Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode Four "Cuanto"

Nucky and Margaret share a wine-soaked afternoon, loaded with all the historical subtext one would expect. Luciano visits Capone making for an interesting run-in with Van Alden. Sally makes the rounds for Nucky in Cuba as unrest festers. Having been laid off at the end of the summer, Young Nucky shows Eli the life they're missing. This week's installment is brought to you by writers Howard Korder, Cristine Chambers, and Terence Winter and is directed by Jake Paltrow.

Wordy Ginters: Young Nuck in horny sway to lifestyles of the rich and famous. Reduced to wandering around the hotel fondling the plumbing with his brother. Mick Jagger said it best, “you’re just a poor girl in a rich man’s house. Oohew whoe who ew ew ew.” Flash forward, and Contemporary Nuck hasn’t changed. He’s wrapped himself in the lifestyle, but it doesn’t quite fit. He can’t run with Joe P and the Vanderbilts because he’s too dirty. He’s not as visceral and Mediterranean as Luciano and Capone. The existential angst. You could cut it with a statue of the Empire State Building. What does this motherfucker need to be happy? A real dad? Hang on Nuck, Sartre publishes Nausea in eight years.

Old Man Duggan: I wonder how many hours Robin Leach dedicated to pipe-and-fixture fondling. Big Pfister man. It was interesting to see Young Nucky see the life he wanted--and the dodgy pedo who could give it to him--blowing away in the breeze of the Indian Summer. It's clear at that early age that the nose-down grunt work of his father would not suffice. I don't think anyone knows what would have actually made Nucky happy, and that especially includes Nucky. For all of this desire for success, nothing is going to fill that hole that he dug up inside when he got in bed with the Commodore. It's strange, though. Nucky's real desire seems to have been for a proper family. He cries at the table at seeing a proper family, complete with recitations of Keats at the table. His choices rendered that impossible.

WG: Scotch and Rum don’t mix is the smuggest god damn line I’ve ever heard.

OMD: That's those County Wexford fucks for you.

WG: The reunion with Margaret hit me odd. Relegating her to second team plot status last season meant that we lost some of the punch, immediacy, and history of their relationship. At least I did. The apparent return to the varsity line-up didn’t mean as much to me as it should have.

OMD: I actually dug it. She cut loose a bit. Even she, at this point is at ease drinking. I mean it has certainly been a while, but they slipped back into familiarity pretty damn quickly, and with drink came a looser rapport with Nucky, freely calling him a bastard but without malice. Her "why does everyone assume?" bit when Nucky asked if she'd been sleeping with Rothstein was funny. The "Partners in crime" toast was a nice touch. I like that he saw in Margaret what he'd wanted in himself. Self-made success story, even if she got into a bit of trouble.

WG: Evidently the Kennedy’s have game? Straight up PUA. Only took a few minutes chit chatting in the sitting room for Joe P to work it. Did you see the way Margaret was suggestively bobbing her leg? They were swapping Irish landmarks and talking in Gaelic like long lost lovers. Could Nucky be any more on the outside looking in?

OMD: It's sort of where he lives, isn't it?

WG: If you haven’t figured it out yet, Capone is a goddamn loose cannon. Real loose. Watching his own press clippings. Big mistake, if I’m to believe everything I read in the sprots media. I love how the Capone scenes are a completely different world. Barnyard, Animal House, and abattoir.

OMD: Goddamn Italian Wallace Beery, who of course was Noah Beery Jr.'s similarly amiable uncle. I don't know if Capone--Stephen Graham or real-life Capone--could have pulled off being Jim Rockford's rig-obsessed pop. Obviously, Capone's game is for a different time than the one Luciano is ushering in. They're old friends, but clearly Capone's loyalties lie with Nucky, and why wouldn't they given their history?

WG: Thank God Van Alden Mueller escaped Capone’s impromptu execution. Isn’t it about time we get all slack-jawed and goofy about how awesome Michael Shannon is? Mumbling with Capone’s .45 in his mouth. Coolly finding the right words to defuse the situation. And then stiffly walking out, calm but somehow rattled--how can you tell when Van Alden Mueller is rattled? something in the eyes? the usual look on his face like he’s just taken a big swig of sour milk gets slightly more aggrieved?--admitting very politely that he may have soiled his sensible pants? How many series can pull off a scene like that?

OMD: "I get the feeling my boss doesn't like me." Using Al's vanity, even in a possible blackout, was pretty fucking brilliant. That scene was outstanding. I do wonder if Van Alden Mueller doesn't become the key for the case for the prosecution.

WG: Sally Wheet, what a bad ass. She may have been a good match for Joe P. I got tired on her behalf. The bank clown hitting on her with the purple prose. Doyle trying a similar shtick over the phone. I thought for sure she’d talk her way out of that situation with the soldiers. Of course she created a skirmish and ends up with one of the soldier’s guns. Remember when she ruffed up Nucky last season? I hated to see her dead along the roadside. She deserved a more glorious send off. Put her in a boat, point it towards the Florida Keys, and set it alight with Molotov cocktails lobbed from the dock.

OMD: Apparently Mickey Doyle is into Quaker poetry in the style of John Greenleaf Whittier. Wouldn't have pegged him for that. As for Sally, a drunk's Viking funeral would be the appropriate send-off according to Miss Manners. That banker was a putz. So the soldiers were putting down the Gibara Rebellion of 1931 where 40 revolutionaries thought that they could overthrow Machado from Holguin. It at least looked like the officer who stopped Sally may have been one of the three army guys outside of the bank president's office. With the Bacardi family having to go into exile roughly thirty years later on account of Castro nationalizing the company, the resentment amongst The People should probably come as no surprise. I guess all it takes is one dipshit with a twitch in his trigger finger. I would posit that since the officer only chided the dunce for shooting an American out in the open, not necessarily for shooting her, that it was probably in the cards to begin with, what with the Army in the wings at the bank. I don't know, however, how they would have known precisely where she'd have been at that hour. My guess is Don Maxime Ronis is pissing off the wrong people in Cuba.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode Three "What Jesus Said"

This week's episode was penned by Cristine Chambers (who wrote last season's "The Old Ship of Zion") and Terence Winter's right hand Howard Korder. It was directed by the steady hand of Ed Bianchi. This week, we're back to Chalky's escape, the heat coming down on Margaret, the Young Turks go to Dr. Narcisse as representatives for Maranzano, and Nucky trying to make inroads with Joe Kennedy.

Old Man Duggan: In the Young Nuck in the A.C. flashbacks, we are introduced to Nucky's future wife, Mabel. Nucky finds himself thinking back to the innocent woman who first received his love. Chalky in the meantime is forced to think back to his Mabel, Maybelle, the daughter that he lost. I would wager a guess that these two tortured souls--whose journeys simultaneously bring a flood of memories of the deceased treasures of their lives--both lost their Mabels/Maybelles on account of the lives they chose to lead. The symmetry here is clearly not coincidental.

Wordy Ginters: With friend and foe alike coldly cast aside over the course of Boardwalk Empire's impressive run, one way to look at what we're left with is the parallel stories of two anti-heroes, Chalky and Nucky. They've got a lot in common. Overcoming poverty. Trying to maintain some semblance of family life despite the occupational hazards of making a living a la Wise Guy. I can only assume they both like to drink their eggs the same way: neat.

OMD: Looks like her dealings with Arnold Rothstein are going to get Margaret in a heap of trouble. The Widow Rothstein seemed to have little patience for Margaret's protestations and explanations. At least it gets her back in the room with Nucky. "Mabel?"

WG: I hope the Margaret thread gets woven back in more interestingly than we've seen so far, Its unclear to me how she still fits. The connection via Rothstein is strained. As far as reunion tours go, I'm much more inclined to firm up over Nucky and Chalkie taking on Narcisse, although it appears that Luciano is attempting to solve that one himself.

OMD: There's very little truth being spoken in the bottle episode within the episode. Or at least if there is truth being told, it's hard to tell from whom it's originating. The daughter, Fern, seems a particularly adept fabricator. Of course, it damn near gets her got, but such is life when you're living on the edge. Chambers and Korder's play on whether or not Milton's remembrance of the past can be trusted is nice, as we the audience are essentially put in Chalky's shoes left to suss out who is actually telling the truth and never really getting a great answer to that question, though that was hardly the point for the greater purpose of the story.

WG: Those scenes crackled because of the uncertainty. I was fairly sure Chalky was going to waste sweet, silly, Milton, but I damn sure didn't have any idea what carnage Milton was going to unleash prior to that. I still don't have any idea what most of the head feints (why did the dress make Mom crack?) and half truths meant, and like you've astutely pointed out, it's irrelevant on the surface. Underneath the exterior, perhaps it serves as a crude mirror of Nucky trying to work with Joe Kennedy, or the statement made by one of the Colonel's cronies (a young Leander?) in an A.C. flashback post murdered white rose aficianado, which in so many words was the idea that you never really know what another person is thinking.

OMD: As far as the dress making Mom crack, I'm pretty sure she saw the dark path that this whole ordeal was heading down with her daughter stripping down to try on her party dress at Milton's behest and had to remove Fern from harm's way at all costs.

Lucky and Bugsy head to Dr. Narcisse as emissaries for Maranzano. Or at least that's the story they're selling Dr. Narcisse. Given their long play on the Mustache Petes, I'm guessing all is not as it seems. Something tells me they're likely stirring shit up trying to get Maranzano off-guard for when they take him down. Whether or not Narcisse is a casualty of this play remains to be seen, though I'd imagine that the piece of unfinished business between Chalky and Narcisse plays itself out.

WG: Agreed. It would be a shame if we don't get some Narcisse vs. Chalky resolution. Terence Winter doesn't get off on denying viewer expectations as much as his Soprano's partner David Chase, so I hope to see them squared up rather than battle by proxy. I'm not asking for a Deadwood Dan vs The Captain street brawl, but something similarly epic would be fitting.

OMD: In the early years, Nucky was looking to the Commodore to see how the game is played. In 1931, he looks to Joe Kennedy, who claims to have made his fortune without breaking any laws. This is, of course, what Nucky aspires to be in a post-Volstead age.

WG: I'm not familiar enough with history to know if they did cross paths, or if it merely a genius plot twist to tangle Nucky up with the American Royal Family, but either way I dig it. I hope it's not over before the writers have a chance to weave more historical fiction goodness. Nucky is so enthralled by the fat cats that he would literally kiss a pony for a dime. Knowing this, I was surprised he more or less told Joe P. to get bent when Kennedy couldn't see his own hypocrisy. I was also surprised Joe P didn't ask Nucky to kiss a pony. As a horseplayer, I can honestly say I would have kissed several ponies given the opportunity and a green light from said pony. No means No, Josh. At the track, on the beach, wherever. Respect.

OMD: Respect indeed.

Milton, that crazy fucker, I was damn near certain--and it sure seems like Marie was, too--that shit was going to get rapey. Dude was no good. Guess that's why he got a hammer driven into his fucking skull. Nothing says Boardwalk Empire like a crude implement being driven deep into some dumbfuck's skull. Still, Chalky's answer to Fern's question regarding whether Maybelle knows what he is is the key here. "She knew what I was." She and Mabel both, I would presume.

WG: Milton fits nicely in the Boardwalk Empire batshit crazy bad guy Hall of Fame. I know he had a short run, but he deserves a plaque. I thought he was too religious to get all up in that. He chastely closed his eyes during the run up to the big fashion show. If you told me that the character of Milton walked right off the set of Being There, I wouldn't quite understand what you were trying to say, but then again I would.

OMD: The first proper introduction to the future Mrs. Mabel Thompson is a nice one. "'Enoch walked with God and he was no more.' . . . It means he didn't die." Somehow I wonder if that line mightn't be foreshadowing for how the season/series plays out. Regardless, it was a cute scene. Young love, the beach, and a horse. That has the makings of a much more lurid tale.

WG: Pony kissin! History tell us that Nuck does indeed live, It wouldn't bug me to see him get whacked, but that might be a little stretchy. I definitely got a kick out of young Nuck's sharp take on Mabel's lightweight bible verse interpretation. "It's going in circles". If he wasn't a bootlegger, he'd have a future as a Philosophy professor. Young Nuck looked like he was just sweeping sand off the porch and generally steppin' lively, but his mind was running game on paradoxical thinking.

OMD: Before the cart is placed ahead of the horse, Winter has said that Nucky won't necessarily make it out of this season. That Enoch Johnson and Enoch Thompson's fates aren't necessarily intertwined.

Back to the lurid, that GM tool who couldn't help from j-ing off under the table at a burlesque show, what do you think came of him? As for Kitty, that's one missile-twister with a special set of skills. I'm guessing she rescues teenage girls from sex trafficking rings in Europe on the side.

WG: I was ashamed for mankind. Men are animals. Ultimately, it's Mickey Doyle's fault. What the fuck happened to the respectable joint Chalky used to run? And why hasn't he had some blunt instrument planted in his head yet?

OMD: "I want to leave something behind." An answer which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

WG: You can't buy happiness Nuck. However, according to David Lee Roth, you can park your yacht right next to it.

OMD: The Kid. He's gonna give Mickey half his pay? I'm assuming it's a young Paul Ryan and that's why he became such an advocate of objectivism. There's no way that kid doesn't suffer a horrible fate. He's got red shirt written all over him--unless, of course, he offs Mickey, granting me my wish.

WG: Our wish.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode Two "The Good Listener"

Nucky attempts to figure out who tried to off him in Havana. We catch up with Nelson Van Alden, Eli and Willie Thompson, Gillian Darmody, and Al Capone. Eliot Ness is closing in on Capone. Nucky tries to make inroads towards a legitimate empire.

Old Man Duggan: So it would appear that given the eight episode final season, Terence Winter--who penned this episode--and his buds are not going to waste any time in moving this plot along.

We get to go to Chicago this week. The IRS raids George Nelson Van Alden Mueller's warehouse which is under Eli's watch. Eli's separation-related depression and ensuing seven-year drunk complete with crying jags is tragically beautiful. The only man on the show who loves his wife, and he can't see her. The scene between him and Mueller while they laid in wait was priceless. "Sometimes I find it easier to despise someone than to love them." The look on Whigham's face spoke a thousand words.

Wordy Ginters: Eli is definitely the most human character on the show. Mueller's words are a nice fit for Eli. He's obviously despising himself a lot these days, per the unshaven face and the rumpled threads. Seeing him crack listening to the family oriented radio drama at the end of the show was one of many great scenes in this episodes. It underlined Eli's longing for his family, all facets, very nicely.

OMD: Nucky goes to see Johnny Torrio, who was pushed into retirement at the end of last season, to look into who tried to take him out in Havana. Easy to lose in the shuffle of Nucky's suss job is the fact that Meyer goes to Cuba all the time. This furthers the postulation that Meyer Lansky is in bed with Don Maxime Ronis. One can't help but wonder if perhaps Torrio's retirement advice should go heeded, given what we know about the success of Lansky, Luciano, and Siegel's gambit.

WG: How can you do business with people you can't trust?

OMD: At the end of Nucky's afternoon tea with Torrio, Nucky's gaze (and director Allen Coulter's lens) drifts to Christ on the cross before kicking back to his sister's deathbed. It would seem that perhaps this is a symbol--not to infer that Nucky is Christ here--past a simple mechanism of instigation for a flashback to 1884.

WG: Agreed. Foreshadows the line that the sister is "with Jesus now", but you could also tease all kinds of meaning out of the infrequent but too persistent to be happenstance religious iconography in this show. But I'm in no mood for teasing.

OMD: I liked how in the past young Nucky kept his emotions close to the chest while Eli was more openly emotional. Sure, Eli was younger, but he's always been the one to let loose emotion in extreme ways.

WG: What is Winter trying to tell us about Nucky via these flashbacks? Is Nucky's quest for cash, one that he is "this close" to securing, some Rosebud type journey meant to reclaim a lost childhood, a lost sister, or out of an extreme distaste of poverty?

OMD: I think it's primarily to show who he was and in the waning days of his power his introspection as his journey comes to a close.

Since nothing in Boardwalk Empire happens without intent, I'll be curious to see what comes of Willie's interview with the U.S. Attorney of New York.

WG: Cloudy whether or not he's working at the behest of Nucky, or simply trying to get a square type square job, untainted by blood and whatnot.

OMD: Our first glimpse of Al Capone, complete with new scar, has him holding court while congratulating himself on his fame. You got your wish with his acknowledgement of the comedies Public Enemy and Little Caesar as he's getting interviewed by Variety. Then Mike D'Angelo shows up after Capone calls for him--though the reasons for that escape him, likely owing to the syphilis driving him mad--and delivers the news of the bust. Of course, we later find out that D'Angelo is a fed.

WG: Those Capone scenes buzzed with a different vibe, didn't they? Intended comedy? A play on the ravages of the Syph? Completely over the top scene chomping by Stephen Graham as Capone, laughing a little too hard, a little too coked up, a little too everything. I liked it and was irritated by it at the same time.

OMD: That's sort of how I feel with a lot of the Capone scenes. They've always played a little broader than the rest of the show. There's a barbed appreciation of them.

That elevator scene was fantastic. The pheasant feathers in the cap were so goddamn funny. And of course, it fed Eli the idea to hit Guzik on his collection run.

WG: Great scene. I thought Van Alden Mueller might crush that poor dog. And I wasn't sold on the idea of those two society ladies getting out of the elevator alive. The vintage dialogue by the bellboy was a nice touch, too. Homage to movies of the era for sure.

OMD: I had to double-check to make sure he wasn't the bellhop-cum-clerk at the hotel in Masters of Sex.

Gillian's stay in the nut house looks like tons of fun. What the hell does she think she's going to do with a pen and paper?

WG: The Booby Hatch Diaries, coming soon to a book store near you.

OMD: Nucky's quest to transition into being a legitimate liquor man once Prohibition ends brings him into contact with Joe Kennedy. I'm looking forward to the course this will take.

WG: Absolutely. Just when the series begins its final run, it starts to run in some James Ellroy territory. I'd love to see it continue indefinitely into the early 80s.

OMD: "Why do clouds just float in the sky?" Mueller's home life gave me at least four chuckles. Beleaguered with the Battle-axe. I'd watch a spin-off of that.

WG: Don't fuck with Sigrid. I can't listen to her speak without seeing the chef from The Muppet Show.

OMD: Gyp's right hand Tonino was serving at the pleasure of Maranzano. Or rather playing all sides, helping Luciano take down Masseria. Of course, Nucky's man saw to it that Billie Kent was avenged.

WG: How about the dope track that closed out the episode? Nice earhole symmetry as well.

OMD: So Nucky's dad hated the Commodore because he thought he got a raw deal when he sold off their land, presumably on the ocean from whence he could fish. A nice wrinkle to their personal history. Choosing the man who screwed his father over his father, both of whom were bastards, but in their own special ways.

WG: So Eli, ostensibly a family guy? Nucky, a family guy as long as it doesn't interfere with adding to the piles of cash?

OMD: Pretty much.

Nucky's man, who to my knowledge still doesn't have a name but is played by Paul Calderon, sits while Nucky waxes philosophical existentially. He doesn't say much, but when he does, it's awesome. When proffered a drink and asked if he has anything to add to the conversation, he simply states, "I kill them, I don't kill them. Whatever you say." Unfortunately for Nucky, he's not much of a confidante. One has to worry about a man whose loyalty is bought, too.

WG: I got a kick out of how his mere presence freaked out Tonino. Much like Yasiel Puig striking terror in the hearts of mortal MLB players.

OMD: Puig! I wish he hadn't gone ice cold since the break. Really screwed me in fantasy baseball this year.

The Young Turks are clearly gunning to take everything over. It does look like Tonino's fate was sealed with whichever side he chose. Luciano's eyes spoke pretty clearly to me at least. Tonino, the schnorrer (Yiddish for beggar), was not to be trusted. Unluckily for Luciano, they didn't knock off Tonino before he could talk to Nucky. With Luciano's distrust of Tonino, perhaps Nucky having him killed (and left down an ear) will be a point from which the two can gain common ground?

Though you saw him for a second in the warehouse at the beginning, we get our first glimpse of Jim True-Frost as Eliot Ness. Who's going to play Sean Connery?

WG: Roger Moore?

OMD: I wonder if the ledger for the cathouse on Huron that Wilson handed off to D'Angelo after the reveal wasn't the same cathouse that Jimmy met Harrow in?

WG: Nice catch, I had completely forgot about that. Probably. Knowing how they craft the seams on this show.

OMD: "She was a lovely girl, Billie Kent." Eat shit, Tonino. The "Greetings from Havana" postcard was a nice touch.

Eli sobbing alone while listening to America's favorite family on the radio. Quite the shot, leaving us right where he started the episode. It seems like the episode playing out over the airwaves wasn't much different from one that would've played out at Eli's house eight years earlier.

WG: Kind of odd to get a subtle emotional pull for a character who clipped two nobodies via bullets to the brain a few minutes earlier. Great scene.

OMD: Just as season is bookending the beginning and end of Nucky's journey through the criminal enterprise, the episode is bookended by shots of ears--or at least where ears should be in the case of the second shot. Great work from Coulter. I'm guessing he and Van Patten are sharing directing duties this season, since they'd each just have four episodes to shoot. If so, fantastic. They're both so fucking good.

WG: It's going to be interesting to see if the compressed episode schedule amps up the drama. I couldn't agree more though. The show doesn't have the busty sexual pull of hairpin plot twists, heart-pounding cliffhangers, and the like a la Breaking Bad. However, you can't beat the cinematography and the storytelling.

Man on Film: Catching up on the backlog

I don't really like to do this because I'd rather have each movie have its own self-contained entry, but I don't have the time for that right now. There's a backlog of entries, most of which are Man on Film entries. I'm just going to dump them all in here because I don't have the time to write up more than 30 movies. Make of them what you will.

Guardians of the Galaxy - Fucking loved it. So much fun. Probably my favorite Marvel movie. Maybe my favorite comic book movie. It was obvious to anyone paying attention beforehand, but Chris Pratt is going to be a fucking star.

Calvary - Just saw it. Brendan Gleeson was great. The supporting cast featuring Chris O'Dowd, Aiden Gillen, Dylan Moran, Kelly Reilly, Isaach de Bankole, and Killian Scott was really great. It's weird to say, but I think I might prefer writer/director John Michael McDonagh's works (this and The Guard) thus far to his brother's (Martin, who directed In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths).

Her - Liked it. Probably short of loving it.

22 Jump Street - Really funny. Not quite as good as the first one, but still a ton of fun.

The Lego Movie - Loved it.

Veronica Mars - Stayed true to the series. Great to have old friends back. It's been on the heavy rotation on HBO, and I watch it pretty much every time I see that it's on.

12 O'Clock Boys - Went to this months and months ago. Great little documentary about kids on motorcycles in Baltimore.

Joe - David Gordon Green getting the good stuff out of Nicolas Cage. Strong turns by the supporting cast. Weird seeing people from around town in the flick.

Prince Avalanche - See, I told you I was way behind. David Gordon Green's modern homage to Waiting for Godot. I dug it. Last time I checked it was available on Netflix Instant.

Don Jon - I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt's first foray into the world of directing was a strong one. Not perfect, but worth the watch on Netflix if you haven't seen it.

To the Wonder - It took me well over a year to write a word about it. I think I liked it more than most, though it's definitely Malick's worst film. Interesting thematic notes on modern man and his inability to adequately address the needs of woman. Not great, but with Malick, the beauty of the cinematography make it worth at least a cursory glance. A Sonic has never looked so beautiful.

This is the End - No idea why I never got around to writing about this one. I fucking loved it. Really funny. Loved each character's send up of the celebrity therein.

Before Midnight - Hard to watch those two in the throes of such an argument, but it was the real world version of what their lives would have been ten years after Before Sunset. Three films that work superbly together.

Boyhood - While we're on the subject of Richard Linklater, Boyhood seemed to me to be a film that's impossible not to like and admire. I don't know that it's the masterpiece that the reviews would have you believe. Conceptually it's brilliant and completely unique. The experience of seeing the film is powerful. Some of the philosophical wanking that Mason gets into in his teenage years borders on being irritating, though this could be because it hit closer to home than I'd like to have hit. We all have our baggage.

The Expendables 3 - I really liked Antonio Banderas in it. He was surprisingly funny. Ronda Rousey worked as well. Of the three, it's the least memorable. It was what it was trying to be, though.

Much Ado About Nothing - Totally pleasant movie-going experience.

Inside Llewyn Davis - A lot denser than I thought it was going to be. Had to go back and watch it a second time because the ending threw me for a complete loop. Mythology was playing a much larger part than I ever expected. Oscar Isaac was great. Hardly the best film of last year, but really damn good.

Upstream Color - Not for everyone by any means, but Shane Carruth is a director with VISION. Beautiful. Mad. Pig fetuses.

Chef - Nice passion project for Jon Favreau. It was refreshing to see him get back to his more independent roots.

Begin Again - I do like seeing music being made in a film. Obviously, it feels very similar to Once, which I loved but felt more organic than Begin Again did.

The Fault in Our Stars - Now I see what TSLF dug so much about the book. Very good. Very sad.

Edge of Tomorrow - You get to watch Tom Cruise die like 100 times.

Snowpiercer - Liked it. Didn't love it. Solid action flick.

The Great Beauty (La Grande Belleza) - Winner of this past year's best foreign film. Beautiful film-making. Cannot recommend this highly enough.

Only Lovers Left Alive - Liked it. Didn't love it.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - I wish Disney/Marvel could get these books back. Not terrible, but not that good either.

Captain America: Winter Soldier - Liked it significantly more than the first one. Of the standalone Avengers movies, it was better than all but maybe Iron Man and Iron Man 3 (which I think I'm in the minority on, but whatever).

Neighbors - Funny. Expected a bit more. Really liked Rose Byrne in it. Dave Franco and Zac Efron were funny.

The Grand Budapest Hotel - The most I've liked a Wes Anderson movie since Tenenbaums. The first time since then that it didn't seem like he was desperately seeking his father's approval. Wonderful.

Mistaken for Strangers - What, I'm not going to love a documentary about The National?

Walk of Shame - I like Elizabeth Banks. It was totally watchable though not entirely memorable.

The Act of Killing - Haunting. Powerful. Amazing.

Wordy Old Men on Boardwalk Empire: Season Five, Episode One "Golden Days for Boys and Girls"

Terence Winter jumps past the boring last half of the 1920s straight to 1931. Nucky is trying to set himself up to be a legitimate business man when Prohibition is inevitably repealed. He is in Havana meeting trying to secure a distribution deal with Bacardi. Chalky breaks out from a prison work detail. Margaret bears witness to her boss's suicide. Luciano makes his move on Masseria.

Old Man Duggan: The first of eight episodes is brought to us by scribe Howard Korder and the always wonderful Tim Van Patten of White Shadow fame. This is the 19th episode that Korder has had a hand in writing. Van Patten has been at the helm for 17 episodes now, and as usual it's a visually compelling episode from the opening sequence. We open underwater with boys swimming for change being ceremoniously thrown from the pier by the Commodore while Elenore Thompson reads a poem extolling the virtues of honesty. Of course Nucky the Younger comes up coinless, as continues through the episode, showing the paradoxical nature of trying to live one's life striving to always be honest.

It starts in Atlantic City of 1884, and then we join Nucky in the "present day" Havana 1931. The Depression has hit. Hoover's presidency is about to wheeze its last dying breath and with it will go the asinine foray into Prohibition that the Temperance Movement foisted upon America. Nucky brings fictional Senator (unless my Google searching skills fail me) Wendell Lloyd to Cuba to help him broker an exclusive distribution deal with Bacardi.

Wordy Ginters: Fate threw everything at the Bacardi family.

OMD: Nucky and Lloyd talk about a report from Wilkerson laying out the failure of the Volstead Act. The federal judge presiding over Capone's tax evasion case was James Wilkerson. I can't imagine it's the Wilkerson mentioned in conversation, but Wilkerson took the seat vacated by Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

WG: The image of hard-ass Landis swatting flies in Eight Men Out is forever seared in my brain.

OMD: "Wendell, if America's not about starting over, where's the hope for any of us?" Nucky's plea, though tongue-in-cheek contextually, gets to the heart of what this episode and presumably this season will likely be about, especially given the flashbacks showing the end of the innocence.

WG: Bromides about the land of opportunity are built on second chances, hard work, and honesty. The grimy flip side, if you want to be a well-heeled swell, is that it also requires some ruthlessness, luck, and that your character can shift from straight-and-narrow to bent, angled, and winding.

OMD: Chalky White's wearing stripes. I have to admit, this isn't where I figured he would be to start the season. His scowl is right where I thought it'd be, though. It would appear as though Nucky is somewhere in eastern Maryland, and Nucky and his new friend--the man who doesn't understand "how they fit a body's voice inside that little box"--are off to Thurmont, which lies smack dab between Hagerstown and Taneytown, to split money in a house.

WG: I'm curious to see how Chalky's tracks from the end of Season Four to the first episode of Season Five get filled in. If memory serves, Harrow's botched attempt at making Narcisse un-alive ended up in Chalky's daughter's accidental un-aliveness. Nuck ultimately was on Chalky's side, despite the Masseria/Luciano/Narcisse heroin three-way power play. Any chance Chalky is taking on a different identity to protect himself? Considering Narcisse's connections, the safest place for Chalky may have been a Maryland chain gang.

OMD: You are correct on Chalky's daughter falling before Chalky's eyes. That shot of him sitting on the porch by himself in Havre de Grace and his reaction to the shooting itself certainly implied that he believed he was on his own, in large part because he thought Nucky didn't have his back anymore. I would guess he's in the clink on account of his own misdeeds, after all it seems that making tracks to Havre de Grace is as good as removing yourself from the game. Anything's possible though.

The Front Page, the movie that Mr. Bennett saw before offing himself in front of Margaret and the rest of the office was the first film adaptation of the play that was later turned into His Girl Friday. The More You Know. I loved the bizarre meeting with Mr. Conors. The Crash is not treating him well.

WG: You can't have a period piece about the Depression without some hotshot broker leaping out a window or otherwise making himself un-alive. The turtle swam away. I was mildly surprised the writers didn't have him commit the deed via machete to head. How many poor bastards in this series have been felled by way of edged weapon to the skull?

His Girl Friday. One of my all-time faves. The Coen bros' attempts at aping that rapid-fire dialogue in The Hudsucker Proxy were noble but ultimately flaccid. Top movies of 1931? Frankenstein. Dracula. The Public Enemy. One thing Boardwalk Empire doesn't get across is how some of these guys were already celebrities by 1931. The Public Enemy was written by a couple of former Capone gunsels who witnessed some of that hot mob action first hand.

OMD: Good point on the celebrity, though there's time in this season for that to be incorporated.

Your old pal, Ian Hart of Luck, has been getting some work. First The Bridge and now as Nucky's bastard of a dad.

WG: Goddammit that show was going to be so good. RIP Dennis Farina.

*both pour one out*

OMD: Speaking of old friends, Jim Neary is the kid Nucky fights with. For those not looking shit up on the internet, Jim Neary was the alderman who double-crossed Nucky and succeeded him as County Treasurer only to get offed by Jimmy and Harrow. Clearly he was a pissant through and through.

WG: Beautiful symmetry there. I dug the flashback scenes. If previews of upcoming episodes are to be trusted, and they most surely can't, the flashbacks may continue. Two things I liked about those scenes: the subtle difference in the way they were shot. They had a marginally different lighting or camera effect to let you know we were back in the 19th Century, but it was a very delicate touch. I also liked how young Nuck scenes typically showed him physically below the swells. Whether he was looking up from the ocean shallows to the dock begging for coins, or literally on the beach below the Commodore's porch, it was a nice visual way to hammer home his early station in life and his ambitions. "You are a fisherman's son, and you are trying to catch what?"

OMD: As always, Van Patten bringing power dynamics into shot framing. I listened to Winter on the Nerdist Writers Panel podcast, and it sure sounds like the flashbacks will persist at least for a while. They seem interested in showing from whence Nucky came. Given the apparent thrust of the season, it makes sense.

Running into Meyer Lansky in Havana with the "wife" is obviously significant. There are no coincidences in the carefully crafted world of Boardwalk Empire, and one could logically conclude that the attack on Nucky was Lansky's doing. Given Don Maxime Ronis's interest in Nucky's bodyguard, might they be in cahoots?

WG: No doubt they are cahooting. Conspiring. Gallivanting unwholesomely. Nucky stumbling over the beard who played Lansky's "wife" at the end of the episode nails it down.

OMD: While Lansky's trying to take out Nucky, Luciano and Siegel take out Joe Masseria. For those needing a briefing on history, this is the height of the fifteen month Castellammarese War between Joe Masseria's faction and Salvatore Maranzano's. Maranzano is really doing the bidding of Sicilian capo Don Vito Ferro, who wanted to take control of the American Mafia. Beneath it all, though, Luciano and the Young Turks are wanting to forcibly change the guard and ouster the Mustache Petes who were too beholden to tradition. With that going on in New York, it isn't hard to see why Luciano and Lansky might want to topple Nucky as well, though I'd hardly say that Nucky is anything other than forward-thinking, one of their primary issues with the old guard.

WG: You had me at Moustache Petes. The fact that Nucky isn't from Sicily or Italy is probably enough to put him on the wrong side of the fence.

OMD: Some of the friction between the Mustache Petes and the Young Turks apparently came from the Mustache Petes not being willing to work with non-Italians/-Sicilians. Mustache Petes.

The blood brothers scene wouldn't happen in the Age of AIDS, would it?

WG: How many of those guys ended up with tetanus or gangrene? 90% ? I instinctively reached for a bottle of hand sanitizer.

OMD: Capone ultimately died from complications from syphilis, didn't he? The distant bongos in the hit scene really struck a Touch of Evil chord. I was hoping that we'd get a single tracking shot from when Arquimedes dropped them off to the ear getting lopped off. I will gladly point out that this is twice that a machete has been implemented by Terence Winter & Co.

WG: Gotta be more than twice. The ear souvenir was badass. Dude took care of that threat without so much as wrinkling his suit.

OMD: "Where's the sense in looking back? It never does any good." "'Be honest and true, boys.'" Feels like this exchange between Sally and Nucky is significant, doesn't it?

WG: It most certainly does. Somehow, they are sideways. Or perhaps Sally is wired, straight through her ample bosom, to be comfortable with means and ends.

Prick Tunes: Sturgill Simpson NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

It's been a while. Let's dust this thing off.

I don't see any better way to do that than to let Sturgill Simpson blow the fucking house down.

If you aren't familiar with Simpson, he's released an album in each of the past two years. While High Top Mountain was an emphatic yowl in the mold of Waylon Jennings. His newest release, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, is even bolder, with his marvelous cover of When in Rome's new wave hit "The Promise" a glimpse at the vision with which he's imbued.

The concert embedded below features songs from both albums, starting with the lead single from Metamodern Sounds, "Turtles All the Way Down."



Do yourself a favor and either swing by his site or go to your local record store and pick up his two albums. Neither of these albums are single listen experiences. You'll listen to them on a goddamn loop.

To give you a sense of how he sounds with a full band, here is the aforementioned re-imagination of "The Promise."