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

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).