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Show Me a Hero
2015 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 1 season
Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing to be built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.
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4 comments on Hacker News
I don't watch stuff unless it has ended and is reccomended by someone who watches shows I generally enjoy. Here's my pitch for the golden age of TV, though most of these are from a few years back. Most on HBO.
The Wire
The Sopranos
Generation Kill
The Deuce
Treme
Show me a Hero
Luck
The Expanse
Sillicon Valley (not actually that funny but like a documentary of our field)
Mad Men
I don't think any of those shows are on the same level as the top tier HBO ones. The only show that I think reaches it is Breaking Bad (AMC). I actually think the best netflix ever did was with Bloodline (S1 only). House of Cards, while fun to watch, was quite one dimensional. And HBO deserves a lot of credit for supporting The Wire like it did (despite low viewer counts), and continuing to do so, more recently with Show Me A Hero. Shows that will not be popular for the general market but are good shows with a story worth telling. Quoting The Economist:
And second, because as drama “Show Me a Hero” excels. Younger viewers may find this hard to believe, but once upon a time American studios made films for adults, with nary a dinosaur, superhero or hunger game in sight. Directors such as Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet and Spike Lee dealt with serious moral questions, and made urban realism riveting. Messrs Simon and Zorzi are their successors, but their work is richer, more sophisticated—and better.
Also, check out Show Me a Hero[0] or the HBO miniseries based on it, which is excellent and informative while doing a better job than any book I've read at evoking empathy with people trying to find a better place to live. Although, I'm not sure if it's unfair to the existing homeowners, or if they deserve their portrayal.
[0]: http://www.amazon.com/Show-Me-Hero-Lisa-Belkin/dp/0316088641
There was an interesting book called Life, the Movie written back in the late '90s that argued people were even then already so steeped in entertainment media that they had internalized the mechanics of story and viewed their own lives through them: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Movie-Entertainment-Conquered-Reality/dp/0375706534/
I was reminded of the book and its argument the other day while watching David Simon's HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, so I wrote a blog post about the connection: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2015/08/show-me-a-hero-and-the-limits-of-life-the-movie/