{"id":943,"date":"2011-10-19T23:51:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T17:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=943"},"modified":"2011-10-19T23:51:20","modified_gmt":"2011-10-19T17:51:20","slug":"in-praise-of-boardwalk-empire-season-2-bad-horror-movies-on-netflix-like-the-awakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/19\/in-praise-of-boardwalk-empire-season-2-bad-horror-movies-on-netflix-like-the-awakening\/","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of &quot;Boardwalk Empire,&quot; Season 2, &amp; Bad Horror Movies on Netflix, Like &quot;The Awakening&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;m home sick today, and one of the few pleasures for a working stiff on these sick days is catching up on mindless TV. It beats trying to figure out why in the world so many people are transfixed by a fraud like Herman Cain and his bogus 9-9-9 plan. In the category of not-so-mindless TV, HBO&#8217;s <em>Boardwalk Empire<\/em> is well into its second season now, and is much better than the first. The plot is cookin&#8217;. While the first season seemed too one note\u2014especially for Jimmy Darmody (&#8220;Jimmy&#8217;s been in the war. Jimmy&#8217;s seen some things.&#8221;), played by Michael Pitt, like a young Marlon Brando\u2014the second season has great, complicated plots, and Jimmy has risen into a major gangster, who might be about to take a fall. Paz de la Huerta is being underutilized, in my humble opinion, but Agent Nelson Van Aldren (played by the up-and-coming Michael Shannon, who had a wicked role in <em>Revolutionary Road<\/em>) is doing a great job in that plotline. For those not in the know, it&#8217;s set in the early Twenties, all about Prohibition, and is like a period-piece<em> Sopranos.<\/em><br \/>\nThen there&#8217;s the grab-bag of Netflix. Lately I keep trying to watch B-movie horror flicks, and don&#8217;t make it through most of them. One in the so-bad-it&#8217;s-good category, was <em>The Awakening<\/em>. It&#8217;s so absurd you have to like it: Dorks (somewhat overaged dorks, at that, for a rave) get invited to a rave by a sexy girl, while plucky archeologist uncovers an amulet that (you guessed it!) unleashes an evil Aztec demon god. Mayhem ensues. Much blood and gore, low-budget style. It&#8217;s not <em>My Dinner With Andre<\/em>, that&#8217;s for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;m home sick today, and one of the few pleasures for a working stiff on these sick days is catching up on mindless TV. It beats trying to figure out why in the world so many people are transfixed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/19\/in-praise-of-boardwalk-empire-season-2-bad-horror-movies-on-netflix-like-the-awakening\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-tv","category-good-tv"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}