everybody knows i was hands down the 1st person 2 speak on The Wire round here. Way b4 hip white people and intellectuals started being hood voyeurs and annoying over analytical motherfuckers, I watched that ish. Like all the important stuff, i am ususally the 1st to recognise it.


Anyway, the maker of that classic series, the greatest ever i suspect, has this new ish about New Orleans musicians in the aftermath of Katrina. we will not knwo how great it is until the 1st 2 seasons are over, so even though critics are always quick 2 give us their sweeping opinion of something just based on 2 seconds of footage, i encourage u 2 ignore them cause they are always normally wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jH_KkUyZsw...feature=related

The Wire featured in SOMBies favourite TV shows poll in 2005.

very excited about this - can't wait to interview Simon.

This a movie, a show, a documentary, etc.?

It mostly seems an excuse for Jigga to expand to this side of the board.

HBO series

Guess I'll have to wait for DVD's.

Pardon me for being the noob but under what circumstances would you be interviewing david simon ?

plus i'm confident he can pull of something as good as the wire
let's just hope it's not just a retread
and also the " music " angle and some of the casting decisions have me a little worried though

Yeah, pretty sure I'm just going to pretend that Lester Freamon and the Bunk retired to Nawlins.

This description from wikipedia is what has me most worried

Film actor Steve Zahn joined the project in February 2009. Treme is his first series commitment in television. Zahn will play a dancer, DJ and band member with anger management issues. The role will showcase the actor's singing and guitar playing talents

it could just be a case of a wikipedia editor reducing a nuanced character to a overly melodramatic role description...but still the idea of a dancer dj with anger management issues sounds like something out of baywatch or melrose place

McNulty was an arrogant cop with a drinking problem. I think everything will be fine.

Exactly.

Also this

Motel room rendezvous.

You do realize the show was written and directed by an analytical white guy, right?

http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive...-returns/37571/

not sure if this was posted, another trailer. would be cool if somewhere in the series No Limit and Cash Money get a mention, granted thats at the tail end of New Orleans musical history but still, Baby would be an intersting cameo.

add this to HBO's Boardwalk Empire

Anyone watch this shit last night? I thought it was airing after The Pacific

I don't mean to take a jigga post seriously, but due to the fact that this followed the trend of using British actors to play American roles (McNulty, Stringer Bell), used a sorry Tom Waits cover as the theme song, and dropped a not very subtle reference of chess being the extended metaphor established early on among other aspects, wasn't the pandering to the 'hip white people and intellectuals, analytical motherfuckers' precisely the point?

I think it's taping on the DVR right now.

Just finished watching the premiere. It was phenomenal. Just a perfect first episode. Rich with detail and character and sensual pleasures. I think I'm in love.

downloaded it last night, can't wait to watch it.

Zahn needs to turn it down a notch--he came on like Ziggy Sobotka there for awhile. Overeager, I dunno. Everyone else struck just the right note.

I never thought I'd get to see John Goodman, Khadi Alexander and Elvis Costello in the same television show.

I feel this same way. Brilliant pilot.

The only time since I dropped HBO in February that I wish i had it. Heard a review on NPR and your guys posts have me envious.

easy to find a download.

i think i'm the only person who wasn't really into this. not that i found it bad, just that i cannot see this holding my attention for more than a season.

I didn't love it, but I liked it. It was a really long episode of character introductions without a lot of interaction between them. Of course I'm finishing the 1st season of The Wire now and while I've finally gotten sucked into the plot and I love the use of natural light, I find Simon's massively oversized cast a bit distracting, messy, and self-indulgent. Also, most of the acting is terrible. It's distracting trying to get behind McNulty when you keep being reminded he's just some British actor who isn't very good at hiding his accent.

These complaints apply to Treme as well, except the first few episodes of The Wire had some really cheesy, indulgent tough talking theater monologues that Treme so far has wisely decided to minimize. I also like Treme's use of music and I'll probably watch for time being. The opening and closing sequences were beautiful.

i had no idea the guy was british until i was most of the way through the series and saw an interview with him on one of the dvd extras

didn't think the cast was too big either

When I watched the pilot his accent slipped so frequently I couldn't tell if he had Russell Crowe syndrome or if he was doing a regional Baltimore/Irish cop diction that I didn't know about. An IMDB search cleared that up. Don't get me wrong, I consider myself hooked on The Wire at this point. But I think it's just a pretty good show.

EDIT: Also, the dude who plays Stringer Bell. That guy is excellent with hiding his accent.

"There's pride on Bourbon Street."

Damn good second episode too. I'm really digging all these characters. It doesn't matter which story is happening, I'm enjoying watching it. Love that first scene in the radio studio. Really organic, nothing forced. Lots of color, lots of character. This show is good good good. A portrait of New Orleans like The Wire was a portrait of Baltimore. It's good seeing the Bunk again. And Zahn is not as ott in this episode, though he's still Zahn. He needs to grow out his Rescue Dawn beard. Dude was like a puppy dog in that shit.

I loved this second episode. This show is hard for me since I grew up outside of Baltimore, and spent many a summer nights there. NO on the other hand, never been there, but still a great show.

Odd. I thought that The Wire attempts not to be distinctly local. Instead it seems analogous to the American city project neighborhoods as Jody Hill's goal of attempting to paint a uniform picture of American suburbs in 'Eastbound and Down' and 'Observe and Report'. But 'Treme' really does do a great job of putting you in town.

I think I watched Lester Freamon

Spoiler/NSFW: click to show/hide

ice a punk

That 2nd episode was pretty damn excellent. I watched from my laptop with headphones on. It's actually better that way. I'm hooked.

you know the woman who plays janette is british, right?

Then she's better than McNulty.

I'll admit it's a little strange to hear Catherine Duke with a new accent.

Missed the first, but wound up watching the second anyway...good stuff, most of it was excellent...but some flashes of self-righteous didacticism were off-putting as hell. It's nothing new - it was there in The Wire - but this time around it wasn't so palatable. To be fair, there's a lot to be genuinely pissed off about when it comes to NOLA, but it works better when he tempers that anger with wry humor or just plain sadness, not when it comes pouring out of a cranky mouthpiece.

Last night's ep was the first that really kicks in the gut. Ending was classic, I'm-fed-up-with-this-goddamned-world David Simon.

The show is sure putting NOPD in a worse light than usual, which I wouldn't have thought possible.

I was watching the third episode, and my roommate stopped in the room to watch a bit of it. He was definitely intrigued and, after a few minutes, asked "What's it about?"

I responded generically, annoyed, with "Post Katrina New Orleans."

He was like, "Yeah, I got that, but what's it about? Like what's the point?"

Is there an answer to that?

I worry that the fact that there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut response to that question might turn some casual observers like my roommate off.

It would be a damn shame if that were the case.

show actively deflects casual observers. check the last scene of last week. be lukewarm and it'll spit ye out.

same with The Wire. and probably any Milch show as well.

Loved last week's episode.

Pretty much in love with every single character. Loved Goodman's youtube rant, Zahn's rap, Batiste's dentist appointment, dutch dude's moment in the spot light... just chock full of great characters/scenes.

I'm obsessed.

Ditto. Hard to really talk about this show too much cause so much of it is so good and it'd just devolve into lists of details and character beats.

"I gotta crack in my wall upstairs needing tending to."

"Well, I could maybe take a look at that for you later."

Smooth.

Antoine's wife: You come home smelling like cigarettes and pussy.
Antione: That ain't pussy
Well what is it then if it ain't pussy
Barbecue.
Barbecue?
Kermit's barbecue.
Kermit's barbecue tastes right, but not that right.
Antione: I dunno, some people swear by it.

^ That ep was the last I've seen, and have resorted to reading Alan Sepinwall's excellent blog on the subject. Alan also turned me on to Treme explained, just as interesting a blog in its own right.

This last ep was the most joyous and forlorn shit. Don't really understand where the show is heading, plot-wise, but I don't really care when the details are this perfect. Simon could spend an episode just running single camera around a night club and I'd be more than happy.

Is anyone else doing what I'm doing and saving the shows and not watching them until the whole season's done?

I don't think I can watch this week-to-week and have to wait seven days for the next episode. I sure as hell couldn't do it with The Wire

I was thinking that at the end of tonight's episode, that I wish I could just put the next one on right away like I was able to do with all of The Wire. If I had any patience at all, I might save the shows til they're all out, but I'm loving it too much.

Lots of good stuff this last episode. The parade, the Japanese jazz fan, the chefs at the restaurant, pissed-off Freamon, Zahn getting a little too overzealous at the bar. Not concerned about any overarching plot, or if the show is really going anywhere at all. I'm just enjoying watching these characters exist and get by. The violinist needs to ditch her boyfriend, by the way. Dude's a loser. Only complaint about the episode is with Zahn's vocals on "Shame, Shame, Shame." Seemed pretty weak among all those wonderful instruments.