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The Many Saints of Newark

Zwylde

By Zwylde
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Harrison Bergeron

Harrison Bergeron 1798

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Posted
22 hours ago, Pam Cummings said:

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.

I too did not realize until he killed that the Italian bird was not his second wife. #noracist Of course it would have been consistent with the movie to have Chris' mom murdered and totally fuck up The Sopranos backstory.

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Harrison Bergeron

Harrison Bergeron 1798

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Posted (edited)
On 10/6/2021 at 10:51 AM, 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. 

This. In Season One he has some level of code or conscience. Final season Tony would have whacked Uncle June without remorse. He was relatively rational and reasonable, which is why he was able to rise above his peers. Toward the end he had fully submitted to his dark side.

Development does not require becoming Tonisha and opening a beauty parlor.

Edited by Harrison Bergeron
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Red Five

Red Five 40862

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Posted
This. In Season One he has some level of code or conscience. Final season Tony would have whacked Uncle June without remorse. He was relatively rational and reasonable, which is why he was able to rise above his peers. Toward the end he had fully submitted to his dark side.
Development does not require becoming Tonisha and opening a beauty parlor.

Melfi you had one job.
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MrBig

MrBig 5414

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4 hours ago, Firemans4Horn said:

Only a matter of time until HBO give a Brinks truck full of cash to David Simon and we get a Wire prequel focused on Jimmy McNulty going to summer camp. 

Well shit then where the fuck is my Arli$$ prequel?

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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6 hours ago, Firemans4Horn said:

Only a matter of time until HBO give a Brinks truck full of cash to David Simon and we get a Wire prequel focused on Jimmy McNulty going to summer camp. 

“Hey, you guys going for a taste?”   Cut to campers ladling bug juice from a metallic pitcher 

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BurdineBandit

BurdineBandit 815

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Watched it yesterday. Still not getting the point. If I wanted fan service and to "be back in the Sopranos world again" I would just do a rewatch and re-enter the world. Dickie had a completely unoriginal and uninteresting story. He tried to be a good dude, failed, murdered, cheated, and stole, just like every other mob member in that world, why did he deserve a whole movie? So we could see him having 3 or 4 conversations with a pre-adolescent Tony? Even the scenes with Livia, although sometimes interesting (maybe because of a good casting job), were exactly how I'd expect. Yeah, she had a fucked up marriage alright, thanks for portraying that pretty much exactly how I imagined it would be, why did it deserve a movie depiction?  

 

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11517

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1 hour ago, BurdineBandit said:

Watched it yesterday. Still not getting the point. If I wanted fan service and to "be back in the Sopranos world again" I would just do a rewatch and re-enter the world. Dickie had a completely unoriginal and uninteresting story. He tried to be a good dude, failed, murdered, cheated, and stole, just like every other mob member in that world, why did he deserve a whole movie? So we could see him having 3 or 4 conversations with a pre-adolescent Tony? Even the scenes with Livia, although sometimes interesting (maybe because of a good casting job), were exactly how I'd expect. Yeah, she had a fucked up marriage alright, thanks for portraying that pretty much exactly how I imagined it would be, why did it deserve a movie depiction?  

 

An interesting point. Why did they focus on Dickie? Why did they tell us the movie would deal with the Newark Riots when the events were largely in the background? The only explanation we get for the riots is oh the cops beat up a cab driver. There was a lot more to it. 

Chase focused on the most uninteresting element of Tony's origin story. We didn't get to see Tony, Silvio, and Jackie holding up Feech's card game. We didn't get Richie taking The Jacket from Rocco DiMeo. We didn't see Tony have his first seizure that helped him avoid prison.

Something I was thinking about the other day: When did Junior split with Johnny and start/ was given his own crew? Based on my knowledge of mob history, it would be pretty unusual for brothers close in age to be in different crews. Perhaps Junior took over Dickie's rackets and absorbed Dickie's guys, and he spun this off into a new crew. Tony succeeded Johnny Boy after his death in the 80s. Known members of Johnny Boy's crew: Silvio, Paulie, and Big Pussy. 

 

 

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MrBig

MrBig 5414

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18 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

An interesting point. Why did they focus on Dickie? Why did they tell us the movie would deal with the Newark Riots when the events were largely in the background? The only explanation we get for the riots is oh the cops beat up a cab driver. There was a lot more to it. 

 

 

David Chase pulled a George Lucas here. This is movie gives me Phantom Menace vibes. We didn’t have to start the prequel timeline here.

In The Sopranos, mythology of Dickie was like Anakin/Vader in the original trilogy. It was grand and tragic but it didn’t translate into what we saw.

And the Newark Riots were like the midi-chlorians. Talked about a few times then forgotten about. This movie could have started much later in the timeline.

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mchookem

mchookem 16336

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Posted (edited)

she was...and that reminds me of something the movie did do that surprised me...it made me feel sorry for Livia.

specifically, when Johnny came home to the surprise party and she was beaming, clearly so happy to see him, but he just immediately started in with the negative, bitching at her about the black family moving in like she could do anything about it, embarrassing her in front of everybody, and this was their first time reunited after however long he'd been in prison...i felt bad for her and totally empathized with her reaction in that scene (well ok  maybe not the breaking dishes part lol).

TOTAL dick move on his part and it made me think more about how much of Johnnyboy's torment she had to endure over the years and how that likely affected her personality. 

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lateshow

lateshow 1304

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2 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

They should make another.  Have Livia, Johnny Boy, Tony and Tony's crew as he becomes an associate and then made.  A lot of good stories they can address.  And add some new ones.

Not for nuthin, but Farmiga has already said she'd be in if they wanted to make a series. As has Michael Gandolfini. 

I hope they do, but my fear is David Chase is pissed at HBO for the streaming premiere. He sees that they left a pile of money on the table by not premiering it in theatres first. And we know how petty he can be. However, he did say that HBO owns it, and if they want to continue they could with another writer. Hopefully Terry Winter. 

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11517

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1 hour ago, lateshow said:

Not for nuthin, but Farmiga has already said she'd be in if they wanted to make a series. As has Michael Gandolfini. 

I hope they do, but my fear is David Chase is pissed at HBO for the streaming premiere. He sees that they left a pile of money on the table by not premiering it in theatres first. And we know how petty he can be. However, he did say that HBO owns it, and if they want to continue they could with another writer. Hopefully Terry Winter. 

Chase said in the Rolling Stone interview he doesn't want to continue to work on the Sopranos, but he would approve Terry Winter as a showrunner. 

I'd be good with it. Boardwalk Empire is a pretty solid basement. 

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Harrison Bergeron

Harrison Bergeron 1798

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On 10/11/2021 at 11:05 AM, MrBig said:

David Chase pulled a George Lucas here. This is movie gives me Phantom Menace vibes. We didn’t have to start the prequel timeline here.

In The Sopranos, mythology of Dickie was like Anakin/Vader in the original trilogy. It was grand and tragic but it didn’t translate into what we saw.

And the Newark Riots were like the midi-chlorians. Talked about a few times then forgotten about. This movie could have started much later in the timeline.

That's a great analogy. Reflecting on it, the entire move did seem pointless: Dickie was not especially interesting, and we did not see him make any grant impact on the DiMeo family, his crew, Tony, or Newark. The only interesting thing was Junior hit him, but that never played out in The Sopranos. I would have rather had a movie about Paulie ... or anyone else. And why not show Tony as a young solider with his crew.

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11517

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5 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

I'd love to see Tony, Ralphie and Jackie Aprile robbing Feech's card game.

Tony's first hit -- Willie Overall.

Tony being made.

The unrest of '83.

Paulie surviving the Columbo wars by the skin of his balls.

There's a flashback of the Willie Overall hit/burial plus plenty of back story in The Sopranos. I don't know how much more that needs to be fleshed out. 

I agree on all your other points. Big Pussy referenced a beef with Philly. That could another interesting storyline. 

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11517

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19 minutes ago, Jerry Callo said:

There is a reason young Tony Soprano only showed up in four or five scenes and had 17 lines.  I'm not sure if Michael Gandolfini has the acting chops to carry the role long term.  I'd watch more Soprano stuff, but would be fine with leaving it as is.

This. He seems like a good kid, and he's trying, but watch The Deuce. He doesn't have the it factor. 

Any Sopranos prequel would have to be carried by Bernthal, Stoll, or Farmiga. All three are perfectly capable of doing this. 

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lateshow

lateshow 1304

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57 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

I'd love to see Tony, Ralphie and Jackie Aprile robbing Feech's card game.

Tony's first hit -- Willie Overall.

Tony being made.

The unrest of '83.

Paulie surviving the Columbo wars by the skin of his balls.

Ralphie didn’t rob the card game. He caught the clap from some hippie broad he was banging. 

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Harrison Bergeron

Harrison Bergeron 1798

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On 10/14/2021 at 2:17 PM, billfromlaketravis said:

Burnstein's review of Many Saints of Newark: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-many-saints-of-newark-our-reviews-are-in/id1467014230?i=1000538445429

As always, I enjoyed the podcast. I thought he was too gushing about Gandolfino's performance. I agree with others, he just lacked the hutzpah of Tony. But I aligned with most of the sentiment here: "no one cared or cares about Dickie Moltisanti." 

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lateshow

lateshow 1304

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19 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

As always, I enjoyed the podcast. I thought he was too gushing about Gandolfino's performance. I agree with others, he just lacked the hutzpah of Tony. But I aligned with most of the sentiment here: "no one cared or cares about Dickie Moltisanti." 

My biggest gripe is that it had no major plot line. It was just a bunch of scenarios with not much of a common thread. 

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11517

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1 hour ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

As always, I enjoyed the podcast. I thought he was too gushing about Gandolfino's performance. I agree with others, he just lacked the hutzpah of Tony. But I aligned with most of the sentiment here: "no one cared or cares about Dickie Moltisanti." 

Yeah I don't understand their Michael Gandolfino praise. 

Liotta and Farmiga are the only elite film actors in the film. Farmiga has had a pretty nice run. Liotta post Goodfellas, marone! what a waste of a career. 

Bernthal and Stoll can do some nice things, but they probably won't ever get Oscar buzz. 

 

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Augustus

Augustus 3061

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On 10/21/2021 at 9:45 AM, lateshow said:

My biggest gripe is that it had no major plot line. It was just a bunch of scenarios with not much of a common thread. 

I keep seeing this and I disagree.  Dickie had an even more difficult time dealing with his conscience than Tony did, and I found that interesting.

I thought Dickie was complex enough to be compelling.  He seemed to me like that kind of guy who'd end up committing suicide because he couldn't handle the guilt he justifiably felt.

Curious if anyone else has done a re-watch and had a similar experience to mine.  I was really surprised how much more I enjoyed it the second time.

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Wade

Wade 464

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Posted

Watched it yesterday without reading this thread of any reviews, and came away...unfulfilled...and confused.

Why the focus on Dickie Moltisanti?  His story was on the periphery of the Sopranos, and even if you take it at face value that he was Tony's mentor, there was never any real mentor/apprentice scenes with the two in the movie.  He scolded Tony for school issues and told him to accept the stolen speakers.  Not exactly deep stuff.

When Tony spoke of Dickie in Sopranos he described him as the baddest enforcer in Jersey, eventually killed by one of his many enemies.  We see him kill his father and gumba, and then wrestle with the guilt.  And then killed by Junior for an insignificant slight.  Stupid.

The large side story of the black dude was meaningless and advanced  the story in no way.

There were a lot of incongruities with the series (ages and what not already mentioned in this thread) and Tony was a puss.  There was nothing in that performance that portended the murderous psychopath that Tony would become in the series.

Finally, there was no point to the story.  As someone mentioned I kept waiting for the payoff and the realized we weren't going to get one.  There was no point to this movie.

 

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Goredho

Goredho 17408

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Posted (edited)

Saw it last night, didn’t have any expectations and I really enjoyed it.  The series did a great job explaining the neurotic part of Tony through his mother’s character and his relationship with her.  This movie did a good job of explaining the other facets of Tony we see in the series that we didn’t get to see the origin of — the lion, the criminal, the killer.

SPOILER BELOW — I can’t fucking figure out spoiler tags.  Stop reading if you haven’t seen it yet.

[spoiler]

I think it’s also interesting to consider the relationship between son, father and uncle as it relates to Tony, Johnny and Dickie here and Christopher, Dickie and Tony in the series.  Absent father, idolized uncle, and the ignorant bequeathing of a dark inheritance of criminality and murder.  Dickie tried to save Tony by removing himself, but the seed had been planted.  Tony passed that to Christopher in an ironic karmic consequence to Dickie’s worst deeds.  And Tony’s murder of Christopher may have been the only way to “save” a recipient of that inheritance  I want to rewatch the series now and pay more attention to the triangle of Christopher, Tony and AJ.  In killing Christopher, did Tony also put an end to the passing down of that dark criminality?  Did he essentially end his criminal lineage so that AJ could live a normal, straight life like Tony might have if not for his uncle?
 

[/spoiler]

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Johnny Sack

Johnny Sack 8397

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Posted
8 hours ago, Nole-4-Life said:

Just saw it. I enjoyed it for what it was. Farmiga was amazing a Livia.

The only Easter egg I recall seeing is Johnny shooting thru Livia's beehive as Janice described in the original show. Were there others I missed?

Junior saying "sister's cunt"

Varsity athlete comment

Livia's baked ziti (AJ said no fuckin ziti when he found out she was not coming to his birthday)

 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31497

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It was alright.  But referential to the series, yet missing most of the things that made the series special.

Another Easter egg:

Holsten's appeared twice, including the final scene where Tony awaited Dickie.

And in a lesser vein, Dickie made reference to Hesh once, but he never appeared.

I think I agree that, as far as backstory to the series, there was probably more to dig into, and more interesting stuff.  But, in actuality, a lot of that probably happened between the end of this, and the commencement of the series.

Spoiler

I rewatched the series within the last year in anticipation of this, and then after the meh reviews, didn't even watch it until now.

But was it ever alluded to that Junior had Dickie whacked?  If it was, I missed it.  And, although Junior was a dickhead, having Dickie whacked for laughing at him a couple of times is more psychotic than he was ever made out to be in the show, I think.

 

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Wade

Wade 464

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36 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

It was alright.  But referential to the series, yet missing most of the things that made the series special.

Another Easter egg:

Holsten's appeared twice, including the final scene where Tony awaited Dickie.

And in a lesser vein, Dickie made reference to Hesh once, but he never appeared.

I think I agree that, as far as backstory to the series, there was probably more to dig into, and more interesting stuff.  But, in actuality, a lot of that probably happened between the end of this, and the commencement of the series.

  Reveal hidden contents

I rewatched the series within the last year in anticipation of this, and then after the meh reviews, didn't even watch it until now.

But was it ever alluded to that Junior had Dickie whacked?  If it was, I missed it.  And, although Junior was a dickhead, having Dickie whacked for laughing at him a couple of times is more psychotic than he was ever made out to be in the show, I think.

 

 

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Augustus

Augustus 3061

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10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It was alright.  But referential to the series, yet missing most of the things that made the series special.

Another Easter egg:

Holsten's appeared twice, including the final scene where Tony awaited Dickie.

And in a lesser vein, Dickie made reference to Hesh once, but he never appeared.

I think I agree that, as far as backstory to the series, there was probably more to dig into, and more interesting stuff.  But, in actuality, a lot of that probably happened between the end of this, and the commencement of the series.

  Hide contents

I rewatched the series within the last year in anticipation of this, and then after the meh reviews, didn't even watch it until now.

But was it ever alluded to that Junior had Dickie whacked?  If it was, I missed it.  And, although Junior was a dickhead, having Dickie whacked for laughing at him a couple of times is more psychotic than he was ever made out to be in the show, I think.

 

No, it was never alluded to at all.  I think that's something Chase came up with for the movie.

 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31497

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Posted (edited)

I will say I thought Stoll did a pretty good job with Junior.

To me, the film is quite a conundrum.  On the one hand, it suffers by comparison to the series.  On the other, without the connection to the series, it's kind of a giant wtf.  Well-acted, but the plot is kind of arbitrary and senseless without its connection to the series.  

Edited by TwiceHorn
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HornPhD

HornPhD 1368

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Posted
On 10/7/2021 at 10:37 AM, MrBig said:

You can have tons of character development, but without a story arc, who gives a shit? I don’t want to watch developed characters do boring things. 

The Many Saints of Where’s My Arc (as Narrated by Christopher Moltisanti)

Chase probably hit a fucking wall. Third act shit. 

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