"It's essentially a six hour lecture on zoning regulations" - David Simon's Show Me A Hero

*sigh*

i turned to my husband this morning and was like, "i'm so sad about nick waciscko" and he was like, "still?" he has no soul.

oscar isaac is really something

and he really did kill himself in the cemetery, i thought it was maybe a dramatic element but ughhhhhh

so sad

http://i.lv3.hbo.com/assets/images/series/show-me-a-hero/homepage/2015/august/150824-ep04-nick-outside-1024.jpg

;_;

I think an emmy nom has to be a given for isaac

lonely guy just thinking baout hings

isaac will def get an emmy nom

holy shit I've been trying to figure out all this time who his gf reminded me of, and I just realized it's Janet from Three's Company

lol not bad, she does have that relatable look & actually like this girl ive been hanging out w/ a lot recently

i wonder now if im going to see janet from threes co. in this gal friend hm idk

she is v easy on the eyes

4 shur

i kinda fell in love with her shoulderpads after a while

imma miss these people

She and Isaac both of course look much prettier out of their late 80s Yonkers getups.

oscar is the most attractive man in the galaxy

I always like hearing that because, like me, he is a modest 5'9" in stature.

so I'm not disqualified from being galaxy-class attractive

i normally adhere to a pretty strict "you must be this tall to ride" policy but he is so pretty I've waived the height requirement

godDAMN he is lovely

well geez I was just speaking generally, not asking for a waiver :p

um i only waved the height requirement for him :p

the "brick by brick" documentary is on vimeo fyi

http://www.brick-by-brick.com/hbo.html

I kind of like the people in that trailer better than the analogous characters in the miniseries

just finished this. fuck.

just finished this, really enjoyed it. agree with general criticism I'm reading re: tonal ambivalence w/r/t wasicsko. the dramatization didn't portray him as much more committed to the cause than news coverage at time of his death did ("He wasn't pro-desegregation, he was pro-compliance" etc. etc.), so establishing him as the titular hero felt both unsatisfying as it fit in the narrative itself and factually questionable. skimmed upthread before watching, expected the final tragedy to be really awful, neighbors burning down townhouses or something. by part 5, I was pretty disillusioned with his character and annoyed with the extent to which the dramatization seemed to be more than half-heartedly promoting his retconned self-importance.

that said, pretty turned off by criticism that conflates the above with how the show handled his suicide. (thinking in particular an Atlantic crit's condescension toward wasicsko because he read the suicide to be brought on by a sense of entitlement that the real world didn't provide. though this may be as much the show's failing as one of interpretation, given the extent to which it seemed to leverage his suicide toward lionization, complete with eulogical send-off to put a bow on the story.) frankly, thought it was one of the most real illustrations of suicide i've seen -- the slow evaporation of self-worth, the withdrawal from and alienation of friends and loved ones, the distorted view of a collapsing world that really wasn't collapsing at all -- that in light of part 6 makes parts 3-5 deeply painful in a way very few things succeed at demonstrating. (especially impressed at this from Simon, who in the Wire -- and elsewhere here -- struck me as more interested in predictable characters as parts of a system, however sympathetic they might be, than as unpredictable and unknowable humans.) the point is that it doesn't make sense, and the sadness is as much in the nihilism as it is in the tragedy of a life ended too soon; to get into a measuring contest of whether wasicsko had it easier than other characters, as Mock at the Atlantic does, completely misses that point. of course we as viewers found him frustrating and overreacting and entitled as he slipped farther and farther out of reach -- so did the other characters in the show, who too reacted with frustration and annoyance rather than empathy before they realized what was ahead. extremely well-executed, if somewhat tonally clunky next to the wonky housing stuff; would be pleased if Simon continues to work at more seamlessly blending the personal and the structural going forward.

I have been thinking about Wasiscko & the title... a lot of comments have been "well he's a pretty crummy hero"

The title isn't meant to imply that he IS a hero, or the hero. It could as easily be the tenants or mary ...there are no perfect "Heroes" here, like in life

And Simon even said that the quote "Show me a hero & I'll write you a tragedy" is talking about how heroes don't exist in the real world, that the truth of their lives is often more difficult & nuanced

i was so starved for more i watched all the behind the scenes clips ondemand

i feel bereft

Still sad about this. Great show though.

Kinda curious about Zaleski and Restiano. They're both still alive, and it seems like their reputations could get a bum deal out of this, that might not be especially warranted.

The phonebox scene -- "Ask him about the Desmond Hotel" -- felt a bit disrespectful to include, whether it's true or not.

watched episodes 4-6 last night.

oof.

The title isn't meant to imply that he IS a hero, or the hero. It could as easily be the tenants or mary ...there are no perfect "Heroes" here, like in life

otm

one possibly stupid question - the pager going off with 911-911-911 - is it meant to be clear what that's referring to? is it just supposed to mean that she knew he was in trouble and was desperately trying to reach him?

(I mean, yes i realize it's pager shorthand for "emergency, call back immediately", but what emergency? his life is in shambles and she's worried about him emergency, or something else?)

he's kinda like McNulty but with depression

wow, yeah

The whole time I couldn't help but think I was watching the guy from New Girl doing Adam Scott's part from Parks & Rec.

...

I guess I'm not the only one

http://i.onionstatic.com/avclub/5486/05/original/820.jpg

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/08/show-me-a-hero-review-part-3-and-part-4.html

i love parks & rec but that's a stretch for me

Whoa I haven't seen this but Ive stayed at the Desmond Hotel. It's a real place in Albany. And a pretty wacky one, too.

So glad I didn't read up on Waciscko before watching last two eps. Just devastating.

Also: watched this whole thing w/o realizing that was Wynona Ryder!

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/28/wire-david-simon-interview-american-politics-show-me-a-hero

“What was required in Yonkers was to ask: ‘Are we all in this together or are we not all in this together?’ Is there a society or is there no society, because if there is no society, well, that’s the approach that says ‘Fuck ’em, I got mine’. And Yonkers coincides with the rise of ‘Fuck ’em I got mine’ in America.

“That’s the notion that the markets will solve everything. Leave me alone. I want maximum liberty, I want maximum freedom. Those words have such power in America. On the other hand ‘responsibility’ or ‘society’ or ‘community’ are words that are increasingly held in disfavour in the United States. And that’s a recipe for cooking up a second-rate society, one that does not engage with the notion of collective responsibility. We’re only as good a society as how we treat those who are most vulnerable and nobody’s more vulnerable than our poor. To be poor is not a crime, except in America.”

This is remarkably ahistorical - I would have thought Simon would know better than to think the Reagan era introduced selfishness as a main ingredient of American political activity - but watching the series with these ideas in mind seems to make it more intense. It also, unfortunately, means I tend to not give much of a crap about the vignettes, except as sort of exercises in storytelling craft (this is also a problem with Haggis directing, I think - he's just really ham-handed, my god).

At a certain point the furious, inexhaustible rage that Simon has against what he sees as the unstoppable decline of our country starts to wear you down. I know what happens, we're heading into ep 6 tonight, and I will be surprised if I'm much affected other than an incremental increase in my resolve to never own a gun. Will report back later.

The "white people listen to The Boss, brown people listen to Tribe" thing is also ridiculously OTT. Give it a rest.

Just finished Episode 5, really moving, even though some aspects of this show seem hackneyed.

The phonebox scene -- "Ask him about the Desmond Hotel" -- felt a bit disrespectful to include, whether it's true or not.

Just finished this - I had the impression that Vinni was lying with this phonecall? Purposefully trying to fuck with Nick and Nay? And I thought the scene where Nay asked him about it during the vote count and he had no idea what she was talking about and she realised Vinni was lying was really well-handled.

Overall I loved this. It took a few episodes for the families in housing to feel real and not sketched out, and I thought the pacing was strange in places, but by the last half of the series it definitely worked. And Nick doesn't come off as any hero, really - why should he? He had no burning desire to make the integration happen when he got elected, he only backed it when it was clear how catastrophic avoiding it would be, and his later attempts to claim credit for the housing showed that his ego was bruised and he was a pretty selfish and damaged guy, albeit a mostly likeable one who did the right thing when it was necessary (and didn't realise that that would be catastrophic for his career in politics).