EASTBOUND & DOWN STARS STEVE LITTLE AND EFREN RAMIREZ
VICE and HBO hosted a screening of Eastbound & Down's season finale last Sunday, and fittingly, the screening felt like a hipster-appropriated Super Bowl party. Levi's Photo Workshop turned its warehouse space into a hybrid of art and athletics: guests took portraits in a vintage photo booth while knocking back beers, and a photo essay of the cast, shot by Richard Kern for VICE, ran parallel to a ball-pitching cage. Surprise guests John Mayer and Nick Zinner joined the festivities, although neither indulged in the cotton candy machine.
Eastbound & Down's themes settled congruently with Levi's ongoing "Superfans" series, which explores how photography operates in the sports world, acting as a medium between fans and athletes. However, few among the bespectacled crowd that night seemed like actual sporting types. One partygoer even snidely admitted, "I like the show because it makes fun of rednecks."
As guests settled into the rows of bleachers, director David Gordon Green remarked to me, "I intentionally shielded myself from the last episode. The idea of seeing and watching it with an audience was totally awesome. I wanted to feel the dramatic impact of enjoying it as a spectator."
After a toast by cast member Efren Ramirez, the episode was screened on a large wall. In this finale, star actor Kenny Powers blazed straight through till the predictable-but-satisfying ending with his usual mélange of biting wisecracks and hick antics, drawing alternating guffaws and ironic chuckles from the audience.
When the lights came back on to several rounds of hoots and cheers, Steve Little, who plays a beguiling Stevie Janowski, exclaimed, "I loved it! Usually I kinda watch episodes on my own time... if there was this every week I would always do it. Everyone got drunk, and I love the way it ended."
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