The fifth and final season of The Wire, considered in some quarters to be the best show in television history, has wrapped up, and with an August release set for the DVD box set, it's ready to take what we're guessing will be a lofty place in the annals of TV drama.  One of the great strengths of the show was its dynamite ensemble cast -- there wasn't a bad actor on the show, and it was a character actor's dream.  Very few of the urban drama's regulars were established name actors; Frankie Faison, who played the politically adept police commissioner Ervin Burrell, was probably the best-known face to moviegoers from his appearances in the Hannibal Lecter films.  And although the series gave a lot of otherwise unknown talents a chance to shine, a lot of fans wondered if their success on The Wire would translate to roles elsewhere.

As New York magazine's Vulture blog reports, after a few rough patches, at least a few Wire alums are going on to prominent roles outside the confines of HBO:  Amy Ryan, after an Oscar-nominated role in Gone Baby Gone, is now a series regular on The Office; Lance Reddick is appearing in Lost and on the big screen in Fringe; Jamie Hector will have a recurring role on Heroes next season; Gbenga Akinnagbe appears in the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3; Idris Elba (who was so compelling as the drug kingpin Stringer Bell) will be in both Rocknrolla and The Unborn; Tristan Wilds, who was fantastic as corner kid turned stick-up boy Michael Lee, will be in (of all things) the upcoming Beverly Hills 90210 TV series; series star Dominic West will be in the sequel to The Punisher; and Michael K. Williams, arguably The Wire's most charismatic actor as the thuglife Robin Hood named Omar, will be appearing in high-profile roles in Spike Lee's WWII epic Miracle at St. Anna and the eagerly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

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With so many superhero movies set to come out this summer, one of them is bound to suck.  Well, that's not true -- chances are pretty good that all of them are going to suck.  But the folks over at New York magazine are ever the optimists, and they're handicapping the cape-and-cowl movies of the hot months to determine which one to avoid.

They peg Iron Man as most likely to succeed (despite the fact that ol' Shell-Head "has nowhere near the Q-meter rating of Spidey or Supes", but The Incredible Hulk is their even-money choice to bomb out: "The initial trailer made the movie seem exciting but shallow and somewhat humorless.  And if a legitimately great director like Ang Lee can't make the Hulk story into a good movie, what chance does Louis Leterrier (previous credits:  The Transporter, The Transporter 2) have?"

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The MacWorld Expo is the time when Steve Jobs and company traditionally roll out killer apps and whatever else every geek you know will want for Christmas next year.  This time around, one announcement is that the iTunes online store will be rolling out a digital 'rental' service for movies, allowing those who pay a fee -- reportedly a staggering four bucks a day -- to download streaming video of movies by a number of major studios direct to their computers.  Determined to fill the gap left by WalMart's largely unsuccessful attempt to do the same, Netflix, the revolutionary mail-order movie rental company, is likewise rolling out their Netflix Unlimited plan, allowing higher-tier subscribers (with PCs; the iTunes plan is platform-neutral) to 'rent' movies via download as often as they like.

In a way, it's a typically hardheaded and pointless duel of technologies: Apple's plan is ridiculously overpriced, even for their snob-factor demographic (a fact likely attributable to hardheaded licensing restrictions by the studios). Netflix's plan is platform-limited and, despite their 'unlimited' hype, not available to all subscribers.

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