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The Sopranos


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I don't think Janice was the worst character, but she was may have been the most annoying (intentionally).  I think she was important as she illustrated the manipulative nature of their mother.  Janice learned from the best.  She manipulated her way into their mother's house (twice) when Tony wanted to get rid of it.  She had Tony in the palm of her hand and always got what she wanted.  She is the perfect manifestation of her mother even if she does have some redeemable qualities.  Plus, she liked to fuck.  How many women would let you hold a gun to their head during sex??  That's got be worth something. 

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2 hours ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, in hindsight---Janice had some subtle arcs to her.  And the actress played it well.  She mirrored Tony in that she ebbed and flowed through vile shitbag to half-ass decent to a handful of people on the rare occasion.  

A.J. was just a character that was written to suck.  That kid actor had nothing to work with.  Shit backstory, shit dialogue, suck in every scene, sulk in the background.  The whole thing is Tony is a 40 year old Catholic Italian.  He has to have multiple kids with his legit wife.  So they write up Meadow and then A.J.  They're not gonna follow typical mob movie/show tropes and have the kid be groomed to take over the seat one day.  So they conjure up A.J.  And there he is, just waiting to suck.  Over and over and over again.  Every once in awhile he fucks up so that Tony and Carmella have something to congeal over or fight over.  But in the end, they could easily have sent him off to that military academy full-time so he'd only show up for a handful of scenes per season and nobody (viewers or people on the show) would have batted an eye.  I'm sure that actor is a nice guy in real life, but I never understood why he got so much screen time.  The tension in Tony's life at home came from Carmella not knowing what she wants in life and Meadow being the perfect reflection of what Tony could have been in another life.  

This.  AJ was a very single dimensional character.  I also agree that the why makes sense except why did he get so much screen time?  

I submit that Livia was a horrible character.  Nancy Marchand died after season two but I can't imagine the character over another four seasons just bitching and moaning and moaning and bitching.  I'm curious if Chase had ideas as to her future arc but I don't know.

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1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, in hindsight---Janice had some subtle arcs to her.  And the actress played it well.  She mirrored Tony in that she ebbed and flowed through vile shitbag to half-ass decent to a handful of people on the rare occasion.  

A.J. was just a character that was written to suck.  That kid actor had nothing to work with.  Shit backstory, shit dialogue, suck in every scene, sulk in the background.  The whole thing is Tony is a 40 year old Catholic Italian.  He has to have multiple kids with his legit wife.  So they write up Meadow and then A.J.  They're not gonna follow typical mob movie/show tropes and have the kid be groomed to take over the seat one day.  So they conjure up A.J.  And there he is, just waiting to suck.  Over and over and over again.  Every once in awhile he fucks up so that Tony and Carmella have something to congeal over or fight over.  But in the end, they could easily have sent him off to that military academy full-time so he'd only show up for a handful of scenes per season and nobody (viewers or people on the show) would have batted an eye.  I'm sure that actor is a nice guy in real life, but I never understood why he got so much screen time.  The tension in Tony's life at home came from Carmella not knowing what she wants in life and Meadow being the perfect reflection of what Tony could have been in another life.  

From what I gathered Robert Iler was a huge kiss ass on set and knew how to work the system into more scenes. Everybody seemed to like him, and seemed to be rooting for him as an actor. 

Sometimes being a good politician is more important than being a good actor. 

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5 hours ago, Mango4 said:

Watching this for the first time. Halfway through the second season and I feel like an idiot for not watching this way earlier. 

if it's any consolation i envy you getting to watch it for the first time! 

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11 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I'm listening to a history of Third Colombo War (1991 - 1993), the Sopranos New Jersey - New York War depicted in Season 6 is almost an exact retelling. 

David Chase is brilliant, but he pulled many Sopranos storylines out of the newspaper. 

Where are you listening to this? I love mafia history. 

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1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

It's Scott Bernstein's podcast, Original Gangsters. 

There are several episodes on the Colombo Wars, but I was referencing the June 5, 2019 episode featuring Larry Mazza. 

Mazza was a capo in the Colombo Crime Family and reported up to Greg "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa. 

So has the culture just completely changed? The conventional wisdom always was you only leave the Mob one way, but there seem to be a lot of very public ex-mob guys ... is it just so impotent they don't even worry about capping guys that leave and run their mouths? 

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46 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

Dammit. There goes 10 weeks of my life. :) Thanks for sharing.

Same goes for David Simon - good writer but most taken from real life.

Haha. Not to derail the thread, but Bernstein is probably the best, current mob journalist out there. He's also a huge Sopranos fan. 

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6 hours ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

So has the culture just completely changed? The conventional wisdom always was you only leave the Mob one way, but there seem to be a lot of very public ex-mob guys ... is it just so impotent they don't even worry about capping guys that leave and run their mouths? 

Yeah, a lot of government witnesses are now trying to sell books, movies, and YouTube ads. That said these guys were active in 1990s and 2000s. Active members seem to be keeping a low profile. 

To answer your question, I think they're trying to not draw heat by killing a guy like Richie Cantraella. I guess if they keep their mouths shut about active members then there's no problem. 

I'm going to start a new thread in the Daily Texan forum for mob news. 

Funny story, Vinny Ocean, Chase's inspiration for Tony, was pinched in Houston for running women and drugs out of his strip clubs while in witness protection. Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Palermo#New_life_in_Houston,_Texas

Edited by billfromlaketravis
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  • 4 weeks later...

2-3 weeks ago, CBS Sunday Morning had an interview with David Chase, promoting the prequel. They mentioned that the death of James Gandolfini was why they couldn’t do a Sopranos movie so they had to go with the prequel. If Gandolfini was still alive then you know they would’ve done a Sopranos movie with a still living Tony who didn’t die in the final episode.

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On 8/25/2021 at 10:59 AM, Hate said:

I don't think Janice was the worst character, but she was may have been the most annoying (intentionally).  I think she was important as she illustrated the manipulative nature of their mother.  Janice learned from the best.  She manipulated her way into their mother's house (twice) when Tony wanted to get rid of it.  She had Tony in the palm of her hand and always got what she wanted.  She is the perfect manifestation of her mother even if she does have some redeemable qualities.  Plus, she liked to fuck.  How many women would let you hold a gun to their head during sex??  That's got be worth something. 

 

I thought she was a feminist?

 

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

2-3 weeks ago, CBS Sunday Morning had an interview with David Chase, promoting the prequel. They mentioned that the death of James Gandolfini was why they couldn’t do a Sopranos movie so they had to go with the prequel. If Gandolfini was still alive then you know they would’ve done a Sopranos movie with a still living Tony who didn’t die in the final episode.

This. F***ing this. 

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On 10/1/2021 at 7:20 PM, WhatTheBuck said:

2-3 weeks ago, CBS Sunday Morning had an interview with David Chase, promoting the prequel. They mentioned that the death of James Gandolfini was why they couldn’t do a Sopranos movie so they had to go with the prequel. If Gandolfini was still alive then you know they would’ve done a Sopranos movie with a still living Tony who didn’t die in the final episode.

By "they" you mean the narrator of the CBS piece who said some throwaway line about a nonexistent sequel to set up a line about a prequel? What a weirdly misleading and disingenuous summary of the CBS piece. 

Chase has never said, implied, nor insinuated he intended to do a sequel of any kind. And he certainly never would have done a sequel with a still living Tony, for one because Tony is dead (duh). And secondly, Chase never would have pandered to audiences by providing an easy answer either way. That's just an idiotioc take. Worse than your wrong take on the ending.

On 10/1/2021 at 8:21 PM, billfromlaketravis said:

This. F***ing this. 

Come on. You're smarter than this.

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And to clear up the "sequel" stuff even further, this is from a Vulture piece posted in the MSON thread:

Quote

In the 14 years since The Sopranos ended, Chase has only done one other project: the 2012 rock-and-roll roman à clef Not Fade Away. He started to write a Sopranos movie in the summer of 2018, following 11 years of turning down requests from Warner Bros. to make a theatrical spin-off. “Even when Jim was alive, there was talk about doing a literal prequel, with us playing ourselves maybe ten years earlier,” recalls Imperioli. “Jim was like, ‘What, are we gonna wear wigs and girdles, like Star Trek?’ ”

And even more evidence that all but confirms Tony was whacked. 

https://www.vulture.com/article/david-chase-sopranos-many-saints-of-newark.html?utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=vulture&utm_source=tw

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4 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

By "they" you mean the narrator of the CBS piece who said some throwaway line about a nonexistent sequel to set up a line about a prequel? What a weirdly misleading and disingenuous summary of the CBS piece. 

Chase has never said, implied, nor insinuated he intended to do a sequel of any kind. And he certainly never would have done a sequel with a still living Tony, for one because Tony is dead (duh). And secondly, Chase never would have pandered to audiences by providing an easy answer either way. That's just an idiotioc take. Worse than your wrong take on the ending.

Come on. You're smarter than this.

What happens in the show is what happens in the show and if you think something that didn’t happen in the show happened in the show then you’re cinematically illiterate. And you don’t know how business works if you think they never left plans open for a Sopranos movie. 

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4 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

What happens in the show is what happens in the show and if you think something that didn’t happen in the show happened in the show then you’re cinematically illiterate.

“If you look at the final episode really carefully, it's all there." -David Chase, 2007

Maybe it's you who's "cinematically illiterate" and not looking really carefully. You still refuse to acknowledge or understand point of view - a very basic, fundamental concept in film language - which makes you the film reader equivalent of a kindergartner stumbling through a Clifford book.

 

Quote

And you don’t know how business works if you think they never left plans open for a Sopranos movie. 

I never said that. I was specifically referring to your speculative nonsense about a sequel with a still living Tony Soprano. A Sopranos movie could be a prequel or spinoff. Or even a sequel with a dead Tony. And again with the vague "they." Who is "they?" Warner Bros? David Chase? You think Chase gave a shit about "leaving room for a sequel" when he wrote the finale? You think Chase ended his magnum opus on a cliffhanger?

 “No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God. We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people’s minds, or thinking, ‘Wow, this’ll [tick] them off.’ People get the impression that you’re trying to [mess] with them and it’s not true. You’re trying to entertain them. . . . Anybody who wants to watch it, it’s all there.” -Chase

That sound like a guy who chose to end his show on a cliffhanger?

Chase spent six years turning down gobs of money to work on this alleged Sopranos sequel you claim was definitely going to happen, so I guess he doesn't know how business works either?  Everything Chase said and did in the six years between the series ending and Gandolfini dying suggests he had zero interest in making a sequel. You're trying to sneak in some "look at me, I was right about the ending" bullshit based on nothing but a throwaway line of copy in a CBS interview.  

 

Edited by CurlyDumps
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Just to put this Sopranos sequel nonsense to bed for good, Chase addressed it directly in a new interview on "Talking Sopranos."

Schirripa asks Chase point-blank if he would have done a Sopranos movie had Gandolfini not died. 

Chase: "...No. I would not have done another Sopranos movie."

 

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On 10/4/2021 at 10:16 PM, CurlyDumps said:

“If you look at the final episode really carefully, it's all there." -David Chase, 2007

Maybe it's you who's "cinematically illiterate" and not looking really carefully. You still refuse to acknowledge or understand point of view - a very basic, fundamental concept in film language - which makes you the film reader equivalent of a kindergartner stumbling through a Clifford book.

 

I never said that. I was specifically referring to your speculative nonsense about a sequel with a still living Tony Soprano. A Sopranos movie could be a prequel or spinoff. Or even a sequel with a dead Tony. And again with the vague "they." Who is "they?" Warner Bros? David Chase? You think Chase gave a shit about "leaving room for a sequel" when he wrote the finale? You think Chase ended his magnum opus on a cliffhanger?

 “No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God. We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people’s minds, or thinking, ‘Wow, this’ll [tick] them off.’ People get the impression that you’re trying to [mess] with them and it’s not true. You’re trying to entertain them. . . . Anybody who wants to watch it, it’s all there.” -Chase

That sound like a guy who chose to end his show on a cliffhanger?

Chase spent six years turning down gobs of money to work on this alleged Sopranos sequel you claim was definitely going to happen, so I guess he doesn't know how business works either?  Everything Chase said and did in the six years between the series ending and Gandolfini dying suggests he had zero interest in making a sequel. You're trying to sneak in some "look at me, I was right about the ending" bullshit based on nothing but a throwaway line of copy in a CBS interview.

How long before you watched the final episode did you decide that Tony died in the final episode?

It’s all there and it was the audience that got whacked. You didn’t see it coming. You didn’t hear the shot.

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On 10/6/2021 at 3:23 PM, WhatTheBuck said:

How long before you watched the final episode did you decide that Tony died in the final episode?

It’s all there and it was the audience that got whacked. You didn’t see it coming. You didn’t hear the shot.

This. You got shot in the back of the head for the horrible thoughts you had about Meadow as she was walking in the door.

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9 hours ago, Texas St. Armadillos said:

Best Song:  Thru and Thru (Rolling Stones sung by Keef)

Oh yeah.  Great one!

Living on a Thin Line (Kinks) and World Destruction (Time Zone) are contenders.

 

 

Edited by dcbc
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6 minutes ago, Red Five said:


I watched the one with that Kinks song last night. I think Ralphie killing the stripper was the only real disturbing moment of the show for me.

And I think that Kinks song opens and closes the episode. 

#rememberTracee

##rememberPie-O-My

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After some thought I believe the Lupertazzi Family is modeled after the Gambino and Colombo Families. 

Their structure, numbers, and relationship with the North Jersey crime family is similar to the Gambinos. The Gambinos often referred to the DeCavalcante as a crew, and have long controlled the borgata as a satellite organization. The Lupertazzi headquarters, the Averna Social Club is in Little Italy. Pretty similar to Gotti's headquarters at the Ravenite Social Club.

The plot lines, location, and leadership are similar to the Colombos. The Third Colombo War is similar to Season 6 of the Sopranos. Many of the Lupertazzi crews were based in Brooklyn. All of the families operate in Brooklyn, but most of the Colombos were born, raised, and resided in Brooklyn. There are also parallels between Vic Orena trying to wrest control of the Colombos from the Periscos and Johnny Sack's war with Little Carmine. 

 

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