20 years ago today, the pilot for the Sopranos aired

 
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Huey Lewis & The News
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:30 pm    Post subject: 20 years ago today, the pilot for the Sopranos aired

happy 20th to the greatest show of all time
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:28 am    Post subject:

Been watching the reruns on HBO. That phenomenon where you get sucked into watching a movie/show when it's on TV rather than when it's at your fingertips on demand or disc. The 3rd or 4th to the last epi is great. One of the artistic ones. Called "Kennedy & Heidi" where Chrissy dies instantly (ahem) in the rollover. It's an epi split in half with T goin to Vegas to do peyote with a babe. Besides wanting to be in his place in those parts, I love that "I GET IIIT!" ending and the song paired with it. No YT clip of it tho. I remember watching that epi when it first aired and being miffed that they were still doing artsy epis while the series was drawing to and end, but I've come to appreciate it. Last 5 epis were all great.

Nancy Marchand (Livia), James G (Ton), Frank Pellegrino (FBI head), and Frank Vincent (Phil)<- a special tear for that don, all passed away in recent years.

Huey re Wire vs Sops. I put him to the test to answer back in July:

So, I saw the Wire Before I saw the Sopranos. S1 was a challenge, especially the first 2 episodes, most especially S1e1, and I always dread this fact when I think about recommending the show to people. When I'd finished it, it was easily the best thing on TV I'd ever seen, because it was the best show ever produced, as far as I knew. 2 years later, I watched the Sopranos, and I wasn't even halfway through S2 before I knew that this was the greatest (bleep) thing that's ever been on TV, and I'd never need to watch anything else to be able to qualify that opinion, it's utterly sublime, the undisputed #1. Head to head is difficult because the Wire has such great writing and every character down to the throwaways had a meaningful, earnest part in the narrative, and acting was up to snuff, even the ghetto characters. Where Sopranos wins is Gandolfini's verve and the hilarious banality of the dialogue. For something that isn't an outright comedy, I can't recall anything I watched that I had to rewind sometimes 10x because I was literally breathless from laughing. Like when Ton first gets to the lake house and bobby comes to greet him in short shorts and ton goes: "oh! national lampoons vacation!" or (bleep) Paulie's commentary re: pearl harbor. It's genius. Infinite replay value. It's also better than any Scorsese feature film. Today I'd put Deadwood above the Wire. You ever seen Deadwood? Its main progagonist Swearengen has a relatable neurosis delivered by a master actor...a lot like Gandolfini's Tony. Relationships between the characters are heartfelt and unmistakable, just like in the Sops.

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Last edited by non-player zealot on Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:39 am; edited 2 times in total
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:32 am    Post subject:

It is still my #1.
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vanexelent
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:12 am    Post subject:

Mad Men >
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Huey Lewis & The News
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:16 am    Post subject:

vanexelent wrote:
Mad Men >


h-what
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:19 am    Post subject:

https://imgur.com/gallery/Spk1pdj
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:32 am    Post subject:

governator wrote:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Spk1pdj


yiiikes that was awful

twitter is cancer
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governator
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:39 am    Post subject:

Huey Lewis & The News wrote:
governator wrote:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Spk1pdj


yiiikes that was awful

twitter is cancer


Lol there’s a lot more of those, some are good
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Huey Lewis & The News
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:58 am    Post subject:

governator wrote:
Huey Lewis & The News wrote:
governator wrote:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Spk1pdj


yiiikes that was awful

twitter is cancer


Lol there’s a lot more of those, some are good


I thought slack's response was a joke but they were 100% serious

oof
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:23 am    Post subject:

Greatest show of all time. I've already gone through it once but now going through it again with my wife, her first time, and she LOVES it. Sad we are on season 6A...the end is nigh
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:44 am    Post subject:

Loved it at the time and still enjoy some episodes like "The Pine Barrens" but the series as a whole didn't hold up over time for me. Even in its heyday, I didn't like the AJ and Meadow characters and that's only grown worse over the years.
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:36 am    Post subject:

Huey Lewis & The News wrote:
governator wrote:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Spk1pdj


yiiikes that was awful

twitter is cancer


Right? What the hell was that?
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:03 am    Post subject:

DaMuleRules wrote:
Huey Lewis & The News wrote:
governator wrote:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Spk1pdj


yiiikes that was awful

twitter is cancer


Right? What the hell was that?


DaMuleRules =

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ani007
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:52 pm    Post subject:

thought my tivo had died in the finale....a giant wtf moment my college roommate witnessed lol we were big on Lost too. rewatched the wire recently and that is of course brilliant as well. gandolfini was sublime and agree, for the subject matter sopranos was hilarious. also like the surreal elements like the dreams.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 11:21 pm    Post subject:

I just finished re-watching the entire series. Last time I watched it was when it originally aired. It was so long ago that I forgot a lot of the plot, so it was like watching it for the first time.

I still think it's a fantastic show, but here are some things that I didn't like:

- Some of the acting is just atrocious, especially by the actresses that play the various mob wives (not Edie Falco, she's great).
- The editing is strange and disorienting. When the writers want to focus on a particular character, they show that character in three, four straight short scenes, taking place over a number of days. It's just weird and too deliberate.
- With the exception of killing Adriana and being in charge when Tony was in the hospital, Sil - the freaking consigliere - had no purpose on this show except to sit and count money. Maybe the writers were hesitant to give Steven Van Zandt a bigger role, but the character was mostly a waste.
- If you've seen season 1, you've pretty much seen them all. Subsequent seasons introduce new characters, but the show repeats the same storyline throughout.
- With the exception of Janice killing Richie Aprile, I can't recall any scene that genuinely shocked me. There are no twists, no surprises.
- The unrealistic responses to deaths and disappearances. "Has anybody seen P*ssy?" "He is in the witness protection program." "Oh, okay"
- I think most people agree that Tony dies in the end, but the fact that he was never indicted or never in any real trouble doesn't make any sense.

I guess some of the things above can be explained, as David Chase has said, that Sopranos is as much comedy as it is drama and we shouldn't take it too seriously. I certainly laughed a lot. Christopher's intervention was probably the funniest scene.

I still consider Breaking Bad a better show. Better acting, story, directing, cinematography, etc. Sopranos is still in my Top 5.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:42 am    Post subject:

I suspect we'll look back at Breaking Bad in a few years and cringe at some of Aaron Paul's acting or Walter's dialogue. But for their time and place, both shows were great.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:25 pm    Post subject:

Wilt wrote:
Christopher's intervention was probably the funniest scene.


Sil: One. day. I. came. into. The. Bing. early. Dere. you. were. in. da. bat-troom. wit. chor. head. in. deh. toi-let. Your. hair. was. in. deh. toi-let. wat-er..... Dith-guth-ting...
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:42 pm    Post subject:

non-player zealot wrote:
Wilt wrote:
Christopher's intervention was probably the funniest scene.


Sil: One. day. I. came. into. The. Bing. early. Dere. you. were. in. da. bat-troom. wit. chor. head. in. deh. toi-let. Your. hair. was. in. deh. toi-let. wat-er..... Dith-guth-ting...


I am unable to watch that scene without laughing.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:24 pm    Post subject:

The best part about that is that he needed to write it down.
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 5:58 am    Post subject:

sil even sitting in at that intervention kills me

and when uncle jun flips to curb on TV and thinks larry and jeff is him and bacala...lmao!!!
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