I could've sworn there used to be a thread about this show, but I can't find it anywhere. so here is the new one.
there is no way to argue around this one, the wire is the best tv show ever created. it's better than most movies and books too. the way it figures real life details into such gripping drama is mind-blowing, also equally mind-blowing is its insight into everything, from growing up as a child in da hood to being the most powerful men in the city, and every level in between. HOLY CRAP.
really?
yeah, it really is
ask crono
this show has transformed the way i see people and institutions. it's the best thing to come out of the 21st century. i read somewhere that this show was 'broadcast literature' . that's giving literature a little too much credit.
i believe it.
to hype it up more, this is the only show that i regret not following since it started showing PURELY from the ad campaign which just showed short scenes without context, i can only imagine a whole hour of that calibre.
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I've only seen the first season so far (I'm catching up on DVD), but it really is a gripping show.
I will probably avoid this thread for a while due to possible spoilers... I just wanted to chime in about how great the show is so far.
Hands down one of the most realistic crime cop and bad guy shows ever. Phenomenol, phenomenol stuff. Netflix it if possible, I own all three seasons that you can get on DVD. They are doing a 5th season this year I believe. I don't have HBO, so I am eagerly awaiting season 4 on dvd.
There are NO Spoilers here.
It feels so great to discover something so amazing as this, it lived up to its hype and more, I'm not qualified to make it justice with my words so EVERYONE should just rent/buy this, I'm looking at you Mac, sometimes you say you watch some average show because there's nothing else at that moment, so do yourself a favor and buy this (you know you have the dough).
Only phrase that keeps coming to my mind while posting this is: It's impossible to overrate this show.
Cron thanks for wire me up, I owe you one bro.
this show is better than kubrick, lynch, scorsese, malick, and coppola combined.
from the blog of David Mills:
Just to tease you fans of 'The Wire'...
Here I sit in the writers' room of HBO's "The Wire" in Baltimore. I'll be writing Episode 5 of the upcoming season, thanks to my old bud David Simon.
This final season will be a shortened one – just 10 episodes. They'll start filming in a few weeks. I cannot reveal anything about the storyline, except to say that it'll surely be the funniest season ever of "The Wire"... if you like your humor dark. We're talking the "Dr. Strangelove" of police procedurals here.
Attention "Homicide" fans... I can reveal this: Clark Johnson will have a prominent role on "The Wire" this coming season, as the city editor of Baltimore's daily newspaper.
Quote from: cronopio on May 22, 2007, 06:54:53 PM
I cannot reveal anything about the storyline, except to say that it'll surely be the funniest season ever of "The Wire"... if you like your humor dark. We're talking the "Dr. Strangelove" of police procedurals here.
YES! :onfire:
If that doesn't make you want to check out The Wire, nothing will.
according to tvblogger.org, the season 5 primere will be February 3rd or February 10th, 2008.
I wouldn't say I was skeptical of the show, it's just the in general it looked like it was "Police Cops" but when I actually saw an episode late one night, it was such a stand out. I've never been pulled into a show, especially a midseason episode. If anyone was waiting for my approval, this show definitely has it.
Indeed. It's such a well done show, and I became so immersed in it, that when it came time to give that other critically acclaimed police show - The Shield - a chance, it really did just seem like "Police Cops" in comparison.
I think my favorite season is the second, with the shipping yard and James Ransone. The way in introduced, and balanced so many different social environments without seemed forced or disingenuous.
Haven't seen the fourth season - waiting for DVD.
Down to 'The Wire': It's a Wrap for Gritty TV Series
Real Life and Fiction Jostle for a Final Time As Acclaimed HBO Show Shoots Last Episode
By Teresa Wiltz; Washington Post Staff Writer
It was early still -- about 10 p.m. on Friday -- and somewhere in Columbia, David Simon was giving a tour of the sights: There, he said, pointing, was the Baltimore mayor's office. Over there? The city's Western District police headquarters, and there, that little closet of a room, "that can be the visiting room at Jessup." Pause. "Or the jail. Depends. We just redecorate."
As he stood on a platform, taking in his world, it was hard to ignore the irony: For the past two years, a good chunk of "The Wire," the HBO show that critics have praised for the grittiness of its inner-city vérité, has been filmed in an anonymous soundstage in the burbs -- a soundstage that reportedly will be turned into a massive Wegmans Food Market.
After five seasons, and this final episode, they would be done.
"It's time," said Clarke Peters, who plays Detective Lester Freamon, "to pull the plug on 'The Wire.' "
It is the actor's lot to say goodbye again and again, to bond with cast and crew, only to be sent scattering after the wrap. But this, everyone insisted, would be a particularly sorrowful parting: This morning, they buried one of their own, the daughter of a crew member who died of breast cancer. Tonight, they were putting "The Wire" to rest.
"I was a wreck," said Deirdre Lovejoy, who plays Assistant State's Attorney Rhonda Pearlman on the show. "But there was a funeral and that put everything in perspective." She looked around the room at everyone guzzling champagne, slapping backs and engulfing each other in hearty bear hugs. " This is a happy death."
Simon, who once covered cops for the Baltimore Sun, always knew that "The Wire" would end at exactly this point. From the beginning when the show debuted in 2002, he saw it as a visual novel, with each season a distinct chapter exploring an aspect of inner-city life: The first season examined the drug trade; the second focused on Baltimore's longshoremen; the third grappled with politics and the notion of reform; the fourth dug into education and the lives of the city's children. This season, which begins airing Jan. 6, explores the media, featuring a morally challenged reporter played by Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed the indie film "The Station Agent."
"The Wire" has always struggled in the ratings; last season it averaged 1.6 million viewers per episode. But it's always enjoyed the admiration of critics, who praised it as being the "most authentic epic ever on television." Notwithstanding the giant soundstage, a good 50 percent of the show was shot on location in Baltimore, with real-life characters frequently sprinkled in with the fictional ones. Like former drug kingpin Melvin Williams, whom co-producer and writer Ed Burns, an ex-Baltimore cop, once arrested in a big takedown. Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, who did time as a teenager for killing a 16-year-old girl, made her acting debut last season, playing an assassin. Even Robert Ehrlich, when he was Maryland governor, made a cameo -- as a state trooper in the governor's office last season.
Over the years, Simon has carved out a cottage industry from covering Baltimore's drug and crime issues, from "Homicide," to the HBO miniseries "The Corner," based on his book by the same name, to "The Wire." But despite the show's depiction of Baltimore as decaying and dysfunctional, the city has benefited greatly from its presence, from its showcasing of B-more music to the tens of millions in revenue it has brought to the city. In many ways, "The Wire" is a long, convoluted love letter to Baltimore-- from a conflicted but resolutely committed lover.
But even the greatest love affairs come to an end.
Said Wendell Pierce, who plays Detective William "Bunk" Moreland: "He told us from day one, 'It's a novel.' He had the novel in his head, and he wouldn't share with us."
It wasn't until last year that Simon told his cast that this season would be the last.
"If you get five years out of a TV show," Pierce said with a shrug, "that's pretty successful. I'm proud of it. . . . We showed the possibility of television used as an art.
"There are people who come up to me and say, 'I hate the show.' I accept that. They're still engaged. If at the end of an hour of watching 'The Wire,' if you don't feel bad, you should."
This sensibility of art as mission statement pervades the conversations of everyone here -- writers, actors, producers, casting directors, crew. Here, they don't talk about TV, they talk about "television." There is a sense of them being the earnest outsiders, messengers shining a klieg light on society's ills. Whether you like it or not.
It was sweltering on the set of the cop shop: No cooling fans allowed during filming. Too noisy. Which meant that between takes, the makeup artists rushed in to dab at the sweat on the faces of Pierce and Dominic West, the British actor who plays Detective James "Jimmy" McNulty.
Behind a stack of file cabinets was the video village, where Simon and his crew hunkered down over TV monitors, listening intently to the action on headsets. Actor-filmmaker Clark Johnson sat in the director's chair. He directed the pilot; it seemed only fitting, Simon said, that Johnson direct the coda, too.
Johnson, honey-colored, genial, goateed, stared into the monitor. "Tighter, tighter, mo' tighter," he called out, jumping up to confer with his cast, in this instance McCarthy and West, who were filming a confrontational scene. They would film this scene over and over, from every angle, wide, medium and "mo' tighter."
At 9 p.m., it was time for "lunch," which was held in a giant tent outside the warehouse. Surrounding it were massive trailers: wardrobe trailers, caterers' trailers, even bathroom trailers marked "Desi" and "Lucy." A woman from wardrobe, bald and heavily tattooed, greeted everyone with a big smile, while weathered crew dudes hung back for a smoke. Folks were queuing up in the food line, grabbing trays and loading their plates with lobster tails, steak and baked eggplant before heading into the tent.
Notwithstanding the cameras, the makeup artists and the high-rent grub, this was your standard office party. On the walls of the tent, a gag reel was projected, a litany of you-had-to-be-there jokes: close-ups of actors munching on chips, belching, cursing, a montage of "The Wire's" extravagant use of the F-word. Actors wandered in with their families, while Andre Royo, who played Bubbles, ran around, dressed like a newspaper peddler, handing out copies of a fake newspaper, "The Wire," with a giant headline: "HBO SERIES WRAPS PRODUCTION: Fifth season concludes in Baltimore; Emmy voters will be given one last shot to get it right."
After lunch, it was back to work, and as the clock edged past midnight, folks started getting giddy. The final episode was an hour and a half, as opposed to the normal hour-long length, but the production schedule dictated that shooting be confined to 11 days. Simon, juggling another HBO miniseries, admitted that he's been consistently late with turning in scripts. ("Really, really, really late," said Royo, with a laugh.) The night before, they filmed until close to 3 a.m. They would be even later this night.
So all kinds of silliness ensued. Actor Reg E. Cathay showed up to watch, his curly 'fro completely shaved bare. Johnson, not to be outdone, came back after break with all the peach fuzz on his head shaved, too. No way he, he said, was he going to be upstaged. A crew member worked the set sporting a three-foot Afro wig.
"Did that [expletive] just mock my performance?" Pierce joked to one of his cast buddies. "I know I'm not as good as you, but damn, you don't have to rub it in."
At 3:10 a.m., it was time for some goodbyes. Everyone applauded after Sonja Sohn, who plays Shakima Greggs, wrapped up her final scene. Her teenage daughter ran to her, shoving a bouquet into her crying mother's arms.
"Ain't no need to hold the tears back," said Sohn, her voice shaking. ". . . It's not going to be like this again. It can't be."
At 4:40 a.m., the assistant director called out, "It's a wrap, it's a wrap. We're done. Forever."
Everyone stood around clapping and clapping, wiping away tears. It's hard to say goodbye to five years of friendship and steady employment. Pierce is going to act in a New Orleans production of "Waiting for Godot." Royo is heading with his wife and daughter to Los Angeles, to run their new restaurant and act in theater. Peters and West are going to ride horseback across country to raise money for AIDS awareness.
Pierce, a native of New Orleans, thanked everyone for standing by him after Hurricane Katrina. A wardrobe worker, who first met Simon when he was an inner-city preteen haunting the set of "The Corner," sobbed, hands covering his face.
Simon held his plastic champagne cup aloft. "It's 4:40," he said, "and I am at a complete loss. I'm out of words.
"I am very spoiled by this cast and crew. . . . To all of us and for this last night . . . L'chaim."
time for DVD boxsets to work their redemptive magic.
everyone must eventually realise what they missed here. myself included.
Quote from: Pubrick on September 06, 2007, 03:13:04 AM
time for DVD boxsets to work their redemptive magic.
everyone must eventually realise what they missed here. myself included.
Season 4 Comes out on dvd in the first week of december.
So about a week an a half ago I got an assignment for a television studies course where the prompt was to take a reality television show and discuss how the use of form detracts from or adds to the realism of the show. While i was searching for a show at the video store to fit the assignment I noticed that they had all three seasons of The Wire on dvd and none of them were rented. I picked up a reality show ("Black. White." actually) and decided to rent the first two discs of season 1 of the Wire. One week and 24 episodes later I've finished season 2 and am completely convinced that this is the best show on television.
I was so engrossed especially by the first season. My TV class is at 9 in the A.M. and the Sunday after I rented the first season I was up til 6 A.M. finishing the season. So needless to say I missed class that Monday. But here's the thing: the day i missed class because I was up all night watching the Wire...my teacher showed an episode of The Wire from season 3 to show the class formalism in action through fictional rather than "reality" tv and how this use of form makes for a more realistic portrait than supposed "reality tv". Part of me is glad i missed cause I didn't want any of season 2 or 3 spoiled for me. I told the teach on Friday why I'd missed on Monday and he seemed more excited that I'd been watching The Wire than disappointed that I'd missed class...so much so that he let me borrow his personal copy of Season 3...fuck yeah!!
I'd just like everyone to know that the hype is not bullshit. This is a great fucking show.
Quote from: squints on September 30, 2007, 04:20:05 PM
I'd just like everyone to know that the hype is not bullshit. This is a great fucking show.
Completely right. I ordered Season 4 on amazon for 34.99 a couple of weeks ago.
I can't believe it's only a month away!!! So ready for this, here are some quick teasers:
Let McNulty Be McNulty (http://youtube.com/watch?v=WVB-d7tWIII)
Play Or Get Played (Omar) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=EwhryZsvU6E&feature=related)
It's All About The Crown (Marlo) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gPflEzVBSq0&feature=related)
Give The People What They Want (Carcetti) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=zIsYWcHbwLU&feature=related)
One Step At A Time (Bubbles) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6uMd2HCcQ_c&feature=related)
season 4 should hit my doorstep on the fifth. I don't know how i'm going to react when I won't be able to just pop in episode after episode. oh well, i'll definitely devour season four in a day or so.
I just read the whole thread...
I don't fucking get it. Are you people being sarcastic or not ?????? At first it was obviously so and then it became no-so-obvious.
So, should I blind buy the shit or have I been fooled by the infamous brat that is Internet Sarcasm ?
Quote from: Pas Rap on December 03, 2007, 04:31:52 PM
I just read the whole thread...
I don't fucking get it. Are you people being sarcastic or not ?????? At first it was obviously so and then it became no-so-obvious.
So, should I blind buy the shit or have I been fooled by the infamous brat that is Internet Sarcasm ?
All 23 posts? wow :yabbse-smiley:
No sarcasm sans Hedwig's comment, but it doesn't count since he hasn't seen it (i guess) and it was a wise crack of my ramblings.
This show IS amazing, I blind bought the first two seasons because Cron is never wrong; just an advice: be patient, don't expect to see things resolved let alone in one episode but in the entire season, I myself got officially hooked by the 5th or 6th ep. of S1 and then got the 3rd season.
BTW, those clips gave me goosebumps.
i won't see those clips cos i don't want any spoilers. i haven't even read the newyorker article that came out like two months ago about the production of season 5 to be spoiler free.
pas rap, don't be silly and fucking watch the best thing ever made on any medium.
the clips aren't too bad spoiler-wise. we've been watching every season on demand over the past several months. each month they put up a new season, which sucks because we get through a season in a few days. the whole thing plays like a good book you can't put down, but never want to end.
cron: did you send me the new yorker article without reading it?!
that's nothing, you should see how he prepares food
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Quote from: pete on December 04, 2007, 12:19:47 AM
cron: did you send me the new yorker article without reading it?!
i gave you the link, and started reading it, but then i saw it had some parts about season 5 and said HELL NO.
so yep.
HBO's 'Wire' plugs in VOD vignettes
Source: Hollywood Reporter
"The Wire" is going back in time to promote its future.
The critically acclaimed HBO series has given a multiplatform launch to three filmed shorts produced by "Wire" creator David Simon that explore the backstories of some its characters.
The three "prequels" already have launched on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Wire-Complete-Fourth-Season/dp/B000QXDJLI) -- not on its Unbox service but as a free stream available on the page for the DVD set "The Wire: The Complete Fourth Season."
The prequels also are being used to whet the appetite of "Wire" fans in advance of its fifth-season launch Jan. 6 on HBO. Beginning Jan. 15, the shorts will be available on HBO On Demand, HBO.com, podcasts and affiliate portals.
The shorts will air on HBO at the close of each fifth-season episode, beginning with the third installment.
In addition, HBO will make all episodes of "Wire" available on VOD one week before their linear premiere (with the exception of the finale). "Wire" is known to be a big draw on VOD, second only to "The Sopranos" among HBO series.
Two of the shorts are devoted to the characters Prop Joe and Omar, depicting them as children who show flashes of their adult personality traits. A third short features William "Bunk" Moreland (Wendell Pierce) and Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) in McNulty's first day on the job.
Simon produced the shorts at the same time he worked on the series finale, though they don't have any specific relevance to this season's story lines.
"When we approached David about doing additional scenes, he got it right away," said Rishi Malhotra, vp HBO On Demand and multiplatform marketing. "Immediately, he came up with these characters."
"Wire" isn't the first HBO series to produce extra vignettes. "Entourage" featured some of its characters in shorts that were available exclusively on AT&T's wireless content platform. Last year, "Big Love" created flashback-themed shorts exclusively for HBO on Demand, where they racked up 2.5 million views -- on par with the actual episodes.
"We set the bar with 'Big Love' last year," Malhotra said. "It was really an incredible test for us to evolve our marketing to storytelling (and) multiplatform marketing."
Anybody have trouble getting the 4th Season DVDs? My video store in Tucson isn't going to get them for a few weeks (according to our distributor) and the retail stores out here that I checked (Best Buy, Circuit City, Target) only got a handful of copies and were sold out of them by mid-afternoon. Apparently they were massively under-produced. Anyone order it online?
Quote from: puddnanners on December 05, 2007, 11:40:26 AM
Apparently they were massively under-produced. Anyone order it online?
I ordered mine through Amazon and it shipped on Sunday and it's current availability says "in stock", so you might wanna give that a try. $38.99, and free shipping. Beats what I've paid for these seasons so far.
EDIT:
Just arrived.
They changed the packaging from the previous seasons. I hate it when they do that.
how are the extras? why do the prices of the boxsets fluctuate from season to season like that? SO WEIRD.
I dunno about the price... maybe HBO has finally realized that the novelty of having a television show on DVD is fading enough that they can't charge $100 for twelve episodes of a show that has an audience of potential viewers that outranks their audience of rabid viewers. The second season of Big Love next week is pretty cheap, as well.
I watched the hour-long doc on the disc. It's pretty good. I actually wanted to hear the creators and cast talk more... as opposes to this last season of Sopranos... which I loved, but couldn't get through a single extra because everyone involved was spewing hot air about how great, and integral, and symbolic they were... rather then really adding anything of interest. This doc, though... not too bad. Thou, e episodes alone are enough for me.
anyone watch the three prequel shorts? here they are in case you haven't yet
http://www.amazon.com/Wire-Complete-Fourth-Season/dp/B000QXDJLI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1196960455&sr=8-1
prop joe's is a bit cheesy, but omar's and mcnulty's are great.
edit: hey 200 posts. only took... three years? shit
Just watched whole season 1 ... pretty good but nothing to write mom about....................... should I keep it up ?
whoa what? what do you usually write home about?
sure, keep it up. the fun is in the details and how much knowledge the writers possess about America today, maybe that's not fun to you.
i just finished season one today too, and it certainly is something to write home about. i love it so much, i want to watch more, but the DVDs are so much! i also have twin peaks to watch.
I reckon you are right Pete... the writers are very informed. I was expecting Oz outside the prison and I got something much more subtle and gray. I shall keep on watching and report after season 2.
Boxing day sale here : most HBO stuff 20$ a season ... good times.
Quote from: JG on December 29, 2007, 07:19:00 PM
i want to watch more, but the DVDs are so much!
despite what mac and silias might lead you to believe, you can still rent dvds!
(no real spoilers, but still, stay away if you wanna remain 100% pure)
so good. the new season. it's really funny, it feels a bit new, with new characters, a grown-up dookie, and an entirely new angle. however, it's still as frustrating as ever!
Quote from: pete on January 07, 2008, 01:12:23 AM
(no real spoilers, but still, stay away if you wanna remain 100% pure)
however, it's still as frustrating as ever!
Couldn't agree more. I don't have anything else to add, just glad someone besides cron and me will watch this final season. :yabbse-thumbup:
edit: Did anyone see the special before the episode? I didn't watch it all out of fear of some spoilers, however I saw the part where almost every black character said they auditioned for other parts, IIRC: Daniels did for Bubbles and Bunk, Clay Davis for Bunk, Carver for Stringer, Chris Partlow for Marlo, Slim Charles for Omar and many others I don't remember.
I'll be watching too!! Last nights episode was fantastic but it seems crazy to me that this season will only consist of 9 more episodes. So many questions to raise and answer and so little time. The episodes are supposed to be available a week before the actual air date OnDemand but in Dallas Time Warner fucked us and as of this morning last night's episode still wasn't up. Oh well. I'm fully prepared for the best ten hour movie of the year. Oh and when they were giving the kid the lie detector/copier test I was dying.
that was in david simon's book "homicide." it was an old legend from Detroit in the 70's.
I found some links online to the leaked episodes. and I already accidentally caught a major spoiler from some kid and I hate myself for it right now.
I guess one big difference between The Wire and the "real world" is that, people in The Wire are a lot more desperate for change. Most people in the real world become content or disillusioned with the situations they're in, no matter how hellish and shitty they are. the characters in The Wire, particuarly in the first episode of the 5th season, all seem eager to stir shit up.
all i have to say is GOD DAMN. carcetti. amazing.
'what kind of people stand around watching a fire? some shameful shit, right here.'
you put the b in subtle, cron.
there's a b in subtle???
i couldn't resist and saw the leaked second episode. i won't spoil a thing but it's incredible that this season's even more raw and unapologetic than the last one. i fucking cried three times. :yabbse-sad: and the clark johnson character, gus haynes, is slowly becoming a favorite.
Another amazing episode (what a shock!).
I can't believe there's only 8 eps. left. :yabbse-sad:
VAGUE SPOILER
I was really moved when Kima saw the boy and just immediately reacted. I was also very disturbed when McNulty did what he did.
VAGUE END SPOILER
I also saw the episode leaked. But in the process I stumbled upon a major spoiler. It was karma.
yes, that scene with kima was fucking brutal. also, michael watching the boy run away from the house after chris and snoop enter. also, every scene with bubbles.
Ditto, in fact I was thinking yesterday when I saw again the episode how amazing is that bubbles has made it this far and his current transformation, I wonder where it will lead him.
I loved seeing again Barksdale, and Clay Davis said a great line:
"I'm out there doing the lord's work Erv and you know it!"
Also, McNulty back to being McNulty, only crazier.
that's the one thing that doesn't make sense is how mcnulty spent season 4 picking up his life and putting it back together, but in season 5 he's back like he's always been, without any explanation except maybe for the lousy pay.
I think bubs will be the only character with a happy ending at the end of this season - like namond from last season.
it seems sudden that mcnulty is back to his old ways, but i think a year spent working on the marlo case unsuccessfully, coupled with the money problems would be enough to push him to a breaking point. i think mcnulty "putting his life back together" last season was just him lying to himself. when bodie was killed, he realized he couldn't do that anymore.
anyone watch ep. 3 on demand yet?
Quote from: pete on January 15, 2008, 10:29:21 AM
that's the one thing that doesn't make sense is how mcnulty spent season 4 picking up his life and putting it back together, but in season 5 he's back like he's always been, without any explanation except maybe for the lousy pay.
I think bubs will be the only character with a happy ending at the end of this season - like namond from last season.
ddiggler summed it up exactly, it pretty much began with Bodie being killed and the rest you kind of have to put together based on the current events. While I didn't mind him going back to being the drunken Mcnulty from s1 I still think his crime scene staging was way over the top, even for him. Still loving this season though so far.
mcnulty has always been the spinal cord of the show, acting as a vessel of the show's respective thesis. he's back in the bar cos the city won't change. that's why vices aren't called hobbies, and the wire isn't called 'baltimore hope'.
i don't know if any of y'all have seen the third episode, but this god damned season is unmerciful.
FUCK.
I'M SO FUCKING JEALOUS THAT YOU GUYS HAVE HBO. AND I HAVE TO WAIT PATIENTLY FOR THE DVD'S
Quote from: cron on January 16, 2008, 04:10:17 PM
i don't know if any of y'all have seen the third episode, but this god damned season is unmerciful.
FUCK.
Watching episode 3 made me giddy with excitement at the places this season seems to be heading but it's also got me scared as to what's going to happen to a few key players. I don't see there being as much character development this season but they seem to be making up for it in sheer audacity.
yeah, goddammit, McNulty and Freeman should come back!
Was the line "We must kill again," or "We need to kill again?"
Quote from: cinemanarchist on January 17, 2008, 12:06:50 PM
Was the line "We must kill again," or "We need to kill again?"
Neither, "We have to kill again."
Quote from: edison on January 17, 2008, 04:20:34 PM
Quote from: cinemanarchist on January 17, 2008, 12:06:50 PM
Was the line "We must kill again," or "We need to kill again?"
Neither, "We have to kill again."
Even better. Thanks Edison.
SPOILERS EPISODE 3This is without a doubt the fastest hour in television right now.
Quote from: cinemanarchist on January 16, 2008, 11:59:56 PM
Watching episode 3 made me giddy with excitement at the places this season seems to be heading but it's also got me scared as to what's going to happen to a few key players.
I'm scared too for some key players, mainly McNulty and his drunk behavior and even more his insane way of trying to get money to get Marlo, that is until Lester entered the picture, that moment was priceless.
Lester: Shit like this actually goes in your fucking brain?
Bunk: Yeah, you don't wanna listen to your partner maybe then listen to Lester he has all the wisdom you need boy!
McNulty: Joke of it is, no one gives a fuck about a serial killer...
Lester: nah you fucked up
Bunk: Yeah, tell him!
Lester: No, I mean...sensationalize it...
I doubt Marlo and his gang will pay as I want them to, if at least Omar gets snoop or chris I'll be a happy man.
has #4 leaked?!?!?!
It's OnDemand right now if you've got that. I just watched it and while it didn't get me as giddy as #3 it most certainly has its share of surprises. This "killer" has got one sick fucking trademark!!
just finished episode 4
ho. ly. shit.
my roommate and I were speechless for about 10 minutes after it ended.
STOP THIS!!!
i mistakenly saw the intro for the 7th episode thinking it was the 5th and that was the craziest out of context shit i've ever seen.
edit: i've seen the first seven episodes now, and this is a different show. everybody's on mad mode. i don't know what to make of it. it's like they're trying to say 46000 different things at the same time, but it's all too insane and bleak to appreciate it.
yeah, one thing that didn't make sense to me was how they made that jump and turned everyone into bunny colvin, but without bunny's dignity. well, I guess I mainly meant the reporter, mcnulty and lester. it's a bit less dickensonian because this episode has less observation on the American life, and more about what if every character in the history of the show got fed up and began acting out like they would on other shows - except with real world consequences. I'm gonna wait 'til the finale to make a definite call, but so far it seems a little bit out of tone.
I don't remember if it was in this thread or not (it probably was) but didn't someone close to the show compare this season to Dr. Strangelove? Every single episode I watch I can't shake that idea and at first there was no way I thought it could be an apt comparison but now I'm starting to think otherwise.
i finished the 7th episode and i agree, this season is bonkers. i feel that if they stuck with the traditional 12 or 13 episodes they could have fleshed out the storyline a bit. it's still entertaining as hell though. one thing i'm loving is all the references to season 2, which i still feel is the strongest of the series. i can't believe this show is ending in three more episodes. i give them props for quitting while they're ahead.
Quote from: cinemanarchist on January 27, 2008, 10:07:28 PM
I don't remember if it was in this thread or not (it probably was) but didn't someone close to the show compare this season to Dr. Strangelove? Every single episode I watch I can't shake that idea and at first there was no way I thought it could be an apt comparison but now I'm starting to think otherwise.
yeah it was writer david mills
You guys should label your comments on unaired episodes with a spoiler warning.
I just saw the fourth so I'm way behind, and I'll wait to see them til they air, part of the joy for me is waiting for next week's ep...anyway, DAMN! Fucking Marlo is merciless, I hope he pays in the end...
Anyone catch episode 8 on demand? Woah...I'm not even gonna say anything but if you have access please check it out now. Do you think HBO is going to make a box with all 5 seasons in it? If so, what do you think it'll look like. My vote is for a stash bag.
Quote from: cinemanarchist on February 18, 2008, 06:23:09 PM
Anyone catch episode 8 on demand? Woah...I'm not even gonna say anything but if you have access please check it out now. Do you think HBO is going to make a box with all 5 seasons in it? If so, what do you think it'll look like. My vote is for a stash bag.
I currently dl'ing it now so i'll catch it probably tomorrow. They will better make a box set, I figure they have for their high profile shows (six feet under, sex and the city) so I've always held out on getting the sets and hopefully my patience will pay off.
I'm at my relative's house right now, with my little nieces, my parents are leaving tomorrow. but I just can't get over how SOMEBODY ON THE WIRE DID SOMETHING TO SOMEBODY ELSE. goddammit!
oh, and I absolutely loved all the characters in this episode. Kima became very lovable this season, but she won me over in this episode. same thing with sydnor, though he didn't do that much. however, I wish I hadn't seen Shattered Glass 'cause there's an arc that's been developing a little bit too close to that movie, with all the beats.
best episode yet.
Quote from: cron on February 27, 2008, 01:12:05 AM
best episode yet.
if you're talking about 9, agreed
Quote from: ddiggler on February 27, 2008, 11:31:58 AM
Quote from: cron on February 27, 2008, 01:12:05 AM
best episode yet.
if you're talking about 9, agreed
And if you're talking about 8 prepare to change that belief after you see 9. I'm so sad it's all about to end.
Yes it was the best and it really put me through the ringer with my emotions. Glad to see more old faces show up.
Too bad they wont release the last episode early, two weeks of waiting is far too long.
Quote from: cinemanarchist on February 27, 2008, 07:54:06 AM
Quote from: cron on February 27, 2008, 01:12:05 AM
best episode yet.
Are you talking about 8 or 9?
9, today i was on the subway thinking about that horrible last scene with dukie all by himself, and the scene of bubbles anniversary, and i almost started crying. man i cry about everything.
GODDAMMIT.
It was so good. Somebody build a time machine quick.
interview with michael kenneth williams (aka Omar)
http://tv.ign.com/articles/855/855716p1.html
really enjoyed this interview. he talks about the wire, and a bit about the incredible hulk movie.
SPOILS OF COURSE
Oh man, there are so many things going on right now that I have no clue how all that will be compressed in one hour.
- MacNulty's fate and so Freamon's, Sydnor's, etc.
- Gus vs. Templeton
- Levy and the awesome discovery via Clay Davis about the leaks from the courthouse.
- Michael after offing snoop (yes!), and Dukie.
- Marlo and crew, plus others like Slim Charles.
- Carcetti finding out about the homeless fiasco.
BTW, am I the only one that feels sympathy for MacNulty? Sure he knew the risk but fucking Kima, Marlo in cuffs wasn't enough, and fuck Herc too, I don't know if he is just plain stupid or doesn't know what the hell is saying.
Quote from: Fernando on March 03, 2008, 05:30:19 PM
Oh man, there are so many things going on right now that I have no clue how all that will be compressed in one hour.
Lucky for all of us that the finale is going to run 93 minutes!!!
Quote from: cinemanarchist on March 03, 2008, 06:06:29 PM
Quote from: Fernando on March 03, 2008, 05:30:19 PM
Oh man, there are so many things going on right now that I have no clue how all that will be compressed in one hour.
Lucky for all of us that the finale is going to run 93 minutes!!!
Oh fuck yeah. I've tried to ignore all the spoilers in this thread but its tough. I can't wait for the DVD set.
damn the finale just leaked. what do i do? ahhhhhhhh!!! (shhhhhh wait til sunday, wait til sunday,)
Quote from: ddiggler on March 05, 2008, 07:50:20 AM
damn the finale just leaked. what do i do? ahhhhhhhh!!! (shhhhhh wait til sunday, wait til sunday,)
Don't do it!! From what I hear it's got time-code all over it and property of HBO flashing occasionally. Is that how you want to view the ending of the best thing ever created by man?
i won't. i already feel guilty enough about watching the earlier leaked episodes before my roommates. looking forward to sunday night is half the fun, i might even have a BBQ or something and make a whole day out of it.
then i'm cancelling HBO
http://www.torrentreactor.to/torrents/view_935571.html
holy crap.
YEAH You guys made me feel bad about watching it like that and i will wait till sunday. assholes. :(
Can't believe they killed Marlo off.
Just kidding. I don't watch this show. Just looked up a characters name.
you fuckin douche bag.
Yeah that sucks. I like to hear "That episode was amazing" but to just spoil like that? Ouch.
Kind of ruined my night.
Quote from: w/o horse on March 06, 2008, 08:23:55 PM
Yeah that sucks. I like to hear "That episode was amazing" but to just spoil like that? Ouch.
Kind of ruined my night.
Check Stefen's invisi-text...I had typed out "I think I fucking hate you right now" before I noticed it. His random prediction could very well be true and it was still a fucked up move.
Quote from: Stefen on March 06, 2008, 03:39:30 PM
Can't believe they killed Marlo off.
Just kidding. I don't watch this show. Just looked up a characters name.
you bastard! good one. ( i retract my douche bag statement)
*a note to all prospective spoilery douchebaggery...i've just finished season 4 and i'll be catching up slowly...so please...please please!
Quote from: Stefen on March 06, 2008, 03:39:30 PM
Can't believe they killed Marlo off.
Just kidding. I don't watch this show. Just looked up a characters name.
haha for not watching the show you picked a pretty good character.
who knows, come sunday you could be right
haha, sorry guys. I was just joking. I just went to IMDB and looked for a character in season 4. I swear it was a joke. I don't watch this show. But maybe I should start? You guys seem pretty gung ho about it.
Kind of started my day off good. Phew.
wowsie.
kind of underwhelming. no?
really? couldn't disagree more. i thought the bar "eulogy" scene was especially touching.
i was hoping to see avon in the end montage though, but oh well.
so long wire, how you spoiled us.
Just simply amazing, as it ended I thought immediately of this:
Quote from: cron on February 20, 2008, 06:50:31 PM
to me, it is a mistake to think that 'this time it's different'.
Quote from: pete on February 20, 2008, 08:41:59 PM
spoken like a true Wire fan.
It's true, the poor are still going to get shit on and foreign nations are still going to get pummelled. but, Bush empowered a lot of crappy people with crappy sentiments that draped high over everyone and everything. If Obama wins, that type of zeitgeist won't be the majority anymore (though I think zeitgeist by definition always means the majority). We won't really be moving forward, but no more backwards feelings at least.
Nothing changes, Carcetti (cron's former idol) just turned into Clarence Royce II, the paper played the homeless story the Pulitzer's way and Gus was relegated, Dukie is the new Bubbles, Michael is the new Omar and so on. Oh, I'm so glad Slim killed cheese.
I guess the only ones that get out with his integrity almost intact are:
- McNulty even after all the things he did; I'm so glad he said to Rawls it wasn't about the money and I agree with ddiggler, the bar scene was very touching.
- Freamon, one hell of an investigator.
- Daniels and perhaps Rhonda, even thou she got to be a judge.
This was one epic show, probably the best thing we will ever see in quite some time, I miss it already. :yabbse-sad:
I thought it was the perfect end to a perfect show. The worst part of it all is that I don't know how long I'll have to wait until another show will consistantly knock me off my feet week after week.
Before this, my favourite series of all time was Twin Peaks, and that was what, like, 18 years ago? Will I have to wait THAT long? *sigh*
For anyone who's interested, here's a fantastic super-long interview with David Simon where he speaks about the finale, and the possibility of a Wire movie...
http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/03/wire-david-simon-q.html
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiit I'm miss you The Wire. Loved the finale and did tear up quite a few times, especially during the "eulogy." God created man and man created The Wire...who's better I ask you? Blasphemous...perhaps, but a question worth pondering. Bring on Generation Kill.
needless to say, i'm devastated.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/85-the-wire/
(https://xixax.com/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=1671;type=avatar)
As soon as this image appeared on TV I wondered who would be the first to use it as their avatar. Congrats cron!!
Quote from: cinemanarchist on March 10, 2008, 08:47:42 PM
(https://xixax.com/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=1671;type=avatar)
As soon as this image appeared on TV I wondered who would be the first to use it as their avatar. Congrats cron!!
i thought the same thing with the shot of mcnulty flashing his badge while banging that woman on the hood of his car. i want that on a t-shirt.
Apparently on august 12th The Wire's final season will be release.
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Wire-Season-5/9305
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That's it, after starting as an unbeliever, The Wire as become my favorite show of all time.
Episode 11 of season 3 made this happen. Good god this writing is litterature stuff !
Quote from: Pas Rap on April 08, 2008, 09:38:38 PM
Episode 11 of season 3 made this happen.
Fuckin' a, right?! That episode had me jumping around the house screamin: "Oh my God! No fuckin way!"
Okay Mac, Time For You To Pick Up The Wire!!!!!!
Title: The Wire
Starring: Dominic West
Released: 9th December 2008
SRP: $249.99
Further Details:
Warner Home Video has announced the complete series of The Wire for release on the 9th December. The 23-disc package will retail at around $249.99. We've attached the official package artwork below:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dvdactive.com%2Fimages%2Fnews%2Fscreenshot%2F2008%2F9%2Fthewirecompseriesr1art1.jpg&hash=43392f1c0c04e6e8e757e2e3f76e3b7545bd198e)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dvdactive.com%2Fimages%2Fnews%2Fscreenshot%2F2008%2F9%2Fthewirecompseriesr1art2.jpg&hash=da82bf0da7150b52591775976030c76f1f6f9b93)
All I want for Christmas....
it's worth twice that imo
Where'd the images go??? I guess there's no chance of a Blu-Ray version? HBO seems to really be picky and choosy with what gets the Blu treatment.
I will have this for Christmas
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg237.imageshack.us%2Fimg237%2F6118%2Fthewirecompseriesr1art1bv7.jpg&hash=212ed06e313e60b174033a500a6885685bd47750)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg357.imageshack.us%2Fimg357%2F4360%2Fthewirecompseriesr1art2dv4.jpg&hash=5cb5f701ff187650b98a941d2e14589aba125b50)
THE WIRE
(THE WIRE)
that's almost really nice packaging. dammit.
Pisses me off when they sell complete series set that are pricier than buying each one separately.
Like The Office did with their new ultimate edition of 4 seasons that is 30$ pricier at HMV than buying the four.
Anyway I already have this series. And what a great one.
PS : Packaging is a let down imo
Amazon.co.uk has this
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F518IME3PaAL._SS500_.jpg&hash=d8965254681c3806ae9f6408208d98ae6049e063)
which is cheaper than buying them all separately.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.guim.co.uk%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2008%2F11%2F06%2Fmichelle460x276.jpg&hash=b0716f134780efcd375c1e0784a7475960636995)
what are we thinking about, room?
yeah, fucking season 4 has me more cautious than a fucked up cat.
just finished season 5 after holding off for a couple months ... ouch by far the worst of a great great series otherwise.
SPOILERS
The way they killed off Omar, wwwwwwwwwhaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttt ???????????? comeeeeee on...... my favorite bad ass in tv history is killed off silly by a little kid. After the ultimte showdown in season 4 he deserved better. Theyshould have killed him at the showdown if they were gonna kill him. shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit (Clay Davis style)
Also, WHO CARES FOR THE LYING JOURNALIST???????
the whole fake serial killer thing, what is this shit ? comedy show now ?
im pissed at season 5
Spoilers.
I thought Omar's death was fitting. Nobdoy was going to catch him slipping. Nobody but a young kid that is.
Also, I think season 2 is the worst season. Season 5 is after that. Seasons 1, 3 and 4 are head and shoulders above the rest.
Overall, one of the best shows of all time. It's just that good.
if omar gets a glorified death then he's just gonna be a fictional gangster. his casual death (and how it doesn't get reported) makes sure that he's not above the show's grim worldview. I liked the lying journalist just because of how indifferent the story became. I thought the weakest parts of the show were the homeless people.
Spoiler warning (like 3 years later)
I remember reading an interview with the actor who plays Omar and he was basically saying how you'd never see Omar walk through a door in slow motion and start shooting people because it would make the character completely unbelievable and I couldn't agree more. The way Omar died is the only realistic way for him to die. He's not going to die in a gun fight with an enemy. He's too smart for that. He's going to get shot by a young boy in a convenience store while he's buying cigarettes. If Omar had to go, I think that was the best way to do it.
And I didn't mind the homeless storyline. I thought it was necessary for Bubbles alone. The most heartbreaking part of season one isn't Greggs getting shot. It's Greggs getting shot and not being able to come through for Bubbles when he's trying to get clean.
My least favorite were the roughnecks at the docks. And some of the politicians. The main police and the dudes on the streets were the best.
I can see your point both of you, and I also know he HAD to die when he came back. I just feel frustrated by the whole thing, which may mean it was effective and realist. I guess you guys make a really good point.
As for the lying journalist, I don't see what you mean Pete when you say he makes the stories indifferent ? It was dragging on and on and going nowhere fast.
I never cared for the homeless in all the five seasons so there wasn't anything new there for me. I hardly care for them irl in fact so that explains that.
I liked the dock storyline and the greek, even though it really wasn't ''Wire-esque''
But I'd like to hear what you think of the whole fake-serial-killer thing. That shit was weak. They had good shit with Marlo taking over the co-op and re-establishing total dominion. They had some good shit with Clay Davies and the Grand Jury. They had some good shit with Omar back with a vengeance. Instead of developing these storylines, they make up some weak shit about the police having no money, no cars so they could make no police work. bad idea when you're doing a damn police procedural. So they make up this totally impossible fake serial killer shit, that can ONLY be explained to fix the problem of the police having no money so the story can go nowhere, A PROBLEM THEY CREATED FOR THEMSELVES. that's just imbecile
And the whole clocks secret code, plllllease. Is this fucking Monk ???
Also, good idea to get into police journalism. BUT INSTEAD of giving us a good look in that world, they make up this whole TWIST that the journalist invent quotes. WHO CARES??? This show used to be about what's real, it FELT REAL. Season five feels like it's for ADD people who need a twist every 30 minute.
This fucking season is ruining the fond memory I had of this series
the wire - five season (w)rap up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZExR3mpv6_k
Got S1 for xmas and finished it a couple weeks ago. Awesome. Just picked up S2-4 at $30 a pop thanks to Circuit City's liquidation. :yabbse-grin: Looking forward to them!!
Season 1 = awesome.
Season 2 = kind of sucks, but stick through it because....
Season 3 = AWESOME.
Season 4 = AWESOME.
Season 5 = awesome.
Really? I thought it was more like...
Season 1 = AWWWWWWWWWWWEEESOOOOOOOMEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Season 2 = not as good, but stick through it because....
Season 3 = AWESOME.
Season 4 = AWESOME.
Season 5 = awesome.
I wouldn't argue with that. I'm a Marlo nuthugger, so I prefer when he shows up.
s4 was my favorite.
SPOILER WARNING FOR SLEEPLESS
Season 1 has so much replay value and at least for me you can appreciate it so much more once you know all characters, in fact, the very first episode which the first time seems like nothing happens it's quite the contrary, there is so much going on and what I love/admire the most is how all characters were so perfectly constructed from day one, it could very well be the best episode of the series even thou in my top five I chose another ep.
I don't get the bad rap about S2, there are great characters, Frank Sobotka seems like a real 'bad guy' when in reality he's only getting money to buy his seat in the next election or helping some stevedores.
McNulty's boat days are great to watch too, he fucks Rawls from the harbor for real and his falldown is saved by Daniels beautifully, not to mention Omar at Birds trial, that's pure gold.
Quote from: Fernando on February 13, 2009, 01:50:00 PM
SPOILER WARNING FOR SLEEPLESS
I don't get the bad rap about S2, there are great characters, Frank Sobotka seems like a real 'bad guy' when in reality he's only getting money to buy his seat in the next election or helping some stevedores.
McNulty's boat days are great to watch too, he fucks Rawls from the harbor for real and his falldown is saved by Daniels beautifully, not to mention Omar at Birds trial, that's pure gold.
exactly what I was thinking, season 2 is very good. 10000x better than season 5
Yeah, I just gotta add some love for season two.
I was thoroughly impressed and immersed in the first season - but season two made me a truly vocal fan. I think it really showed the scope and ambition that would be evident in further seasons.
But, really, I just feel like I'm nitpicking this show when it comes to ranking seasons - I understand and respect why people this, but this show is incredible, start to finish. I guess comparing it to a novel is kinda tedious and overdone at this point, but it's still pretty apt.
Quote from: john on February 13, 2009, 04:45:02 PM
I guess comparing it to a novel is kinda tedious and overdone at this point, but it's still pretty apt.
A while back I heard about a new series from the creator of The Wire about the war in Iraq. Did that happen ? Is it out and if so, is it any good ?
yes it was great. generation kill. there's a thread for it. not as epic as the wire, only seven episodes, but I cried a bunch. you better watch it in one setting 'cause underneathe all them uniforms it's hard to tell them apart.
Quote from: pete on February 13, 2009, 06:54:15 PM
yes it was great. generation kill. there's a thread for it. not as epic as the wire, only seven episodes, but I cried a bunch. you better watch it in one setting 'cause underneathe all them uniforms it's hard to tell them apart.
great thanks I'll check it out
So after hearing so many good things about this show I decided to watch it. I have never even watched an episode or know what the hell is about, but I'm looking forward to finding out. A friend gave me the complete series.
Quote from: kal on April 15, 2009, 04:21:26 PM
A friend gave me the complete series.
I wish I had your friends. You are gonna love it.
Just saw this on youtube. Time to start watching all over from season 1 again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sgj78QG9Bg&feature=player_embedded
Anyone watch No Reservations w/Anthony Bourdain? It's a great show and if you're not watching it, you should be. Anyways, I just watched an episode on the Rust Belt and it had Snoop on it. She's legit.
haha. wtf.
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Anyone seen this?
here's the trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTe9LHtVp14
awesome dog attack
Quote from: Stefen on February 13, 2009, 01:24:52 PM
Season 1 = awesome.
Season 2 = kind of sucks, but stick through it because....
Season 3 = AWESOME.
Season 4 = AWESOME.
Season 5 = awesome.
Quote from: RegularKarate on February 13, 2009, 01:30:16 PM
Really? I thought it was more like...
Season 1 = AWWWWWWWWWWWEEESOOOOOOOMEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Season 2 = not as good, but stick through it because....
Season 3 = AWESOME.
Season 4 = AWESOME.
Season 5 = awesome.
Now this was like two years ago!
Someone needs to bump this.
After seeing it all, reflecting on it for a year and coming back and watching it all in a hurry,
Season 1 = Awesome. It is so hard to get someone into this until you get into the latter half of this season and people start dying.
Season 2 = Fucking totally awesome, if you know what eventually happens to everyone. I didn't so much care for the docks, i still really don't, but seeing what goes on in the Avon/Stringer world is great.
Season 3 = AWESOME. There's some chessy shit, Daniels and Pearlman fucking juxtaposed with Cutty hitting a punching bag (reminded me of the end of fucking Munich). bUT, My favorite moment is where Avon is getting sentenced in the last episode and he looks back and smiles at his sister, she ignores him, he looks at the judge, he looks back to his sister and she's gone, and a second later Marlo sits down right behind Avon. Crazy awesome shit, especially knowing exactly what comes next.
Season 4 = AWESOME x4. I start it again for the third time tomorrow, its just that great.
Season 5 = I've only seen once and I'll check it out again soon. But, it has its weak points but what is great is how it wraps up (sort of) all the kids' stories from Season 4.
seasons 1 and 5 got cute in too many spots
season 3 and 4 were the starkest, with 4 totally, totally taking the cake
season 2's good, but felt like a british crime show or something
Snoop arrested in actual real-life drug bust.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/us-drugsweep-baltimore-idUSTRE72A0LL20110311?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
Here's Simon's full statement on the arrest
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/03/10/david-simon-creator-of-the-wire-speaks-on-felicia-snoop-pearson-s-arrest.aspx (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/03/10/david-simon-creator-of-the-wire-speaks-on-felicia-snoop-pearson-s-arrest.aspx)
I never got to her part in The Wire, all the more reason to get those dvd's rented.
season 4 is the best season dude.
seriously i just started on ep 1 season 4 for the fourth time yesterday, Snoop is amazing.
Just got done watching the series all the way through for the 3rd time. still holds up.
It is highly rewatchable isnt it.
finished season five last week.
spectacular in all possible measures.
All seasons were pretty neat, though the last one tested my patience with some things.
In any case it is a masterpiece as everyone has said.
I don't get the Sopranos vs The Wire thing. What the fuck is that all about? Both are fucking masterpieces.
First time through, Season 4 was my favorite. On rewatch, I like Season 2 the best. It's the best standalone season, and the only time where all of the main characters (even Bunk!) are working together on the wire.
getting 'down to the wire' as they say... I'm on the last episode of season 3. My favorite character is Bubz. I haaaaaattttteeeee Carcetti! It's like everytime I see his stupid face it stops all the fun from happening.
this article is old, but i dont remember seeing it before...
'Glory,' 'Wild Bunch' Among David Simon's DVD Picks
STEVE INSKEEP, host: We're going to continue now with our occasional conversations that bring you recommendations on DVDs worth renting. This morning, we brought in David Simon. His many screen credits include "The Wire" on HBO; he created it. He also co-produced and co-wrote a mini-series about the beginning of the Iraq war, "Generation Kill." He's been connected with so many other programs, including "Homicide," and he's on the line. Welcome to the program, David Simon.
Mr. DAVID SIMON (Producer and Writer, HBO): Thanks very much for having me.
INSKEEP: You've got a list that you've sent us of movies that you love, and you start with "Paths of Glory." Stanley Kubrick is the director and Kirk Douglas is the star. What's it about?
Mr. SIMON: It's a World War I film, and it's about a French colonel who was confronted by his superior officers with the insistence that he select men and kill them as examples. So, it's from the point of view of middle management, which is a point of view I very much love.
Mr. SIMON: And you know, where the bosses are all bastards and good help is hard to find.
(Soundbite of movie "Paths of Glory")
Mr. RALPH MEEKER: (As Cpl. Philippe Paris) I'm going to have 10 men from each company in your regiment tried under penalty of death for cowardice.
Mr. KIRK DOUGLAS: (As Col. Dax) Penalty of death?
Mr. MEEKER: (As Cpl. Phillippe Paris) For cowardice. They've skim milk in their veins instead of blood.
Mr. DOUGLAS (As Col. Dax): That's the reddest milk I've ever seen. My trenches are soaked with (unintelligible).
Mr. MEEKER: (As Cpl. Philippe Paris) That's just about enough out of you.
Mr. SIMON: What it really is I think is the most important political film of the 20th century. I've come to love not only the film, but the book, Humphrey Cobb's novel from 1935. He was a World War I veteran and wrote, I think, a magnificent piece about a man and institutions, and what happens in the modern world and the post-modern world between individuals and the institutions that they serve or are supposed to be served by them. And I think it's just - I think it's elemental, and I stole liberally from it for "The Wire."
INSKEEP: What makes that film - black and white, not too long, not too epic in scope - the most important political film of the 20th century?
Mr. SIMON: Well, it really is about what happens when institutionalism becomes paramount. And the paradigm becomes, what can you do for the institution? Not what is the purpose of the institution, or how can the institution serve you or serve society as a whole? Now, if you look at everything, from what's going on Wall Street right now to how we got into Iraq, it's the same echo. You know, in season two of "The Wire," one of the characters said, you know, we used to make stuff in this country, build stuff. Now, we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket. That was a stevedore in Baltimore, but he could've been one of the French soldiers.
INSKEEP: Well, now, were you also inspired in your work by another movie on your list here, "The Wild Bunch," 1969?
Mr. SIMON: Yeah. I have to confess; "The Wire" writers had a contest of how many lines of dialogue from "The Wild Bunch"...
Mr. SIMON: We could get into season two of "The Wire," and I think we quit at about 20. I eventually made a tape of all of the moments back-to-back and sent it to Walon Green, who wrote that screenplay, with just a one-word note that said, homage.
Mr. SIMON: But the greatest line, I think, in that movie, and maybe in American film, is the very simple one of...
(Soundbite of movie "The Wild Bunch")
Mr. WILLIAM HOLDEN: (As Pike Bishop) Let's go.
Mr. SIMON: Before the carnage at the end spoken by Bill Holden to Warren Oates. And he doesn't explain it, because the film has explained it, and it's a moment of great restraint by a writer. And when I got to meet Walon Green, I said, you know, how did you manage to not write any more than, let's go? And he told me about these heroic battles to prevent the guys at Warner Brothers from ruining the film with an explanation about why these guys are going to go to their deaths. And so, I not only love the film for what it is; I love it for the writers having fought and won.
INSKEEP: Hm. Fought to not write as much?
Mr. SIMON: Right. Well, I - you know, I can talk to you about films that I think were ruined in the last moments by explaining too much, something "The Wire" was rarely accused of.
Mr. SIMON: But I mean, you know, you look at "The Hustler." I love "The Hustler" as a movie, Paul Newman, '61, but when he's playing pool at the end with Jackie Gleason...
INSKEEP: Jackie Gleason, Yeah.
Mr. SIMON: And he's come back to beat him now - he's grown as a person, and he understands the world; he's suffered loss - he explains winning.
(Soundbite of movie "The Hustler")
Mr. PAUL NEWMAN: (As Eddie Felson) That's the way you always told me to play it: safe, play the percentage. Well, here we go: fast and loose.
(Soundbite of billiard ball falling to pocket)
Mr. NEWMAN: (As Eddie Felson) One ball, corner pocket.
(Soundbite of billiard ball falling to pocket)
Mr. NEWMAN: (As Eddie Felson) Yeah, percentage players die broke, too, don't they, Bert?
(Soundbite of billiard cue hitting balls)
Mr. SIMON: Yeah. But that scene should have been silent. That should have been done with looks, with eyes, with a word here or two, with a gesture. It's heartbreaking.
INSKEEP: So, that's a movie that did not make David Simon's list of recommended DVDs. And there's another movie here that did. Actually, it's a concert film from 1964, "The TMI."
Mr. SIMON: Yeah. It stands for Teenage Music International. It was filmed in Santa Monica in '64. I think the movie came out a year later, was in the theaters for, like, a second and died. Really, what I love about that film is the last 12 minutes, the James Brown Band and James Brown, and the famous names come out. It's the end of his set, it's like "Night Train" - please, please, please, try me - from when he was at his height, from when he was everything.
Mr. SIMON: It is a triumph of American entertainment, of American cultural power, you know, African-American music at its height. It's maybe our greatest gift to the world, is African-American music, never mind baseball or constitutional government. You know, flatting the third and seventh note, and sending it out into the world has probably been - you know, if America's remembered for anything, it'll be for that. And here it is. It's so perfect. And then these scrawny, little, pale-faced white boys have to go on after him, because the Rolling Stones in 1964 are the last act up.
INSKEEP: Ah.
Mr. SIMON: And you can see they're terrified, and what are they going to do to top what just happened? They're derivative of that music, but they're nowhere close to James Brown's authenticity and talent. And they're standing out there, and they've got to play a Chuck Berry song. And in the last analysis, they somehow manage to do it.
Mr. SIMON: It's sort of this moment of what the power of rock 'n' roll was and its transformation by, you know, by sort of young white kids post war. And I just think that - those 12 minutes are, like, everything rock 'n' roll was about.
INSKEEP: Do you find yourself relating to that moment or identifying with it? Because you as a writer, throughout your career as a journalist and as a screenwriter, have dealt so often with African-American characters and tried to put words in their mouths.
Mr. SIMON: That's very clever. I had not thought of that at all until you just said it. I don't know. I mean, I think I identify with it as a kid who played guitar, in bad bar bands and bad garage bands and never really had the talent to - you know, I mean, I'm like every other frustrated kid with an electric guitar in his closet. You know - listen, I think what James Brown does in those - at the end of that film, as far as human endeavor, the equivalent of, you know - I don't know - as far as American endeavor, it's like raising the flag on Iwo Jima or landing on the Moon. It is magnificent. It is a triumph of things that can only happen in America.
INSKEEP: David Simon is creator of "The Wire," among other programs. Mr. Simon, great talking with you.
Mr. SIMON: Thank you. Thanks for your opportunity.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98494970
A thirty minute visual essay on the Style of the Wire.
http://vimeo.com/39768998 (http://vimeo.com/39768998)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/04/09/the_wire_s_visual_style_watch_a_video_essay_by_erlend_lavik_video_.html (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/04/09/the_wire_s_visual_style_watch_a_video_essay_by_erlend_lavik_video_.html)
The best video essay I've seen on a TV show.
I might be late to the party on this one, but I just found it. It's pretty silly but it was nice to see some of the actors together again. Reminded me of Mr Show's "Rap: The Musical":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWmryAVUoL8
Feel free to embed the video here. I don't really know how.
QuoteFeel free to embed the video here. I don't really know how.
Just surround it by [ youtube ] tags!
Not much to add. More along the lines of joining the chorus, but I finally watched every season and loved it. Different seasons rang true for me different reasons. Some I had issues with and wondered if the story was getting too fictional. However, when I inspected further, Simon had some explanation which actually felt like explanation to "why" instead of rationalization. Have already gone back and watched some episodes again. Show is continually revealing to me and is beautiful in a way I didn't expect television could be.
At this point, the continuation of the journey is in Simon's work. Generation Kill is purchased and awaiting viewing and then I tackle all of Treme. Sucks its last season will only get 5 episodes. However, Simon isn't afraid to say he wants to do a historical CIA show next and has been thoroughly researching a way to adapt Legacy of Ashes. That would be amazing.
CigsAndRedVines:
Television has had a creative renaissance in the last decade with a lot of other filmmakers of your generation working in the medium. Do you have any favorite TV shows? And do you have any interest in working in other formats (television or mini-series perhaps)?
P.T. Anderson:
I've day-dreamed a lot about making something long form, sure. It would be a thrill and challenge to tackle something so spread out. It's usually at some point in writing when you think, "what if i just didn't try and contain this story and really let it loose....." thoughts drift to mini-series, long form HBO stuff, etc.......but it's usually followed by a brain-freeze and "naaaah." Maybe someday. TV shows? old Larry Sanders, Curb Your Enthusiasm. anything on TCM. I miss Twin Peaks. I still need to watch The Wire, which (i know, i know) everyone says is the greatest thing ever.
Proof that even the Greats need to be told what-for now and then
Life on the Set of The Wire
How Bunk, Kima, Freamon, and McNulty blew off steam in Baltimore.
This article is adapted from Brett Martin's Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos to Mad Men to Breaking Bad.
By the time the fourth season of The Wire rolled around, it had already become a cocktail party cliché to say that the show operated like "a Dickens novel." In many ways, this was totally apt, considering the show's serialized nature, its liberal political conscience, and its sprawling canvas. But David Simon found his literary reference point centuries earlier—centuries, even, before Shakespeare. The Wire, he said, was essentially a Greek tragedy.
"The ancients valued tragedy, not merely for what it told them about the world but for what it told them about themselves," he said. "Almost the entire diaspora of American television and film manages to eschew that genuine catharsis, which is what tragedy is explicitly intended to channel. We don't tolerate tragedy. We mock it. We undervalue it. We go for the laughs, the sex, the violence. We exult the individual over his fate, time and time and time again."
In his Baltimore version of Olympus, the roles of gods were played by the unthinking forces of modern capitalism. And any mortal with the hubris to stand up for reform of any kind was, in classical style, ineluctably, implacably, pushed back down, if not violently rubbed out altogether.
"That was just us stealing from a much more ancient tradition that's been so ignored, it felt utterly fresh and utterly improbable," he said. "Nobody had encountered it as a consistent theme in American drama because it's not the kind of drama that brings the most eyeballs." It was possible in this time and place because, in the new pay cable model, eyeballs were no longer the most important thing.
Yet The Wire was also inescapably modern; its characters operated based on real, idiosyncratic psychologies, refusing to be pushed around like figures on a board. Sometimes they surprised even their creators. One passionate argument in the writers' room was about a major moment in Season 1's next-to-last episode, "Cleaning Up": the execution of the young drug slinger Wallace by the tougher, only slightly older thug Bodie Broadus. Just before shooting his friend, Bodie hesitates, gun shaking. Ed Burns, the co-creator of the series, raised an objection: The Bodie we had seen to that point, he argued, was the very incarnation of a street monster, a young person so damaged and inured to violence by the culture of the drug game that he would never hesitate to pull the trigger, even on a friend.
"It didn't go with the character. Bodie was a borderline psychopath almost. I was like, 'We're leading the audience down this path, and now this guy is backing off?' That's fucked up. That's bullshit," he said, remembering his feelings on the scene.
In future seasons, though, Broadus would emerge as the drug game's answer to the rogue detective Jimmy McNulty: a soldier who tries to make his own way and ends up ground down by the system. His death would be unexpectedly poignant. All of that, Burns granted, was set up by his unexpected moment of humanity in Season 1.
"What it did was it allowed for a wonderful dynamic that went on for four seasons. It brought out a lot of comedy that psychopaths don't have," he said. "It was a learning curve for me. Originally I just didn't like it because you don't pull punches like that with the audience. Now, when I think about it, I think, 'This is cool. This is something that allowed for another dimension.' It worked. It worked fine."
***
Such debates were only one aspect of what became, as The Wire's scope grew to encompass more and more of Baltimore, an intimate, complicated, ever-evolving dance between the demands of reality and of fiction. And if that creative tension was a constant theme in the writers' room, it was also an everyday reality for the actors who brought the show's characters to life.
Whether it was born of institutional transparency or overwhelmed disorganization, the Baltimore Police Department extended an open-door policy to The Wire's actors, many of whom were brought down for educational ride-alongs. Even for those who regarded themselves as reasonably savvy about urban realities, it was a shocking experience.
"I'd grown up in housing projects, but it wasn't blocks of boarded-up houses and naked babies in the arms of 25-pound heroin addicts," said Seth Gilliam, who played Sgt. Ellis Carver. He and Domenick Lombardozzi (Herc) were assigned to a ride-along with a notoriously gung-ho narcotics officer who went by the nickname Super Boy. On one ride they found themselves crouching in the back seat during a firefight. "I'm thinking, 'My head isn't covered! My head isn't covered! Am I going to feel the bullet when it hits me?'" he remembered.
Wendell Pierce, who played Bunk Moreland, and John Doman, the formidable Major Bill Rawls, and Dominic West (McNulty) were in another group. "We went to shootings and stabbings. There was a guy with a knife still in him. Another guy who got shot, and the cop was still trying to take him downtown for questioning," Doman said. "All of us were like, 'This is unbelievable.'"
Far from most of their homes and families in New York, Los Angeles, or London, the cast spent a lot of time hanging out together. At least two social groups developed. The first centered on the townhouse that Clarke Peters, who played Lester Freamon, had bought after Season 1. Peters was an erudite, 50-year-old native New Yorker. He had left the United States as a teenager for Paris, where there were still the remnants of a great black American expat community. Within weeks of arriving, he'd met James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and the blues pianist Memphis Slim, among others. When the musical Hair had come to France, he'd worked as one of the production's costume designers and eventually joined the cast. He'd settled in London, acting mostly in the theater, but he had history with David Simon, having played the avuncular junkie Fat Curt in Simon's first HBO series, The Corner.
In Baltimore, Peters' house became a kind of groovy bohemian salon for an older set of cast and crew members that included Doman, Jim True-Frost (who played Roland Pryzbylewski), and others. Several ended up renting rooms in the house. Peters, a strict vegetarian, would cook elaborate group meals. There was a piano and impromptu jam sessions fueled by red wine and pot smoke. For those seized by the after-hours impulse to watercolor, there were canvases on easels set up in the basement. Among its habitués, the house was called "the Academy."
Meanwhile, a rowdier scene existed among the younger cast members—untethered, far from home, and often in need of blowing off steam. This social group was centered on the Block, the stretch of downtown East Baltimore Street populated by a cluster of side-by-side strip clubs (and, in semi-peaceful détente across the street, BPD's downtown headquarters). The cast of The Wire became legendary visitors to the Block, with a core group including West, Gilliam, Lombardozzi, Pierce, Andre Royo (Bubbles), J.D. Williams (Bodie), and Sonja Sohn (Kima)—holding her own among the boys in one of many on- and off-screen parallels.
"We finished shooting at like 1 o'clock and, you know, normal places close at 2, so we'd go down to the Block, just to feel the energy," said Royo. "The owners of the clubs would come out; the girls would come out. It was like we were heroes. The local heroes." At a cast and crew softball game, Royo hired a limousine and a team of strippers to act as cheerleaders.
West, predictably, attracted his share of female attention, professional and otherwise. "A man could live off his leftovers," Pierce would say. All were champion drinkers, and things had a way of getting out of hand. Gilliam took especially poorly to being approached while enjoying himself off duty.
"He could be an angry drunk in a minute," Royo said. "If somebody would be like, 'Oh, you those guys from The Wire,' Seth would be like, 'I don't know what happened to manners, but we were talking.' And these were guys who weren't used to being talked to like that. Who had already humbled themselves to come over." Yelling and pushing would often ensue, though usually not more, thanks to omnipresent bouncers. "Sonja would always have her eye on one of the bouncers and could give him a look. She's a sexy little chick, so they'd make sure she was comfortable."
Gilliam and Lombardozzi, the show's onscreen Bert and Ernie, shared a large apartment in Fell's Point. They hosted epic evenings of beer and video games, including Madden Football tournaments pitting "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys," cops against the drug dealers. The games would run until 5 or 6 a.m., when half the players would have to depart for an 8 a.m. call. (Peters, the refined bohemian, articulated the cast's generation gap after hearing Lombardozzi brag about a particular Madden move he'd pulled off the night before: "He's going, 'Yeah, man, what you do is push x, x, y, x, y, y ...' I'm thinking, 'What the fuck? This is how they spend their free time?'")
The pent-up energy that fueled all this revelry had a darker side. For many of the actors, particularly those working long night shoots on grim streets, production was both physically and spiritually exhausting. Royo found it especially difficult to play the sharp-eyed junkie, Bubbles. Royo's father had owned a Harlem clothing store, and he had taken special pride in his appearance, showing up for school in wing tips and double-breasted suits. He knew that the sight of him in filthy junkie gear caused his parents particular heartache—not just on sartorial grounds but because it was the type of role black actors were all too accustomed to finding as their only options. At his audition, in front of Simon and producers Clark Johnson, and Robert Colesberry, Royo voiced his concerns that Bubbles not be just another clichéd black junkie. "They just looked at me and were like, 'Oh, you don't know how we get down.'"
Still, Bubbles may have been more than a cliché, but it was a difficult character to play day after day. "My character's head space was not a pleasant one," Royo said. "I'd look at Idris? Nothing but bitches outside his trailer. Dom West? Nothing but bitches. Sonja? Dudes and bitches. Me? I'd have junkies out there. They fell in love with Bubbles. I'd go into my trailer and clean my shit off and come out and they'd look at me like, 'You're not one of us. Fuck you.' And then when I had the Bubbles garb back on, it'd be, 'Hey! What's up? Welcome back!' That's a head trip, man. That shit eats at you."
By the third season, he said, "I was drinking. I was depressed. I'd look at scripts like, 'What am I doing today? Getting high or pushing that fucking cart?'"
He was not alone. In the isolated hothouse of Baltimore, immersed in the world of the streets, the cast of The Wire showed a bizarre tendency to mirror its onscreen characters in ways that took a toll on its members' outside lives: Lance Reddick, who played the ramrod-straight Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, tormented by McNulty's lack of discipline, had a similarly testy relationship with West, who would fool around and try to make Reddick crack up during his camera takes. Gilliam and Lombardozzi, much like Herc and Carver, would spend the bulk of Seasons 2 and 3 exiled to the periphery of the action, stewing on stakeout in second-unit production and eventually lobbying to be released from their contracts.
Michael K. Williams, whose Omar was far and away the series' most popular figure (a GQ writer quipped that asking viewers their favorite character was "like asking their favorite member of Adele"), was so carried away by sudden fame that he spent nearly all his newfound money on jeans, sneakers, and partying. At the very height of his popularity, Williams found himself evicted from the Brooklyn public housing project he'd grown up in, for nonpayment. He and Royo were only two of many Wire veterans who said they sought help for substance abuse once the experience was over. This is not to mention those non-actor cast members brought from the real Baltimore into the fake one—among them Little Melvin Williams, the inspiration for Avon Barksdale, out of prison on parole and cast as a wise, battle-scarred deacon.
***
To be an actor on a series like The Wire was to live in a permanent state of anxiety, one's mortality (and unemployment) forever lurking around the next plot twist. On another show, death might just be the beginning of a long, fruitful run of ghost and dream sequences. But most actors in this Golden Age of TV understood that one of the period's signature tropes—that, as in life, anybody could check out at any time—had significant implications for their job security.
The situation turned actors into forensic critics, deep-reading every set of new pages for the slightest hint of impending doom. "Every time you read the script, you're looking for a hint: If too much of your story is being told, 'Oh shit, they're building it up. I'm gonna go,'" said Andre Royo. He and Michael K. Williams decided between themselves that one of their two characters, either Omar or Bubbles, was bound to buy it before the series ended. (Williams won that grim competition.) After a few seasons, Royo even developed a kind of Stockholm syndrome. He went to Simon and asked whether keeping Bubbles alive wasn't a disservice to the story's realism, given the usual life span of a junkie snitch.
"David looked at me and was like, 'Shut the fuck up,'" he said. "'I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know there has to be some hope or people aren't going to get out of bed in the morning.'"
The Wire actors' anxieties may have been compounded by the fact that communication with actors wasn't always one of Simon's showrunning skills. "David had a problem about telling people how they were gonna die. He'd never just say, 'Look, you're gonna die.' There was always this weird energy," said Royo. Larry Gilliard Jr., who played D'Angelo Barksdale had been infuriated by how he learned about his early departure in Season 2: Simon had run into him on set and said, "You're going to love the stuff I wrote for you this episode." "Great!" said Gilliard. "I mean, it's probably your last episode ...," said Simon.
The lesson went apparently unlearned by the end of Season 3. By all accounts, the producers honestly meant to sit down and talk with Idris Elba about the timing and manner of Stringer Bell's death. Instead, that meeting never happened and he learned about it by reading the script—and subsequently hitting the roof. Making things worse was the script direction that had Omar standing over Bell's body and peeing on it, apparently a real Baltimore gang tradition. Elba headed to set and started telling fellow actors he wouldn't shoot the scene, enlisting some in his cause.
"He was pissed, man. And I got it, because, in effect, we were firing him," said George Pelecanos, the crime novelist who wrote the episode. "David and I went to his trailer and tried to talk him down. We said, 'This is the end of the character. We can't keep his story going; it's not logical. And this is exactly the way he would probably go out.'" Elba fixated on the urination. Omar wouldn't be peeing on him, Simon and Pelecanos said; he'd be peeing on a fictional character. "Not on my character," Elba told them.
Simon and Pelecanos could have invoked a favorite David Chase line when faced with similar protests: "Whoever said it was your character?" Instead, they cajoled and apologized until Elba relented. The death scene was shot at an empty Baltimore warehouse and wrapped at 4 a.m. On his way down a dark street to his car, Pelecanos heard pounding footsteps behind him and turned, cringing. It was Elba. "I just want to shake your hand," he told the writer. "It's just business."
that was a really beautiful article.
i have been procrastinating on watching this series for a long time.
its very different than what i thought it was going to be. its very different than anything ive ever watched actually.
i didnt expect it to be this subtle. but im almost done and this article shed some really nice light on different things.
thanks for posting that.
HBO's 'The Wire' Will Be Remastered, Rebroadcast
via Variety (http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/the-wire-remastered-hbo-1201296048/)
"The Wire" fans can start saying their favorite expletives: Creator David Simon's beloved drama about the gangs, police and other factions that make Baltimore tick is getting a facelift before a marathon viewing.
HBO has confirmed that is in the process of re-mastering the series that ran from 2002 to 2008 and starred Dominic West, Wendell Pierce, Idris Elba, Michael K. Williams and others. HBO had planned a September launch for the marathon, but the episodes are still in review. However, the cat got out of the bag in August when a viewer noticed a promo ad with the wrong premiere date for the marathon. The marathon's start date is still to be determined.
Binge-watching marathons of favorite programs are increasingly becoming popular promotional tools for networks. FXX is currently seeing ratings success with its non-stop Every.Simpsons.Ever. marathon. TVGN is trying a similar, but less intense, strategy by airing episodes of the original "Beverly Hills, 90210."
A year ago I watched The Wire and didn't like it. It was like watching ants, I wasn't invested, I just didn't get it. I was watching it wrong.
I didn't enjoy it, but the show stated in my mind.
So I watched Season 4, again, a month ago, and loved it. Watched it in five days. They weren't ants anymore. They were humans treated like ants. Humans in a big machine, a town. It was tragic.
I'm watching season 3, now. Even if I didn't like the show, I knew that season 3 and 4 were the best, in my opinion, some scenes were...something...
This one, for example, between Omar and the Bunk, that I want to share.
Article is a bit too sensational for my taste, nerveless:
It's Official: HBO Is Remastering 'The Wire' in the Wrong Aspect Ratiovia Criticwire (http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/its-official-hbo-is-remastering-the-wire-in-the-wrong-aspect-ratio-20141202)
Update: David Simon has posted clips showing "The Wire" in its original and remastered versions. See end of post.
Back in September, when a bunch of websites prematurely ran with the news that HBO was running a marathon of a remastered version of "The Wire," there was lots of speculation about what that might mean, particularly when it came to dealing with the show's 4:3 aspect ratio in the widescreen era. Well, now we've got our answer. The remastered "The Wire" will be made available via HBO Go on December 26, with one full season a day airing on HBO Signature, and the whole thing will be available for digital purchase on January 5. And according to HBO:
The entire series has been beautifully re-mastered in 16x9 Full-Frame HD from more than 8,000 reels of original 35mm camera negative, allowing for a tighter fit on widescreen TVs and computer/tablet screens. The original negatives were scanned, edited, dust-busted and color-corrected with great care and attention taken to stay true to the look and feel of the original Standard-Definition 4x3 version.
Stripping away the PR-speak, that means HBO is reframing the entire show so that idiots won't complain that it doesn't fill up their flatscreens. They can spin staying "true to the look and feel" of the show, but David Simon and his crew made a deliberate artistic decision to stick with 4:3 even as other shows were going widescreen — even abandoning the process of "future-proofing" after the initial season. As director of photography David Insley explained:
"The reason the show has stayed 4x3 is because David Simon thinks that 4x3 feels more like real life and real television and not like a movie.... When the show started 2001 / 2002 they framed it for 16 x 9 as a way of future-proofing. Then a couple of seasons ago, right before Season 4 began shooting, there was a big discussion about it and after much discussion — David, Nina, Joe Chappelle, the Producers, the DPs — and we discussed what should be the style of the show. David made the decision that we would stay with 4x3."
According to a post on his blog, creator David Simon is on board with the remastering, which will undoubtedly give the show a significant boost in public profile. But it's still not "The Wire" as it was broadcast the first time around: As Simon writes, you can optimize the image for one aspect ratio and "protect" for another, but you can't do both. "I'm satisfied what while this new version of 'The Wire' is not, in some specific ways, the film we first made," he says, "it has sufficient merit to exist as an alternate version."
Perhaps, though it's unlikely, the Blu-rays due out next year will allow viewers to choose their own version of "The Wire," though this might be a good time to snap up the old DVDs, which feature the show exactly as it aired. After all, users of FX's Simpsons World were supposed to be able to view "The Simpsons" in its original aspect ratio, a promise that has yet to be fulfilled, months after the site's initial launch. But let's not pretend this is anything other than the modern equivalent of colorization or superfluous surround-sound remixes, undoing deliberate artistic choices so that audiences don't have to adjust their frame of reference — which is a substantial part of what "The Wire" spent five seasons fighting against.
Marlo
Update: Simon has now added clips to his blog showing scenes in their original and remastered versions. True to the forthright way he's handling the situation, he's posted one pair where he feels the remastering improves the scene, and one where he feels more substantial alteration was in order.
In a sequence from "The Wire's" second season, Simon writes that "the dockworkers are all that much more vulnerable, and that much more isolated by the death of their leader when we have the ability to go wider in that rare crane shot."
Note: The first set of clips contains a major Season 2 spoiler.
Original:Remastered:But in a scene from the pilot, Simon says, "the new aspect ratio's ability to acquire more of the world actually detracts from the intention of the scene and the composition of the shot. For that reason, we elected in the new version to go tighter on the key two-shot of Bey and D'Angelo in order to maintain some of the previous composition, albeit while coming closer to our backlit characters than the scene requires."
Original widescreen:Altered widescreen:Simon allows this is "an arguable trade-off," but it's great that he's giving viewers the tools to make an informed decision.
The Wire in HD by David Simon03 Dec 2014 - Spoilers in the Clips
This tale begins and ends with a fellow named Bob Colesberry, who taught me as much as he could about filmmaking in the three or four years I was privileged to work with him. To those who knew Bob, it will provoke warm memories to say that he was not a language guy; he understood image, and story, and the delicate way in which those elements should meet.
Bob spent a too-short lifetime on film sets, working beside real filmmakers – Scorsese, Bertolucci, Pakula, Levinson, Ang Lee – helping to shepherd the ideas of many great directors and eschewing the limelight altogether for the chance. But, hey, if you don't believe me about how substantial his resume was, go to imdb right now and trace the arc of his career. That he ended up tethered to some ex-police reporter in Baltimore was pure forbearance on his part; for my part, I can just say I got very lucky.
It is no exaggeration that Bob had to explain "crossing the line" to me a dozen times, often twice in the same day, before my brain could grasp a concept that first-year film students everywhere take for granted. If you go to the fourth episode of the first season of The Wire, and watch the camerawork on that long scene with Freamon and McNulty in the bar, you'll be a bystander to the moment when the linear word-brain that I drag to set every day was finally allowed a few rays of cinematic light, courtesy of a patient mentor.
"See what happens when we cross over and everything flips?" he explained for the thirteenth time. "If you see the move happen, you aren't disoriented, but if we were to cut that moment and then suddenly be on the other side..."
He paused, looked at me. Nothing. Dead crickets.
"So...the dialogue that they're saying when we cross the line and reverse on them – those words –we can't cut those. You good with that?"
"Yeah, I get it now."
"Right. Then we're good."
Huh. The next day, I sauntered up to Bob at the video monitors and, in my best deadpan, asked him yet again to explain crossing the line. He looked on me sadly as a terminal case, until I started laughing. No, I had finally learned something about the camera and the credit was his. I just couldn't resist pulling the man's coat one more time.
In telling that story on myself, I'm trying to make clear that while I might have learned to put film in the can in a basic way before the marriage to Mr. Colesberry, I had no claim to anything remotely resembling a film auteur. It was Bob who created the visual template for The Corner and The Wire both, and having died suddenly after the latter drama's second season, it is Bob who is remembered wistfully every time we begin to construct the visuals for some fresh narrative world. He would have reveled in Generation Kill, and knowing what I do about the visual palate that New Orleans offers the world, I am unsure that Bob Colesberry could have ever been pried from that city had he gone down there for Treme.
As devoted as he was to imagery and story, language was always a lesser currency in Bob's life; he often made his arguments elliptically, curling in sentence-fragment circles until he got to where he needed to go. You had to lean in and listen a little harder, but it was always worthwhile and he was usually correct when he got to his point. Once, at a TCA panel on The Wire, Bob answered a reporter's question in vague terms and at length. To lighten the moment, I tossed off a joke: "Now you can see why Bob's in command of the visuals." It was teasing and steeped in affection, but I regretted the remark as soon as I uttered it. Bob's contributions to the storytelling were profound, and though he laughed it off, I had been heedless. His claim on The Wire and what it was trying to do was genuine and elemental; for years, before and after his death, I wanted that moment back to exalt my friend and colleague.
So when HBO sent out some promo ads about a conversion of The Wire to HD and a 16:9 ratio a few months ago, I reacted not merely as David Simon, showrunner and ink-stained scribbler, but as David Simon, the medium for Robert Colesberry, professional filmmaker. WWBD. What would Bob do?
* * *
Well, for one thing, he would make sure to be included in the process.
Nina Noble and I were told a year ago that HBO wanted to experiment with taking The Wire, filmed in standard definition and a 4:3 ratio, to the new industry standards. We endorsed the effort, but after we last spoke to folks on the production side, we had expected to be shown some work recast in high definition and wider screen and to begin discussions at that point. Instead, we heard nothing until on-air promos for The Wire in HD began to be broadcast and packaging material for a fresh release of the drama was forwarded to us in Yonkers, where we are shooting our current HBO project.
No offense was taken, particularly when the production people explained that the transfer to HD had been laborious and ornate, and it was simply assumed that we were too busy with current production to dive into the process in detail. And, too, there was a further assumption at HBO that as a transfer to HD could provide a fresh audience for the drama, there was no real disincentive to an HD transfer of The Wire on any terms; if it could be done, they reasoned, it should be done.
And yet, I still had Bob Colesberry in my ear. Moreover, Bob's history with HD and a 16:9 ratio in regard to The Wire was a tortured one. His intentions, the limitations imposed on our production, and his resulting template for the drama were known to me, if not to the folks presently struggling with a retroactive transfer to HD and widescreen.
In fact, Bob had asked before filming The Wire pilot in late 2001 for a widescreen aspect ratio. He correctly saw television screens growing wider and 16:9 ratio becoming industry standard, and coming from the feature world, it was his inclination to be as filmic as possible. But, to be honest, The Wire was at its inception a bit of shoestring affair and expectations for the drama at HBO were certainly modest. Filming in letter-box was more expensive at the time, and we were told, despite Bob's earnest appeals, that we should shoot the pilot and the ensuing season in 4:3.
At which point, Bob set about to work with 4:3 as the given. And while we were filming in 35mm and could have ostensibly "protected" ourselves by adopting wider shot composition in the event of some future change of heart by HBO, the problem with doing so is obvious: If you compose a shot for a wider 16:9 screen, then you are, by definition, failing to optimize the composition of the 4:3 image. Choose to serve one construct and at times you must impair the other.
Because we knew the show would be broadcast in 4:3, Bob chose to maximize the storytelling within that construct. As full wide shots in 4:3 rendered protagonists smaller, they couldn't be sustained for quite as long as in a feature film, but neither did we go running too quickly to close-ups as a consequence. Instead, mid-shots became an essential weapon for Bob, and on those rare occasions when he was obliged to leave the set, he would remind me to ensure that the director covered scenes with mid-sized shots that allowed us to effectively keep the story in the wider world, and to resist playing too much of the story in close shots.
Similarly, Bob further embraced the 4:3 limitation by favoring gentle camera movements and a combination of track shots and hand-held work, implying a documentarian construct. If we weren't going to be panoramic and omniscient in 4:3, then we were going to approach scenes with a camera that was intelligent and observant, but intimate. Crane shots didn't often help, and anticipating a movement or a line of dialogue often revealed the filmmaking artifice. Better to have the camera react and acquire, coming late on a line now and then. Better to have the camera in the flow of a housing-project courtyard or squad room, calling less attention to itself as it nonetheless acquired the tale.
In the beginning, we tried to protect for letterbox, but by the end of the second season, our eyes were focused on the story that could be told using 4:3, and we composed our shots to maximize a film style that suggested not the vistas of feature cinematography, but the capture and delicacy of documentarian camerawork. We got fancy at points, and whatever rules we had, we broke them now and again; sometimes the results were a delight, sometimes less so. But by and large, Bob had shaped a template that worked for the dystopian universe of The Wire, a world in which the environment was formidable and constricting, and the field of vision for so many of our characters was limited and even contradictory.
Bob Colesberry died during surgery while we were prepping season three of the drama. A short time later, HBO came to us with news that the world was going to HD and 16:9, as Bob had anticipated. We could, if we wanted, film the remaining seasons of The Wire in HD and widescreen. But at that point a collective decision then was made to complete the project using the template that we had honed, the construct that we felt we had used to good effect to make the story feel more stolen than shaped, and to imply a more journalistic rendering of Baltimore than a filmic one.
Just as important, we had conceived of The Wire as a single story that could stand on its own across the five seasons. To deliver the first two seasons in one template and then to switch-up and provide the remaining seasons in another format would undercut our purpose tremendously, simply by calling attention to the manipulation of the form itself. The whole story would become less real, and more obviously, a film that was suddenly being delivered in an altered aesthetic state. And story, to us, is more important than aesthetics.
We stayed put and honored what we had already created. As I believe Bob would have, at that late point, stayed put.
* * *
And now comes HBO with the opportunity to deliver the story to a new audience.
To their great credit, once we alerted HBO production executives to our absolute interest in the matter, they halted the fall HD release and allowed us to engage in detail. And over the past several months, looking at some of what the widescreen format offered, three things became entirely clear: First, there were many scenes in which the shot composition is not impaired by the transfer to 16:9, and there are a notable number of scenes that acquire real benefit from playing wide. An example of a scene that benefits would be this one, from the final episode of season two, when an apostolic semicircle of longshoremen forms around the body of Frank Sobotka:
Fine as far as it goes, but the dockworkers are all that much more vulnerable, and that much more isolated by the death of their leader when we have the ability to go wider in that rare crane shot:
But there are other scenes, composed for 4:3, that lose some of their purpose and power, to be sure. An early example that caught my eye is a scene from the pilot episode, carefully composed by Bob, in which Wee Bey delivers to D'Angelo a homily on established Barksdale crew tactics. "Don't talk in the car," D'Angelo reluctantly offers to Wee Bey, who stands below a neon sign that declares, "burgers" while D'Angelo, less certain in his standing and performance within the gang, stands beneath a neon label of "chicken."
That shot composition was purposed, and clever, and it works better in the 4:3 version than when the screen is suddenly widened to pick up additional neon to the left of Bey:
In such a case, the new aspect ratio's ability to acquire more of the world actually detracts from the intention of the scene and the composition of the shot. For that reason, we elected in the new version to go tighter on the key two-shot of Bey and D'Angelo in order to maintain some of the previous composition, albeit while coming closer to our backlit characters than the scene requires:
It is, indeed, an arguable trade-off, but one that reveals the cost of taking something made in one construct and recasting it for another format. And this scene isn't unique; there are a good number of similar losses in the transfer, as could be expected.
More fundamentally, there were still, upon our review, a good hundred or so scenes in which the widening revealed sync problems with actors who would otherwise have remained offscreen, or even the presence of crew or film equipment. These scenes, still evident in the version that HBO originally intended to broadcast several months ago, required redress. The high-definition transfer also made things such as Bubbles' dental work, or certain computer-generated images vulnerable; other stuff held up pretty well in the transfer.
This is no poor reflection on HBO's initial efforts. In traversing 60 hours of film, the HBO production team had done a metric ton of work painting out C-stands and production assistants, as well as solving a good many sync problems. They felt they had protected sufficiently to air the drama in HD and widescreen several months ago. However, for myself and Nina – examining even a small portion of the whole and finding light flares and sync issues that could be better corrected – we were confirmed in our need to slow the process and take a last, careful look.
Unfortunately, as we have spent the fall in production for HBO, there was no chance we could find time enough to attend to a complete review of the entire series. That fell to a film editor in whom we place great trust and who knows the The Wire well from his service to it over the years. Matthew Booras took the notes and concerns of the surviving filmmakers into an editing suite and began making hard decisions about what we might live with, what we might improve, and which choice did the least violence to the story when a scene became vulnerable. Narrowing the workload for Nina and myself, he made it possible for us to focus on the handful of essential problems in every episode. The hard work here on our part should actually be credited to him.
At HBO, Rosalie Camarda managed the synthesis of our late notes with the film edit, and long before Matthew weighed in on the remaining problems, Laurel Warbrick capably performed the lion's share of the transfer, going scene by scene through the cuts and resizing and painting away problems throughout. The two then worked with Matthew, Nina and myself on the remaining issues, and we are grateful for their patience and commitment to the process.
At the last, I'm satisfied what while this new version of The Wire is not, in some specific ways, the film we first made, it has sufficient merit to exist as an alternate version. There are scenes that clearly improve in HD and in the widescreen format. But there are things that are not improved. And even with our best resizing, touchups and maneuver, there are some things that are simply not as good. That's the inevitability: This new version, after all, exists in an aspect ratio that simply wasn't intended or serviced by the filmmakers when the camera was rolling and the shot was framed.
Still, being equally honest here, there can be no denying that an ever-greater portion of the television audience has HD widescreen televisions staring at them from across the living room, and that they feel notably oppressed if all of their entertainments do not advantage themselves of the new hardware. It vexes them in the same way that many with color television sets were long ago bothered by the anachronism of black-and-white films, even carefully conceived black-and-white films. For them, The Wire seems frustrating or inaccessible – even more so than we intended it. And, hey, we are always in it to tell people a story, first and foremost. If a new format brings a few more thirsty critters to the water's edge, then so be it.
Personally, I'm going to choose to believe that Bob Colesberry would forgive this trespass on what he built, and that he, too, would be more delighted at the notion of more folks seeing his film than distressed at the imprecisions and compromises required. If there is an afterlife, though, I may hear a good deal about this later. And in consideration of that possibility, I'm going to ask anyone who enjoys this new version of The Wire to join me in sending five or ten or twenty dollars to the following address:
The Robert F. Colesberry Scholarship
Tisch School For The Arts
New York University
721 Broadway, 12th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10003
As I've made clear, I've messed with a Bob Colesberry template here, and the man, when passionate, spoke in long coils, building slowly and inexorably to a summation. And yes, eternity is a long fucking time. So if you've long wanted The Wire in HD, unass a bit of coin for a scholarship that honors Bob and supports future filmmakers in his name. You'll be doing me a small, karmic solid.
David Simon
Baltimore, Md.