Television
Eric San Juan
September 9, 2009
How awesome is this? As if I haven’t praised HBO enough in recent days, The Hollywood Reporter, err, reports that Martin Scorsese, he of GoodFellas, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull fame, will direct the pilot for a new HBO series set in 1920 Atlantic City. Written by Terence Winter, “Empire” is set in 1920 at the dawn of Prohibition and chronicles the life and times of Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), the undisputed ruler of Atlantic City, who was equal parts politician and gangster. I need know nothing more than that. Scorsese, Prohibition-era Atlantic City, and HBO? I’m in. I’m watching. I’m there.
Eric San Juan
September 2, 2009
I recently finished watching all five seasons of HBO’s The Wire, a critical darling that pretty much no one saw. The show has been lauded by some as the best drama in television history, a level of hyperbole that at first I did not easily swallow but which I’ve come to completely understand. What began as a cop show with profanity became one of the most powerful pieces of social commentary of the last 40 years. And that’s the truth. When it comes to my relationship with HBO programming, these revelations are beginning to become routine. I’m one of those obnoxious people who all but gave up TV. About seven years ago I stopped flipping through the channels and ceased paying attention to television. Before…
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Eric San Juan
July 14, 2009
WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for the television show Lost. If you have not caught up through season 5, do not read this. It will spoil your enjoyment of the show. Lost makes no great attempt to hide its recurring themes. Faith versus reason (as I’ve already discussed), free will versus fate, and redemption and rebirth are not just subtle thematic elements of the show, they are right up front and center. These aspects of the show’s thematic heart are oft discussed, but a common element more infrequently discussed is the sins of the father; trying to rise above deep parental issues, specifically father issues. Not that Lost has made this theme a big secret. After all, the eleventh episode of the very first season…
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Eric San Juan
June 23, 2009
WARNING: The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the television show Lost. If you have not caught up through season 5, do not read this. It will spoil your enjoyment of the show. Indulge me for a moment while I write about Lost, in my estimation one of television’s greatest dramas and something with which I am currently obsessed. Of all the overriding themes of Lost, one of the most powerful is that of faith. Or more accurately, the struggle between faith and reason. The belief in fate and external forces beyond our comprehension, and the disregard of those concepts in favor of accepting only that which we can see and touch. Representative of this is the sometimes overt, sometimes spiritual conflict between John Locke, a…
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