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Deadwood


Halfaloaf

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Yeah, it's easily one of the best TV fights there's ever going to be.  I think what always got me about that show is how flipping huge they make Dan look, so that you take him seriously as an enforcer, and it's entirely due to camera trickeration, plus the old bonus trick called, "Standing next to Ian McShane constantly."  I was just floored when I saw W. Earl Brown on True Detective and realized what a dumpy guy he was. 

Plus, his IMDb bio starts thusly:

"As a rule, W. Earl Brown does not usually speak of himself in the third-person. However, the Internet Movie Database will not accept biographical information written in the first person, therefore:"

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Off the top of my head, there's some scuffles in The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and The Shield which rank right up there with Dan vs Captain Turner. But I don't think any of them did as good a job of conveying just how exhausting a real fight is. Those few minutes would have felt like an hour to Dan and Turner. 

A+ scene. 

I'd need to watch both back to back and flip a coin, but my gut says Tony vs Ralph in Sopranos would be my ultimate preference. 

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  • 6 months later...

Deadwood was on when I was just getting out of high school or thereabouts. At that time I wasn't a fan of westerns, though I was a fan of HBO originals, having watched Oz and watching Sopranos at the time, later getting into/worshipping The Wire. 

I never watched Deadwood. 

That trailer just made me shit my pants in regret.

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I’ve just recently rewatched Justified and my definitive ranking of the seasons goes: 4, 2 6, 3, 1, 5. It totally follows the odd even rule even though S3 is kind of an exception.

Sorry, did someone mention a show beginning with D?

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  • 1 month later...

I liked it a lot as a long-needed finale. However, I haven't watched the show in a while and don't quite remember the dialogue being so flowery? Like there were times when everybody was speaking English words and I had to rewind to understand them. Did fucking Farnum have some sort of massive influence on everybody? ?

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THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DEADWOOD: THE MOVIE. IF YOU'RE IN THIS THREAD AND HAVEN'T SEEN IT, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

I'm one of the small minority who never minded the finale of Deadwood. The town was building and civilizing itself the whole time on a lot of big and little Lies Agreed Upon. That the finale ended with Jen's murder being sold as Trixie's, and Al and Johnny agreeing that they could move on from that, felt at peace with the rest of the series. Some desired a greater sense of closure. I'm not one of them. But I am happy I got a couple more hours of this show and I'm happy it feels true to the show it was. 

There's a take out there I agree with that a lot of the plot of the movie follows the last few episodes of the show and offers a similar level of closure. I agree. The death of a community leader like Charlie feels not dissimilar to the death of Ellsworth. Hearst will surely get away again -- he'll die a couple years later in Washington, still a sitting senator. Trixie may or may not have further recourse to fear from Hearst, as was the case at the end of the series. The broad strokes can be seen as very similar. But it was an enjoyable series to revisit for a couple hours.

Al's part in this movie was rough to watch, as his hard living and deteriorating cognition reflect that of Milch himself. There was a lot of real pain and circumstance put into that and it's something worth sitting with for a while. And even then, we got plenty of fun, familiar beats: Al muttering on his balcony, Al bloviating in bed, Al giving Doc shit, an Al-Wu scene, on and on. They played all the hits and I loved them all.

Seth almost being pushed too far by Hearst was a nice bookmark on the very first scene of the series. Both times he rejects letting mob justice win, but in very different circumstances. 

Fans of Justified will likely have appreciated Brent Sexton being crooked as all hell and taking a shot at Olyphant. 

We got to see the fire engine. Very pleased. 

Lot of good lines in this thing and I'll need to go back and watch again to pick a favourite. Trixie imparting some hard-earned wisdom to the new whore at the Gem definitely stuck in my head. 

The theatre company was not missed. 

For those of you who didn't get the closure you wanted from the series, did this get you where you needed to go? 

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7 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

I liked it a lot as a long-needed finale. However, I haven't watched the show in a while and don't quite remember the dialogue being so flowery? Like there were times when everybody was speaking English words and I had to rewind to understand them. Did fucking Farnum have some sort of massive influence on everybody? ?

This. 100% this. The dialogue was freaking Shakespearean sometimes. I thought I was going nuts at first. Still a great send off to the show. It played the hits, gave us some closure the original finale lacked, and it was just nice to spend a few last hours with these characters.

Edited by keith_h
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By no means was it perfect but I still loved it; a legit great sendoff for one of my favourite shows of all time. The opening 5 minutes or so I was all I'M MARKING OUT BRO and I was legit super buzzed hearing the theme again. It was nice to see Ian McShane once again do something other than sleepwalk through some shitty action film too.

Just served to remind everyone how good that ensemble cast is. I haven't watched the original series in maybe 5 years but the writing of the series was so strong you could immediately jump into this and immediately know all the characters and their backstories; it was like it had never been away.

I couldn't have fucking asked for more, cocksuckers.

Edited by Fuzzy Dunlop
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8 minutes ago, Fuzzy Dunlop said:

. It was nice to see Ian McShane once again do something other than sleepwalk through some shitty action film too.

John Wick? American Gods? Game of Thrones?

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Charlie dying broke my heart, but Jane saving the day and planning to run away with Joanie restored it. I also really liked the parallels between Sophia and the new girl. I also didn't realize Garrett Dillahunt played a THIRD character (He starts the fight).

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ace
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21 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

I liked it a lot as a long-needed finale. However, I haven't watched the show in a while and don't quite remember the dialogue being so flowery? Like there were times when everybody was speaking English words and I had to rewind to understand them. Did fucking Farnum have some sort of massive influence on everybody? ?

 

14 hours ago, keith_h said:

This. 100% this. The dialogue was freaking Shakespearean sometimes. I thought I was going nuts at first. Still a great send off to the show. It played the hits, gave us some closure the original finale lacked, and it was just nice to spend a few last hours with these characters.

I rewatched it fairly recently and for the most part the dialogue was always like this, with Swearengen and Farnham both frequently doing these sort of Shakespearean asides while the action is going on.

I enjoyed it, it was a solid hour and a half of TV that played a bit like a greatest hits album - it wasn't seamless, it was a bit rough in parts, but it hit the marks you wanted it to and on the whole it was enjoyable. It was a bit saccharine at times, a bit whimsical, but that's fine. Like Newbury said, it felt true to the show it was and it was just so great to see and hear these characters again. Thought the flashbacks were seamless, they came across exactly how a recollection would.

I popped for Dillahunt's cameo as a bearded drunken instigator near the end

 

Edited by CreativeControl
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I just started watching Deadwood for the first time ever. I'm 6 episodes in and sweet tapdancing christ does Calamity Jane get on my nerves. Does she get more tolerable as the series wears on? Because I roll my eyes and groan every time she's on screen. 

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