"The Wire" (2002 - 2008)

Much to my embarassment, I only got around to watching HBO's acclaimed series The Wire recently. And by "recently," I mean this morning. I don't usually write about TV aside from a post or two about the Emmys, but seeing as David Simon's series struck a chord with me, I felt that writing this came rather naturally. So, here it is. One thing that no one is really asking for: a review of a five-season show that ended in 2008.

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 I’m going to try and keep this short(ish), because I usually find writing about TV weird. Why? No idea. Anyway, I’d heard great things about HBO’s drama The Wire for quite some time. Somewhere during my senior year of high school, I decided to finally start renting the series. I made it through four episodes, and I was just starting to really adjust to the show’s style and pacing, when, for some reason, I kept putting off with the show. Flash forward roughly four years and, thanks to the magic of HBOGo (you’re welcome), I picked up right where I left off. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to get back into David Simon’s world.

What’s most immediately impressive to me after finishing the series finale (literally only hours ago) is the above-mentioned world. TV has the benefit of being able to explore both characters and setting at a more gradual pace than film, and no show has made the most of that the way The Wire has. By the time the series segues into its final minutes, you come to realize how much the city of Baltimore is as big a character as McNulty, Kima, or Stringer Bell. 

Even more striking, in retrospect, is how the show covers different facets of the city without feeling forced. The jumps from the streets, to the ports, through the legal system, and finally to the media are structured by season, but it never becomes overly conceptual. The progression, especially from seasons three through five, is executed so seamlessly that I’m tempted to label the show one of the most consistent dramas I’ve ever seen. Episode to episode and season to season, The Wire is that rare show that gives off the feeling that the entire thing was intricately, immaculately planned out before the first episode aired.

The only rough patch among the bunch, if any, is perhaps the transition between the first and second seasons. Characters and arcs reappear across multiple seasons in The Wire, but the way certain aspects come in and out of focus in season two feels a little extreme. After getting adjusted to the show and becoming involved with the plot and characters of the first season, seeing said plot and characters pushed to the background to make way for the port stories caused the pacing to drag. Obviously McNulty, Lester, Kima, Bunk, and their co-workers remained prominent, but the other side (Stringer, Avon, etc…) seemed to pop up all too infrequently. On its own merits, season two probably succeeds much more, but coming after the set-up of season one, the port-related plots sometimes drag.

Yet once season three starts and we jump back to the streets, everything comes together with stunning execution for the rest of the ride. By the end of season one, I was aware that I was invested in the characters. Yet Simon grounds their personalities so deeply in their work that you often don’t realize how much you care until some little moment comes along and makes you smile, or laugh, or get a lump in your throat. That the series does this without resorting to melodrama is even more of an accomplishment.

The performances, all around, are wonderful. The chemistry between and among the ensemble is what really sells it all, and allows various characters’ rises and falls register with sincerity. With an ensemble this wonderful, I hate to pick favorite, but let’s just say I was always paying attention the most whenever Lester, Kima, or Carcetti were on screen. That said, my favorite individual moment of the entire show has to come in season four, when Bunk notes that Beadie trusts McNulty, and McNulty smiles back and his friend and confirms the statement. Of course, there’s always Clay Davis’ pronunciation of the word “shit,” if only for the laugh factor. Yet the show still deserves credit for the portrayal of its characters placed firmly outside of the law, as it never resorts to making them into over the top villains. Like the police and government officials, they remain people first. It’s a vision of both sides of anti-drug enforcement that is rarely achieved on the big or small screen.

The show also knew how to incorporate violence, and never rushed through scenes in order for a gun to go off. Quite the opposite. This is a layered, steadily paced character-drama to the bone. HBO sometimes ventures into self-parody with the levels of sex and violence it shows, which only makes The Wire’s execution stand out more. When violence hits, it’s never overblown. Like the rest of the show, shootings and beatings feel completely natural, and they pack an appropriately grim mix of intensity and shock.

And, from a strictly storytelling perspective, I adore how Simon and his collaborators executed such a dense narrative without ever really holding the audience’s hand. This is a show where every scene really mattered, because some name or piece of information that popped up in episode two could wind up being part of a major development five episodes later. Even the gradually divergent subplot of Bubbles (Andre Royo) felt necessary, and its arc is among the series’ most satisfying.

Ultimately, this is a rare breed of TV show. It treats its audiences like adults, refrains from melodrama or sensationalizing, and yet still boasts memorable characters (I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention OMAR), and stirring drama. Simon’s show simply puts itself within the broader canvas of its setting. The developments for the characters and the story are important, and we understand how they are important to the people on screen. But, at the end of the day, The Wire has enough intelligence to give its subject matter a conclusion that befits its consistent treatment across five seasons and 60 episodes. In a simple montage that all-but concludes the series finale, we see how so much has changed, and yet so much still remains the same. I didn’t really follow through on my promise to keep this short, but at this point I don’t care. Masterworks like this deserve more than a few sentences.

Season One: B+/A-

Season Two: B+

Season Three: A

Season Four: A+

Season Five: A

Series Grade: A

Review: "John Carter"

The road to theaters hasn't been easy for John Carter, Disney's big-screen treatment of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic (ish) fantasy adventure novels. No major stars, reports of a ballooning budget, shifting release dates, and then reports of costly re-shoots all pointed to one conclusion: a massive flop. Now, considering that I'm a little late in seeing the film, directed by Pixar alum Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E), I can't make predictions. We know that the film has flopped; it's done. So, with that out of the way, we can stop talking about box office, and start talking about the film's artistic merits, of which, outside of its technical categories, there are precious few.

It's a shame too, because only a few months ago another Pixar director, The Incredibles' Brad Bird, made his live-action debut with the extremely fun Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Unfortunately, Staton's transition to live-action hasn't been quite as successful, though he's hardly the source of the film's problems...at least as a director. As co-writer, however, he does deserve some of the blame. In adapting Rice Burroughs' story, the sort of fare that seems better suited as a Saturday morning cartoon, Staton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon have crafted a wannabe-epic that is so scattershot and overstuffed, not to mention overly serious, that it nearly collapses in on itself.

Here's the basics: Confederate soldier John Carter (Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch), after finding himself trapped in a cave, somehow finds himself transported to Mars (known by its inhabitants as Barsoom). There, the planet is at war as two humanoid cities, Zodenga and Helium, battle for supremacy. There's also green, four-armed creatures known as Tharks, who both aid and hinder Carter as he tries to piece together where he is and how he got there. Now, the past few sentences have more than a few silly words in them, but through all of it, the actors play it straight. There's a sense of humor missing here that would have made all of it a little more bearable.

Unfortunately, John Carter is so concerned with making itself the next big sci-fi/fantasy franchise, it winds up suffering from throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-if-something-sticks-syndrome (that's T.E.A.T.W.A.S.I.S.S.S. for short). It's not too much of a problem for about half of the film's 2 hour duration. Unfortunately, once it hits the last 40 minutes, the narrative goes into Important Incident Overload. There's a wedding, a massive fight in an arena, a massive Thark horde, a big battle, another wedding, and several trips between Earth and Barsoom. It's all so much that none of it carries any weight, and the dramatic shifts that should come as surprises or moments of triumph/despair ring hollow.

The acting doesn't do the film any service. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but the dramatics all feel phoned in, and the actors can do little to elevate the material considering the take-everything-seriously direction Stanton opted for. Kitsch makes for a perfectly decent hero, and Collins has what it takes to make a kick-ass heroine, even though she's reduced to being saved by Kitsch at least three times in the exact same manner. Other roles, like those played by Dominic West and Mark Strong, have potential to be fun antagonists, but they have even less to work with than the heroes. I don't doubt that the actors involved could have made this a worthwhile journey, but the filmmakers so thoroughly undermine them that there's little they can really do.

Which is an even bigger shame, considering that the film does have one area where it truly shines: the visuals. Despite some borderline campy costume design, Barsoom looks immaculate, whether it's in the dusty desert villages of the Tharks or the halls of Helium. Best of all are the winged airships that come closest to giving John Carter's world something to differentiate itself from, say, Tattooine. The visual effects are also remarkable, whether it's the scenery, the Tharks, or the massive, 6-legged white apes. So much money obviously went to the visuals, and the VFX work is strong enough that it doesn't feel plastic-y or weightless, but that key element of movie-making - the script - is so deeply flawed that even the visuals can't redeem it.

So, is John Carter a true disaster? From a financial perspective, probably. From an artistic perspective, not so much. It's not particularly good (even the actions sequences to little to get the heart racing), and some of the final act borders on train-wreck territory due to the rushed pacing, but it's missing that special spark that would make it a true failure as a film. Uninspired? Yes, visuals aside. Weak characters? Yup. But a worst-of-all-time level failure? Not quite. It's simply that controversies and expectations have played such a big part in how we've come to known John Carter, that it's hard to separate the financial performance from the quality of the filmmaking. That doesn't mean that you need to see it, or that you're missing anything. It just means that big flops don't entirely equal major artistic failings. Sometimes they just mean massively mediocre efforts with little to nothing worth writing home about.

Grade: C