LGM Film Club, Part 260: Show Me a Hero

Tonight starts the new David Simon HBO series, We Own this City, in which he returns to Baltimore to deal directly with police violence. Obviously everyone is going to compare this to The Wire and it is not going to be The Wire. For one thing, it’s only a few episodes; for another, nothing can ever compare to the greatest television show ever created. Not even Simon. But Simon’s other projects are often quite good. Although I was a bit mixed on Treme (some great parts but some uninteresting characters, plus the whole restaurant in New York season which was somehow worse than The Wire’s season 5 material on the newspaper business), I wholeheartedly endorse Show Me a Hero, which is just a fantastic look at desegregation and white backlash politics in Yonkers, New York. If you haven’t seen this, you need to see it. So after you watch the first episode of We Own this City tonight, go back and check out Show Me a Hero. Here’s a couple clips: