John Adams

After an epic marketing frenzy, the HBO miniseries John Adams finally began on HBO last night. How is this film different than the PBS or History Channel versions I watched in my AP class in high school? Besides from the pedigree, I'm not sure it is. For the most part, this series is helped by (mostly) inspired casting and a budget large enough to allow for beautiful costumes and a detailed set. Apart from that, I was disappointed. Last night's episodes suffered from poor dramatic timing, a mistaken decision to film hand-held, and awkward use and non-use of score, revealing what must have been a constant debate among the filmmakers: whether the series' final intent was drama or docudrama. While at times the film aspires to be a thinking man's The Patriot, at other times it feels too bogged down in an accurate--or McCulloghian--view of the period leaving the characters feeling almost cartoonish, more "Colonial Williamsburg" then colonial Williamsburg. The best scenes are easily the ones featuring Tom Wilkinson's Ben Franklin who frankly, was the pimp of the Continental Congress. Impishly wheeling and dealing with Adams, Edward Rutledge, John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, Wilkinson is by far the most comfortable and alive in his role. Perhaps in the coming episodes the series will settle a bit and find a more compelling middle ground. More to come once Washington crosses the Delaware.

No Glove for the Gov

Does power beget peversion or perversion, power? Why is it that some of the brightest stars have the darkest centers? We don't just need to look at the scandals from the past twenty years to find examples of dastardly misdeeds. From the "extraordinary appetites" of the Bourbons of France to Spain's King Philip IV and his thirty illegitimate children, these rowdy royals harbored a sexual lust of limitless bounds that would make some of today's torchbearers blush in comparison. Spitzer may have been a steamroller, but in a state famous for its political machines, corruption, and general success at blocking all efforts at change, he successfully brought down Wall Street corruption and refused to back down from a hostile legislature. From the outside, it seemed, his conscience was clean. So which came first, the chicken or the egg? (To read more about Europe's swinging past, check out: Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty by Karl Shaw.)