For those who missed last night's premiere of HBO's seven-part miniseries on John Adams: Hope for a replay! I watched, riveted, for two hours straight as director Tom Hooper painstakingly followed the tracks laid out in David McCullough's fine biography of our second president. I reserve no particular affinity for Paul Giamatti, but Laura Linney is probably my favorite actress working today; her turn as the stoic Abigail Adams is more fuel for the fire. The period sets and costuming (Wigs! Breeches! Dirty fingernails!), clearly the product of some type-A, on-site historian, are also up my alley.
As for the politics--the biopic couldn't come at a better time. The scenes inside the Continental Congress smack a bit of "Law and Order"--but everyone loves a legal drama. And in this modern moment, wherein real sacrifice, by real people, is hardly the price of freedom, any reminder of how much was at stake at America's inception is welcome. I had always thought the French Revolution was the "coolest" (Since it's anniversary time: I spent the eve of the Iraq war at the place de la Bastille, shouting "Non