Pimpy McPimpersons

[gwyn]

I feel very awkward saying this, because I'm both a lousy fannish pimp and an even worse self-pimp, but if you were one of the people who enjoyed my Escapade vid After Rain and were intrigued by the fact that "OMG, there was slash! I thought it was just blood and guts!" the History Channel is marathoning the 10-part series Band of Brothers this weekend. They do a pretty good job with it -- the only word they switch out is the f-bomb; otherwise they leave the language intact and they don't cut it to ribbons to shorten it (when it originally aired on HBO, many of the eps were just over an hour).

Yes, it does have blood and guts, but it also has fantastic relationships and amazing characters, who were real people, of course. And my main two loves, Lewis Nixon (Ron Livingston, aka Office Space guy) and Dick Winters (Damian Lewis, proving that redheads really can be hotties despite what everyone thinks). The series is simply amazing, one of the most accurate and carefully constructed depictions of war on film. My only regret about the History Channel airings is that they never show the documentary that capped the series on HBO, We Stand Alone Together. There, the still-living members of Easy Company talk in detail about the events shown in the series, and it's so moving and affecting to hear these real-life heroes talk about what they did, with humility and sadness and pride in their fellow soldiers. That's why it's worth renting the discs (and also, if you have a hi-def TV, the series was one of the first filmed in hi-def, and it's breathtaking when you watch it on disc for that reason alone).

Comments

[vonniek.livejournal.com]

Man, this is such a great series. I've had the episodes recored off the History Channel on my TiVo for eons, then finally caved and bought the DVD set a couple of months ago. Pricey as hell, but worth it.

I am in a weird position of finding Winters/Nixon outrageously slashtastic on screen (the actors have so much chemistry together it's not even funny) AND being severely discomfitted by the concept of war heroes RPS, which feels hella disrespectful, even though I don't really mind actors or boyband RPS. Hmm.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Well, you're definitely not alone. It's one of those things a lot of us in the fandom share (at least, the non-scary people share -- the scary tasteless people don't seem to have much trouble with anything). I just keep trying to remind myself that my interest is in the men who are played on the screen. There are definitely differences (like, Dick Winters is still alive, and he remarked in an interview once how dumb some of the more metaphorical, cinematic "things that didn't happen" were) and so I just remain slightly uncomfortable, but loving the characters that were portrayed by the actors.

[barkley.livejournal.com]

The marathon I recorded in January on the History channel might have had We Stand Alone Together in it, but all chopped up. Each episode started with about five to ten minutes of reminiscing by the real life Easy Company people though I don't think they identified them as such until the interview at the very end. Is that something different or is that what you're talking about?

[klia.livejournal.com]

Each ep starts with comments from the real Easy Company men, but We Stand Alone Together is a separate little documentary that was included on the DVDs.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they are different. All the eps start with interviews they made for the docu. I thought the way they waited until the end to reveal the names was kind of neat -- it's easy to figure out who some of them are (Bill Guarnier could not be more obvious!), especially Dick Winters, but somehow that made it easier to get into the headspace of letting the actors show us who they were.

AFAIK, History Channel hasn't shown We Stand Alone Together.

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Current Music: Bananaphone

It's cellular, modular, interactive-odular!

Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring bananaphone! (do do do do do do)

There's an earworm I haven't heard in awhile.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

There was a link on Cute Overload this morning to a little animation, it looks like the same thing as the Lama Lama thing. My co-worker sent it to us and I can't get it out of my head now.

One of my co-workers said that a couple years ago when they were playing that song for their baby, her husband got a banana and was singing along with the song and pretending to use the banana as a phone, and it made the poor little bug cry!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I...there's a History channel?

*blink blink blink*

(And now you know why I never, ever get into TV fandoms by watching the source.)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

LOL. There, there (patpat). We'll just keep feeding you the fannishness in tasty morsels.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Oh shit, cat's outta the bag. Somebody call History Channel Addicts Anonymous, there's a new member coming in.

[dine.livejournal.com]

oh cool! *makes note to check times*

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up about the marathon. I keep meaning to watch Band of Brothers from beginning to end.

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for pimping this, because I did record it, and I've now watched most of the first two episodes (missing a bit because of DVRing vicissitudes that I caught too late), and I'm glad I have. This is some good stuff.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yay! It really is some good stuff. Hard to watch at times (the two Battle of the Bulge eps, Bastogne and Breaking Point, really destroy me), but so worth it.