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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Bored To Death (HBO)

Last Sunday I watched the premiere of the new HBO show Bored to Death. It's about a wannabe writer named Jonathan Ames (a highly fictionalized version of the life of the very real writer Jonathan Ames, creator of the show) who moonlights as a private detective to cure his loneliness and brighten his sorry life. Needless to say, he's a lousy PI and all sorts of hilarity ensues from his bad detective work. Between solving cases, there's lots of New York neurosis and pretentious conversation.

The Ames in this show is played by "that guy from Rushmore" Jason Schwartzman (in case you didn't know, he's the son of Talia Shire, Connie from The Godfather movies/Adriane from the Rocky movies, who's the sister of Francis Ford Coppola and is thus a scion of Hollywood royalty). and he's pretty good. "Ames" accomplices are his nebbishy best friend, played by a guy with a name too long to bother spelling, as well as his editor/mentor played by a brilliant Ted Danson.

I liked the first episode but didn't love it. There's some good dialogue and funny situations but I wasn't greatly entertained by it. If the show improves, it might actually be a great but, if it doesn't, it'll be insufferable.

I hope Bored to Death succeeds because it has the chance of being a really good NYC show. It's set in Brooklyn, buying into the who "Brooklyn Chic" movement of the last few years. It's nice actually to see a show (besides Flight of the Concords) that makes the outer boroughs look cool. Now if only we could get a really great show about Staten Island and then we'd really be set.

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