A) Pronunciation is simple in a lot of languages for people that speak that language. That doesn’t make it trivial to pronounce words in languages you don’t speak.
B) People aren’t reverting to “Brooklyn Italian” so much as not attempting to speak Italian at all, just like how they aren’t reverting to “Duluth Polish” every time they order up some “peer-row-geez.”
C) She argued about the authentic Italian way of doing something with a waiter at the Olive Garden? Was she there celebrating her victory over a five-year-old in a spelling bee earlier that day?
I posted a pronunciation clarification instead of a spelling clarification because the IMDB link Gus posted states “Surname pronunced Buss-ehm-ee”, which may be how he pronounces it, but it’s counter-intuitive if you know Italian pronunciations.
I know not Polish (nor do I know much Italian, but this is the internet, so I’m an expert), but the specific Brooklyn Italian at the Macaroni Grill is a weird 100-year-removed version of Sicilian, as spoken by east coast immigrants. See: Gabbagool. Is the Duluth thing specific, or just funny?
Yeah, she was a fun professor.
And Balut, I didn’t see the pre-edit Robsam post and assumed Gus’ snark was just from the misspelling. I didn’t realize Buscemi doesn’t pronounce his name like it’s spelled. Although to be fair, the correct pronunciation of anyone’s name is however the hell they want it pronounced, grammar be damned.
He’d mis-spelled it the same way Athryn did - Buschemi. I just found it funny considering we had a couple of fans who didn’t know how his name was spelled.
I’ve always found his success in appearance-centered Hollywood kind of amazing. He’s really very good, but that often doesn’t count for much. I think I first became aware of him with Fargo, though he’d done some notable work in earlier films (Reservoir Dogs, Living In Oblivion).
I thought the first episode was all right. I thought that Scorsese’s usual directorial flourishes were largely absent. Which is perhaps deliberate, since it’s a TV show, which is more a writer’s medium, and he won’t be directing every episode. I wonder how much hand he’s had in creating the visual style of the show, especially the kind of bright, bleak gray look of the boardwalk in daylight.
I love Buscemi, but I’m not sure I buy him as a big tough crime boss. I just don’t think he projects enough menace. He’s better at the weaselly underling. But I absolutely loved Michael Stuhlbarg as Rothstein though. He couldn’t be more different than he was in A Serious Man. Michael Pitt was good. And I didn’t even recognize Dabney Coleman.
Now, as for the plot …
SPOILERS
…I’m not sure I totally understand why that Italian dude was murdered. Was he an accomplice of Rothstein and this was Thompson’s pre-emptive strike against him? Was it misdirected retribution for killing Rothstein’s men? I didn’t recognize the killer. Or the Italian dude’s significance. A lot of the faces blended together for me, which speaks to poor casting I guess. Or maybe I’m just dumb.
I also thought the way Thompson tosses the church lady’s poem in the trash was a bit clunky. As a man who needs to keep up his front as an honourable public servant, would he really do something like that? I guess I’ll have to see more episodes to really know if this is part of his character or just lazy writing.
BTW: for anyone who wants some great background on Prohibition, there was a really good article in Smithsonian Magazine about Prohibition and the disparate political forces that came together to enact it, and how it changed politics in the US forever after.
It was based on a real thing, but I agree that it didn’t really fit in with the whole robbery plot. I think they just wanted to let us know that Old Italian Man will not be seen anymore.
It’s not specific, so I’m glad you think it’s funny.
About this show: not bad. I’m not a fan of the genre, so when I say that my chief complaint is that it got a little too gangster movie-y towards the end, that’s probably a plus for most people. I also had a problem with some of the direction (too many over-stylized fast cuts and zooms in to the people talking), and some of the plotting was pretty sloppy (like the old Italian guy getting killed). But it’s really well acted, I love seeing Michael Stuhlbarg again, and they really nailed the overall look of the show, so I’ll stick with it for awhile.
Yeah, to summarize, Colosimo was the crime boss of Chicago, but he was all about brothels and such. He didn’t want to do alcohol (which Capone tells Jimmy while they’re sitting outside at the cars). Thanks to Prohibition, alcohol smuggling is about to become the dot.com of the era, and Torrio and the others under Colosimo want in. So ol’ Colosimo is killed just as the first shipment of whiskey hits Chicago.
Really liked Episode 2. The pilot set everything up, and now the dominos from Jimmy and Al’s Fucked Up Whiskeyjacking are starting to fall.
What’s with Mrs. Schroeder? Is she the Bella of this tale? Jeez, Van Aulden is a pretty creepy character thanks to Michael Shannon’s emotionless face (ever see World Trade Center? Same look), but taking her ribbon? Then sniffing it? Really?
Actually, I thought the blowjob being exotic and a bit taboo to ask your wife to do was an interesting bit that you don’t usually see in these period pieces. Many people don’t realize that oral sex was pretty rare in the US until brothels began using them as a fast and pregnancy-free way to service customers.
[QUOTE=Telefrog;]Actually, I thought the blowjob being exotic and a bit taboo to ask your wife to do was an interesting bit that you don’t usually see in these period pieces. Many people don’t realize that oral sex was pretty rare in the US until brothels began using them as a fast and pregnancy-free way to service customers.[/QUOTE]Why do you know that?
We can’t bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you’d say. Now where was I… oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn’t get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…
Yeah, and it was pretty hamfisted, heavyhanded, etc. in general. A big step down from the pilot, which I thought was decent. I’ll give it one more shot, but this episode was bad enough to almost kill the show for me.
It’s television, not pornography. Sex acts weren’t exactly the point of either of those scenes.
Episode 2 really pulled me in. The supporting actors are so uniformly good… Nucky’s brother and Van Alden especially. I’m fine with Buscemi here – but not fitting the type, he allows the writers to play around with the time. Between him and Stuhlbarg, it’s cool to see a different kind of gangster. Still looks like it’s going to be a greek tragedy kind of a plot, though.
