Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 03:06:09 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Watching (or rewatching) The Sopranos

Started by Blue Jam, July 08, 2020, 04:57:52 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

JaDanketies

Quote from: Hundhoon on July 10, 2020, 03:19:33 AM
i always found it one of the the most depressing shows ever, one of the best, it was great, but just total bleakness, another masterpiece was on HBO around the same time, Six Feet Under, set in a funeral home, it got called too bleak by some, i always found Sopranos way darker.

Six Feet Under had the best final sequence of all time, I think it might be unbeatable.

Another thing I only noticed after watching The Sopranos for the third time is just how much product placement there is. Also, for the black metal fans out there, look out for the Ulver poster on Meadow's wall

magval

It also appears on AJ's wall. For all the talk of how into music Chase and Van Zant are, I wonder how curated the children's taste in metal is. AJ is obviously into metal as he's never out of metal merch and goes to a Mudvayne show late in the series, but no way is Meadow listening to Ulver. She has a Workhorse Movement poster in her dorm too. I'm not even sure they rank as high as 'also-ran'. One of the absolute worst 'who?' bands to fill Kerrang! schedules between Korn clips and Sk8r Boi.

I noticed last night Carmella drinking coffee from a Yahoo! mug, which was a strange enough product placement to sort of kick me out of the show, because I couldn't figure out where they'd get it from and besides, they'd already made the kitchen mugs quasi-iconic by featuring them in every scene AND that ace Bogdanovich/Chase interview special.

Blue Jam

I noticed everyone has Sony tellies because I saw one character had the same huge, ancient but still functioning Sony CRT telly that my landlord thoughtfully left in my previous flat.

I also wondered why they all wore Fila tracksuits until I realised it must be product placement. Who was still wearing Fila in 2000? I know Fila is an Italian brand, but so is Kappa and Kappa was much more popular by then.

alan nagsworth

Best comedy moment of the whole show for me is when Furio slips over on the ice and Silvio yells "son of a bitch!" when they all get up to help him. I don't even know if it's meant to be funny or not, but the way it sloppily diffuses the childish, weary tension that had mounted in the sit down between Paulie and Ralphie minutes beforehand (which was also not without its own dumb comedic charm) is fucking golden.

It's bits like this which completely strip any sense of glamour or romanticism from the lifestyles of these slimy pricks. It's not Goodfellas, it's hanging out down the fish market bickering on plastic garden furniture, parking troubles and falling on your face like a regular goofball. It fucking sucks.

"I had to park the car all the way over there!"

Blue Jam

I found the subplot with the lawnmower guy pretty comedic. Obviously it was just bleak when they were beating up some regular guy just trying to do an honest job, but when Paulie keeps coming back to negotiate with him for a cut of his profits, knowing Lawnmower Guy has the upper hand because he's been doing the lawns in that neighbourhood for years and the old ladies love him... It's pathetically small-scale crime and it also shows how desperate they all are to bring in their $3,000 a week or whatever.

I love that scene where the chain coffee shop opens and there is an attempt to get the manager caught up in a protection racket, before the manager explains that all payments have to be approved by head office, and if they were to break a window head office would just get it fixed, and if they were to injure him head office would just keep finding new managers. As well as being another example of a very petty crime, it shows how these guys are old-fashioned and struggling to deal with a world where small family-owned businesses are giving way to franchised coffee outlets where their blunt and heavy-handed approach doesn't work.

It reminded me of Red Dead Redemption 2, set in the last days of The Wild West when technology is marching on and Arthur, Dutch and Co. are forced to acknowledge that the outlaw lifestyle as they know it won't be sustainable for much longer.

QDRPHNC

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 10, 2020, 12:17:03 PM
I found the subplot with the lawnmower guy pretty comedic. Obviously it was just bleak when they were beating up some regular guy just trying to do an honest job, but when Paulie keeps coming back to negotiate with him for a cut of his profits, knowing Lawnmower Guy has the upper hand because he's been doing the lawns in that neighbourhood for years and the old ladies love

And that for all their talk about standing up for the little guy, and hard work and the American dream, they don't actually care about any of that. They only care about the free lawn care, or the copper pipes in the crack house, or getting Meadow into school at the expense of a more deserving kid.

It really is the best show ever. Only thing that even comes close is Twin Peaks.

Bazooka

More like Dr MILFy am I right lads?  phwoarh psychology.

The Mollusk

Yeah would love to see her do a poo on that glass coffee table

Blue Jam

Jeez... I love Dr Melfi's voice though. Very soothing. Just what you need in a therapist.

Blue Jam

Quote from: mr. logic on July 09, 2020, 12:52:16 PM
Can't this thread just have a spoilers heading, btw?

Bit too late to change it now! I did ask for spoiler tags in the OP but I dunno, the show ended 13 years ago... but as some of us are rewatching it I think some spoiler tags wouldn't go amiss, for deaths and that.

I am about to watch that "controversial" finale now and find out what's so controversial about it, having managed to completely avoid spoilers. Will be avoiding this thread for an hour...

Rizla

Quote from: magval on July 10, 2020, 08:27:10 AM
...Tony not wanting to wear the jacket Richie gives him...
Is the point of that not that Richie took it off some other head honcho guy who was meant to be untouchable, but Richie fucked him up, and him giving it to Tony was his way of saying "you could be next"? I watched a compilation of all Richie's scenes on youtube last night and he really went on about that jacket. I agree it is quite Seinfeldy though.

mr. logic

Yeah, Chase said he wanted to make the source of the tension comedic. 'The jackeeeet' is a pure Seinfeld.

Blue Jam

Favourite Paulie moment: everything with that cat in the finale. Hahahahaha.

neveragain

Have you really no idea why the ending is controversial? Well done if so.

Blue Jam

Well I know now! I can't believe I managed to avoid spoilers for 13 years though. I'm glad I did.

86 episodes in quarantine. Will probably still rewatch the whole lot within a couple of years. Time well spent.

QDRPHNC

There is no controversy.

Chase "accidentally" confirmed what all right-thinking people already knew.

neveragain

I took 'controversial' to mean a lot of people didn't like it, which is probably true.

Bazooka

My favourite Paulie moment is when he doesn't know Finn is Meadow's boyfriend.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QfgjLky-meA

Blue Jam

Quote from: neveragain on July 10, 2020, 08:08:24 PM
I took 'controversial' to mean a lot of people didn't like it, which is probably true.

That's how I took it too.

Quote from: QDRPHNC on July 10, 2020, 07:47:01 PM
There is no controversy.

Chase "accidentally" confirmed what all right-thinking people already knew.

I saw that interview. Looks like he was just sick of being asked about it.

Well, I liked it.

QDRPHNC


Blue Jam

Yes. Tony and Carmella still love each other, AJ and Meadow finally know where they're going in life, and the four of them are coming together for a nice family get-together like they used to have. They're taking stock of how they're just a normal loving family- they're happy, they're safe, and nothing could take that away from them...

Totally in keeping with the spirit of the series if you ask me. I thought it was great.

Puce Moment

You're right - it's the most positiving ending in TV history.

Here are the family today, chilling and relaxing and waiting for the end of lockdown grrrr!


Blue Jam

Hahahaha... there's a reason why I put an ellipsis at the end of that sentence, I meant it in a "What could possibly go wrong?" kind of way, maybe it wasn't clear.

Quote from: bgmnts on July 09, 2020, 02:26:40 PM
The best thing about Sopranos is, every time you think its a bit light hearted and they are all cracking jokes, someone is pointlessly murderered in a grisly way and it really brings it all back down to earth. Love those dissonances.

I meant the ending was in keeping in the spirit of the show by being like that sort of thing. Obviously that fade to black at the end is their nice wholesome family gathering
Spoiler alert
being rudely interrupted by Tony getting whacked
[close]
.


QDRPHNC

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 11, 2020, 01:02:36 PM
Totally in keeping with the spirit of the series if you ask me. I thought it was great.

I find it hard to articulate what's so good about the way it was done.

Immediately, while watching it, it frustrates your expectations and desires. But it lingers with you. And personally I think there could not possibly have been any way of handling Tony's death better. To show any of it would have cheapened it. And it's all the more powerful for leaving the immediate aftermath of it entirely to your imagination.

And about them being a happy family... well, it's just a veneer, even at the end. It really is a tragedy, in a truest sense of the word. All these people Tony has destroyed throughout the series, including his family, pulled into his orbit. Carmela almost got away, but allowed herself the easier option of being a kept woman and complicit in Tony's life. Meadow is on her way to being a mob lawyer. And AJ - the biggest tragedy of all - seemed like he was on the verge of developing real compassion and doing something positive in the world, but his parents bought him off and set him on Tony's path (or at least, Carmine Jr's path), entirely for their own benefit.

Puce Moment

I adore the ending of this show - it fits with those long, thoughtful scenes preceding the titles in every episode. Whether it is Tony or Carmella sitting together, or an FBI photo being pinned on a board, or a photographer realising he knows a dead mobster - The Sopranos is the show that knows how to end episodes. Better than any other show. That puts so much pressure on the ending of the final episode, but they handled it brilliantly.

People ask about what might happen next, like when a novel ends. But in narratological terms that is it - the final sentence or frame is the end, and unless we have been privy to flash-forwards or any kind of indication about the future then it is snipped off right on the end like a boxing day turd. We can hypothetise, but hypothetising about fiction seems so pointless to me. The author/s has chosen to end the story there, and that is that. Imagining what might come next, in that sense, is a bit like imaginging what the Sugar Puff Monster does when he is finished promoting Sugar Puffs. We don't know, the advert finishes and he in philosophical terms, he is dead.

The only thing I will say is that amongst all the nonsense written about this final episode (in terms of nerdy clues that are clearly not on purpose) the only interpretation I quite like is the Members Only jacket. I don't know, it is almost definitely a dress decision on the part of the dress person, but I do like that it implies 'soldiers only' or 'no civilians', and perhaps if you are not in the game then you won't get touched. Hence, just Tony getting whacked (and debatably, Carmella).

Pretty sure that is baloney though.

mr. logic

My problem with the ending, and what it is now accepted as, is...who did it, and why? They showed him resolving the New York issue early on in the episode, and the show was always careful to demonstrate that things like people being whacked didn't just happen on a whim.

chveik

yeah it doesn't really make sense and it misses the whole point of the ending imo.

bgmnts

Quote from: mr. logic on July 12, 2020, 12:07:36 AM
My problem with the ending, and what it is now accepted as, is...who did it, and why?

Someone in the mafia, one of the many enemies Tony has made in an incredibly cut throat industry that doesn't value human life beyond income potential.

I don't think it really matters.

Puce Moment

Quote from: mr. logic on July 12, 2020, 12:07:36 AMMy problem with the ending, and what it is now accepted as, is...who did it, and why? They showed him resolving the New York issue early on in the episode, and the show was always careful to demonstrate that things like people being whacked didn't just happen on a whim.

This unplanned killing of one of Phil's soldiers was pretty whimmy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJHpvjdJ6X0

That overhead shot is glorious. I forget how cinematic this show can be.