Luck: HBO series: David Milch, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Mann

He was great in American Buffalo, and this sounds like potentially similar lowlife territory.

Didnt Milch use his genius grant money to buy a race horse? Should be good..

I'll stan for him in I Heart Huckabees and his appearance in Stranger Than Fiction was easily one of the better points of that movie.

huckabees

amped for this

yeah I am excited

Milch has owned or part-owned two really good horses that ran in the Breeders' Cup. Val Royal and Gilded Time

there's a pretty good Q&A with him behind the paid subscription wall at my place of employment (D41LY R4CING F0RM), would c+p but I don't wanna get busted

http://www.drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do?NID=110717

Didnt Milch use his genius grant money to buy a race horse?

Humanitas award, iirc. Don't think he ever got a macarthur grant. He tells this (very hilarious) story in an interview in some book I have somewhere.

this could be good.

btw walter hill directed by the pilot of deadwood, which had some extraordinary moments. where did that guy's career go, though?

i got abt half way thru that nyer profile before realizing id read it before. milch is kinda a frustrating guy in a lotta respects imo. idk, i recently queued up hill street blues, which ive never seen, so we'll see.

wait, dmr works 4 the drf ? who's gonna win this rachel alexander v zenyatta race

"btw walter hill directed by the pilot of deadwood. . . where did that guy's career go, though?"

Supernova and then Undisputed.

yeah I'm their Internet editor

Rachel has a license to improve from age 3 to 4 so if she is better than last year I don't see her losing

anyway yeah I hope this will be good. one of my friends is down on Hoffman being in it but I dunno, seems like it will be a good place for him to reconnect w/ his Ratso Rizzo midnight cowboy dirtbag roots

Hoffman is good in whatever he's in, he just picks a lot of bad stuff to be in.

horse article mentioned upthread:

Q&A: David Milch

Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer of shows such as "Deadwood" and "NYPD Blue" is about to begin production of a new HBO show, "Luck," set at a racetrack

Birthdate: March 23, 1945, in Buffalo, N.Y.

Family: wife, Rita Stern; daughters Elizabeth and Libby; son Ben.

Got into racing because . . .: "My Dad was involved in it. He was a surgeon. He used to take us to Saratoga in August, which is good because that's when the racing was."

Why do you like it so much? "It's an extremely complicated and sometimes obscure business to try to understand. That's how I try to make my living. It is a venue of both fascination and dread. That's usually where people spend most of their lives."

Describe the synopsis of "Luck": "It's kind of a top-to-bottom, kaleidoscopic view of life at the track. Gamblers, trainers, owners, administration. In the same way that 'Deadwood' followed multiple storylines, that's what we'll be doing. I do believe a racetrack is a community, like 'Deadwood' was."

What is the timetable for when the show airs? "We hope to go on the air in January of next year. We are going to start shooting in March. We'll shoot and then probably stop, fine tune, then go back. We'll be shooting at Santa Anita and then probably in Santa Clarita at the Autry Ranch, where we shot 'Deadwood.' Right now we're doing all the casting and BS. It's safer for me to write."

Why did you decide to do a show set at the track? "I started writing this show in 1973, something like that. As I said, it's a venue of fascination and dread. It's something that compels your interest and gives you access to your imagination. If you're going to sustain a series, you need all of those components. The racetrack has always been that for me. It's a setting for drama of all different kinds. The fundamental appeals are prehistorical. It has to do with man's ostensible mastery of his environment and subordination to the outcome. Man likes to think he is the master, but in fact when they are 40 yards from the finish, you realize it hasn't got much to do with you now."

Will we see any familiar racing faces having cameos, or more, in "Luck"? "Absolutely. It's my hope and intention, and we're pretty well along toward realizing it, that a whole bunch of jockeys will have main roles in it."

Al Swearengen in "Deadwood" was the greatest TV character ever. Do you have a similarly diabolical character in "Luck"? "I don't think Swearengen was diabolical, except for two-thirds the time. I think this show can be really good for the game. It's warts and all, but it's still a beautiful, beautiful sport, and I think its warts only add ultimately to the complexity of its beauty. I don't know how many more times I'll get to the plate. This is the one I've been wanting to do my whole life."

Play casting agent. Who would play your trainer, Julio Canani, in the "Julio Canani Story"? "We've cast the part of Escalante, a trainer who is roughly based on Julio, except he tells the truth a little more. But who doesn't? He's going to be played by a wonderful actor named John Ortiz, a theater actor from New York who has a theater company in New York with Philip Seymour Hoffman."

How often do you attend the races? "It depends on who I'm lying to. I have several different masks that I wear."

Best gambling story ever: "The day my horse Disturbingthepeace won the [2002] Bing Crosby at Del Mar, I had him singled at 16-1 in the pick six. That was OK. I almost broke even that day. I had the pick six, and with all the consolations it paid like a quarter of a million dollars."

Best horse owned: "Gilded Time. Val Royal was a lovely horse. Tuzla was a great filly. I loved Marvin's Policy because he was such a trier. Echo Eddie, he broke his maiden in a maiden claimer up north, won a million dollars, and got beat a nose in the Golden Shaheen in Dubai. I've been lucky to be associated with a whole bunch of good ones."

Biggest win as an owner: "Val Royal [2001 Mile] and Gilded Time [1992 Juvenile] in Breeders' Cup races. I guess Gilded Time because he was not bred to go two turns. He didn't really want to do it. It's not because he won a Breeders' Cup race, but because what I got to see was the deepest and most important aspect of horse's gift - his indomitability, bravery, resolution."

Best horse seen: "I guess Dr. Fager breaking the world record at Arlington. That was a pretty serious performance."

Why were you in Chicago? "I was just being a degenerate. I was knocking around at that time. I was involved in a pharmaceutical delivery service."

Favorite TV show other than one you've worked on: "'Naked City.'"

Hobbies: "Ineffectual excuses."

Childhood hero: "Luke Easter, a baseball player for the Cleveland Indians who played in the minor leagues for the Buffalo Bisons. He was at end of his career then. There was a kid coming up, and Luke used to say, 'With your legs and my brains, I'd still be in the major leagues.'"

Childhood dream: "To live past childhood."

People most admired: "The presidents of all the investment banks, because they're the best crooks I know about."

Future racing-related ambitions: "To see the realization of 'Luck.'"

"I don't think Swearengen was diabolical, except for two-thirds the time." Good answer.

i have really been liking dustin hoffman lately. if anyone hasn't seen STRAIGHT TIME, do so now.

^^ funnily enough, michael mann helped write it

I read a copy of the pilot not that long ago. Funny crazy-wisdom stuff about "the degenerates" -- compulsive gamblers (one on a Rascal scooter) made me laugh out loud, but a little bit of the JFC poetic-jargony-quirkiness made it a difficult read. Also, the racetrack lingo seemed to lack both the hard-bittenness of Milch's cop shows, and the zonked-out beach mysticism of JFC and, honestly, felt a little bit like latter-day-Mamet. That said, I will definitely watch this.

Great to hear about the script, remy.

Maybe Nolte too.

http://www.tvgasm.com/newsgasm/nick-nolte-mug-shot.jpg
"Green Flash is a lock in the 7th, his mudder was a mudder"

haha shit.

http://www.tvgasm.com/newsgasm/nick-nolte-mug-shot.jpg

i look forward to this series ending unresolved after one season, leaving everyone frustrated and angry.

apparently d-hoff is super-famous for being a hard-on about script-approval so im kind of amazed he's agreed to do serial television

commenters from blog that posted the Nolte news

Amazing Grouping. Will be interesting to see
how quickly it implodes after Milch and Mann
start the wrestling match for control.
Both are micro managers and used to their
own way on projects!
Can’t wait for the fireworks.
#

Good luck getting episode 3 in the can with this group !!! Could be one of those projects that looks great on paper, which it does, but is impossible to produce because of the personalities involved. Hoffman, Nolte & Mann stories are legendary. WIll be interested to see how they work together on a television schedule, even if it is an HBO television schedule (12-14 days per episode).
#

I wonder how accurately they will portray some of the degenerate horse racing gambler types. The ones I see at the track who bring their entire family while they sit there and bet on every single race.

what's wrong with a guy bringing his family to the track. are they bored? is he betting the rent money? kinda painting with a broad brush there.

^^^^ capn. save-a-gambler

I bet on every race when I go to the track. That's kind of the point, innit?

Jockey underworld will be more interesting than stock degenerate gamblers. Dudes puking and popping laxatives to stay light.

yeah milch and mann are super-notorious control freaks.

watch the bonus features on the deadwood box set. the poor credited directors have to kind of sit back and smile warily at the camera while milch jumps in and gives the actors direction.

that said, i got the feeling that the deadwood features were all about elevating milch to some kind of television godhead, so it may be that they choose to include the footage that made it look as though he was the central or even sole creative force. which is belied by the fact that some episodes of that show were pallid, while others (notably the pilot directed by walter hill) were really great.

i should add: pallid and great in a way that suggested the hands of a director at work.

who's gonna win this rachel alexander v zenyatta race

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 11:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

Rachel has a license to improve from age 3 to 4 so if she is better than last year I don't see her losing

― dmr, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 11:37 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

haha well .... Rachel just lost to a horse not even as good as Zenyatta in what was supposed to be Rachel's easy comeback race so don't listen to me, obv.

Rachel vs. Zen probably won't happen now, at least not on April 9. (Zenyatta won again today and looked good)

sorry to hijack Milch thread with real life horse racing news, back to our regularly scheduled programming ...

David Milch reading with Q&A:

http://media.sas.upenn.edu/writershouse/10A/Milch-David_Fellows-Reading_KWH-UPenn_04-26-2010.mp3

full season done been ordered

watch the bonus features on the deadwood box set. the poor credited directors have to kind of sit back and smile warily at the camera while milch jumps in and gives the actors direction.

ehh tv directors know what the score is

like to see him give directions on michael mann's set

when does the pilot/full season air?

love the scenes of milch on pillows, dictating the script in front of an audience on those bonus features. all that's missing is a grape-feeder.

next year

like, the 'boardwalk empire' pilot was done about this time last year. kind of chill that hbo film a whole season before airing it -- i guess you can keep the whole thing more consistent than on deadline-chasing network tv?

wonder when the bigelow series is coming. hbo must have deep pockets.

xpost

john from Cincinnati kinda soured me

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-1010-michael-mann-20101010,0,6409892,full.story

this gonna be as shitty as boardwalk empire or

hope not ;_;

me too, maybe this is the that'll stick

hbo needs it tbf

what was the last good hbo series? curb?

"The 'Miami Vice' director's return to the small screen is part of a migration of top talent."

You're going to go w/ "Miami Vice" out of Michael Mann's repertoire, LA Times?

well, miami vice was the last time he did tv so.......

what was the last good hbo series? curb?

― caek, Tuesday, October 12, 2010 9:55 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

eastbound!

do people still watch treme? i liked it at first but had like a physical aversion to watching it. same with boardwalk empire. it just feels exhausting.

See is it bad that I thought of the move and not the TV show? xp

I once saw the silent version of Last of the Mohicans and thought it was pretty cool that Mann copied almost exactly a bunch of shots from it.

Even Public Enemies, which is a clear example of Mann falling short of potential, has one of my favorite shots of all time, this running board cam of one of Depp's buddies dying as they escape from the prison. You just see him hanging on for dear life even as the life fades from his eyes, and they he drops off and disappears. Mann's also been really into this intimate, over the shoulder POV since he went digital and cameras got smaller.

he's been into that since Heat - he uses those shots really well to put you 'in the moment' & i think hes better at that than any director around

Anyone else notice that nearly every one of his films has been released in a director's cut or tweak of some sort save Thief and Insider? Alternate versions of Manhunter, Mohicans, Miami Vice, Ali and even Heat exist. Only Ali may be better than the original, though.

xpost, Yeah, the over the shoulder stuff during the street shoot out in Heat is pretty incredible.

Even Public Enemies, which is a clear example of Mann falling short of potential, has one of my favorite shots of all time, this running board cam of one of Depp's buddies dying as they escape from the prison. You just see him hanging on for dear life even as the life fades from his eyes, and they he drops off and disappears. Mann's also been really into this intimate, over the shoulder POV since he went digital and cameras got smaller.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:13 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ya I remember this super well

So many problems with Ali but the opening 30 mins or wtv are incredible

he uses those shots really well to put you 'in the moment' & i think hes better at that than any director around

― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:15 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yah well said there's something abt the way he uses digital that evokes this vibe really intensely, feel like he understands the medium better than anyone

Public Enemies was an uninteresting failure.

ur an uninteresting failure

o damn

lots of great moments in Public Enemies, especially the death (shot on Celluloid!) and the forest shoot-out (just well done) but no, it doesn't hang together quite how it should. Looks great though. Miami Vice might be his masterpiece though.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/michael-mann-david-milch-interview-luck-horses-cancellation.html

^^^^^ just came to post that. great read.

high level milching:

I would just say that you’re coming up against certain deep, fundamental biological truths: that any living thing is subject to the laws of mortality, and that there was nothing that was done with any of these horses that was unnatural, nothing that was other than what they had evolved to do. [In claiming otherwise], there’s a kind of moral and emotional fastidiousness that is entailed, which at a certain point becomes absurd. Organic matter depends upon the appropriation and consumption of other organic matter. There are just truths that obtain whether we find them pleasant or not. The kind of flinching from any form of art or experience that PETA seems to advocate is ultimately life-hating.

Interesting. I like listening to these guys talk.

I could have sworn way back when that Deadwood was not cancelled, per se, but that Milch walked away. But recently it's been increasingly coming up as cancelled. What went down, exactly?

http://blog.jopinionated.com/2007/08/22/exclusive-deadwoodjohn-from-cincinnati-actor-jim-beaver-responds.aspx

hbo canceled it, then reacted to the fan/media backlash by offering milch two two hour episodes to wrap things up but at that point the actors had been released from their contracts milch was working on john from cincinnati wkrp and it never happened

iirc

ive said this before but i think all he does now are 'interesting failures' -

Mentioned upthread re Mann, but hard to see Milch doing anything but as well, unless he makes his Moby Dick.

hbo cancelling deadwood was just incredibly stupid on their part.

it was a tragic is what it was!

booo! booing u hbo, damn

But wasn't the show sort of backed in a corner by the fact that, you know, it was based on actual people and their fates? Can't keep Hearst the local heavy when he becomes a senator. Though I guess they could have tried.

I don't think that had any effect on anything. They weren't trying to keep the show on the air forever, just finish telling their story. HBO cut them off one season short.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/michael-mann-david-milch-interview-luck-horses-cancellation.html?mid=twitter_vulture

there was gonna be a flood and a fire!

Hearst left at the end of Season 3, though he sort of won. Season 4 would have dealt with the fallout of the elections. xposts

Sepinwall interviews Milch about the finale.

I didn't realise that Milch new the end of Deadwood was...the end. I thought that scene at the end was too perfect.

Thought Luck really found its way towards the end there. Also thought the last two eps got the Mann-style really well. I will miss it.

That episode was amazing.

Yeah. Bittersweet. I really liked this show a lot.

Up there I meant "knew" and not "new.

god that last episode was great-- so sad its over

"whats the story with us?"
"i suspect in the long run, we all go broke"

i want to see a "making of" that explains how the fuck they shot the racing scenes

HBO's cancellation of the beleagured horseracing drama "Luck" cost the network $35 million, according to an earnings report released by Time Warner Wednesday.

Time Warner, which owns the premium cable provider, said it suffered the "impairment" because of the series' cancellation in its first season following the death of three horses.

The show had already started production on its second season, and most of the costs were attached to shutting down production during that unaired season, resulting in the $35 million writedown, HBO said.

so that's how much a horse costs

they can make it back, go hard on the derby this wkend

Not sure if this is upthread, but a very sobering piece about the horse racing industry:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/30/us/breakdown-horses-series.html

http://www.followhorseracing.com/en/the-latest/blogs/2013/02/17/out-of-luck-episode-1-buy-low-sell-high/

holy cow that horse run very good.

― ⚓ (gr8080), Monday, January 9, 2012 6:37 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/david-milch-made-100m-gambled-866184

Damn, he looks pretty good for 70.