Sopranos

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)