I highly suggest that you try The Wire again. There are so many impactful themes that explain some of the divisiveness of present day America.
Movies, books, tv
- Thread starter zeke4ahs
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I highly suggest that you try The Wire again. There are so many impactful themes that explain some of the divisiveness of present day America.
Honestly. That’s why it is my favorite show by a zillion times over. So many themes that are maybe even more timely than they were when it was written. Season 2 was my least favorite, but boy did it make you feel the loss of those type of jobs and families who counted on them always being there. And if Season 4 doesn’t help you understand what some of our kids go through and what they can’t picture another life beyond their neighborhoods, I don’t know what does. The only show I watch over and over and never gets old. And Idris isn’t bad to look at helps....
For some reason the characters did not reach me, I was not engaged with their success or failure. I will try it again after GoT and Bosch, maybe I was just in a bad mood the time I tried.
I’ve probably told you this before, but I read a recap by Alan Sepinwell after each episode because there were so many characters and it took awhile to get all the dialect. If I need to conjure up tears about anything, I think of some of those characters and what happened to them. One of the things I love bed was that they showed everyone as flawed. The cops were good and bad, the drug dealers were good and bad, some characters that you hated, you end up crying when they died. I though I’d never forgive Brodie for what he did. And then I did. I’m thinking you made it halfway through a season. Try to make it through the whole season, but then if you don’t, it’s not for you. The end of that first season is as nervous as I’ve ever been for characters on a tv show or in a movie, I was that involved. And it broke my heart every single season. It’s not for everyone. Some things resonate and some just don’t.
It took me a long while to finally get into it. I tried 3 or 4 times before sticking with it. I don't see it as a cop show. It's a show about how a city works at all levels. From the street all the way to City Hall and the mayor.
It's as relevant today as when it was made. And a reason it is considered by some as the best TV show in history.
I was hooked from this very first scene:
McNulty: Let me understand. Every Friday night, you and your boys are shooting craps. And every Friday night , your pal, Snot Boogie, he’s wait til there’s cash on the ground, and he’d grab it and run away. You’d let him do that?
Kid on stoop:We’d catch him and beat his ass, but ain’t nobody go past that.
McNulty: I gotta ask ya, If every time Snotboogie would grab the money and run away, why’d you even let him in the game?
Kid: What?
McNulty: If Snotboogie always stoke the money, why’d you let him play?
Kid: Got to. This is America, man!
Love this.
McNulty: Let me understand. Every Friday night, you and your boys are shooting craps. And every Friday night , your pal, Snot Boogie, he’s wait til there’s cash on the ground, and he’d grab it and run away. You’d let him do that?
Kid on stoop:We’d catch him and beat his ass, but ain’t nobody go past that.
McNulty: I gotta ask ya, If every time Snotboogie would grab the money and run away, why’d you even let him in the game?
Kid: What?
McNulty: If Snotboogie always stoke the money, why’d you let him play?
Kid: Got to. This is America, man!
Love this.
Comedy is highly reflective of culture.
Americans are known generally to have a lower brow sense of humour. My theory on this is because its based on the lowest common denominator -- need to branch across various regions, (previous) ethnic groups and the fact that folks move around a lot within the States every few years. A one size fits all solution. And the fact that there is one monolithic America culture that exists -- ok, depending on your prism, a small variance can appear to be massive but in the scheme of things, there is very little variance. (Economically, there is huge and getting larger variance but that's another subject matter.)
A country as small as the UK, there is a tremendous variance in culture and regionalised accents/dialects -- more than the US combined into a country the size of Illinois (?)
From the Scots to the Geordies to the Scousers to Brummies to Cockneys etc. (In China the dialects are literally different languages where a person from Canton province, speaking Cantonese will not be able to understand a person from Xiamen, a provincial city next door at all.)
As a much older nation, the UK had a better acceptance of variance and 'diversity' of the various 'cultures' --- and thus accepting that there isn't a one size fits all solution.
You have TV shows that reflect the various sub-stratification of sub-cultures like The Catherine Tate Show (regionalisation) to Little Britain (economic stratification) to (my fav) The Inbetweeners (a combo.)
They are fantastic (comedy) shows but a bit parochial for the American eyes/ears as it will require some cultural back story.
Non-comedy shows like Peaky Blinders are easier to jump the pond as they have a lot thematically in common which Americans can relate to -- though to be pedantic, I find the accents in a Birmingham (ie Brummie accent) to be annoying as they are very poor imitations of it.
Edit:
The fact that American TV or movies have a lower base also explains why Hollywood is more successful than say the French, German or Spanish shows. They are based on the lowest common denominator and not some regionalised high brow culture. But unfortunately, they are also highly formulated.
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Didn't see if this was addressed, but is anyone else looking forward to the Catch-22 series on Hulu coming out this month?
I am so looking forward to it. I never was satisfied with the movie. I am hoping this series plays out better.
GOT is the only show I’ve watched this year. I pretty much gave up on TV. Too many options makes my brain overheat. I’d rather sit with a book, listen to music, a podcast, play with the kids, have sex with the wife.
The wife just finished Sapiens and Homo Deus so I’m about to start reading those.
As for music been listening to a lot of Lukas Nelson, Josh Ritter, Tedeschi/Trucks, Alejandro Escoveda, Prine, Margo Price and Langhorne Slim.
Most of my podcasts you guys probably wouldn’t have an interest in unless you’re Jewish. I listen to a lot of stuff that tries to reimagine would American Judaism should and will look like for the next 100 years.
Basically I’ve lost faith in Jewish institutions and their ability to connect with the non-orthodox crowd.
The wife just finished Sapiens and Homo Deus so I’m about to start reading those.
As for music been listening to a lot of Lukas Nelson, Josh Ritter, Tedeschi/Trucks, Alejandro Escoveda, Prine, Margo Price and Langhorne Slim.
Most of my podcasts you guys probably wouldn’t have an interest in unless you’re Jewish. I listen to a lot of stuff that tries to reimagine would American Judaism should and will look like for the next 100 years.
Basically I’ve lost faith in Jewish institutions and their ability to connect with the non-orthodox crowd.
Interesting. Can you expand on this and why you feel secular Judaism is different than other religions?
Ok, I'll take a stab at this. First off I'm not sure I can compare the problems with Judaism to issues that other religions may be having other than I've been told attendance is down across the board. Millenialls tend to be the punching bag lately in that they don't like membership. Perhaps there's truth there, but I've gotta think the problems are much deeper under the surface and maybe they're the first group to have the courage to say institutional religion is bullshit. Mind you I'm not saying they're rejecting religion, but just the way it's being presented to them.
Now back to Judaism, there's a lot of anxiety amongst some that there's mass assimilation and intermarriage and those are the biggest problems Judaism has to face. I'm calling bullshit on this. I think Judaism, specifically in America is simply in transition. Jews from Eastern Europe (Ashkenazic) are experiencing a totally different life since immigrating to the US. Those who left Europe before WWII dealt with extreme anti-semitism, pogroms and had to rely upon the temple community for survival. They moved to the US not just for religious freedom, but to have better lives. Obviously the Holocaust is the single greatest tragedy the Jews have faced in our generation and led the majority of Jews left to immigrate to the US, the newly created state of Israel or disperse around the diaspora. So as a people we've been on the move the last 100 years.
What does this mean? Well in the US our people are finally at a point where they don't need the temple anymore for survival. Jews can now have any job, join non-Jewish country clubs, date or marry non-Jews, be admitted to practically any school. This is fantastic as we've been accepted into the fabric of America. It took some time, but clearly progress was made. The downside is the non-orthodox who no longer feel they need to be part of the Jewish community to meet all their needs. For example you can look at Maslow's pyramid of needs and say the Jews in America have now met the most basic of needs such as food and shelter, moved onto Security needs such as personal, emotional and health, and most recently obtained a need for social belonging. These needs weren't always guaranteed when living in Europe and certainly not during WWII. The next need on the pyramid is that of self-esteem. I suppose some of that may come from how well our people have done in business, medicine, science and across all academics as well as influence in politics and entertainment. You could call this power, but on a personal level its recognition which affects ones self-esteem.
This is where I'll pause when it comes to Maslow's hierarchy of needs because the next one is self-actualization which is where I think Jews are struggling (and perhaps non-Jews as well).
So, let me move back to the Holocaust and attempt to tie some of these pieces together. I think post Holocaust non-orthodox Jews have being dealing with G-d issues. For example the most obvious is, if we are G-d's chosen people why would he let this happen to us?" It seems like a legitimate question. Did G-d turn his back on us or is there something deeper at play?
For those that attend synagogue, and I belong to two different congregations, this is what I can tell you about how we worship. We gather, we say lots of traditional prayers (some in Hebrew, some English, some both), we in a sense bend the knee to G-d, thank him for his creations, read from the Torah (the biblical story), celebrate life-cycle events, remember the dead, sing songs (this varies depending upon the level of tradition) and afterwards usually gather for drinks and food. I'm sure I left out much but I want to give you an idea of what happens at temple. What doesn't occur is the questioning of G-d's power. I don't feel our Jewish institutions have adequately addressed this question. We ask Jews to come to services, bend the knee and recite many prayers in Hebrew that most people have no idea what they're saying. I have a problem with this. The other issue I have with synagogues and the Rabbi's is I feel they do a poor job of making religion relevant to people's daily lives. Because of something we call "Jewish Guilt", many Jews join temples merely becuase their parents and grandparents tell them they should and it's important for the surival of our people. To me this is just modern tribalism. What we have now is a lot of bad faith, we have people supporting things that aren't even working for them becasue they're so freaked out that Judaism won't last unless they belong to the temple, marry another Jew or say prayers they no longer even believe. We're so obsessed with preservation, we've stopped trusting our own experience at synagogue which really isn't all that good.
One of my favorite Rabbi's and thinkers, Irwin Kula, says "Religion is a technology of human flourishing." So I ask the question is religion helping us flourish? Are our lives measurably better because we're Jews and attending synagogue. When 90% of members don't even like attending services I would say no. I would say half the members have one foot in and one foot out. As Jewish guilt loosens it's grip you will continue to see members leave the synagogue. So I sit on the board of my conservative synagoue and I can tell you the conversations are usually about how do we attract more members. Our finances are so bad right now we can barely afford the building. I know we're not alone here either. So the conversation usually turns to either we need to raise dues or get more members. It's my opinion we need radical change and innovate and reimagine Jewish practice. Whatever we're doing inside the synagogue simply isn't working.
Do I have the answers? Hell no, but I'm no longer going to sit and pretend that preserving all traditions is the way to go. Some need to be left behind as we find new ways to practice our religion and flourish as Jews.
I'm sorry for rambling on, but this isn't easy stuff we're talking about but I'll leave you with the following. I'm not convinced to be a modern Jew you even have to believe in G-d. In fact I highly doubt G-d (if you believe in him) is sitting upstairs thinking my number one goal is for everyone to worship me and bend the knee) . I think G-d is hidden but present and his number one goal is for us to preserve and perfect the world he's given us. That includes taking care of all the creatures and the earth. You don't even have to believe in G-d to share these same goals.
On a personal level I feel my job is to help plant these seeds of change, not for the preservation of Judaism but to help people live better more flourishing lives.
Did anyone else finish Bosch? I was a bit disappointed. It was good, but Bosch has had a movie made about one of his cases and been in other very high profile cases. No way they let him go undercover.
I haven't finished either the books or the shows, even though I've done a lot of both, because writers of serials are like dying pets -- when the loved ones think it's time, the time is actually past.
I am finishing a ww1 book called Storm of Steel. The book is ok, it is a first person narrative. The author believes in being dispassionate, so a whole lot of people die in very gruesome ways, dispassionately.
What is interesting is the author, Ernst Junger. He was some version of Germany's sergeant York and Audi Murphy. Before the war he ran away and joined the French Foreign Legion. It was illegal in Germany to do that, so the German government greatly pressured France to kick him out. The French did.
He served from about October 14 until the end against the British. For most of the time, he was in recon. He would dispassionately lead men out into no man's land. Things often went very badly. He tells the story of being behind the lines when a gas attack happened. He knew that was a prelude to an infantry attack, put on his mask and ran toward the lines. The mask was hot, impossible to see out of, and he could not get the amount of oxygen he needed, so he ripped off his mask and ran to the front hoping he could hold his breath long enough.
But it was after the war that is interesting. He was a huge hero, with the death of the Red Baron he became the biggest hero. He was very pro military, and a conservative German nationalist. Needless to say, he was a Nazi.
Except he hated the Nazis. They offered him numerous jobs, he turned them down. In 1939 he wrote a novel that was anti Nazi. It was allegorical, which saved his life. The Nazis decided to tell everyone it was anti communist and made it required reading.
His hatred of Nazism was simple, he firmly believed it was the moral duty of the powerful to defend the week. His relationship with the Belgian civilians in his 1922 book makes it clear.
He served as a captain in Paris. For much of the war he held lunches with French intellectuals and artists. It stopped when the underground warned these people their lives would be forfeit if they continued. This upset Junger, he did not understand why they had to be enemies.
He was friends with all the people in Operation Valkyrie, and knew the details. He refused to take part. The Nazis again backed down on executing him, but he was discharged.
After the war, he was barred from public involvement in politics or in publishing a book. Since the Nazis never killed him, the government felt he had to be a Nazi. Papers would be found showing he saved Jews, so he was reinstated.
He really did love the people he met from Belgium, France, UK, and especially America. But he believed any version of democracy was damned.
Anyway, a long post but I found him an interesting historical figure.
One thing he is clear about in his book, surviving a war is a whole lot of luck. He has numerous stories of "if I were 5 feet farther down the path...".
What is interesting is the author, Ernst Junger. He was some version of Germany's sergeant York and Audi Murphy. Before the war he ran away and joined the French Foreign Legion. It was illegal in Germany to do that, so the German government greatly pressured France to kick him out. The French did.
He served from about October 14 until the end against the British. For most of the time, he was in recon. He would dispassionately lead men out into no man's land. Things often went very badly. He tells the story of being behind the lines when a gas attack happened. He knew that was a prelude to an infantry attack, put on his mask and ran toward the lines. The mask was hot, impossible to see out of, and he could not get the amount of oxygen he needed, so he ripped off his mask and ran to the front hoping he could hold his breath long enough.
But it was after the war that is interesting. He was a huge hero, with the death of the Red Baron he became the biggest hero. He was very pro military, and a conservative German nationalist. Needless to say, he was a Nazi.
Except he hated the Nazis. They offered him numerous jobs, he turned them down. In 1939 he wrote a novel that was anti Nazi. It was allegorical, which saved his life. The Nazis decided to tell everyone it was anti communist and made it required reading.
His hatred of Nazism was simple, he firmly believed it was the moral duty of the powerful to defend the week. His relationship with the Belgian civilians in his 1922 book makes it clear.
He served as a captain in Paris. For much of the war he held lunches with French intellectuals and artists. It stopped when the underground warned these people their lives would be forfeit if they continued. This upset Junger, he did not understand why they had to be enemies.
He was friends with all the people in Operation Valkyrie, and knew the details. He refused to take part. The Nazis again backed down on executing him, but he was discharged.
After the war, he was barred from public involvement in politics or in publishing a book. Since the Nazis never killed him, the government felt he had to be a Nazi. Papers would be found showing he saved Jews, so he was reinstated.
He really did love the people he met from Belgium, France, UK, and especially America. But he believed any version of democracy was damned.
Anyway, a long post but I found him an interesting historical figure.
One thing he is clear about in his book, surviving a war is a whole lot of luck. He has numerous stories of "if I were 5 feet farther down the path...".
We watched 2 episodes today. I am still on the fence.
I am 4 episodes in on Catch 22. That book is impossible to convert and the series proves it.
O Mecanismo Season 2 is out.
Based on an on-going investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash
Based on an on-going investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash
Sorry Eppy... I've been waiting to give you a response to this post that you deserve. Just taking some time to compose my thoughts and think about it.
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
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It’s the greatest American novel ever written. Period.
Thinking, is important, more people should try it. Listening and not just hearing is equally as important.
To tie this to the thread, the book Hillbilly Elegy reminded me i need to do a better job of listening to people I don’t understand and have never walked a day in their shoes and to people I disagree with.
I completely agree with that, I love the novel. The problem is the novel is too novel of a concept for film. I would like Catch-22 the series if it were called something else. It is good, I get what they are doing. It just isn't close to the book which leaves disappointment. They had to make too many sacrifices.
The Modern Library has it at “only” number seven, but it’s amazingly good. One of my favorite books.
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
Then it must not be that good.
The only way a book can be truly good is if it's not ranked in the top 10. Once it moves into the top 10, that's evidence it really isn't worth reading.
I'll see myself out...
Ah, to be pedantic to win Goat's approval, he did say American novel. I think only Gatsby would be ahead of it and fit that category so Catch would be 2nd.
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
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That list was throwing me off, not finding any of the great Russian novels of the 19th century. Reading through it, the list is only considering 1900 and beyond. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol etc are pretty tough to beat.
Is Faulkner not an American?
I’ve read 26 of the books on the list, but most of them so many years ago I don’t remember all the plots. I’d like to read some again and some I haven’t read, but if I do that I’m worried I’ll become a moonbat liberal. . .
I hate to break it to you, but you, Will, and Kristol are all moonbat liberal to many Trumpublicans.
Unfortunately, you might be right. Don’t get your hopes up, I’m not voting for moonbat Democrats. There are two or three Democrats running for President that I can vote for. They aren’t the “free stuff” candidates.
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anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
What do you think of Howard Schultz? I’ve tried to pay attention to him but he seems to be way off the radar now. There are 2 Dems who could cause me to think about voting Dem. I don’t think either has a chance.
