I just had to take a look at the quite popular Homicide: Life on the Street after reading David Simon's true crime epic that inspired it. Maybe part of me was hoping to find an expectedly paler substitute for The Wire since we've finished all five seasons now but after three episodes (which I know is not enough to judge properly) we didn't exactly find it.
They actually use a lot of stories from the book in the first episodes, even though Simon was not directly involved in writing them, but it could have benefited from the books structure: where crimes are solved over time, not within a few screen moments.

It is a clearly more gritty take on the genre popularized by Law and Order, where Simon's stories lead the way, but you can actually see when script writers took over and imagine the meeting where they said “Let's find out what these characters are all about” and the result is the third, stilted, show the “human” side episode that turned me off.

But as I said, one episode can't damn seven years of work. Wow, seven years – did anyone else know it was on that long? It must have been immensely popular in it's day with people I've never met. It was ahead of its time, using new wave editing in prime time. It was a hybrid of easy to swallow neatly tied up crime fighting and more bleak, complicated realism that was perfected with The Wire.

While I am not hooked enough to devote months to seeing all seven series in a row, I was intrigued enough to hope against hope it might come to my roku,?if only to substitute more annoying procedurals over dinner. The actors are top notch (you've got Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Yaphet Kotto, and Andre Braugher), the art direction is appropriately florescent and back alley lit, and I would love to see what made it such a hit for nearly a decade.

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Posted on January 12, 2009

The Brits have always been more willing to infuse their humor with a genuine sadness and Waiting for God, a comedy about two lively and intelligent elderly guests at a retirement home who are essentially waiting to die, is no different. Despite the insufferable laugh track (that the Brits also insist on) it's a complex, morose, and touching show with a Keeping Up Appearances facade and On Death and Dying soul.

The main characters Diana and Tom are played with charm by Stephanie Cole and Graham Crowden. She is a sharp tongued mean old lady who was once a tough as nails world traveling journalist who has no intention of rolling over just because she's elderly. He is an imaginative sweetheart who led a simple life and longed for adventure that he had to make up, while she detests the simple life that's been forced upon her at Bayview Retirement Village. Tom moves in next door at his son's harpy wife's insistence and the two become reluctant friends and neat, joke filled, half hour escapades ensue.

While it's not a ground breaking show in style (imagine how much more modern it could have been if it were made post-Office) it does touch on subjects and characters who are rarely given a voice not only in television, but society. It reminds me of one of my favorite parts of the great novel, Cloud Atlas that also took place in a nursery home in england.

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Posted on December 28, 2008

Don't let the possibly seeming serious backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars (the same time period we have found Horatio Hornblower before) dissuade you from watching the 1998 BBC Vanity Fair. Don't for that matter, let the fact that it's a period piece miniseries dissuade you either. It's fun, intelligent and very wicked.

Becky Sharp, the central heroine, is really more of a sociopath than a shining example of feminine virtue. She's smart but can be cruel, in the modern day she might even be the kind of character who's be pretty fun to hang out with until, of course, she stabs you in the back, steals your man and all of your jewelry.

Delicately pretty Natasha Little is expert in the role, a role that Reese Witherspoon took to the American silver screen with very little effect. While Little's career is pretty big in Britain, I've surprisingly never seen her before. The rest of the cast, however is far more familiar, most notably Brix Picks hunk Nathaniel Parker, Philip Glenister – whose been in just about everything from the aforementioned Hornblower to Cranford to State of Play, and David Bradley who you'll recognize from the Harry Potter movies.

Also a familiar name is Andrew Davies, known as the master of the adaptation, his contribution to television is staggering. He has written among other things: The House of Cards series, the widely accepted best adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the rollicking Moll Flanders, The Way We Live Now, Tipping the Velvet, and the excellent recent Bleak House. I am happy to report that it's announced that he'll soon be adapting The Pallisers, a miniseries I love, but have yet to recommend because I just haven't had the time yet to delve into its twelve discs.

Vanity Fair is a bit shorter, but still boasts a six hour running time. I have only seen the first few hours, but honestly, it's so diverting that the time has been flying by.

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Posted on December 15, 2008

If Brix Pick Andrew Zimmern is the jolly, food loving uncle that can't wait for you to try some strange food then Anthony Bourdain is the sour, smoking, mean guy that your aunt is now dating and you all have to suffer during holidays when he puts down the cooking and brags about how much he smokes.

I was, with good reason, reluctant for a long time to accept the show No Reservations despite many friends enjoying it. After a marathon on the travel channel this weekend I have partially changed my tune. The wonderful thing about the show is that he takes the viewers to extremely interesting spots, places unlikely to garner much television coverage anywhere else.

Whether down in treacherous bat caves of Jamaica or making me want to put Hatch, New Mexico on my places to visit for their red and green enchiladas, Bourdain always discovers the fascinating, informative and fun. Obviously, he's not my ideal traveling companion, his mixture of forced testosterone and snobbery is hard to handle, but I have to admit, he does kind of grow on you as you watch. And let's face it, his bragging about hangovers beats the repetitive and asinine chatter of most food specials that pepper cable television. “It's big on taste AND portions!”

So it is WITH reservations (ha ha ha ha ) that I admit that No Reservations can be great entertainment. But I can't say that I am completely wrong about the man himself. Apparently when taken out of intriguing places and situations, he is just a plain old prick. His recent bomb of a show At the Table earned such fire and ire on his site with comments like?:

“OMG you owe me Tony! You owe me an hour of my life I can never get back. That was the worst piece of *** I've ever seen! Please for the love of God tell me you haven't turned into a tool! “

“At the Table” was about the worst show I've ever seen. This is coming from a regular viewer of “No Reservations.” As someone who was laid-off in January and unable to find work, it was painful to watch a bunch of swells pontificating about eating a $1,900 meal during the worst economic times in living memory. If you have that kind of money to burn, you should have eaten some street hot dogs and given the remaining $1,895 to charity. That kind of scratch could feed my wife and I for about nine weeks. In a few weeks, after my unemployment runs out, I'll think of you and your stupid, boring friends and the $1,900 meal and what I could have done with the money.”

And these are just a few from pages of hatred mostly from his fans. Whew, with fans like these… he should just stick to No Reservations and books filled with kitchen sex.

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Posted on December 1, 2008

Getting into The Wire is like joining a cult, anyone whose been there knows that once you tap into season one, hours, nay weeks even months of your life will be devoted entirely to the world of Baltimore's rough streets. It's riveting drama and the perfect argument against those people who refuse to watch TV, claiming it's nothing but crap. It's?a show entirely worthy of it's hype and word of mouth.

In fact, word of mouth and the release of all the seasons on DVD is what's made this series, which began it's run way back in 2002 so popular lately. More and more people are discovering what at least someone at HBO knew all along. Sure they failed to gain a huge audience for the hailed program, but they did allow it to go on for five years – all of which I am excited to watch. (Like I said this show can take months of your life from you.)

Former homicide detective, Ed Burns and his co creator, and former journalist David Simon were clearly inspired by their real life experiences and have written three dimensional characters who feel nothing like the expected television versions of themselves. No cop is on a vengeance tour after loosing his wife to a bad guy, even the bad guys aren't bad guys in the typical sense. Some have more honor than the police officers, others are just kids stuck in a losing cycle.

The women are given equally complex and dignified roles. No where is there a boring twenty year old blond girl in charge of a crack team of detectives, a TV trend I've already railed against. Sadly, despite critics constantly calling this one of the greatest television shows ever created, if anyone in the networks saw it, they took no notes from it except that it wasn't an instant success, because nothing since has come close to the complexity, sophistication and greatness of The Wire.

Each season focuses on a different aspect of the city of Baltimore: the projects, the docks, politics, schools, and media, which maintaining some central characters like Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell – the top men in a drug ring, Detective McNulty and Detective Greggs who try to catch them, and characters like the drug addicted Bubbles and the Robin Hood like Omar who are just trying to make it in a crazy world.

To get into the plots would be unfair to you that have yet to watch it and simply too much to get into here (I recently finished an explosive season three), but I can say that this is a thought provoking and worth while journey with some of the best characters put to the small screen.

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Posted on November 17, 2008