imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Monday, April 16, 2007
JUST ANOTHER STRESSED-OUT FAMILY MAN
Yeah, the Sopranos are gangsters and killers. So what. Never missing a single, solitary episode doesn't equal idolatry or even admiration. It means that I love the show. So have some pity, already, cuz I'm in mourning.
Just some of the reasons why I'll miss Tony (in no particular order):
* Tony explaining the mob: "In the old days, the ones that came over, that started this thing, they didn't get mad. They just smiled and nodded and made sure you got it later. That's the whole beautiful point. You know what they say: Revenge is like serving cold cuts."
* Tony explains Uncle Junior’s shooting him to Dr. Melfi: "I got caught up in domestic violence. You think it can't happen to you, but it does."
* Tony explains parenting:
Tony: "Violence? You're lucky I didn't put my shoe up your ass."
AJ: "You see? Now, that's abuse. I know what my rights are. I can call Social Services, and they'll send a case worker."
Tony: "Go ahead, he'll get the other shoe."
* Tony explains the bottom line: "But we are a family. And even in this fucked up age that means something. So we are going to deal with this like a family."
Just some of what I loved about last night’s episode (in no particular order):
* Sydney Pollack, playing an incarcerated oncologist, explaining to Johnny Sack how he ended up in prison by getting high on coke and booze and killing his wife: "I killed her aunt too, I didn't know she was there... And the mailman. At that point, I had to fully commit."
* The baptism scene so reminiscent of The Godfather.
* Carmine Jr.’s mangled vocabulary, like Norm Crosby, the “Master of the malaprop, Norm always speaks from his 'diagram' and drinks' decapitated' coffee.” Little Carmine even kinda looks like Norm Crosby.
Btw, last night’s story of Johnny Sack dying from lung cancer had eerie parallels to the actor’s real life: Curatola's mother, who was not a smoker, died of lung cancer when she was only 39. His wife's brother, who did smoke and was an ironworker who spent seven months working at Ground Zero, lost his battle with lung cancer two months before Curatola was due to start work on the episode.
"We had just buried him," he says, "and then that script comes in - I was in shock."
David Chase reveals THE GANGSTERS WHO INSPIRED THE SOPRANOS: Unlike their fictitious counterparts, however, Richie the Boot and Tony Boy never brooded over their sadistic acts like Tony Soprano and his family.
Instead, they kept a rubbish incinerator in the grounds of their vast mansion and used it as a private crematorium. Afterwards, the ashes were scattered across a huge vegetable patch on which Boiardo senior erected a sign reading: “The Godfather’s Garden.”
Personally, I don’t see Tony getting whacked. I just don’t. I don’t see him being carted off to jail, either. So how will it end? Who knows? Vincent Curatola (Johnny Sack) on the ending: Curatola won't say whether or not Tony Soprano or Christopher Moltisanti meet their maker by the business end of a 9 millimeter. But he does allow that series creator David Chase, who wrote and directed the series finale, has most likely filmed more than one ending.
"There's a little camera work in there where David can go this way or that way," he says.
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Labels: David Chase, SOPRANOS, The Godfather
