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

Pilot shooting this month.

Dustin Hoffman has agreed to do television, signing on to star in David Milch's new HBO project "Luck," according to Variety.

HBO last year ordered a pilot for the drama, which revolves around the world of horse racing and betting. The combination of Milch and now Hoffman -- plus previously announced director/executive producer Michael Mann -- would seem to make "Luck" all but a lock for an eventual series greenlight.

Dennis Farina and John Ortiz are also part of "Luck," which will begin filming this month, Variety said.

will watch

super-psyched

super-psyched seconded

man, I've heard so much crazy shit about milch, hope to god this actually coalesces into something watchable.
love dude so much tho

As long as the horses don't levitate.

srsly is there a milch biog out there? or even a good, long mag piece?

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact_singer?currentPage=all

When was the last time that Hoffman did anything worthwhile?

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

treme was dreadful. i'm going to give boardwalk maybe a couple more episodes. the most recent one was the least bad so far but still hard work.

when was the last good hbo drama? feel like the answer is oz tbh.

are you joking?

sopranos? wire? 6 ft under?

lol forgot the wire

in my defence, that was nearly 100 blog years ago

oz was before blogs even existed!

slock, check your gmail

treme is great, y'all are high

The 2006 film "Miami Vice," a remake of the television show with very little evidence of that heritage, was seen as a creative misstep, and it grossed a lukewarm $164 million worldwide (its production budget was $135 million).

guess the LA Times doesn't read the blogosphere.

Also ya'll are crazy. Treme was great, Deadwood is the best show ever made, Rome was solid fun, In Treatment has been very good, and Boardwalk Empire is just now finding it's legs.

rome was awesome

what was the last good hbo drama? feels like the answer is arli$$

BTW, in that UPenn link up above, Milch reads the pilot script for Luck (reads all the parts and the directions and everything) and it's good.

They just put up a Q&A with Milch at the LA Times:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/10/david-milch-hopes-for-visceral-experience-with-hbos-luck.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f71b5774-dd62-11df-beb7-00144feabdc0.html

next movie projects are battle of agincourt and 50s chicago gangsters

Another Michael Mann interview

Oops, same link as caek.

David Milch and Michael Mann are two of the most imposing intellects and autodidacts in the biz, so the notion of them collaborating is almost mind-boggling.

I would kill a man if it would ensure that Agincourt gets made.

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?

― by another name (amateurist), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 5:32 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark

For some reason I thought Walter Hill was dead... guess I was thinking of George Roy Hill.

Can you really call Milch an autodidact when he graduated from Yale? Unless you're saying he's like... a student of life or something.

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.

― cathy: ACK-er (s1ocki), Tuesday, October 12, 2010 10:00 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

I felt the exact same way about Treme... I think the scene where Bunk gets his teeth knocked out by a cop really made me realize how enormously unpleasant watching the show made me feel. Boardwalk's airier and more fun to me though, even if it's way more violent and gross.

the 67-year-old filmmaker has shown a profound gift for connecting human emotion, music, color and light on the big screen

lol trying to write abt wtf michael mann is up to

from the article:

Luck is the latest example of talent from the big screen crossing over to TV and boasts a cast that includes Dustin Hoffman, playing a seasoned gambler, Nick Nolte and Dennis Farina, a former cop Mann first worked with 22 years ago on his TV series Crime Story.

didn't they first work together on Thief?

i waited on treme until i could watch the whole season in one week and it felt like a massive perfect movie.

you mean massively boring imperfect boo-vie

sorry, yes, that's clearly what i mean.

np

man I thought this was supposed to start airing in January. now they're saying autumn of 2011.

got to side w/team slocki over team forks when it comes to tremé, sorry john

tremé was awful, overbearing forcefeeing of david simon's BIG VIEWS. i feared boardwalk empire had a similar level of heaviness/tediousness (i didn't watch episode 2 till this week) but i love it now, it is worth sticking with.

overestimating the BIG VIEWS argument of Treme imo.

but i think when your mouthpiece commits suicide it is an intentional complication of those big views.

David Milch is a total school of life autodidact. That New Yorker profile is one of the most fascinating things I've ever read. The guy's a genius, and I almost got the impression the Ivy League had more to gain from him than he it.

Here's a taste:

[Robert Penn] Warren had arranged for Milch to begin teaching seminars in fiction and poetry at Yale that year and to work on a two-volume textbook anthology of American literature that he and Lewis were editing with Cleanth Brooks. It didn’t take Milch long to acquire a cult following; his classroom style was vibrant, earthy, and often derisively funny, and details of his avocational exploits enhanced his mystique. For instance, he was a gambler who knew a great deal about horse racing and was writing a screenplay set at a racetrack. (Were his students also aware that he was an alcoholic and a heroin addict?) Depending on how one interprets the data, Milch was either bedevilled by self-destructive urges or possessed of keen survival skills that sustained him in the face of unhealthy compulsions. A superior student—he graduated summa cum laude and won the prize given for the highest achievement in English—he was an unlikely member of the jock fraternity (Delta Kappa Epsilon; George W. Bush, president), which provided a venue for his main extracurricular activity: drinking.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact_singer

Some great Milch stuff at The Idea of the Writer. His lectures tend to be more about his experiences than anything else, but they're still enjoyable. I seem to remember really liking the USC Religious course one myself.

In fact that might be place where he discusses John from Cincinnati being about preventing genocide through mercantilism.

man, i would say treme is three (3) times as good as john from cincinnati
and (almost?) as good as deadwood

Dude, Treme is nowhere near Deadwood quality. Deadwood was just a zillion times more entertaining, the only thing that kept me watching Treme was the great cast, and I doubt there's any force of nature that could get me to watch a second, John Goodman-less season.

shrug

Deadwood is the greatest show of all time. Treme is very good, but it's about equal with John from Cincinnati (though for different reasons). Treme has a lot of potential and a great community vibe, so I think it's worth sticking with.

the Cult of Milch makes me a little suspicious/skeptical, honestly. i liked deadwood a lot but it was really pretentious, and some episodes just didn't work. it felt like twin peaks levels of bad-with-the-good sometimes.

pretty sure it wasn't 'the greatest show of all time.' it had a couple of the same flaws as 'boardwalk empire' -- gratingly 'upscale' violence against women, bit slow -- though obviously it pisses all over 'boardwalk empire' [via ian mcshane crushing it].

How many dramatic TV shows have been better than Deadwood? You could probably count them on one hand. I'm not saying it was perfect, but 'pretentious' doesn't really scan as a great criticism to me, or at least not one that I really care about. I mean, I don't have anything really interesting to say about the show except that I liked it a whole lot, but is pretention really bad if the show is still massively entertaining? Is it really a lot more pretentious than The Wire? That's a show which I love but also found much more wearying with its laser-like focus on being an IMPORTANT show about IMPORTANT things. I guess either it works for you or it doesn't.

i'd put deadwood in top ten tv dramas

I think Deadwood is very enjoyable on a surface level. I don't know what's pretentious about that. John from Cincinnati was probably pretty pretentious though. Also 'upscale violence against women' - yawn.

deadwood was amazing but it's lack of a conclusion hurts the series as a whole I feel, or think; I mean I never finished watching it once it got cancelled. maybe I should.

I think HBO has had a solid run with dramas again lately. Boardwalk Empire and Treme are both excellent.

It's a shame that Deadwood got cancelled, but it was hugely successful at what it wanted to do during its run, so I can't hold anything against them. Even the third season, which I found to be unsatisfying first time through, improves immeasurably upon second viewing.

The last shot is pretty depressing, which sort of flies against the optimism of the series, but it's fitting in its own way.

i liked the first season of deadwood okay but i couldnt really get into the 2nd. mcshane was great, but i felt like i had enough.

did u watch the third

no should i

tbh i thought most of dude's "shakespearean command of language" was a lot of lorem ipsum mumbo-jumbo

ha, yes, i'm listening to these idea of the writer lectures and most of the sentences remind me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously

Season 3's the worst so I dunno if I could recommend it to someone who was sick of the show by s2, but there's some cool stuff in there... like one of the most memorable fight scenes I've ever seen on film or tv.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un1XLmK84Vw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeS6y6mbUzY

Now you don't need to bother!

Also 'upscale violence against women' - yawn.

― No Good, Scrunty-Looking, Narf Herder (Gukbe), Saturday, October 30, 2010 2:36 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

shrug

all im saying is these shows are a bit too tasteful

but 'boardwalk' is way way worse on that score

think 'deadwood' had a pretty good non-conclusion conclusion -- it always ducked the really massive 'oh shit' possibilities, not just in the third season

Boardwalk is too tasteful? I don't follow you. It doesn't seem very tasteful to me.

Deadwood wasn't cancelled, which just adds to the myth. It simply stopped. But then again, Milch et al. sort of boxed themselves in by using real characters. When one of your major villains is a future US senator, you can't just kill the guy off.

the way deadwood ended def brought it down a notch a two ime - still v classic tho

original idea was to include the historical flood and fire that each destroyed the town and other wild shit - iirc hbo canceled it then changed their mind but milch was already working on that piece john from cinini so he was gonna do two movie length eps then that never happened neither - agreed it couldve been more compelling if he didnt worry abt historical feality

Yeah, I could've dealt with season 3 ending the way it did if I knew there was more coming, but for that to just be IT - eugh

can we go easy on the deadwood details? planning to watch it at xmas.

guys caek still hasnt seen star wars so just chill

yeah i mean you can talk about star wars vs. beverly hills buntz in generalities but please no details

SPOLIER bullock and swerengen get gay married final ep is their honeymoon in CINCINNATI

Dan VS The Captain was one of the most intense things i've ever seen in a drama. Kinda feel like rewatching deadwood again now!

the season 1 veronica mars shit was the coldest shit i've ever seen

the movie length pieces never ever ever happening + john in cinci being difficult to justify really soured me on deadwood in retrospect.

kind of surprised major #teamolyphant bro s1ocki has not seen s2-3

i dont like frowny deadwood/diehard olyphant

i accidentally wrote that in caps, shoulda left it like that

sardonic justified olyphant is better though i always liked the fact that in deadwood his character was pretty much insane

ya i like olyphant with a lil twinkle in his eye

he was really good in 'the crazies' too imo though that movie was kinda bullshit

the season 1 veronica mars shit was the coldest shit i've ever seen

― omar little, Saturday, October 30, 2010 2:18 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

I had to think about this for a minutebefore I realized it wasn't a non sequitur! I think that was the first time I ever noticed Kristen Bell, and yeah that episode was amazing IMO.

That ep is vital, too, because it marks a real shift in the show. I've told lots of folks on the fence about Deadwood after one or two eps to make it to the Kristen Bell ep, which really emphasizes the show's theme of degrees of evil. Like there;s evil, then there's evil so evil it makes the first evil only seem modestly evil.

ha totally, at 1st yr all this swerengn fellow is quite awful, by the end hes a saint in comparison

i always liked the fact that in deadwood his character was pretty much insane

― omar little, Saturday, October 30, 2010 2:29 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its a more realistic view of a moralist than usual 4 sure

Yeah when he's introduced you're just like oh here's our squarejawed noble hero, but eventually it just turns out that he's a bully and a dickhead?

and awesome

Deadwood is def my fave show ever. Please do not compare it to Boardwalk Empire.

Joan Allen has joined for an arc.

The challenges of filming at Santa Anita.

Despite some logistical challenges and ensuing "mental stress," HBO is "thrilled beyond belief" to be filming the high-profile drama at Santa Anita, said Henry Bronchtein, the co-executive producer of "Luck."

looking forward to this getting cancelled in the middle of the story

Milch on Zenyatta and the Breeders' Cup Classic
http://www.drf.com/news/final-and-deepest-gift-zenyatta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4cgvV9m6mE

Michael Gambon on board as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8yOQJ288GQ&feature=player_embedded

yeah that looks frickin sweet

it'll be nice to see hoffman doing something substantial again

Wow--nice.

this looks awesome

"i cast tom waits as nick nolte as a kentucky trainer with a lot of mileage in his past"

horse riding sequence looked surprisingly exciting. also I think I spotted a very Mann-ish chair-kicking shot.

sorta feel like this and treme's second season might force my hand to get hbo finally

lol you watch treme

not lol. no lols. stern serious lectures you watch treme.

this board's derision for treme mystifies me but hey ymmv

I don't think it was just this board

yeah i guess there was the boston herald too
http://www.metacritic.com/tv/treme/season-1/critic-reviews

yes a lot of critics gave treme As when it came out

If they still liked it when the season ended I dunno, but few pro critics were like "I shit on this show about New Orleans from the Wire guy" when it came out

Treme is great.

I didn't actually mean critics though. I don't know anyone irl who liked it and a lot of people who strongly disliked it.

i don't really talk to anybody irl about television tbh

Unfortunately 90% of my conversations are pop-culture based

i'm not saying that with any pride btw, it's just that most of my friends watch different tv than i like
and i can't see chatting up the work folks with "that modern family is a SCREAM, rite?"

My father-in-law liked it but he's a professional musician who has probably skipped out of many cab fares in his day so I think he's biased

Treme is great. suckers walked into it expecting The Wire set in New Orleans and got mad that it was a different show.

treme is dope. gotta say that luck looks awesome, too. wish i had hbo, might have to re-up on that.

treme was really good. different from simon's other stuff but who wants him to do exactly the same thing over and over? I don't. glad to see him out of baltimore for a change.

luck looks good. HBO has some good stuff, again, after a year or two there where it was getting kind of bankrupt.

I have high hopes for Armando Ianucci's upcoming HBO show "Veep"

I didn't like Treme much, but what I like even less is people who say I didn't like it because it wasn't "The Wire."

What do I know, though, I liked John from Cincinnati a whole lot.

u only liked John from Cincinnati bc it took place in an old timey western frontier town

xpost

yeah i realize thats a disingenuous throwaway remark, sorry.

i loved John from Cincinnati too

I loved John from Cincinnati with the Milch commentary track on and the regular audio track off.

when do we get a tv show created by the cohen bros

Not too surprising:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-mann-david-milch-split-181092

i'm actually really surprised mann had that big a hand in it in the first place. i figured it'd be a thing where he just directs the pilot and slaps his name on the show a la scorsese & boardwalk empire, but according to this:

After what an HBO source describes as "serious" discussions, Milch has the final word on scripts, but Mann decides everything else, from casting to cutting to music. Clearly that is not a situation to which Milch, the Emmy-winning writer-producer of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, has lately been accustomed.

rad, cochi loco is in this

mann loves ortiz.

Mann decides everything else, from casting to cutting to music.

wonder who else is directing

Terry George and Allen Coulter apparently (me neither).

HBO's gonna have their 'house' guys direct it like they do with every show.

Didn't Terry George do Hotel Rwanda?

Totally inevitable. Two of the smartest, toughest, most head-strong, most perfectionist auteurs in the biz, collaborating? Ha. I'd watch a show about their behind the scenes fights.

Premieres in January.

trailer

http://www.slashfilm.com/tv-trailer-michael-manndirected-hbo-drama-series-luck-starring-dustin-hoffman-nick-nolte/

This better be good

The pilot is going to debut after the Boardwalk Empire finale on Dec. 11, with the season starting proper in January.

the pilot was pretty dope

I liked it. There was some discussion on the sandbox TV thread, maybe I'll copy it over when sandbox comes back

downloads furiously

I liked it. It was confusing, but pretty.

when does the season start

i bet the horse betting stuff is gonna confuse the crap outta me

think it starts at the end of the month

yeah the real premier is Jan. 29 (which I assume will be the pilot showing again, with a new ep on Feb 5)

The pilot for this was insanely good.

I just love Milch's writing. It's like otherworldly Shakespeare, in that it takes you a bit to get into the rhythms, etc., but once you do, you feel much more connected to it. You have to PAY. ATTENTION. I like that he doesn't seem concerned with realism in his dialog at all, but it also seems like whatever the style becomes, it will have its own consistency, and therefore will become more comfortable/decipherable for the viewer over time.

so this pilot ain't on HBO Go?

no shockingly!

probably cos it was a sneak preview deal

mordy i can't seem to reply to you on facebook, but i'm okay waiting

its on teh torrents just fyi

holy cow that horse run very good.

Pilot is Michael Mann, though, right? I wonder who they got to direct the other eps. Probably called Walter Hill off the bench again, I hope.

that horse run very good

from the sound of things Mann was heavily involved throughout

Since it's an HBO drama, the rest are probably directed by Tim van Patten, Allen Coulter, and company.

And a quick look at IMDB gives the directors of the subsequent episodes as Terry George, Allen Coulter, Philip Noyce, Brian Kirk, Henry Bronchtein and Mimi Leder

I found the incessant use of music on the pilot incredibly annoying and the starry casting a bit distracting. Didn't really feel any real Milchian zing in the dialogue. A little underwhelmed all round.

possibly just me but i found a couple of the accents incomprehensible

dustin hoffman was amazing i thought

looked fantastic of course

not much of a starry cast, i thought? just nolte + hoffman and both had really subtle performances imo

Jose Yero's accent takes some close listening.

Was pretta hypes to see Richard Kind show up. He could be in every show and movie and i probably wouldn't complain. But yeah, somewhat underwhelmed by this. Deadwood came out swinging, it announced itself. So many memorable moments all these years later from that pilot. I'm not at all sure what this is going to be after the first episode.

that cajun can pump

music for the last race btw, knew i recognized it from somewhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut20H-r9HiM

i just rewatched this, it is amazing

finally watched this, I think I liked it, kinda felt like a high end csi miami, i thought he speed and power of the horses way portrayed really well

didnt feel that mannish tho

or that milchish either now that I think abt it, tho the degraded milieu as single organism will prob reveal itself as the show goes on

jockey girl is cute

horse execution was sad

hoffman provoked the suspicion of the boss guy via dictaphone in order to lay a guilt trip on him, p deft, looks like hes out for revenge

yeah this looks like it's gonna be p sweet

yeah I didn't think there was that much of a Mann feel to it either. and I think the pilot is the only one he actually directed in the first season

I'm willing to bet the visual palette he established, esp. w/ regards to the horse-racing scenes, will be stuck to pretty closely.

jockey girl is cute

― lag∞n, Friday, 20 January 2012 01:57 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

she has a lot of sex in rome season 1

i think I watched most of that but dont remember anything, who was she

yeah i was trying to think who she played cuz damn

http://img.poptower.com/pic-43585/rome-hbo-tv-show.jpg

did it with an old lady and her brother iirc (i do recall correctly)

wait hang on

no i'm right. had a moment of total panic then when i thought i'd misremembered who she had sex with.

lol

a GIS of her is nsfw

i like the ridiculous camera movement and big sound when hoffmann throws his chair back, and then his confused old man thing when he realises he's torn his buttons

yeah the whole tone of the show was v unusual

a curious cable drama, if you will.

is it actually on HBO yet?

starts next sunday the 29th

the pilot is on on-demand now tho (at least on nyc cablevision)

Just noticing that not only is the pilot on three times in a row on Sunday night, it is on ever HBO channel except for HBO Family on Monday night at the same time.

every*

god i haven't been able to write 'ever' or 'every' properly all day today.

have you every

ever time i tell you

Wish HBO Family had an alternate version, with just the horses.

couple of Dai1y Rac1ng F0rm articles people might find interesting (disclosure - this is where I work)

Milch interview
http://www.drf.com/news/new-drama-luck-reveals-racing-milch-sees-it

Character bios and some of the real-life people who inspired the characters
http://www.drf.com/news/hbos-luck-cast-characters-real-life-inspirations

they are really pushing this as of late, lotta advertising

yeah it's on pretty much every bus and subway tunnel here. TV ads ran during the Golden Globes.

Im going to Santa Anita this weekend to celebrate

ad running during justified, which is a smart buy

Im going to Santa Anita this weekend to celebrate

haha nice, are you playing the "Sunshine Millions Luck Pick Six"

they really are going all out with the tie-ins

SA has some good races Saturday

dmr tell us abt yr relationship to the horse racing world

theres a fucking bikini contest tomorrow. lucky for all involved its gonna be like 85 degrees out.

I enjoyed this!

So, I've been shooting a longterm project at another SoCal racetrack for a couple of years now. Should I feel delighted or irritated that the sport is back in the public eye? I'm no Michael Mann, but I have some pretty sweet race shots.

Stills a little on the soft side, but there you go:
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4098/4888023969_421b518f7c.jpg
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4096/4888023021_e89108ba30.jpg
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4097/4888626158_affba24668.jpg

what is this all abt, tel

tell us of the racing

I've just been documenting the track and the people that go there, really. I don't know what it will be or is "about". Track is right next to LAX , takes up a hugely outsize parcel of real estate given how little money it makes and has been rumored to be demolished for a few years now. So I've just been hanging out during racing seasons, accumulating footage, talking to people, etc.

I actually don't do a lot of betting but I am still a "Gold Card" holder, haha. I get offers in the mail, cheap beers and such.

can u explain the structure of a pick six, its some sort of knockout pool no

What the show sort of confirmed for me is the sense I get of this being every bit the subculture it seems to be. I don't claim to understand the majority of the pageantry, ritual and lingo involved but race fans capacity for this stuff amazes me.

xp - I think so? Or some kind of accumulator?

From what I see, the majority of the jockeys and trainers are Latino, not sure if this goes for the owners and breeders too.

yeah i was v v confused about how a pick six works, but also i can't understand how craps work either

It's certainly strikingly different to the idea of what horse racing is in the UK, though I've never actually been to Santa Anita or the Kentucky Derby or any of those things. Would love to go.

adamrl otm: i've only been to the race track a few times, only bet on a few races and p much broke even, but hanging out, drinking bloody marys with buddies, and just soaking up this totally weird and foreign vibe that is at the same time toally american and familiar was super fun and way more interesting than i had expected

yah the track is kinda magical ime, tho ive only been a few times too

its really a trip getting excited when everyone else around you gets excited, and then looking around in the same instant and seeing dozens of crestfallen or outright enraged people

thinking abt it the pilot really did capture that heighten energy well didnt it

Yeah, I think that is the abiding memory of the track for me. That it is this regular cycle of almost 30 mins of really quite boring, humdrum ritual followed by two minutes of rising tension/excitement/disappointment that ends in a furious ten seconds of screaming...then starts all over again. I want to do a wide shot where I just train my camera on the crowd for the duration of a race and watch their reaction. Love it when you get these huge, lumbering guys jumping up onto their seats to watch the finale.

^^all this otm but you forgot the alcohol part

and hot dogs

and horses

yeah, the whole "these huge animals that can't talk to anyone are the athletes" thing is really a big part of what makes it so weird, too. it def becomes more apparent when watching racing on tv than being at the track, but i'm really looking forward to how milch plays w/ that.

luck bronys

dmr tell us abt yr relationship to the horse racing world

I'm the managing editor for web at the Form. worked there 8+ years, before that my only involvement in racing was as a fan. group of college friends started road-tripping to the Ky Derby every year and I got hooked.

can u explain the structure of a pick six, its some sort of knockout pool no

pick six is just, pick the winners of six races in a row. I guess you could call it a knockout pool because if you miss one of the winners, you lose.

xp - I think so? Or some kind of accumulator?

the accumulator part is that if no one hits the pick six on a given day (it can be really hard to hit if some longshots win) then they pay out part of the pool as a consolation prize to people who got 5 out of 6 and hold the rest as a bonus jackpot for the next days pick 6. if no one hits the pick six for a few days in a row then that jackpot can get really huge which is what happens in the Luck pilot episode

ok but it looked like some of the races they could have had any horse win, and some they needed a specific horse to win?

yeah, the pick six costs more depending on the amount of houses you are picking to win. so they hedged picking only the one in that one round and then had the cash to spread across a number of different horses in other rounds

^^^

i dont think that's exactly right cause were it true in situations where theres a lot of rolled over money itd make sense just to bet every horse, my impression was that there was an overall cap for the number of horses you could bet in all six races

ok that would make sense

not really. the thing is with each horse you bet the cost of the ticket goes up exponentially

like if you played the field on each race you tick would cost a billion dollars

right, what did they spend on their ticket? $20k?

when you have a large carryover there are like huge conglomerates that pole together to buy a $10,000 ticket

the pick 6 is not set uo to be user friendly

right, what did they spend on their ticket? $20k?

I think they bet $800-something

handicapping wonks who are much wonkier than me (I don't bet pick sixes, costs too much $$$$) claimed that the ticket as written out on "Jerry's" napkin should have cost $3K

looking forward to dmr's posts itt as much as i am looking forward to this show!!

hahaha. hi-5

not really. the thing is with each horse you bet the cost of the ticket goes up exponentially

― Aerosol, Friday, January 27, 2012 3:41 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tbf this sounds a lot more like what I said than what u did

or what moldy did

lol ipad

i dont think that's exactly right cause were it true in situations where theres a lot of rolled over money itd make sense just to bet every horse

i was responding to this. just saying that this ticket would not be cost effective

ah so yes ty for that info it was I think the missing piece

btw factoid it is often a winning proposition to buy every lottery ticket once the pots get big enough, just not logistically feasible

lol

My aunt and uncle paid for their daughter's wdding with a pick-six win.

Ok, just saw the pilot. Not bad, not amazing. The soundtrack--Sigur Ros as a horse is euthanized in particular--were distracting. Felt rather unengaged during most of it, yet when it was over I wanted to see more.

No Deadwood, not yet anyway, but I'll keep watching.

Could do without the Massive Attack theme song (good song, wrong fit), the cajun guy, the handsome picks guru, and Dustin Hoffman. Otherwise, good stuff.

idk how anyone can do without dustin hoffman

It's easy.

dustin is best

i'm a total dustin hoffman stan after seeing straight time. his performance in that one is one of the most committed and convincing and _physical_ performances i've seen.

super dope movie 4 sure

yeah it's the best basically

and there's a connection in that michael mann did an uncredited rewrite on straight time.

wow did not know that

I like Dustin's Hoffman's good performances. I did not care for him in the pilot of Luck, and also I did not care for him in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

Dustin's Hoffman's

the review in nyer says he kinda just plays it as a cypher the whole time and gives u nothing to care abt but im gonna go ahead and see for myself

yeah from evidence of pilot episode, he is not doing much to make his character likable (sp?) or easy to read

like-able?? jesus that word looks wrong no matter how i spell it.

likeable often confounds me as well

second episode pretty great too

how are you seeing episode 2-- is it on demand already?

Ive read that it's on hbo go

yeah, it's on hbo go

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/and-then-the-camera-goes-up-the-jockeys-ass-a-close-look-at-luck

Haven't seen the show, but that NYT descrip of "detente" btwn Milch and Mann made me laugh. They must've nearly gouged each other's eyes out.

haha that piece was so these two guys

Written by David Carr (main subject in the documentary Page One), who's very Milch-ian himself.

Renewed btw.

niiice.

now if he can somehow weave in john from cincinnati characters

that group of hairlips all work at the track now

Here's a good article on one of themes of the pilot episode:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1137939/index.htm

can't get that link to work, is it about Alydar?

I don't want to say what it is due to being sort of an episode spoiler?

first episode has aired... i think spoilers for it are fair game now?

Okay. It's about horse injuries.

now if he can somehow weave in john from cincinnati characters

Levitating horse?

was thinking surfing on horse but not sure if that realistic

***SPOILER***

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/specials/weirdflorida/blog/Horse_surfing.jpg

Could it be a holy ghost horse?

u think u can double cross ppl or lie on ur word + ur promises LIKE OUR MUSLIM PRESIDENT FROM KENYA?!?

I'm loving this. And yes the birther bit was a nice touch.

Dustin Hoffman + Miami Vice's Cochi Loco

loving John Ortiz on twitter. he seems like a bro. Escalante is the best character.

I'm starting to think that Nolte's character is gonna be this series' Ellsworth. He's even got a pooch as a sidekick.

Second episode definitely better than the first, or maybe I'm just growing into the show more. That birther bit, and that whole scene, really, was hysterical.

thinking abt it, it's amazing how much set-up they've packed into these 1st 2 eps

the scene between Ace and Gus where they explained Ace's prison stint was really clunky. I guess the writers just wanted to get the whole backstory out there in one shot but it didn't really make sense to have them tell each other a drawn-out story that they both already knew.

is episode 3 on HBO Go now or was it only the second ep that they put up early?

just second ep. third isn't up yet.

the scene between Ace and Gus where they explained Ace's prison stint was really clunky. I guess the writers just wanted to get the whole backstory out there in one shot but it didn't really make sense to have them tell each other a drawn-out story that they both already knew.

yeah it was jarring how out of character this was compared to everything else

By the way this is the Alydar story I was referring to upthread, the real-life version of the Delphi plotline. Had not ever heard about this until Luck came out.

Suspicious death

On November 13, 1990, Alydar appeared to have shattered his right hind leg in his stall at Calumet Farms in Lexington, Kentucky. Emergency surgery was performed the next day in an attempt to repair the injury, but the leg broke again. On November 15, Alydar was euthanized. At the time the owner of Calumet Farm was in dire trouble financially, and suspicions of foul play by the management were raised. John Thomas (J.T.) Lundy was indicted and convicted in 2000 on separate fraud charges and served nearly four years in prison. The farm's former attorney, Gary Matthews, was also convicted and received a 21-month prison sentence.

In Houston Federal Court, MIT Professor George Pratt testified that Alydar had to have been killed.[3] He speculated that someone had tied the end of a rope around Alydar's leg and attached the other end of the rope to a truck that could easily have been driven into the stallion barn. The truck then took off, pulling Alydar's leg from underneath him until it snapped; he testified that the force involved was at least three times that which a horse was able to exert. About five days before Alydar's injury his original night watchman, Harold "Cowboy" Kipp, testified that he was at work on the farm when he was ordered to take Tuesday, November 13th off.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alydar

Alydar was second in the 1978 Derby, Preakness and Belmont behind Affirmed, who won the Triple Crown

yeesh. so it was like an insurance scam or?

allegedly yeah. but never proven it court that the death wasn't an accident.

in court

liked this one better than #2.

i think i always need a good 4 or five episodes w/ milch before i get in the groove though.

I dug this episode a lot.

after being confounded by episode 2, gf and I have decided to let this sit on the dvr until about episode 5 or 6 to see if the immersion method improves things. Good to know people are liking it though.

MZS on Episode 3 and why should stick it out

I think he's seen the whole season though.

The most resonant scene in the episode, if you're looking for critical metaphors, is the one in which the four amigos (who name their stable 4A) go to visit Escalante, hear an itemized tutorial on what it costs to train Mon Gateau, then ask if they can get to know the animal. Escalante hands each of them a carrot and tells them how to offer it to the horse. "Keep your hand open," he warns them. The scene cuts after successive images of the four men holding out carrots and the horse regarding them warily.

^^loved this scene, especially the way it ended like that

Best thing about this episode: the promise that Joan Allen will be appearing in future ones.

dont like that the derivative kid's name is nathan israel

love that they are using the bbq @ ep's end

haha yeah that was a nice touch

Missed that.

re the horse scene and the cosmicness of horse scenes in general are a strong contrast to the pettiness of the humans, def my fav thing abt the show so far

it dawns on them that they are meeting this horse, its a living thing that they have a connection with now and they should make some sort of gesture and they all kinda lose it

overall my enjoyment of the show has been intermittent, feels a lil uneven idk

the scene w/escalante in his house w/the vet when he says you wanna do it vibed the most mannian to date, i guess he didnt direct that ep tho

it dawns on them that they are meeting this horse, its a living thing that they have a connection with now and they should make some sort of gesture and they all kinda lose it

otm, also i feel the symbolism of them standing with their hands open in front of an unpredictable beast after receiving a laundry list of expenses is some very cool ~foreshadowing~

yeah good point do they own the horse or does the horse... own them

i eat all your carrots i eat them up

irl lol

just imagining the horse saying that to them

what if mid-season we started hearing all the horses' inner-dialogue

in the voices of bruce willis + roseanne barr

lolz i had the idea that s2 should be like the movie 'racing stripes' - talking horses all the time

when I first saw the pilot I was kind of annoyed that they had a fatal breakdown so early on. like "really, they had to go there in the pilot??"

but as you watch more episodes I feel like that scene adds tension to every racing scene. you're watching these spindly legs pound the ground and wondering whether one little step is gonna take you back to that gruesome scene from the pilot. I think that's why they put it in the first episode, to show the stakes and make you feel how the trainers feel, that even when things are going great you're one little stumble away from disaster

also presumably bc mann wanted the opportunity to direct the fuck out that scene and not leave it for someone to do in a later episode

the racing scenes are p intense/terrifying

i was thinking about how much work they must be logistically-- like three horses running close together from an aerial shot, then the same three horses in the same formation from a tracking shot, cut to a 2nd tracking shot, etc

yeah they must have to run and film each race multiple times to make the various racing "moves" happen at the right time for the narrative

like "so-and-so drops back early, is boxed along the rail, eyeballs his rival but finally pulls away" ... it's got to be really hard to make a whole bunch of horses end up with a scripted result like that

totally-- it makes the racing scenes all the more exciting to watch imo

the other thing I like about the show is how it represents the rhythms and routines of track life, like each episode starts with people waking up, there's morning workouts, then a big crescendo for the afternoon's races -- maybe you win, maybe you lose, let's go talk it over at the bar and get ready to do it all again tomorrow

always ends with Ace and Gus shooting the shit in Ace's bedroom

is it just me or does it seem like no one is watching this? (not on ILX particularly, but like, out in the world). I don't really hear anyone talk about it.

I think they fucked up by having episode 2 air against the Super Bowl. I know it was already renewed and the ratings are supposed to be ok but doesn't really seem to have much buzz except among critics.

i could def see this being not popular

btw why is ace so intent on sending this kid to annoy his enemy

and ace is kinda big shot huh he mumbles something and the bord moves $50m like nbd

I thought the kid was going to be the go-between he said he needed in episode 2.

refresh my memory if you dont mind

I think John From Cincinnati did a lot to derail the Milch train, tbh. Like, I loved Deadwood and I think Michael Mann is a genius, but I haven't even downloaded this yet, and that's free.

interesting

so many characters on this show are hard to understand

like from one scene to the next you go from the trainer with the difficult Spanish accent (that other characters joke about not understanding), to the trainer who just mumbles shit under his breath and talks to himself, to the guy who stammers

it seems like Milch wants it to be a "thing" (the importance of getting good information vs. all these communication barriers or something)

but with all that + the racing jargon it seems like he's holding the audience at arm's length a bit and almost wants to make it as tough as possible to know wtf is going on

We're also living in the golden age of serialized TV - even the good comedies are serialized, to a degree - and there are only so many hours in the day. My wife and I have been catching up with Community, then we want to see season two of Justified, then we (she?) wants to watch Downton Abbey. And there a whole bunch queued up after that before we can get around the Luck. There are only so many narratives we can juggle at once, I guess.

well be sure and check back in once you watch it

re the difficulty in understanding wtf people r saying, it sounds like its even recorded or mixed weird, bad choice imho

I think John From Cincinnati did a lot to derail the Milch train, tbh. Like, I loved Deadwood and I think Michael Mann is a genius, but I haven't even downloaded this yet, and that's free.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:58 AM (35 minutes ago)

ha i didnt watch deadwood until watching all of JFC and loving it

best horse racing scene ever filmed btw is climax of 1979 'black stallion'

watch it.

Agreed that Milch is dedicating himself to increasing the incomprehensibility with each show, and that it will probably hurt the audience - I really like the fact that I have to watch all these twice to really figure out what is up, though. (And the show's already been renewed for S2 afaik)

The Ace-Gus relationship (older married couple) seems like a more successful riff on the JfC subplot involving the hit men waiting Beckett-like in that motel and bickering - those scenes just went on forever to no real purpose, whereas the 'and how was your day, dear' codas with Ace and Gus seem really sweet emotionally and help to explain the plot.

I like how Nolte acts totally oblivious to the seething machinations of everybody around him, he's so focused on doing the right thing.

The Sports Illustrated article upthread is great if you want to understand the epidemic of horse breakdowns. I went into the 3rd ep knowing a lot more than I did before I read that

(And the show's already been renewed for S2 afaik)

it has, they're casting for extras at Santa Anita and start shooting at the end of the month

hm, next ep was directed by aussie phillip noyce

ratings dont look great but i dont really know what a sunday night hbo show is expected to do, esp. starting out; plus yeah, up against super bowl, the grammies, oscars in two weeks, they cant expect big #s those weeks

feel like there probably is a small female viewing base for this just based on subject matter

next ep was written by one of our (DRF's) columnists, Jay H0vdey

he's in the end credits of every ep as a staff writer but #4 he got the main credit at the opening

I guess at this point I should just fess up that I've seen the whole season (no spoilers). I was underwhelmed by episodes 2 and 3 after liking the pilot pretty well but it gets much better from here IMO.

i dont really know what a sunday night hbo show is expected to do, esp. starting out

I don't know either but I heard it was getting clobbered by Shameless in the same time slot

I would guess HBO probably takes the long view though, everyone watches these shows on DVR and DVD anyway

feel like there probably is a small female viewing base for this just based on subject matter

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yah this is a srs man show

i get to go to the races in AZ next weekend, so stoked

dmr how do i find out who's running on the 26th?

this website is less than helpful: http://www.rillitodowns.com/Racing/Race_Entries_%26_Results.html

sorry i should prob take this to a racing thread

btw i watched 1975 altman movie California Split last nite.

so so so good i immediately wanted to watch it again. not really a horse racing movie but it revolves around gambling in general but has a few horse racing scenes and exists in the same so-cal world as this show imo.

highly recommended supplemental viewing

super dope 4 sure

love that movie

gr80 I answered you on the other thread

thanks, dmr.

Fantastic direction in this latest

slo-mo race scene was kind of weird, mostly awesome

Was wondering why no discussion on this. Best episode yet, I say. The race was beautiful.

Thought the music in The Big Scene was a bad choice (too heavy-handed) but it was still pretty great.

Gary Stevens was awesome in this episode (he is a retired Hall of Fame jockey in real life btw)

The Ray Charles song at the end was cool too

The music didn't bother me. In terms of heavy handeadness it felt far less so than the Sigur Ros in ep 1.

Confession: I watched the first ep and was completely mystified about what ppl were talking about. I guess I don't understand racing/betting-speak , lol. But those fucking horses were beautiful, and I am so in love with Michael Mann I just watched in a happy daze. :/

Yr not alone.

As much as I like the show, I'm really waiting for the DVD so I can watch it with subtitles and start picking up on some of the nuances in the dialogue (hopefully). This is he I watched Zdeadwood after all.

*Deadwood, obvs

i find it v odd that people shout the numbers of the horse when they're watching the race, like "go 8, come on 8" etc...my dad is quite into betting and he brought me to the track tons of times as a kid, you always say the horse's name in my experience.

I can see them changing that to make it easier for the audience.

yeah i figure that's why. it does stick out tho and leads me to my other complaint. i've only watched ep1 but i felt they spelled out some things like this that didn't matter that much, when other parts were way more convoluted and hard to follow, just based on cryptic rapidfire dialogue.

still v much enjoyed the start though, for a first ep that wasn't bad at all.

It's worth sticking with. Episode 4 was great.

There are a few instances where character background exposition is a little clunky, even if its delivered in Milchian dialogue. I think in regards to the pick 6 thing, the complicated nature was part of the world-building and was also not entirely significant to enjoying the race itself (they explained what they needed to happen easily enough to know who they were rooting for).

plenty of people yell out the numbers, it's how you place your bet at the betting window ($5 to win on the 2, etc)

could be a difference of habits in U.S. racegoers vs European I guess

also kinda carries an implication that you're either A) an inexperienced bettor who plays random numbers and birthdays or B) an experienced bettor who plays every singe race every single day. either way you can't be bothered to learn all the names and just know "I've got the 4 in this one"

definitely would always place my bet quoting or writing the number, for sure, it's not even legal not to do so i think here.

but i guess yeah for hardcore gamblers it's not like they'd be thinking hugely of the name of the horse. though would they be saying "go 8" at all instead of just "come on" or "go" or whatever?

it just felt a bit odd to me, i've prob been to race meetings 40/50 times but not for a few years now.

the other thing is, at irish/uk meetings you have this v distinctive tannoy commentating on the race which says the horse's name constantly, i think that prompts people to respond with the horse's name as he mentions it making a move or whatever.

obv this would be weird in the show, but do us tracks have that? the nasal quality and distinctively tunnely audio is probably one of the stand-out essential things you hear at a race meeting in ireland/uk.

like literally the exact way the announcer says "white flag is raised... and there off" is like it's been systematically taught to each one.

I think they use the real Santa Anita track announcer in this show during some of the race sequences. Trevor Denman. He's an Aussie.

Not sure if that's exactly what you're talking about though.

though would they be saying "go 8" at all instead of just "come on" or "go" or whatever?

I dunno, people yell all kindsa stuff. horse's name, the number, jockey's name, random string of profanities (if losing)

i need subtitles for this show

was it just me or was there a snippet of the heat soundtrack used near end of first episode?

feel like there probably is a small female viewing base for this just based on subject matter

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:36 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

even smaller after the violent breakdown in the first ep

i kind of want pt anderson to direct a few episodes

i like how much the show lets/makes hoffman & farina be like legit old men

was surprised the guys tshirts were "Foray" stables, thought it was talked abt as four A & also thought theyd go for that misunderstanding joke

some of the dialogue after the dude takes the valium & his convo w/ jerry was not good

This show is a boring waste of time.

you're a boring waste of time, time wasting boring person

nb i have not watched the last episode so it could have gone to shit

first episode was pretty good; show is mostly people mumbling and then going to sleep

Caught up now. Genuinely moving episode.

Also it took place over two days. I was all 'wtf milch'.

Yeah I loved the last one, no stakes-raising, just quiet moments getting to know a bunch of the characters better. Richard Kind is killing it.

SYNTAX

you knew that claim wasn't going to work out but I'm glad they didn't kill off the horse

http://skreened.com/render-product/c/y/w/cywakgayiuaeasvfvizv/image.w174h200f3.jpg

their stable design is p sweet

was i just in a bad mood or was this the worst episode?

it was cool seeing the prisoners w/ horses farm though.

bad mood imo

They've shut down production on Season 2 because a third horse died.

well, they've suspended filming with horses

right the way I understood is not filming racing scenes but can film the actors

the latest death seems like bad luck. the horse reared, flipped, and hit its head while being led by a groom. didn't happen on set but it was a horse slated to be used on set.

I don't know much about the circumstances behind the two horses that died filming season 1.

they should retool the show, make it about racing speedboats instead.

Luck, brought to you by Elmer's

or they could make it brechtian and just have dudes wearing horse suits running around the track.

xpost LOL shit

Release from HBO:: "David Milch and Michael Mann together with HBO have decided to cease all future production on the series LUCK"

:---------------(

^long face

fuuuuuuuuuck

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbo-cancels-luck-horse-death-peta-dustin-hoffman-300201

Woah.

Nelly.

http://cordjefferson.tumblr.com/post/19312807665/hbo-ends-luck-after-horse-deaths

http://rlv.zcache.com/vintage_horse_horseshoe_greeting_card-p137217590912012058z7suj_400.jpg

The smug reaction to this on twitter is making me so furious.

Is there any sense of how far they got into shooting season two?

Poor Milch.

the thought of ~lost episodes~ is already killing me

hbo was probably willing to stick by this no matter how bad the ratings or reviews were, but when the only publicity around your show is that you're killing horses en masse... i guess this was a sad inevitability. hope milch moves onto something new and cool

the horse racing scenes were srsly the best part of the show

PETA is gonna be so smug about this

this is why we can't have nice things.

Here is this show that actually treats animals as characters in its show, giving you a sense of the connection a person can have with an animal. The poetry of the little tasks that comprise working with them on a day to day basis. There was a strong undercurrent of advocacy for animal rights in the show's themes and presentation, I thought. But now it's gone, probably to be replaced with another show about sexy vampires or whatev.

Is there any sense of how far they got into shooting season two?

two episodes in the can is what I've heard

yeah polyphonic, that's a seeming contradiction I've been thinking about a lot since those first two forses died. everything about this situation stnks.

how many horses die at santa anita every year when they're not making a tv show?

glad I never got beyond the pilot. maybe milch should go and finish fucking deadwood now.

can't wait for this to live on in comic book form

RIP to the three heroic horses who saved us from season 2

^^^FPable offensive imo

glad I never got beyond the pilot. maybe milch should go and finish fucking deadwood now.

― akm, Wednesday, March 14, 2012 9:08 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is never, ever going to happen, unfortunately.

can't wait for this to live on in comic book form

― if you ever leave me peggy, leave some propane at my door (zachlyon), Thursday, March 15, 2012 12:25 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ pretty LOL

I really want to know what happend to Last of the Ninth.

how many horses die at santa anita every year when they're not making a tv show?

― ⚓ (gr8080), Thursday, 15 March 2012 02:38 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf it's a jump course but 5 horses have died at cheltenham festival already this year (we're two days in)

what I'm wondering is how many (if any) horses died filming Seabiscuit, Secretariat, War Horse etc.

part of Seabiscuit was shot at Santa Anita

thought this column on Huff Post was pretty good

How incredible, and ultimately poignant, that 'Luck' made me care about the show's animals as much as it made me care about the ragged people in that downtrodden world. ... Because Milch and fellow executive producer Michael Mann were so wonderful at making these horses come alive as individuals, it's even harder now to contemplate them dying for the sake of art, as magical as that art might be.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/luck-canceled_b_1346256.html?ref=tw

They should just start shooting again with exclusively CGI horses.

you gotta wonder how many horses have been killed on that hipster favourite "my little pony" cartoon, and nobody talks about that

That was CGI iirc.

don't think so

You just couldn't tell, the CGI was that good.

Jone Bouman, a local representative of the AHA, on Thursday afternoon described the fatality rate on "Luck" as "unprecedented."

"In the last five years, of all the things we monitor - and that includes films, episodic television, even commercials - there was only one other horse death in the 2,000 productions we monitored, before the three on 'Luck'," Bouman said.

According to Bouman, that death occurred on the film "3:10 to Yuma." Bouman said there were no fatalities on the recent films "War Horse," "Secretariat," and "Seabiscuit."

Right, but those shoots were presumably a lot shorter, and not subject to as grueling a schedule (TV shoots tend to be a lot more hectic than film).

yeah definitely ... 2 hour movie with some racing vs basically a 9 hour movie with a ton of racing

but still, 1 death in 2000 productions vs. 3 deaths in this one production. it looks bad.

the guidelines for how much you can race the horses in a day remains the same, movies or tv

How many of the 2000 productions actually featured horseracing, though? Surely those would be much riskier than films that happen to feature one chase sequence on horseback, or even just horses hanging out or whatever.

And also, not just the equivalent of a 9-10 hour movie, but one of those every year. If anything think it may have been naive of HBO to not expect horse fatalities.

i saw this real sports segment a few years back about how there was a horseracing scandal in the 70s, where there was an epidemic of leg breaks due to painkiller usage and horses being run when they shouldnt, and how some people still think thats going on but everyone in horseracing is real cagey about it and the accusations only come from people who arent active in the sport anymore

i dont know anything about racing but i always think about that when i hear about breaks and horses dying

what was the plot point that came up in that teary nick nolte monologue about the leg breaks? that was an insurance scam or something, right?

thats a reference to the alydar/calumet farm scandal iirc?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alydar

ah, thanks Hungry4Ass-- that was linked upthread i guess

another question i keep meaning to ask-- why do all the Foray Stables guys live in a motel? I thought they were only going to hide out there for a day after winning big in ep1?

Clearly these horses should be angling for better union representation.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/03/luck-angry-david-milch-brought-baseball-bat-to-edit-bay.html

"He said to John [Ortiz], who plays the other trainer on the show, ‘I’m going to go down to the editing room and I’m going to kill Michael Mann.’"

And also, not just the equivalent of a 9-10 hour movie, but one of those every year. If anything think it may have been naive of HBO to not expect horse fatalities.

― Simon H., Thursday, March 15, 2012 7:10 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nay, to embrace them!

wait why is it so horrible when a horse dies bc it was raced for a tv show but it's fine for them to die for sport

obv peta and them are against horse racing but there's this subtext that horses dying for "art" (w/e) is going too far, and i don't really see why the institution of horseracing itself isn't really questioned. too many jobs at stake? or does peta just go after whatever the media will latch onto?

it often is questioned! there's great anxiety inside the horseracing world about how everyone else, esp animal rights activists, will respond to horse breakdowns

david milch is so fucking self-important

peta just goes after whatever the media will latch onto.

self-important in the best way possible imo xpost

i think milch is just a swinging dick and so is mann, tensions are always high when a production is lagging behind

david milch is so fucking self-important

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, March 15, 2012 11:27 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so true I've always thought he was a bit of a pompous medium talent

smh @ Deadwood being considered the product of a "medium talent"

it's just interesting to me that three horses die and an extremely high-profile HBO show is canceled for it while it happens all the time in real life without consequence

Because HBO shows are way more in the public eye than horse races prob

Because I thought this show could have been really amazing given the time to stretch out, I agree with you. But if horses had died during the making of 2 Broke Girls, it would have been knives out from me.

Still, Real Housewives drove a dude to suicide and its still on the air.

Ya but not THREE

is he really pompous or is that just a reaction to the mythmaking around the milchian 'genius', which he has no control of? i think he has some blowhard tendencies but isn't particularly self-important beyond holding the belief that his should be the primary creative voice on his projects - a trait he shares with any decent director

hes not a medium talent but i do think his vision would benefit from being molded or directed a bit so that he doesn't disappear up his own ass too much - which is why Luck was so promising on paper (ive only seen the first four eps)

I think his larger desires about what he wants to express can overshadow things (John from Cincinnati, for instance) but he's got a great handle on storytelling, episode structure, and character arcs.

I don't think he cares about seeming pompous though. Anyone who brings along the Kierkegaard to a seminar he's giving for a media class isn't concerned seeming pretentious. More power to him, I say.

yeah milch talent > milch pompousness