Carnivale: The Complete First Season
- 1934. The Dustbowl. The last great age of magic. In a time of titanic sandstorms, vile plagues, drought and pistilence - signs of God’s fury and harbingers of the Apocalypse - the final conflict between good and evil is about to begin. The battle will take place in the Heartland of an empire called America. And when it is over, man will forever trade away wonder for reason. See the conflict of goo
Description
1934. The Dustbowl. The last great age of magic. In a time of titanic sandstorms, vile plagues, drought and pistilence - signs of God’s fury and harbingers of the Apocalypse - the final conflict between good and evil is about to begin. The battle will take place in the Heartland of an empire called America. And when it is over, man will forever trade away wonder for reason. See the conflict of good vs. evil played out against a pair of vivid and unusual backdrops: a traveling carnival working the American Dustbowl circuit, and an evangelical ministry in California.
DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:3 Audio Commentaries with Creator Daniel Knauf, Executive Producer Howard Klein and Directors Rodrigo Garcia and Jeremy Podeswa
Featurette:“Making of Carnivale” Featurette detailing how set and costume designers collaborated to achieve the look of the Dustbowl in the 1930s
Amazon.com
Carnivàle doesn’t waste any time making its–wildly ambitious–aims clear. As carnival manager Samson (Michael J. Anderson, Twin Peaks‘ diminutive backwards-talker) notes in pilot episode “Milfay,” directed by Rodrigo García (son of Gabriel García Marquez), “To each generation [is] born a creature of light and a creature of darkness.” With that the story begins. The year is 1934, the setting the Oklahoma dustbowl. In short order, Ben Hawkins (In the Bedroom’s Nick Stahl) loses his mother and his home. He’s poor, he’s alone–he needs a job. So he joins Samson’s carnival, en route to the West. Hawkins, naturally, is the good guy. Waiting for him in California is the not so good Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown, The Shawshank Redemption), a fire and brimstone preacher with supernatural powers and a fiercely loyal sister (Amy Madigan). Hawkins, as it turns out, has similar powers….
Created by Daniel Knauf (Wolf Lake), Carnivàle feels like David Lynch (weird, slow, occasionally kinky), plays like American Gothic (Shaun Cassidy’s cult series about a good kid and an evil sheriff), and looks like John Ford’s Grapes of Wrath. It features one of television’s most colorful casts of characters. They include Sophie (Clea DuVall), who reads fortunes–with her comatose mother’s assistance, the vaguely sinister Lodz (Patrick Bauchau), blind absinthe-drinker and mentalist (he can see both the future and the past), and Ruthie (Adrienne Barbeau), snake charmer, strongman’s mother, and all-around maternal figure. By the final episode of the season (”The Day That Was the Day”), also directed by García, one of these characters will be dead. Carnivàle won five richly deserved technical Emmys for its first year, including awards for cinematography and art direction. Like HBO’s edgy Deadwood, it’s period drama for people who don’t normally like period drama. –Kathleen C. Fennessy
Carnivale: The Complete First Season
Tags: Carnivale, First, audio commentaries, Complete, gabriel garcía marquez, Season, rodrigo garciaRelated posts:
This show is ridiculous, plagiarised, and relies heavily on cheap luridness. How anyone can call this “gothic” fare if beyond me. The Gothic genre is completely different from this claptrap.
Rating: 1 / 5
Carnivale: The Complete First Season
Whoever is into this series is there for the soft porn. The rest of it is merely a lousy story.
Rating: 1 / 5
Carnivale: The Complete First Season
This is the most boring tv show I have ever seen. A full hour of the program contains about 10 minutes worth of actual plot and character development. The characters actually are mildly interesting, and the show has a nice visual atmosphere, but my god why must it take soooo long for anything to happen? If you pride yourself on your ability to watch paint dry, check it out.
Rating: 2 / 5
Carnivale: The Complete First Season
I never received this item, it never arrived! How can I trust Amazon reliability if theft or whatever happened continues like my experience ? The thought of this happening again will always linger in my mind for every item I will buy from Amazon in the future, I will ask, “Will this purchase get to me? Will it be stolen or lost too?”
Rating: 1 / 5
Carnivale: The Complete First Season
Hi..
I can see why HBO pulled the plug on this awful show, I mean i really wanted to like it and enjoy it, but it was really bad and boring.
People keep saying how amazing and deep this show is, but i found the opposite, the show started very very slow and never picked up pace,at least in this first season, i mean really boring where nothing really happens and we are just left with some ridiculous subplots and never understanding the major plot.
I especially hated the scenes and segments of brother Justin, we as audience had to endure his boring repetitive speeches he gave in church ! and nothing important ever happens in his storylines.
I was waiting patiently for the so called Good vs Evil battle, but nothing of that sort ever happend, again i was just stuck with an endless plotless show, just poor cliched relationships and love triangles we saw in many many other shows.
On the positive side, the show had some good actors, good performances, but other actors where just terrible ( the bearded lady actress was awful so was the guy playing Lodz ).
The setting was the best part of the show, it was creepy and dark, and the scenes of the carnivale settings in the deserts were nice to watch, but that alone could not save this terrible show from sinking,
I never saw the 2nd season and i don’t plan to, im not sure this show will get better in the 2nd season, but even if it does, im not planning to give it a try, i mean how good will it be having watched this awful slow first season,
My advice for people who haven’t seen it, rent the first 2 dvds first before rushhing into buying it, because in my opinion this show is a complete failure, slow and boring.
Rating: 1 / 5
Carnivale: The Complete First Season