Post: #201

(02-03-2017 10:13 AM)Meat Head Wrote:  What I dont understand is how a great actor like Christopher Moltisanti fell off the map and onto small parts in Californiacation.

Like the guy who played McNulty in the Wire. How do great actors like these not make it when Brad Pitt is applauded?

My guess is they've been typecast. Imperioli, Tony Sirico, the guy who played Big Pussy have been relegated to mob movies only. Imperioli is getting some work here and there but it's nothing compared to the success he had on The Sopranos.

You're right though, it's a damn shame that we don't get to see these guys meanwhile Zac Efron or Seth Rogen get $50 million movie deals

Post: #202

(02-03-2017 10:13 AM)Meat Head Wrote:  What I dont understand is how a great actor like Christopher Moltisanti fell off the map and onto small parts in Californiacation.

Like the guy who played McNulty in the Wire. How do great actors like these not make it when Brad Pitt is applauded?

The guy who plays McNulty is British and you can hear his British accent during interviews. You wouldn't know from watching the show, he hides it well.

There are a few British actors that have landed big "American" roles. Idris Elba(plays Stringer Bell on The Wire) and that lady in "Good Behavior".

Post: #203

Also, I've seen Imperioli in a few things since Sopranos and he's really not that good.

Post: #204

Or maybe it is the fact that guys like McNulty and Imperioli are not that good looking.

But then again you have the guy who played Jackie Junior, a handsome actor I havent seen expect a small role in Power.

Post: #205

(02-06-2017 12:29 PM)Meat Head Wrote:  Or maybe it is the fact that guys like McNulty and Imperioli are not that good looking.

You may be on to something there. Come to think of it, Hollywood movies and many TV shows are packed with ONLY good-looking people with six-packs and 20" biceps. You would think ugly people didn't exist. Acting ability has been going completely downhill however.

I think that's why we're seeing more focus on foreign films, since they tend to have more realistic protagonists.

Post: #206

This scene stuck with me from the show, I always wondered what the hell they were smoking to include it as it scared the shit out of me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWsCK7RE0Xg

Post: #207

^'Fuck strippers, we could have sold holy water in jugs. We could have made millions!'

Post: #208

I just started watching Lilyhammer on netflix. Think of it as Silvio from the Sopranos awakes from his coma, goes into witness protection and moves to Norway. You get to see just how fucked up Scandinavia is.

Post: #209

I still remember receiving the second season box set for a Christmas present in '01. I was a sophomore in HS and didn't have cable nor know much about the show, but I've always liked mob movies. I threw it in my dvd player and I was hooked! I rewatched that season a lot that year. Season 2 will always hold a special place in my heart because that is where it all started for me. It's fucked up how far society has gone down hill when you re-watch the early seasons and realize we will never again live in that peaceful, happy go lucky time again. Pre 9/11: what a time to be alive.

"Commendatori" from season 2 is my all time favorite episode of the series.











Fast forward to '07 and I'm getting ready to EAS out of the Marine Corps. There's one guy in my platoon with cable/hbo package. He's a roughneck from Texas. I talk him into watching the last episode with me. I still remember sitting in that tiny barracks room in Twentynine Palms with my buddy watching this masterpiece end.

Post: #210

"Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky."

Thoughts? My take is: Life goes on.

Post: #211

^-- I love how Tony adopts that as his own go-to "enough already!" advice to everyone else throughout the show -- "you know, AJ, you always go about and pity for yourself..." -- he does that a ton of times to a variety of characters.

Also classic -- Tony's "alt-non-Mafia" version of himself throughout the seasons, from "selling patio furniture on Route 4" to "out west selling Indian souvenirs outside the reservation", to the entire coma sequence where Tony is Kevin Finnerty, a traveling industrial salesman.

And conversely, look who ends up selling patio furniture -- the father of the school/camp friend AJ "avoids" a fight with; also the cop who pulls Tony over, whom Tony tried to get fired, and then "un-fired", and then, "fuck it" (related to Assemblyman Zeller).

Just more levels of "what could have been" style thinking, both in the characters' minds and in the writers' minds, and in our minds.

Post: #212

Little known fact... the sopranos prototype was written by David Chase in 1979 in an episode of Rockford Files.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/blogs/tv-news/r...36854.html

Post: #213

One of the most honest scenes from the show:






The temptation to ruin someone else's day is always there when you're in the gutter.

Bonus: great music, got me listening to the Kinks for the first time

Post: #214

Well, I guess I HAVE to say something, given my handle. Interestingly enough, I watched Oz, Deadwood, and The Wire before I finally got around to this one. (I especially loved Deadwood - anyone else?)

I think the Italians beating up the SJW Indian activists in the Christopher Columbus Parade episode is the episode that hooked me on this show. Even though some of the best series episodes were before then (Pine Barrens especially), for some reason I had to laugh my ass off at this one to really become a hardcore fan.

Post: #215

(06-27-2017 10:12 PM)stugatz Wrote:  Well, I guess I HAVE to say something, given my handle. Interestingly enough, I watched Oz, Deadwood, and The Wire before I finally got around to this one. (I especially loved Deadwood - anyone else?)

I think the Italians beating up the SJW Indian activists in the Christopher Columbus Parade episode is the episode that hooked me on this show. Even though some of the best series episodes were before then (Pine Barrens especially), for some reason I had to laugh my ass off at this one to really become a hardcore fan.

Ah, Pine Barrens. A must see. This is my favorite laugh out loud Episode!!!

Post: #216

Post: #217

(06-27-2017 10:12 PM)stugatz Wrote:  Well, I guess I HAVE to say something, given my handle. Interestingly enough, I watched Oz, Deadwood, and The Wire before I finally got around to this one. (I especially loved Deadwood - anyone else?)

I think the Italians beating up the SJW Indian activists in the Christopher Columbus Parade episode is the episode that hooked me on this show. Even though some of the best series episodes were before then (Pine Barrens especially), for some reason I had to laugh my ass off at this one to really become a hardcore fan.

I loved Deadwood! A lost classic, by the same minds behind "NYPD Blue", which was another fairly groundbreaking show that people have forgotten about. The dialogue was sharp and almost Shakespearean in a way- you know nobody talked like that for real, but it sounded so great, a little like a David Mamet play.

Whereas "NYPD Blue" probably went a season or two (or three) too long, "Deadwood" ended much too quickly.

Post: #218

Why did Blanca dump AJ? He had money and looks, why did he in turn get oneitis?

Is oneitis an age thing? Can a forty year old get acute oneitis?

Post: #219

^He never had the makings of a varsity athlete.

Post: #220

(08-27-2017 08:04 AM)Chris Brown Wrote:  Why did Blanca dump AJ? He had money and looks, why did he in turn get oneitis?

Is oneitis an age thing? Can a forty year old get acute oneitis?

She was looking for a man like she was used to. An was pretty soft.

Aloha!

Post: #221

During another rewatch of Sopranos I picked up another malapropism. In the episode Live Free or Die, when Meadow is bitching about how Bush is ill treatin the people and the Muslim immigrants, Tony walks in and says, 'when can you use that kind of language in this house with immunity' instead of impunity.

Post: #222

Happy Columbus Day!

Post: #223

https://www.self.com/story/jamie-lynn-si...king-stick

Apparently Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the girl who played Meadow Soprano, has multiple sclerosis. Damn, what a shame. She seems like a cool chick and already has a few kids.

Post: #224

(08-27-2017 08:04 AM)Chris Brown Wrote:  Why did Blanca dump AJ? He had money and looks, why did he in turn get oneitis?

Is oneitis an age thing? Can a forty year old get acute oneitis?

I always had the impression that he got dumped because he was 'A.J Soprano, continually emo fuckup' and not 'Anthony Soprano Jr., young G on the rise'. Looking back, maybe that's the path he should have taken.

Another man's kid or not, she was pretty hot (that's how single mothers can trap you).

Rewatched the entire run earlier this summer, for my money the best tv show ever, so many memorable moments, characters and quotes.

- 'I said, how longs it take the guy to cum?'

- 'We're with the Vipers!', 'that your girl scout troop?'

- 'Imagine finding out your husband played for the pink team!?'

- Christopher was a great character, but also an emo pussy (can't handle a little ball breaking) who never was on the ball. His beef with Paulie was one of the best on the show (and more or less was always there from the start).

- I especially found Livia Soprano a compelling character...my grandmother is almost the exact same way, and has alienated just about the entire family, I still try to put in some face but it's harder every time. Some people aren't happy until they drag everyone down into their own bullshit and misery.

- I'm down to either Gloria or the Cuban bird for Tony's top chick, but the one legged Russian is also a strong contender.

- At some point in time after the show's run, 'nagging, narcissistic cunt' became how every wife character was written. Carmela definitely had her moments, but she was also very self realized and always took Tony's side in arguments.

- There's a treasure trove of game concepts and red pilling throughout the show, if someone asked for recommendations for a red pill show, I would recommend this and Mad Men (even if the last season of Mad Men got a little too blue pill at parts).

- My favorite moment? When you have Chris and Paulie eating frozen ketchup in a van, Ginny Sack fat jokes, Chris beating up Lauren Bacall, Tony beating the bouncer at the Bing like 4 times and a Vito gay arc that actually makes fuckin sense! how do I choose?

- Favorite character: Paulie, favorite episode; Amour Fou (Jackie jr. Robs the poker game, Patsy, in vivid detail, tells Gloria to get lost).

Edit: As for the op concerns, who do I identify with the most? Probably Sylvio. Strategy, measured, calm until you fuck with me (if I identified with Christopher, Paulie or Tony I would probably be in jail).

And yeah, I first thought 'how is this fat fuck getting so much hot pussy?', but bear in mind I was in my early teens in 1997 so I knew jack shit about jack shit and thought women wanted a handsome guy who listens to all their bullshit and does everything they say. On rewatch it's clear; Tony is a big strong guy (Gandolfini was like 6'3 250), he's a known crime boss (fame + bad boy), strongly dark triad, has money and on top of that, he could crack a joke here and there and was good at talking to people.

Frankly, I'm surprised he wasn't getting laid even more.

Post: #225

(02-06-2017 07:20 PM)Steve McQueen Wrote:  This scene stuck with me from the show, I always wondered what the hell they were smoking to include it as it scared the shit out of me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWsCK7RE0Xg

I had a suspicion what this would be before I clicked on the link, and I was right. This scene still blows me away everytime I see it. Just so perfect, and there's so much going on in it a full analysis would require pages. An apparition of the Virgin Mary! Inexplicable, and at the same time, completely coherent with the show's universe. A couple things perhaps worth noting:

The Mother of God is quite noticeably levitating on the Bing's dance floor, and you can see her a few seconds before Paulie does by looking at the mirrors in the scene's background.

In the Sopranos, the supernatural and the mystic are never far away. From Chris's sojourn in Hell (purgatory? "tell Paulie 3 o'clock" or was it 4?) to Tony's remarkable journey up to and back from ("you cant take it with you) what appears to have been the gates of the afterlife (certainly hell, if there is one, yes?), there is no shortage of uncanny goings-on. Yet no character appears to connect with the "other side" quite like Paulie - with all his weird tics and superstitions - who was not only directly addressed in Chris's coma-dream but also confronted, apparently, by one of his previous murder victims in a bewildering seance scene. It should be unsurprising, then, that by far the most profound and stunning supernatural scene in the Soprano's was for Paulie's eyes alone. Can it be a coincidence that Paulie, the character by far the most concerned with religion and the spiritual world, is the only major male character to survive the entire show? I think not.