"The Wire" on HBO

if the subtitles aren't even matching the actual dialogue, you might be better off listening and getting the actual colloquial vibe of the characters, rather than reading an abbreviated translation and complaining that it's unsatisfying

― glandular lansbury (sic), Thursday, 14 April 2016 10:32 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no the subtitles are fine. it's just i know that if i didn't have the subtitles on, i wouldn't be able to tell that this is what they said. my tv has got shit sound too, so there's that.

Trying to understand the complex hierarchies within the police department and the relationships the different characters have to each other can feel like a lot of work that I'm not necessarily up for.

Not that complex, surely? The police chiefs have their own way of doing things that focuses on producing statistics that can be sold to the press and everyone in the organisation has to deal with this reality. Some chafe against it but are professional about it and do the best they can within those limitations (Daniels, Bunk) and some buy into the system wholeheartedly either through ambition (Rawls) or stupidity (Herc).

McNulty bucks the system completely and does his own thing in the name of what he considers to be "proper" police work. This mightily pisses everyone off but they don't do much about it because he's the best detective on the force. All of this is pretty evident within the first, like, five episodes? It's not rocket science.

i had to look up who three of those characters were just now, so no.

Okay, close it up folks, nothing to see here.

At least I hope he recognized the bunk

Second best detective, Lester walks it.

:-/

Lester is the best at his job, for sure

i think there are subtitles during that scene in trainspotting because the music is too loud to clearly hear what they are saying (i.e. they're partially a joke)

yup.

Agreed.

best Prop Joe line is "for a cold-ass crew of gangsters, y'all carried it like Republicans and shit."

love prop joe is the best

so many great lines

dog latin's befuddled review of The Wire in 2016 is giving me the giggles

Otm so otm give it up guys

DL it's not for everyone don't strain yrself man it's OK there's lots of stuff out there for you, don't tuomas up the thread

Hi horseshoe

Just started watching S2 for the first time in 10 years as a result of this thread. Good stuff. In S2E2, who is the tall actor with the giant hair who plays is investigating the women's bodies in the opening scene? Feel like I've seen him in something before.

I think you might be referring to Erik Dellums, who played the drug kingpin Luther Mahoney on Homicide.

Yes, him! Although I've never seen Homicide. His imdb says he was in a pizzeria scene in Do the Right Thing, so that's gotta be it.

homicide still so great, pre-"golden age" i had it neck and neck w/ hill st blues for best tv drama ever

I never saw it! One of my elementary school friends' dads was a key figure in Simons' book, which I hadn't even realized until way after we grew up. I've had friends who were extras, including my mother-in-law. Is it streaming anywhere?

Buy the DVDs, streaming versions are probably the 16:9 reframes now

oh wait you meant Homicide the series, got thrown by how much of The Wire is from Homicide the book

Wait, Trainspotting was in English?

you know what? I've got a weekend free and I'm going to persevere with this. I want to be a convert. it's the moby dick of tv I think

more dickens than melville iirc lol

ha reminds me I love that bodie line "i'm standing here like an asshole holding my charles dickens"

lol pplains

David Simon interviewed on WTF today btw

Man, watching the Wire got me into Tom Waits. I had tried a few times in the 90s, after the guys in Primus and Phish recommended him (lol). The first time I watched the Wire I went out and bought all those mid-80s records and finally started to dig it.

I can't sit through this theme song again, guys.

someone make a intro edited torrent asap

late to the party, but the "dog" episode of the wire was one of the funniest episodes i'd seen of basically any show.

such a huge beautiful setup to the punchline

marlo literally fuckin getting clean money for vondas

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/16/wendell-pierce-actor-and-social-activist-arrested-for-allegedly-attacking-bernie-sanders-supporter/

bunk (allegedly) smacked a woman around over a hillary-bernie argument

some shameful shit

https://twitter.com/AoDespair/status/778039688879808512

doubling down https://twitter.com/aodespair/status/778048667026616320

really surprised shakedog wasn't beelining for this thread to be all "SEE? SEE? YOU FUCKERS I TOLD YOU!"

in any event, what the holy fuck made simon think that was an ok thing to do, like...god damn man, there are approx 65,000 ways to make the point he was trying to make there that didn't involve doing what he did

Ah, so that's why non-rhotic speakers in Boston think they can get away with that.

Even well-meaning clueless old white guys are clueless old white guys?

racist comment thanatos in full effect lol

wait what

boston residing new jersey expatriate speaking - accusing a certain type of bostonian as racist is generally accurate and extremely unfortunate but I'm not sure I follow the joke here seeing as how simon is, yknow, not from here

(xp pplains)

I'm okay with Simon going there, these are the strangest times.

Saying his excuse of -a instead of -er was lame. Wasn't really trying to call non-rhotic speakers racist.

tiny bit ironic that hannity hosting a town hall on black issues is the thing that sets off dave's "no, black people, it is i who truly knows what is right for you" voice

xp oh lol that shit just totally went over my head my bad

tbf a not-huge-but-still-too-sizable amount of white trash ppl in the dot (dorchester) and similar neighborhoods here DO think it's fine to use the non-rhotic pronunciation of that word as if they're entitled to it solely bc they've lived in relative proximity to a project, and in the admittedly hipsterish or punkish neighborhoods you've got white ppl ironically saying "fam" like it's their job, so I thought you might've been addressing that sort of shit

it's one of the nastiest & truest moments in gone baby gone of all movies when amy ryan's WT mom says "n***a please"

FWIW I live in allston among the hipsters so I'm probably part of that problem

(the hipster part, not the racism, I'm many things that aren't complimentary but not that)

Finished season three last night this show is the greatest