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Post by Lauryn on Aug 7, 2010 17:05:51 GMT -5
I rented Season One of the show “White Collar” because I was a little curious, given the “It Takes a Thief” premise, about what parallels and differences it might also have with RS. The charming thief they’ve slotted in, Neal Caffrey, played by Matt Bomer, is pretty adorable in a “cutest / smartest boy in the class” kind of way and I love their use of NYC locations, even if they steal some bits shamelessly from the cinema. They should put up warning labels, though. I almost hurt myself doing a double take at a familiar overhead street shot of police cruisers pulling up in front of a gorgeous townhouse. I found out on the episode commentary that the White Collar producer paid for the use of that shot from TCA! Oddly enough, he said they paid Sony for it. Doesn’t MGM still own all the rights?
Watching the show you can get flashbacks to Season One of RS. The thief character “inherits” a fancy flat and a new wardrobe, in this case, a closetful of rat pack era suits. The tailoring’s narrower silhouette reminds me of the more fitted English cut of Steele’s jackets back then, along with the skinnier ties. Caffrey also wears tie bars, though he steals Laura fedora. The thief is paired with a straight-arrow FBI agent, Peter Burke, who has him on a tight leash (literally, an ankle bracelet) while they team up to fight white collar crime. Though the agent is older and married, you can’t help but imagine that the show is what RS might have been if Laura were rubbed out of the picture and Steele and Murphy were thrown together as reluctant partners. You can argue that, without Laura, there would be much less friction between them, but I doubt it, LOL! Poor Murph. He never got to make Steele stick to a two-mile radius, or arrest him several times. Some FBI agents have all the fun!
Caffrey doesn’t have Steele’s emotional depth, so far, or quite the same level of mystery. IMO, he needs a bit more of a dark side. He is hung up on a mystery woman from his past who, like Steele’s Anna, is decidedly dangerous to know.
At least “White Collar” isn’t afraid to be stylish and that’s rare these days, not wanting to "blend in." It totally gets that its charming thief is supposed to turn heads when he walks into a room, though he’s quite at home in any situation. I haven’t seen that happen on television in a good long while. <wink>
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Post by Ace on Aug 11, 2010 12:37:32 GMT -5
I thought that show looked familiar but I didn't watch it with any directory commentary. For a while Sony was administering and distributing MGM's back catalog (poorly - especially in comparison to their own which is the main reason MGM broke away again from them) . This was 2 years ago so it seems to fit that time period before MGM took their back catalog back. I've only watched the first 2 episodes of WHITE COLLAR. I liked them, more the first than the second and the eye candy was certainly splendid from the leading man to the gorgeous shots of higher end NYC. The set up with the free suits, basically free expensive place and his disgruntled more down to earth nose to the grindstone seemingly own one suit is very Steele with Burke being an amalgam of Murphy and Laura. I agree Steele would have rubbed Murphy wrong even sans Laura though his reactions might have less of a violent undertone. But Steele was anathema to Murphy's work ethic, core honesty and lack of fashion sense. I agree that so far even though he's just spent 4 years in prison and has lost the woman he loves Caffrey doesn't seem to have an iota of darkness and not much depth - the wide eyed look makes him look even fluffier. But he is stylish and charming and that counts for a lot in these overly serious and drab times on TV and Film. I liked the actor when I saw him on the spy sitcom CHUCK and I think I looked at his IMDB page and was surprised to see he played Ben on Guiding Light a few years ago. Strange because the last time I watched the show Ben was a round faced sometimes mischievous 10 year old sidekick. ;-)
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Post by Lauryn on Aug 12, 2010 19:11:26 GMT -5
I knew you would come up with the answer. If I ever stump you on this board it's probably a sign of the apocalypse. <wink>
That’s kind of a typical progression, a fall-off of the quality from a pilot episode, but I did find WC entertaining over a season. The finale episode has a heist that shamelessly rips TCA at a number of points (not acknowledged on the commentary). It’s pretty amusing how quickly Neal, the art forger, can whip up a masterpiece. Don’t know how he does that but he had his shirt off at the time so I wasn’t really concentrating…
True, that. He is a combination of the two, not just a Murphy stand-in. Trust issues, nagging, territorial spats, nothing we haven’t seen from Laura before, except unresolved sexual tension, and I’m sure there’s some White Collar slash fic out there that can set me straight about that, LOL! Hmm, maybe that's a poor choice of words.
There’s an episode, “Vital Signs” where FBI guy Peter has to flirt with a suspect and he’s so rusty / inept that his wife finds it all hilarious. She ends up coaching him over the phone. It would be lovely to think that Murphy might have eventually settled down with such a great partner in life, one who understood him so well.
Life doesn’t seem to have laid much of a glove on Caffrey; it’s a bit disconcerting, at times. They do dance around the edges, but it’s as if they’re afraid too much drama will upset his equilibrium. Even some fairly major conflicts with his partner over Caffrey’s lost love Kate don’t as much rouse passions as they do a spate of back door maneuvering. It’s oddly passive aggressive, and I can’t imagine such a situation not coming to a heated conclusion between the likes of Steele and Murphy, even though Steele could be the king of deflection and avoidance when he wanted to be. The suggestion is there that Neal’s chasing after Kate is more chasing a dream of what their lives could be than anything real; there was a cliffhanger ending, and I haven’t caught up with any of season 2.
Oh, well I guess the mischief part is still there! I never saw him on “Chuck” or in anything else so I don’t know what kind of range he has. Even though Matt Bomer is, I think, close to the same age as Pierce when PB first appeared on RS, he’s more boyish in both his looks and how his character comes across. They do like to play off that Peter Pan quality, I think, but's it's rather too easy. I would hope they’ll let him stretch a bit more in season two, not be as callow and Teflon coated. It does make you appreciate what they did with Steele from the beginning, not to have him play just a charming lightweight. Just think of the complexity you can read between the lines in a handful of scenes in Steele Belted.
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Post by Ace on Aug 12, 2010 23:17:10 GMT -5
Oh, Bomer wasn't playing the 10 yr old round faced Ben I remembered but looking at the dates he was on the show he was hired a couple years later and evidently SORASED (Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome) into a hunk probably sleeping with characters who once babysat him. Bomer was actually 3 years older than PB when he started (31-32 to Pierces 28-29) looking at the IMBD is. At almost 33 now he's about as old as Pierce was in his last Season of RS. Pierce just seemed so much mature then even when he was being "boyish". Even when he did Manions and Nancy Astor before Steele he easily and convincingly played older. Another difference I noticed as I was admiring Bomer in his suits - he moves easily and lithely but not elegantly or commandingly - something Steele - really Pierce always had and has. It's noted not only in the great commentary by McTiernan on TCA remarking how beautifully he moves but in I think the Season 2 Steele DVD's there's a scene with Pierce entering a restaurant in a white dinner jacket and the commentary notes that even at that young age he was a man and actor in full command of his many gifts. Head turning not just for his looks but the way he moved and his control and self possession. I agree that White Collar needs to stretch the characters and actor some if they really want the show to grow. I really need to catch up on the episodes though. That and Burn Notice and oh Castle which I've yet to watch an entire episode of!
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Post by Myrtle Groggins on Aug 22, 2011 16:31:56 GMT -5
Here I am a year later reading this thread. Now I'm interested in sampling this series. I see the episodes are available for viewing online, which is a good thing, as I don't have cable access. I refuse to pay for TV when I rarely watch it these days. The rare exception being Castle on ABC. The name "Matt Bomer" caught my attention in the original post because I remember him as Ben Reade, serial killer of Springfield on Guiding Light, an insane storyline that angered many fans of the series. Adorable and handsome teenager Ben Reade, Fletcher Reade's adopted son, a serial killer!!! How do they come up with that stuff? When he died, his father, Fletcher, didn't even appear at his funeral. Fans were not happy. At all. Some series beg for cancellation... Maybe I'll check out an episode or two of White Collar tonight since my Monday nights are free without Castle (season premiere September 19th). Thanks for the headsup.
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Post by Ace on Aug 22, 2011 17:52:40 GMT -5
Wait, they made little Ben Reade into a serial killer? The last time watched GL (as I said above) he was 10 and just an absolute cutie. If I recall he was born on the show and viewers watched him grow up (albeit at times rapidly aged which is evident since Bomer is in his mid 30s) - sheesh there are some lines you don't cross.
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Post by Myrtle Groggins on Aug 30, 2011 22:03:46 GMT -5
Wait, they made little Ben Reade into a serial killer? The last time watched GL (as I said above) he was 10 and just an absolute cutie. If I recall he was born on the show and viewers watched him grow up (albeit at times rapidly aged which is evident since Bomer is in his mid 30s) - sheesh there are some lines you don't cross. Yes, little Ben grew up to be a serial killer. A handsome serial killer. Fans were NOT pleased. He was best friends with Michelle Bauer and Bill Lewis (Little Billy) all their growing up years. Suddenly his was dating Marina Cooper and people in town were dropping dead left and right. It turned out Ben did it. Fans were furious! We were hoping our beloved and handsome Ben was going to follow in Fletcher's footsteps and become a crime-fighting investigative reporter, instead they destroyed his character and they killed him off. Not GL's finest hour.
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