She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" Maybe just for the shots of Monument Valley but a great story is always worth telling more than once.
Red River (Just saw it for the third time)
and
High Noon
and I usually watch Shane everytime it pops up on TV.
Brown Sugar and Shanghia Noon
Watched "Snow Walker" with Barry Pepper the other day and I reckon it is worth another viewing.
And I was thinking of 'Forest Gump' today; might send the boyz to hire that one!
As a preface: it's interesting to note the similarity between the word "favorite" and this concept of movies you can watch over and over. That is, when we're asked our favorite movie, we tend to answer with one we think is "the best": the most intelligent, the most dramatic, the most riviting, etc.
But if you think about it, those movies we've seen 50-100 times (or more, for some of us) ... THOSE are our favorite movies.
Anyway ... having said that, mine are:
Clue
The Goonies
Stand By Me
National Lampoon's Vacation
Rock & Rule
American Graffiti
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Sixteen Candles
Conan the Barbarian
... and I'm certainly forgetting a few.
I'll add three more to my list. Not because they are the most intelligent or the most dramatic but because when they first ran on cable (several times a week for weeks on end), I'd run across them while flipping and stop in my tracks to watch. No matter how many times I watched it the week before.
"Castaway"
"Love & Basketball"
"Pirates of the Carribean"
