down and dirty

I immediately replied yes, envisioning that I’d swim with sharks in South Africa or track polar bears in Alaska so, of course, I got sent to a down-and-dirty campsite in Vermont for a show called “Building Wild.”

As the country prepares to select a new president, it seems fitting that some of the most nominated series are fueled by the art, strategy and down-and-dirty combat of politics.

The thriller “Monkey Man” opens on a tender scene and a nod to the power of storytelling, only to quickly get down to down-and-dirty, action-movie business with a flurry of hard blows and faster edits.

Further hints of Burroughs are daubed here and there throughout the twin McCarthy books: the unseemly characters populating a down-and-dirty underworld, dubious detectives and layers of pulp noir, mental wards and medical jargon, an unreliable plot — plenty of elements feel like they would be right at home in the infamous Beat writer's Interzone junkscape.

In a series rife with story angles and subplots — alleged cheap shots perpetrated by each team, off-ice drama, injuries — it was good, old-fashioned down-and-dirty hockey that mesmerized most thoroughly.