John Adams Mini Series on HBO HD - starts 03/16/08

I am looking forward to this, hope it's good....

Something new AND it appeals to me AND it's a two part program. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the other five days.

Very excited about this.

Last remenants of the old HBO guard. Guess we won't be seeing programming like this again.

The News Hour last night had a good segment on this program featuring both David McCullough and Paul Giamatti. McCullough gave rave reviews of the program and how it followed his book.

I'm guessing the long awaited Pacific theater "sequel" to 'Band of Brothers' will continue in that vein. My guess is they'll roll out something like that, or this John Adams miniseries, every once in a while to try to maintain their cache while the majority of their original programming will be dirt cheap to produce like TMYLM and 'In Treatment' (which is quite good, actually, but cheap - let's face it).

For the life of me I can't understand why they won't finish 'Deadwood'. It's not like they aren't literally swimming in cash.

Me too - maybe it will remind this country where we came from and where we're going.

I am a big David McCullough fan, so I am really looking forward to the HBO miniseries based on McCullough's, John Adams. It's a fine political biography, although not quite as good, I think, as McCullough's magisterial, Truman. Nevertheless, John Adams should provide wonderful source material for the TV show -- Adams was a fascinating man, warts and all. I've got my game face on!

CAUTION REGARDING THE SCHEDULE SHOWN ABOVE:

The DirecTV schedule shows two different episodes for Sunday, March 16. One at 8PM EDT and another at 9:10PM. There are seven episodes in total.

Start handing out the Emmys now.

I usually try to avoid these things, but this show turned out to be riveting from start to finish. HBO is back.

Very well done. I will be watching every second.

I don't get the "too slow and boring" reviews - at least after the first two episodes. I thought it was fantastic.

The first one was slow to me but once we got all of the backstory laid in and the the second episode started, it picked up quite a bit. Excellent work by Playtone (and all of Mr Hanks associates). I couldn't imagine Paul Giamantti in the role, but MAN, as far as I am concerned, he has it NAILED and Laura Linney is fabulous as Abigail! David Morse IS George Washington. WOW! Hats off to the casting director. Someone worked overtime on this one. Haven't read the book yet, have been meaning to, and this will push me over to do it.

Excellent work. This is school house good!

Enjoyed the opening segments, plus the follow-on how-it's-made short. They outlined the usual green-screen techniques for CGI creation of large crowds from a group of people, plus walking up a green-background staircase that in an upcoming segment will appear as walking upstairs at a European palace. From the how-it's-made camera shots looks like they were using Panavision 35mm cameras, but noticed one street scene where someone was shooting actors laying in the street with a small handheld camera, perhaps one of the new RED D-cinema cameras. Imdb.com doesn't list the technical production details yet. -- John

Loved it! Loved it! Except for one minor annoyance. The stupid camara shaking. Makes me ill. Casting is excellent. Look forward to this for the next few weeks.

I'll look forward to the bD for this. I am very interested in the folks who helped found this nation, and if this biopic provides genuine insights, I'll be fascinated. John Adams definitely had vision, and knew exactly what this "experiment" in government was about. "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. ... Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."
I like to put it this way: Liberty is not the freedom to do what we want; rather, it is the freedom to do what we ought.

John Adams also had a great wit: "In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress."

I found the 1st episode exciting. If you put out of your mind the fact that you know John Adams was not tarred and feathered, the fear of that happening or some retribution to his family for defending the British soldiers is quite suspenseful. the guy was walking quite a tightrope. The 1st episode was also quite necessary so that you got a good feel for the man's morals. He just wasnt some rebel that wanted war. When the king pulled all trials for soldiers back over to England you got a real feel for how that must have affected him and his realization that he is "for the law" yet King George was not treating the colonists fairly and the King was the law unless they seperated.

And who said he couldn't see into the future!!

I appreciated the depiction of the fear and risk that the men took as they considered and ultimately adopted the decision to declare independence. The decision was literally life and death for them, and the bravery they demonstrated was moving to me.

I would have been surprised if I had not liked this show. I have had a lifetime's interest in American political history, David McCullough is one of my favorite historians, and Paul Giamatti is an actor who could breath life into a recitation of the phonebook. Great beginning! I can hardly wait for more.

I agree that parts of the first episode got a little slow. I became tired of the frequent pregnant pauses for dramatic effect during the courtroom scene in which Adams defended the British soldiers accused of having murdered some of the rioters during the Boston Massacre. But the sets and the costumes simply couldn't have been better. If that's not the way 18th Century Colonial courtrooms and the people in them looked, you could fool me.

I read McCullough's 1776 and I frequently felt throughout that one that it would make a fantastic series.

I didn't know this was on - got to check it out. Replaying?

Edit: Answering my own question:

Parts one and two on tonight at 10pm Eastern.

Parts 1 and 2 consume a total of two hours forty five minutes. If recording, note that they are two separate programs. The second one listed is part 2, not a repeat of part 1.

Loved every minute. The acting was superb, and more importantly we are reminded of what great men we owe our freedom to. The point was driven even more home as earlier in the day I was listening to a Car-Talk caller questioning whether driving with the windows down and the heat blowing on a cold day is an abuse of energy...jeez we have come along way from concerning ourselves with truly important matters.

Great series.

Just fantastic.
Such a shame that a realistic portrayal like this wasn't taught to us in school.
Can't wait for next week.

Makes you wonder where the John Adam's and Ben Franklin's and Thomas Jefferson's of our time are. There is no one I can think of currently in politics who even come close to these gentlemen. Truth is, the men who forged this country had more skeletons in their closets that ANY politicians today and they did pretty good for us to be enjoying the fruits of their labors 230 years later. Of course they didn't have the type of celeb driven media we have today.

Does make you wonder if the Founding Fathers would be happy to see how we have developed as a nation or just shake their heads in disbelief?

I thought the very same thing. Maybe Tom Hanks has found his place in Hollywood history being involved in many of the major historical presentations of our time, "From the Earth to the Moon," "Band of Brothers," "John Adams" and (hopefully another winner) "The Pacific."

I say hopefully another winner because one of the books that "The Pacific" is based on ("Helmet for My Pillow" by Robert Leckie) describes stories I grew up hearing since my father was on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester in the 1st Marine Division and they are amazing along the lines of BoB. As I watched the BoB interview section with the real men, even though they were in a different theater than my father, I felt I knew them because I had heard stories so similiar.

I wonder how many names of people will pop up in the mini series that I will either have heard of or actually met. For that reason, I am anxious to see what Hanks and Spielberg do with it and I am afraid I will be too tough on it since it is just a TV show and there will be many liberties taken for story reasons.

I could of done without the "edgy" cinematography also.

edgy?