"The Wire" on HBO

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no I spent 50 hours watching "THE BEST SHOW EVER" (tm) according to many ILXOrs

Blanket McCulkin (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:25 (fifteen years ago) link

it was an okay show. I'd say its about as good as the movie Traffic.

Blanket McCulkin (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:27 (fifteen years ago) link

for Shakey:
http://pixiestixkidspix.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/cookie-bite-web.jpg

51 active users (sarahel), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:28 (fifteen years ago) link

mm yummy

Blanket McCulkin (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:33 (fifteen years ago) link

you get a whole one once you finish season 5!

51 active users (sarahel), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:35 (fifteen years ago) link

http://img.skitch.com/20090911-cnjdk55p9m2t6g1jkey3m6qump.jpg

cozwn, Friday, 11 September 2009 21:36 (fifteen years ago) link

the wire may or may not be best show ever but it is certainly one of the most immersive tv (or general filmic) experiences you can have. the things it does well are almost totally related to procedure & the day-to-day minutiae of very particular worlds. if you're not interested in these i can't fathom getting through more than a handful of eps.

goth casual, Friday, 11 September 2009 21:39 (fifteen years ago) link

the things it does well are almost totally related to procedure & the day-to-day minutiae of very particular worlds

^^^none of this applies to traffic btw

goth casual, Friday, 11 September 2009 21:39 (fifteen years ago) link

"good" doesn't apply to traffic either.

EDB, Friday, 11 September 2009 21:44 (fifteen years ago) link

otm

Size-zero-brigade-embrace-token-chubby-chops (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:45 (fifteen years ago) link

Benicio del toro was very good-looking in traffic.

51 active users (sarahel), Friday, 11 September 2009 21:45 (fifteen years ago) link

I really hated "Traffic", so fuck that comparison.

Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Friday, 11 September 2009 22:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Traffic was hilarious. Traffic and The Departed are the funniest US adaptations. The UK and HK versions were not as funny.

Philip Nunez, Friday, 11 September 2009 22:38 (fifteen years ago) link

i liked Traffic. didn't know there wa a UK version tho! hhmmmm...

The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Friday, 11 September 2009 22:48 (fifteen years ago) link

I give a thumb up to all movies about rich teenagers on hard drugs.

ice cr?m paint job (milo z), Friday, 11 September 2009 22:50 (fifteen years ago) link

Benicio del toro was very good-looking in traffic

mmm so sepia-y

goth casual, Friday, 11 September 2009 22:52 (fifteen years ago) link

yeah glad I'm not the only person who thought Departed was a comedy. running in-joke with my wife is to randomly shout "are you a cawp?!" at each other

Blanket McCulkin (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 11 September 2009 23:33 (fifteen years ago) link

The Departed would have been much better if it was just the parts with Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark in it.

51 active users (sarahel), Friday, 11 September 2009 23:35 (fifteen years ago) link

i liked Traffic. didn't know there wa a UK version tho! hhmmmm...

Six-part miniseries from the 80s. Spelled with a "k".

Young Scott Young (sic), Saturday, 12 September 2009 03:11 (fifteen years ago) link

leaving work i passed sonja sohn on the street

am0n, Wednesday, 23 September 2009 02:22 (fifteen years ago) link

ws for the ages

mark cl, Wednesday, 23 September 2009 02:30 (fifteen years ago) link

at farmers market i saw "santangelo"

steamed hams (harbl), Sunday, 27 September 2009 13:50 (fifteen years ago) link

My sons (25 and 27) still steadfastly refuse to watch The Wire because...
their parents are into it.
We shoulda shut up about it, rather than getting son #2 season 1 for xmas.
We're considering paying them to watch it.

Beth Parker, Sunday, 27 September 2009 16:02 (fifteen years ago) link

one month passes...

just started watching this and only about 5 episodes in to season 1, not about to read a 2000+ post thread and don't want spoilers but...

I lol'd hard at the dealin drugs is just like playin chess analogy, really? also the quality seemed to go down a bit after the pilot, and the show's main trick seems to be humanizing the bad guys while taking the good guys down a notch...can't wait for the big plot twists or whatever that I'm sure are coming

appreciate the realism but lol at every payphone being in pristine condition, no doubt thanks to the tireless efforts of verizon to keep this country connected

looking forward to watching the rest of these 5 seasons

囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 08:17 (fourteen years ago) link

chess analogy doesn't really hit hard until the end of season 4 imo

jØrdån (omar little), Monday, 16 November 2009 08:19 (fourteen years ago) link

I was lolling more at what a cliche it was, and the straightfaced way in which wallace & the other dude were taking it...like "oh so the pawn...can become a queen..." like jeez come on, can you be any more obvious

囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 08:22 (fourteen years ago) link

I'm with you, dyao. I'm surprised everyone seems to love that scene (I saw it mentioned in a lot of articles around the time of the final season), to me it isn't one of the great moments of the show or anything.

Jouster, Monday, 16 November 2009 09:32 (fourteen years ago) link

I was totally underwhelmed by season 1. Stick with it.

I am flesh and blood. You are software and circuitry. (chap), Monday, 16 November 2009 11:56 (fourteen years ago) link

to be fair that's some pretty profound shit to hear if you're a 16 year old drug dealer

Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 November 2009 11:58 (fourteen years ago) link

^^see that's the thing; I like how the show in general doesn't underestimate the savviness of the drug dealers, I really liked the scene where Wallace points out Hamilton wasn't a prez, but that scene really felt like the writers talking down to their characters

囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 12:06 (fourteen years ago) link

were talking down

囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 12:07 (fourteen years ago) link

I don't even remember any chess scenes. It should be possible to find other stuff to keep you entertained, if you don't like that bit.

Ismael Klata, Monday, 16 November 2009 12:18 (fourteen years ago) link

wallace would know about hamilton because he's in school at the time! that's the kind of useless fact they teach you.

i haven't seen the shows in awhile but i recall that scene coming at a downswing in d's fortunes - he's been kicked down the heirarchy to the lowrises. my impression - as i remember it - was that d is trying to impress the lowrise dudes with his worldly wisdom, and maybe even convince himself that he's cut out for more of a thinking man's role than just lowrise enforcer. his spiel is cliched to us, yeah. but i think it gets the point across to his audience. "this guy thinks strategically".

Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 November 2009 12:21 (fourteen years ago) link

the chess scene is a excerpted as a skit on the soundtrack cd, so clearly someone thinks it's deep. but yeah, it's kind of embarrassing.

caek, Monday, 16 November 2009 12:34 (fourteen years ago) link

tbf gerard manley hopkins would sound embarrassing if you heard it enough times on a sound track CD.

Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 November 2009 12:44 (fourteen years ago) link

unless it was actually gerard manley hopkins reading it and also composing the soundtrack, then it would be epic 2x

囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 12:45 (fourteen years ago) link

true and true

caek, Monday, 16 November 2009 12:54 (fourteen years ago) link

Obvious and cliche as that chess scene may be, I think it's important not just as an ohhhh. easy analogy way, but in sorting of setting the ground for the drug game narrative they follow. It may be cheesy then, but I think it's more subtly manifest later...

EDB, Monday, 16 November 2009 14:35 (fourteen years ago) link

d is trying to impress the lowrise dudes with his worldly wisdom, and maybe even convince himself that he's cut out for more of a thinking man's role

^^^

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 16 November 2009 14:43 (fourteen years ago) link

i own this whole series but my ex wound up with the last disc of the last season, so i never saw the last two episodes. i don't feel real deprived tbh.

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 16 November 2009 14:44 (fourteen years ago) link

???? see them hoos!

hoos-kingofthedrugs (deej), Monday, 16 November 2009 14:45 (fourteen years ago) link

what i'm getting at is that by that point in s5 i felt kinda disinvested in the whole thing. in s5 it felt like marlo was still this utterly boring cipher (and that impression wasn't gonna get blown up in the space of the last two eps), mcnulty & lester were being written completely against type, herc & carver were rarely of any fun/interest to follow solo, kima was caught in this uninteresting character loop, and if The Detail was gonna do its thing at all (the group chemistry was among the main reasons i liked the show) it was gonna do it in a severely truncated way.

idk, i just don't really feel like i need to see them unless you're telling me those last two episodes are super stellar or story-resolving in comparison to the rest of the season

BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 16 November 2009 14:54 (fourteen years ago) link

theyre not stellar but theyre funny and heartbreaking and resolve lots of storys. its like youve gotten to page 480 of a 500-page book and are like... oh well why bother

max, Monday, 16 November 2009 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link

i agree that the chess scene is a bit heavy-handed and seems a little contrived. it seemed to me that it's major function was character development - that D'angelo was a thoughtful guy and might be out of place in the drug game.

xp - the last two episodes pretty much just resolve what happens to most of the characters and illustrate the cyclical nature of that society - characters step into roles vacated by other characters.

sarahel, Monday, 16 November 2009 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link

If the chess scene is d's idea, it's no surprise that a character should come up with a cliché. Writers try to avoid them, but real people don't.

Ismael Klata, Monday, 16 November 2009 15:07 (fourteen years ago) link

unless you're telling me those last two episodes are super stellar or story-resolving

dude

hoos-kingofthedrugs (deej), Monday, 16 November 2009 15:07 (fourteen years ago) link

xp - of course, and there are plenty of cliches that come from the mouths of the characters in the Wire - that particular scene seemed a little incongruous stylistically though.

sarahel, Monday, 16 November 2009 15:11 (fourteen years ago) link

it's not so much d's delivery of it, but rather that the other two otherwise street smart guys take it hook line and sinker and pretend it's some great apercu

囧 (dyao), Monday, 16 November 2009 15:17 (fourteen years ago) link

i feel like the writing got better in later seasons, and they started working with the medium more - in terms of editing and structure - to make points/commentary. I want to say, starting around season 3, the show did a lot more parallel construction showing the similarities between the hierarchies and systems of the different groups it was following.

sarahel, Monday, 16 November 2009 15:23 (fourteen years ago) link

It definitely gets more impressive as it accrues narrative mass. The beauty of later seasons is the precision with which all the intricacies fit together. The first season is basically a superior police thriller.

I am flesh and blood. You are software and circuitry. (chap), Monday, 16 November 2009 15:26 (fourteen years ago) link


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