Pacific finale and then Treme.
BTW- every time I mention the Pacific, there are some odd complaints that it isn’t like Band of Brothers. I’m not sure what people expected, but it wasn’t Band of Brothers 2, Pacific Edition. I’ve thought it was a very good show, and really focused on how horrible the Pacific Island hopping warfare was. Sure, it didn’t develop characters the way BoB did, but that was the real premise of the book- the Band of Brothers and the relationships they had all the way through and after the war. The Pacific has centered on the 1st Marine, and the campaign, not so much a specific group of characters.
I liked it.
Also, Laura W. informs me that Evelyn will be getting a check for 553.00 for the pet rescue from sales in the Balloon Juice store, so thanks a bunch. Sales seem to have dropped precipitously, but I’m sure there are still lots of you who want your Balloon Juice swag!
Corner Stone
You don’t seem to want to accept the fact you’re dealing with an expert in blog warfare, with a man who’s the best, with snark, with movie quotes, with his bare rebuttal. A man who’s been trained to ignore pain, ignore Politico, to live off the blog, to read things that would make a billy goat puke. In the blogosphere his job was to dispose of stupid personnel. To silence! Period! Win by attrition. Well Corner Stone was the best.
TR
I like it too — different than BOB but good.
And actually, I’d say the characters are better drawn in this one. We get to know Sledge, Basilone, and Leckie in a lot more detail — before the war, visits to the homefront, on leave, and all the battleground action.
It was halfway through BOB before I could even tell some of the guys apart, but these three were distinct from the start and have deepened in characterization as the show’s gone on.
JBerardi
Is anyone else as bothered by the those Tim Cahill ads as I am? I’m not sure if it’s just the whole disembodied head thing or the lousy Photoshop job, but either way it’s giving me the wicked jeebies.
mr. whipple
This is Merka. You need to relentlessly pimp, perhaps call in Sally Struthers to do a weepy video, and remind people that God will reward them for their generosity.
(BTW, this stuff is made in Germany, folks, and you know how good stuff from there is.)
unabogie
Fly your pentagrams at half mast, people. The great Ronnie James Dio has died.
Damn, that guy was pound for pound the most badass rocker ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEV4Tov1GBM&feature=related
Rabble Arouser
John,
Sorry. I have been wanting to buy something, but have been too broke to do so. Finally got a gig after a stint of unemployment, so I will be visiting the store soon for some sweet sweet Tunch gear.
beabea
BoB is on my Netflix queue, and the Pacific and Treme will have to be also, since I can’t afford to pay my cable company any more than they already
shamelessly rip me off forcharge me each month.Which is also why I haven’t bought my Balloon Juice swag yet, but will. I do want a Tunch mug and Lily apron, at least to start. So there is definitely some pent-up buying pressure, don’t you worry.
lamh32
I’m behind on Treme. I still have 2 hours to catch up on before I watch tonight’s ep. If not, I’m def gonna catch up by next week’s ep.
show still makes me homesick though.
stuckinred
I too have enjoyed the Pacific greatly. I knew quite a bit about Eugene Sledge before the series so that helped. For those who don’t know about him he was in some of the most horrific combat in both Pelilu and Okinawa. He returned from the war and earned his doctorate at Auburn and taught biology and was an ornithologist. Interviews with him and Studs Terkel can be listened to on Studs website. Comparisons with BOB are inevitable and, to me, useless. Both series portray the reality of war and hopefully honor the participants without glorifying it.
stuckinred
@lamh32: I wonder if they will move it to 9pm next week?
@stuckinred: Nope, 10pm.
Console
Treme has me hooked due to the characters although I can’t really say it’s a great show. It seems to be a show that’s all about cultural references, whether they are subtle, hitting you over your head with it, or just thrown out and sending you runing to google. The Wire was had these things but the show could stand without it. One could make it through The Wire without knowing the obscure cameos, or the fact that that orange and yellow bag of potato chips is the greatness known as the crab chip, or what a chicken box is, or the names of Baltimore rap artists etc. etc. Being from hampton roads, VA I was acquainted with a lot of these things so I caught a lot of the references, but they weren’t the show, the show fundamentally dealt with Baltimore social/government institutions. With Treme, it seems like the whole point of the show is to build it around New Orleans cultural references. And as cool as it is to be introduced to the world of new orleans jazz and the neighborhood of Treme, this all is still sort of a bit hollow.
stuckinred
@Console: Sheeeeeeeeet
JenJen
I’ve loved “The Pacific” and don’t understand the “Band of Brothers” comparisons at all. Outside of the producers, it’s a different storytelling technique all together, in a different theater of war. I don’t get why you can’t just love both series, you know? I’ve seen every episode but have been especially gripped by it the last few weeks. That last Basilone episode was one of the best hours of television I’ve ever seen.
And if Rami Malek, the actor who plays Merriell “Snafu” Shelton, doesn’t get recognized for his work somehow, I’ll be disappointed. That dude’s portrayal is just haunting. I think when it’s all over after tonight, I’ll remember Snafu the most.
Kathy
I know John won’t want to join in any hockey discussion, but if there are any Philadephians out there, go Flyers! Up 4-0 to the “habs.” Go Laura W and Tunchware, also too:)
Michael G
I’ve been comparing/contrasting “The Pacific” with “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”. I think the movies come out ahead, although I’m not sure I could state why.
And to echo JenJen, I agree that Snafu’s one of the highlights of the series.
JenJen
@Kathy: I think John would be more than happy to join in a hockey discussion, so long as it involves talking about how much the Habs are being humiliated in this game right now.
5-0 Flyers. Boo.
ETA: Hey!! Make that 6-0! It is excruciating to be a Habs fan right now.
Something Fabulous
Ooooh, ever-so-excited! Just got back from my long and then even more delayed business trip (see: thread about whether we felt ok to fly right after the volcano grounded all those flights), and a check was waiting for me! B-J store, here I come!
…erm, as it were.
Bnut
I reached my lowest point in a long time today. I’m on a bus from baltimore to brooklyn and I forgot tissues. My sister offered a maxi pad. I accepted.
schrodinger's cat
Loved BoB, don’t get HBO anymore so haven’t seen Pacific.
Kathy
@JenJen W00t, W00t! I am sooo happy to be rooting for the Flyers right now. Sorry if there are any Habs fans.
mikey
I really like “The Pacific”, a whole lot more than Band of Brothers. The combat scenes are incredible, especially in the sense that your unit can be crapped out, smoking and eating and trying to sleep while a unit a few hundred meters away is locked in a firefight. I remember sitting on a bunker watching the tracers fly just up the line. Knowing if they got pushed hard or were in danger of getting overrun we might be ordered up to support them, but if they were holding their own it was nothing but a fireworks show.
The scene where the AMTRAKS go ashore on Pelelieu, with the naval and air going in over their heads is the only time I’ve ever wished I had one of those great big stoopid TVs the size of a wall. Stunning.
I always wondered if the movies could show combat RIGHT, if maybe kids would figure out that the glory of war was a big lie and stop volunteering to fight. Maybe not, but if there’s anything like that to be hoped for, they bloody well got it right this time around…
mikey
Something Fabulous
excellent! a “consistently wrong” and an “obey” mug are on the way! thanks for the nudge… can’t wait to get ’em and invite folks over for provocative coffees!
mikey
@schrodinger’s cat: And by the way, for those people who don’t have HBO, I don’t either. I won’t see the finale tonight, but tomorrow morning I’ll pull down the bit torrent file.
You can watch anything you want. Learn and be rewarded…
mikey
kommrade reproductive vigor
@unabogie: Very few people could shred a note like Dio. (WP will not let me do the devil sign thingy. FYWP.)
eric
As I listen to Stargazer and Kill the King, I can only add that he was a badass and a very nice guy. My rock and roll hero
Sentient Puddle
I’m a terrible human being. I still need to buy some Balloon Juice swag.
I’m on it in a few.
Yutsano
@Sentient Puddle: Don’t feel too terrible. I needs to get my shopping in here as well. It’s not even like I don’t have the money, just the lassitude. So I guess that makes me more terrible than you.
Mike in NC
We went to see “Robin Hood” yesterday since the wife is a huge fan of Russell Crowe. Pretty good on the whole; no “Gladiator” but better than “Kingdom of Heaven”, Ridley Scott’s previous movie on the Crusades.
I doubt, however, that the French invented landing craft with bow ramps way back in the 12th Century. (Oar-driven, no less. A long haul to cross the English Channel that way.) But it looked good on camera, so anachronisms be damned.
SGEW
Am I the only one who thought he was talking about Brick Oven Bill, and that it was a hilarious (yet very accurate) statement?
stuckinred
It’s over, I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would. My father served 4 years in the Pacific on a destroyers and was a signalman on landing boats for 28 landings. His respect for Marines was lifelong.
New Yorker
@unabogie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64coD-rx9sk
OK, the video above is one of the more unintentionally hilarious things ever made, but ignore the cheesiness and just listen to that guitar riff and that voice. RIP Dio.
True story: Cortland, NY has a street named “Dio Way” in his honor.
Sentient Puddle
@Yutsano: Nope, I’m in the exact same boat. From the day the store opened, I thought “I MUST GET STUFF.” Even had what I’m getting all picked out.
Only now I don’t remember what. Ah well, I’ll figure it out.
Kristine
I intend to buy some BJ swag, but there are so many choices that I can’t decide what to get. I always fall back on coffee mugs, and I already have more than I will ever use. Maybe something for the day job cubicle…
SGEW
Also, too, I know that there’s been a lot of Glennzilla hatin’ round these parts lately, but ya gotta own up that he completely pwned Greg Craig on This Week. The look on Greenwald’s face at the end is priceless.
Joseph Nobles
@Mike in NC: You mean the Chinese didn’t invent machine-gun crossbows, cluster bombs, phalanx formation warfare, and soccer in the second century A.D, a la Red Cliff?
I’m enjoying both The Pacific and Treme, but it makes me larf a bit to think a miniseries called The Pacific doesn’t even have the Battle of Midway in it. I know, it’s following the 1st Marines…
Mustang Bobby
I am a huge fan of Band Of Brothers — I watched Episodes 1-6 last night and today and got choked up as I always do — and I liked The Pacific just as much, but in a different way. As someone else noted upthread, BOB was about a group while The Pacific was about three individuals who didn’t know each other, but the storytelling was just as compelling and well-done.
Overall, they were two different wars; therefore, two different stories.
(Footnote: I’m a Quaker and I was a conscientious objector during Vietnam, but I am really drawn to these stories about World War II. Go figure.)
TheOtherWA
In a previous thread, the issue of debit card fees was brought up. I’ve been wondering about that since I saw this article on Visa and their fees from April.
Now if that didn’t piss off a few members of congress I don’t know what would. I assume this new legislation will change this.
Laura W.
I don’t look like Sally Struthers much but I am a really good whiner…
If it encourages anyone to shop that has sort of been holding out, it would really help a lot to get in some good sales before May ends. The figure John quotes above was for March sales. April sales will only yield a bit over $100 to the group, and May is just about at $100 in profits right now with the month half over.
Just to remind everyone of where the money is going, this is a newly-established, official non-profit, but Evelyn Bridges has been doing this work all of her life. The primary goal of Charlie’s Angels is to pull animals (mostly dogs because cats don’t get turned in much here) from our county shelter which is a horribly depressing and totally inadequate high kill shelter and move them out of the area, if need be, and into other groups for adoption. Of course other animals find their way into the group as wandering strays, abandoned house pets, etc. There is a new blog for the group and this particular post will give you a sense of what this tiny handful of volunteers do on a consistent basis here in Transylvania County. This is a record of what a 48-hour period in Evelyn’s life is like. Bear in mind, she works full-time selling real estate to fund her rescue work as well.
Finally, if you missed this video when John posted it a while back, here is a wonderful intro to Evelyn Bridges. She was Person of the Week for the local ABC affiliate. This will really give you a sense of the woman, her huge heart and tender soul, and her life’s passion.
Thank you! Evelyn is constantly amazed and humbled by all the support she has received over the last 9 months from the BJ community. (Going back to August of 2009 when everyone adopted the Bitsy cause so passionately.)
Kobie
@SGEW: You’re not. I thought the exact same thing.
S. cerevisiae
Damn Dio could belt it. I’m listening to On Stage right now – Catch The Rainbow. RIP.
SGEW
@Laura W.: I’m terribly ashamed to admit it, but I haven’t spent any money at the store. C’est horrible, I know, right? All I can say in my pathetic defense is that I’m only semi-employed, loaded with school debt, blew my budget on my cat’s surgery (and Haiti), and have issues with merchandise delivery (excuses, excuses; worthless, I know). So sorry! When I get some new employment (any day now, plz plz) I’ll chip in, promise.
Until then, get the new trolls to buy stuff.
lamh32
A NOLA guide to Treme:
“Treme” Explained
D-Chance.
160,000 pages on Kagan.
Prediction: The same people who couldn’t muster enough time over 14 months to read through a 2,000 page health reform bill will have ample opportunity over the next couple of weeks to go line-by-line and word-by-word over these 160,000 pages…
Laura W.
@SGEW: I’m glad you fessed up publicly because I was gonna give you another week and then come after you personally.
You have plenty of more than legit reasons to not spend money in there (except that “merchandise delivery” issue is a wee bit odd, non?). Besides, you made your big contributions in the early design stages. We all do what we can do and give what we can give. Guilt serves no one. (Except for the animals who will die tomorrow, of course. Guilt would serve them if people bought stuff.)
Edit: I’m not so fond of the new trolls but I did have a BOB sighting yesterday morning. I know he wants some Bitsy swag for sure. Hope he comes back around a lot more. Sure have missed him.
lamh32
For anyone who watched Treme, here is the Treme blog from New Orleans Times Picayune:
TREME
News, Blog, Episode Reviews on the HBO Series
Corner Stone
@SGEW: Well, it’s been nice knowin’ ya.
SGEW
@Laura W.:
The ultimate marketing strategy! Now I feel even worse. And yes, I’m a little odd.
[ETA: @Corner Stone: Really? “Nice” isn’t necessarily the first word I would have chosen.]
brandon
I thought episodes 8 and 9 of the Pacific were really strong hours of television (it is interesting, if you’ve read Sledge’s memoir, to note the liberties the TV series takes with the text, but in ep. 9 I thought they were very effective choices). Also the run across the airfield in the middle of the series came a lot closer to the Omaha Beach landing in Saving Private Ryan than I had thought possible in a cable series – very, very nerve-wracking stuff.
Yutsano
@SGEW: Is it bad that it worked on me? I did buy that once on a family road trip when I was a kid.
dj spellchecka
my metalhead friends all claimed if you looked at the “dio” logo upside down it read “devil”
for you new orleans music fans…trombone shorty in concert
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126507781
Phoebe
I really love my tunch “OBEY” shirt.
SGEW
@Phoebe: Success!
Jules
I LOVE my Tunch FEED coaster, but really that needs to be on a big ass magnet that you can put on your fridge….
jnfr
I love Treme with its cast of outcasts. It’s like comfort food to me.
trollhattan
@JenJen:
Completely agree. He was forged in the unhingery but has proven to be one of the moral underpinnings of the campaign. When he talked Sledge out of defacing the “dead Jap” soldier he in a sense saved his soul. The actor should end up with Steve Buscemi’s roles in the future.
Speaking of actors and shows who’ve earned but never received an Emmy, “Rescue Me” returns June 29.
Yeah, baby!
That John Scurti and Callie Thorne haven’t harvested a basket of Emmies each for their work on the show is a bloody crime.
Corner Stone
@SGEW: Well, I expected you to be ruthlessly bombarded for saying GG did anything worthwhile. But maybe good times are here again?
Elie
@TR:
I agree. This was deep — very deep and complex. The characters and soul of this story was profound… less warm and fuzzy perhaps, but about a very different war experience than the European theater and presaging more of the conflicts we have experienced in wars hence — way more about examination of the internal boundaries of what it means to be a human..
The scene that sticks with me in the last episode where slade cradled the dying woman in the Okinawa hut… she wanted him to kill her — to link to his brutality. Instead, he saw his own soul again and held her, while she died, staring into her face and eyes — linking again as a human..
This was amazing work. I recommend it to all though its pain is horrendous. I watched it more trying to understand a little of what my Dad went through. Years and years later, he had screaming nightmares from which my Mom had to wake him. I can remember her speaking out in the night: ” Emmett, Emmett, its allright…
Elie
@Mustang Bobby:
There is an aspect of war that is about noble sacrifice. We are asked for so little any more – our modern lives about comfort and excess too much of the time. I think that those of us with deeper vision, perspectives, want that nobility — want to give something big that anchors our lives in a dramatic way…
Comrade Kevin
Hey John, here is a side effect of bird feeders.
Enjoy!
Bill E Pilgrim
@SGEW: I thought Greenwald’s appearance was a thing of beauty. Even sidestepping the whole issue about criticizing the Obama administration which I know is a hot-button issue with some at this blog and entirely likely to be impossible, just in terms of dynamics there was something astonishing about it.
What you saw was someone asking a direct question, pressing for an answer, and not allowing the respondent to just give speeches that avoided answering, which reduced him to near-stammering.
It just underlined the fact that this so rarely happens on those shows, with the exception of Krugman occasionally taking George Will to task for some nonsensical economic statement, but even then he doesn’t press to get George Will to actually respond and justify what he said. The rest of the time it’s like a more polite version of “Crossfire”, where political partisans make speeches for the most part, and the rest of the time dimwitted political “pundits” explain to people the complex machinations of inside Washington politics, not noticing of course that they’re almost always dead wrong (“Great news for McCain! He’s going to win big!”)
It was actual debate for a moment, in other words.
I thought it was great.
jak
I agree with others that The Pacific is different than BoB. Enjoyed both. After reading several disparaging comments about The Pacific on other websites I went and bought the Leckie and Sledge books. While the directors and writers of the show took some liberties with the details from the books it still conveyed the intent. As graphic as the show was it doesn’t come close to the grim reality of the war conveyed in the books.
cleek
@dj spellchecka:
it’s totally true.
Cerberus
Figured I’d post this here, but as of minutes ago, I defeated a blood skeleton in armed combat on the Arena floor.
Not buying it?
Ah well, okay, well, the truth was as of minutes ago I successfully defended my Master’s thesis (acing it), earning my Master’s in Biology. I’ll be repatriating to America rich in the spoils this Danish pillaging run has brought me.
I rock.
Mustang Bobby
Congrats, Cerberus. I’m sure it was well worth it, and welcome back.
(Hard to believe it’s been 33 years since I defended mine. I had to write a play and have it produced so my committee could judge it.)
Nazgul35
There were aspects that I “enjoyed” in Pacific. but I have to say, at the end, when they put up info about several First Marines, my response for most of them was “who?”
If they were going to go with a specific group of marines they should have spent more time on them (like BoB did devoting an episode to each character). As far as I could tell, this was about four specific marines.
I also felt it seemed rushed and unbalanced for 10 episodes where BoB didn’t (because they were following a specific unit).
My two cents anyway.
low-tech cyclist
“Sales seem to have dropped precipitously”
There’s this concept called ‘pent-up demand.’ Once that demand has been satisfied, sales drop to whatever level meets ongoing demand.
Waynski
@Nazgul35: Good critique. I enjoyed it as well, but also felt it lacked character development, which may have been on purpose to reflect the nature of the campaign. Agree that they probably should have done it in more episodes. Overall, however, I thought it was a good series.
Zuzu's Petals
@Cerberus:
Congrats!
Hope you take time to celebrate.
mclaren
The Pacific was serious crap. Bad writing. Crummy screenwriting from start to finish.
Let’s summarize the fatal mistakes:
[1] Of all the characters, Lecky gets the biggest and most intense introduction…than he disappears halfway through the miniseries. What the hell? Why the big buildup for a character you’re going to dump?
[2] The Medal Of Honor Winner Basilone never got developed as a character. We never learn much about him as a person. We know he has an Italian family, but that’s all we ever learn — what kind of movies would Basilone like? What kind of music does he listen to? What kind of books would he read? We don’t know — notice that we can easily and instantly make good guesses about Sledge and Lecky. (Lecky probably reads Hemingway, while Sledge probably reads Faulker: Lecky would probably prefer to go see an art film like “An Andalusian Dog,” while Sledge would definitely prefer a romantic classic idealistic film like “Gone with the Wind.” And so on. Notice how much more we know about Lecky and Sledge as characters than about Basilone, who is essentially a cipher, a blank, a cardboard cutout?) The incompetent screenwriters tried to fix that by focusing onhim entirely in episode 8, but then killing him at the end of that episode turns him into an absurd and laughable caricature.
We never give a damn about this guy.
[3] Eugene Sledge is the only character who’s even remotely well developed, and the series essentially focuses on him. So why do we need Lecky or Basilone? The screenwriters should’ve thrown out Lecky and Basilone and instead gone with Sledge from start to finish.
[4] The pacing of the miniseries was so grossly inept, it was scandalous. After 2 reasonably well-paced episodes, we get a bullshit episode entirely wasted, set in Australia. That digression added nothing to the overall arc of the miniseries and entirely wasted a crucial hour.
The screenwriters’ gross incompetence showed up even worse in their failure to properly pace Basilone’s appearances. We get intermittant appearances by Basilone and then for a long stretch, nothing. The miniseries would’ve worked much better if, while the other marines were fighting and dying, they had intermittantly cut from a couple of minutes (or even just for a few seconds) to Basilone living it up and gradually becoming so sick of that contrast he couldn’t stand it anymore.
[5] By far the two most interesting characters in The Pacific were Chesty Puller and Snafu. That’s a classic hallmark of rotten screenwriting — when the two characters you really want to know more about and want to have a lot more of onscreen are two cameo walkons.
Every aspect of the screenwriting of The Pacific screams “gross incompetence.” It plays like a bad first draft of a screenplay. That script should’ve been yanked away from the screenwriters and completely rewritten from top to bottom.
What’s shocking about the crappy script for The Pacific is that when you read classic books written about WW II in the Pacific, you encounter great anecdote after great anecdote. Just tons of vivid memorable stories, and there are virtually none of those anywhere in this entire miniseries. That’s astounding.
HBO blew it big-time with The Pacific. Vast expenditures of time and money ruined by a rotten script.
What a gargantuan waste of 225 million dollars.