The Many Saints of Newark

[Hook1997 5393]

3 hours ago, Cousin Strawberry said:

You loved it?  You probably enjoy shit sandwiches.  Easter eggs are for jerk-offs.  We watched Dickie murder his dad and his stepmom. We got no insight into why he and Tony were close. It was a rudderless piece of shit.

I thought the reason they were close was pretty obvious.  Tony’s dad and him didn’t really have a relationship and he was gone to prison a lot.  Tony bonded with and looked to Dickie as a father figure and wanted to be like him.  
 

But yea it wasn’t great but it was ok. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Hook1997

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

13 hours ago, Cousin Strawberry said:

Yeah, Christafaw made his dad out to be a serious , alcoholic and heroin addict but none of that was shown in TMSON.  

Spoiler

At Dickie's funeral, Livia (i think) mentions that they found pills on Dickie when he was killed. I assume those were the sleeping pills Tony asked Dickie to get for Livia. I could see this being the basis for a family rumor that Dickie was a drug addict. 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Seasick Sailor

[Prepuce of Doom 21086]

It was okay. Would have been generally and generically entertaining if it was some other, non-Sopranos movie - something that you might watch once, enjoy well enough, and then completely forget about a week later. But the Sopranos factor set the bar very high, and I don't think it lived up. 

Seemed almost like some other movie script had all the Sopranos characters grafted on with a little bit of fan-service "Easter eggs" thrown in throughout. 

I think that a lot of the issues with it can be blamed on the fact that the original show was all about slow and methodical character development over the course of many hours, and this was supposed to accomplish much the same thing (and more) in two hours. So I guess I agree with others who have remarked that this would have been better as a 6-8 hour miniseries. 

Here's a good interview with Chase. 

 

Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't stop thinking of how much Young Tony looked like Big Head from Silicon Valley. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Prepuce of Doom

[tx 3 putt 77109]

Maybe uncle jr used to say all that stuff about dickie, after the fact ?

[Player 4575]

I still haz confuse.  Dickie was Carmella's cousin?  On her dad's side or mom's side?  

I think he was a nephew of Carmela’s dad, Hugh DeAngelis.

So was the trigger man really Detective Haydu? If so, then wouldn’t that mean that Tony knew that Junior ordered the hit?

I think Tony would have avenged Dickie’s death by whacking Junior if/when he he learned of Junior’s role.

I enjoyed it, but agree that it would have been much better as a limited series. Still, it provided additional context via the primary influences in Tony’s life (Livia and Dickie) to help explain his many character flaws.

I liked Tony being in Holsten’s once again, waiting and hoping for some sense of closure.

[tx 3 putt 77109]

Holsten’s scene / shot was damn great 

[billfromlaketravis 11519]

12 hours ago, Player said:

I think he was a nephew of Carmela’s dad, Hugh DeAngelis.

So was the trigger man really Detective Haydu? If so, then wouldn’t that mean that Tony knew that Junior ordered the hit?

I think Tony would have avenged Dickie’s death by whacking Junior if/when he he learned of Junior’s role.

I enjoyed it, but agree that it would have been much better as a limited series. Still, it provided additional context via the primary influences in Tony’s life (Livia and Dickie) to help explain his many character flaws.

I liked Tony being in Holsten’s once again, waiting and hoping for some sense of closure.

It sounded like Haydu’s voice. The actor Tom Mason is still alive, so it’s certainly plausible. 
 

Tony didn’t whack Jr after Jr shot and almost killed him. Killing Dickie is pretty far down the Jr transgressions list. 
 

Jr getting pinched at the end Season 1 probably saved his life. Tony was definitely steaming towards whacking him after the attempt on his life. 

Edited October 4, 2021 by billfromlaketravis

[Johnny Sack 8397]

9 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

It sounded like Haydu’s voice. The actor Tom Mason is still alive, so it’s certainly plausible. 
 

Tony didn’t whack Jr after Jr shot and almost killed him. Killing Dickie is pretty far down the Jr transgressions list. 
 

Jr getting pinched at the end Season 1 probably saved his life. Tony was definitely steaming towards whacking him after the attempt on his life. 

Uh yeah, it was kill or be killed at that point.  Tony was going to hit Junior.

[lateshow 1304]

Another disconnect between the series and the movie, for me, is the relationship between Tony and Junior. In the series, it's portrayed like Junior was a father figure to Tony and that they had a close relationship. But that is not shown whatsoever in the movie. Junior's mentorship of Tony was just suddenly substituted as Dickey. 

[Deej 76839]

6 minutes ago, lateshow said:

Another disconnect between the series and the movie, for me, is the relationship between Tony and Junior. In the series, it's portrayed like Junior was a father figure to Tony and that they had a close relationship. But that is not shown whatsoever in the movie. Junior's mentorship of Tony was just suddenly substituted as Dickey. 

Or maybe Junior stepped in as Tony's mentor after having Dickie killed. 

[lateshow 1304]

1 minute ago, Deej said:

Or maybe Junior stepped in as Tony's mentor after having Dickie killed. 

Yeah, possible, but in the series it shows them playing ball and having a relationship. And they reference it many times. I doubt that all just started between Tony being 17 to late 30s. 

[mchookem 16337]

i wanted to like it so bad but was pretty disappointed. kinda fun seeing young versions of the characters, but i just kept waiting for something, anything to happen really. i guess finding out who killed Dickie was supposed to be a shocker, but anybody that watched the series could see it coming based on young Junior's reaction to Dickie those few times - it seemed obvious for those of us that know Junior. the 'climax' of the funeral and the pinky swear just fell flat. 

on the flipside, i thought the actor playing Dickie was pretty good. but my gosh on the timeline, all the build-up and focus on Michael Gandolfini and he was honestly barely in the movie! 

definitely just felt like filler for a prequel series. 

OH...one thing they did do was relate Dickie's temper to Christopher, how much he flew off the handle and over-reacted. the strangling of his goomar was definitely reminiscent of Chrissy (almost) strangling Adrianna. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by mchookem

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

Add me to the list of not really sure what the point of that was ... too much of focus on distractions that took up time better spend on the family dynamics. Needed less random subplots and more focus on Livia - Janice - Johnny - Junior as well as how they fit into the broader family.

- The Giuseppina story made no sense other than they thought they needed an Helen Reddy caricature ... much less buying that she randomly fucked a dude and then randomly confesses for no reason

- The McBrayer / black empowerment thing could have been cool but never really went anywhere and did not tell us anything that was not obvious

And the timelines and acting was bad. I guess I assumed Silvio and Pussy were maybe 18-20 and Paulie was 25-30 maybe? Agree that teenage Tony seemed more like a gentle giant than the future boss - he's just came across as a doofus with zero edge. And the others were playing caricatures of their counterparts, and Silvio was embarrassing: a funny skit but no way 18-yo Silvio acts like 50-yo Silvio.

At the end of the day it was basically Easter eggs and throwbacks for fans and a biopic of a character no one wanted a biopic about. 

Last but not least - the Junior whacking Dickie for laughing at him falling down the stairs ... a stretch even for Junior. And does anyone think it would be consistent with Junior's character and ego that he would not have bragged about it? Please.

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

On 10/3/2021 at 9:53 AM, Prepuce of Doom said:

the original show was all about slow and methodical character development

Which characters were developed during The Sopranos? Certainly not Tony. He was the exact same character at the end of the show that he was at the start of the show. Certainly not any of the other mobsters. Or Tony’s mom. Or his sister. Not Carmela. I guess Meadow was. Who cares about AJ? But the lack of character development is one of my biggest criticisms of the show. (That and introducing new storylines that get abandoned without resolution.) It just didn’t happen. Finding a new grift isn’t character development. It’s just mobsters being mobsters. 

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Which characters were developed during The Sopranos? Certainly not Tony. He was the exact same character at the end of the show that he was at the start of the show. Certainly not any of the other mobsters. Or Tony’s mom. Or his sister. Not Carmela. I guess Meadow was. Who cares about AJ? But the lack of character development is one of my biggest criticisms of the show. (That and introducing new storylines that get abandoned without resolution.) It just didn’t happen. Finding a new grift isn’t character development. It’s just mobsters being mobsters. 

I don't know ... I'm not a critic, but I think Tony went from a reluctant leader to a paranoid irrational leader ... Paulie was multi-dimensional around the story arc of his mom ... Christopher's passion for Hollywood but ultimate succumbing to his darker instincts ... Adriana's turmoil around being a rat. Maybe that's not sufficient but I think zero is being too harsh.

[Prepuce of Doom 21086]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Which characters were developed during The Sopranos? Certainly not Tony. He was the exact same character at the end of the show that he was at the start of the show. Certainly not any of the other mobsters. Or Tony’s mom. Or his sister. Not Carmela. I guess Meadow was. Who cares about AJ? But the lack of character development is one of my biggest criticisms of the show. (That and introducing new storylines that get abandoned without resolution.) It just didn’t happen. Finding a new grift isn’t character development. It’s just mobsters being mobsters. 

If you think that "character development" only means an A-to-B change in a character, I guess you might have some kind of a point.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Prepuce of Doom

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

2 hours ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

If you think that "character development" only means an A-to-B change in a character, I guess you might have some kind of a point.

If you think character development doesn’t involve some change in character then you don’t. 

[mchookem 16337]

i mean what if it's a character study?

[Red Five 40868]

That would be pretty unrealistic if a bunch of mobsters all changed into totally different people over the course of six years. 

[Prepuce of Doom 21086]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

If you think character development doesn’t involve some change in character then you don’t. 

Okay, sounds good. 

[billfromlaketravis 11519]

4 hours ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

I don't know ... I'm not a critic, but I think Tony went from a reluctant leader to a paranoid irrational leader ... Paulie was multi-dimensional around the story arc of his mom ... Christopher's passion for Hollywood but ultimate succumbing to his darker instincts ... Adriana's turmoil around being a rat. Maybe that's not sufficient but I think zero is being too harsh.

I’d agree. Paulie reconciling with his mother was a really nice moment on the show. 
 

Chris turning rat and going Hollywood is probably a more interesting ending than getting run off the road by Kennedy and Heidi. The heroin addict thing didn’t work for me either. Tony promised to whack him if he ever slipped again, and slipped over and over again. We get it, Chris has a drug problem. Somebody put him out of his misery. 
 

Janice had a redemptive arc. Giant whowa/pain in the ass to loving wife and mother to Bobby and his children. Bobby is probably the only person in her life that ever loved and respected her. Really tragic. 
 

I always loved Johnny Sack. He went from an invincible shark to a desperate man trying to defend his wife despite it maybe costing him everything including his life. You felt terrible for him when he cried at his daughter’s wedding. You felt worse when you watched him die in a prison hospital. Vincent Curatola was terrific throughout the show. 
 

I’ll politely disagree with your sentiments on Tony. He didn’t learn shit. He’s the same guy in Episode 1 and Episode 86. 

[CurlyDumps 4476]

 

8 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

 

He’s the same guy in Episode 1 and Episode 86. 

 I call bullshit.

Tony look around 240 in episode 1. By episode 86 he was pushing 280.

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

2 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I’d agree. Paulie reconciling with his mother was a really nice moment on the show. 
 

Chris turning rat and going Hollywood is probably a more interesting ending than getting run off the road by Kennedy and Heidi. The heroin addict thing didn’t work for me either. Tony promised to whack him if he ever slipped again, and slipped over and over again. We get it, Chris has a drug problem. Somebody put him out of his misery. 
 

Janice had a redemptive arc. Giant whowa/pain in the ass to loving wife and mother to Bobby and his children. Bobby is probably the only person in her life that ever loved and respected her. Really tragic. 
 

I always loved Johnny Sack. He went from an invincible shark to a desperate man trying to defend his wife despite it maybe costing him everything including his life. You felt terrible for him when he cried at his daughter’s wedding. You felt worse when you watched him die in a prison hospital. Vincent Curatola was terrific throughout the show. 
 

I’ll politely disagree with your sentiments on Tony. He didn’t learn shit. He’s the same guy in Episode 1 and Episode 86. 

Agree and disagree. I do not think Tony is the same guy in 1 and 86; however, that does not mean I think he learned something. I think the power and the money slowly consumed his better instincts. Maybe it is just stereotypical Lord Acton, but he definitely digressed over the six seasons IMHO both professionally and personally. 

[Gil Bang 25978]

Here's the good news:  "Dunkirk" is no longer the worst piece of shit waste of film ever made.  There's a new champion!

[PilotsError 2304]

That's a little harsh.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

Bunch of haters on this thread. I fucking loved it. It raised as many questions as it answered. 

How did Dickie go down in history as a hopeless drunk and addict?

Who pulled the trigger on the hit?

Sally was fucking awesome, with his exquisite taste in jazz and how he morally centered the whole thing, like that Jewish shrink Melfi passive aggressively sent Carm to go see.

Great touch having the actress who played Livia look like Carm. Of course Tony is gonna marry his fucked up mom.

Him trying to control her with Mother's Little Helpers. Idealism, or power?

So many LOLs...Chrissy voicing over "Neil Young gave that speech from the Moon"...When Italian hottie moves in for the kill on Dickie and he's enraged, but only because his wife might see them, not giving a shit about Hollywood Dick...

Callbacks / easter eggs: When Tony is lying there in bed, watching Newark burn a few blocks away, it's him in his coma, in that purgatory hotel, surrounded by California wildfires.

"He doesn't have the makings of a varsity athlete."

The foreshadowing of infant Chrissy freaking out at Tony's embrace...and the old lady saying Chrissy knows shit....Chase could make prequels doing back to the days of Ancient Rome and it would always be the Sopranos fucking over the Moltisantis.

 

If you think that was meh or sucked, y'all need to find Jesus, in short. 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

6 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I’ll politely disagree with your sentiments on Tony. He didn’t learn shit. He’s the same guy in Episode 1 and Episode 86. 

Yep. Same cheating, womanizing, self-indulgent thug that he’d always been despite years of therapy.

[Red Five 40868]

8 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

Here's the good news:  "Dunkirk" is no longer the worst piece of shit waste of film ever made.  There's a new champion!

You think those are the two worst movies ever made? How many movies have you seen in your life, three?

[MrBig 5417]

Some people liked it, some people think David Chase should get an operation to remove this two hour mole from his ass. 

[MAUFRAIS 6629]

Yep. Same cheating, womanizing, self-indulgent thug that he’d always been despite years of therapy.

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

38 minutes ago, MAUFRAIS said:

Weak sauce. That’s not a slam. That’s why he’s been a successful coach at every stop in college football. (Unlike Saban.) Because he hates so badly to lose. And, assuming you’re a Longhorns fan, you desperately wanted him to be your coach. (I’ve posted recently about how people like to post that pic as if it’s some sort of putdown but it’s just not.)

It doesn’t change the fact that The Sopranos was filled with two-dimensional characters who were never developed. At all. Just doing different stuff isn’t development.

A good example of character development can be found in the tv series MASH. I’ve seen a lot of members of this community complain about the change from the Frank-Trapper-Henry era to the Winchester-BJ-Potter era. But the earlier era was more flat and two-dimensional. Those characters didn’t evolve at all. After the cast change we saw characters who were developed and it wasn’t restricted to those three new cast members. It included Hawkeye and Margaret and even Klinger.

Look at where McNulty and Bubbles started and ended on The Wire. And development doesn’t have to mean an improvement of personal character. Look at Walter White in Breaking Bad. The fact is that there was practically no character development in The Sopranos.

[Guest Lobo]

Urban Meyer also seems to have had no development in character in the last 20 years.  

[lateshow 1304]

2 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Weak sauce. That’s not a slam. That’s why he’s been a successful coach at every stop in college football. (Unlike Saban.) Because he hates so badly to lose. And, assuming you’re a Longhorns fan, you desperately wanted him to be your coach. (I’ve posted recently about how people like to post that pic as if it’s some sort of putdown but it’s just not.)

It doesn’t change the fact that The Sopranos was filled with two-dimensional characters who were never developed. At all. Just doing different stuff isn’t development.

A good example of character development can be found in the tv series MASH. I’ve seen a lot of members of this community complain about the change from the Frank-Trapper-Henry era to the Winchester-BJ-Potter era. But the earlier era was more flat and two-dimensional. Those characters didn’t evolve at all. After the cast change we saw characters who were developed and it wasn’t restricted to those three new cast members. It included Hawkeye and Margaret and even Klinger.

Look at where McNulty and Bubbles started and ended on The Wire. And development doesn’t have to mean an improvement of personal character. Look at Walter White in Breaking Bad. The fact is that there was practically no character development in The Sopranos.

I'm gonna have to disagree. Tony was markedly darker and a more vile character by the end of the run from the beginning. 

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

Just now, lateshow said:

I'm gonna have to disagree. Tony was markedly darker and a more vile character by the end of the run from the beginning. 

Right. Because he was all sunshine and rainbows in the first season. Lulz. 

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

8 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Urban Meyer also seems to have had no development in character in the last 20 years.  

You haven’t been paying attention.

[lateshow 1304]

14 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Right. Because he was all sunshine and rainbows in the first season. Lulz. 

That's not what I said. He was never a good guy. But he definitely sunk deeper and was darker in Season 6 than Season 1. 

[MAUFRAIS 6629]

It was a joke you rust belt psycho.

I also think Woody Hayes is probably in hell right now if you’d like to type an essay about that.

[RPM 26324]

On 10/5/2021 at 10:31 AM, lateshow said:

Yeah, possible, but in the series it shows them playing ball and having a relationship.

Junes always berated Anthony's athletic skill. Never was a varsity player. 

[Guest Lobo]

1 hour ago, RPM said:

Junes always berated Anthony's athletic skill. Never was a varsity player. 

Ironic coming since Corrado put the Junior in Junior Varsity.....OHHHH, rim shot! 

I can't place it as I only watched the series as it unfolded way back when, never went back to binge watch it.  But I think around Season 3 or 4, Tony does comment to Uncle Junior was a mentor to him and looked after him when his dad went away the can for a long stretch.  It was one of those scenes where Tony kinda strings him along to make him think he's still Boss.  I

 i think Tony did yearn for stewardship and guidance and then to also bring along the next generation.  What he got was a fucked up ancestry, a weird therapist relationship, some relatives he had to kill himself, and then a dipshit son who was beyond incompetent even by Italian standards.  In the end, he played the hand he was dealt and played it well.  In fact he was so damn good that he tried to lose. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by Lobo

[CurlyDumps 4476]

"The Sopranos had no character development" is quite possibly the dumbest thing in the world ever written about The Sopranos. I think it beats @Parliament saying that the actors playing Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell should have swapped roles. Not sure what it is with OSU guys and their bad TV opinions, but they seem to have cornered the market here.

Most TV characters don't change by design, because transformational character arcs don't work in a format where the goal is to pump out as many seasons as possible. Characters like Walter White are exceptions, not the norm.  That may be changing as the television landscape has shifted to shorter/limited series. But that's really neither here nor there...

Because characters don't have to change to be developed. In the most basic terms, revealing new information about a character is development. When we learn something new about a character, we have a new, deeper understanding of that character than we did before. Exploring their psychological wounds, their relationships, their behavior, how they became who they are - that's all character development. The Sopranos excelled at all that. The entire premise of the show was based on a man's dysfunctional relationship with his mother. Anyone wanna argue that Tony and Livia's relationship wasn't "developed?"

I've said my piece.

[Prepuce of Doom 21086]

Upon further thought, I think the series would have been much better if by the end, Tony became a cyborg, Carmela bought a zoo, AJ went to live among the Masai, and Meadow became a world-class triathlete. 

That's some heavy fucking duty character development, man. After all, radical and unexpected transformation is one of the most important aspects of quality world-building and storytelling.

[MissingInAction 25110]

Sucked.

[Pam Cummings 9646]

5 hours ago, MrBig said:

Some people liked it, some people think David Chase should get an operation to remove this two hour mole from his ass. 

I especially loved how in one scene, Dickie Moltisanti is bemoaning the fact that his wife can't bear children. Then two minutes later we're introduced to baby Christopher. Zero explanation as to how he came about, i just thought that Dickie left his wife for the Italian broad at first. But.....no. Still confused as to wtf happened there.

[Guest Lobo]

Maybe Tony banged Dickie's wife when Dickie wasn't around.  So Christopher was really Tony's son.  

Which I guess makes the Escalade smothering slightly more creepy now that I think about it.  

But yeah, jokes aside---the film moves around inaccurately, not in a Tarantino way but in like a David Chase with even more drunken animosity for his loyal viewers after 15 years kinda way.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Lobo

[Fondren & Main 6726]

2 hours ago, MAUFRAIS said:

It was a joke you rust belt psycho.

I also think Woody Hayes is probably in hell right now if you’d like to type an essay about that.

I think we’ve uncovered Mrs. Nebraska’s online identity.  Only explanation for the constant CUM dick riding.

[Player 4575]

Weak sauce. Blah, blah, blah. Look at me everybody…I’m dragging my vagina across the floor again!

Goddamn you are just an insufferable cunt. A shrieking little know-it-all pussy who magically appears whenever anyone mentions anything about any aspect of the state of Ohio that your hyper-sensitive ass deems even remotely insulting, critical, or even inaccurate.

[WhatTheBuck 28788]

7 hours ago, MAUFRAIS said:

It was a joke you rust belt psycho.

I also think Woody Hayes is probably in hell right now if you’d like to type an essay about that.

Ad hominem attacks don’t make you right.

If the characters in the show had made any appreciable changes then the audience would’ve lost interest. It was pulp fiction. JFC. It was a good show. It was fun. It wasn’t high art. The fact that Tony fucked different people and killed different people  doesn’t qualify as character development. It’s okay to admit that. 

[Guest Lobo]

If fucking over people was character development, Joe Paterno would win an Oscar.  

[Deej 76839]

1 hour ago, Player said:

 

Goddamn you are just an insufferable cunt. A shrieking little know-it-all pussy who magically appears whenever anyone mentions anything about any aspect of the state of Ohio that your hyper-sensitive ass deems even remotely insulting, critical, or even inaccurate.

 

So, you're saying he's the Ohio version of Derka?

[Player 4575]

Motherfucker is the Ohio version of The Derel.