The show stars Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk, was created by Ian Edelman and was Directed by Julian Farino. It comes to HBO from Mark Wahlberg's production company, and there are moments where it seems like they're going to try to promote it as a kind of east coast Entourage.
But it's not. It's not even particularly a comedy, though it's pretty funny. From the opening titles, with its bold sans serif type & chunky early 70's soul theme song, How to Make it in America is HBO's announcement that it's right back at the center of the zeitgeist as tastemaker.
Everything about this show is tremendously appealing. It's about two guys in their twenties trying to make it as entrepeneurs in the fashion world in New York. But what gets me about it is that there isn't a false note anywhere in the show. It cooks along as the perfect of the moment show about the difficulties and disappointments of the American dream -- even hinting at the darkness underneath, that behind that facade of you can make it with hard work and grit lies worlds and clubs and secret handshakes that stack the deck against you. It's sincere but not naive, unsentimental but not cynical.
The top-flight cast includes Martha Plimpton, Sharyn Sossamon, Kid Cudi, and Luis Guzman.
This is a show where your unreliable friend still has your best interests at heart, where your Ex-Girlfriend isn't a harridan or simply a sex object; where people who other shows categorize as the foil or the antagonist can show a redeemable side. Every character is appealing, their stories and struggles are engrossing, and the rainbow of people you see actually reflect the reality of a 21st century urban center. The reality of daily disappointments are counteracted by friends who cancel plans just to be there for you, and cut with the sadness of people who maybe lost a little too much, maybe even their sanity -- on their way to their dreams. I don't know where they're going with the show, but I will follow them without hesitation.
As America freaks out over the jobless recovery, this -- not Hung -- is the show that puts HBO back on the map because it's about people you care about, facing challenges of achievement and ambition that are instantly relatable. I found myself thinking about it all day today, suffering to think that it'll be weeks before I can see a new episode. I don't think I've been this excited or charmed by a show since Mad Men.
How to Make it in America premieres February 14th. Do whatever you can to see it. It's an absolute winner -- with great Direction that makes New York come alive, note perfect casting and acting -- and an easy, genuine, and sincere writing style that is just unvarnished goodness from top to bottom.
Good tv makes me happy, and this show did that in spades.
19 rumbles:
Am I wrong in suggesting it is shows like this that exhibit the divide between Canadian and American television...
In Canada, to reach a younger demographic, we depict their angst and the obstacles they face. South of the border, it's about celebrating their dreams and potential.
Just sayin'.
I think sometimes but not always. I remember (as do many) the show MY SO CALLED LIFE with incredible fondness, but at the time the cancellation was squarely blamed on the fact that it was too downbeat and not hopeful enough.
Recently, shows like LIFE AS WE KNOW IT and a few others failed for the same reason.
Yet a show like ELI STONE that was all about hope and redemption totally failed, and 18 to Life, which is incredibly hopeful about the subject of Young Love (you basically can't watch the show if you don't buy into the premise) and Being Erica has an underlying hopeful message, and people bitch about it constantly.
Maybe Canadians are just contrarian, or it's a case by case thing.
I'll say this about that, too -- I watched the 2nd Trailer Park Movie on the weekend (rented it off Itunes!) and really enjoyed it. And again, what do I like the most? The sense of family and never flagging humanity and loyalty between the characters.
It's not that we can't do it. We can.
wow, i couldnt disagree with you more. i saw the pilot some months back and read the script ages ago. It wasn't funny and felt very very cliche all the way through.
What did you find cliche about it?
A total aside for jihenshaw: The biggest difference I've noticed between Canadian and American TV is that U.S. shows love to show bilingual characters (Ugly Betty, Dexter, etc., going all the way back to Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy.) On TV, Canada hides its bilingualism like a dark secret.
Absolutely true. Blame Alberta.
I say that semi-facetiously. Again, part and parcel of the terrible provincialism and regionalism that plagues this country (which goes wayyy beyond "Toronto hate," though that's the somewhat less controversial face of it.) is this allergy to bilingualism.
Canada was the only territory that I know of that the (Canadian produced) TV spinoff of the French Film "La Femme Nikita" was called simply, "Nikita," because the French tag here was considered poison.
It is a kind of linguistic racism, to be sure. At least partially. It gets very strong and very ugly the further west you go. (There's also far fewer, shall we say 'fans' of APTN out there.)
When people suggest that they dub or run subtitled Radio Canada shows on CBC, that's why they don't. They've tried. People do not accept it. It's very sad, and it kind of puts the lie to Canadian "tolerance."
But what are you gonna do?
I probably notice it more than most people, as an American immigrant in Quebec. English is NOT an official language here, so for me, living in Canada isn't much different from living in, say, Prague or Berlin. Then I turn on the TV and everyone sounds like they're from Ohio. It blows my mind.
Moi aussi!
Since Radio Canada runs in all markets across the country already, I wonder what would be accomplished if you could simply click your "closed caption" switch and get English subtitles.
French Programming available to a wider audience without replacing any of the CBC's shows.
Maybe that just continues the ghettoization of our cultures. And not that I need to defend my Western Redneck brothers for their entertainment choices. But isn't that how the CRTC and our Toronto based broadcast industry has decided that we'll operate?
Aboriginal programming keeps to APTN. Gays stay on OUTtv. Italians call TeleLatino home. If you're Asian or Greek or Russian you get to choose between Omni 1 or Omni 2.
The powers that be don't integrate hardly anybody into our mainstream here -- except Americans (Both their English speaking and their multilingual).
And as far as that "the further West you go" comment...
I'm told the Canadian Olympic Committee called a meeting of all the Vancouver hotels demanding that they provide staff for the Olympics who could speak both official languages.
Somebody stuck their hand up and asked, "Is the official second one Mandarin or Cantonese?"
Out West, North of the GTA where I live and I'd even venture in the cozy bistros along Queen Street West, there are a lot more people speaking in far more tongues than our other "official" official one.
Don't they deserve to be on CBC, CTV and Global too?
Just sayin'...
See Jim, this is where sometimes you drive me nuts for arguing contrarian bullshit that you know isn't true.
First, you're probably well aware that French is one of the largest primary- language groups in Toronto.
Second, you know the history and that the enshrinement of French as the 2nd Official language goes back to Confederation. You want something different than that? Agitate for a Constitutional Convention. And Good Luck.
You want to argue ghettoization of broadcast content? That's fine, go ahead.
But I don't know the last time you got regular peeks at Audience Relations reports. I got them for CBC for a while, and I saw them twenty years ago when I worked at TVO. And they were fucking depressing. Fullstop.
This magical idea that it's the broadcast industry who's responsible for this is bullshit. And what's more, you know it's bullshit.
You wanna show me all these progressive thinkers in the Wild Rose Alliance. Go nuts. Go ahead. But don't sell that particular goods as another failure of Toronto thinking. Own up to your country's ongoing pettiness. That multiculturalism (or not-mulitculturalism, cause that's a loaded word) but that diversity of tongue? Go outside the urban areas and find it for me. Inasmuch as I agree with you on the lack of diversity in casting problem, let's be real here. Follow the demos and show me the breakdowns. And then you tell me again about how in those places that are lily white on the census, how the reason that they haven't embraced all them other tongues is because Toronto hasn't given it to them.
There are things that are too dumb to beggar belief. What you're arguing here makes about as much sense as giving Iowa and Idaho a huge chunk of spiffy protection against terrorists money even though the targets are in L.A. NYC, D.C., etc.
But putting CC' on Radio Canada is a really good idea. Really good.
You should get on that. Book a meeting with Joe Clark...apparently he's a bit of an expert on the subject. And really easy to get along with.
Maybe you'll spoon.
Jim -- I'd LOVE to see more immigrants on TV, especially since I currently have a pitch out that's essentially Friends with new immigrants. :-)
The lack of bilingualism makes me think of a recent post here about building the industry.
Way back when I was a kid in Montral there was Les Ploufes shown one night in French and the next in English - with the same actors.
While that wasn't the case with Pardon My French, they at least had French and English characters.
Imagine if the industry in this country used the best people from Quebec AND English Canada.
John, that's been my fantasy for years. Really, it has been. And Jim is right in thinking that what it probably takes is one stubborn sonofabitch who makes it happen.
It's a legacy that makes Canada interesting, and it's radioactive, and that is a goddamn shame.
honestly, it was long enough ago that i dont remember specifics. There was something with one of them riding a bike, a young kid, etc. i'll give it another chance as sometimes pilots fall flat but I remember being very very very underwhelmed.
also, let's not kid ourselves. American TV took a long time to embrace other cultures. Someone brought up friends in a post further up...
yes, it exists now, but it took a long time.
In some ways we - and the Americans - had it and lost it.
Someone mentioned Desi Arnaz. It's hard to imagine the Brady Bunch dad being a Cuban band leader. Some things snuck through in the early days of TV.
Like Les Ploufes did here. We sort of tried it again with He Shoots, He Scores but the French version ran a lot longer than the English one. Maybe Bon Cop, Bad Cop could have been turned into a series.
It's not really recent. MIAMI VICE peppered its dialog with Spanish 25 years ago, and so has almost every show set in Miami (with the exception GOLDEN GIRLS), because it would be weird not to.
And it's not just Spanish. I'd bet money that the new HBO series TREME will include Cajun French (as did THE BIG EADY in the 90s), because that's just the flavor of New Orleans. Language is part of what makes viewers feel they're seeing a specific place.
I'll grant you, though, that many shows set in Los Angeles strive to look generically "American." (It always jars me to see my former hometown without any Mexicans. Did the vampires on BUFFY eat them all?)
Oops. The Big Easy, not Eady.
And Denis, I apologize for somehow hijacking this comment thread. How To Make It In America sounds like a really fun show.
Sounds like a good show. I look forward to it.
French may be a primary language group with numbers in Toronto, but it is rare in my experience to hear it spoken out loud without a strong Quebecois accent in public. That is, native Ontarian French speakers either choose not to speak it, or have an enclave I rarely visit (perhaps Scarborough - I'm a west end boy). However, my 35 years spent on the TTC in North York and Toronto have exposed me to lots and lots of Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Chinese (M & C), Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Tagalog, and Jamaican patois. No offense meant.
On a related note, I caught up on the last two eps of Bloodletting and in one, two characters speak in a S. Asian language (Fitz refers to Urdu, but it could be a mistake made deliberately by the writers as he also refers to a 'hijabby') without subtitles. I don't watch The Border, or Flashpoint, but I'd think those shows would be perfect oppportunities to demonstrate native Ontarian French speaking, as in the justice system at some point you end up dealing with Quebec. (I work in justice and I've had to, and if [i]I[/i] have to then I'm sure it isn't that rare).
Btw, thanks for continuing to blog. I check in here and there and keep expecting you to go dark. I continue to be pleasantly surprised.
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