Changed my mind about "Girls"

Not about girls, "Girls". I still have no idea what girls are. But that is a different, long, dangling essay I will resist penetrating this one with.

Girls. "Penetrating". Ha.

After a brief fascination, I decided to HATE the trendy HBO series "Girls", but, running short of things to watch I decided to give it another chance and found that actually, it's quite interesting and well-written television. 

For awhile I was put off by the "girls in your face" attitude, and the fact that all the characters are such "characters". Look! Girls go for a grungy fuck just like guys! And she's cashing in on it!

Some things I still don't like, it's a personal thing but I don't like seeing the dumpy little Lena Dunham naked or having sex. And it used to bother me that she wrote episodes that had people describing her as "beautiful" when she's really just a kind of stubby, dumpy little chick. 

But then I grew up a little and remembered that most of the time people are beautiful in context--surely very few of the women I've been intimate with would be generally described by strangers as "beautiful" (sorry, ladies, but I also don't imagine me people generally saying "now THERE'S a handsome fella!" about me), but they seemed much more attractive to me at certain times.

Some of the writing seems artificial and arbitrary, but then, it's art; there is no requirement for full "realism" even when SOME of the aspects are fairly realistic. Each scene really seems like a little play unto itself, everything starts and stops on just the right note. And as weird as they are, the characters are engaging. Even Chris O'Dowd, brilliant comic actor of "The IT Crowd" fame) does a great job in a recurring comic/dramatic role as a kind of puzzled outsider who manages to penetrate the youngster crowd he's aged out of.

I still hate Dunham's bruise-like tattoos though. She looks like she slept naked in the black and white funny papers. That tattoos have gained such universal popularity is one of the great tragedies of modern culture. Thank god it didn't happen in the Renaissance!

Unfortunately for those of you without HBO, it is not part of the Amazon Prime HBO collection, although you CAN purchase it on Amazon, and maybe iTunes, I don't know, I never use iTunes.

Another TV note while I'm at it: HBO's "Boardwalk Empire". Critically acclaimed, unquestionably beautifully done period piece with lush cinematography and exquisite attention to detail, about a time and place that is surely fascinating...I just can't get into. I tried, I want to. 

It has nothing to do with the bizarrely inappropriate opening sequence featuring strange fuzz-tone rock guitar for a show about the 1920s, trying to make the whole show seem like an acid flashback. The problem is Steve  Buscemi, the star.

Buscemi is a GREAT character actor who is fantastic in even the worst stuff you see him in, he always makes it better.

But the thing is...he's a SIDEKICK. In everything he's a fantastic sidekick character to someone else, and no one can do it like him. And maybe there are starring roles that would work for him. But to me, seeing him as a mob boss...he just doesn't have it. He has no mass, no "central" presence, like James Gandolfini in "Sopranos". I hate using the word "gravitas"--I even hate people who use it--but he lacks it, and the role requires it.

If he played the secondary character next to the boss who it turned out REALLY ran things, I would totally buy into it. But every time I see him trying to pass himself off as the boss I think of him as a kid playing dress up, walking around in daddy's shoes. 

He's not immature, he has a very world-weary sense he can call on. I know other people don't feel this way. But no matter how good you are as an actor, that doesn't necessarily mean you can play ANYTHING.

And to ME, Buscemi just can't pull this off, and it makes me sad, because I love him.

The lucky thing for those that disagree is that the show IS available on Amazon Prime, so if you pay the monthly fee, you can watch it, in the one amazing gift HBO gave the world.

But honestly, if you haven't watched every single "Sopranos" yet, why is your TV even ON?

And if you get full HBO/hbogo, watch "Girls".