"The Wire" on HBO

like a bear, almost

he's definitely a kind of innately likable guy.

it's the voice, I think. he's on the radio sometimes here in DC. also, he might be the only character, pretty much everything he says & all the advice he gives in the series is OTM. i watched all these episodes a year ago but pay attention to slim charles, whenever a guy doesn't follow his advice bad stuff happens.

he's the one who killed cheese, right?

love that guy

Yeah, he killed Cheese. I dug him because he was pragmatic about most things.

he told joe to keep an eye on marlo, noticed that marlo was trying to get cheese to turn on joe, tells marlo he wasn't cut out to be a ceo (which IMHO was a lie & a very smart one @ that moment), and i wish i knew the exact dialogue, but somehow convinces omar that joe had nothing to do with what happened to butchie, and that marlo did, without explicitly saying marlo did it, gets the connect from marlo without actually crossing him, and somehow picks the exact moment to shoot cheese b/c for sure cheese would have fucked everything up w/the greeks.

OTM
I was really glad that it was him (and I think Ricardo Hendrix) that assumedly are in charge of things in the end (as they're the ones meeting with the Greeks). In a sort of unending quasi-monarchy, where you can only hope for more benevolent leaders 'wearing the crown', it's definitely a lot better to see someone like Slim Charles in charge. Maybe it's because he came up under Stringer, but he still has retained something more of straight-business-ness thats lost with the Marlo generation.

drug dealers back in MY day...

I don't know anyone who hasn't spent time in prison who has found the time to go to the gym that much.

shit lance and i are alumni budz omg!!!!!

i was just saying last night to a friend how much i miss the wire.

xxpost. Yeah, yeah. I think you can't deny that that generational aspect is present throughout the show, though (hence the Prop Joe speeches about how it used to be buy for a dollar sell for two, or Cutty's initial reaction to dealing drugs). I think part of the really interesting thing is to see how things evolve over the 8 or so years, given say, the rise of technology (of cell phones, the internet, etc.) and how the drug trade follows its own course of incredibly rapid transformation. Of course the irony is that the more things change the more they stay the same, queue up Cheese talking about how there is "no back in the day," subsequently getting his, of course. That being said, I think Slim Charles is a kind of last of his breed. The late 00's just seems like a bad time to come up as a drug dealer, I guess.

no country for old men.

still can't believe this show got away with having a character named cheese wagstaff. there's your dickensian aspect.

I had $35 in Amazon GC, so I'm getting the complete series boxset for $125. Early Xmas for me!

it's definitely a lot better to see someone like Slim Charles in charge

yeah if I was going to have somebody help continue to supply the disgusting underbelly of baltimore with all the things it needs to stay disgusting I would definitely pick a guy who appears to have some principles

jesus christ why do all wire fans seem to think dealers are the point of the show

let's have a series about the fucking inquisition and maybe we can all learn how fucking awesome it is to be a bad-ass like Ferdinand II

sorry I know it's teevee and it's supposed to just be a reflection but wtf marlo/dealer fantronics sometimes

Everybody loves a villain.

http://media.tumblr.com/IT8sENreNfv0xqhrn46Z8CD0o1_400.jpg

'hackers' was on tv yesterday and bunk is in it. i love it when wire actors turn up in other stuff

yeah if I was going to have somebody help continue to supply the disgusting underbelly of baltimore with all the things it needs to stay disgusting I would definitely pick a guy who appears to have some principles

jesus christ why do all wire fans seem to think dealers are the point of the show

― TOMBOT, Sunday, November 16, 2008 1:46 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You're totally misreading what I said. The whole point is that you can never get rid of that disgusting underbelly, you can only hope the person in charge it will be a more benevolent leader. It's the difference between Stringer and Marlo, and that someone with any principles is still better than someone without any. It's a lesser of evils things, but an omnipresent, somewhat eternal evil, nonetheless. It's far to simplistic to think that can just implode an entire structure like that from the outside.

I've just finished watching seasons 1-5 in one two-month binge. I'm presuming that going back and starting straight from season 1 again is a common reaction? It took me most of season 1 to get a handle on who was who.

jesus christ why do all wire fans seem to think dealers are the point of the show

― TOMBOT, Sunday, November 16, 2008 1:46 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the wire talks and indeed delivers a good game abt the institutional tragedy that is the drug game but it blatantly purposely stimulates the vicarious transgressive aspect too - the show is crazy entertaining AND deep - so there

i love it when wire actors turn up in other stuff

I fixate on this too now, though it usually involves noticing them in older stuff (Reg E. Cathey in Airheads, dude who played D'Angelo in Cecil B. Demented).

The trippiest possibility is to go back and watch old episodes of Homicide, where I'll occasionally have trouble wrapping my head around things like McNulty's wife and his favorite judge being homicide detective partners.

I saw Senator Davis in "Enchanted," it's very disconcerting...

the wire talks and indeed delivers a good game abt the institutional tragedy that is the drug game but it blatantly purposely stimulates the vicarious transgressive aspect too - the show is crazy entertaining AND deep - so there

― :) wealth destruction! (ice cr?m), Saturday, November 22, 2008 11:29 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I think the show consciously wants its audience to feel the pull of drug dealing in communities where there are few other options -- it's the only employer, it's sexy, it offers a system of authority and meaning that is stronger than that of the "official" institutions (the schools). This is really hammered in Season 4 with the alternative classroom program.

Oh, it goes out of its way to make the viewer totally complicit in that, with the brief period where Michael, Dukie, and Bug are all living happily together on drug money. In the short term, that's the kind of happy ending you're tempted to cheer -- all three get lifted above the problems you've been rooting for them to get past, they form something resembling the functional family unit neither of them ever had, and with Dukie in particular, it stands out as most likely the happiest free-from-hardship moment he'll ever get in his entire life ... all made possible by drug gangs. Which is a nicely complicated thing to do to your viewer. I appreciate that the show's "explanations" for how people wind up in the drug trade aren't just built around the usual TV/film stuff about power or unusual greed or whatever -- it's pretty clear about how this holds out some (very short-term, and partly illusory) path to escaping your own circumstances. (And then it gives us characters who we really, really want to see escape their own circumstances.)

been rewatching season 2; james ransone as ziggy is so amazing. don't think i properly appreciated the performance the first time around.

do NOT watch that larry clark movie where he does personal time srsly

Avon Barksdale was on House a couple of weeks ago.

The full box set for all 5 seasons just came out a couple of days ago on DVD.

http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/entertainment/2008/12/the_wire_box_set_out_the_show.html

Going for less than $150 on Amazon, apparently.

oh shit

christ that's a good price. and i have a $50 amazon certificate...

i recently bought the complete buffy box set for $70! amazon is killin shit lately

5 episodes into the wire (still waiting for mark sinker to turn up, i guess that's later...) and my favourite is the bloke sat in the back making furniture for dolls' houses.

3 former Homicide:LOTS people already though (Luther Maloney as ME, wtf!). are there only 15 actors in the whole of baltimore?

Which three are you counting so far? Judge, McNulty's wife, and the ME?

my favourite is the bloke sat in the back making furniture for dolls' houses.

I think you will be in for a treat with him.

3 former Homicide:LOTS people already though (Luther Maloney as ME, wtf!). are there only 15 actors in the whole of baltimore?

lots of times people who create multiple TV/movie projects end up casting favorite actors more than once. plus most of the big Wire/Homicide players aren't from Baltimore.

97% of the wire cast is from england anyway

David Simon didn't actually work on Homicide, though, I don't think.

david simon didn't create 'homicide'.

xpost

he ended up writing for it, but not initially.

Pat Moran (John Waters posse represent) did the Baltimore casting for both shows.

Ha, McNulty + Bell = 97%?

A bunch of those early episodes are also directed by Clark Johnson from Homicide (who joins the cast in the last season)

And Simon was both a writer and a producer for Homicide, starting in the fourth season

just chiming in here to say we're in the middle of season 4 right now and holy shit this show is awesome

joeks, nabisco@

yeah pretty sure snoop is welsh

if you want to see cast overlap, check out "Oz"

anyway yeah less than 97%. carcetti is irish

The deacon is Bavarian