HBO’s John Adams: I <3 Paul Giamatti
By Candi • Mar 22nd, 2008 • Category: TV
If you don’t have HBO this season, I’m sorry.
It’s not because you’ll miss the crazy antics of those feisty bigamist Mormons in HBO’s Big Love, or the asinine drivel that spews from Bill Maher’s frothy mouth every Friday night (my hatred for Bill Maher is only rivaled by my disgust with Seth Rogen).
What you’re missing is the new HBO miniseries based on David McCullough’s biography of the nation’s second president, John Adams, as played by Paul Giamatti. It’s the nation’s revolution against its mother as seen through the eyes of one of its first leaders, a man who at one point successfully defended British troops accused of intentionally killing five defenseless men in a mob.
You’ll read reviews that draw similarities between this show and no other historic recount of the revolution; reviewers laud the series for its honest portrayal of John Adams and the events leading up to and surrounding America’s independence.
Because I’m no history buff and haven’t read McCullough’s book (or any sort of history book since senior year in high school), my review will focus on how completely awesome Paul Giamatti is.
I really started to notice the guy after his break-out lead role in M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water; Giamatti plays a wide-eyed, adorable but eternally grieving doctor-turned-apartment-manager who finds a naked woman/bedtime story character in the apartment pool.
After the movie, I began to realize that Giamatti was in a bazillion other movies; he was that guy whose face I always recognized but whose name always eluded me. Like David Morse, who plays George Washington in the HBO series and who I had to look up on the series website to be reminded who the hell he is.
Anyways, Giamatti was fantastic and endearing in Lady in the Water, hilarious and endearing in Sideways, striking and endearing in Cinderella Man and, now, as John Adams, strong, pissy, patient, intelligent, arrogant, pompous, articulate and, yes, endearing. He is a dependent lover, an imperfect but devoted father, an elitist, over-educated attorney with unwavering ideals and a strong sense of persuasion. He’s good, he’s bad, he’s oh-so-awesome.
Whether all of that accurately portrays John Adams, I don’t know. I hear that it does. For me, when I now think of our second president, I evoke Paul Giamatti’s face and his bald, bristly head covered by a funny, curly wig. And, I remember his name.
For those of you who don’t have HBO, cancel your worthless subscription to Cinemax and switch over to the right side, the HBO side. Then, set your DVR (you really should have digital cable by now) to Sunday nights at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. central) and enjoy the ride.
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Candi is grossly opposed to many things, including consistently contributing to anything.
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I don’t have HBO, but I did just start reading the book. I have to say that from page one, it’s engrossing and that it pulls you right in. I’ve read a few books by David McCollough and have enjoyed them thoroughly. His book 1776 was spectacular. This is one of the few times in recent years that I’ve wished I had HBO…dammit.
Did you know that i find both Bill Maher and Seth Rogen very attractive?
Yeah, back off Bill Maher… he’s funny, and you’re in denial.
Bill Maher CAN be funny, on occasion. I like Real Time because of the guests he has on and the discussions they get into, not because of him, per se.
Seth Rogen looks like a giant Canadian chia pet. Sorry, just my opinion. Oh, and Crystal, Paul Giamatti is ALWAYS awesome, even when he’s in movies that aren’t. He was “Pig Vomit” in that Howard Stern movie and was awesome and he was in “Singles” as the guy who’s making out with his girlfriend in a cafe…also an awesome, uncredited role. I’m waiting for him to finally give in and play Bill Hicks in a movie. That’d be mega-awesome.
The disturbing or troubling component of this mini series took place, on television, while John Adams served as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. The trained historian David McCullough and thespian Tom Hanks ought to reconsider what they left out, specifically the meeting that Jefferson and Adams had with Tripoli’s Islamic Ambassador Abdrahaman.
Here’s what the historical record shows, documented several times over, but for some reason forgotten by Hollywood. First the context: Jefferson was responding to the Militant Islam Barbary Pirates, and by what decree or justification the Barbary nations had in waging war on American merchant ships in the Mediterranean and throughout the oceans of the world. On March 28, 1786, Jefferson wrote a letter to John Jay and the U.S. Congress, articulating what had happened during the meeting between Jefferson and the Ambassador:
The Ambassador [from Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners.
That this discussion between the Tripoli Ambassador and Adams, Jefferson and his contemporaries, including Dr. Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine (where the hell is he in the series?), was left out seems a bit problematic. America’s first interface with Islam Militant is some how unimportant to McCullough and Hanks? Otherwise a great series.