Top products from r/TheWire
We found 39 product mentions on r/TheWire. We ranked the 45 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
1. Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Sentiment score: 2
Number of reviews: 4
Holt McDougal
2. Grace After Midnight: A Memoir
Sentiment score: 2
Number of reviews: 3
Grand Central Publishing
3. The Wire: The Complete Series
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 3
Factory sealed DVD
4. The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
Sentiment score: 2
Number of reviews: 3
5. Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Ma d Men and Breaking Bad
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 2
Used Book in Good Condition
6. Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Ice Man, Captain America, and the New Face of American War
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 2
12. The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Continuum
13. The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
14. "Getting Paid": Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City (The Anthropology of Contemporary Issues)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
15. Show Me A Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Back Bay Books
16. Exploding Kittens Card Game - Family-Friendly Party Games - Card Games For Adults, Teens & Kids
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Exploding kittens is the perfect card game for adults, teens and kids who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats.More than 9 million copies sold, breaking records in kids games, adult games and everything in-between.A highly strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian ro...
17. The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
18. Running the Table: The Legend of Kid Delicious, the Last Great American Pool Hustler
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
I'm glad you found the above useful, even though most of it is really peripheral to the international influence of The Wire. You may need to look into European TV critics' evaluation of the show, if only to get a sense of whether it was even on their radar at the time. The show had a devoted fanbase here in The US, but it was never a particularly large one. Overseas, I can imagine other American shows—even serialized, prestige dramas—would have gotten a lot more attention. You may have to hunt for references there to the show.
There are some other TV shows and movies worth reviewing; though they predated The Wire, they echo many of the same arguments. The 1989 miniseries Traffik immediately comes to mind, as well as its adaptation into Stephen Soderbergh's 2000 Oscar-winning movie Traffic. Oh, and there's also The Corner, HBO's miniseries adaptation of the book The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon and Ed Burns. Of these, Traffik almost certainly had the highest profile in Europe. And again, all of these projects predated The Wire.
Oh, and this is a bit indirect, but I think that the way a show like The Wire demands long-term attention to something people either thought they understood or never cared about in the first place informs some of the "deep-dive" segments of something like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Most of those 10–20+ minute segments are available (with minor edits for language) on the show's YouTube page. Some of the topics also seem right at home in the context of ethos of The Wire: consider in particular segments on the wealth gap, prison, police militarization, civil asset forfeiture, municipal violations, standardized testing, bail, mandatory minimums, public defenders, prisoner re-entry, journalism, police accountability, and school segregation, among others.
On a related note, I think The Wire was effective at making you identify with criminals who aren't simply antiheroes like Tony Soprano or Walter White. I see echoes of this empathy for people who've done terrible things in shows like, say, Rectify. Maybe I'm just more attuned to notice that after having seen The Wire, but it still strikes me as one of the best examples of humanizing criminals without glamorizing crime itself. You see a bit more of this in some journalism, like that by VICE. Their TV channel VICELAND recently showed the news/real-life series Black Market with Michael K. Williams, the host of which you'll recognize from playing Omar. I'm sure it would be easy to overstate how much The Wire in particular is relevant to this, but I do think it showed that there's an audience for stories about the lives of people often ignored in or underserved by news or entertainment. And for The Wire itself, it's worth noting that the show cast Baltimore natives who'd never acted before. Among many examples are Felicia "Snoop" Pearson and Melvin Williams, a real-life drug dealer targeted by Ed Burns when he was a cop, who played the deacon.
If you're looking for international reaction elsewhere, I don't know what might be the most natural examples of influence might be. Netflix's Narcos, shot and set mostly in Colombia, is certainly "international", but that show's goals are very different from those of The Wire.
Oh, one other thing comes to mind, though it's not really influenced by The Wire so much as something whose rationale can be better appreciated after having seen the show. Namely, in 2001, Portugal widely decriminalized drug use, and there've been a lot of very positive effects attributed to this policy change. Imagine something like Hamsterdam done on a nationwide scale, but without the need for implementing the policy surreptitiously.
This sounds like quite an ambitious project. Best of luck!
Neat! Here's a link to the book she mentions. Seems like it'll be an interesting read. Reviews look pretty good!
There was an interview with one of the sound mixers who worked on the show in this book.
They worked extensively not just on making sure dialogue was crisp and clear but the background sounds told a story as well. The example she used was McNulty going on his drunken late night excursions to Rhonda Perlman's house for booty calls and would set the neighborhood dogs barking. When he's acting like a dog, the dogs respond. They had a bit of fun with it.
Try Snitch or Wised Up, both pretty good.
http://www.amazon.com/Snitch-Informants-Cooperators-Corruption-Justice/dp/B001G7RCXE
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0786016221
OK... I'm reading "The Wire - Truth Be Told" which is the official HBO guide to the entire series. I've skipped to the end (page 490) and it says:
>"Though he loses the job he both loves and hates, McNulty ends the series with his relationships and friendships intact, alive at his own wake, saluted by his fellow cops, even his longstanding nemesis Jay Landsman."
relevant ;-)
I've been having a lot of fun playing the card game "Exploding Kittens". I can't stand how "internet-y" the design and humor is, so I decided to re-skin it for my personal use. There's 40 unique characters in the deck! Since I don't have any kind of copyright to the game or the art, I'm not going to distribute the files I designed, but still thought you all would find it cool.
http://www.amazon.com/Search-Respect-Structural-Analysis-Sciences/dp/0521017114/ref=la_B001IGHNIW_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368699663&sr=1-1 this is a VERY intresting book about an anthropologist who studied crack dealers, its pretty cool.
Have you read Snoop's Grace After Midnight?. Pretty cool memoir too, although I don't know how it stacks up with Simon's books. I'll have to check out those two and report back.
[Link to book] (http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Paid-Anthropology-Contemporary-Issues/dp/0801495989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369931821&sr=8-1&keywords=getting+paid) for others but also because it sounds very interesting and I don't want to forget about it.
David Simon's "Homicide" is a great read too http://www.amazon.com/Homicide-A-Year-Killing-Streets/dp/0805080759
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wire-Complete-Series/dp/B005NFJAWG/ says "Bonus features from all five seasons, including audio commentaries by cast and crew".
I'm not quite old enough to know much about it, but the term "pool circuit" has to do with gambling on billiards games, more specifically, the route of travel from pool hall to pool hall one goes on while being a "pool hustler," akin to musicians "going on tour" to play a series of venues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0sKSg752-g
https://i.imgur.com/rEKORzS.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qMUfIZJ.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCgzh3xp3g
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/running-the-table-l-jon-wertheim/1008545197
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Table-Delicious-American-Hustler/dp/0547086121
I'd also like to know if this release of it on Amazon is widescreen…can't really tell from the product notes, which say: "Multiple Formats, AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled; Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1"
Yep exact same. Did you read Brett Martin's 'Difficult Men' by any chance? Its a book on the golden era of tv and covers the Wire very well.
http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/1594204195
The Last Shot by Darcy Frey reminded me a lot of Season 4. It's a true story that follows 4 NYC high school basketball players in the mid 1990s, trying to make it out of the neighborhood. Very well-written and thought-provoking, especially with the epilogue that came 10 years later.
This one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Wire-Truth-be-Told/dp/1847675999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370460110&sr=8-1&keywords=the+wire+truth+be+told
That's all Simon wrote about Marlo, but I'd def recommend the book for all fans of The Wire.
Edit: And if you're not convinced, there's a 13 page interview (or rather a discussion) between David Simon, Ed Burns and Melvin Williams where they talk about Melvin's years as a drug kingpin, how we got caught by Ed Burns using a wiretap and how the game has changed. Essential stuff, really.
And then The Corner. Prepare to have your heart broken though.
http://www.amazon.com/Wire-Complete-Michael-Williams/dp/B005NFJAWG/ref=sr_tr_sr_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1354663347&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wire
This is the one I got but it was only 80 when I got it.
Ghettoheat. Customers who viewed this also viewed The Wire, and The Avon Barksdale Story.
Requisite, The book is amazing.
Grace After Midnight, apparently.
How about the book The Wire is based on?
According to Williams in "All the Pieces Matter," he didn't know Landsman was a real person until after filming a few episodes. When the real Landsman saw Williams, he immediately went on a diet.
The Corner
Book: "Truth To Be Told"
Book: "The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television"
Video: "Style in the Wire"
As I say most times I hear a question about the background to The Wire and it's various characters: Homicide: A Year on The Killing Streets by David Simon holds all the answers, and is an absolutely fantastic read.
A novel he wrote whilst in prison apparently.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wolf-Trap-Dennis-Wise/dp/0975393820
EDIT: and another - http://www.amazon.com/In-Guns-Trust-Dennis-Wise/dp/1424329566/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1
Ray Winstone was a top choice for McNulty along with Reilly. They also had John Hurt, Tate Donovan, Donnie Wahlberg, Guy Pierce, Josh Brolin, Tom Sizemore, Viggo Mortensen, Liev Schreiber, and David Morse lined up to play McNulty.
All of this is from Difficult Men. http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/1594204195