"The Wire" on HBO

FREDERIK B IS RIGHT FOR ONCE

about homicide, not about anything else

Hey, taste is subjective, but I can think of a bunch of clumsy Sopranos shots off the top of my head - the freeze frame, cgi nancy marchand, the editing when chris shoots the hungarian in episode one - and nil in The Wire. Just because it was most often handheld does not mean it was 'clumsy'. And there were some stunning camera movements here and there.

I got yr back Fred

Might start a ban outic thread actually

I'm impressed Fred can remember those Sopranos moments. Normally I remember little about TV camerawork b/c so little of it stands out.

well, he did pick maybe the two most notorious visuals of the series?

It's exactly because so little stands out that it's easy to remember what does :) But I mean, take a look at the dream sequence Outic posted upthread, there's a bunch of shots in there that seems undercooked and rushed to me. It's not exactly David Lynch quality.

On the other hand, check out the awesome pan that begins this one, it goes 8 seconds before it finds D'Angelo, then follows him. All in all fifteen seconds. That's better than almost anything in Sopranos, and The Wire was filled with cool little touches like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8lyda_ZkLQ

The editing in the first forty seconds of this season 5 clip (so SPOILERS)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdpG92dsx1A

Wire had exactly one flashback sequence in its entire run – used in the first episode of season 1.

Amazing because all of those characters, all those fully developed characters - some of them just bit parts - never had any "fleshing out" or exposition about how and what made them tick. What you saw is what you saw. Is what it is.

Exposition through flashback, obv.

God are we talking about the visual style of The Wire again? That's missing the forest for the trees in a big way / looking for ways to nitpick at the Greatest Show Ever.

you wanna talk about why hillary lost instead

I read an essay a while back analyzing the visual style of the Agniezska episode -- which was in SEASON 3 -- it's the one with the scene with McNulty and Barksdale's mom. It definitely had its arty touches.

but going back and watching episodes again, the thing that I notice more is the differences in acting styles. Several of them are very "stage-y" -- as in they perform their lines in more of a theater way, rather than a "realistic" way. Carver and Lester stand out the most in this. Compare them to Bunk and Avon and Herc.

yeah i mean i know golden age of tv etc but good tv for me is still good storytelling .. if it's artistically achieved via impressive camerawork & whatnot, great, but if it's the camera's just a means to an end, that doesn't make it a worse show. not for me anyway

i mean, mad men was beautiful but it bored me to tears at least 50% of the time so i'm not gonna hoist it up over The Wire based on long shots of furniture & window-staring

But that's also kind of my point! The flourishes in The Wire are grounded in character and mood, but it's still inventive enough that I can find great details in stuff I've seen ten times. Sopranos tried to be 'stylish' but mostly failed imo.

Mad Men is great though...

Mad Men was only great when I was drinking as much as the characters on screen, otherwise, I'm with Mme. Veg - 50% snoozeville

Wire had exactly one flashback sequence in its entire run – used in the first episode of season 1.

Amazing because all of those characters, all those fully developed characters - some of them just bit parts - never had any "fleshing out" or exposition about how and what made them tick. What you saw is what you saw. Is what it is.

― pplains, Thursday, June 1, 2017 8:33 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There were those little online video vignettes with the younger versions of Omar and Prop Joe and someone else I can't remember now. Which, yes, they clearly took pains to keep out of the show itself.

Fred's totally right about Homicide, btw. I can recall its visual style (particularly the editing choices) much more clearly than that of The Wire.

Are we mainly talking about shot composition and editing? Because it seems to me The Wire has a number of really memorable settings: the Pit, the corners, the docks. Even if the camera work doesn't call attention to itself, it leaves a strong impression of these spaces.

There were those little online video vignettes with the younger versions of Omar and Prop Joe and someone else I can't remember now. Which, yes, they clearly took pains to keep out of the show itself.

― Trockasturm Hoar The Ramming Battle Ceraton (Old Lunch), Friday, June 2, 2017 8:01 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Holy shit, how had I never heard of these until now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38U15ytW24o

Mad Men was only great when I was drinking as much as the characters on screen, otherwise, I'm with Mme. Veg - 50% snoozeville

I've seen the first season and a half of mad men twice, really need to get back to it some day. It is a thing that is boring and good iirc

Watch it all, it's great. I'm sure I'll take plenty of flak when I say it's supplanted The Wire as my favorite cable series.

Mad Men is incredible, you all have terrible opinions

It's a reasonable take. The only other cable series I can think of with the same level of ambition. But no, The Wire is still my favorite :)

That Prop Joe prequel... I don't know what I would've done had they started an episode with that.

lol that's like some KITH "Ascertain" sketch shit

https://theringer.com/wire-hbo-characters-where-are-they-now-b9ee61c34aa8

Bill Simmons still doing his best to ruin The Wire

jfc

Cool fanfic but it could've used more vampires imo.

i'd rather read wire-themed slashfic than that stupid fucking article again tbh

it was vaguely worth it as an endorsement of the show's unparalleled handling of a huge cast, though - scrolling through those names i could easily remember their faces, voices, actions and relationships to each other and it's been at least five years since i watched any of it. that's a real testament to how good the show is

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/nyregion/manhattan-man-jump-housing-complex.html

Finally got Mr Veg to watch The Wire, we are almost done with S1 and he's onboard :D

This is my third rewatch and even now when I try to watch it with an eye for acting choices or writing or whatever, I still get 100% sucked into the story

Also I think I need to poll worst TV dads. McNulty has to be fighting for top of the list with that front & follow stint in the marketplace

His kids were taught well, though!

true. but he's such a bum

kinda want to skip the next ep (s1 ep 12) bcz I don't wanna see Wallace get got :(

It's amazing that Bodie gets your sympathy back over the next few seasons, after what happens to Wallace - that guy (JD Williams) doesn't seem to have done as well as other members of the cast, but great performance

yeah otm

Oh he does not

Halfway through season three and enjoying this, with the exception of maverick cop who plays by his own rules McNulty. If one more woman throws herself at him no matter how drunk or annoying he's being (at this point it'll probably be Kima, gay or they're working together and she has a vagina) or he does anything as flatout stupid as his "English" accent that got him into the brothel, I'll take a break.

*not. Sorry to rant but so many aspects of this show're just as great as I've heard, so this cartoonish cliché of a copy show character really sticks out and spoils things.

Yeah McNulty is a very tedious + one note character, and the actor who plays him is shite imo as well. Probably one of the main reasons I dislike this show, aside from all the other irritating Simonisms.

I think it was a combo of Brooker and my older brother's endless Wire proselytising that convinced me it must be dud. I think at the time my brother often used to pass off Brooker opinions as his own, and was smoking too much weed and in not in full possession of his own mind.

it's a great show. there are huge flaws. david simon screaming his messages at you constantly being one of them. and yes, mcnulty, virtually the protagonist is in many ways a tired tv trope of a character. but i think there's too much good in there to allow the flaws to dissuade anyone from watching

there is lots of good in it as well, of course, but I just can't get past the bad stuff!

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/mcnulty-uniform.gif

McNulty is p much dropped as 'central' character by season 3 and is widely reviled as a dick whose womanising is an impediment to his functioning as a grown adult

But let's be real even drunk dickish Dominic West is not going home alone most nights so let's all keep our grip here ok

With vivalbertine on McNutty but his ikea scene makes up for a lot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRRHb2WphWs

I can see how the McNulty plot could spoil season 2 for people. Yeah, there's some major bad bullshit in there, and it doesn't much have to do with anything. I love the scene where he re-checks the current maps out of spite. But it's really not a coincidence that the best season is the one with the least McNulty.

I know the feeling. I'm halfway through season 5 and getting a bit tired of the whole fake serial killer thing already. It's like some kind of comedy caper.