I Love Dick

The only reason I give this 9 stars is because I wasn't quite compelled to watch the entire season in one sitting (was two episodes shy), but that doesn't take away from how much I loved it. Also, I haven't texted everyone I know about it, because it's not a series for everyone, which also puts it in the 9 stars category.

Until now I've been a lukewarm Kathryn Hahn fan, but she was great in this, and changed my opinion of her acting completely.

Ditto with Kevin Bacon. I never saw him as a sex symbol before (and I grew up during the Footloose era), but hot damn, he was smokin' in this.

This is a series for feminist womyn. I do believe plenty of men would like it, but I doubt your rough and tumble beer-swigging, crotch-scratchers would find one second of it interesting. It's full of liberal-minded characters, some who smoke pot, some who are lesbians, some who experienced same-sex sex in 70's drug-induced states.

Take-away: If you're a right-winged Republican Christian, take a pass. Everyone else with an open mind who enjoys artsy pieces with lots of sex and nudity, as well as dialog that makes you pause the show so you can absorb the multitude of "lightbulb moments" it triggers within your own life, I highly recommend it.

I love Kathryn Hahn. I love Kevin Bacon. I have been to Marfa. Nice people tolerating artists. Artists laughing at locals behind their backs. But here's my point: authenticity in the portrayal of Texans and Texas is something Hollywood will never get. In the scene in Man City where Ms. Willis removes her clothes- the Texas flag is upside down. White bar on top. Okay, I'm done here.

During the pilot it becomes immediately apparent that there is not a single redeemable quality in any of the characters. The male protagonist is a sorry caricature of middle age stagnation. The story begins with him but shifts to his wife as the storyteller. His wife starts complaining about everything as soon as the camera hits her, the food, the accommodations, the town, the people...and on and on. Characters are introduced, seem interesting but then their story arcs just end with no clear resolution or even unclear resolution. The story is an endless series of wine gatherings and classes about "art?" I honestly did not believe vapid people still existed like this, I am surprised Andy Warhol was not exhumed to round out the cast. The characters are the stereotypical New Yorkers, roaming around the desert wearing blue blazers and ladder strap sandals...."oh look at us we are sophisticates because we drink wine." I was hoping for so much more.

Being a big fan of Jill Soloway's Tranparent, it seemed worthwhile to check out her failed pilot, I Love Dick. It was not worthwhile. At all.

In I Love Dick, a couple moves to a small town of writers headed over by Kevin Bacon as someone who is billed as cool and charismatic but who actually just seems like a pretentious jerk (charismatic jerks can also be found in Transparent - Soloway seems to be intrigued by them).

The wife becomes instantly fascinated by Bacon, even after he goes on a mansplaining rant denigrating everything she's ever done.

You can't feel sorry for her, because she's an awful person. As is her husband. Really, this is just a show about awful people. When midwest Republicans talk about New York liberal elites, I think they are imagining people like these horrible people.

Ugh.

This film tells the story of a married woman who goes with her husband to a small town for an artistic conference. They have troubles in their marriage, and the cracks widen as she meets a charismatic man in the conference.

There must be something seriously missing in the "I Love Dick" that I watched. The 32 minutes of footage does not show what the plot summary says - I did not get how "both" of them fall for the same professor. I only see how she falls for him, and there is no second person falling for the professor. Either way, the story is not so interesting. It is more like a housewife fantasy, only that it is boring and fails to connect with viewers. The only good scenes are Kevin Bacon's flirtatious gazes at the camera, and the final scene which looks rather artistic. However, these fleeting scenes are not enough to make me interested in this film, or the potential future series.