Alas, I finished The Wire

I know it's not a movie but The Wire is so good it could be a movie. Each episode is a mini-movie -- and yet watching it makes you want to watch the next and the next and when you get to the end and there are no more, it's so sad. :(
The Wire's five seasons center around the gritty under belly of Baltimore, Maryland, but each season has its own focus.
Season 1: The Drug Trade
Season 2: The Port
Season 3: The City's Bureaucracy
Season 4: The School System
Season 5: The Newspaper
All of the seasons are great, but I especially enjoyed the last two. The school chapter is one of the most realistic looks of a school on the screen that I have ever seen -- and believe me, it is not always pretty.
The newspaper chapter marks the demise of the great American newspaper and makes you sad about its slow death.
As a matter of fact the show is always of the verge of disaster for one of its many great characters, and in the end I hoped that at least some of them would be saved from a terrible fate. There was in fact salvation for some of the characters but many along the way meet sad endings. While some of the characters are saved the institutions are not given the same good ending. The police department, school, city hall, and the newspaper continue to be mired in bureaucracy and greed.
My favorite characters are the following:
Bubbles (his last speech to his NA group was incredibly moving)
Omar, modern-day Robinhood, "Omar's coming"
Mr. Pryzbylewski, befuddled teacher
Lester, a detective who likes data
Bunk, hilarious homicide detective
Of course, Jimmy McNulty, seriously messed up but charming
Daquan, pull at your heartstrings middle-school waif
This is just naming a few of the many great characters in the show.
One caveat is that The Wire is an investment in time and energy. It is often violent and filled with foul language. And it isn't a show you can follow very easily if you don't make a concerted effort to pay attention to what's going on. I often found myself rewinding because I missed things. But it is so worth it. Without sounding hoity-toity, ok I will sound this way anyway, I really felt edified by The Wire and think it is one of the greatest TV watching experiences I have ever had. How's that for hyperbole?!

Sisterhood II

The thing I like about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants stories is that they are not just a teenie-bopper movies where vapid girls vie for a boy while sniping at eachother. Instead the movies and books are about girls' friendships and girls discovering their talents. Of course, they are also about girls finding the cute boys too. So they are nice stories about likeable girls who, in the end, make smart decisions, and I'm glad the stories are out there for girls today. Now, should the stories be out there for old girls such as myself -- well, despite myself, I really enjoyed the first movie in the series. I like all four of the young actresses who play the lead roles: Amber Tamblyn, Joan of Arcadia, Alexis Bledel,Gilmore Girls, America Ferrera, Ugly Betty, and Blake Lively, Gossip Girl and they seem like genuine friends. The second movie, however, isn't that great of a movie -- it's meandering and shlocky, but it is still pleasant enough.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Forgetting Sarah Marshall offers some a few good chuckles but in the end is a pretty forgettable movie. It's another Judd Apatow romantic comedy which means that it as slacker-striver romance with a dollop of teenage boy humour. This one has a lot less the teen-age boy humor than say SuperBad, but also doesn't have as many big laughs as that ridiculous movie. I liked all the actors in FSM, led by the likable Jason Segal and the equally likable Mila Kunis, from That 70's Show. Also, one of my favorites from Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell, is great. The strange Jack McBrayer, who plays Kenneth on 30 Rock, is also strange in this movie and plays a similar character to his 30 Rock role. But the previously unknown to me, British actor Russel Brand, steals the movie as Sarah Marshall's new boyfriend. He is very funny in a creepy way.

What Happens When You Watch Dumb Movies

I hate to admit when I watch some of the dumb movies I watch, such as my latest viewing, What Happens in Vegas which is another movie in the slacker-striver vein (see earlier blog entry on this topic) where we have Ashton Kutcher, fun-loving man child and Cameron Diaz, the uptight ambitious beauty. Blah, blah, blah, they hate each other -- Blah, blah, blah, they're forced to be together even though they hate eachother and tah-dah! They love eachother. This one has its fair share of over-the-top scenes and very few genuine moments -- there are a few-- and even a few funny scenes. But there you have it, another movie I watched, so you don't have to.

When Did You Last See Your Father?

When Did You Last See Your Father? tells about a man who is struggling to deal with his dying father, a father who he has been angry with most of his life. The movie is autobiographical and based on writer Blake Morrison’s real life resentment toward his own father. The adult Blake is played by Colin Firth and his father is played by Jim Broadbent. Both are great actors and do not disappoint in this film, but the younger Blake played by Matthew Beard attracted my attention the most. I think he will be a young actor to watch. Overall the movie is interesting and gets you thinking about things one doesn’t necessarily want to think about like our parents mortality, but it is also slow and not as interesting, say, as The Savages, which is also about dealing with a dying father.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I must be some kinda sap. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner gets me every time. Sure it's a movie with some cheesy elements where the sentimentality is overt, yet my eyes start welling up about when Spencer Tracy's character, Matt, the liberal newspaper owner, disappoints his beautiful wife played by Katherine Hepburn with the news that he will not accept the pending marriage of his daughter to a black man. And Sidney Poitier is so moving throughout the movie, particularly when he explodes while talking to his father, explaining his place as a black man in modern society. He tells his father that he sees himself as a colored man while John, Poitier's character, sees himself as a man. With one short speech he gives a glimpse of what it might be like to be black in America and makes me think of how everyone's way of looking at being black in America has changed again, with Barack Obama's amazing and unlikely catapult to election win. Poitier plays an amazingly accomplished doctor who just came from Hawaii. Sound familiar? Adding to the emotion of the film, is knowing that this movie was Spencer Tracy's last (he died just 17 days after the completing the film). He expresses his love to his wife in the movie so movingly while we know that she, Katherine Hepburn, is his real-life love -- that really gets the tears going.

I wasn't going to watch a movie after a long weekend away from home and homework to do --- but Guess Who's Coming to Dinner sucked me again. And I've seen at least 4 times before. It's like a red-light food for me (A red-light food is a weight-watcher's term meaning a food that you know you won’t stop when you eat just one). Just five minutes into this movie I was binging.

Political Movies

I haven't seen any movies lately -- a conference, a night class, my job, and too much politics has kept me from them. Tonight, of course, I am glued to the TV watching the returns. Stick with me, though, I'll get back to it and keep up my goal of posting at least once a week. For tonight, though, I leave you with a list of political movies that I liked.


Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Oh, you just gotta like this idealistic look at Washington


The Candidate (1972) a sexy Robert Redford combined with a smart suspenseful story


Wag the Dog (1997) A very cynical look at American politics

Bulworth (1998) weirdly goofy Warren Beatty movie

Primary Colors (1998) John Travolta does a surprisinly good Bill Clintonmerican politics, but gets ya thinkin'

Dick (1999) silly teens in the Nixon whitehouse -- silly but fun!

Election (1999) Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon high school election satire. HIGH- larious! One of my favorites.

Thank You for Smoking (2006) Sexy Aaron Eckhart as smarmy tobacco lobbyist -- a strangely good combination

Recount (2008) (see earlier review) great recap of what happened in Florida during the 2000 presidentical election -- and a great movie