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excerpt:"Slow Food, a movement that began in Italy in the 1980s as a protest against agribusiness and fast food, promotes organic farming and regional cooking. That cult of less-is-more parochialism spread to other fields, including tourism (Slow Travel) and investment (Slow Money).
Now there is Slow Television.
"Memphis Beat," a crime drama that begins on Tuesday on TNT, is a classic procedural — unorthodox cop meets by-the-book lieutenant — framed by the smoky, neon-lit romance of the blues and Southern decay. Jason Lee ("My Name Is Earl") plays Dwight Hendricks, a police detective who moonlights as an Elvis tribute singer, which is not to be confused with an Elvis impersonator. Dwight's rendition of "Heartbreak Hotel" in an after-hours bar is a respectful homage to the King, not a rip-off.
This series is to Memphis what the HBO series "Treme" is to New Orleans and "Justified" on FX is to Harlan County in Kentucky — timeless indigenous music is set against the exoticism of temporal subcultures. Atmosphere is the real hero of all these shows and music is the sidekick, be it R&B, jazz, or as is the case in "Justified," bluegrass tinged with rap.
And that helps explain why George Clooney and his longtime collaborator Grant Heslov, who are better known for movies like "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "The Men Who Stare at Goats," are executive producers of "Memphis Beat." Their previous television series — "K Street" and "Unscripted" — were on HBO and mostly experimental. This TNT series tries to rise a little above the genre without veering too far from the cable network's core cops-and-robbers curriculum.
It's not a bad way to go. "Treme," created by the same team that made "The Wire," is broodier than "Memphis Beat" and far more ambitious, but it is also a lot less focused and d
