Didn’t see that one coming. Damn.
Which is to say I thought the murder scene toward the end of last night’s Boardwalk Empire episode was a terrific surprise.
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Boardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire Recap, Episode 11: Take Me to the River
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Boardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire Recap, Episode 10: A Gangster in Full
Very late in its first season, after spending too much time attempting to establish its many characters, Boardwalk Empire delivered some welcome action in last night’s episode. Toward the end of the show, Nucky Thompson, Chalky White, and Jimmy Darmody were holding Meyer Lansky and a pair of D’Alessio brothers prisoner. Wise-guy dialogue led to gunfire.
“Fucking tough guy,” a D’Alessio said to Jimmy. “You gonna shoot me for mouthing off?”
Before firing into him, Jimmy replied, “I wasn’t going to, but you kind of talked me into it.”
It was a nice bit of repartee in a series that, to date, has had too much stilted dialogue.
Boardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire Recap, Episode 9: Vote for McGinty
When I was a little kid my mother used to shop at a department store in Caldwell, N.J., called J.M. Towne. I didn’t mind going because, inside the store, there was an actual movie theater. To me, at age four or five, it seemed as large and dark and legit as any stand-alone cinema. I used to watch the screen until it was time to get back in the Mustang.
The theater played what must have been public domain films. Most were silent. There were also early Our Gang shorts, as well as a few Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons mixed in. You see certain things at that age that stick with you your whole life. One such scene, for me, comes from a Buster Keaton movie. I couldn’t help thinking of it last night, while watching Boardwalk Empire.
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Boardwalk Empire Recap, Episode 8: Team Nucky
Boardwalk Empire’s eighth episode provided a welcome change from the two lame efforts that preceded it. It moved at a brisk pace and managed to convey complicated information concerning the backroom deal at the 1920 Republican presidential candidate, all without getting bogged down. Written by Meg Jackson and directed by Brian Kirk, last night’s entertaining installment wisely resisted the temptation to break away from the story to linger on cliched sex scenes.
Boardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire Recap: Wooden “Home”
Last night’s Boardwalk Empire episode was moving along nicely enough until we hit the fourth scene, in which the show’s hero, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), and his brother, Eli Thompson (Shea Whigham), show up at the flophouse-like abode of their nasty, drunken, foul-mouthed father, who has fallen down and can’t get up. Medical personnel take the nasty old coot away on a stretcher, and Nucky’s brother pauses in the doorway as they exit to deliver this beautiful line of dialogue: “I’ll stop by the hospital later, Pop.”
Boardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire Recap, Episode 6: Backslapper
Gretchen Mol gets seductive in the latest installment. Photo courtesy IMDB.
Boardwalk Empire is a strange show. Despite its terrific cast, handsome costumes and sets, and its serious engagement with the past, something is off. It has a few good lines of dialogue to go with its procession of interesting and beautiful faces; it also has, on paper, at least, the right ratio of “shocking” material to “intelligent” historical stuff. (In its devotion to the mixture of high and low, HBO is continuing the award-baiting, pulp-highbrow formula perfected by Miramax in the 1990s with movies as different on the surface as Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, and Pulp Fiction.) The early days of the mob, furthermore, would seem to be fresh territory. And yet Boardwalk Empire isn’t coming together.
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Boardwalk Empire Recap: Are You There, Nucky? It’s Me, Margaret
That saintly seeming Irish lass of a widow, Margaret Schroeder (Kelly Macdonald), asserted herself in the fifth installment of Boardwalk Empire, an episode that did a good job of working the larger story of Prohibition into the characters’ personal lives.
From the start of the series, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) has been sweet on Margaret, even with his mistress, Lucy Danziger (Paz de la Huerta), giving him everything she’s got (riding him like a show pony, jumping out of a cake).
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Boardwalk Empire Recap: The Face and the Finger
The hype has faded. Boardwalk Empire is settling into its routine. We’ve gone from the big-budget pilot, written by the show’s creator, Terence Winter, and directed by one of its illustrious executive producers, Martin Scorsese, to less spangled episodes turned out by the show’s staff. Last night’s installment, “Anastasia,” written by Lawrence Konner and Margaret Nagle, and directed by Jeremy Podeswa, included one lovely set piece (the lavish birthday party for Nucky Thompson) and one scene that made you wince (a gangster slashes a woman’s face).
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Boardwalk Empire Recap: Ragged Dick!
Even with its exposed front sides, back sides, and insides, Terrence Winter’sBoardwalk Empire is at its most interesting when it keeps a simple focus on the relationship of its two main characters, Nucky Thompson (the Atlantic City gang boss played by Steve Buscemi) and Jimmy Darmody (Nucky’s wayward protege, played by an increasingly more assured Michael Pitt).
Last night’s episode—“Broadway Limited,” written by Margaret Nagle and directed by Timothy Van Patten—ends with Jimmy leaving town, banned by his mentor for having gone too far. We see Jimmy on a train (the Broadway Limited) bound for Chicago, home to his excitable ally, Al Capone (Stephen Graham), who, in 1920, is not yet a major gangland player.
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Boardwalk Empire Recap: Thug Life
Image via HBO.com.
An interesting thing about the second installment of Boardwalk Empire is what it revealed about its protagonist, Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, a character brought to life with complete command by Steve Buscemi.
Since this is a gangster story, we knew we’d eventually have to process a few ugly facts about our main guy. These could be horrifying tendencies in the realm of sex or violence or both. But no. Amusingly enough, the second episode gave us little moments that showed Nucky to be nothing more than a bit of a jerk. When, for instance, he is walking past the midget boxer on the boardwalk’s planks, Nucky asks him if he might be able to borrow some cash. The fellow stops, turns, gives Nucky a pointed look out of vaudeville, and says something like, “Can’t do it—I’m a little short!” Nucky laughs—this is a real knee-slapper—and the camera stays still long enough for us to notice that, in the near background, the midget is not only unamused, but he has been through this “I’m a little short!” routine more times that he cares to remember. Later on, similarly, a tipsy Nucky is shown in the middle of telling a series of horribly cornball jokes, each of which his night-time companions must greet with big laughs, or else. This is, after all, Nucky’s town.
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Boardwalk Empire Recap: Nucky Meets Girl
Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson in the pilot episode of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, directed by Martin Scorsese.I went into HBO’s Boardwalk Empire a little worried. Was Martin Scorsese, the director of the pilot episode, doing the gangster thing one time too many? But then a voice said, “Shut up and watch.”
The opening scene did nothing for me. Night. Fog. Boat coming into harbor with a load of whiskey. The water looked like water in a big tank, rather than real ocean water.
(You’re an expert on water now?)
Then, a truck is pushing through the New Jersey woods at night. The trees looked right to me, so I eased up. But when I saw the body lying in the road, I could tell it was a setup. I knew the gangsters’ guns were about to start blazing—and they did.
But first … we flash back to three days earlier.
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From Manohla Dargis's review of Black Swan in The New York Times: One of the pleasures of “Black Swan” is its
