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Post by Jtmx1 on Mar 11, 2006 3:27:28 GMT -5
To put you in the mood: Beddi Cannola di Carnalivari Megghiu vuccuni a la munnu 'un ci nn'è: Sú biniditti spisi li dinari; Ogni cannolu è scettru d'orgni Re. Arrivunu li donni a disistari; Lu cannolu è la virga di Moisè Cui nun ni mancia, si fazza ammazzari, Cu li disprezza è un gran curnutu affè! Beautiful are the Cannoli of Carnevale, No tastier morsel in the world: Blessed is the money used to buy them; Cannoli are the scepters of all Kings. Women even desist [from pregnancy] For the cannolo, which is Moses's Staff: He who won't eat them should let himself be killed; He who doesn't like them is a cuckold, Olè! italianfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa020701.htm |
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Post by chris on Mar 11, 2006 12:21:02 GMT -5
Of all the things we lost when we got rid of cable (to save money) in December, this is it. We're going to head up to New Hampshire every couple of weeks to see the show on On Demand at Bridget's mother's place. But the wait... the wait!
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Post by amanda on Mar 12, 2006 9:43:56 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Mar 13, 2006 4:56:08 GMT -5
From Time's Arts and Entertainment section
Fortunate Son
Lucky and Loathsome, Tony Soprano Returns
By JAMES PONIEWOZIK
If there is one question that defines The Sopranos, it is, "Why do good things happen to bad people?" As the HBO show returns from a nearly two-year hiatus (Sundays, 9 p.m. E.T., starting March 12), Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) continues to live his charmed life. The mafia business is booming. He is a free man, escaping the Feds through one lucky turn after another, while his ally/rival, New York boss Johnny Sack (Vincent Curatola) is locked up. He's fat and happy—as happy as Tony gets, anyway—in the prime of his career, shoveling $40-a-piece sushi down his gullet at dinner with his often-cheated-upon but newly reconciled wife, Carmela (Edie Falco).
Of course, Tony is not so flush that he can't walk into an eyeglass store owned by a civilian connected to his business, impose on him for a huge favor, then pick out a pair of Armani shades and say, "You know what? I left my wallet in the car." For Tony, the money is not the point. The point is not having to pay.
Every time The Sopranos returns, the first thing many fans ask is, "Who gets whacked?" While I won't tell who sheds whose blood—save that there's a doozy in the first episode—suffice it to say that there's Mafia red sauce in the first four episodes to satisfy the most bloodthirsty.
But what makes The Sopranos a great, not just entertaining, show is that the most disturbing stories are about Tony's casual, selfish, bloodless cruelties. The ruin of another person is better than a slight inconvenience to him, and no matter how many promises he breaks or lives he destroys, he always believes himself more sinned against than sinning. He has toddled through the series like an overindulged two-year-old, protected from the consequences of his actions by perverse fate, and protected from their moral consequences by his power of rationalization. After he shafts a helpless civilian in a business deal by making a greedy and unnecessary demand, he gets righteously angry when the man squeaks that he's being unfair. "Talk to the Katrina victims about fair!" he yells.
How well Tony has done for himself in his ruthless unexamined life—and whether or how he might pay for it—is shaping up to be the theme of what creator David Chase says will be its last season. (HBO will run 12 episodes this spring; then the show returns for a promised final 8 in January.) Previous seasons have introduced new characters and rivals to the mix—Richie Aprile, Ralph Cifaretto, Tony Blundetto—but the four episodes of season 6 screened for critics focus tight on the existing circle of characters. (Though they do, in a twist I can't possibly spoil, find an ingenious, poignant way to turn a major character into an entirely different person.)
The show picks up with the characters somewhat over a year after we left them. Erstwhile hippie Janice (Aida Turturro) is settling into domestic life as a Mafia wife. Daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn DiScala) is still with boyfriend Finn (Will Janowitz) and looking ahead to life after college, while nihilist son A.J. (Robert Iler) is taking cellphone pictures of himself instead of studying in class. Carmela has settled into a melancholy peace with having chosen the good (but bad) life with Tony over being a poor-but-noble divorcee. Silvio (Steven Van Zandt) and Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) are still the mafia princes of comic relief. ("It was f___in' mayham!" Paulie blusters after a holdup gone awry.) Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) is slipping deeper into senility, believing that he's being harassed by a long-dead enemy. ("We'll get J. Edgar Hoover right on it," says Tony.) Fans of psychiatrist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) will be disappointed by her small early role, though she has key, dryly funny scenes with both Tony and Carm.
The first episode opens with an eerie reading, set to music, of a William S. Burroughs prose fragment about the Egyptian belief that we have seven souls: "Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives." The shadows and memories of the dead hover close over the show, as the rubout fallout from the whackings of Adriana (Drea de Matteo) and Tony B. (Steve Buscemi) continues, not to mention Tony's continuing baggage inherited from his late mother Livia. There's a general sense, in this last season, of a deathbed taking-stock, even a few self-referential scenes in which the series' history flashes before our eyes. Silvio, for instance, reveals that he was once considered to take over the family instead of Tony, an allusion to the fact that Van Zandt was originally asked to read for the role of Tony.
The new episodes reprise the show's minor weaknesses as well as its major strengths. There's another inside-Hollywood detour about the movie ambitions of Christopher (Michael Imperioli). (Though it does deliver funny lines: Chris describes his screenplay idea as "Saw meets Godfather II.") And subplots involving fundamentalist Christians and a superstar rapper are tendentious and cardboard. (The latter recalls a season-one story about how hip-hop culture fetishes mafiosi.)
But overall, the episodes are as acute and thrilling as the past five seasons. Chase continues to resist the TV standards of closure and lessons learned. Instead of epiphany and reconciliation, he gives us self-deception and bitter, hilarious irony. More than once, Tony says out loud how fortunate he is. The realization is not nearly as profound as he thinks it is—it doesn't lead him to be any more humble or generous or less self-pitying than ever. But as a simple statement it is probably the most honest insight about himself he's ever had: "I'm the luckiest guy in the whole world." Maybe the scariest thing about The Sopranos is that you realize that he just may be right.
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Post by Jeff on Mar 13, 2006 4:58:57 GMT -5
The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.
Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.
Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.
Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead.
Number four is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.
Number five is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands.
Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.
Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.
- William Burroughs, The Western Lands
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Post by chris on Mar 18, 2006 23:14:58 GMT -5
SPOILER:
Bridget and I finally watched it tonight... we knew from a New York Times article that I inadvertently read (well, read intentionally, but didn't know it had spoilers) that there were certain events (natural death and suicide) that were going to happen. But after the suicide, I turned to my wife and said, "Well, that certainly wasn't a "holy shit" moment," referring to Amanda's comments on it on her blog. Then Tony got capped... and I said that yeah, THAT was a holy shit moment...
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Post by chris on Mar 31, 2006 12:57:21 GMT -5
THERE BE SPOILERS HERE:
Well...I'm caught up with the first three episodes... "Waiting for Kevin Finnerty" is the best way to sum up episode two, I suppose. From a theological point of view, was it simply Purgatory that Tony found himself in? Was the interrupted descent down the staircase an interrupted trip to hell? What was the point of the monks? Moral guidance to give up the ego and die?
The shots of the beacon were creepy and cool... and as soon as I saw Steve Buscemi, the words "Uh oh" left my mouth. Fun stuff...
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Post by jtmx1 on Apr 6, 2006 16:47:39 GMT -5
www.slate.com/id/2139457/The Joys of Rising From the Cultural Dead: Are HBO shows best experienced on DVD? I know that Amanda is watching SFU on TVD, so which way is best?
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Post by jtmx1 on Apr 6, 2006 16:51:47 GMT -5
By the way: Kevin Finnerty is Ren, the top soul right? Now that Tony has lost the top we are on to Sekem: Energy, Power, and Light. If that happens then is season six really The Seven Deaths of Tony Soprano?
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Post by mj on Apr 7, 2006 7:55:57 GMT -5
I think I like the TVD experience a little better than watching in real time. The experience was not as disjointed as it is when you have to wait a week between episodes or the months/years between seasons. The longest I had to wait to see what happened next to the Fishers was the two or three day turn around time for my Netflix disc to arrive...
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Post by mj on Apr 7, 2006 7:57:15 GMT -5
Consequently, if you haven't seen Six Feet Under (Rick and Katie) you REALLY should watch it (Rick and Katie)!! It's fanferkintastic!
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Post by jtmx1 on Apr 7, 2006 8:34:26 GMT -5
Just a little followup to Amanda's "fanferkintastic"...
I was a big fan of SFU; I cried at the end, and at lots of points in the middle.
Sure the show was melodramatic, but it was about death, for goodness sake. When I ask my students what their biggest fear is, they always say death—their own or the death of their loved ones. So, you’ve gotta expect a show that tries to chart some courses of life in terms of this fear to be something a little grandiose. I think that was the main objection that I heard to SFU. But the show's upside more than made up for it. The acting was consistently good, sometimes great. The best actors by a wide, wide margin were Michael C. Hall and Frances Conroy. The worst acting was consistently turned in by Keith Charles, but it was serviceable and Charles is very handsome.
The other night I watched Peter Greenaway’s 8 ½ Women, and I thought all its themes were handled better by SFU in terms of David’s character. SFU was even funnier than the Greenaway film, which is saying something. But the heart and soul of SFU was Nate. Here is a guy on a constant spiritual quest; he’s like a shark consuming spirituality, but he is perpetually unfulfilled. His endpoint may have been a kindred spirit in a quiet Quaker church, but it was the quest that really interested him. He was excited by mystery and interested in growth. He was wrong a lot, but he usually apologized for his angry outbursts and forceful halftruths. He was like so many people that I know and love.
Oh yes, and SFU gave me the best screen rendition of my mother, Kathy Bates’ Betina.
Definitely worthwhile.
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Post by chris on Jun 5, 2006 8:05:22 GMT -5
Well, that was decidedly underwhelming. I like how they kept ratcheting up the tension around Christopher -- I winced whenever there was a long pause in action if he was on the screen, just thinking that one of Phil's guys was going to appear and give him the ol' whack. And to watch his descent with Julianna back into the darkness will make for some fun next season.
I did love AJ's "thinking man's" solution to the neighborhood noise problem, which earned him a very earnest reward from his girlfriend.
But still... peace between Phil and Tony (even if Phil's goons aren't convinced)? AJ growing up? The feds tipping off Tony? Cats and dogs living together? What kind of world is this??
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Post by Jeff on Jul 14, 2006 2:53:30 GMT -5
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Post by chris on Jul 14, 2006 11:44:47 GMT -5
What the hell was that boy doing riding a scooter in New York City? That just takes away whatever machismo cool he might have ever had from being Tony Soprano! 8^)
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