"The Wire" on HBO

Dame Judi Dench to play Avon Barksdale in "The Wire" motion picture.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519JTHDV3ML.jpg

l-r bodie, wallace, d'angelo, snoop

the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER serial killer plotline seemed to me the cruel/lazy inverse of my favorite theme, developed in season 2: that sometimes justice is done even tho nobody had the good intentions to do so. mcnulty goes to these amazing lengths to do something about the can full of dead hungarian girls, only to fuck over his previoius boss. only later does the sentiment that there is something moral at stake come out, and only tentatively. doing good things for bad reasons is a rare development in any drama, doing bad things for good reasons is dime-a-dozen (hello jack bauer)

i guess it's closer, in a way, to omar putting away bird by lying his ass off on the stand, but that was charming and hilarious and only took up 6-8 minutes of screen time.

Dominic West's accent as Cromwell in The Devil's Whore was hilarious.

Here if you missed it

Dame Judi Dench to play Avon Barksdale in "The Wire" motion picture.

I was actually the other day imagining Tracy Morgan playing Brianna Barksdale.

Tracy Morgan would be better as Namond's mom

I take that back, Tracy Morgan would clearly be best as McNulty

Tracy knows all about Snot Boogie

I would like to see Tracy play The Wire as a one-man show.

or baldwin

Okay fine, the cast of 30 Rock should play all the parts.

Kenneth would make an excellent Ziggy, or perhaps a Carcetti!

tina fey as daniels

liz lemon as kima, or maybe jay landsman. twofer as lt. daniels.

xp

I would be outraged if anyone other than Baldwin played Jay Landsman.

Cathy Geiss as Snoop.

Kenneth as Prez, duh. Devin Banks as Carcetti.

ah yes devin, good call

I don't know why I've found the 4th season especially hard to finish. I mean obviously one reason is that I'm in law school and have no time to do anything. But I also find it especially dark and depressing. Not that the other seasons aren't dark and depressing. But as good as it is, I'm not looking forward to finding out what happens next as much as I was previously.

really? man i'm totally into it

I was completely sucked into the fourth season, but I can understand the sense that it's dark or trying -- I don't think it's particularly different from the other seasons, it's just that it centers on kids, and that raises the moral/emotional stakes in a way that can be pretty shattering.

It was probably my favorite season.

The funny thing about Landsman is that apparently there's an ACUTAL Jay Landsman who doesn't even play himself on the show!! He plays another police, instead. I guess he wasn't Jay Landsman-y enough?

or actory enough!

he's plays the dude who runs roll call in the western w/the mustache

Correct.

i recommend the book "Homicide" for lots of good irl landsman stories

Lt. Dennis Mello.

I think S4 is my favorite both because the kids/education angle is particularly compelling, and also because I think it's really tightly constructed from a narrative standpoint. All these little connections come into play, and you see how characters' choices reverberate far beyond their circumscribed worlds. (I'd be more specific, but I don't want to spoil it for those still watching.)

ha. i like the fat porn hot dog guy better!

All these little connections come into play, and you see how characters' choices reverberate far beyond their circumscribed worlds.

Exxxxxxxxactly. This season especially.

I can finally read this thread because I finished the whole series!! At one point I accidentally skimmed over the words "the McNulty wake" and I spent the whole 5th season thinking he was going to be killed (or kill himself). Which, the way it was going, seemed extremely possible.

And anyone who is still watching who reads that accidentally -- ulp sorry. But this thread is full of spoilers anyway! What are you even doing here??

thanks laurel

The billion TV characters spawned by Landsman in Simon's book come to a weird nexus when Belzer shows up as Munch on The Wire -- he is playing a guy based on a real guy who is played on this show by a different guy while the original real guy plays someone else.

we were talking about the 4th season, which i stated above thread that i was halfway through. hurting chimed in, too. so you ruined it for both of us but such is life i guess?

Uerrawekjadghgh I thought about that RIGHT after I hit "Post" -- I really am sorry. But since I watch everything on DVD I sort of assume that ILX will be discussing CURRENT episodes and I just avoid the threads.

no it's cool--i may even forget what i just read, or maybe it will fade into the background. i'm old. anyway, he's in the background this season. . . and it's cool. i like the way he proudly drinks a club soda & lime at the wake

characters' choices reverberate far beyond their circumscribed worlds

The bit where Bubbles starts a chain of events that impacts the mayoral race = kind of amazing

(Don't worry, guys, all Laurel gave you there was an anti-spoiler about someone not dying)

i was taking my chances anyway even looking at this thread--and i hear that 5 kinda sucks anyway. looking forward to finishing 4, which we'll do this weekend.

And I guess I spoiled a Richard Belzer cameo, which ... nobody's ruining too much of import here

oh shit so mcnulty doesn't die? i read too fast, that's funny!

Part of the thing about season 4 is watching it with my wife, who teaches in the South Bronx, so the school/kids stuff is especially real to her and to me vicariously. But for her it must be kind of like taking work home with her.

Or worse like seeing the inevitable results that occur in spite of her good work.

The billion TV characters spawned by Landsman in Simon's book come to a weird nexus when Belzer shows up as Munch on The Wire -- he is playing a guy based on a real guy who is played on this show by a different guy while the original real guy plays someone else.

― nabisco, Friday, December 12, 2008 4:47 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nabs are you aware of the tommy westphall hypothesis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall#The_Tommy_Westphall_Universe_Hypothesis

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html

I saw this NYTimes article when I was in the middle of season 4. I literally screamed in horror when I read the first sentence. I avoid spoilers with a caution that others might find slightly obsessive, but reading the NY Times Week in Review section on Sundays was never a concern for me.

Needless to say, I freaked out every time there was a scene in a corner grocery with Omar.

That is maybe the worst spoiler I've ever read in print ever. First fucking sentence!

super douchey thing to do, damn

Wow. That makes zero logical sense, but wow. A lot of that hypothesis would appear to be based on the Belzer-as-Munch thing: I think he's the record for the same person playing the same character on the largest number of different shows.

That's an x-post, but putting a major Wire spoiler in an article about cigarette taxes is pretty wow, too

Sometimes when watching a TV show I get really bothered by the fact that the show take place in a world where the show and its actors don't exist.

i was about to say FRASIER CRANE but i noticed u said 'largest number of different shows'. still, it's 3 (counting a cameo) to 2, right?

xps

looks like munch is going to be on the french law and order too