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Deadwood - The Complete Second Season
Director : Michael Almereyda, Timothy Van Patten
Studio : HBO Home Video
by HBO Home Video
Brand : Warner Brothers
Release Date : 2006-05-23
Publisher : HBO Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 6
EAN : 0026359277924
UPC : 026359277924
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 108 reviews)
List Price : $59.98
Our Price : $37.99
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Product Description |
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1877. A new day is dawning in the Black Hills outlaw camp of Deadwood. For better or worse times are changing and the transformation from camp to town is imminent. Unsavory new arrivals - looking to cash in on the lucrative anarchy -- and a government of outsiders usher in an era of hard decisions and brutal power struggles among the camp's founders all learning the hard way...fortune comes with a price.Running Time: 720 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 026359277924 Manufacturer No: 92779 |
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Americancivilwar.com |
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Deadwood: The Complete Second Season continues the Shakespearean brilliance of the landmark first season, created by NYPD Blue head writer David Milch. Milch either wrote or supervised the writing of each of the 12 episodes in this stunning follow-up, which contains more than a few surprises for anyone who thought they knew the myriad characters in the late 19th century town of Deadwood--a mucky, ungoverned, exceptionally violent development in South Dakota. As with the first season, Deadwood continues to be about many things--survival, loyalty, alliances, duty--but all of them are happening against a titanic battle between several parties to consolidate power and real wealth in the territory. Despite his cutthroat ethics, astonishing profanity, and bursts of cruelty, it's hard not to side in this bid for a piece of America's future with saloon owner Al Swearengen (a magnificent performance by Ian McShane), a visionary monster who is nevertheless more recognizably human than his rivals. Entering an uneasy partnership with Al is Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant). Seth begins the second season by teaching Al a few lessons in chivalry, and their brief but bloody feud commences physical ailments for Al that become increasingly shocking to behold. Yet Al's difficulties have the practical effect of sidelining him for a couple of episodes while the story sets up more complex power struggles. Al takes on Deadwood's other saloon-brothel owner, the unstable Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe), as well as an off-screen millionaire who is intent on owning all the gold-mining interests by buying out weary prospectors' claims. Meanwhile, Seth's wife and son (actually, his late brother's widow and child) arrive, an unsettling development for Seth's lover, the widow Alma Garret (Molly Parker), who soon reveals herself to be a more complicated person than in the first season. The prostitute Trixie (Paula Malcomson) begins thinking about her future and asserts independence from Al by having sex with Seth's friend, Sol Star (John Hawkes). Best of all, Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert) is back and more endearingly uncivilized than ever. Special features include actor commentaries on select episodes, the best of which finds Olyphant and McShane cracking each other up while watching the season premiere. --Tom Keogh |
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drama, drama |
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I enjoyed the drama of this season. I can't say enough about the intelligent, multi-dimensional writing. Good amount of extras though I would have liked a few more. The commentary was fun to listen to. I have to say that I'd probably never let anyone borrow my Deadwood DVDs. I was able to get all 3 seasons for a little over $100. A fantastic deal for a fantastic show. |
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Very well put together series |
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We have all seasons of Deadwood. It is a very good series. Sometimes the action got a wee bit rough for me and the language is very salty. It is truly worth seeing. The acting is very good as is the scenery. They apparently tried to stay really in that era and succeeded very well. So far we have watched the series through twice and enjoyed it each time. |
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Good Stuff |
This series is a continuation of the extremely fine entertainment projects put out by HBO. Fine acting, very authentic, a real glimpse of what the old west was really like.
I did find that the number of times the "F" bomb was dropped was more than I would have thought would have been used at the time. I also found the english used was a bit difficult to understand at times, just goes to show how the language has evolved over time. |
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Of course the show is awesome. I won't write yet another review. Here are some fun facts and comments: |
Deadwood is one of the best TV shows ever made. If we consider it with films thrown into the mix as well, it would be the best western of all time. Its dramatic impact as well as the depth and complexity of its characters are almost unparalleled. It easily puts other, more popular shows to shame, making The Sopranos, for instance, seem sophomoric and silly in comparison. Obviously the show is awesome, so instead of writing yet another review, I will offer some random comments and fun facts.
-First, the cast is almost flawless. Almost. What would have been a flawless cast suffers greatly because of one of its leads: Timothy Olyphant. How did he land that role? He can't act and he's goofy looking. Watching him walk around the streets of Deadwood throwing his pseudo-menacing glances around with the acting depth of Steven Seagal is laughable. Even more laughable are his constant attempts to imitate Clint Eastwood. Too bad.
-Many people objected to the profanity in the show. It is both anachronistic and accurate. How? Well, it's accurate in that people would have been cussing, a lot. They just wouldn't have been using the words that we today like to use. Milch thought it would be too comedic to have a bunch of people running around saying things like "You dern varmint" and sounding like Yosemite Sam, so he opted instead for the anachronistic, modern profanities used instead. This fact is poked fun at in one episode when Farnum makes a comment about an ancient Italian maxim fitting a situation. Wolcott says the gist is "s#!t out of luck," to which Farnum asks, "Did they speak that way then?" (By the way, the guy who plays Wolcott also plays McCall on the show--I don't like it when shows "recycle" actors, but oh well.)
-Other than the anachronistic swear words, the language used is pretty authentic in my opinion. The language would have been a mixture of rough miner talk and Victorian-era discourse. Educated people were much more eloquent back then than they are today, a fact that is well represented in the complex dialogue exchanges in the show.
-Deadwood is high on the verisimilitude scale. It feels authentic, but is full of historical inaccuracies. Many of the characters are based on real people, such as Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock, Sol Star, Calamity Jane, Hickok and Charlie Utter. In real life, however, Bullock was married to his childhood sweetheart, not his sister-in-law. The Bella Union was owned by one Tom Miller. Cy, Joannie and Eddie are fictional characters. So is Alma.
-The guy going around with the "soap with a prize inside" scam is based on Soapy Smith. He would attract large audiences with this claim. An accomplice in the audience would buy a bar and find that cash was in the wrapper. Audience members saw Smith placing large bills in certain wrappers and then placing those soaps in with the others, but, through sleight of hand, none of these were actually sold to customers. He would sell down the stack of soap, with accomplices "finding" cash in their soap wrappers. He would then announce that the soap with the $100 bill hasn't been purchased yet, and auction off all the rest of the bars at a high price. In reality none of the wrappers had cash in them. In real life Soapy Smith was very successful, running criminal enterprises larger than Swearengen's. I do not think he ever operated in Deadwood. His most famous scam was a "telegraph office" in Alaska where he would charge people to send telegrams. Apparently nobody realized that there were no telegraph lines leading to the town (or the telegraph office for that matter).
-Some other interesting tidbits on factual characters: In real life Charlie Utter was very dashing and charismatic. He only wore the finest suits, was very particular about his long, blond hair and moustache, and insisted on bathing each and every day--something that was quite unusual then. If accurately portrayed, Utter would have perhaps been the most dashing character on the show. In her autobiography Calamity Jane claims that she is Wild Bill's ex wife. (Why they make her a lesbian in the show I don't know.) Hickok's funeral was a big to do in real life, not a small ceremony. History has it that Hickok always sat with his back to a corner to avoid being attacked from behind, and that on that night in Nuttall's No. 10 saloon there simply wasn't a seat available with its back to a wall. The show, however, suggests that Hickok had a death wish and knew that McCall was going to kill him.
-Deadwood magazine claims that the real Al Swearengen was much more sinister and brutal than how he is portrayed in the show. He would lure women to Deadwood with false promises and then beat them until they agreed to work as prostitutes. He was married when the show takes place, but his wife left him on the grounds of abuse. He was married two more times. Both wives also left him because of abuse. Swearengen's original saloon featured "prize fights" between miners. The winners never actually received prizes. When he opened The Gem Variety Theater he made as much as $10,000 a night, which would today be equivalent to as much as $180,000 a night! The original Gem burned down in 1879, two years after season three of the show occurs. It was later rebuilt much larger. The real Swearengen was from Iowa, not England, and Wikipedia reports that a recently recovered obituary shows that he was found dead in Denver in 1904 with a massive head wound.
-If you're like me, and like your whiskey, watching this show will want to make you drink some. I tried to find what whiskey they would be drinking on the show. Another anachronism emerged: Whiskey bottles would not have had printed labels on them back then. There would be some glass, embossed bottles, but the whiskey at The Gem would come in barrels and likely be served in ceramic jugs. Some whiskeys that may have been drunk: They mention Basil Hayden on the show. Beam produces a pricy Basil Hayden whiskey, but know that Basil Hayden's recipe is today sold as Old Grand-Dad (Grand-Dad being Basil Hayden). Old Overholt was the most popular whiskey in Tombstone, and is the best (and cheapest) rye still made today. Rye was probably more common than sour mash, though in one episode Wolcott specifically orders "Kentucky Bourbon." Hickok however, liked rye. Old Overholt was also Abraham Lincoln's favorite drink. Old Crow is another (they all start with "Old"). Old Crow was Ulysses S. Grant's favorite. It is said that someone reported on Grant's drunkenness to Lincoln. Lincoln said, "I wish you knew what kind of whiskey he drank. I'd have a barrel sent to all of my generals." My wife suggested the drinking game of getting one of these whiskey's and drinking whenever they do on the show. Others have commented on the mythic feats of drinking portrayed on Deadwood. Just keep in mind that the whiskey they were drinking would have been very watered down.
-Fans are rightly pissed at the show's being cancelled. Deadwood was better than The Sopranos and was also better than Six Feet Under, both of which were given six seasons. A year or so ago HBO still said there was about a 50/50 chance on the two, two-hour TV movies it promised to rap up the show's plotlines. In a recent interview, however, Ian McShane (who played Swearengen) said that these TV movies will never be made, as they are tearing down the show's elaborate set already. He said this officially means that "Deadwood is Dead," and added something to the effect that "if this makes you upset, imagine how I feel." I would add, however, that contrary to popular belief, David Milch did NOT abandon Deadwood for John from Cincinnati. JFC was written before Deadwood, and Milch fully intended for Deadwood to continue after JFC started. It was HBO that cancelled Deadwood, as Deadwood cost a lot more than JFC. I've heard that a lot of fans then cancelled HBO. Good for them. Deadwood was about the best damn TV show ever made.
-In the end, the theater owner Jack saves the day by telling Hearst he has more important things to do than messing around with the likes of Swearengen. Hearst is convinced and leaves camp. Thus Jack saves the town from a struggle and spares viewers from any sort of climax or payoff. As some have commented, the series finale is one of the worst of all time. Sure, they didn't know that it was going to be the series finale. It just so happened that the last episode happened to be one of the worst episodes in the entire show's run. Too bad. In real life what happened next is that Bullock lost the election but refused to give up his star, until he was taken to court.
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Was my favorite show - miss it! |
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Fabulous show - great characters, writing!! If foul language bothers you - stay far far away. |
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