“Come Monday…” is a weekly series that will involve a review of, or commentary about, websites, movies, documentaries, television shows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time. Be assured that these reviews will be generally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “Come Monday.” This is subject to change, however. In fact, I would be most derelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while. For rants promote change, and change can be good—right? Therefore, since good is generally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the parallel universes that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as being something positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).
Well, it looks like
[HBO] has done it again. For after watching the first two episodes of
[Boardwalk Empire], it would appear that they have another smash hit on their network—right up there with
[The Sopranos],
[The Wire], and
[True Blood].
Of course, some may take exception to calling
The Wire a smash hit. For it never reached the heights of popularity as
The Sopranos did, but in regards to being a very well made show,
Boardwalk Empire is every bit as good as
The Wire.
Okay, I suppose the same argument could be used against
True Blood, but it has a fairly large and quite rabid fan base. Added to that are
congregations groups of people, who consider the show a guilty pleasure that should be kept quiet about, I suspect.
To be rather frank about it, I didn’t think that the show would be all that when I first started seeing promos for the show. For it stars
[Steve Buscemi], who is better known as a loveable loser in comedies like
[The Wedding Singer] and the
[Adam Sandler] remake of
[Mr. Deeds].
Yes, he played
[Tony Blundetto], who was a fairly hardcore gangster in a few episodes of
The Sopranos, but that is a far cry from being a believable leader of a vicious crime syndicate. Oh my, was I ever wrong about that.
No, this is not a show for overly sensitive types. For it has scenes of graphic violence and sexuality. In fact, in just the first two episodes, they have shown full frontal nudity at least three times, along with a man getting his head blown off by a shotgun blast to the face and another man getting beat to death.
It is a period piece, after all, and the
[Roaring Twenties] didn’t get that name by emulating the
[Victorian Era]. Furthermore, the
[Volstead Act] handed the criminally-minded a golden opportunity to enhance their revenues, which is what
Boardwalk Empire is all about.
The show is set in
[Atlantic City, NJ] at the very beginning of the
[Prohibition Period], and from what I can tell, it is fairly accurate in what could have actually went on back then. For mixed in with the regular cast, it has dealings with the likes of
[Al Capone],
[Lucky Luciano],
[Johnny Torrio],
[Frankie Yale],
[James Colosimo] and
[Arnold Rothstein].
Making it even better is being real subtle about flavoring the script with little tidbits of historical significance, such as a passing remark about Luciano making over a million on the
[1919 World Series]. Another thing that really impressed me was when
[Jimmy Darmody] mentioned something about serving with the US Army during World War I to
[Al Capone], Capone said that he was part of the
[Lost Battalion], which is evidently something that he actually did often
[lie] about.
With
[Terrence Winter] as a principle writer and executive producer, it shouldn’t be any wonder that the show is so good. For he was the force behind
The Sopranos, and where he might fall short,
[Martin Scorsese],
[Mark Wahlberg] and
[Timothy Van Patten] would certainly pick up the slack.
As a side-note, I do find it rather interesting that Timothy Van Patten is such a good director of such hardcore scenes. For he is the half-brother of the
[father of eight], but I may be the only one who finds this curious.
Oh, oh, oh, I can’t close without mentioning that
[Omar] has a significant role in
Boardwalk Empire. Now,
[Chalky White] has only been in one scene for a few seconds so far, but I have no doubt that he will playing a bigger and bigger part in the whole scheme of things in the near future. For
[Michael Kenneth Williams] has quite a presence about him—regardless of what role he is playing.
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