I wish TCM was one of my standard digital channels.

I wish TCM was one of my standard digital channels.

You can come over for Simone Signoret night.

(Including a previously unsuspected Barry Lyndon fandom contingent.)

How could anyone read this thread and not know that Jessica has an unhealthly love of that movie?

How could anyone read this thread and not know that Jessica has an unhealthly love of that movie?

She doesn't make up a contingent by herself!

She doesn't make up a contingent by herself!

Yes, but she is President, CEO, and Marketing Manager of it.

megan, I've got the complete Wire and you're welcome to borrow it.

I will do this at some point I'm sure, but that's a lot of episodes.

I will do this at some point I'm sure, but that's a lot of episodes.

You only have to start with the first season!

"The more you know about insects, the harder it is to believe in a rational god."

I don't see that as nihilism, though. Could be simple atheism, gnosticism, or any number of thought systems that don't rest on meaninglessness. I mean, I can think that evolution is cruel and often leads to absurd results and/or I can think that evolution is beautiful in its ornate pointlessness, but what I think about evolution doesn't say much about how much I love my kids, y'know.

I think it's a fairly simple proposition, and I think many people have had the kind of life experience that supports that conclusion.

I dunno. Seems to me that any nihilist worth his or her (but probably his, for the same reason that your typical libertarian is a he) salt would be an agent of mass mayhem with a short and unhappy life. But I would wager that anyone who would identify themselves as a nihilist is both fairly well-educated and somewhat deluded. And would undoubtedly do quite a bit to avoid unnecessary physical pain and/or death, neither of which should hold any meaning for the Platonic nihilist.

Bringing this back around to my criticism of Danny Boyle and Chuck Palahniuk, their protagonists (in the movies I was criticizing, at least) don't strike me as the terrifying sort of agent-of-destruction nihilist (say, Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men [I almost wrote "County" there, which would be quite a different movie]) but the I-just-discovered-Nietzche-and-don't-really-understand-him sort of privileged nihilist who was common in Philosophy 101 classes.

You only have to start with the first season!

::laughs the laugh of a Wirefiend who knows exactly what kind of crack java is peddling::

I almost wrote "County" there, which would be quite a different movie

Maybe an even better movie!

I wonder what county would work, though.

Megan, they really are separate stories...there are little callbacks throughout for geeks that like that kind of thing, but some of my friends have found The Wire's pacing like waiting for paint to dry.ETA: Hec is quite right. Every dealer knows to make the first hit free.