Lefty Wilbury
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- Nov 4, 2003
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new season starts sunday. who's watching?
the Sopranos
- Thread starter Lefty Wilbury
- Start date
MissileMan
Senior Member
- Sep 11, 2004
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Lefty Wilbury said:
Great show!
I liked The Wire and Carnivale too, though I already figured out how Carnivale is going to end.
I was talking about Carnivale in my post, but I was just joking. I've never seen it, but I don't know anyone else that has, either.
And, as for the Sopranos, even if you don't like mafia movies, it's worth giving it a shot. The writing is simultaneously really crass and vulgar and really complex and smart. All of the characters are unique and realistic and three-dimensional. Obviously, the violence and nudity gets the most attention, but at the end of the day, it's all about a character who has trouble balancing his work life and personality with his home life and personality.
True story: The Godfather bored me to tears. I fell asleep trying to watch The Godfather II. But I will never, ever miss an episode of The Sopranos (it helps if you grow up in Jersey, too).
no1tovote4
Gold Member
Wow. Tell your friends about Deadwood. Far better than the Sopranos right now. That last season sucked so badly that I do not even want to watch this season.
MissileMan
Senior Member
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Dan said:
Carnivale is a story about an eternal struggle between good and evil set in the great depression/dust bowl era. The champions for both sides are each descended from long lines of champions. When one generation dies in the struggle, the power is passed to the next generation. I found the show very entertaining. I hope they are just taking a pause for the remaining episodes like they did with the Sopranos.
As screwed as I am, I called Cablevision and added HBO to my lineup last night. It's only an extra $11.95 a month for 12 HBO channels and a free month of HBO on demand. I'm only here a few weeks more but enough to get in 3 Sopranos episodes, well worth $11.95! I already watched 2 episodes last night on the On-Demand.
Can't wait for the season opener tonight. If I don't get my latest job opportunity I was thinking about joining the mob, so I could always use a few pointers.
Can't wait for the season opener tonight. If I don't get my latest job opportunity I was thinking about joining the mob, so I could always use a few pointers.
Lefty Wilbury
Active Member
- Nov 4, 2003
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gotta love the last ten mins or so tonight. uncle junior is nuts! no previews for next week either are the sending a message?
SPOILERS!
Nah, I don't think there's any way they could possibly kill Tony. Then again, it's been a crazy week (Edgar!), who knows?
I thought it was a pretty good start. The first episodes of the season are usually not all that great, just because they have to get everyone caught up with what everybody's up to now. The story with the guy that wanted to go to Florida was pretty sad. I can already tell everyone's getting sick of the one guy talking about his diet all the time. Why all the stuff with the sushi place? They seemed to be going somewhere with it, and then never really paid it off. Meadow was looking pretty hot there in the beginning. And, yeah, poor Uncle Junior, he's really slipping. What was that he said when he shot Tony?
Nah, I don't think there's any way they could possibly kill Tony. Then again, it's been a crazy week (Edgar!), who knows?
I thought it was a pretty good start. The first episodes of the season are usually not all that great, just because they have to get everyone caught up with what everybody's up to now. The story with the guy that wanted to go to Florida was pretty sad. I can already tell everyone's getting sick of the one guy talking about his diet all the time. Why all the stuff with the sushi place? They seemed to be going somewhere with it, and then never really paid it off. Meadow was looking pretty hot there in the beginning. And, yeah, poor Uncle Junior, he's really slipping. What was that he said when he shot Tony?
Lefty Wilbury
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a kinda wierd episode tonight. it'll be interesting to see where they take this storyline. i wonder if little soprano will really off junior. only time will tell.
Lefty Wilbury
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11917564/
Real, dream families blend for Tony Soprano
While he floats in a coma, his real world unravels
COMMENTARY
By Andy Dehnart
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:19 a.m. ET March 20, 2006
The last time The Sopranos let viewers eavesdrop on one of Tony Sopranos dreams, it was a (controversially) long series of encounters with people in his life. At its end, Tony faced his childhood coach and, holding a literally impotent gun, was told that, as Tony said later, he was unprepared, as usual, for life.
That life was almost ended by Uncle Junior, and now, after two days in a coma, Tony Soprano had a different sort of dream, finding himself in a parallel universe. Once again, it was a dream full of rich imagery and symbolism that demands repeated viewing and detailed analysis.
Tony did not question this alternate universe, which was markedly different from reality; he was a salesperson living an apparently flatline sort of life. Arriving at a convention for work, he talked to his wife on the phone, and that woman was a bland, non-Carmela female; on his home voice mail message, his kids had chipper voices, most definitely not the morose but hyperbolic children Tony Soprano calls his own.
In these scenes, James Gandolfini even dropped his slurring accent, speaking in crisper sentences, and his shoulders seemed higher than usual, the weight of his mob boss life gone. What did not disappear, however, was the sound of Tonys nasal breathing.
Im 46 years old, Tony told a group of people at a bar, wheezing. Who am I? Where am I going?
Throughout the series life, that sound has been audible in those moments when Tony Soprano is the most vulnerable, as he clearly was in that moment at the bar. The meaning of this often-irritating sound design and acting couldnt have been clearer in Tonys real-world hospital room, where a respirator exaggerated and amplified those already familiar sounds. On the verge of death and brain damage, Tony was vulnerable, being challenged both physically and mentally. He was having an existential crisis via a literal identity crisis.
As if in a sort of twisted, hall-of-mirrors version of Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman, Tony was reflecting on his own life through the salesman version of himself, imagining an idealized reality just as Willy Loman does. This dream life was not perfecthe tried to cheat on his wife, for example. Later, instead of waiting for an elevator, Dreamworld Tony took the bright-red stairs and tripped, landing in the hospital. There he learned that he shows signs of Alzheimers, essentially becoming his delusional uncle.
In his dream, Tony also became another man. At a bar, he accidentally picked up the wallet and briefcase of a man named Kevin Finnertya man who, on his drivers license, looked somewhat like Tony. To function in our ID-dependent society, Tony was forced to pretend to be Kevin just to book a hotel room and, later, to be treated in a hospital.
Family matters
This identity-blurring dream sequence was intercut in the episode with scenes from Tonys real life, as his familygenetic and otherwisereacted to his condition. His son AJ had the most trouble, avoiding the issue by referring to his dad by his full name and trying to engage Meadow in a conversation about hybrid cars. Ultimately, AJ was able to deal with his fathers condition by, essentially, becoming him, channeling his anger. Hey, Dad.
Im going to get Uncle Junior for this. Dont worry, he told his silent, comatose father. Crying, he said, Youre my dad, and Im going to put a bullet in his f---ing mummy head, I promise.
Where exactly Tony was in his dreamspace wasnt clear, but hospital room visits from the two other people he loves most in the world introduced two possibilities. Meadow read a Jacques Prévert poem to Tony which, if taken literally, suggested hes on his way to heaven: Our Father which art in heaven, Stay there. And we will stay on earth, Which is sometimes so pretty.
Carmela, meanwhile, in her few moments of non-self-centered reaction to his condition, reminisced with Tony, apologizing to him for once saying he was damned. But you are not going to hell. Youre coming back here. I love you. She paused between those first two sentences, almost saying, in effect, youre not going to hell now, but maybe later.
But the episode ended with Tony looking out at the window of his hotel room at a light in the distance. While it may have represented the proverbial, go-toward-it light, the light belonged to an airport-style searchlight, scanning all 360 degrees of the horizon. Mobys When Its Cold Id Like To Die played on the soundtrack and its lyrics, like the endlessly circling light, suggested a third option for Tonys afterlife, purgatory: I dont want to fight the tide/I dont want to swim forever/When its cold Id like to die.
Wherever Tony may be or may be going, he and Uncle Junior are now out of command in New Jersey, and because of that, his associates began to show signs of unraveling. And thats an existential crisis that threatens to turn into a nightmare.
Real, dream families blend for Tony Soprano
While he floats in a coma, his real world unravels
COMMENTARY
By Andy Dehnart
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:19 a.m. ET March 20, 2006
The last time The Sopranos let viewers eavesdrop on one of Tony Sopranos dreams, it was a (controversially) long series of encounters with people in his life. At its end, Tony faced his childhood coach and, holding a literally impotent gun, was told that, as Tony said later, he was unprepared, as usual, for life.
That life was almost ended by Uncle Junior, and now, after two days in a coma, Tony Soprano had a different sort of dream, finding himself in a parallel universe. Once again, it was a dream full of rich imagery and symbolism that demands repeated viewing and detailed analysis.
Tony did not question this alternate universe, which was markedly different from reality; he was a salesperson living an apparently flatline sort of life. Arriving at a convention for work, he talked to his wife on the phone, and that woman was a bland, non-Carmela female; on his home voice mail message, his kids had chipper voices, most definitely not the morose but hyperbolic children Tony Soprano calls his own.
In these scenes, James Gandolfini even dropped his slurring accent, speaking in crisper sentences, and his shoulders seemed higher than usual, the weight of his mob boss life gone. What did not disappear, however, was the sound of Tonys nasal breathing.
Im 46 years old, Tony told a group of people at a bar, wheezing. Who am I? Where am I going?
Throughout the series life, that sound has been audible in those moments when Tony Soprano is the most vulnerable, as he clearly was in that moment at the bar. The meaning of this often-irritating sound design and acting couldnt have been clearer in Tonys real-world hospital room, where a respirator exaggerated and amplified those already familiar sounds. On the verge of death and brain damage, Tony was vulnerable, being challenged both physically and mentally. He was having an existential crisis via a literal identity crisis.
As if in a sort of twisted, hall-of-mirrors version of Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman, Tony was reflecting on his own life through the salesman version of himself, imagining an idealized reality just as Willy Loman does. This dream life was not perfecthe tried to cheat on his wife, for example. Later, instead of waiting for an elevator, Dreamworld Tony took the bright-red stairs and tripped, landing in the hospital. There he learned that he shows signs of Alzheimers, essentially becoming his delusional uncle.
In his dream, Tony also became another man. At a bar, he accidentally picked up the wallet and briefcase of a man named Kevin Finnertya man who, on his drivers license, looked somewhat like Tony. To function in our ID-dependent society, Tony was forced to pretend to be Kevin just to book a hotel room and, later, to be treated in a hospital.
Family matters
This identity-blurring dream sequence was intercut in the episode with scenes from Tonys real life, as his familygenetic and otherwisereacted to his condition. His son AJ had the most trouble, avoiding the issue by referring to his dad by his full name and trying to engage Meadow in a conversation about hybrid cars. Ultimately, AJ was able to deal with his fathers condition by, essentially, becoming him, channeling his anger. Hey, Dad.
Im going to get Uncle Junior for this. Dont worry, he told his silent, comatose father. Crying, he said, Youre my dad, and Im going to put a bullet in his f---ing mummy head, I promise.
Where exactly Tony was in his dreamspace wasnt clear, but hospital room visits from the two other people he loves most in the world introduced two possibilities. Meadow read a Jacques Prévert poem to Tony which, if taken literally, suggested hes on his way to heaven: Our Father which art in heaven, Stay there. And we will stay on earth, Which is sometimes so pretty.
Carmela, meanwhile, in her few moments of non-self-centered reaction to his condition, reminisced with Tony, apologizing to him for once saying he was damned. But you are not going to hell. Youre coming back here. I love you. She paused between those first two sentences, almost saying, in effect, youre not going to hell now, but maybe later.
But the episode ended with Tony looking out at the window of his hotel room at a light in the distance. While it may have represented the proverbial, go-toward-it light, the light belonged to an airport-style searchlight, scanning all 360 degrees of the horizon. Mobys When Its Cold Id Like To Die played on the soundtrack and its lyrics, like the endlessly circling light, suggested a third option for Tonys afterlife, purgatory: I dont want to fight the tide/I dont want to swim forever/When its cold Id like to die.
Wherever Tony may be or may be going, he and Uncle Junior are now out of command in New Jersey, and because of that, his associates began to show signs of unraveling. And thats an existential crisis that threatens to turn into a nightmare.
Lefty Wilbury
Active Member
- Nov 4, 2003
- 1,109
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- #18
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/16/television.hbo.reut/index.html
'Sopranos' final season to begin April 8
PASADENA, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- The HBO mob series "The Sopranos" will launch its sixth and final season of nine installments on April 8, while hipster comedy "Entourage" will also return with new episodes on that date.
"Sopranos" creator and executive producer David Chase will write and direct the finale of the seminal mob series that has grown to define HBO since its premiere in 1999, the premium cable network announced during its portion of the Television Critics Assn. press tour Friday.
Additionally, "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini is executive producing and conducting interviews for a documentary special that has the working title "Alive Day: Home From Iraq," featuring the stories of wounded servicemen. It is slated to premiere on July 4. And production begins in February on HBO Films' seven-hour historical miniseries "John Adams," starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.
"Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf showed up to plug an HBO movie he is executive producing. "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," based on the classic 1971 book by Dee Brown, documents the subjugation of Native Americans during the latter half of the 19th century.
Wolf noted that it was his first project for HBO, and hopefully not his last.
"I'd do anything that HBO wanted me to do given the strictures that I'm under contractually," Wolf said. "They are both famous and notorious for taking a great deal of time ... but the reality is they end up doing it right."
"Deadwood" creator David Milch talked up his new drama "John From Cincinnati," which is pegged for a surfing-friendly summertime debut. His appearance at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel event proved to be something of a surreal experience, with the producer in an unusually chatty, stream-of-consciousness mood while extolling the virtues of "Cincinnati," his paranormal surfing series. It left all who witnessed it feeling bemused and somewhat overwhelmed.
"To my mind, reality is a shifting and elusive condition," Milch said during one of his expansive oral adventures. "It redefines itself constantly. ... When I was saying that this is a story that takes place on the margins of things, the attempt to identify the coordinates of reality is itself a kind of problematic and conditional effort. It's changing all the time. ... As time goes on, you come to realize what seemed to be chasms of difference which cannot be bridged turn out not even to exist."
HBO is a unit of Time Warner, as is CNN.
'Sopranos' final season to begin April 8
PASADENA, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- The HBO mob series "The Sopranos" will launch its sixth and final season of nine installments on April 8, while hipster comedy "Entourage" will also return with new episodes on that date.
"Sopranos" creator and executive producer David Chase will write and direct the finale of the seminal mob series that has grown to define HBO since its premiere in 1999, the premium cable network announced during its portion of the Television Critics Assn. press tour Friday.
Additionally, "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini is executive producing and conducting interviews for a documentary special that has the working title "Alive Day: Home From Iraq," featuring the stories of wounded servicemen. It is slated to premiere on July 4. And production begins in February on HBO Films' seven-hour historical miniseries "John Adams," starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.
"Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf showed up to plug an HBO movie he is executive producing. "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," based on the classic 1971 book by Dee Brown, documents the subjugation of Native Americans during the latter half of the 19th century.
Wolf noted that it was his first project for HBO, and hopefully not his last.
"I'd do anything that HBO wanted me to do given the strictures that I'm under contractually," Wolf said. "They are both famous and notorious for taking a great deal of time ... but the reality is they end up doing it right."
"Deadwood" creator David Milch talked up his new drama "John From Cincinnati," which is pegged for a surfing-friendly summertime debut. His appearance at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel event proved to be something of a surreal experience, with the producer in an unusually chatty, stream-of-consciousness mood while extolling the virtues of "Cincinnati," his paranormal surfing series. It left all who witnessed it feeling bemused and somewhat overwhelmed.
"To my mind, reality is a shifting and elusive condition," Milch said during one of his expansive oral adventures. "It redefines itself constantly. ... When I was saying that this is a story that takes place on the margins of things, the attempt to identify the coordinates of reality is itself a kind of problematic and conditional effort. It's changing all the time. ... As time goes on, you come to realize what seemed to be chasms of difference which cannot be bridged turn out not even to exist."
HBO is a unit of Time Warner, as is CNN.
Me!!! It's been so long, I have to refresh my memory about what's happened so far. Thanks for letting us know!
Lefty Wilbury
Active Member
- Nov 4, 2003
- 1,109
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- #20
not this sunday. 'Sopranos' final season to begin April 8
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