The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

starting from the beginning with "The colonel likes dots." ... I think about the gleeful way Rawls says that every time I have to create a document with bullet points.

I love The Expanse but should warn that I found the 2nd and 4th seasons tough going. The peaks, though...

xp
haha yeah that is a great line

That band was proto-Dekkar

My "Next To Watch" shortlist if you guys wanna put in your two cents:

The Expanse
Patriot s2
Small Axe
Lovecraft Country
Monsterland
Third Day
Perpetual Grace Ltd.
Good Lord Bird
Tiger
Eyes on the Prize
Beforeigners
Flack
Wayne
30 Coins
Paranoia Agent (haven't seen this in almost fifteen years)
Timeshift
Pretend It's A City
Endeavor
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

John Doman (Rawls) shows up in the Chicago 7 movie as a Nixon cabinet member, and it was like ... the role he was born to play.

The funniest thing about Defiler is that their "best" song is their openly homophobic self-titled one, which is supposed to be the "shitty old material"

paranoia agent so good

Small Axe (or at least Lovers Rock) and then Expanse imo

I've only seen Small Axe out of that whole list, but in case you didn't know forks, it's an anthology of mostly shortish films so needn't be consumed like a series

yup, i'm aware. my secret hame is that i haven't really seen anything by steve mcqueen yet so this represents unknown territory.

Lovers Rock is the best film by him I've seen tbrr

oh wait I started Lovecraft but being a horror/gore wimp I haven't gotten through it -- great cast I hope to see in more stuff though

I appreciate the sopranos more over time and reading the 2008 posts is making me really hate the wire. I want to go back in time to say christ guys it's not a fucking documentary

Lovers Rock is the best film by him I've seen tbrr

I have a soft spot for the hated Shame but it's his best since Hunger, anyway

ah admittedly, I never saw Shame

oh yeah another reason the sopranos is better is that there isn't one whole entire ass season most fans think is trash

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.), Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:05 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

season 5 of the wire is fine

i've heard plenty of (wrong) people express similar sentiments about sopranos season 4 and season 6a

Unless a show changes drastically--the last two seasons of Friday Night Lights would be an example--I have a hard time differentiating seasons from a distance. I remember the second Wire season had almost an entirely different cast, so that one's easy. With my two favourite shows, Mad Men and The Sopranos, all seasons pretty much blur together.

Sopranos is the greatest narrative TV show of all time and any opinion otherwise seems absolutely insane to me

Though I haven't really watched much post-Mad Men except like three seasons of Better Caul Saul so maybe the "cartoon horse is actually depression" or "cartoon parakeet is actually depression" or "disgusting cartoon children can't stop masturbating" shows are better

doesn't even own a netflix

Man we are back and its good

he and Livia were just guaranteed laughs every time

Yeah the scene where none of Livia's tricks work because AJ is too literal to manipulate is one of my favorites

"cartoon parakeet is actually depression"

lol is this a real show I can't remember

tuca & bertie. good show!

can't wait for the "dismissive opinions about what the kids like is actually depression" cartoon

Sopranos is the greatest narrative TV show of all time and any opinion otherwise seems absolutely insane to me

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, January 21, 2021 1:26 PM (eighteen minutes ago

says ILX's greatest self clowning oven of all time

if you haven't watched the literal THOUSAND+ series that have been released since 2015, you might wanna keep your argument to sopranos being the best narrative television pre-2015

it's like arguing that lukas graham is the worst artist on the planet: you may have a strong argument but I don't think you've met lil pump yet

but hey what do i know about television anyway

i don't even own a....ehhh too on the nose

i like that simon introduced evangelion into the idea of a poll bc several of my favorite narrative shows are anime and any time i find myself thinking "the sopranos is good but it's no revolutionary girl utena" i have to go kick my own ass

the sopranos is no tenchi muyo!

The sopranos is noh

Gandalfini as TS is one of them rare casting incidents that all actors should dream of, like getting a role you were born to do and are at the perfect stage of your life to make it resonate like a mf through the ages, like Alec Smiley for example. There is too much iffy mediocrity or above averageness in The Wire for to not start curdling and seeming a bit 2nd rate as time goes on. imho of course.

yeah we would not be having this conversation is david proval got cast as tony, no offense intended to mr proval

Sopranos vs Battle Royale vs Edge of Darkness vs The Snorks

JG is magnificent -- you almost forget how good he is and then in the coma dream, he makes some super subtle changes and he's a diff person.

But the supposedly superior acting on Sopranos is awfully top heavy. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but there are a number of supporting actors on the Sopranos who get asked to do things beyond their capabilities. Vito springs to mind as a pretty glaring example

lol! Vito is a pure Emmerdale Farm standard character, but his tragic and brutal death was still very moving.

that was a pretty upsetting scene/episode yea

there is lots of similar padding in The Wire as well, for example every scene with Dominic fucking West in it!

ever since watching Dexter Fletcher in Press Gang as a kid I absolutely despised watching posh to middle class Brit actors doing shit American accents

or even worse, doing quite passable stage school american accents

Dominic West is just a lump of beef that has electrodes applied it when the camera rolls, one of the shittest Brit actors in its entire history. He's not even Dean Gaffney level and I don't mean that facetiously

Just finished rewatching The Sopranos a few weeks back and it always gets better on subsequent rewatches, whereas with The Wire it’s kinda just plateaued for me.

Also, I’m not going to repost it but the only Bernie-Mittens meme that I truly laughed at was Sopranos-related.

dang not even dean gaffney you say, i am sure that is an insult but i have no idea who he is

as someone who has seen the wire a few times and now in a re watch with someone who has never seen it, (on s02e03) I agree with the stanning upthread of the herc's actor from the wire, he's a source of comedy and levity I never fully appreciated before. Like the subotka kid, Ziggy, the characters are cringey but the acting is really great and skilled. I'd argue the performances in the wire are possibly career highs for a lot of the cast members?!?

lolling at calzino watching these "prestige"/GOAT shows and interpreting them through the lens of british soaps

ha well that's certainly true of very nearly literally everyone on the sopranos xp

lolling at calzino watching these "prestige"/GOAT shows and interpreting them through the lens of british soaps

― rob, Thursday, January 21, 2021 7:09 PM (two minutes ago)

now that I think of it is this maybe how we ended up with Game of Thrones?

career-high performance also applies to lots of Deadwooders