Deadwood and other rotting things ~

[lookingland]

i can't afford to buy the second season of Deadwood so last night, having come by a wee windfall in the book-selling-back department (the college gives you 50% back! who knew ~ i was expecting to get $5 a book or something more pitiful), i went and rented some of the episodes i hadn't seen.

i like the show, i like the characters (mostly), i think Al Swearengen ranks up there with the greatest screen villains of all time, and i think david milch is a brilliant and wonderful guy....

...but...

no matter how eloquently milch defends the excess of profanity in this series, it's just a pill i'm not swallowing. yes, people cussed back then and yes, i'm sure in Deadwood they cussed much more readily than they would back east. i have no problem believing that Swearengen is as foul-mouthed as he can be. but i think it 1.) robs his thunder to have everyone spouting his phraselogy, and 2.) defies the suspension of my disbelief that everyone else in Deadwood cusses exactly like him! (i mean, Miss Irsinghausen? pleeeeease!)

not to mention it just gets tired on the ears. what would normally take a character a second to convey becomes a string of endless adjectival profanities (mostly repeated over and over), so that by the time you've finished watching the program, they're rendered completely meaningless and you feel as though you got 30 minutes of programming and 30 minutes of cussing.

honestly, we don't need it, david. we get your point with a few well-placed swear words and one or two characters who are especially profane in their own special way. but when it's this exrteme across the board ~ boo! boo, i say. it's the province of the weak to resort on such "shock" language, and a weak writer who spackles their dialogue with so much blither to convey the story (which, by the by, also serves to wreck any sublety in character development).

okay, rant over.

i still like the show, which is a testament to how good it is in spite of itself and the fact that its ambivalently moral lead, seth bullock, is prolly the most boring character badly acted in televisionland today.

oh, and more doc cochran and charlie utter, less seth and sol. that'd be my vote.

: o p

Comments

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Deadwood, though I've heard lots of good things about it. I watched my first episode of the Sopranos a few weeks back and really enjoyed it. I guess I'm missing some good stuff by avoiding the television, eh?

And you get 50% buyback on your books? Where do you go to get that? We seriously do get like 5 bucks a book. It costs more in gas to go down to the buyback than we end up getting back. But I liked all of my textbooks this semester and can actually use them later, so I planned on keeping them anyway. :-)

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

I don't watch television either. I've seen Deadwood on dvd only. apparently a lot of the HBO shows are good. i tried to watch Oz but i got tired of it after one disc. i watched Carnivale and it was dreadful (bleh!). Deadwood is the best i've seen, though i hear everyone rave about the Sopranos. i incline more toward the old west than i do to gangsters, so i'm happy where i am. you should prolly check it out!

re: buyback ~ isn't that the craziest thing? who knew! but i'm attending a private college, so maybe that makes a difference (College of Saint Catherine). like you described, i never used to take my books back because it was never worth it. i only went because i wanted to get maybe 5 or 10 bucks (for my $200 worth of books) so that i could have some sushi. i was shocked and surprised to get a nice chunk of cash (and can now maybe buy some new glasses so i won't be blind as a bat).

: D

p.s. i'm test-driving firefox as a new browser and so far it's holding up. porting my bookmarks, however, lokos to be a pain in the rump. if there's a way to do it without having to enter them all in over again, i ain't found it yet. silly thing.

: o p

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

Well maybe I shall check out Deadwood then! :-)

College of Saint Catherine? I didn't know you were a good little Catholic girl. :-)

I've got Firefox and LOVE it.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

good and little ~ dunno about that ~

Catholic ~ ayup

hahahahaha ~

so far Firefox and i getting along. i think i will be making the jump. (technologically savvy, but ever the luddite, in truth).

: D

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

LOL..... So are you a practicing or recovering Catholic?

Firefox is great. I love it.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i'm a revert (don't you love all these descriptors?)

that basically means i'm a cradle Catholic (there's another one) who left the Church (for 17 years) and then returned (reconverted, basically).

i used to be a "recovering" Catholic. i used to be very anti-Church and quite vocal about it. then i actually bothered to learn what the Church actually teaches (as opposed to what the media, hatemongers, and other ignorant forms of life have to say ~ ironically this happened when i was writing a play and i needed to do some research). i spent three years in the process of relearning the religion from the ground up before i was willing to commit to it (i'm very stubborn and very skeptical and don't cotton at all to illogic, so there were a hundred hoops of fire before i was satisfied that if one were to profess Christianity, then Church must be "right"). now i find most labels offensive and frankly, the politicization religion is the most offensive of all.

i consider myself a practicing orthodox Catholic, which means i'm neither left nor right, neither conservative or liberal, neither progressive nor traditional. i'm just Catholic. i vote as a moderate democrat (someone please give us a worthy candidate for God's sake!) and i try to correct people's errors and misconceptions about what the Church actually teaches and how it's not full of weird fundamentalist bigots and sex maniacs and all those other fanatic loonies that give Christianity a bad name).

anyway, i try to be faithful. as best as i can (which is better on some days than others, but then that's all God asks of us: is that we try ~ hahahahaha)

: D

(this pre-emptive rant is brought to you by the letter "j")

(aren't you glad you asked?) ~ hahahahahahaha ~

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

I respect those that are true to their faith. There are a lot of posers out there. I do have a lot of respect and at the same time, a lot of issues with the Catholic Church. I think the way the pedophilia scandals have been handled has been abominable. Absolutely disgusting. However, the Church has done a lot of good things as well.

But the bigger question is... do you have those snazzy school uniforms? LOL...

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

hahahahahaha ~ !

no snazzy uniforms, alas! i feel positively cheated!

: D

as to the scandals, ithink there's been some hideous judgment on the part of bishops in the Church, hideous conduct (obviously) on the part of some of the clergy, and then a full measure of hideous slant coverage on the part of the media ~ and then a whole slew of hideous behavior on the part of some of the the "faithful" (which the media then justifies). i returned to the Church in the midst of (and largely because of) the scandal, oddly enough. despite my own biases against the Church at the time, i call bullshit on things when i see them and there was serious bullshit going on.

so it doesn't shake my faith in the legitimacy of the actual teachings of the Church that some people abuse their power ~ anymore than i should hate america and lose faith in it just because we have a sock monkey in the oval office.

: o p

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

no snazzy uniforms, alas! i feel positively cheated!

Yeah, so do I!!! LOL....

Like I said, I believe that the Catholic Church has done a lot of good. They are actually far more liberal than a lot of these evangelical churches could ever dream of being.

I think faith is important and I truly do respect those with a true and honest belief.