Crime Drama
Ozark’s highlights are Ruth Langmore’s 90s' hip hop playlist, Wendy Byrde’s sociopathic ambition, and Del Rio’s suave. The show follows the Byrde family that has to launder money for the Navarro Cartel. The writers use shortcuts as the show proceeds, and grant excessive plot armor for the Byrde family in subsequent seasons.
“We Own The City” covers the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, and the corruption and moral collapse surrounding it. The show is based on Justin Fenton’s book of the same name . David Simon, one of the creators, created The Wire, which I enjoyed. I like the portrayal of how incoming cops get pulled into the broken system. The show feels despondingly realistic.
The realism in “We Own The City” is welcome reprieve from the suspension of belief required in “Ozark”. Granted, the former is based on non-fiction works, while the latter is not. Furthermore, both David Simon and Justin Fenton have been journalists in Baltimore, and have deeper experience with the scenario.
Fantasy
Sailor is implored by a human-eating sea monster for passage to an island that’s known to be populated. Putting up the matter to a vote, crew members all choose to grant the creature’s request, rather than trick the monster into an uninhabited island. Sailor kills crew, and burns the ship with the monster inside. #utilitarianism
The original story is collected in David Lee Summers' “Space Pirates” .
Where to Look?
How can I find more movies and shows that I might like? I can conceptualize the universe of movies and shows as a graph, and once I find a piece that I like, branch out from there. Possible edges out of the node that I found interesting can be genre, crew, etc.
An executive producer is mostly in charge of sourcing and securing the financing for a film production. TV executive producers lean more towards the show’s creative endeavors than its financing.
Great writing allows one to fully immerse into the piece without suspending belief. The Writers Guild of America Awards look like a good starting point.
2022 Writers Guild Awards Winners & Nominees features titles that I’ve enjoyed, e.g. King Richard, tick..tick…BOOM!, Loki, Succession, Ted Lasso, Mare of Easttown, The White Lotus, WandaVision, The Expanse, etc. There are also gems that I should probably look into: CODA, Yellowjackets, Hacks, etc.
References
- What Is an Executive Producer? What’s the Difference Between an Executive Producer and Producer? - 2022 - MasterClass. www.masterclass.com . Accessed May 10, 2022.
- Writers Guild of America Awards. en.wikipedia.org . awards.wga.org . Accessed May 10, 2022.
- Book Review: The Gervais Principle. Scott Alexander. astralcodexten.substack.com . Accessed May 11, 2022.
- We Own This City. George Pelecanos; David Simon; Reinaldo Marcus Green. www.hbo.com . en.wikipedia.org . Accessed May 15, 2022.
- David Simon. en.wikipedia.org . Accessed May 15, 2022.
- Justin Fenton. www.baltimoresun.com . Accessed May 15, 2022.
- Love Death + Robots: V3E02: Bad Travelling. David Fincher; Andrew Kevin Walker; Neal Asher. www.netflix.com . tvtropes.org . May 20, 2022.
’s Bill Dubuque also wrote The Accountant (2016 Film) , which follows a CPA with high-functioning autism who makes his living by uncooking the books of criminal organizations experiencing internal embezzlement. Might be worth looking into.