In this episode of the George Hahn Podcast, I talk about this past weekend’s mind-blowing episode of Downton Abbey (no spoilers, promise) and the premiere of House of Cards, an original series produced by and released through Netflix.
Based on a BBC series of the same title, House of Cards is produced by David Fincher (Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), who also directs the pilot, and written by Beau Willimon (The Ides of March). This darkly comedic political thriller stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright as a U.S. Congressman and his ambitious wife who will apparently stop at nothing to get into the White House. It looks to be a fun romp and a hot mess of greed, sex, back-stabbing, betrayal and soul-selling set in “Hollywood for Ugly People,” a.k.a. Washington, DC. All thirteen episodes of the show’s first season are being released together on Friday, February 1st, and will be available to watch at any time by Netflix streaming subscribers.
Both the wake of a devastating episode of Downton plus the introduction of a new series in a new release format bring up an interesting development in the way we talk about TV: since people aren’t necessarily watching on the same schedule, we can’t really have “water cooler” conversations about shows the way we used to. I, for one, will be far more wary of leaking any spoilers on Twitter and Facebook than ever before.
Trailer for House of Cards:
Hidden Treasures on Netflix
I also introduce a new feature on the podcast. Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard many friends complain that there’s nothing to watch on Netflix (though House of Cards might change that for many). House of Cards or not, I beg to differ with said complaint. Peppered throughout the Netflix library are hidden treasures that get very little “front window” attention on Netflix. One of them is a film called Un Flic (French for “A Cop“), which was released in the U.S. as Dirty Money, directed by French New Wave legend Jean-Pierre Melville. Melville was the king of creating the uber-cool and stylish cops & robbers/gangster worlds in the 1960s, complete with dress codes, cars, apartments, night clubs, attitudes and accoutrements that don’t really exist anymore, at least not in a design as celebrated as they once were. With his own production company, he created stories populated with troubled men who didn’t have much to say, but had a great deal at stake. There are beautiful women, too – many with secrets that contribute to the downfall Melville’s tragic heroes. Dirty Money/Un Flic (1972) was Jean-Pierre Melville’s final film.
Trailer for Dirty Money (Un Flic):
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