The Descendants

Alexander Payne makes smart movies about people (most often men) who are decidedly unheroic but are, generally speaking, good, even though their actions are often questionable. They do bad things for good reasons. Citizen Ruth, Election and Sideways were modern day morality tales, to my mind, and wonderful ones at that. They are so rich because of the person Payne chose to put at the center of the stories -- Laura Dern, Matthew Broderick and Paul Giamatti, respectively-- all terrific, intelligent performers.

Now there's George Clooney, who pulls on the skin of sad perplexity that is Matthew King, the protagonist in Payne's new film The Descendants. Clooney, individually, and the film, as a whole, have been celebrated as stellar examples of modern cinema and Payne as a true auteur of closely observed American tales. I would agree. What makes Clooney (who is so much more than an A-list movie star -- he's a real, honest-to-gosh actor) so good in the role as a near-widowed father of two unruly girls whose mother lies in a coma is his total immersion into the part. It's not the kind of immersion that requires bucketfuls of makeup (J. Edgar) or histrionics (Young Adult) but rather deep understanding of what's on the mind of a man at his wits' end and who, seemingly, with every additional scene must shoulder another burden.

Clooney's performance is quietly brilliant and deserving of every accolade he's received. His stunning young co-star Shailene Woodley, who plays his foul mouthed and foul tempered older daughter, is a revelation. Bravo, to all parties

The Wire Season 2 Episode 6: All Prologue

The Wire Season 2 Episode 6: All Prologue. This marvelous episode is one of the strongest from the second season because it is loaded with classic moments, from Omar's testimony against the murderous Bird to Greggs' and Prez's visit with a plainspoken stripper. But in this episode viewers also bid farewell to D'Angelo Barksdale. The writers give D'Angelo a strikingly insightful speech toward the end of this episode. It's set in a classroom at the prison where inmates are discussing The Great Gatsby. D'Angelo (played by Larry Gilliard Jr.) shares that a man's character is the sum total of his earlier deeds, the prologue. It's not really about the trappings that he gathers around himself (foreshadowing to a later discover about his nemesis Stringer Bell) but about the man himself, his heart, his soul. It's a perfectly pitched moment that resonates tragically as we watch, stunned, as D'Angelo falls victim to an assassin inside the prison who is hired by Stringer to silence his best friend's nephew, for fear he, D'Angelo, might flip and bring down the Barksdale organization. This episode is terrific from first to last.

The Wire Season 2 Episode 5: Undertow

The Wire Season 2 Episode 5: Undertow. The fine character actor Chris Bauer plays union boss Frank Sobotka, a role that Bauer, who works a lot, has described as one of the greatest characters he's ever played. Most viewers of the second season would agree that Sobotka is a character of nearly Shakespearean complexity. A truly tragic figure, not brought low by hubris, arrogance or greed but by the cosmos or the Fates. Sobotka is a kind and caring, though misguided man, who, not unlike Michael Corleone in Godfather 3, tries to rise above the crime and corruption of the Greek's drug and prostitution trade but is pulled back down, the undertow of this episode's title. And as befits classic tragic figures, Sobotka, a truly good bad man, pays dearly for his actions.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a curious work for me because the wonderfully gritty Swedish version was released just two years ago. Those of us who see a lot of movies might wonder why Fincher felt moved to create what is ostensibly the same film in spoken English and, for the most part, written Swedish. (I would really appreciate Fincher explaining the logic behind that decision. Is this supposed to suggest authenticity? Frankly, it made no sense to me.) But then the answer to the first question lies within the question, I guess. American audiences would not be (have not been) turned on by a subtitles-heavy version of a complex story of murder and intrigue in the Norse lands. Stieg Larsson's "Girl" novels have been devoured globally so getting the most bang out of a film adaptation in Anglophone markets would require no subtitles. I can find little to quibble about with Fincher's telling of the tale of the damaged and damaging computer genius Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) and the discredited investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who are hired to investigate a nearly 50 year old disappearance. Several times I felt like I was watching the touring company of a show I'd already seen on Broadway. That might seem odd considering Craig is such a fine actor and Mara herself is terrific but it just goes back to my opening comment -- Why was the movie made? I'm sure the answer to that question can be found in the Hollywood press but it's not apparent on the screen.

Carnage

Roman Polanski's Carnage, the film adaptation of Yasmina Reza's stage play "God of Carnage," is a feast for movie goers who enjoy watching people behaving badly. The film is a close, economical rendering of Reza's story of a pair of parents meeting in the home of the couple whose 11-year-old son was attacked by a schoolmate, the son of the other couple. Jodi Foster and John C. Reilly are the parents of the "victim," and Cate Winslet and Christoph Waltz are the parents of the child who Waltz early on describes as a "maniac." This character's admission introduces the theme that seems to underlie Reza's cynical treatment of contemporary America -- that entropy many of us feel or observe might be attributed to our general resignation, acceptance, of moral decay as the new world order. The boys' altercation -- which is shown during the opening credits -- isn't actually what this often howlingly funny film is about, a fact that is becomes increasingly apparent the more the couples drink, revealing poorly hidden animosities and disaffection. Polanski's direction of Carnage is sure and clean and the film is entertaining if you enjoy your meat blood red.

The Wire Season 2 Episode 4: Hard Cases

The Wire Season 2 Episode 4: Hard Cases. The Wire never wanders too far from the idea that family is the locus of both solace and disaster. The parasitical Barksdale operation is every bit a crime family as anything in the Mafioso, maybe more so. In Season 2, the show's creators extended their examination of cancerous familial ties to include the dysfunction of the Sobotka stevedores -- misguided but well-meaning Frank, his fiercely loyal nephew Nick and Frank's clown prince of a son, the substantially endowed Ziggy. These men are as toxic to one another as the imprisoned Avon Barksdale is to his nephew D'Angelo, who in Season 2 is doing 20 because of Avon's rash decision to have D'Angelo transport a heroin re-up from New York City to Baltimore. At the end of the first season, D'Angelo was ready to turn the entire kit-and-caboodle of his murderous kin and their hangers-on over to Baltimore's Finest but was dissuaded by his mother Brianna, a fascinating combination of Medea and Calpurnia, who urged him to think of his son, his baby's Mama, and the cousins. It worked. D'Angelo took the 20 but then in Season 2 tells Brianna, Avon and the rest to leave him be. But, tragically, he cannot escape the reach of the family's most treacherous member, Stringer Bell.

We Bought a Zoo

Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo is not so much about acquiring things (the zoo) as it is about letting go (the past). It's the true story of a recent widower, writer Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), and his two children -- Rosie, a precocious 7-year-old (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and Dylan, a darkly cantankerous 14-year-old (Colin Ford) -- who take possession of a small preserve for endangered species near L.A. It was Mee's attempt to find peace for himself and his famiy away from the things he associated with his deceased wife. Daughter Rosie is delighted by the move; Son Dylan, not so much. It's a fairly smart film and is not as much about fish out of water as one might expect. It has bigger notions to ponder, like, what would lead a fish to leave the water in the first place. It's a good movie with some winning performances from Damon, Ford, Scarlett Johansson as the chief zookeeper, and Elle Fanning as her daughter.

Beginners (2010)

Mike Mills's semi-autobiographical film Beginners (2010) is about both change and stasis -- change that is imposed by circumstances and the stasis that results from fear and pain and the fear of pain. Mills tells the story of a septuagenarian father who comes out to his 40-something son and soon after receives a diagnosis of inoperable cancer. The father is played by Christopher Plummer and the son is Ewan McGregor, who are wonderful in this keenly perceived and intimate tale. Mills uses an interesting elliptical style as the story of the father, Hal, taking a younger lover and plunging head first into gay activism intertwines with that of the son, Oliver, falling, hesitantly, for a beautiful and intriguing French actress he meets at a party. The father, though terminally ill, is all youthful abandon while the son is the epitome of caution and dismay. It's a wonderful juxtaposition, and, to Mills's credit the film avoids cliche and jeremiads about destiny and fate and seizing the day. And love, while it doesn't quite triumph, does acquit itself nicely. Beginners is a sweet and tender movie.

The Wire Season 2 Episode 3: Hot Shots

The Wire Season 2 Episode 3: Hot Shots. Stage actor Pablo Schreiber, Lieb Schreiber's younger brother, was a standout in The Wire's second season. As Nick, an under-employed dockworker (there was no other kind in Baltimore) caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Schreiber -- a tall, classically handsome man -- was the most tragic figure in the Sobotka clan because he not only had to witness, helplessly, as his family disintegrated with the killing of his uncle Frank and the imprisonment of his cousin Ziggy because of their involvement with the Greek's murderous brigade -- but he also watched as the only life he'd ever known was dismantled, block by block, brick by brick. In that regard, Nick was not so very different from the crosstown corner boys and drug dealers who he early on disparaged but then later came to emulate. Though the title of this episode refers to a package of spiked dope (hot shots), it could just as easily refer to Nick, who, despite being well over 6 feet tall, desperately wanted to be a bigger man. We were pulling for him and the other men who too often turned to crime to feed their families. (As a side note, Schreiber's superbly contained performance in Season 2 made his co-star, James Ransone's Ziggy, seem clunky and cartoonish in comparison. I will comment in more detail on Ziggy in a later posting.)

The Adventures of Tin-Tin

What to say about Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tin-Tin? I feel the same way about this film as I did about Martin Scorsese's Hugo: A master filmmaker can take technical innovations introduced by lesser lights and show how it's really done. Tin-Tin (a motion-captured feature starring the bodies and voices of Jamie Bell, Andy Sirkis and Daniel Craig) is leagues beyond your run-of-the-mill animated wizardry. Each frame is so richly detailed it is almost an excess of artistry. It was too fabulous. I was put in mind of Stendahl Syndrome, that phenomenon that happens to some folks who visit art museums and are overwhelmed by the beauty. That's how I felt about Tin-Tin, which is based on the classic adventure comics by Belgian artist Georges Remi, who went by Herge. Tin-Tin is a ginger headed reporter who jets around the world with his faithful and equally intrepid terrier Snowy. In the film, Tin-Tin follows clues around the globe (literally) to a pirate's hidden treasure. It's a wildly exhausting ride but, oddly enough, it's so well-crafted it feels more like a masterclass exercise than anything.

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol

I know Brad Bird best as the director of "incredible" animated features -- "Up," "The Iron Giant," "Ratatouille" and, yes, "The Incredibles." His live action feature "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol" is so ceaselessly kinetic it often feels like a cartoon, a mindlessly explosive, edge-of-your-seat, hair-pulling, nail-biting, jaw-dropping adventure with narrow escape piled atop narrow escape. Tom Cruise leads his three black-ops teammates (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner) to retrieve the launch codes for Russian nuclear missiles before uber-baddy Hendricks (Swedish movie star Michael Nyqvist of the original Girl With ... series) vaporizes a U.S. city and starts WWW III. Hokum? Of course, but the action sequences are positively stunning. Despite his legendary fall out with Viacom chief Sumner Redstone, Cruise is all over this film and will certainly be at the helm when the IM team mounts up for the next episode. What a ride!

Young Adult

The wonder of Jason Reitman's Young Adult is Charlize Theron, whose dark, dyspeptic character, juvenile fiction ghost writer Mavis Gary, so nimbly turns audiences verging on pity to deep animosity with a single line of such unimaginable insensitivity that we are left speechless. Kudos to writer Diablo Cody (Juno, United States of Tara) who has rendered yet another richly imagined middle-American dramedy that is squirm-inducing because Mavis's narcissism blinds her to her toxicity. For reasons that are not altogether clear, Mavis gets the notion to leave her Minnesota apartment for her hometown of Mercury once she learns that her high school beau (Patrick Wilson) has just become a father. She's determined to win him back. The results are devastating, and Theron's performance as a woman on the verge of a breakdown is Oscar-caliber. Mavis is a marvelous creation, as is her accidental drinking buddy, one-time hate-crime victim Matt Freehauf (winningly portrayed by Patton Oswalt). They find each other at the bottom of a shot glass into which they crawl to escape their individual pain and loneliness. Cody has written several brilliantly revelatory scenes but the capper, for me, comes near the end and is between Mavis and Matt's sister Sandra (Collette Wolfe), after Mavis and Matt's pity roll in the hay the night before. The scene between the two women will surely be savored by film buffs for years as a model of both screenwriting, film directing and acting as it captures, in five solid minutes, two people having a "heart-to-heart" and mishearing everything the other person is saying. It's amazingly real.

The Nutcracker

The mother of childhood friends Andrew and Victor took the three of us to a performance of the Nutcracker at one of the fine arts theaters in downtown D.C. when I was 7 or 8. Mrs. Mealey loaded us into her huge blue sedan (Buick?) -- at least it seemed huge to me -- and drove us to the show, stopping by her school on the way. That was the first time I'd been in a public school building. I remember her classroom was much more colorful than the austere rooms at St. Benedict's where I went and there were no crucifixes or pictures of the Blessed Virgin on the walls. When we left her school we went to a cafeteria to eat before the show. I might have had a dollar in my pocket but I know she paid. The actual performance of the Nutcracker went by in a blur of color and wonder and menace; I remember vividly a trio of harlequins with hoops. Even though Andrew and Victor and I fought (literally) almost everyday, I really loved their mother and think of her around this time of year. Despite the fixation "grown ups" seem to have on making life complicated maybe it is just that simple -- be kind to people.

The Wire Season 2 Episode 2: Collateral Damage

The Wire Season 2 Episode 2: Collateral Damage. The creators of The Wire wisely invested a lot of emotional capital into the diminutive port officer Beatrice Russell, who finds the bodies of the women being smuggled into the country by the mysterious Greek and his amoral henchmen. She's a terrific small-role but pivotal character in the second season. Russell took the port job because it paid more than toll booth attendant and she needed more dollars to take care of her kids after splitting from her husband. She never really wanted to be poh-leese. From the beginning, we're on her side because, like so many of us, she finds herself in s having to clean up somebody else's mess. She is the collateral damage referred to in the title of this episode. Russell (played by the wonderful actress Amy Ryan) is one of only two absolutely guilelessly charitable characters in the series, the other being the tragic corner boy Wallace from Season 1. Both Beadie Russell and Wallace found themselves swimming in the sewage of the drug trade, unable to fully understand the degree of evil doing business in Baltimore.

The Big Bang Theory

I've been watching the first season of The Big Bang Theory (really, really late to this party, I know) and I can see why the actor Jim Parsons has been feted so mch for his role as super-genius / social-disaster Sheldon Cooper. Actually -- to borrow from the premise of this show about a pair of scarily brilliant young physicists living across the hall from a pretty though under-educated and under-employed waitress -- Parsons character is so heavy and so large, that everyone else in the show is pulled toward him and seem to orbit around him. Parsons talents in both elocution and movement are clearly of the stage -- classical stage at that. He's a joy to watch. Before looking up the skinny on this show I detected a Roseanne-y vibe, and not just because Johnny Gelecki co-stars and Sara Gilbert is a recurring featured player. Like Roseanne, it's a wordy sitcom of interiors about the lives of odd but lovable people.

Melancholia

Lars von Trier's Melancholia is a haunting, disturbing film about the deterioration of the closest of human connections, the familial, and the inevitable collision of lives that have grown too close through steadily declining orbits. Von Trier, who wrote the screenplay, gives the beautifully nuanced relationship between passive-aggressive beauty Justine (a radiant Kirsten Dunst) and martyr-victim plain-Jane sister Claire (the remarkable Charlotte Gainsbourg) an astrological counterpart -- the formerly hidden planet Melancholia (Claire? Justine?) draws perilously close big blue Earth (Justine? Claire?). The combination of these two seemingly incompatible storylines was disconcerting for me at first, but then something clicked. It came when Claire's contemptuous husband John (a wonderful Kiefer Sutherland) confesses to his panicked wife that he was not entirely sure that Melancholia would fly by the Earth and all would be well as he had formerly assured her. This deception capsulizes the lack of trust in their fragile relationship (a dance of death) and, indeed, all of the relationships in this film except that between Justine and her adoring young nephew Leo (Cameron Spurr). In fact, it is that bond that von Trier sears (quite literally) into our brains at film's end. (Warning: If you're prone to motion sickness from viewing handheld camera work, the first half of this film might be tough going for you.)

Arthur Christmas

For holiday family fare, Sarah Smith's Arthur Christmas has some pretty sharp edges, which made it all the more delightful for me but, as with The Muppets and Hugo, will probably bore most youngsters. This animated film is the story of the Claus dynasty of Santas whose gift-delivery operation has evolved into something that is 100 times as intricate as the Pentagon. The film opens with S-1 (Santa 1), an enormous aircraft that resembles the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek and is captained by Santa (Jim Broadbent) on its yearly mission to deliver toys to all 600 million children before sunrise on Christmas. Santa's older son, Steve (voiced by Hugh Laurie), the heir apparent, is in charge of ground-based operations, which includes hundreds upon hundreds of elves in a central command auditorium lifted straight from NASA. Steve's younger brother, Arthur (James McAvoy), is in charge of answering letters. When one particularly deserving girl's gift goes undelivered because of a SNAFU, Arthur and grandfather Claus (Bill Nighy) mount up an old sleigh and eight reindeer to make the special delivery -- but, of course, not without calamity. It is actually the faith and idealism of Arthur and the legion of elves who do the Clauses' bidding that keep Christmas and this movie afloat.

I haven't been able to figure out what movie-makers are doing with children's films. These movies are spectacular to watch (even in 2D) but they have too many moving parts, the characters speak too rapidly and the jokes and sight gags are loaded with cultural references from the Mad magazine school of humor that don't make the kiddies laugh. The screenings of Arthur Christmas, Hugo and The Muppets I went to were all attended by moppets 10 and under and I heard not a peep from any of them. I don't know if kids have changed but the pictures certainly have.

Gaslight

George Cukor's 1944 film Gaslight (Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman) is the only film I'm aware of that coined a psychological term. Sometimes I feel "gaslighting" is another name for American politics. Consider this definition from Urban Dictionary:

"A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse, where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity. The classic example of gaslighting is to switch something around on someone that you know they're sure to notice, but then deny knowing anything about it, and to explain that they 'must be imagining things' when they challenge these changes.

"A more psychological definition of gaslighting is 'an increasing frequency of systematically withholding factual information from, and/or providing false information to, the victim -- having the gradual effect of making them anxious, confused, and less able to trust their own memory and perception."'

Hugo

Martin Scorsese's Hugo is a phenomenal piece of filmaking that comes close to transcending the medium to which it pays such sumptuous homage. Reflecting on it and writing about it is kind of like trying to tell someone why Van Gogh's The Starry Night is a masterpiece. Yes, one could talk about color and brush strokes, but in the end, the work's greatness is intrinsic and beyond itemization. To attempt to do so would be tedious, pedantic and, frankly, insulting to the work.

And, yet, Scorese's Hugo is rich in (1) cinematic ingenuity (his now famous seemingly endless tracking shots have been bested here and the 3D technology is so beyond brilliant it's truly intimidating), (2) narrative intelligence (the film weaves history and fantasy and pathos and comedy seamlessly) and (3) authentic humanity (not an ounce of sticky sentimentality to be found). During the last reel I felt both exhausted and genuinely inspired.

Hugo is the story of a young orphaned French boy (Asa Butterfield) who lives in a train station so that he might tend to the clocks as his uncle had but to do so he must elude the station's gimpy constable (Sasha Baron Cohen). Hugo has inherited his absent father's skills for fixing things (and, yes, indirectly people) even though Hugo himself feels badly in need of mending. The boy fixes a mechanical man that once belonged to the great French filmmaker Georges Melies (played by Ben Kingsley), a pioneer who is clearly a hero of Scorsese's. Therein lies the movie's adventure, a fabulous exploration into dreams and imagination and the nature of family. What an achievement. Oscar contender? Unquestionably.

The Wire Season 2 Episode 1: Ebb Tide

The Wire Season 2 Episode 1: Ebb Tide. When The Wire returned in June 2003 after nearly a year's hiatus, fans were probably nearly starved for more of the same. After all, loose ends had been left dangling at the end of Season 1: Stringer Bell, the second-in-command and brains behind the Barksdale drug-dealing organization, had not been arrested (though Avon Barksdale was behind bars) and for all intents and purposes dope fiends were still "fiending" for whatever was for sale on the West Side corners.

But Season 2 opens with Det. Jimmy McNulty, the star of the series, on a police boat patrolling the Baltimore Harbor, the detail he had specifically requested NOT to get after the Major Crime Unit was disbanded. When McNulty and his partner pull a floater from the Bay, it seems like the series is heading in another direction. In actuality, however, the dead young woman floating in the Harbor was Simon & Company's clever introduction to the overarching theme is Season 2 -- the drug trade is just one parasitic enterrpise feeding on this nation and the players come in all hues and from all shores.

The Muppets

I really enjoyed James Bobin's The Muppets but fear young children will be bored despite the brilliant colors of the velveteen frog and his pals. The film -- whose human stars are Jason Segel and Amy Adams -- tells the story of Gary's (Segel's) fuzzy and stunted "muppety" brother Walter whose only desire is to visit The Muppet Studios in Los Angeles and see where the magic was made. So, Gary, Walter and Gary's longtime girlfriend Mary catch the Greyhound and head to Tinseltown and find the studio under threat of the buldozer. Still, singing and dancing ensue. The movie is fat with celebrity cameos and gags and musical numbers that are much like those staged in Bobin's off-kilter but tuneful HBO series The Flight of the Conchords. That is to say, the jokes are satricial and self-referential but kiddies would probably want more meaty action and less ham (no offense Miss Piggy).

Immortals

Tarsem's Immortals is an often stunning tribute to excess and the unsettling conflation of sword-and-sandal homoeroticism (ala 300) and mindless, though beautifully choreographed, brutality. The film is not so much about the Greek legend of Theseus, the hero who slew the Minotaur, as it is about the passing of the age of gods. The film doesn't necessarily raise the bar on the integration of live action and CGI -- and the acting (though performed by really beautiful people -- Henry Cavill and Freida Pinto) is just OK -- but the movie certainly sets a new standard for the number of decapitations that can be stuffed into 100 minutes of movie. It is truly astounding.

The Wire Season 1 Episode 13: Sentencing

The Wire Season 1 Episode 3: Sentencing. The cap to the first season of this remarkable show ties up some loose ends but leaves others dangling in the wind. In the previous episode, Cleaning Up, Det. Leander Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson) tells Lieut. Cedric Daniels that the Barksdale case was the best police work he'd ever done but feels "unfinished." Episode 13 echoes that sentiment. Even though Avon Barksdale and much of his crew are sent to prison, we, the viewers, know the size and complexity of the drug trade, the desperation of users AND corner dealers, and the powerlessness of the police to do much to stem the tide. All of this is punctuated by the hooded figure of everyone's favorite stick -up boy, Omar Little relieving a dealer of his ill-gotten gain. "It's all in the game, right?"

J. Edgar

The aging make-up on the three wonderful principals in Clint Eastwood's intriguing J. Edgar -- Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts and Armie Hammer -- is a bit startling but rather than distracting me it forced me to pay greater attention to what the actors were saying and to their eyes ... that's where this story of loyalty and trust was actually played out. The script by Dustin Lance Black, who won the Oscar for the screenplay for Milk, is disjointed and theatrical -- like its human subject -- but it is also enormously affecting. It's the story of the intersection of crime, politics and power in the person of the founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But it's also a love story, actually three love stories: Hoover's Oedipal relationship with his mother, his chaste romance with his second-in-command, Clyde Tolson, and his megalomaniacal love for this country. It's not a hero's tale; Hoover is portrayed as often cold toward and demeaning of those closest to him. But that's not to say Hoover is an unsympathetic character. In one important scene late in the film, Hoover asks his dutiful assistant, Helen Gandy (Watts), "Do I kill everything I love?" She assures him he does not but it's said with the kind of caution one summons when trying to console without revealing one's lack of conviction. You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes.

The Wire Season 1 Episode 12: Cleaning Up

The Wire Season 1 Episode 12: Cleaning Up. Michael B. Jordan's portrayal of Wallace, the lost boy / runner in the Barksdale drug syndicate, was one of the most affecting performances in the first season. And this episode, Cleaning Up, belongs to this tragic character. The seizure of Barksdale cash and stash by Baltimore police drives Avon and Stringer Bell into damage-control mode, which means silencing anyone who might connect them to drugs and murder. Wallace is one of the two gentlest and most guileless characters in the entire series -- the other is port police officer Beatrice Russell from Season 2 -- and Stringer suspecs him of being weak. Bell orders Bodie and Poot (Wallace's boys from the projects) to put Wallace down. Regular viewers were no doubt startled by the execution, which was committed in the abandoned tenement where Wallace cared for a half-dozen street children. The betrayal (wonderfully filmmed) is upsetting and heartbreaking. BTW, in the final episode of Season 1, Sentencing, D'Angelo Barksdale's ringing indictment of Stringer's bloody deed -- "String, where's Wallace? Stringer! Where's Wallace? Where's Wallace, String?" -- was an amazingly chilling moment ... haunting and splendid.