True Detective – the Addison Recorder

A Prairie Home Perfection: The Miraculous Qualities of FX’s Fargo

June 17, 2014 by Alex Bean Leave a Comment

This should not have worked. FX’s Fargo — a limited-run series “original adaptation” of the Coen Brothers’ seminal 1996 film, which had its season finale last night — should not have been good. Carrying over many character types, plot tropes, and thematic ideas from the movie, it should have been a lazy cash-in or a failed experiment, ala the TV adaptations of Crash and Traffic after their Oscar-winning successes. But that was not the case. Just the opposite. In stunning fashion, Fargo was one of the best things I’ve seen on TV this year.
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Brew(er) Detective

April 30, 2014 by -J. Leave a Comment

The Milwaukee Brewers had an April for the ages. Just ask Hank the Dog:

A 20-8 record AND an adorable stray-dog-turned-mascot? Everything’s coming up Milwaukee!

Not only do they have something that resembles a playoff-caliber starting rotation, not only have they knocked together the best record in baseball, but they’ve put put together the best opening month in franchise history. As the Recorder’s resident Rollie Fingers (and Brewers fan), I set out to ascertain how my favorite team achieved this improbable early-season success. [Read more…]

Inhabiting Carcosa: 5 Things You Ought to Know About the ‘Yellow King’

March 7, 2014 by -J. Leave a Comment

Congratulations! If you’re anything like me, you heard about how great this True Detective show was halfway through its 8-episode run. Like any rational person, you then marathoned a bunch of episodes to get caught up. You’re now ready for the season finale on Sunday.

Or are you?

Before we all gather ’round to watch what fate befalls Rust and Marty, let’s take a stroll down the weird mythos underpinning the series — Carcosa and the King in Yellow. Since I have some expertise on the source material, I figured it was the perfect time to put that knowledge to work. (While other folks were getting marketable degrees, I was comparing the meta-narrative structures of Robert W. Chambers and Luigi Pirandello. I’m not exaggerating; that was a project for my graduate Modernist Theatre class.)

The professor for that class — I kid you not — was coincidentally the son of a man named “R.W. Chambers.” Just not THIS particular R.W. Chambers.

Here are five things you’ll want to have rattling around the back of your brain when the chords of “Far From Any Road” kick up Sunday night for the last time this season (minor spoilers, naturally). And we’re going to start with the big one: [Read more…]