John from Cincinnati - The Complete First Season |  | Directors: Adam Davidson, Daniel Minahan, Ed Bianchi, Gregg Fienberg, Jeremy Podeswa
Actors: Rebecca De Mornay, Greyson Fletcher, Willie Garson, Luis Guzmán, Keala Kennelly
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.98
Buy New: $15.55
as of 3/12/2010 10:46 EST details
You Save: $24.43 (61%)
New (34) Used (15) Collectible (2) from $10.99
Seller: bsrmedia
Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 18103
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Number Of Discs: 3
Running Time: 600 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.5 x 1
MPN: 1000036721
UPC: 883929007820
EAN: 0883929007820
ASIN: B0010XB1WM
Release Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | Just north of the border, in the tired coastal town of Imperial Beach, CA, live three generations of Yosts: surfing royalty turned society misfits. The Yost's reign and reputation, once defined in the cure of a perfect wave, has been eroded by years of bad luck, addiction and hubris. But just as things are looking like they can't get worse, a stranger named John arrives - and the Yost's banal exis |
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
A 2007 HBO television series created by Deadwood's David Milch, John from Cincinnati details a week in the dysfunctional Yost family--a family comprised of three generations of men obsessed with surfing who experience firsthand the perils of fame, paranormal events, and an inexplicable realization of the interconnectedness of man. Past surfing great Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood) had his career halted by a knee injury, but passed his love of surfing onto his son Butchie (Brian Van Holt) only to have fame drive his son to a heavy drug use that's destroying his life. Butchie's son Shaun (Greyson Fletcher) is being raised by Mitch and his wife Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay) and also possesses a deep love surfing and a talent that promises him a great future, if he can only get his grandfather to allow him to compete. The family's circle of friends and acquaintances seem mostly to argue, swear, and generally tear each other down and include retired and mentally unstable police officer Bill (Ed O'Neill), surfer girl Kai (Keala Kennelly) who works at the Yost's surf shop and watches out for Shaun, motel manager Ramon (Luiz Gứzman), Butchie's settlement lawyer Palaka (Paul Ben-Victor), and a few other seemingly unrelated townspeople. The mysterious arrival of John, who insists on seeing Butchie, sparks the beginning of one strangely paranormal experience after another for the family and community including unexplained levitations and visions, a haunted hotel room, and two resurrections from death. Somehow, John emphasizes the connectedness of both family members and townspeople and, while John himself comes across as significantly dim, he has a knack for saying the profound without understanding a word of what he speaks. As the days go by, it becomes apparent that John gives voice to the words of his father or The Father. This eight-episode series is an exploration of self-centeredness, fear, and faith and John's role as savior, doomsayer, unwitting pawn, or simpleton is never clear--the end of the season at day seven brings no real resolution or sense of whether the Yost family is better off or worse than they were before John appeared. A truly bizarre show full of unanswered questions and crude language and subject matter, it is somehow intriguing even as it is repulsive and unsatisfying. --Tami Horiuchi
Product Description
Just north of the border in the tired coastal town of Imperial Beach CA live three generations of Yosts: surfing royalty turned society misfits. The Yost's reign and reputation once defined in the cure of a perfect wave has been eroded by years of bad luck addiction and hubris. But just as things are looking like they can't get worse a stranger named John arrives - and the Yost's banal existence is lifted into something profound miraculous and possibly universal.Running Time: 600 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/HBO UPC: 883929007820 Manufacturer No: 1000036721
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 44
 JFC February 4, 2010
Roy Newcomb
This is by far,the best & coolest program since Twin Peak's....very sad it went away after only 1 year
I do not expect there ever to be another show like this January 19, 2010
David Anderson (Minneapolis, MN)
John from Cincinnati defies comparison. It's unlike any other tv show, ever. The only thing I can think to compare it to is a Rothko painting. If you're like me, the first time you saw a reproduction of a Rothko on a computer screen, or perhaps a lithograph, you probably thought, "big deal. I could do that. What makes this art? It's just a big red square," or something along those lines. But when you actually experience the real deal, and stand in front of one of those massive canvases in a museum, something inexplicable and majestic happens. It seems to exude some kind of power, and you undergo some strange involuntary reaction you can't control, and (again -- IF you're like me) you're liable to feel some sense of awe. It's got nothing to do with any formal training you've received or art appreciation classes you've taken or comparison to any other thing--it simply possesses a power that transforms the way you look at it while you're looking at it, while simultaneously -- maybe -- transforming the way you look at ALL art if not the whole world in which you live.
That's what John from Cincinnati is like. It's like a Rothko, and it does more with the medium of television than anything else I've ever seen or expect to see in the future.
Note: to derive maximum enjoyment, I recommend allowing each episode at least a couple of days to kick around in your brain before viewing the next. Let yourself wrestle with it. Don't think the next episode is going to explain anything about the last. There are only more questions.
John From Cincinnati Season 1 January 4, 2010
Jason C. Wilkerson (Green Bay, WI)
The Yosts are a dysunctional family that contains three generations of surfing royalty. Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood), the patriarch, is a surfing champ whose career was ended by an injury; Butch Yost (Brian Van Holt), Mitch's son, who seemed poised to follow in his father's footsteps until his career was cut short by drug addiction; and Shaun Yost (Greyson Fletcher), Butch's son, who is known as a surfing prodigy but is hampered from joining contests by his guardian Mitch who doesn't want to see him follow in his or Butch's footsteps. But when the mysterious John (Austin Nichols) shows up their lives are changed by miracles and other occurences that bring them closer together.
David Milch is a god of television. Milch created such powerhouses as Deadwood and NYPD Blue, as well as writing for shows as LA Law, Brooklyn South, and Hill Street Blues. His love for language makes for some of the most colorful scripts you will ever hear committed to the screen as can be attested to by anyone who's watched Deadwood (if you haven't watched it, go check it out today). After Deadwood ended in it's third season, Milch went on to work on John From Cincinnati. Utilizing a lot of the same actors as can be seen in Deadwood, with a few fresh faces that you'll recognize from other TV shows and movies, John From Cincinnati is a very ambitious TV show that appears to only have lasted one season. The big question is: did it deserve more.
I would say so. John From Cincinnati is brilliantly written taking twists and turns not common for TV, making it a very original show. Touching on moments of existentialism, belief in God, drug abuse, redemption, and so on, John From Cincinnati is the type of show I wish would be made more often. The characters are well developed, with their own quirks, hangups, and problems that all feel real and fit the actors perfectly, and the storyline takes twists and turns that you'd never expect. This isn't your typical cliched television show.
The acting is superb, and in many cases I would say that it's some of it's actors best work. Of these, the two standouts in my mind are Ed O'Neill and Brian Van Holt. Ed O'Neill as Bill Jacks, a former cop and friend of the Yosts, plays a man who is still adjusting to life without a badge and without his wife. He gets the meatiest lines of the show, and, in my opinion, gives some of his best acting work apart from his performance as the patriarch in Modern Family. Brian Van Holt has a little more of a wall to climb playing the drug addicted failure of a son who's heard one too man times that he's a loser and needs to get off the drugs, but the way he portrays it makes you feel every tick from messed up to jonesing and beyond. You feel him when he tries to redeem himself and find his way back into a better relationship with his son.
But I have to fault the series for being a bit too impenetrable at times and even a tad bit pretentious. At times the show is too clever and self aware of it, Milch and his writing seem to be trying to send a message, and try to hard to rap the message in an enigma in something of an attempt to show off. I still can't tell you that I know what all of it means, and maybe I will eventually figure it out on future viewings and while the rewatchability factor is a strength of the show, it's also it's weakness.
All in all, I would highly recommend the show. The dialogue is brilliant and just fun to listen to, and the acting is superb. The movie works on various levels from comedy to drama and beyond and is highly entertaining.
4/5
 Don't waste your time watching this mess! December 26, 2009
pmdoc (Reno)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This has to be about the worst TV series that I have ever seen. Surfers, dopers and new age types might get excited over it but most other viewers will soon lose interest. Looks like it was written and directed by teenagers high on drugs. I'm sure there was a good reason that this series was cancelled at only ten episodes - it truly sucks on so many levels!
How could HBO cancel this extraordinary series? August 19, 2009
Silver Bass (MA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am still amazed at HBO's decision to cancel "JFC", and yet the exceedingly boring "Big Love" continues to get renewed. I wish another network (Showtime)would pick this up. The characters draw you in, and soon enough your part of this compelling journey. I have NEVER been so moved by a television series. Mr. Milch, how can you let this go?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 44
|
|
|
