Taking Woodstock and Wonderful World

Taking Woodstock
It starts pretty good. Goofy Demetri Martin as the beleaguered Jewish son to two nutty parents and owner of a rundown motel desperately tries to save his parents livelihood. You ask yourself, how does this kooky family become instrumental in the making of the great music festival Woodstock? The answer to this question intrigued me enough to want to keep watching until at some point, amid star cameos and drug induced hazy scenes, you realize this movie isn’t going anywhere -- the plot had gone seriously awry. It’s too bad really. So much potential, a movie directed by the great Ang Lee and about such an interesting subject. At least the beginning is pretty good.

Wonderful World
In Wonderful World Mathew Broderick plays a cranky failed musician who is brought back to life by two Senegalese visitors to his unhappy life. Remind you of anything? If you saw the much better The Visitor, which about a crank who is revived by some musician Africans. Just see The Visitor if this plot intrigues you. Oh wait, there is one reason to see Wonderful World, and that is the small role played byMichael Kenneth Williams, also known as Omar from The Wire.

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?!

Wired

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't seen any movies and my only DVD entertainment has been the fourth season of the Wire. It's so good I am savoring it by watching just one or two episodes at a time. This season's focus is on a really messed up Baltimore middle school. More later.