I had a little, happening to start what I expected to be 6 or 7 minutes of channelsurfing before opting for a book–and saw that HBO ran an early premiere of the new Milch/Mann track show. Full of hambone outsized sweaty scruffy performers and way too many introductions and a wee bit too much melodrama and an absolutely shit soundtrack, but with thickets of knotty, interesting Milchian prose and some invigorating thundering hooves and asses and flying dirtclods and three stables’ worth of great actors, most of whom showed promise but were a little hamstrung by the ham of their introductions… except Dustin Hoffman who pulls off a brilliant final scene and Dennis Farina who’s dialled it down below everyone else and commands your entire attention.
I am in. This already has me hitched, and with Nolte in the background and Michael Gambon and Joan Allen in the wings… it’s unlikely to snap a leg and fall flat.