Californication : The Complete Second Season
by David Duchovny, Adam Bernstein, Bart Freundlich, Daniel Ducovny, David Von Ancken
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Actor: David Duchovny, Evan Handler, Madeleine Martin, Natascha McElhone, Pamela AdlonDirector: Adam Bernstein, Bart Freundlich, Daniel Ducovny, David Duchovny, David Von Ancken
Brand: DUCHOVNY,DAVID
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 336 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-08-25
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Showtime / Paramount
DVD Reviews of Californication : The Complete Second Season
DVD Review: Bankable Angst to Parody in Two Seasons
Summary: 3 Stars
When series creator, Tom Kapinos, first sketched character Hank Moody, played by David Duchovny, it appeared as though he'd found a wormhole into the collective unconscious of middle-age, urban men.
Hank was a bright, talented guy who, like many of his generation, seemed powerless to consummate a functional relationship with his one great love, played by Natascha McElhone.
This very-public struggle was waged on the quintessential battlefield of urban decadence and moral relativity, Los Angeles; a place where he appeared to be both victim and willing co-conspirator.
The drugs, the endless sexual escapades, the chain-smoking, the hard drinking and the lawless swagger of a rock star on the verge of another overdose all peppered his course to self discovery like a series of land mines.
Kapinos nailed the arrested adolescence of many older single men with more than their share of talent, good fortune...and too much time on their hands.
So in this birthplace of pathological narcissism, here was this intensely desirable renegade in search of a better destiny...or mother, as the case may be...and everyone [the audience] was happy.
But that was season ONE.
The second time around things started to unravel. The psychological components that gave the show life began to morph into a series of clichés that reminded me of an alcoholic who repeatedly calls to apologize for behavior he's powerless to prevent.
In the end, the behavior becomes as predictable as it is boring, and as a result, I started to resent Hank's helplessness. It also seemed to be contagious, because every member of the supporting cast was some way, somehow victimized by their own absurdly preposterous foibles.
In the end, the edges were wearing thin and the show had started to edge closer to a parody of itself.
Californication has been granted a third season, and I hope this time around Tom and company focus more on Hank's inner evolution - or devolution - if that works in some ironic way.
The endless - if improbable - sex, drugs, and rock and roll are always good sellers, but character development is far more satisfying.
Where the hell is that wormhole, anyway?
Description of Californication : The Complete Second Season
Sophisticated and unique, this comedy centers on novelist Hank Moody (David Duchovny) who struggles to raise his teenage daughter with his on-again/off-again girlfriend in Southern California. His obsession with truth-telling and self destructive behavior -- drinks, drugs, and relationships -- are both destroying and enriching to his career.When we last left transplanted New Yorker and "debauched moralist" Hank Moody (David Duchovny), he was reunited with his ex-girlfriend and runaway bride Karen (Natascha McElhone) and his beloved daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin). Sounds like the makings of a happy-ever-after ending, but Hank's life is no fairy tale. Or maybe it is. Though a total screw-up, he remains irresistible to a bevy of women who throw themselves at him, from the nurse participating in his vasectomy to an A-list prostitute ("You really got under my skin, Hank Moody"). The new Hank is determined to make grown-up and responsible decisions, but before the dust has settled on the season opener, he once again finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong woman, albeit accidentally. No wonder Karen needs time to mull over his marriage proposal. Californication takes as jaundiced a view of Southern California hedonism as did the classic 1975 film Shampoo.
In season 2, fast-laner Lew Ashby (Callum Keith Rennie), a legendary music producer, recruits Hank to be his biographer. Hank's agent Charlie Runkle (Evan Handler) is fired from his agency and takes a fledgling female porn star under his wing. Charlie's wife Marcy (Pamela Adlon) becomes a coke fiend. Seventeen-year-old Mia (Madeline Zima) becomes a critics' darling when Hank's manuscript, which she stole in season 1, is published. Sonja (Paula Marshall) the Scientologist is pregnant and Hank may be the father. Duchovny's laid-back charm imbues Hank with what one character calls "infuriating magic." As the precocious Becca tells her mother, "You have to love him for who he is, not his potential." For all its explicit language and graphic sex, Californication is a compelling character study of a seriously flawed man-child. To quote a review of Mia/Hank's book, "It isn't about sex, but loneliness. It's hauntingly hopelessly romantic in the best sense of the word." Big ups! --Donald Liebenson
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