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")

great call re AJ - his and Meadow's arcs in the last season feel like the writers getting a few things off their chests.

Would have been kind of brilliant to end S5 five minutes earlier than they did, with Tony and Carmela lying in bed trying to get their heads around what an "event planner" does.

idk if this is a hot take but AJ is the funniest fucking character in the whole thing. such a specific type of millennial shithead and they realised him so well that everyone hates him more than the actual murderers in the show but almost everything he does or says is gold. i don't think he even registered as comedy to me before bc i was his age watching it but he rules and his all over the place politics in the last episode is so real and perfect and 2007

Yes!

"I agree with that Senator Sanitorium, who says if we let this stuff go too far, pretty soon we'll be fսck¡ng dogs."

Nice reminder that Senator Sanitorium, 15 years later, was brought onto CNN as basically the moderate face of the Republican party...

Vito's subplot in S6 was such a great idea. He reminds me, in a way, of Doug Stamper in House of Cards (his obsession with Rachel), or more than one of the supporting Russian agents in The Americans, especially Dylan Baker--these characters who are out there at the edge of the main story, haunted and on the run. The shot of him walking down the road at night after his car breaks down is beautiful. (Something about the way he walks is especially sad.) I've still got most of S6 to go--I forgot the specifics of what happens to him in the end, but I know it's not good.

it's fascinating how the homophobia manifests differently among the characters as they're trying to figure out what the correct line is. despite all their posturing they still want maintain these exceptions- it's not necessarily gay to fuck a guy in prison, and penetrating is almost nbd compared to being penetrated - penetration as projection of hetero male power (including between men) is basically how the whole thing is wrapped up. and to give head to anyone is to be penetrated- it's almsot like an imperial roman or fascist sexual politics they have (of course none of them really follow it and paulie might well have fucked some guys in prison)

they all know that being gay is incompatible with being a mafioso even as they're also forced to acknowledge that gay mobsters exist and always have done (a lot of the fan reaction of the time was not dissimilar- just the idea of this fat gay mobster finding love for a while, something that actually happens irl- was derided as totally unrealistic (the actual supernatural shit in a few episodes never inspired the same incredulity)

still not sure how i feel about the storyline as a whole - i'm glad they did it and it does have a strangely different tone to it which sets it apart from pretty much the entire series in a cool way. the leather daddy thing- i'm kind of glad it's there since the gay respectability politics of the time was so opposed to representation of kinky or overly "stereotypical" gay culture, which made for some boring gay representation for a while. otoh it totally feels like something a bunch of straight boomers pitching gay things for vito to do would come up with because they think the village people are hilarious

The scene inside the gay club was pretty corny shock-value; what I really liked were the shots of Vito walking around this small New Hampshire town, popping into the antique shop, watching the firemen at work (which obviously had a secondary purpose), trying to imagine a new way of life.

Not sure how credible it is that Meadow and Finn--who are supposed to be conscientious, and left-leaning, albeit in a 2006 context--sell Vito out so readily. Surely they realize what will happen to him. (And Finn had remained silent thus far.)

tony sirico was one of the most naturally funny people ever

supposedly he did his own hair and wouldn't let the professional hair people on the show touch it

The moment when Finn first saw Vito in the truck was such a shock when the episode first aired.

Having just watched these episodes, I'm pretty sure there were a couple of very brief intimations before that concerning Vito's sexuality--shots that were almost subliminal.

supposedly he did his own hair and wouldn't let the professional hair people on the show touch it

tony sirico was one of the most naturally funny people ever
― in places all over the world, real stuff be happening (voodoo chili)

Funny as all get-out, but I'm really noticing this time just how vicious and awful he can be. Thinking in particular of the beating he gives to the son who inherits his father's business (demanding that he kick $4,000 a month up to him--and something of a shock, coming right after he's brought to tears by something that relates to his mother/aunt revelation), and two or three other times in S5 and S6 where he comes across as the worst guy in the whole crew.

yes definitely. he was a small, vicious, angry man, and he had the highest body count of anyone in the show iirc

And he's also the focus of one of the show's most touching scenes, after he learns he has cancer and silently walks into his mother (aunt's) apartment and asks what she's watching on TV.

Is it wrong of me to think that the actor was closer to his character than most?

I think about this exchange all the time pic.twitter.com/97II32aZmo

— Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) July 8, 2022

Perhaps mentioned in a different thread, but not in this one (from a footnote in The Sopranos Sessions, referring to the scene where A.J. and his friends vandalize the pool):

"Look closely in the pool scene and you'll spot a young Lady Gaga, then a fifteen-year-old actress billed as Stefani Germanotta."

Pretty common knowledge, I guess, but new to me.

https://www.stereogum.com/2169409/lady-gaga-the-sopranos-cameo-telltale-moozadell/news/

I finished the final episode over the weekend. Also noticed--not until the credits--that Donna Pescow played Patsy's wife in the finale (she was Annette in Saturday Night Fever, who was raped and just treated like dirt by Travolta and his friends). I'm guessing the casting was intentional: I don't think Saturday Night Fever was ever specifically mentioned in the show, but along with Scorsese and Sinatra and all the rest, I'm sure it resided somewhere in the psychological headspace of Tony and the rest.

Loved Tony's peyote trip in Las Vegas.

Went to a rep screening of Saturday Night Fever last night, started reading up on Karen Lynn Gorney. (The more times I see SNF, the more I think she's just as remarkable as Travolta. The scene where he presses her on the guy she was living with and she breaks down crying is beautifully acted.) Such a strange career...After SNF (she'd already been a soap star), she did not make another film until 1991. Nor did she return to TV. Nada. She's acted pretty steadily this century, including one appearance in The Sopranos as Judy that I missed. This supports my idea above that there's a link between the two, as does (never really took notice of it before) the use of "stugots" in SNF.

Hmmmm

You loved Michael Imperioli in The Sopranos, and we think you’ll love him and his band, Zopa! You can catch him shredding at @Sl33pingVillag3 this Sat, 8/13 😍 Paul Jacobs from @potteryband gets the 21+ night started at 9pm.

Win tickets here! https://t.co/W0Fy7PGuCV pic.twitter.com/15IK85hcpi

— CHIRP Radio 107.1FM (@CHIRPRadio) August 11, 2022

@potteryband

Michael Imperioli by all accounts has great musical taste, but that photo looks like the kind of band Christopher Moltasanti would be busting acoustic guitars over the heads of.

lol

(xpost) If he has a strong enough sense of humour, they'll open with Visiting Day's "Erase Myself."

His Quietus Baker's Dozen is a good read

https://thequietus.com/articles/28701-michael-imperioli-interview-favourite-music-the-sopranos

That Michael Imperioli band photo looks like Disney bought the rights to The Godfather material and this is the poster for the fourth season of the continuing saga on Disney+.

They look like a band that might be lacking in jokes.

They look like an aging rock band who wanted on their new album to go back to the basics.

Hey, I won tickets to see serious Imperioli tomorrow night!

That's great...Walk right up to him and say "I'm with the Vipers"--he'll love it!

say you're Visiting Day

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

lollll

Moltasanti did heroin, while Imperioli did "Heroin." Good rock show! The band really seemed to enjoy playing a packed small club.

there are eight of those up in da club videos and they're all great

so that christopher/bobby bacala book is just a transcript of their podcast? fuck that lol

is the zoller seitz book any good?

I probably posted about it above. Excellent, with a caveat: it's so detailed, it's only worth reading coming right out of a rewatch (what I did), or reading it alongside a rewatch (what I did with his Mad Men book; I read each entry right after watching that episode).

that sounds appealing.

i really wanted to like the imperioli/schirippa book but i'm not sure either of them grasp what an oral history is. most of it is them talking to each other.

An oral history is when I tell the story of when I went over to Paris for a blowjob: your mother was working the bonbon concession at the Eiffel Tower

a swing and a miss

i've heard steve schirippa is extremely annoying on the podcast but maybe that's his 'persona'. or maybe he's just kind of a dumb, annoying guy

The Matt Zoller Seitz was co-written with Alan Sepinwall; the interesting thing is that they took turns as television critic for The Newark Star Ledger, the newspaper Tony's always picking up at the end of his driveway.

A friend and I Zoomcasted on music in The Sopranos--just passing mention of Journey, though.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM9Y8AkkIzg

So Drea de Matteo now has an onlyfans, not gonna post the link but it's there if you care to search for it

apparently she needs the money because work has dried up due to her anti-vax stance

shame about Adriana Le Scrounga