By Drew Grant 1/15 8:00pm

As Seen On TV

From clockwise left: Damian Lewis in Homeland, Steve Buscemi in Boardwalk Empire, Andrew Lincoln in The Walking Dead, Jon Hamm in Mad Men, and Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad. (Ed Johnson)

Bad Men: TV’s Most Reprehensible Antiheroes and the Women Who Love Them

On Sunday night, as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were making history as the first two women to successfully elbow out a male host for the Golden Globes, audiences took in an unprecedented display of girl power. With Lena Dunham winning for Best Actress in a Comedy, Girls taking Best Comedy, and Julianne Moore winning for Game Change, we trumpeted a new era … one in which women could not only captivate an audience but do so with an unlikable protagonist. (Hannah Horvath is no Tony Soprano, but she can be plenty unappealing at times.)

Many of the night’s other nominees, including the stars of Veep and Nashville, fit into the same category, as did the un-nominated (but still there in spirit) Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie, Laura Linney in The Big C and Laura Dern in the criminally under-watched Enlightened, which premiered its second season this week. This last is perhaps the best example of these hard-to-watch heroines, with Ms. Dern playing the most delusional, self-righteous and self-martyring female antihero ever to traipse through premium cable.

It was a great night for rude, crude, progressive women. Unfortunately, it was an even better night for Bad Men. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/23/12 4:34pm

yarns

Terence Winter, caught in the act. (Matt Chaban)

The Time Boardwalk Empire’s Terence Winter Almost Went to Jail for Smuggling a Toy Gun on a Plane

When The Observer visited Steiner Studios earlier this year for a profile of the film production facility’s founder Doug Steiner, we all dropped by Terence Winter’s office on the third floor of the 20-acre complex‘s main stages. It is there that each episode of Boardwalk Empire is painstakingly crafted by the former Sopranos writer, now showrunner.

Mr. Winter’s office is packed with paraphernalia from his past and the real past. Two huge Boardwalk Empire posters, one in Korean, one in Czech, frame a flat-screen TV. On the facing wall, a Mad magazine poster of The Sopranos hangs, signed by the entire cast; “Fuck you. -James Gandolfini” it says next to a caricature of the actor, who felt the artists made him look especially fat. Two plates hang nearby: a commemorative one of The Honeymooners, a favorite of Mr. Winter’s growing up, and a dinner plate from the original Calissimo’s restaurant in Chicago. It was actually used in the first episode of Boardwalk, in the scene where Al Capone shoots Jim Calissimo. “A good find on eBay, that was before Calissimo became real popular,” Mr. Winter said. “I’m sure it would have been much more expensive after the show.”

Alongside the old photographs, posters and props is an unusual painting of a snub-nosed revolver on a beige background. Below it, in cursive, “Cesi n’est pas un pistol.” The story of this mock Magritte is a wild one, as outlandish as the artwork itself. Being the fantastic storyteller that he is, who other than Mr. Winter should share the tale than he himself, in his own words. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/19/12 11:52am

Machers

Ms. Dunham, on location in Brooklyn. (HBO)

Lena Dunham Goes Ghost Hunting at Steiner Studios and Gretchen Mol Just Loves Being Close to Home

At the ribbon cutting for Steiner Studios earlier this month, The Observer caught up with Voice of the City Lena Dunham, who had just moved production for the second season of her feverish hit Girls to the studio in Brooklyn. Gretchen Mol of Boardwalk Empire was up on stage, looking radiant beside the mayor and Doug Steiner, but Ms. Dunham hid in the back of the sound stage.

It was actually her first day at the studios, she said, but her experience helps underscore why the city needs more and bigger studios if it is going to continue to grow its film and television industry. (Also, there wasn’t room in our profile of Doug Steiner for Ms. Dunham, but we figure giving her her own post should drive some good Google hits to Observer.com, what with the ultra-buzz humming around Girls at the moment.)

“I’m very excited to be here,” Ms. Dunham told The Observer of her arrival at Steiner Studios. “I love the Navy Yards, it’s such a cool, historic place.” Somehow we could not help but think of that scene from Tiny Furniture where she has sex with the chef inside a giant pipe somewhere in nearby Dumbo. Read More

9/15/10 3:15am

New York World

Boardwalk Empire Author Muzzled

The Transom was all set to interview Nelson Johnson, a New Jersey Superior Court trial judge and the author of Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, the little history book that inspired the big television show of the same name. Then a strange message arrived in our inbox from Mr. Read More

By Sara Vilkomerson 9/08/10 2:24am

Why Fight the Hype? Boardwalk Blows Me Away

It begins with a close-up of a ticking old-timey pocket watch, the shot widening to reveal a man on a boat bobbing on night-darkened waters. There’s a heap of atmospheric silver-blue haze. A foghorn sounds in the distance. Moments later, we see the shining lights in the distance that we’re told is Atlantic City, 1920. Read More