ATTN. CINEPHILES—Hey, look! Jamie and I watched some things on our televisions! Now we will tell you whether or not you should buy them! —Erik
Boardwalk Empire: The Complete First Season
For two seasons, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire has been a blood-soaked romp through the Prohibition. It stars Steve Buscemi as politician-slash-gangster Nucky Thompson, the criminal czar of Atlantic City, and details his personal travails as he trades gunshots and whiskey with the likes of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. The series—which has the distinction of having the world’s most disparate executive production team of Martin Scorsese, who regularly reinvigorates cinema, and Mark Wahlberg, who invented Entourage and failed to stop 9/11—is a mixture of Shakespearian tragedy and the best of motion picture history. It’s also part of television's laying claim to territory once occupied by the Great American Novel. Boardwalk Empire is not a show to watch randomly, whenever you happen to catch an episode on the air. It’s a complete work that only makes sense when consumed as a whole.
All the better, then, that HBO has seen fit to release Boardwalk's complete first season on Blu-ray, making it easier than ever to consume volume one of this epic saga in its entirety. You get everything: all 12 episodes, including the Scorsese-directed pilot, as well as all the expected audio commentaries and mini-documentaries.