"The Wire" on HBO

most of the show is about "falling on your sword" in the service of preserving the status quo.

Holy shit, so true.

does the watch/mobile phone mms code make any sense?

the show is careful to set it up so the "monstrousness" is built into the system

most of the show is about "falling on your sword" in the service of preserving the status quo.

yeah these are both true, and it is great writing that showcases the characters' ambiguity against this backdrop... even so, I have problems with the whole resignation/"forget it Jake, its Chinatown" POV and am still inclined to hold characters' actions against them when a) they're motivations are highly questionable and self-serving and b) the resulting suffering is too horrible to be acceptable. This show is very, very bleak and in a way defies the viewer to judge its characters by constantly shifting the blame away from any given individual and instead onto the institution or system they find themselves in. I have issues with this. Institutions are built by people, run by individuals - for them to function and not become total nightmares, lines have to be drawn and people need to be held accountable. Otherwise you end up with... Baltimore (or Chinatown lolz)

Forget it Shakey, this is America.

heh

I thought her issues with Kima were pretty justified!

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Tuesday, September 8, 2009 5:52 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i know we've moved on, but this! i love kima, but she's kind of an asshole as a girlfriend.

I kinda didn't understand why they were together at all

it's all setup for the "these bitches are no joke" strip club scene

xp oh I think you understand.

finished season 4 last night. Easily the best season - couldn't care less about the politics shit though, kinda wish it had just been all about the kids. Actually I kinda wish the whole series was about kids (cops are boring)

Favorite line of whole series: "You know who got the sweetest pussy and the fattest asses? Midgets, nigga"

I heart you, Method Man

you spent ~50 hrs watching a show that goes into minute & exacting detail about a profession you find boring. congratulations!

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

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

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

mm yummy

you get a whole one once you finish season 5!

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

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.

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

"good" doesn't apply to traffic either.

otm

Benicio del toro was very good-looking in traffic.

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

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

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

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

Benicio del toro was very good-looking in traffic

mmm so sepia-y

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

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

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

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

leaving work i passed sonja sohn on the street

ws for the ages

at farmers market i saw "santangelo"

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

^^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

were talking down

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.

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".

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.

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

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

true and true

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...

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

^^^