Sopranos

I don't think a whole lot of 'the sopranos'.

You're getting The Sopranos confuzed with Six Feet Under!!!!!!!

Someone on the radio, a (here at least) famous rock journo, said of Sopranos:"GOOD RIDDANCE! They wanted Tony to be LIKEABLE! How crap is taht?" hahahahahah I never roffled so much since I saw him at a journo-wanko talk in Amsterdam about 7 years ago.

Today on Amazon.com's Deals page: Sopranos entire series for $149.99! I have actually been checking this page semi-daily for a month or so hoping to stumble across this set, since they have a lot of DVD deals.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/09/every-swear-word-on.html

i saw that :)

At one point, I had the idea to put every incidence of Bodie spitting between his teeth in a montage, but then realized I don't know shit about editing software and am too lazy to learn.

and who could forget

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/09/every-swear-word-on.html

This is like the "The Story of Everest" of those compilation videos (or, if you prefer, sub "the rake gag" for "The Story of Everest").

I don't know why exactly, but I think Phil Leotardo doesn't look as a convincing threatening badass villain. Maybe he lacks charisma. When Ralph or Johnny Sack or Richie is on the screen you could really feel their presences. Not so with Phil.

Starting season 4. Notes on series so far: LOVE Adirana La Cerva, LOVE Artie Bucco (wish there was more of him), also wish there was more Ginny Sack.

Can't stand AJ at ALL. Kind of wish he'd just get killed off. Also frustrated with the whole "Meadow you're so spoiled, we give you everything" / "GOD mom leave me aLONE!!" runarounds, where nothing actually happens (she keeps getting spoiled and is a brat). Could do without her too.

check the individual season threads

Also, Carm's hair got SO much more chic and beautiful between the end of S3 and the beginning of S4. I'm really liking the direction her style is taking.

OMG @ S4E04, "The Weight". An entire episode of Ginny Sac!

ginny is great

unliks AJ who I really wish would die.

AJ is a cock obv but his character makes tons of sense-- naturally tony would have a weak, brat child-- meadow otoh... they should've just let her go

they have the entire series on sale in hmv for €80(±$105) and saturday is my birthday, should i just go for it.

yes

figure if i go cold on it i can prolly sell it on for abt what i paid for it anyway (its marked down from €150)

yes yes

that is totally a great deal

I had a friend who recently declined to watch this series because she felt overly squeamish about any potential violence. I felt she was really missing out and would otherwise enjoy it... otoh I couldn't really argue that the violence in it could be ignored/overlooked.

yeah i am not that attracted to the violence either

still, what i have seen of this seemed pretty good, but like i started watching for a little while around s4 i think so i mean i constantly didn't understand the backstory and it was p confusing iirc

the violence isn't constant and it isn't exploitatively or crassly done. In fact, it's very well done and thus unsettling - as violence should be.

I'm surprised to hear that, plax. I think many of the episodes are prettty much self-contained, with only a reference or two to tie it into the ongoing storyline. As far as serialized shows go, there are plenty that are much much harder to jump into. Of course, I watched them all in order anyway, and that's just my take as a fan, so who really knows.

long term parking is on right now -_-

quality episode

Tony Newting his gf is so brutal

yeah that scene is great -- altho for cable it gets kinda lol w/ all the edits

bought this

there are a lot of things I could say right now that I am not gonna say

i love u 4 that

What is "newting?"

breaking up with/divorcing someone while they're in the hospital

"He walked out in the spring of 1980.... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, "Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?" When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery." - Jackie Gingrich, Newt Gingrich's first wife (who was suffering from cancer iirc)

ok i am not reading this thread.... now.

haha sorry

Nearing the end of Season 5. Tony has gotten so rotten and awful, I seriously hope he just dies at this point. AJ, too, has managed to become even worse; hope someone kills him too. I can't count the number of times I want to just jump through the screen and say the things that need to be said that clearly aren't; it's amazing how passive (re: bad) Tony and Carmela are when it comes to parenting. I wish there was more Gabriella Dante, and I wish Adrianna wasn't so pathetic all the time. She used to be so great!

Also despite the fact that I'm 10 episodes into Season 5, I STILL have not recognized a single shooting location which makes me feel like a rly bad New Jerseyan. There was one episode that took place at Mason Gross (Rutgers' art school) but it was at some old building that I can't seem to locate.

Also also I seriously have managed to make it this far without hearing abt the series finale. Please no one spoil it.

wow

ok

I loved (hated) how Carm was so dead set on divorce at the end of one episode and then lets him move back in TWENTY MINUTES into the next episode. This is awful writing and makes absolutely no sense. Also, of course rly bummed about Ade; I knew she had it coming but I wish it was more dramatic or something.

Two eps into season 6 and it's quite an improvement, although it makes 0 sense how AJ somehow suddenly grew a brain so late into his development as a human being.

I loved (hated) how Carm was so dead set on divorce at the end of one episode and then lets him move back in TWENTY MINUTES into the next episode. This is awful writing and makes absolutely no sense.

no! carm was always like this!

she would never, ever leave tony

She tried to divorce him so hardcore!! She went through all those lawyers and got so exasperated but was still determined, and I was all "YES, this woman is finally doing what is right for HER!". But, no.

Ginny Sack, on the other hand, I think she is my favorite woman on the show right now. They should've just made a spinoff, "Ginny & Carm" (or "Ginny, Carm & Gabby")

Also just heard Prodigy's "Spitfire" in the Bing. The ultimate song.

i think the thing the show always circled back to is that, for as strong as carm is in many regards, she is still a woman who was attracted to the violence & glitz of the mob, and who married a mobster, and who is as susceptible to succumbing to the bloody treasures that come with that life. of course it was infuriating when after episodes of giving it straight to tony, she would be dazzled by a coat or a watch, but that's who she is. she could never leave that life, she was always leveraging, even during the genuine heartbreak.

needless to say she's one of the best and most compelling television characters of the last 20 years

v otm

Ginny, Carm, and Gabby featuring Rosalie Aprile

J0rdan OTM re: Carm. imho the scene that says it all about her character is her "interview" with the rabbi (sometime in season 5, I think?)

AJ somehow suddenly grew a brain so late into his development as a human being.

lol poor AJ. I said this on some other Sopranos thread, but I don't think there's a single scene he's in where he's not humiliating/making an idiot out of himself.

there isn't a scene like that xp?

sorry he's not a rabbi - Jewish psychiatrist

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/08/the_other_soprano_psychiatrist.html

thing about AJ is despite not really harming anyone ever (besides giving his parents grief) he somehow ends up being the least likeable character of the whole series

I'm pretty sure that isn't in Season 6, hope I haven't spoiled anything Stevie!

xp

haha

that's one of the best scenes xxp

Carmela: My priest said I should work with him, help him to become a better man.

Dr. Krakower: How's that going?

lol

That's from a few years before season 5 - pretty sure it's during Meadow's first year at Columbia when Carm guilt-trips Tony into donating like $40k to the school

I've just finished downloading all seasons and i'm about to watch it for the 1st time, all in a row, over days obviously, oh and sleep and loo breaks!

OK AM ABT TO DROP MAJOR SPOILERS SO IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ALL THE EPISODES.....

I can't believe I managed to go 4 years without even the slightest hint of how this show ended. Of course I was sort of stunned. I thought it was really stupid how Melfi reads one fucking article and after 7 years of dedication is suddenly all "OMG I JUST CAN'T; GET OUT." It seems totally out of line w/ her character. Still trying to figure out what I think of the last scene, but why was there so much emphasis on Meadow's botched parallel parking jobs? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Also, I feel like the only truly likeable characters by the end of the show are Ginny Sack and Meadow (who was pretty insufferable early on). I hated Paulie and pretty much every other male on the show by the end (spare Johnny Cakes who I compleeeetely fell in love with and wanted to marry). Rly wish Ginny actually got her own spinoff.

RIP Denise Borino-Quinn - played Ginny Sac

oh no. and her husband died earlier this year? so sad. 'the weight' is probably my favourite episode, and she's amazing in it. RIP.

younger than i thought

Nooooo no no no!! I loved that lady so much :(

Ms. Borino-Quinn, who did no more acting after “The Sopranos” went off the air in 2007, worked at a law firm in New Brunswick, N.J.

FUUUUCCCKKK I lived there for like four fucking years and never knew this!!!! I SO seriously would have gone to visit her, too.

yeah saw this the other day, too bad. she was great as Ginny. RIP.

RIP I really loved her.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2012/04/sopranos-oral-history.print

this is fantastic

*rubs hands excitedly*

One F.B.I. agent told us early on that on Monday morning they would get to the F.B.I. office and all the agents would talk about The Sopranos. Then they would listen to the wiretaps from that weekend, and it was all Mob guys talking about The Sopranos, having the same conversation about the show, but always from the flip side. We would hear back that real wiseguys used to think that we had somebody on the inside. They couldn’t believe how accurate the show was.

She had cancer the whole time we worked with her, but it was not spoken of. Nancy said to David, “Please keep me working. That’s keeping me alive.” One of the funnest times I remember is shooting a family scene with a lot of food in the room. It was like three in the morning at the end of a long day of shooting, and they had done Livia’s coverage and then they were doing my coverage. Here’s the camera, here’s Nancy, and she’s actually making faces and she’s eating a piece of pepperoni—slapping on her tongue—in the middle of my scene. She was trying to make me laugh for my coverage, like a little kid does right out of college.

So I talked to David on the phone and told him how I thought The Sopranos was like a Russian novel, and he told me how he’d never read any Russian novels

I freaking hate that Steve Buscemi is a character in this show. Lots of kind of iffy moments in the Sopranos but most of its flaws are endearing in some way; Buscemi just sucks, comes on the show and does his I'm-the-weird-Steve-Buscemi-guy thing for an entire season.

"We would hear back that real wiseguys used to think that we had somebody on the inside. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Sirico

The Steve Buscemi arc is unbelievably great

I don't really see a lot of Buscemi's standard "I'm-the-weird-Steve-Buscemi-guy" thing in that role, personally

saw an old cheers the other day w/ nancy marchand as frasier's mom, a psychiatrist. she made a ref to 'scooping sherbet at howard johnson's' also so clearly big episode for the sopranos writers room in general.

Whoa

Which episode was that

Netflix is worth its existence for giving me access to the complete Cheerstinuum alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPdShWevWoU

Be of good cheer. Rub a humpback's hump.

aw, poor you

is there a youtube comp of the number of times this line is uttered cuz it's a lot

whatever happened to gary cooper

all due respect

Johnny Sack is in the new Brad Pitt movie. Got mostly bad reviews, but I'll see it for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMppEcSRAbM

FUCK, I forgot how amazing this show is.

David Chase talks about the ending:

http://observer.com/2007/06/tonys-blackout/?show=all

Never mind, that's from '07.

i have decided that anyone who thinks tony didnt get shot is lying to themselves and god

don't you get it they just ended the show in the middle of a random moment bcz it was a cool interesting new thing to do, that's all, nbd

Quantum ending FYI.

I don't want to accept that Tony got shot, 'cos it's a rubbish ending. Or, like, the rest of the last episode was pointless and boring, then. Actually, I think the last episode blew it. The final scene is extremely well made, but it doesn't fit with anything else.

crazy talk

the only better ending would be if the whole family got sent to prison and they all shared the same cell and they started talking about buttons

i have decided that anyone who thinks tony didnt get shot is lying to themselves and god

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Friday, June 7, 2013 5:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

s1ocki you are crazy
it is about his anxiety
that every moment a car will be revving like the train in the godfather & a guy will be lurking & a prison sentence hanging,
he doesn't actually have to get shot

yeah I thought that the night of but chase has said enough things over the years to sway me to tony's dead

who cares what chevy chase has to say? death of the author, how many times

well all he's said is that it's all there in the text but if we're ignoring that too maybe a dingo ate tony

i agree in general that tony dies, but what's so interesting about how its presented is how that assumption is always taking place in an extra-textual space--"death" isn't really something that signifies anything to you while you're alive. so i think it goes both ways: in the terms of the text tony is suspended forever in dread and anxiety and on the "other" side he's nothing.

come off it poindexter is he dead or what

you can't be dead in general!

s1ocki you are crazy
it is about his anxiety
that every moment a car will be revving like the train in the godfather & a guy will be lurking & a prison sentence hanging,
he doesn't actually have to get shot

― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Saturday, June 8, 2013 3:01 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

as someone pointed out, so much of this show is from tony's subject POV, and we never see the anxiety manifest like that, and nothing really suggests that tony is a hyper-aware terminator observation machine

so did the autistic kid just make the whole thing up or what

haha sorry j. i guess im saying its schrodinger's tony soprano.

But who killed him? The main problem with the final episode is the lengths it goes to to get to that 'schroedinger' state. Like, sort of resolving the war, but then perhaps not quite, but then not really giving any reason as to why it would go on. Also I think the preceding scene with junior, exploring what is quite honestly the best cause scenario for Tony, is that much more chilling than the death-anxiety of the end. It should just have ended with junior saying 'that's nice'. Cut to black. imo.

There isn't one truth about Tony's fate. That's kind of the whole point of the open ending; of any open ending for that matter. We've all been on the ride up to that final cut off point. Tony indeed is like Schrödinger's Cat: he is both dead and alive. All depends on your conviction.

To me he wasn't killed, but I can see why others think he was killed.

you don't have to pick one

He's totally dead.
We totally didn't need to see it happen.
It totally doesn't matter who deaded him.
He's totally dead.
S1ocki otm.

you don't have to pick one

― spade ventura (wins), Saturday, June 8, 2013 10:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ This, also.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb9sge3iji1qc3wjlo1_500.jpg

The problem is, I don't think any of the possible interpretations of the final scene are very good. Then it doesn't matter how many there are.

you don't have to pick one

― spade ventura (wins)

thirded

what kind of weak-ass arguing about tv is that

of course you dont HAVE to have an interpretation, but i do!

(and it is the correct one)

Either way, the show's over, so that's the end of (for) the characters.

well this is fucking comprehensive and obsessive
http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/

yah he died

100% he did

I am glad he got whacked off-camera, despite all the violent deaths in the show I couldn't handle seeing Tony's shell opened up.

yeah that interpretation seems so plainly correct that i feel dumb for not seeing it the first time through.

tony getting whacked due to carelessness and hubris (as opposed to being eternally plagued by paranoia) makes sense given his character, as it's consistently established throughout the show that he keeps surviving/staying out of prison largely out of pure luck, luck that is bound to run out and that kept dwindling as the show went on.

the fact that the cut black lasts however long it does before the credits begin—meaning the blackness is PART of the episode, not the end of it—basically says it all

love the patsy parisi theory, and the idea of the mikey palmice "3 o'clock" warning from beyond the grave is grade A.

Definitely makes a sound case. I need to work my way through all the episodes again though, whenever that happens, to see how I feel the second time.

I read that before I saw the last season, so I was fully expecting it to be the truth, but I don't think it holds up. If we're just supposed to think that he dies, then the rest of the episode does an awful job of making that seem like a good ending. It's such a mess, really.

it's a GREAT ending!

yeah it's brilliant

I've said this just recently, but by itself, the final scene is a brilliant piece of filmmaking. It doesn't fit with the rest of the episode.

Haven't watched it since it aired, but I remember being halfway through the last episode and wondering why they were spending time introducing us to AJ's new girlfriend.

It is a great ending in the manner in which it spares you all the standard bathos of the death scene and the aftermath, don't need to see Tony going into the light or having flashbacks before he kicks the bucket. Seen it before in countless movies and it would detract from everything about Tony which makes the series good. Don't want want to see him defeated and gurgling blood on the deck, he has been whacked and The Sopranos is finished.

where is my night in white satin armour?!?!

New interview:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/television/sopranos-creator-david-chase-discusses-the-unknown-facts-of-the-show-and-its-infamously-ambiguous-finale

Uncle Junior: What are we, children? Anyway, at our age it's enough surprise we're still alive every morning.

another piece of evidence for the tony is dead theory (which is true), is that david chase has always said he'd never do a sopranos sequel, but that he might be open to a prequel. PRETTY BIG HINT THERE>

well yeah

of course there's also one other major impediment to a sequel now

They could just get Patton Oswalt to substitute.

I think there is a lot to be said for Gilligan's approach as a show-runner as opposed to Chase's rampant egotism and it isn't like he has done anything worthwhile since The Sopranos. That 60's movie was such rinse.

"show-runner"

Well I just read that awful Difficult Men book, that is the term they use.

term has been commonplace since I heard it used re The Simpsons, like, 15 years ago

is it awful? my friend gave it to me.

and im familiar with the term, its just one of those things that bugs me

I just started watching this from Ep 1 for the first time and it's amazing and I love it.

I'd say the same abt Mad Men bt I can't work out what thread to say it in

mad men definitely doesn't belong in the same conversation as the sopranos, that much is for sure

Oh don't let's start

considering it explores some of the same themes, it's written by one of the sopranos guys, and chase had a great deal w/ getting it on the air i'd say it belongs in the same conversation

mad men definitely doesn't belong in the same conversation as the sopranos, that much is for sure

― write 500 words of song (sleepingbag), Saturday, May 3, 2014 12:29 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and yet...here it is!!!!

Apparently Weiner's film is awful too. At least Terence Winter has Wolf of Wall Street and, uh, the 50 Cent movie

I just started watching this from Ep 1 for the first time and it's amazing and I love it.

― Airwrecka Bliptrap Blapmantis (ENBB), Saturday, May 3, 2014 11:59 AM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't read anything in this thread.

Weiner's film is bad? :(

And yeah that ws just a "I too am freshly watching an iconic recent TV show" post, bt it does have some relevance

"is it awful? my friend gave it to me."

Awful is way harsh, the Chase and Weiner chapters are quite illuminating, the Burns/Simon chapters are dull and worthy, kind of like watching Treme.

What film did weiner make?

many overpriced ones sold exclusively in seedy storefronts iirc

You Are Here, a lame comedy with Owen Wilsen, across the board bad reviews so far.

haha he made a comedy? yeah i could see that not working

rewatched the pilot this morning on Season 1 library discs. Now, um, the next 12 eps before it's due Saturday.

Gandolfini looks trim by later standards. :/

it IS v funny btw -- the goon and the lawyer taking the deadbeat for a walk over the Paterson Falls bridge... Carmela's priest giving Gordon Willis a shoutout for the Godfathers...

what prompted you to finally get around to this

Of the cable shows ppl hype, this is the oldest and most likely to appeal to me (born & bred in NNJ).

Also I taped the first 3-4 seasons when I had HBO and just never watched the tapes.

you can totally watch Season 1 in 3 days. I have faith in you.

and see four Mizoguchi films and Pissed Jeans?

you can allow yourself toilet breaks

Jealous of Morbs for getting to experience this for the first time

yeah, this aint happening right now. Do you think i've even opened my Ford at Fox box, or the Rossellini-Bergman set I got at Christmas? noooope.

maybe I will watch the first season again for you

MORBZ

Thru 4 episodes, the therapy scenes are my least favorite. Too "on the nose." also Lorraine Bracco's diction/line readings are weird.

It moves beyond that format more in later seasons

i would imagine so

Yeah that becomes less of a focus

i like that this series makes room in its cast for the two least famous members of the main foursome from 'mean streets'. though proval has a huge role as opposed to richard romanus' minor appearances.

i need to rewatch this ASAP. my wife has only seen a few episodes here and there, and the last half of season 6. i wonder if i'd like it more, maybe the relatively dead episodes that pop up in the middle of the series (season 3 has a few iirc?) wouldn't bother me as much.

I figure Morbz would at least appreciate kindred spirit nancy marchand

you strike me as more of a depressed panicky old lady

I am watching this for the first time. Is one of the kids that chases Tony in the flashback scene at the fair the same actor who would go on to play Wallace from the Wire? I liked the Mehlfi family therapist, then realized that he also had a bit part in season 4 of The Wire.

yes

Bodie is in the second episode

i pretty much know all the final-season resolutions and think it's kind of YV-hilarious that they didnt take care of Christopher in the fourth episode of the first year.

TV-hilarious that is

wtf r u even talking abt man get ahold of yrself

Chrissie's character arc is so great and sad

spoilers!

that's like doing spoilers for Psycho at this point

lol I know. It truly was a spoiler, which is amazing, but I'm not actually mad.

I am almost through season 5. Started 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Season 5 has been a drag. Just had a good dream episode though.

I feel like this will never match season 2 level good again

haha i love season 2 but alot of ppl were kinda disappointed by it at the time. richie aprile definitely my fave tony antagonist though.

"I'm OLD SCHOOL, Janice!"

Richie vs tony was great!

I look fwd to the deepening of Christopher's character then, as you can't have tragedy centered on pure vermin.

I can give Chase a pass for making Tony a WC Fields fan, but "I screened The Bank Dick last night"? Tony Sotosyn!

The ellipses are crafty in some of the episodes, like you don't know what made Livia's Jamaican maid stomp out -- well you do, but you don't hear it. (Also savvy bcz even tho Ma is clearly a gorgon, the direct evidence is elided in this case.) Also you don't see the Hasidic guy whose father-in-law wants him zotzed beg for his testicles in the basement of the meat store.

Season 5 has been a drag. Just had a good dream episode though.

"Irregular Around The Margins" (Season 5) is my favorite episode of any. One storyline, no subplots, who knows if Chrissy will get out alive.

yeah, season 5 became good in the end. That was a good ep. Everyone seemed to be off doing their own thing for the beginning and middle though.

all of the abuse was just tough to sit through. The cover art kinda says it all.

I look fwd to the deepening of Christopher's character then, as you can't have tragedy centered on pure vermin.

they're all vermin to varying degrees but aspects of his character come to the fore that make him more sympathetic, esp when set in contrast with some of the others

yeah, he's not just a ziggy

he is ziggy for maybe all of season 1 though. but i guess he can back it up better than ziggy.

Oh, and season 5 has that great last scene of Tony walking out of Janice's house and down the street to "I'm Not Like Everybody Else."

not sure if Camille Paglia's critical thoughts have been linked on these threads. in due time.

xpost Oh, and season five has f-in "In Camelot" which Morbs should skip to if he ends up considering quitting the show for good.

camille paglia is never necessary

very little is necessary

i chuckled when i saw the final count on this series was 27 actors in common w/ Goodfellas.

it's weird that Chase's movie was so hated around here when y'all are crazy for the needledrops on the show

needledrops are a little less obvious/60s cliche here, given that the show is not set in the 60s. altho I liked that movie fine.

this show does have some of my all-time music placement moments though - Dirty Work, Gotta Serve Somebody, Moonlight Mile

i miss ralph and janice

that reminds me, how could I forget Janice's "Mother and Child Reunion" moment

god this show

my two fave musical moments are "Oh Girl" and "Glad Tidings"

Fred Neil's "Dolphins" w/Christopher a fave of mine.

the two that i still think about sometimes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmd-RJUO_RY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBcbc8eWz6U

also-christopher was a huge fuckup and junkie and liability and obviously should have been killed in season one. he wasn't because tony has a sentimental streak and he saw chris as his surrogate son. this narrative tension drove a large part of the show! like why did fredo last so long, etc. family and Family get all intertwined..it's a pretty common trope in crime fiction.

"World Destruction" much too hip for the milieu

I'm kinda glad Chase didn't have the power to pop Plastic Bertrand into The Rockford Files.

'world destruction' is too hip, so is 'evidently chickentown'. using them is powerful to me because it feels like the narrative zooms out for a bit, it's like a little aside from the palm of god/the author. i totally get that it could take people out of the narrative though. it's a risk.

That's an interesting take, connecting it with that Burroughs-y voiceover.

music choices in the soprano are tops, and the non-diegetic music is allowed to be whatever chase wants it to be.

unless you are ridiculously literal-minded about wanting film music to just set the scene and nothing else, in which case, go watch forrest gump.

never have and I'd like you to watch this fucking chainsaw

this fucking chainsaw is much too hip for the milieu

The Sopranos is similar to Jesus Christ as the most objectionable thing about em are the fans

u jelly?

fun fact: Gandolfini was only 5 years older than Michael Imperioli

fun fact this commercial speaks the truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlzuybHJd8Y

Ok I'm watching the chainsaw, when should I expect to see something

https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/5A-cOmaaBgQ/maxresdefault.jpg

lol

lol

I miss Ginny Sack, she deserved her own spinoff

It's Ginny!

Welcome Back, Ginny Sack! (theme song could be a variation of "Jimmy Mack")

David Chase's dry-run Sopranos episode on "The Rockford Files" in 1979:

http://willmckinley.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/the-1979-rockford-files-episode-that-inspired-the-sopranos/

whoa

sounds more like a curiosity than must-see TV (and not playing to TRF's strengths)

yeah i was intrigued at first but that doesn't make it sound too appealing

Uncle Beppy is a better name than Uncle Junior tho. (Also, I distinctly remember my grandma, who lived in Newark nearly her whole life, talking about a restaurant named Beppy's.)

uncle junior is a GREAT name!!

what can i say, Beppy's Restaurant is more memorable than Junior's Restaurant (at least these days)

Related to Sopranos origins and Newark, this is from Philip Roth's I Married A Communist (1998):

He got his name (Little Pussy) because he started out professionally as a cat burglar, sneaking across the rooftops and going in through the windows with his older brother, Big Pussy. In grade school they were already up all night stealing. When they even bothered to come to school, they sat sleeping at their desks and nobody dared to waker them up. Big Pussy died of natural causes, and Little Pussy was bumped off in 1979 in real gangland style...three bullets from a .32 in his head. The next day Ritchie Boiardo tells one of his cronies, "Perhaps it was for the best--because he talked too much."

There was also a Beppy on The Sopranos (played by David Chase's actual uncle, I just read). He was one of the really old school guys in Junior's crew, I think last seen kicking up to Junior and attempting to plot an escape attempt for him with Uncle Pat.

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/27/6006139/did-tony-die-at-the-end-of-the-sopranos

worth reading imo

whether you liked Not Fade Away on one viewing or not, I didn't understand the dismissal of it as "another cliched '60s rock movie." Obviously it's 'the stuff between' that is the key.

So when he answered the "Did Tony die" question, he was laconic.

Just the fact and no interpretation. He shook his head "no." And he said simply, "No he isn't." That was all.

um

"No, he isn't die".

basically, it could be his way of saying "it's not the point."

I finished Season 1 btw. Probably starting Two this weekend. Really great casting, down to the single- or few-episode guests, like Joihn Heard as the sleazy cop.

"The death of this series' main character, which was built up to for the entire episode and left outrageously, deliberately unresolved, isn't the point"

basically, it could be his way of saying "it's not the point."

Yes, this. I would love it if he'd make a definitive statement like that every few years and flip it 180˚ each time.

Really great casting,

this really holds true throughout the entire show imo

yeah, keep watchin' morbs!!!

knew u wld love it

I like it alright. I don't love it.

btw I watched All the President's Men again, and Dominic Chianese is one of the burglars (I think in shirtsleeves?)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/42sANL2ap9A/mqdefault.jpg

and they're busted by F Murray Abraham

Peter Bogdanovich's interview with Chase on the s1 set is funny for the way PB of course cites Ford, Hawks, Welles (since they're around the same age, Chase at least knows what he's talking about).

I was constantly struck by how much of the Sopranos cast shows up in Woody Allen films (often in tiny bit parts)

"The death of this series' main character, which was built up to for the entire episode and left outrageously, deliberately unresolved, isn't the point"

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand)

i think it's part of the point but i also think it's not unresolved at all, and i think chase's reluctance to answer maybe stems from his thinking that it doesn't need to be explained and to explain it robs it of its poetry.

of course he dies... eventually

(when is a detail)

UPDATE: Chase's publicist put out the following statement:

A journalist for Vox misconstrued what David Chase said in their interview. To simply quote David as saying,“ Tony Soprano is not dead,” is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true.

As David Chase has said numerous times on the record, “Whether Tony Soprano is alive or dead is not the point.” To continue to search for this answer is fruitless. The final scene of THE SOPRANOS raises a spiritual question that has no right or wrong answer.

lawl

everything abt this is funny but none more so than this http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6075535/are-you-proud-of-yourself-savedyouaclick-question-mark-nope

The hero can't dead till the last reel

see it's a mob show (which Tracer got) and an existential dreamscape (well)

Really great casting is thanks to Christopher Walken's wife.

Stick around for Polly Bergen.

yes right, I just found out about that casting duo.

I was constantly struck by how much of the Sopranos cast shows up in Woody Allen films (often in tiny bit parts)

Chase cast entirely out of New York, at least in the first season, as Allen generally has. Though the only substantial actor in a Woody film I can think of is Jerry Adler in Manhattan Murder Mystery, who played Hesh the slick lawyer in Sopranos.

The way Tony and his lower-case family are talking around the coffee shop table in the last ep, it's like they've already dismissed the Family---and of course, cousin*/"nephew"/maybe "son" Christopher is dead, surrogate uncle or brother Sal the sane manager is dead, Tony as boss or whatever his title is, seems dead in the water power-wise--prob doesn't have all that much money, since he didn't at his peak,as his senior Jewish consultant, the guy with the studio, once estimated for another non-made guy. So, whether those guys really are coming to kill him and maybe his relatives or not--hell, maybe they're working for him now, some new bodyguards or something---it's just another thing that happens, in the midst of and after a bunch of other stuff.
*Back when Cousin Buscemi got out of prison and started palling around with Tony, as little Christopher trailed behind, made fun of by the big guys, like when they were all three kids: think that was when Carmela explained to another lady that he was a cousin, but so young that Tony felt obliged or moved to treat him as his nephew.

Dominic Chianese starred in a Woody Allen play in '04 (one I never saw or read):

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/87907-Michael-McKean-Dominic-Chianese-Martha-Plimpton-Star-in-Woody-Allens-Memory-This-Fall

basically, it could be his way of saying "it's not the point."

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), woensdag 27 augustus 2014 17:44 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bingo: David Chase: “Sopranos” piece on Vox “is inaccurate,” “not true”

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/08/27/david_chase_vox_article_the_sopranos_showrunner_responds_to_tony_soprano.html

^^^ i hate this guy

of course he dies... eventually

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, August 27, 2014 12:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(when is a detail)

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, August 27, 2014 12:07 PM (Yesterday)

this is otm. tony doesn't die onscreen, so he's technically alive at the end of the show. but he might die in 5 minutes, or it might be 5 years. i think one of the points of the show is that living that life will eventually have consequences for you and the people you love. he can't escape it

And seeing him get shot would be to bring an end to that anxiety, but instead it ends with that ongoing anxiety itself.

this is otm. tony doesn't die onscreen, so he's technically alive at the end of the show. but he might die in 5 minutes, or it might be 5 years. i think one of the points of the show is that living that life will eventually have consequences for you and the people you love. he can't escape it

― k3vin k., Thursday, August 28, 2014 10:24 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, the seconds of blackness can very easily be read as his death

the show doesn't end when it cuts to black, it ends when the credits roll

those seconds of blackness are part of the show's narrative

that's a fair reading, i don't dispute that

well then you are a gentleman sir.

read yr blog posts people he is dead http://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end

surely the show ends when the credits are over not when they start.

just sayin

if you have any evidence that the sopranos credits sequences have ever sustained the narrative, i'm all ears

His mother was named "livia" which is awfully close to "live" and I think derives from "olive." Tony soprano live / tony sopranolive / tony sopran olive

Best answer I got

The thing everybody always leaves out is that the final episode is crappy and anti-climactic no matter whether he lives or dies, and that the final sequence is quite boringly directed.

That's the most bonkers theory yet!

that is ridiculous

I won't stop believin'

the final scene is masterful 500%

otm

life is boringly directed, esp if you're eating onion rings in a diner in Bloomfield.

Mr Veg reminded me that I thought the tv was broken when we saw that ending

https://twitter.com/tnyfrontrow/status/507226969411690497

O rings = contraception = no new life?

LOL whoops wrong thread

looool

you want me to zap that post stevie?

i missed this episode

xp yeah uh maybe we should go ahead and whack that one

morbs how far are you now?

s2, four in

stopping for awhile due to baseball probly

Holy shit the Tony dream episode in S5 is awful.

no.

Furio has uncovered a lost Guercino masterpiece worth millions, I didn't know he was such a renaissance man IRL.

http://pagesix.com/2014/09/29/sopranos-star-discovers-artwork-worth-millions/?

Series now on Bluray. For "The Happy Wanderer":

http://www.vox.com/2014/11/17/7234477/sopranos-streaming-one-episode

http://www.hitfix.com/the-dartboard/dont-stop-believing-david-chase-analyzes-the-final-scene-of-the-sopranos

Or, wait, this link's better:
http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1502-Spring-2015/Shot-to-Remember-The-Sopranos.aspx

i have a theory
that david chase didn't intend the ending to be ambiguous but the public outcry/confusion made him butthurt and reticent about it

Chase basically confirms that huge blog post about it saying Tony got shot.

Nah, he's saying that it's one reading of it, and def one reading he intended. I don't think that many people have said that there was nothing menacing about Members Only Guy, or that it wasn't intended to remind of us what Bobby said in Soprano Home Movies about not hearing the final bullet.

Either way, it's a crappy ending. Having two readings of something doesn't really matter when neither reading is interesting.

It's one of the best-edited TV sequences ever.

I love the ending

set the standard for how to conclude a long-running series imo

Ending has really grown on me. I was pretty ambivalent when I first saw it.

I like that his goal w/ the final scene was to evoke a feeling rather than to provide some narrative explanation

There's only 3 minutes left in the episode! Why is nothing ~happening~?? Why is Meadow taking SO LONG to park her car??? Who is that dude in the jacket???? WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN?!?!?

he's either going to be shot Then or SOMEDAY or expecting it FOREVER. What's ambiguous?

we will all be shot one day. shot right in the heart by death's death gun. but the symbolism of the onion rings.

the circle of badabing

did you end up watching the whole series, Dr.?

r u crazy? no, left off a few months ago like, 4 eps in s2. I DO NOT bingewatch.

you people... "watch all Sopranos, watch all Mad Men, watch all The Wire, watch all The Americans," just no more art films that fly in and out of theaters for the rest of your life.

that david chase didn't intend the ending to be ambiguous but the public outcry/confusion made him butthurt and reticent about it

― slam dunk, Wednesday, April 15, 2015 11:01 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like it

you people... "watch all Sopranos, watch all Mad Men, watch all The Wire, watch all The Americans," just no more art films that fly in and out of theaters for the rest of your life.

it's as if the mediums of television and film are... approached and delivered differently.

time, dude. not enough.

Most of these shows aren't running concurrently so it's basically an hour a week. If you are playing catch up it's definitely more daunting.

no one should peer pressure someone else into binge watching its totally unhealthy lol

that david chase didn't intend the ending to be ambiguous but the public outcry/confusion made him butthurt and reticent about it

― slam dunk, Wednesday, April 15, 2015 11:01 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like it

― lag∞n, Thursday, April 16, 2015 12:43 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

that said i don't think it takes away from the ending which is the most memorable & best of the major series i can think of ... i mean a montage showing what happens to all the characters set to a country-rock song or w/e a la The Wire is cool & all but

as much as i do love the ending i kind of wanted to see tony face down in a plate of linguini tbh

They should've started the season off with that, Meadow going OMGWHAT HAPPENED? And Carmella saying, well, it all started right around the time Vito came out of the closet-- then FLASHBACK

would have been cool if tony woke up and the entire series was a dream

W tony in bed next to bob newhart

Finding the posters on Meadow's wall rather surprising. Ulver and GVSB, didn't think she was 'alternative' and didn't think they were mainstream so are they consciously part of her character or were the set creators just sticking up things arbitrarily/randomly?

THere's a scene where Janice gets out of her car outside her mother's house after Meadow's party where you hear the music she's been listening to in the car. It is a weird yodeling thing that sounds like it might be Tim Buckley's Jungle Fire or possibly something by Leon Thomas, anybody got any idea what it is or if it is that? It's just a small snippet but it does sound like that Jungle Fire snippet

when tony and carm visit meadow's college apartment the shins are playing in the background

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQZXQMtmd3A

Frederik B so bad itt

I just finished the O.J. mini-series, and found out that the guy who played Fred Goldman--uncanny lookalike, but not a good performance--was Joseph Siravo, "Johnny Boy Soprano" in five episodes. Drawing a blank.

I still dislike the ending. + I was rewatching the first season of OZ last week, and it's honestly more audacious and interesting than most of Sopranos.

haha, I watched quite a bit of "Oz" and yer insane.

the audacity of shankings

Obama sequel

I just finished the O.J. mini-series, and found out that the guy who played Fred Goldman--uncanny lookalike, but not a good performance--was Joseph Siravo, "Johnny Boy Soprano" in five episodes. Drawing a blank.

― clemenza, Wednesday, August 2, 2017 8:15 PM (four days ago)

wait, you don't remember tony's DAD?

Thanks. Definitely remember the dad, just not the name. (I shouldn't have said "uncanny lookalike," by the way; what I meant was, uncanny makeup job.)

haha, I watched quite a bit of "Oz" and yer insane.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), 3. august 2017 02:20 (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't really honestly say that Oz > Sopranos, but it's a really fun version of what a 'prestige' television show could be, all weird visuals and sex and death. There are ways that Sopranos became the prestige template, which, looking back, seem a bit unfortunate to me. David Chase always had a chip on his shoulder about doing 'tv' and really wanted to do a film, but his taste in film seems pretty boring and vanilla, pretty boring nineties indie stuff. The irony is that it was Tom Fontana, not Chase, who ended up having a real influence on modern cinema, as Lars von Trier has admitted being very influenced by Homicide in his nineties stuff like Dogme, which of course then was hugely influential on a bunch of stuff.

I just think today, with peak tv and hundreds and hundreds of tv shows, every success has so many imitators that it's kinda fun to see stuff that people don't really bother making anymore. I miss shows like Oz :( Even though something like Orange is the New Black is probably a better show as well, strictly speaking.

BAD INFLUENCE

Orange is the new black is awful though

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/sopranos-movie-prequel-david-chase-1202721680/

Clearly the lead characters figure to be Tony's parents, Junior, child Tony, and related associates, ie not even the actors who played them in the '60s episodes of the series (cuz they're too old).

My brother made the same observation - I'd forgotten there were flashback scenes tbh

i'm slowly watching this for the first time, i'm early in season 2 now. what is the name of the character who is part of the gang who looks like chevy chase? i feel like he's there and they never say his name and he just hangs out looking like chevy chase

this dude:

https://i.imgur.com/FwUrkqW.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Curto

uh but maybe don't read all that (spoilers)

there are a bunch of (usually minor) recurring characters who are only partially introduced when they initially appear

it's funny, I think the wiki entries take a lot from scripts and other sources, cuz that dude is definitely never referred to as "Buffalo Ray" on-screen

(spoilers)

The revelation that he's [** *********] is one of the more fascinating mysteries of the show, since they never really explain when or how or if there's any consequences from it (I'm not sure there ever were? At least not on screen; possible it would have had consequences down the line)

Seitz and Sepinwall have a new book imminent, The Sopranos Sessions. Related a NYC Sopranos film fest that features both The Public Enemy and Barry Lyndon, along with more direct content:

http://www.ifccenter.com/series/the-sopranos-film-festival/

the authors speak:

We didn’t get him to admit Tony died or anything like that. He was saying that the original intention was to have intimations that Tony died, but he moved away from that to something more philosophical in nature. But David would talk about things being intentional without really being intentional. I asked him: Is it possible that a lifetime of consuming gangster films where heroes die at the end left a flavor? And he said, “That’s possible.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/books/sopranos-sessions-matt-zoller-seitz-alan-sepinwall-interview.html

Has anyone here even mentioned Chase's upcoming Sopranos prequel flick?

It centers on Christopher's father, says Mike Imperioli.

the name of that Seitz/Sepinwall book sends me looking for the "irrationally angry" thread

on that movie

https://deadline.com/2019/01/the-sopranos-david-chase-20th-anniversary-prequel-film-tony-soprano-the-many-saints-of-newark-1202530544/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dwk-gKeUUAAiuI-.jpg

was this the best four minutes of telly ever?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77BFazbwkU

im watching this show for the first time right now

it takes a while to get its footing

there's some hilariously un-sopranoish stuff at the beginning. tony and christopher riding after a guy in broad daylight in front of literally hundreds of people and beating him up in a really cartoonish way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IsyuTZq3cw

yeah it's almost like a different show for at least a few episodes

I agree. It's that scene I posted where it switches to great. (don't get me wrong there are great things in season one)

The show was often cartoonish, eg Van Zandt. That's not nec a problem.

btw Chase said his original feature film concept was for deNiro, and Anne Bancroft as the mother

(never mind that she was about 12 years older than RdN)

did you just straight up lift that gripe from the graduate

I’m only on like episode 4 but im already loving it

peaks at ep 5 fyi give up after that

she was 5 years older than Hoffman

and her birth name was Anna Italiano

Stay on for the college episode at least.

^^^def where the show starts hitting it's stride

Skip the episode "A Hit is a Hit."

i unintentionally skipped that episode when i revisited the show last year

what's so bad about it? (I have no particular memory of that episode)

Hesh is good in it. NJ rockband shit is hilarious.

the college episode is the one where Meadow asks Tony if he's in the mafia?

My Sopranos story is that last week I saw a complete Sopranos box-set in a charity shop and bought it immediately. I visited my 83 y.o. mum and left the box there by accident. She phoned me to say that she'd watched six episodes in one night "it's a bit violent but it's a good story", oh my days. She's nearly at the end of season two now.

Ha, that's cool!

Yes and lol

Xp

I think I need to be there to talk her through the last episode when she gets to it (which won't be long at this rate).

Glaswegian Mammy gets into the Sopranos. I wish we had emojis on here, sometimes.

Jim will enjoy that one, i think!

tony says something hilarious in the very first scene when melfis prodding him about being in waste management he just nots and goes "the environment"

Xp. I do enjoy it

the one aspect of this show that is perfect/fully formed right out the gate is Livia and her relationship to Tony. She really anchors the first season.

great story, jed

ask what she thinks of Paulie

the show has enabled to answer "Sopranos country" when asked where i'm from

great story, jed

ask what she thinks of Paulie

I'll ask her after she's watched the Pine Barrens episode!

I’ve been enjoying watching this concurrently with seemingly half of twitter

the sopranos is early costco-core, fruit bowl-wave, mcmansion gothic

— Patricia Lockwood (@TriciaLockwood) January 23, 2019

sounds like ppl not from exotic New Jersey, alright

i think s01e10 'a hit is a hit' where Adriana becomes a music manager for shitty grunge band is the first dud episode yet

there's clumsy stuff in that episode but there are a couple things I like: 1) Adriana's delusional devotion to such a ridiculously shitty band, and 2) the way the conflict with Massive Genius gets resolved; once he and Hesh both see this is just gonna be settled in court w lawyers they're like "eh, whatever"

lol at Christopher throwing a bag of coke at the band and beating the shit out of one of them to get them back in the booth

how bad the band sucks is pretty funny

why dont carm and tony ever smash? edie falco is smoking hot

they have a bad relationship

i think s01e10 'a hit is a hit' where Adriana becomes a music manager for shitty grunge band is the first dud episode yet

There is definitely some tony carm action in the show iirc, although obv not nearly as much as there is tony grunting over 20yo action

Speaking of smoking hot tho, damn @ the ep with Alicia Witt (which I had no memory of until I rewatched some of the series last year)

nice. looking forward to it

(the tony carm action)

last episode i watched ended with them eating pasta in silence, i was like dude stroke her air c'mon

I've been very gradually working my way through this since sometime last year, for the first time as well. Almost through S1. Seems like a lot of people I know are either watching or rewatching rn for some reason. Maybe because the current smorgasboard of options is nonetheless lacking a single knockout show.

why dont carm and tony ever smash? edie falco is smoking hot

― flopson, Saturday, February 9, 2019 5:12 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they have a bad relationship

― lag∞n, Saturday, February 9, 2019 11:28 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This has crossed my mind watching too -- at times they seem like they are communicative and affectionate, and both seem to have libido. Marriage doesn't seem bad enough to be sexless for some reason. One of the minor dissonances of the show for me.

is it supposed to be an implied conservative italian catholic thing? Madonna/whore complex? I think there are actually references to that maybe in the therapy sessions, though not specifically about Carmella?

nice Hurtings watching this too :)

i think everyone (re)watching has to do with it being 20th anniversary and David chase saying he’s gonna make a prequel series or movie

Just saw the ep with this scene. So good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5iKt8YpkmM

hm im like 5 eps ahead of you and now im sensitive about spoilers.. ill try to be considerate

Richie Aprile is freaking me out, Tony can’t kill him soon enough

the s2 episode where they go to italy is also kind of a dud imo

Yeah

David Chase commented on it in a recent interview,How they were out of their element in Italy

melfi: sounds to me like anthony jr may have stumbled onto existentialism
tony: fuckin' internet

just started S4 of my re-watch, some entertaining stuff thus far with Ralphie Cifaretto.

my fave bit of that season is when Tony goes to Paulie's house and realises he has not only rescued the portrait of him and Pie-O-My, but he has also had a Napoleon hat painted onto his head.

all the stuff with Pie-O-My is a rich vein of comedy, looking forward to reliving that

It's so weird how OLD the tech looks in this show already. The stock brokerage filled with those old-ass PCs looked like the 1970s to me.

Like it might as well have been, I mean. Prob because when I was growing up watching movies, 70s tech was about as old as the tech in Sopranos S2 is now.

the really bad s1 ep is the super self conscious one abt racism against Italians

the italy one has some nice moments paulie feeling like a total alien then getting back and saying he felt at home, christopher skipping activities to get high

xp yeah that one is a little ham-fisted, but it also develops Melfi's character imo

the really bad s1 ep is the super self conscious one abt racism against Italians

― lag∞n, Wednesday, February 13, 2019 11:59 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

isn’t this he same episode as the grunge band one, the tony plot is him getting invited to play golf w his neighbour but all they do is ask him about the mafia?

lol I definitely watched all of those in the same whiskey-fueled binge, but can't remember whether they're all actually the same episode

i feel like there was a lot of meta stuff w/the Italian thing, lots of it w/Richard Romanus' character (Melfi's ex-husband.) Another key role for one of the main foursome from Mean Streets along w/David Proval, too.

The one that stands out is the episode where Sil gets all pissy about people protesting Columbus Day. About as much like the Sopranos as those cupcake ads in the back of the comic book were like Spiderman.

Bet I could Control F and find myself saying the same thing way back in the Two Thousand Whatever the Fuck, but I don't care.

s2e9 finally some tony carm action

Lol s2e1 the writers are working hard to get him back to the therapist. “Tony, when are you going back to therapy?!”

I've seen so many Sopranos screenshots lately, this one made me do a double-take:

https://i.imgur.com/9nB7ESy.jpg

"Yeah, Carm. These movies are really something. Listen, I gotta go meet Sil..."

But not as big of a double-take as I did with this one:

https://i.imgur.com/P3zEA9r.jpg

hahaha otm abt Fargo

wow had to double-take that shot

"I'll tell you one thing.. one suicide is bad enough .. but two? They can both go fuck themselves"

thought this was good

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-tribute-to-edie-falco-as-carmela-soprano

xp Paul Dano as AJ's "cool" friend in that episode too!

young Clint Boon via New Jersey is a hell of a look, speaking of which Tom Hingley is playing at the rugby club in my local park next month!

he was definitely going for a Roger McGuinn c. 1965 look but it came off like one of those guys on the Oasis/Primal Scream thread

Moltesanti's acting in the acting class is legit riveting.

His bullshit pontificating about movies was tiresome as well. I suppose his character is meant to be a dim blowhard... But there are limits.

Can't remember what season I'm commenting on here, but vaguely remember lots of cringe worthy scenes with him.

no I mean I thought it was actually good. He does come off as a dim blowhard and I think he's supposed to be one but obv also a bottled-up mess.

I was thinking about how I'm kind of glad the Sopranos didn't come out now because there would be endless "toxic masculinity" thinkpieces (which, obv, is a theme of the show, but the discourse on that topic has gotten extremely annoying).

Lol there is two different opinions on him then. Probably some deep seated Arianna jealousy at work, but could never watch him without nitpicking his crap acting.

i think michael imperioli was great in this show

probably harsh of me to single him out as a duff character considering how crap Vito was, and tbf I think he was only really bad in patches and perhaps a lot of it was more down to lazy, shit-writing than the actor.

worst sopranos actors are buscemi vito + lil carmine

pffft

The one that stands out is the episode where Sil gets all pissy about people protesting Columbus Day. About as much like the Sopranos as those cupcake ads in the back of the comic book were like Spiderman

The Sopranos was not just one thing, tho

That one episode was.

I probably haven't gotten to it yet? but good long-running shows are gonna try new stuff, not all of it will work.

it's a bad episode but it has some ok parts. at the end tony is going on his kind of anti-identity politics, why isn't everyone a rugged, stoic individual like gary cooper rant and christopher keeps misunderstanding the point he's making in clueless ways is pretty good

well, i'll be seeing it soon when I resume

https://tv.avclub.com/the-sopranos-christopher-1798167916

Written by Imperioli as it happens

Furio is a pretty good character -- cheerfully entertains little kids, delivers terrifying beatdowns

I seem to recall Furio is an antique collector irl. I could imagine him turning up on bargain hunt after braying the fuck out of someone and genuinely beaming at some delicate little bone china trinket.

Furio and Carmela dancing is classic

just watched the ep where Furio evidently realises it would be a "bad idea" to go any further with Carmela, it's kind of heart-breaking. One of the good things about him as a character (along with Syl and to some extent Paulie) is that you're never given a window into their internal life, you're left to infer this stuff

the Furio/Carm love story has some really well done details, like Carm getting defensive when someone says his ponytail makes him look like he has a cock growing out of the back of his head. And Furio seeing the red mist and getting primal while pissed up Tony is stood close to those rotor blades.

furio wear a super frufru italian shirt to his welcome party then the next time u see him hes dressed jersey doing thug shit

Yeah. He has a “fun shirt” ^2 at that party.

Furio seems at heart a “good boy” who loves his mama. Even in doing extreme violence he is in a sense being a good boy.

everything about furio-carmen is awful

“‘Carmencita,’ Furio asked, ‘don’t you love me any more?’

“She gave me no answer, she was sitting cross-legged on a mat, making marks on the ground with her finger.

“‘Let us change our life, Carmen,’ said Furio imploringly. ‘Let us go away and live somewhere we shall never be parted.

xp have you no soul?

ive the most soul but cmon now

oh that plot thread is totally cheesy and romanticised but that's what makes it good fun I think

yep its pure soap opera grade fluff positive, but nevertheless classic.

kevin k, please keep going with the fan fiction

Furio and Carmela better than her and that priest.

yes but it is p funny when she calls him out for his bullshit

lol the priest is so lame

The way he says "you think I'm a schnorer" is fantastically cringey

Ray Liotta cast in the film

https://deadline.com/2019/02/ray-liotta-the-sopranos-prequel-film-goodfellas-mob-movie-david-chase-the-many-saints-of-newark-new-line-warner-bros-1202566594/

I really don't understand how Gandolfini's son is playing Tony. The kid is 19 this year, the series established Tony's birthdate as 1959/60, and the movie takes place in the turbulent Newark of the '60s.

yeah that doesn't make sense

Hard to wrap my head around Tony only being 39-40 at the start of the series.

It strikes me a lot of episodes that Tony might not be a particularly talented or cunning boss. He’s not dumb and he knows how to survive but he’s not brilliant either and sometimes maybe too soft.

hurting what episode u on? i took a tv break to read a book but i wanna keep up

S2E7 as I post

perf i was s2e9 when i stopped

Lol @ pussy reading “Waste News” — right out of zucker bros.

milo, Gandolfini was 36 or 37 when they shot the pilot.

shot the pilot.

hey no spoilers

Robert Patrick is not very believable as an Italian childhood friend somehow.

he's rubbish but I thoroughly enjoyed Tony rinsing him of just about everything bar the shoes on his feet.

that sequence of events more or less repeats itself in S4 in similarly entertaining fashion

Lol the tie up of the Janis/Ritchie plot was def a little forced.

thats prob got some of the best moments of the entire show imo

Overall I liked the plot, but it felt very "we need to get these characters out before the end of the season." You could feel the writers' cramp -- Ritchie had to die but it didn't quite feel right to have Janis widowed by her own brother while also having the two of them reconcile slightly and having her leave town. I had a hard time reading what Janis's motivation was supposed to be. She's normally very calculating. Was this calculated, or was it a genuine momentary angry reaction to what Ritchie did?

OTOH loved the S2 ending.

https://www.sopranoscon.com/

List of guests includes Goldee, aka Pie-Oh-My

My fave part of the Janice/Ritchie end was Tony's look of amazement when he enters the house and realizes what happened.

otm

I bawled when Meadow graduated high school. My baby's gonna leave me one day ;_;

*babies

i feel like not enough attention has been paid to latebloomer's bombshell declaration that a fucking horse will be a guest at a sopranos convention

also, googling 'pie-oh-my' led me to this user review of that episode from imdb which i feel needs to be quoted in full

The Sopranos

A classic take on the most beloved genre which clearly suggests the crazy love it received from the audience but also left a long lasting impression on critics and awards shows where it took away five justified Golden Globes to its home. The Sopranos is a character driven series about a family that basically runs the whole town, just illegally.

The writing is adaptive, gripping and ground-breaking on terms of its structure that is so eerily easy as it slips away from the audience like some jelly; it is sweet, nutritious and immensely pleasing. It is rich on technical aspects like its metaphorical cinematography, sharp sound effects and up beating songs along with palpable background score. The series is shot beautifully, each and every color sparks up neatly; especially the visuals that are taken in sunny days are amazing.

The performance by the cast is plausible since the effort is clearly visible but Gandolfini, Bracco, Falco and Imperioli stands alone due to their easiness in their acts. Gandolfini; at the heart of it, oozes power and the aegis nature which is what helps makers keep the audience rooting for the character.

The relationship between Gandolfini and Bracco is the highlight of the series due its fragile tone which is soothing to experience as it lights up the series in a whole new way. Pragmatic conversations, three dimensional character, gut-wrenching politics, brawny dialogues and brilliant execution are the high points of the feature that makes it one of the best series.

Season 04

This fourth act is more professional and business than personal and yet it is more emotionally competent, if not among the best. But with new additions of characters and expected threat, it has got the right amount of crispiness as much as it is husky.

Pie-O-My

Drunk in its emotional conflicts, it demands viewers' attention and creates the anticipated genuine impact whose credit goes to Gandolfini's stellar performance, while the rest of the act is set upon backstage more than it usually does.

id be more interested in meeting that horse than some of the other guests

i'm not gonna lie - same

FAP(ie-oh-my)?

I'll cosplay as Dr. Melfi's shrink

All you need are eyeglasses and a water bottle.

Peter Bogdanovich, you mean

want to dress up like george washington and get my picture taken with the horse

hah when Paulie saves that painting from the fire then hangs it in his living room, and even after it has been painted over the eyes follow him round the room, so classic. On our re-watch we speculated about which member of the cast & crew would have got to keep it

gracenote how he painted over tonys whole outfit but kept his face

like an Edgar Allan Poe story

yeah and like something about the depth of their relationship/power dynamic etc, he wldnt even think to paint over tones face

would meet pie oh my

but I would cosplay as Paulie or Chris (havent decided) from “the pine barrens episode” with a sackful of ketchup & relish packets

gotta be paulie gotta have the hair wings

yeah true!
but chrissy gets the big floor mat from the van & looks like a crazy sherpa

so many options

Did the first two eps of S3 where you at flops

Show just keeps getting better imo. The death of tony’s Mom ep was so good.

gandolfinis acting is kinda the best acting ever

movie title has apparently been boiled down to Newark

so much for total control, Mr Chase

gandolfinis acting is kinda the best acting ever

― lag∞n, Saturday, March 16, 2019 1:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it’s wild

it's excellent

'best ever' is silly

Better than u

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKxyR2py1E

it's excellent

'best ever' is silly

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, March 16, 2019 3:47 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow morbs i said kinda, show some respect

Oh! Stop breaking fucking balls ova here

Van Zandt otoh is far from the best ever but every time he’s on screen is so good

van zandt is bomb i stood behind him in line at katzs and he ordered just as u wld imagine w the hand gestures and the eeeying

love him forever

http://i64.tinypic.com/2aiium1.png

<3

awesome

Goddamnit the Sopranos is so good. The Sopranos is life. Prestige TV is shit. Everything else is shit.

Damn I forgot how funny Anthony Jr. is. Just a perfect character.

Funniest Sporano T/S

Anthony Jr. vs Paulie Walnuts

Minor subplot but great is the speeding ticket with the cop who winds up working at Fountains of Wayne. At first it doesn’t make sense — why does Tony vascillate between vengeful and soft hearted? But in the last scene it becomes clear: it’s control. He can’t stand the fact that there’s someone he can’t manipulate, whether through rage, bribes, kindness, or displays of power.

really, i'm the only one who thinks Newark is a lousy movie title

it's not great, but The Many Saints of Newark sounded like an Ed Burns movie

saints preserve us!

planned release: 9/25/20

really, i'm the only one who thinks Newark is a lousy movie title

Each time I see it, I picture Liotta working a quaint little B&B in Vermont.

really, i'm the only one who thinks Newark is a lousy movie title

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 18, 2019 7:22 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

says the "Patterson" fan

"Paterson" even gosh darnit

Every time I see it I picture Peter Finch ranting about just how mad he is and just how unwilling he is to take it anymore.

The title feels menacing to me because I know the context and read extensively about the riots not that long ago, but I would imagine general audiences might think of it as like Manhattan Pt. 2.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41K1OYj4AuL._SX318_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Based on how Detroit did...

and i'm FROM Newark... my parents even moreso.

Man, the Tracie episode was hard to watch. Tony feels sad about it, a girl his own daughter’s age, yet he enables Ralphie and directly profits off the exploitation of Tracie. It’s literally what puts his own daughter in the nice, safe, Ivy League school she’s attending while it all goes down.

Yeah, hardest episode of them all to watch.

Yet I think it serves the show well and isn't just some dark for the sake of dark bullshit. It reminds you who these people really are and what they really do, lest you get too cozy with them.

ralphie disrespected the bing!

Dr Krakower (Carmella's therapist): c/d?

Extremely classic

agree, love him

I'm through S4 Ep5 now.

That Columbus Day episode was hot garbage, sheesh.

one of the greatest screencaps from the show tho

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VydGxgTKjcT3Lp8WHFtGwb0Nij0=/166x0:1581x1061/920x613/filters:focal(166x0:1581x1061)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/41792380/Screenshot_2014-10-13_15.38.45.0.0.png

irl lol again

haaaaa

Almost done with S5. Maaaaaan it gets dark.

Where are the other first-timers at now?

think flopson stopped watching after he finally got to the ton-carm action

lol

he's missing out on the actually hot tony-carm pool scene then

had a long vacation and the weather's nice and I'm hesitating to finish S6. Maybe I'll just take it slowly.

My wife had never watched this before, so I'm going through it all for the first time since the original run ended. Things happen so much sooner than I remember, but I'm enjoying it so far. Totally blanked on the Favreau episode for some reason. Loved watching Christopher knock Swingers.

I haven't seen Swingers since it came out but I'm kind of guessing it hasn't aged well

Still getting through 6 and taking the darkness in small doses. So good though.

Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirippa are doing a podcast where they rewatch every episode...

https://pca.st/podcast/b6d9fa00-3a41-0138-9723-0acc26574db2

My favourite fact so far is Schirripa having to wear a fatsuit to play Bobby.

My first rewatch since I finally caught up with five years ago. Just finished Season 1. Like many other shows I've rewatched, the first time--because of advance word and heightened expectations--it took me a few episodes to warm up, but second time, immersed right from the start.

I've got to say that Carmela's send-off to Father Phil (probably Season 1's creepiest character) in the season finale is, word-for-word and gesture-for-gesture, brilliant. Killed me: "...I think a lot of it is tied up with food somehow."

If I group The Sopranos, Goodfellas, and the first two Godfathers together, I think the most terrifying guy of all might be Richie Aprile, even more than Pesci in Goodfellas. Couldn't believe when I first found out it was easy-going Tony from Mean Streets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTRUwnrsIJs

https://i.imgur.com/ZQ2oARQ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ZQ2oARQ.jpg

One of those throwaway references that makes you happy to be old: Paulie greeting Furio as "chef of the future."

Lol

nothing will ever make me laugh higher than "how many MIGs you shoot down last week?"

"I remember my mother and my father arguing about something, I don't know...She kept talkin' about father's feeble-minded brother, but I always thought she meant you."

http://phildellio.tripod.com/sopranos.jpg

lol

rude

Informal assessment based on the first two seasons: the very worst thing in the world a person can be is a Motherless Fuck.

Great moment from Season 3: Dr. Melfi's "No" at the end of the episode where she's raped--the long pause as she weighs the consequences of a "yes."

Season 3 has its own thread, mostly used for talking about Pine Barrens

Sopranos - Season 3

Finished the rewatch a couple of nights ago.

Pretty great--even more so than the first time (five years ago). I'll stand by Mad Men as my favourite show ever, but the gap closed: Mad Men, The Sopranos, and then whatever I'd put next.

I could go on about so many incredible moments--one from the last season: the shot of Junior that closes the episode where his friend attacks him in the home (the actor that played his friend was great)--but I'll do what I usually do instead, dwell on a couple of things that missed the mark for me. It's a weird sort of compliment with me.

I didn't feel the Tony-Melfi relationship was resolved in a way that justified all the time that was spent on it. I loved Tony yelling "I get it!" at the end of the peyote episode, and then, a couple of episodes later, she ends it because she's miffed over some article. I didn't feel like it was consistent with her character; it felt like they wanted to finish that off somehow but didn't quite know how.

I don't think everything has to be wrapped up--I don't think that at all--but I did want Carmela to find out the truth about Ade and Christopher. I wanted that moment to happen. (I think Ade's story her last season was about as tragic and moving as television gets.)

A.J.--tough one. In the whole series run, through all his different phases, I don't know if I actually liked him for more than 30 minutes. Pretty nervy by the writers to follow that though to the end. Even with all that, I still felt empathy for him that last season.

The music was better than I remembered. The end of that one episode, where Carmela learns of Meadow's engagement, starts crying, looks out at Tony floating in the pool, and Bobby Darin's "If I Were a Carpenter" starts up, that was almost as good as "Both Sides Now" in Mad Men.

20/20 hindsight, but that first season, if you had to bet on one character to be preternaturally indestructible, Paulie would have been the guy.

A.J. is pure comedy

The writers openly mocked him at times, for sure. The bear episode--"Mommy, mommy!" Not sure what I wanted there...something more, somehow.

I always liked A.J. just for being helpless in the face of that upbringing, and I loved the way they leaned into it. That's really how shitheads are made!

I thought he was a great, and touching, portrait of a kid who had been raised to be a failure in his father's eyes - felt like it tapped into the hypocrisy of American values, that they valued toughness, indulged his every whim then condemned him for being soft and expecting things to fall into his lap. In many ways he is the real tragic figure of the series, much more so than Meadow who mouthed platitudes and virtue signalled, but when push came to shove was totally complicit in her privilege and where it came from.

Interesting points that I'll mull over...Agree that they lost Meadow's character towards the end; she became more and more conventional. (I found it moving, though, when she told A.J. that as Italians, he was always going to be the favoured child; her resignation there--and A.J. seemingly not knowing what to make of her words--was perfect.)

I bought a critical book on The Sopranos a few years ago, I ought to read that right now.

See I read that as Meadow tossing another chip on her pile of self-pity, ignoring her massive privilege and advantage. The family is full of people doing that, probably the most penetrating social criticism the show made.

and - duh - I forgot that the talisman of the final series is the "Ojibwe saying" pinned by the writers to Tony's hospital notice board, "Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky." It gets half a dozen callbacks from there to the end, as Tony misapplies it to people he wants to put down.

(I think Ade's story her last season was about as tragic and moving as television gets.)

agreed on this. we watched the series for the first time last year, and from the minute she started working as an informant you just feel, "Jeez, well, there's only one way this ends."

The music was better than I remembered. The end of that one episode, where Carmela learns of Meadow's engagement, starts crying, looks out at Tony floating in the pool, and Bobby Darin's "If I Were a Carpenter" starts up, that was almost as good as "Both Sides Now" in Mad Men.

Christopher getting high at the fairground while Fred Neil's "Dolphins" plays is one of the most moving parts of the series, I think

The closing tracks were always spot on...John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown" portending the forthcoming gang war during the christening scene, and Van Morrison's "Glad Tidings" hopping in after Tony Uncle Bobby guns down Tony Uncle Johnny, that jaunty bass line signaling a strange sense of relief/closure...also "This Magic Moment" when Bobby meets up with his family at the lake house, his life having irrevocably changed...

"It Was A Very Good Year" opening Season 2 also an all-timer

"Evidently Chickentown" for me was the show's greatest musical moment (didn't know it at all previously). "Dolphins" was great too. Other favourites: Cream's "I Feel Free," R.L. Burnside's "Shuck Dub," "White Rabbit," "If I Were a Carpenter," a few others.

Tindersticks' Tiny Tears will always be my favourite.

not the subtlest needledrop but I always appreciated them cutting the Tindersticks what I assume was a pretty fat check for the prominent use of "Tiny Tears"

xp!

Love the live version of The Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" at the end of "Cold Cuts." So connected to Tony's pathologies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haWOLGAHppc

"Living On A Thin Line" by the Kinks was prominently featured in one episode ("University", maybe?) Was played three times, which puts it up there with "Tiny Tears" in the Sopranos pantheon. Least-likely stripper song ever. Also, was surprised to hear "Wood Cabin" by Saint Etienne playing in the background when Jimmy the rat was whacked in Season One.

(xpost) Yeah, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" was great. Don't think I ever hated Tony as much as his pointless baiting/escalation at that dinner table.

I wasn't sure what I was hearing--it definitely sounded like Ray Davies, yet it didn't sound like a 1966 B-side (I don't think I actually have the song). I thought I might have been hearing a cover version from the last decade or so. A live version explains that.

I can remember getting excited hearing a Murk track in the Bada Bing once, although felt it was possibly unlikely to have actually been played in a real strip club? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrE2Iq39qJ0

No, but Janice would be. https://t.co/RWQDQhq023

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) April 6, 2021

Definitely! Also Kevin Garvey Sr. from The Leftovers, Scott Glenn's character. Maybe Paul Kinsey from Mad Men, or Aidan Macallan from House of Cards--there's a whole list there.

Kenneth from Mad Men imo

Janice for suuuuuure tho

paulie would definitely "have questions"

Except for his brief meltdown with those Chevy guys, I always thought Ken Cosgrove was pretty grounded, VG.

idk he seemed like a kook to me lol

What would ever give you that idea?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6nDsLx98SI

AJ seems like safe bet

AJ is going to be infamous for the rest of his life because he was goaded into entering the capitol and someone got a photo of him pooping on AOC's shoes

Good morning! I investigated Furio's luxurious silk shirts on The Sopranos. Feast your senses: https://t.co/cCfJfIxnc6

— Gabriella Paiella (@GMPaiella) April 8, 2021

Includes a link to an Artnet story about the Furio actor discovering that he owns a $10 million painting.

a real life webistics https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/100-million-new-jersey-deli-linked-to-shell-company-e-waste.html

who's their Matthew Bevilacqua

Instead of a prequel movie, I want a series about Janice’s life post-Tony getting whacked.

it's gonna involve q

and a viral video of her doing some sort of horrible racist shit / getting kicked out for not wearing a mask / hassling a group of kids / yelling DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? / some combination of all the above

Trailer out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHa95iy2lF0

starring a de-aged John Cusack. bold.

I really don't understand how Gandolfini's son is playing Tony. The kid is 19 this year, the series established Tony's birthdate as 1959/60, and the movie takes place in the turbulent Newark of the '60s.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 27, 2019 8:24 PM

Looks terrible

I really don't understand how Gandolfini's son is playing Tony. The kid is 19 this year, the series established Tony's birthdate as 1959/60, and the movie takes place in the turbulent Newark of the '60s.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 27, 2019 8:24 PM

― pplains, Tuesday, June 29, 2021 10:39 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes.

Looks terrible

― bruce spr!ngisH3r3 on broadway (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 29, 2021 10:44 AM (twenty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

at least they have ray liotta in there playing himself

CHANTIX!

yikes that looks embarrassingly self-parodic. Has Vera Farmiga fallen into the most bizarre niche of typecasting?

Gandolfini's son already laughably tried to play a teenager in The Deuce—I didn't know who he was at first so was deeply confused why they didn't just cast an actual teen actor. He was more convincing when they let him play a sleazy douchebag stock broker in the third season, but he's...not his dad

Movie will probably be fine; the trailer rots. It looks like they gave young Tony some AJ qualities, which is probably the way to go.

***LOUD DRUM SOUND***

***LOUD DRUM SOUND***

***LOUD DRUM SOUND***

***LOUD DRUM SOUND***

***LOUD DRUM SOUND***

***SHITTY MUSIC***

Vital pic.twitter.com/bLZLMGTeVe

— 🔊💚 IT WAS BASS, MIDS, TOPS ALL ALONG 💚 🔊 (@joemuggs) June 29, 2021

awful trailer and lack of due care to a fictional world timeline aside... I'm still actually quite looking forward to watching this shite!