John Adams

Recently I've been hooked by HBO's new mini series, John Adams. It's a period piece that's been painstakingly constructed for material realism- of course there are some artistic liberties taken, but it's noting like say The Patriot or The 300. At least the liberties taken turn John Adams into a more interesting character than what I remember from American History class: the most uninteresting founding father. Freakanomics does a good job at pointing out all the little historical incongruencies so far in this post.

I'm not so thrilled about the choice of Paul Giamatti playing John Adams- I still have memories of him being completely blue in Big Fat Liar. I'm also not much of a fan for the weird camera shots- why are half the shots canted? why are the canted shots not canted in the same direction? is there a meaning or reasons to these canted shots? why is the camera doing a quick pull in during the scene entering Liberty Hall? There mere fact that I have to ask these questions make the camera work suspect in my opinion- the camera work should add to the story, not distract.

However I will say that I am impressed by the choices of David Morse as George Washington and Tom Wilkinson as Ben Franklin- they're great! I have no idea who plays Thomas Jefferson, but he's great too. Also, is it just me or are the women of the Adams family uncompromisingly beautiful? The make-up (or lack-there-of) is great and the dialog is amazing.

Whatever the case is, I encourage anyone to watch it. HBO films does not fool around.