No matter how deep my dismay about this winter's Sherlock Holmes may run on any given day, my faith in the shamus genre (which really is the pantheon in which Holmes is supreme deity) is being buoyed these days by the promise of Bored to Death, a delightfully mad-looking new HBO show starring Jason Schwartzman as a novelist with writer's block so severe he takes up private detection as an escape from his life. To wit:
I love, in an entirely sentimental and unironic way, Jason Schwartzman. He basically is my exceedingly screwed-up vision of Paul McCartney, cute, and hardworking, and often extremely vulnerable. He's one of only a few actors I know willing and able to look truly pathetic, not just sad, or remorseful, or whatever, and I love him in both Rushmore and Shopgirl for it, and for growing beyond it. This looks like a great, funny vehicle for him (and of course everyone else involved). I hope it works.