"The Wire" on HBO

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nah i just figured you were some mr show dork fan who just loves odenkirk

― marcos, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 5:26 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink


neither

i guess i just really don't like bb

and yea i'll be the first to admit i have fairly middlebrow tastes in film/shows, 90% of the time i look up a film i liked on ILX i see the usual folks have already ripped it to shreds

― marcos, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 5:31 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink


occasionally the three magi disagree

linda cardellini (zachlyon), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 22:39 (nine years ago) link

lol

marcos, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 22:41 (nine years ago) link

marlo is a good character; i just hate him

horseshoe, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 22:55 (nine years ago) link

marlo's incredible, though he took awhile to grow on me. only bc i was attached to the barksdale/bell hierarchy. but the marlo crew is so good in S4.

LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 22:58 (nine years ago) link

Yeah Marlo/Chris/Snoop make a pretty fascinating/unconventional criminal organization

walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:02 (nine years ago) link

Marlo's the perfect successor to the Barksdale story arc, the opposite in every aspect

, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:05 (nine years ago) link

Haven't watched this in 6 years, excited to rewatch the HD versh, perhaps with a white person

, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:05 (nine years ago) link

was just thinking about their locations and their characters -- Barksdale always holed up in a secret back room or basement -- untrusting, anxious, almost paranoid. Marlo in his totally unassuming open, empty concrete lot/park/whatever that was, all brains and cunning, unemotional, no need for physicality or feeling protected.

walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:08 (nine years ago) link

nah i just figured you were some mr show dork fan who just loves odenkirk

― marcos, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 2:26 PM (35 minutes ago)

i am tbh

and Donette's line was "no doubt"

Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:10 (nine years ago) link

xp - Marlo meets out in the open because it is harder to be wiretapped/recorded that way. The narrative goes into this multiple times.

Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:11 (nine years ago) link

That doesn't disprove his point

, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:15 (nine years ago) link

yes it does, Marlo is even more untrusting and paranoid

Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:16 (nine years ago) link

He's willing to trade the vulnerability of being out in the open for the assurance of not being wiretapped, duh

, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:17 (nine years ago) link

Yeah true, maybe that's not the best explanation. But there does seem to be something about the location that reflects his coldness or maybe moral emptiness or something, it's like his homebase is a non-place.

walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:18 (nine years ago) link

He seems to have ties to nothing, maybe. D'Angelo Barksdale has ties to the past, his family, etc., meets in old backrooms with old furniture. IDK, maybe just grasping at straws. It certainly at least seems like Barksdale's locations are warmer than Marlo's.

walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:19 (nine years ago) link

the barksdales (esp bell) see drugs as a means to something and their self-protection is to not lose what they have and to keep building. marlo sees the drug game as a thing to win in itself, his desire is sort of inhuman; idk if "psychotic" is the right word really. the writers toy with fascist ideas with him, or at least a "purity" of will-to-power

goole, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:24 (nine years ago) link

i think the thing about Marlo, which also is reflected in the larger narrative about kids and how they get "in the game" younger and younger, is that Marlo seems a lot more childlike than Avon and Stringer. He has that cold eyed Damian from the Omen thing going on. One of Marlo's first sociopathic scenes is stealing lollipops. Could you see Avon or Stringer even eating a lollipop? One of his hangouts is at a playground. You see him bribing kids with candy. You rarely see him interested in sex. Maybe this just shows that he is savvier than his predecessors in terms of empire building, but Avon and Stringer come across more as "men" than Marlo.

Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:25 (nine years ago) link

I don't think it's an accident htat his name recalls Heart of Darkness xp

, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:26 (nine years ago) link

Avon is pretty plugged into his surrounding community beyond his gang: hosting cookouts, participating in the East/West hoops game, helping Cutty out with the boxing ring.

Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:31 (nine years ago) link

xp yeah, and lisa stansfield

goole, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:32 (nine years ago) link

I always saw Marlo's rise as an inevitable moral decay (i.e. "Game the same, just got more fierce") of the prevailing social institution, like how globalization replaces personal connections with streamlined capital.

Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 23:34 (nine years ago) link

man marlo's flatness is almost made up for by that final shot standing on the corner in his gold suit, bleeding from his cut

I also love the way he goes 'yeah' under his breath like he's convincing himself that he's the best

― =皿= (dyao), Monday, December 28, 2009 10:14 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

difficult listening hour, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 11:11 (nine years ago) link

I've found the first three seasons a slog a lot of the time, especially s2, but I kept going to reach s4 because that's the one people rave about.

Reading Difficult Men, about the post-Sopranos TV revolution, and Simon makes it really clear that he was more interested in the political message than the characters which explains a lot of the weaknesses and makes me glad that he had people like Price and Pelecanos to do character work. In his head, it's agit-prop, like a social realist novel. A fresh ambition in TV terms but old-fashioned really. And psychologically incurious compared to The Sopranos.

Minaj moron (Re-Make/Re-Model), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 14:20 (nine years ago) link

I always saw Marlo's rise as an inevitable moral decay (i.e. "Game the same, just got more fierce") of the prevailing social institution, like how globalization replaces personal connections with streamlined capital.

― Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Tuesday, January 13, 2015 6:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

a drug by the name of WORLD WITHOUT END (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 16:27 (nine years ago) link

yup

Nhex, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 16:28 (nine years ago) link

I don't think it's an accident htat his name recalls Heart of Darkness xp

Also "Marlo" is an anagram for "Omar L".

Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 18:01 (nine years ago) link

weebay.gif

shmup....smug....shmub....shmug.... (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 18:07 (nine years ago) link

The end of season 4... So tough.

Frederik B, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 19:29 (nine years ago) link

I've watched the first three seasons multiple times, but the last two only once despite owning DVDs of both and having access to them on Amazon Prime. After all this discussion I decided to dial up season 4 and halfway through episode 1 it is already depressing as hell. Not sure if I'm going to be able to make it all the way through.

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 20:10 (nine years ago) link

it's the hardest to get through for sure by that measurement, but it's also the show's best season by a wiiiide margin imo. don't give up!

i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 20:46 (nine years ago) link

xp if you don't like depressing shows, then I don't know why you are watching this series

Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 20:46 (nine years ago) link

I think I had a greater capacity for it in the past. It's maybe a bit different now that my kid is about the same age as the kids in the show. Also, the first time around I didn't know how their plots would all turn out. Now that I do, there's definitely a greater feeling of dread.

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 20:54 (nine years ago) link

There's always Namond.

Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:08 (nine years ago) link

things turn out pretty well for him beyond his dad being in jail for life and his mom being terrible, but it's true that his new family is a step up, so I guess that's a happy ending

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:17 (nine years ago) link

hating namond's mom is so invigorating though.

horseshoe, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:21 (nine years ago) link

ohhhhh i hate her.

horseshoe, Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:22 (nine years ago) link

how I start every morning

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:25 (nine years ago) link

wait till bey hear about this...

i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:28 (nine years ago) link

he's fine as long as his fish get cleaned and fed

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Wednesday, 14 January 2015 21:28 (nine years ago) link

namonds mom is the worst, so much fun to hate her

difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 15 January 2015 00:06 (nine years ago) link

innocuous scenes like the one in ep. 2 where Cutty is trying to talk Michael into training to be a boxer are harder to watch when you know where the plot is going

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Thursday, 15 January 2015 01:47 (nine years ago) link

Every scene with happy Randy is awful on rewatch...

Frederik B, Thursday, 15 January 2015 02:01 (nine years ago) link

exactly

Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Thursday, 15 January 2015 02:03 (nine years ago) link

There is a moment I caught on rewatch, which I now can't let go, which is when Carcetti and Norman goes to see Rawls after the election. They speak about stats and all that, and all of a sudden Rawls say, that the reason everyone in Baltimore loves stats, is because they all are promoted from Affirmative Action, and since they got their jobs from numbers games, that is all they know. And you realize, if there were no stats, a white boys club would just take over everything, without any kind of control.

Frederik B, Friday, 16 January 2015 01:11 (nine years ago) link

Was there a McNulty-speaking-to-the-presumed-good-old-boy-county-sheriff subtext going on there as well?

Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Friday, 16 January 2015 01:19 (nine years ago) link

Well, the clear subtext is that Rawls wants Carcetti to give him Burrells job as police commissioner, so he's stating what sets him apart from the other candidates: That he is white.

Frederik B, Friday, 16 January 2015 01:23 (nine years ago) link

yeah, it's a smokescreen to divert attention from the truth. burrell isn't beholden to the numbers bc he's a black police officer who reached his position through affirmative action. he's that way bc he's a hack at police work who somehow managed to be blessed w/ good political instincts - and that description also fits rawls, to a fucking t.

i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Friday, 16 January 2015 23:56 (nine years ago) link

burrell's exit speech to rawls has that lovely note where after he says rawls will eat the political class' shit for a living he adds "daniels too, when he gets here" and rawls' face for a moment is like yezhov's, hollow triumph

speaking of the stalinists, how about marlo's brisk takeover speech to the co-op (headed by joe's empty chair)? textbook.

difficult listening hour, Saturday, 17 January 2015 05:56 (nine years ago) link

just watched season 5, ep5 - dukie asking cutty, "how do we get from here to the rest of the world?" is beyond heartbreaking

i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Sunday, 18 January 2015 05:27 (nine years ago) link

New David Simon series:
http://curbed.com/archives/2015/01/28/show-me-a-hero-david-simon-yonkers.php

The miniseries is directed by Paul Haggis, who won the best picture Oscar in 2006 for his film Crash, which explored racial tensions in Los Angeles. Mayor Wasicsko is played by Oscar Isaac, the handsome star of the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII movie. The defeated incumbent mayor is played by Jim Belushi, and Winona Ryder and Catherine Keener are also on board, along with the Argentine actress Carla Quevedo.

bit of a singles monster (Eazy), Friday, 30 January 2015 16:10 (nine years ago) link


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