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Post by yankee on Feb 12, 2020 20:58:06 GMT
Has anyone else watched this? I googled and see it aired on Sky over your side of the pond.
Its a brilliant HBO series that starred James Franco as twin brothers (one kinda good, one kinda bad)
It was created by David Simon who also created "The Wire" and it has the same feel and a few familiar faces from The Wire.
The series encompasses 25 episodes spread out over 3 seasons and follows the lives of a group of characters (cops, mobsters, pimps, prostitutes, porn industry workers, barflies, politicians, social workers) who inhabited Times Square in New York in the 1970s and 80s when it was a really dirty and seedy toilet, not the pristine, super clean and crime free, high end tourist destination it is today. It follows them over a span of 15 years with real life events providing a backdrop. Street prostitution being replaced by massage parlors, the legalization of pornographic movies, the invention of VCRs creating a billion dollar porn industry, the AIDs crisis, disco, cocaine, punk rock, the gay movement after Stonewall, etc.
Series 1 begins in 1971 Series 2 begins in 1977 Series 3 begins in 1984 The final episode is an epilogue set in 2019
The series stars Franco, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lawrence Gilliard Jr. (The Wire), Chris Bauer (The Wire), Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid), Michael Rispoli (Sopranos) and a lot of new faces which add authenticity to them being the street people they portray.
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Post by Miranda on Feb 12, 2020 21:51:22 GMT
No, I've never heard of it. Sounds my kind of thing cos I loved The Wire. But then HBO isn't FTA over here.
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Post by yankee on Feb 12, 2020 21:57:14 GMT
It is a LOT like the Wire.
It has that same focus mainly on the street people, who are seen as real, multi-dimensional people who just happen to not follow the rule of law to live their daily lives. The cops characters do play an important role but more a supporting role. And of course quite a few are dirtier crooks than any of the street people.
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Post by Miranda on Feb 12, 2020 22:16:15 GMT
I shall have to keep my fingers crossed it turns up somewhere I can watch it. The only FTA channel Sky have is Pick but I can't watch that cos my aerial is knackered so I can only watch streaming services and Pick isn't one.
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Post by yankee on Feb 12, 2020 23:16:57 GMT
Even the opening credits are reminiscent of The Wire.
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Post by thecleaner on Feb 13, 2020 8:04:17 GMT
Just about remember watching the first season on Sky Atlantic, I really enjoyed it - but why I haven’t seen the other seasons, l don’t know.....going to see if I still can catchup on ‘box sets’ later.
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Post by thecleaner on Feb 13, 2020 10:13:00 GMT
Sky On Demand still have seasons 2 & 3.
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Post by geometryman on Feb 13, 2020 10:31:05 GMT
I watched all 3 seasons and thought it was excellent.
Very "brave" performances from Maggie Gyllenhaal and all the women.
The finale's ending was quite moving, brief reminders of all the characters who had come and gone over the years.
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Post by yankee on Feb 13, 2020 14:59:04 GMT
Like The Wire where you felt quite sympathetic to heroin dealers, its a special series that can make you feel sympathetic to street pimps. The series presents these men as charismatic but also quite exploitive and abusive of their stable of women if they fail to "Bring me my money!" even if it means these young women have to work 16 hour days in the pouring rain, in high heels, hot pants and a halter top.
The women are presented as quite real. This is not Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman". Yes some of them are rather beautiful and dress sexy. But others are quite plain, obese, missing teeth, wearing whatever they found to put on that morning, but they work just as hard. And even the beautiful ones have that haunted look in their eye and often are showing with healing black eyes, split lips, bruises and various cuts and abrasions.
But you feel for the pimps even still as you see "their world" crumbling down around them when the women are courted away by first the mob backed massage parlors and later the peep show porn industry - both of whom exploit them just as bad, if not worse. What are they supposed to do now, when all they have ever known was being a pimp?
And yes indeed brave performances from the women - who know they are being abused and exploited by both their clients and their bosses - yet, aside from Candy and a few select others - their self-esteem makes them believe they are not capable of breaking away, being independent and they need a pimp, an agent pulling their strings otherwise they are lost.
Then are the cops, the corrupt ones taking their cut to look the other way, the honest ones not being able to do much more than bring the paddy wagon around once or twice a week to collect the street walkers, take them in to the station, feed them Chinese take-away, and release them a few hours later to go right back to work.
The mob, seeing the changing landscape, always thinking ahead of how they can make all of various forms of hedonism on display in Times Square - be it massage parlors, peep shows, films, gay bars, drugs - put money in their pocket.
And then the odd (mostly) honest guy like Vincent, who simply wants to run a bar and make a living, while trying to provide a safe and welcome place for all the street people to sip a beverage and relax a bit without being judged. |
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Anymore to come?
