BROTHERHOOD!! ARK II!! ULTRAMAN!! INTENT!! Herc's Season-Box DVD Vault!!

I am – Hercules!!

Brotherhood is the best series Showtime has ever transmitted to its tiny subscriber base. It has been earning raves from the mainstream critical community. I’m here to tell you if lives up to the hype. If you love “The Wire” or you like “The Sopranos,” you really owe it to yourself to give it a gander. Not only is every scene hugely compelling. Not only are the characters enormously magnetic. Annabeth Gish gets naked and smokes dope in many episodes! And Annabeth Gish looks really good naked!! The drama, from a writer named Blake Masters, is about two ambitious Rhode Island brothers – a gangster and a politician. Let’s take a moment to review how numerous critics have stumbled over each other to sing its praises: The Hollywood Reporter says:

Let's get it out the way right now, the blurb that will be quoted after this review is run: "If you see nothing else this summer, watch 'Brotherhood.'" While I never consciously try to arrange a review so that quotes can easily be lifted, "Brotherhood" deserves every boost it can get. It's that good. No, it's better. This new Showtime series has it all: fine acting, superb cinematography, nimble directing and a fascinating world full of ethical ambiguities and constantly shifting moral ground. …

Variety says:

… Aided by superb direction, lush cinematography and a slew of subplots that start paying off in the second episode, this character-driven family story is captivating on a multitude of levels. This is the jewel Showtime has sought for years. … the most duplicitous character is Tommy's wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), a dutiful mother who slips out for pot 'n' sex rendezvous with a postal worker. Gish has a steady toughness that's engaging, and she pivots from that center to varying degrees of soft and hard. As her husband's political life begins to take a few twists and turns, Eileen's reactions should be as interesting to watch as his maneuvering in an increasing complicated world.

TV Guide says:

… richly plotted and totally absorbing, one of summer TV's best surprises. … I've seen all 11 hours of Brotherhood, and I found myself hungry for 11 more. …

Newsweek says:

… “Brotherhood” revels in exposing hypocrisy, from pious politicians to ruthless mama’s boys, and much of the show’s fun comes from watching them twist their perverted moral codes to fit their appetites. None of this is exactly new—“The Sopranos” covers much the same ground, and with more psychological depth. But “Brotherhood” may be the darker show. Everyone in Providence is corrupted, even Tommy’s doting wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), becomes a lonely, philandering drug addict. That bleakness sometimes feels oppressive. After a while, you really want someone to root for, not to mention a sense that the world isn’t so dreadful. …

The New York Times says:

… HBO, which recently brought "Six Feet Under" and "Oz" to a close and will soon let go of "The Sopranos," no longer has a monopoly on great television. "Entourage" and "Deadwood" are superb, but the rival premium cable channel is catching up: "Huff" and "Sleeper Cell" are exceptionally good. So is "Brotherhood," which has its premiere on Sunday. … "Brotherhood" revels in the kind of politics that are rarely seen on television shows: brass knuckle, not grass roots. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… It has a novelistic scope and pace, a fine sense of place, characters that are compelling without being ostentatiously extreme and whose reality the script does not betray for an easy effect or to make cultural or political points about things that have nothing to do with their lives. In a time when willful eccentricity, self-conscious style and pop-cultural knowingness dominate TV drama, it is refreshingly straightforward and unaffected, radical by virtue of being old-fashioned. In its emphasis on character over plot it reminds me of movies from the pre-Spielberg '70s, and is in so many ways what I want from television that I feel almost like phoning each of you personally to deliver the news. …

Speaking of Showtime’s tiny subscriber base? Showtime is a pay-cable channel. It can show NC-17 movies in which morbidly obese transvestites eat fecal matter. So how fucked up must be Takashi Miike’s Imprint, the “Masters of Horror” episode Showtime refused to share? Word is it wasn’t the incest or abortion that scared off the cabler – it was all the exciting violence and torture! From our own Moriarty’s DVD Shelf:

…I understand why it didn't air on Showtime now. There's one torture sequence that is so graphic, so stark, that it just makes sense for the network to have passed on the whole thing instead of trying to tone it down. If you just flipped past this scene on cable, you would genuinely wonder if you had suddenly added Videodrome as a channel on your system. The stuff in the second half of the episode is graphic, but it never matches the torture scene for sheer smothering brutality. In fact, the last five or ten minutes walks a dangerous line towards the silly. Miike deserves credit for taking something as outlandish as this and making it all seem not just possible, but compelling and urgent. …

Moriarty declares “Imprint” the “winner” of season one, which means it’s even better than Lucky McKee’s “Sick Girl,” and even better than the segment directed by his friend John Carpenter! Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry

The march of the supercheap series sets continues. The big news is the “M*A*S*H” set which disappeared last week is back. (It actually contains the Robert Altman movie as a bonus feaure!) Alias $223.73 All Five Seasons Purchased Separately $139.99 The Complete Series Andromeda $269.37 All Six Seasons Purchased Separately $127.49 The Complete Series Friends $291.54 All Ten Seasons Purchased Separately $194.87 The Complete Series> Homicide: Life on the Street $505.94 All Seven Seasons Purchased Separately $209.99 The Complete Series M*A*S*H $335.67 All Eleven Seasons Purchased Separately $139.99 The Complete Series Six Feet Under $382.27 All Five Seasons Purchased Separately $195.99: The Complete Series Twilight Zone $453.95 All Five Seasons Purchased Separately $224.99 The Complete Series The West Wing $296.91 All Seven Seasons Purchased Separately $209.99 The Complete Series
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