HBO's Boardwalk Empire

HBO's new Sunday night blockbuster Boardwalk Empire is a dazzlingly beautiful recreation of the an unforgettable time in history. The characters, the clothing, the sights and sounds of the 20's are perfectly captured and create the best atmosphere for a gripping, thought-provoking drama that will leave you breathless. It's a world infused with political and romantic entanglements, crime wars and corruption. It's got everything - action, romance, gangsters - even comedic moments. In short - it's a television series that puts most other programming to shame and one that shouldn't be missed. 

It's set in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the Prohibition Era, and the pilot begins on the very day that Prohibition is declared. Filmed on a custom-built set in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the story is based on the book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City by New Jersey Judge Nelson Johnson. According to The Wall Street Journal, "HBO built a $5 million, 300-foot-long boardwalk on the waterfront to recreate Atlantic City circa 1920. The set required 150 tons of steel and includes historical elements like the Baby Incubator, an actual nursery where tourists could gawk at tiny, premature infants. The 12 episodes produced for the first season employed more than 300 crew members, 225 actors in speaking roles and 1,000 extras. It took about 200 days to shoot, twice what a standard network drama would take." The series will go on to describe the events that led Atlantic City from being a simple seaside resort town, to the infamous gambling oasis. 

The best part about this series I think is the main character. Steve Buscemi is Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, Atlantic City political boss and racketeer, based off of the real character of Enoch Lewis "Nucky" Johnson (1883-1968), who's rule reached it's apex in Atlantic City during the Roaring Twenties when the city was notorious for being a temporary refuge from Prohibition. Johnson controlled the bootlegging operations, organized gambling, and prostitution in "The World's Playground", and most of his income came from these illegal exploits, making him a formidable fortune. Buscemi plays Thompson to a T, really capturing the spirit of the character, right down to the red carnation we wore daily in his lapel, lording over the City from his suite at The Ritz, the Robin Hood of the 20's - revelling in opulence and scheming his way to the top, but still taking time to share with the people who surround him. His performance is striking, and unforgettable. 

Martin Scorsese, executive producer of the show, directed the pilot episode and established the look and feel of the show, so that other directors that followed could match it seamlessly. He continues to make casting decisions, and screens all of the dailies and edits. Scorsese will probably direct more episodes once the series continues with appropriate scheduling, but continues to be creatively involved. It's already been picked up for a second season, since it scored the highest ratings for an HBO series since Deadwood, so we at least get another season of awesome Sunday-night watching after this one. Thank you HBO - this is gonna be one amazing box set once it's finished - but let's hope that doesn't happen anytime soon. 

CRIME, by Irvine Welsh

Ahhh…I love the feeling I get when I crack the spine on a brand new Irvine Welsh novel. I know I'm going to have trouble putting it down from then on, right off the bat. Although some of his previous works seemed to have given the impression of slacking on intelligence, dragging his readers through a trench of nearly-listless debauchery, Crime has pulled Welsh back out of the mire, and back into a universe of vivid verbal technicolour. With this latest work, Welsh has discovered a new balance between good an evil, as opposed to sliding deeper into corruption, to create a surprisingly redemptive book that is as compelling as it is disturbing. 

Crime is about an Edinburgh cop named Ray Lennox, who finds himself on hiatus in Miami with his fiancee, attempting to tear himself away from his stressful job, and supposedly trying to take some time to plan his wedding. But he has trouble coming to terms with what he has left behind - an important case that involved a failure to capture a child rapist and murderer. So, as any other Welsh character is wont to do, he turns to booze, drugs and dirty nightclubs to reconcile his woes, causing a rift between himself and his fiancee and delving him into a dark world in which he has very little control. 

The plot unfolds on several levels - Ray keeps revisiting his failure to close the case at work, in the meantime, he encounters a couple of whorish women, one of whom has a young daughter that is being constantly sexually abused by a parade of her pedophiliac friends, who almost mirrors the image of the dead girl that consumes his conscience. But rather than let this one slip between the cracks, Ray ignores the concept of being outside of his jurisdiction, and transforms from antihero to true hero and helps the girl escape an inevitably-horrific fate, taking her with him across the state of Florida in search of a safe haven. At the same time, Ray is trying to reconcile his own torturous past, and understand how to let go, without letting the evildoers get away with it, as well as attempting to figure out who he is. He also has to make an effort to be involved in his own wedding, and appease his bridezilla, on top of it all. Travelling through the everglades, everything culminates into a rollercoaster ride of laughter, tears and anger, as the reader is pulled through a world of corruption and innocence, of deep-seeded evil and redemption. 

Welsh is one of the bravest writers of our time, finding the perfect choice of words to vividly describe the world in which you are plunged, and forcing you to face the beast that is humanity head-on. Who else but Welsh can write about sex, drugs, and pedophile rings and truly show us the wiring behind human actions? To rip apart the psyche and help us understand through soulful dissection what lies beneath the human condition? As I said before, it's usually very difficult to put an Irvine Welsh book down - and Crime is no exception. It sucks you into the darkest of worlds and spits you back out, but it will never let you feel the same again.