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3Romeo posted:I always wondered that myself. The Dexter scene ties--if only incidentally--into the theme and plot of season five, but that absurd white guy in the hospital bed stuck out like an Obama sticker on the back of a flatbed farm truck. Nothing will ever top "Americans are as stupid people by and large. We pretty much do whatever we're told" as far as being hamfisted. I mean it's absolutely true but it's still cringeworthy.
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Aug 30, 2014 02:50
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Frostwerks posted:Nothing will ever top "Americans are as stupid people by and large. We pretty much do whatever we're told" as far as being hamfisted. I mean it's absolutely true but it's still cringeworthy. To be fair I know plenty of people who will smugly say stuff like that (obviously excluding themselves from that group) and I've probably been guilty of it before myself. Still hamfisted, but I don't think it is unrealistic to throw a line like that out there.
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Aug 30, 2014 05:35
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escape artist, are you still around? The OP is missing a link to the recap of -30-.
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Aug 30, 2014 06:01
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Hedera Helix posted:escape artist, are you still around? The OP is missing a link to the recap of -30-. He had a nervous breakdown in the game of thrones thread and abandoned the forums I think.
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Aug 30, 2014 06:22
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Here are the links in any case:Jerusalem posted:Final links for the OP:
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Aug 30, 2014 07:29
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Forgive my ignorance but why can't they release the show in 16:9? They have 16:9 HD episodes of Seinfeld and it's an older show. Fuckin' HD, how does it work?? Man, I would kill for the Wire on Blu Ray.
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Aug 30, 2014 10:56
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So why did people hate Cheese so much? I was  at his death. It was just so casual and heartless.Maybe I'm biased because METHOD MAN 
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Aug 30, 2014 11:01
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drunken officeparty posted:So why did people hate Cheese so much? I was I feel you. At first I loved Cheese when he was just some off-brand East Side nigga because, yeah, METHOD MAN and he was pretty lovable in the dog fighting/interrogation scenes. But then he sold out Butchie AND Prop Joe so Cheese had to die. It's one of the very few "gently caress yeah, JUSTICE!" moments the show gave me.
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Aug 30, 2014 11:18
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frenton posted:Forgive my ignorance but why can't they release the show in 16:9? They have 16:9 HD episodes of Seinfeld and it's an older show. Fuckin' HD, how does it work?? Most likely because David Simon doesn't want it. quote:And perhaps the final contrast to the rest of high-end episodic television, The Wire for each of its five seasons has been produced in good old fashioned 4 x 3 standard definition. DP Dave Insley recalled, "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. The show's never been HD, even 4x3 HD and that (SD) is how it is on the DVDs. There is no 16x9 version anywhere." As a viewer with an HD set I will point out that like much of SD television that makes its way to HD channels, it appears that HBO utilizes state-of-the-art line doubling technology. It may still be standard definition, but line doubled it looks considerably better on a high definition set than it would on a standard definition set. from: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/griffin_nick/hbo_the_wire.php
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Aug 30, 2014 11:34
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MrBling posted:Most likely because David Simon doesn't want it. Aw, that's too bad. I thought some other poster's were implying it would be impossible to switch to HD because of the techonology, not that it was an artistic choice by the creators.
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Aug 30, 2014 11:40
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frenton posted:Forgive my ignorance but why can't they release the show in 16:9? They have 16:9 HD episodes of Seinfeld and it's an older show. Fuckin' HD, how does it work?? Seinfeld is likely cropped to obtain the 16:9 ratio. Don't want that for The Wire. Edit: The Wire was shot on 35 mm, same as Seinfeld, so I guess they could do the same thing if they wanted. Or they could make it HD and keep the 4:3. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306414/technical nooneofconsequence fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Aug 30, 2014 |
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Aug 30, 2014 13:55
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Jerusalem posted:To be fair I know plenty of people who will smugly say stuff like that (obviously excluding themselves from that group) and I've probably been guilty of it before myself. My main objection to that line is the context of it. The opening scene of each Wire season is something like a thesis statement for the rest of the season (in season 1's case it's a thesis for the entire series). Now don't get me wrong, the photocopy lie detector and McDonald's trick are hilarious but in placing the burden on "Americans by and large being a pretty stupid group" it kind of undermines the bigger points about institutions. It's emblematic of the main flaw in the newspaper story really. I mean I think Carver saying "wars end" in the pilot or most of the scenes with Prez and the teachers are just as on the nose but they work much better simply because the points they're servicing are better. ("Wars end" can also be forgiven because it was in the pilot).
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Aug 30, 2014 19:19
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I'm trying to convince a friend of mine to watch The Wire (he's another goon actually) but he's the kind of guy that won't just watch something because you recommend it. Like, you need to make a presentation for why something is worth his time and why you think it's good. And even then there's only a 50% shot he'll watch/play/read it. I know The Wire is the best television writing has to offer, but I don't feel qualified to express how good it is. So if I were to entice someone to give it a chance, what would I say? How would I convince them to watch the 3+ hours it takes for the show to really find its legs in the first season? Is there a video out there that sums it all up, or a snappy infographic that'll knock his socks off?
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Aug 30, 2014 19:36
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Slim Charles and his speech to Avon is also so clearly about the Iraq war that it almost hurts.
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Aug 30, 2014 19:36
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Slim Charles posted:"If it's a lie then we fight on that lie." Yeah that's pretty shameless. Other than the soldiers are hot-blooded there's not really a reason for them to look for WMDs in the desert of Ira-I mean, fight the Stanfields.
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Aug 30, 2014 19:39
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MrSlam posted:Yeah that's pretty shameless. Other than the soldiers are hot-blooded there's not really a reason for them to look for WMDs in the desert of Ira-I mean, fight the Stanfields. I've said this a few times but the metaphor kind of falls apart when you realize Marlo was going to go to war no matter what. He makes it clear after he meets with Stringer - he interpreted the Barksdales desperately trying to get him in the co-op as a sign of weakness more than anything. Maybe Avon should have waited for him to make the first move, maybe, but it's still hard to see how it would have turned out much differently. The US would have been better off leaving Saddam alone but I've never interpreted Marlo as someone who would have been content with just a few off brand corners. I do like the 9/11 imagery of the towers coming down in the opening scene and then all hell breaking loose in the drug game, though. grading essays nude fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Aug 30, 2014 |
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Aug 30, 2014 19:56
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MrSlam posted:I'm trying to convince a friend of mine to watch The Wire (he's another goon actually) but he's the kind of guy that won't just watch something because you recommend it. Like, you need to make a presentation for why something is worth his time and why you think it's good. And even then there's only a 50% shot he'll watch/play/read it. Or more in depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVnNmw9dbNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s1bKzKOrfQ DeepQantas fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Aug 30, 2014 |
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Aug 30, 2014 20:46
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I like that review because it acknowledges that The Wire is a hard show to talk about without kind of sounding like a twat and using words like "multilayered" or "important" because...it just is, I don't know how else to describe it 
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Aug 30, 2014 20:54
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DeepQantas posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ2iGYwdEi8 "This show is so good it could fart in my face and I would still think it was bloody brilliant." Pretty accurate summation, that.
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Aug 30, 2014 21:04
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Charlie Brooker is always worth listening to and this is a large part of why I got into The Wire.
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Aug 30, 2014 23:34
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MrSlam posted:I'm trying to convince a friend of mine to watch The Wire (he's another goon actually) but he's the kind of guy that won't just watch something because you recommend it. Like, you need to make a presentation for why something is worth his time and why you think it's good. And even then there's only a 50% shot he'll watch/play/read it. Tell him to stop being a shithead. To me the most compelling thing is that basically everyone I know who has seen the Wire thinks it's one of the best 3 shows ever, and most people who don't think it's the best have only seen it once. The few people who don't think it's great are people whose opinion of TV I don't really care about because their favorite show is Castle or Big Bang Theory
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Aug 31, 2014 00:36
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3Romeo posted:The writing in The Wire is often fantastic, but sometimes it's too clever for its own good, and when that happens those scenes tend to come off as atonal, no matter what point they're making or how well they stand alone, eg the chess scene with Bodie and D'Angelo and Wallace or the "gently caress" scene with McNulty and Bunk back in season one. They're great, don't get me wrong, but they're a little too on-the-nose. Excellent point. To riff off it, I'd call them forced. They are lines the writer would say in a spirited dinner conversation, maybe, or the product of a writer's workshop ("This week I want everyone to write a scene that only uses one word...."), but in the midst of this amazing epic they are jarring. The political jabs, the gimmicks... they are beneath the overall quality of the work.
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Aug 31, 2014 01:04
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grading essays nude posted:My main objection to that line is the context of it. The opening scene of each Wire season is something like a thesis statement for the rest of the season (in season 1's case it's a thesis for the entire series). Now don't get me wrong, the photocopy lie detector and McDonald's trick are hilarious but in placing the burden on "Americans by and large being a pretty stupid group" it kind of undermines the bigger points about institutions. It's emblematic of the main flaw in the newspaper story really.
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Aug 31, 2014 18:11
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Don't worry about your shithead friend and stop annoying him.
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Aug 31, 2014 19:37
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juche mane posted:Don't worry about your shithead friend and stop annoying him. Dude, just watch it. It's really good.
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Sep 1, 2014 05:49
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I haven't seen the last episode of season 1 in a while, so could someone clarify why Avon and especially Stringer (who doesn't have the family blinders on) didn't connect Wee-bey getting caught to D'Angelo in like three seconds? D is locked up in Jersey, yells at Stringer and drops Levy, suddenly Wee-Bey gets arrested in Philly. The only people who knew where Wee-bey was were Avon, Stringer and D. I don't remember if Brianna talks him out of the deal before Bey gets arrested, but you'd think at least Stringer would realized D had snitched.
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Sep 1, 2014 17:47
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The police had a big manhunt going for weebay since he was wanted for shooting a police officer so i dont think they would necessarily think someone snitched. It's not like he went very far to lay low (baltimore to philly). Either way, Stringer decides to have D killed pretty shortly due to paranoia over snitching so it is probably a moot point.
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Sep 1, 2014 18:31
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Yeah, guess I was overthinking that one
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Sep 1, 2014 18:53
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MrSlam posted:I'm trying to convince a friend of mine to watch The Wire (he's another goon actually) but he's the kind of guy that won't just watch something because you recommend it. Like, you need to make a presentation for why something is worth his time and why you think it's good. And even then there's only a 50% shot he'll watch/play/read it. Sounds like a grade A knob to be honest, dude doesn't deserve to enjoy the Wire.
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Sep 1, 2014 20:52
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Did D actually snitch on Weebay? It's been a while since I watched it myself, I don't remember if it went down like that, and I can't remember how Weebay actually got caught.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:05
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Ainsley McTree posted:Did D actually snitch on Weebay? It's been a while since I watched it myself, I don't remember if it went down like that, and I can't remember how Weebay actually got caught. Yep, specifically says he's in Philly.
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Sep 1, 2014 23:36
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Apparently the Wire is being remastered in HD?
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Sep 2, 2014 04:08
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Sounds legitimate. They had pictures of it showing up on an Xfinity box for that week's schedule Seems like as good a reason as any to watch for the third time.
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Sep 2, 2014 14:35
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 Hopefully that means we are getting a Blu-Ray release in the near future.
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Sep 2, 2014 18:09
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Frostwerks posted:Dude, just watch it. It's really good. Hate to say it but it took a friend of mine a year of pestering and a final half-joking ultimatum of "Look our continued friendship is riding on this" for me to start. I both hate and love that he was completely right. Okonner posted:If it is then HBO would be lying to call it "HD".  nooneofconsequence posted:Seinfeld is likely cropped to obtain the 16:9 ratio. Don't want that for The Wire. frenton posted:Forgive my ignorance but why can't they release the show in 16:9? They have 16:9 HD episodes of Seinfeld and it's an older show. Fuckin' HD, how does it work?? Handsome Ralph posted:No idea if this means the perspective will change or what, but still, pretty cool. Artistic Direction, people. 16:9 does not mean "better," it's just the current standard. There are a couple major points of interest here: 1. Before 16:9 came into prevalence on television, many shows stuck so hard to the 4:3 aspect ratio that they based all their framing, lighting, equipment, etc. around that box. Example: The reason the recent Star Trek: The Next Generation releases on Blu-ray haven't been in 16:9, though technically a possibility, is due to boom mics etc. constantly visible just out of frame. TNG did this because it didn't know that 16:9 would eventually be the standard. Babylon 5 was filmed entirely in 16:9 in the hopes that someday a re-release would be possible, but then they lost all their special effects and CGI masters so the wide screen version ended up being a sloppy mess. The Wire knew what 16:9 was when it was designed to be filmed in 4:3, and was so at the forefront of the crew's mindset that they re-considered and rejected the idea of moving to 16:9 during the show's run. I don't believe they would be sloppy enough to leave production equipment or crew visible just outside the shots, but I can't imagine they were putting too much though into composing outside of their chosen aspect ratio, especially when they had no intention to ever release the show at anything different. They were focused only on making the shots people would ever actually see really complex and well-done. Which brings me to the next point: 2. Look at the framing the cinematographers used in The Wire. You're not missing anything by not having that extra view on the sides because the show was designed with 4:3 as a tool rather than a hindrance. A wonderful recent example of this is The Grand Budapest Hotel, which used differing aspect ratios throughout the film not just for pretentious storytelling gimmicks, but for fun ways to play with shot composition. Think of how effectively The Wire portrays closed, claustrophobic spaces, how that fits with what you know of the show's themes(tons of characters helplessly trapped in a vicious system), then imagine how awful Bubbles' and Sharod's shack in season 4 would look filmed in widescreen. It's all purposeful. Hard Clumping fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Sep 2, 2014 |
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Sep 2, 2014 22:07
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To hammer home this And what this guy said: MrBling posted:Most likely because David Simon doesn't want it. So to be clear, it's possible to have the show be 4:3 and also HD. It probably won't be widescreen/16:9. (Although most technically, it will be 16:9 with black bars on the sides.) And FYI, syndicated HD Seinfeld is not cropped, they simply took the original 35mm and left in the cropped sides of the screen. This is why watching these episodes feels so loving weird, because all the actors are always jumbled in the middle of the frame with a bunch of empty space on the left and right. It also has the added effect of making the stock establishing shots, which already looked lovely compared to the actual scenes, even more lovely to look at.
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Sep 2, 2014 23:08
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grilldos posted:And FYI, syndicated HD Seinfeld is not cropped, they simply took the original 35mm and left in the cropped sides of the screen. This is why watching these episodes feels so loving weird, because all the actors are always jumbled in the middle of the frame with a bunch of empty space on the left and right. It also has the added effect of making the stock establishing shots, which already looked lovely compared to the actual scenes, even more lovely to look at. Well, all the characters on Seinfeld are close-talkers.
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Sep 2, 2014 23:15
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 If purists don't like it, they technically can always recrop it again.
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Sep 3, 2014 17:03
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Apparently the marathon isn't starting tonight? 
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Sep 5, 2014 00:00
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grilldos posted:
No, it's still cropped.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:50
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