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Friday, March 14, 2008
Hip history on HBO: ‘John Adams’
HBO serves up history for the hipsters in a new miniseries about the oft-overshadowed second president of the United States, John Adams.
Based on David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “John Adams” arrives Sunday at 7 p.m. with back-to-back episodes and then continues on subsequent Sundays through April 20. I realize that will bump into the return of hipper shows like “Desperate Housewives,” but trust me when I tell you American history can be just as cool as the shenanigans on Wisteria Lane.
Paul Giamatti portrays Adams as bright, patriotic, petulant and wildly egotistical. This is a founding father who abandoned his family for years at a time for a noble cause but seemed immune to the hardships he placed on his loyal wife Abigail (brilliantly played by Laura Linney).
The story begins with the Boston Massacre and ends with Adams’ death 50 years after the Declaration of Independence. Filmed in Williamsburg, Va., and several locations in Europe, “John Adams” is gorgeous looking, with fabulous cinematography and soaring theme music reminiscent of the score from “Lonesome Dove.”
At the helm — and no doubt one reason for the lavish budget — is the producing team of Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, the creative and financial pockets behind HBO’s “Band of Brothers” in 2001.
McCullough’s book is more than 750 pages long, so even at seven installments the miniseries had to narrow its focus. The emphasis here is on Adams’ role as nagger-turned-diplomat, the guy who persuaded the 13 original colonies to break from Britain and then, miraculously, wound up as the first U.S. diplomat to the U.K. Talk about a hat trick.
Along the way he alternately lock horns with and befriends Thomas Jefferson (Stephen Dillane), Benjamin Franklin (Tom Wilkinson) and an incredibly wooden-looking George Washington (David Morse).
Sunday night’s first installment moves sl-o-o-o-o-o-w-ly at first, but the pace picks up in the second hour. Director Tom Hooper makes sure to scatter attention-grabbing scenes from the book: Adams and his sons up to their elbows in manure on the family farm, Abigail and the kids getting small pox vaccinations — the early process involving globs of dead victims sores and a sharpened bone. Ick and more ick.
It’s a richly entertaining and informative journey that will make you feel better about indulging guilty TV pleasures like “Desperate Housewives.”
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