Saturday, January 26, 2008
Lock your weed and cars, people of Cincinnati...
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Mr. Tony...
The greatest radio show of all time, The Tony Kornheiser Show, returns tomorrow. As if I needed any more reason to hate professional football, Monday Night Football takes away Mr. Tony for five months a year. The really sad thing is that he's fucking terrible on MNF and great on radio.
Labels: Mr. Tony
Monday, January 14, 2008
Another The Wire post....
...so those of you who can't tell the difference between black people should probably just ignore this one.
Short version: I'm still worried. Basically, the main Journalist character is the City Editor at the Baltimore Sun (David Simon's old paper). Of course, he's being set up as the lone smart person in the sea of destructive bureaucracy, a la McNulty or Bunny (one of the very, very few completely honorable characters in the show, but I'll get into that in a later post), and he is, of course, a stand-in for David Simon (or at least how David Simon views himself as a Journalist). The problem is he's presented as this hyper-concientious super-journalist (he calls the office late at night to re-check his story, and ha-ha! he's right all along) that just comes off as one-note and phony; and note that this was never a problem during the introduction of McNulty, who was always presented as a drunk, womanizing, abrasive asshole, albeit one who we were supposed to sympathize with. There's also this hot young reporter (Scott) who is the apple of the eeeevvviilll chief editor's eye who we know isn't 100% on the level from a scene last week, where he was sitting at the bar drinking, apart from his colleagues (foreshadowing, everyone!) who's clearly pulling a Jayson Blair and making up this bullshit, heart-warming story involving a wheelchair-bound kid trying to score tickets to Opening Day. But, guess who is the lone voice in the wilderness questioning the story? That's right the City Editor. This is just heavy-handed crap we can see coming from a mile away. There's no nuance, no dimensions, nothing that The Wire has given us over the past four seasons. The rest of the show, of course, is gold, but this (thus far) lame plotline is still worrying me.
Short version: I'm still worried. Basically, the main Journalist character is the City Editor at the Baltimore Sun (David Simon's old paper). Of course, he's being set up as the lone smart person in the sea of destructive bureaucracy, a la McNulty or Bunny (one of the very, very few completely honorable characters in the show, but I'll get into that in a later post), and he is, of course, a stand-in for David Simon (or at least how David Simon views himself as a Journalist). The problem is he's presented as this hyper-concientious super-journalist (he calls the office late at night to re-check his story, and ha-ha! he's right all along) that just comes off as one-note and phony; and note that this was never a problem during the introduction of McNulty, who was always presented as a drunk, womanizing, abrasive asshole, albeit one who we were supposed to sympathize with. There's also this hot young reporter (Scott) who is the apple of the eeeevvviilll chief editor's eye who we know isn't 100% on the level from a scene last week, where he was sitting at the bar drinking, apart from his colleagues (foreshadowing, everyone!) who's clearly pulling a Jayson Blair and making up this bullshit, heart-warming story involving a wheelchair-bound kid trying to score tickets to Opening Day. But, guess who is the lone voice in the wilderness questioning the story? That's right the City Editor. This is just heavy-handed crap we can see coming from a mile away. There's no nuance, no dimensions, nothing that The Wire has given us over the past four seasons. The rest of the show, of course, is gold, but this (thus far) lame plotline is still worrying me.
Monday, January 07, 2008
The Wire is back...
...I'm guardedly optimistic about this season. This post pretty much sums up my feelings on this season's "theme". If you don't want to read it, basically the focus of the show is expanded again to include journalists, and from the first episode and all the surrounding scuttlebutt about this season it just seems like David Simon is settling old scores as opposed to saying something trenchant. It doesn't really help that I disagree with his entire premise regarding journalism. If you read what he has to say about the subject (and he brings it up in every interview, every chance he gets), Simon thinks journalists have some sort of god-granted role to watch-dog for the public. Which is bullshit of course -- newspapers exist, and always have existed, to make money for their owners. No more, no less. One of the great things about The Wire is that it's so damn cynical about everything: the government, the police, the schools, reform, etc; the one huge theme of the show is that we're all fucked. I don't see why Journalism (with the capital "J", of course) should be exempt from that worldview. Of course, there is still plenty of time for it to straighten out; I almost stopped watching after the first episode because the show had painted McNulty as some kind of lone savior of the police department, and I still enjoy The Shield despite my problems with it. But that doesn't mean I'm still not worried.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
My best of 2007...
Movies
1. Children of Men
2. Zodiac
3. Knocked Up
4. The Darjeeling Limited
5. Army of Shadows
TV
1. 30 Rock
2. The Shield
3. John From Cincinnati
4. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
5. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
Music
1. Sound of Silver / LCD Soundsystem
2. Neon Bible / Arcade Fire
3. Sky Blue Sky / Wilco
4. American Gangster / Jay-Z
5. Wincing the Night Away / The Shins
Books
1. No Country for Old Men / Cormac McCarthy
2. The Black Swan / Nassim Nicholas Taleb
3. And Then We Came To the End / Joshua Ferris
4. The Savage Detectives / Roberto Bolano
5. Up in Honey's Room / Elmore Leonard
1. Children of Men
2. Zodiac
3. Knocked Up
4. The Darjeeling Limited
5. Army of Shadows
TV
1. 30 Rock
2. The Shield
3. John From Cincinnati
4. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
5. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations
Music
1. Sound of Silver / LCD Soundsystem
2. Neon Bible / Arcade Fire
3. Sky Blue Sky / Wilco
4. American Gangster / Jay-Z
5. Wincing the Night Away / The Shins
Books
1. No Country for Old Men / Cormac McCarthy
2. The Black Swan / Nassim Nicholas Taleb
3. And Then We Came To the End / Joshua Ferris
4. The Savage Detectives / Roberto Bolano
5. Up in Honey's Room / Elmore Leonard
Labels: books, movies, music, TEG, TV
