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Don't you people have speakers and volume knobs?
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Nov 14, 2020 03:01
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BiggerBoat posted:True Romance and The Man Who Wasn't There stand out for me They say his scene in true romance is how he got the role in Sopranos and I can see it. It legitimately looked like he was gonna kill patricia arquettes character. It's amazing that he could stand out in a movie that has a cast ad stacked as that movie, but by God did gandolfini do it.
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Nov 14, 2020 03:04
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Ainsley McTree posted:I just realized that I haven't really seen James Gandolfini in anything else he's done besides the Sopranos, so whenever I watch an interview or something he's in, it's so jarring to hear his normal speaking voice. It's like...not even quite adjacent to his Tony voice, it's like a block away; similar, but completely different at the same time. I liked how Kevin Finnerty was somewhere between the two. I've watched Twin Peaks and The Prisoner, and still one of the weirdest most jarring scenes I've ever seen on TV was Gandolfini turning off the Tony Soprano bit. It's so natural and inhabited you assume it's just him but it isn't.
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Nov 14, 2020 03:10
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Watch the interviews he did with the vets. What a great man. I'm so glad I'm not remarkably great so I won't die too soon
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Nov 14, 2020 03:58
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PostNouveau posted:He was good in Zero Dark Thirty, but he wasn't in it very much. Same with In The Loop and Killing Them Softly. Especially the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUs282cMa44
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Nov 14, 2020 13:05
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Gandolfini also had a pretty good role as Bear in Get Shorty. That's the first time I remember seeing him before Sopranos.
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Nov 14, 2020 14:32
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Gaius Marius posted:They say his scene in true romance is how he got the role in Sopranos and I can see it. It legitimately looked like he was gonna kill patricia arquettes character. It's amazing that he could stand out in a movie that has a cast ad stacked as that movie, but by God did gandolfini do it. Yeah, Gandolfini was doing the 'so mad I'm smiling thing' there too. It's great.
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Nov 14, 2020 15:15
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-v6T4gUmkw
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Nov 14, 2020 15:42
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Hes also pretty great in The Drop and 8mm.
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Nov 14, 2020 19:18
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I keep expecting him to turn on that Muppet; start huffing through his nose and belittling it because it saw him express vulnerability for a second.
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Nov 14, 2020 20:28
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JethroMcB posted:I keep expecting him to turn on that Muppet; start huffing through his nose and belittling it because it saw him express vulnerability for a second. Haha, same. Also same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjABs9poa3Y
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Nov 14, 2020 21:16
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Recently watched The Drop again. I don't think it struck me very strongly the first time I watched it but I thought this was a really great watch. Excellent twist at the end that I never saw coming. Gandolfini kills it as usual in a supporting role.
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Nov 14, 2020 23:54
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The_dude_abides posted:Does anyone else feel like Tony is presented as more sympathetic in the first season? At least compared to guys like Mikey Palmice and the pedophile soccer coach. Or little moments where he gives his share of the money he got from the sit-down he engineers with Uncle Junior, Johnny Sac, and Hesh. Also because of the way his panic attacks are framed and we get to know his history and guilt that comes about from his lifestyle sometimes. I think showing a protagonist in a more sympathetic light early on (or presenting them with even less sympathetic obstacles to overcome) so people get invested is a deliberate choice in shows like these, and is a key part of getting audiences invested, since they might just outright reject a protagonist who seems irredeemably awful from the start. The hooks probably sink too deep for a lot of viewers though, so you end up with people who watch the entire series of this or a show like Breaking Bad and think Tony or Walt are heroes instead of villains we were manipulated into having a rooting interest for, despite both shows basically screaming to the audience that both guys are monsters by the end of each series. In universe though, I think Tony consolidating his control over the Family enabled his recklessness and awful behavior. You could probably make a case for something like "having" to kill Pussy hardening him even further, reminding him that everyone around him, even people he genuinely loves, are potentially massive liabilities in ways normal people don't have to worry about too. In the first season he was still technically a subordinate at the beginning, and pretending to be one until the attempted hit while functionally operating as something like a first among equals, so he was constrained more by still having to play nice with others. As he got comfortable with his power, I think he lost some perspective that previously helped him do a better job of masking what was probably underneath the whole time. I think the kids getting older and him not having to compartmentalize his life as much probably contributed to his decline too. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Nov 17, 2020 |
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Nov 17, 2020 01:41
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Vichan posted:Same with In The Loop and Killing Them Softly. Especially the latter: Gandolfini and Pitt are such a weird combination, but it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU9yXk9bLA0
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Nov 17, 2020 13:43
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I'm still laughing at "I guess you guys are too old to understand the Sopranos"
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Nov 17, 2020 14:31
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Pope Corky the IX posted:I'm still laughing at "I guess you guys are too old to understand the Sopranos" This is about what I posted? I was trying to suggest I was too young...
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Nov 17, 2020 15:39
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Open Source Idiom posted:This is about what I posted? I think your point is valid but less to do with age and more to do with what was going on with television at the time. In 2020, something like The Sopranos stood out among the crowd of more traditional shows like police procedurals, sitcoms, and various other genres that were very clear cut and paint by numbers. HBO really broke that mold and created what we consider to be "prestige television", and The Sopranos was a huge part of that movement. Today there's almost more "prestige" shows than there are anything else. I say that because a lot of the audience at the time was not really ready to absorb and interpret what the show was doing, and those of us who were around then remember that. So it's not so much that we here itt had a hard time understanding that murderous gangsters are bad, but we do know that a big part of the history of The Sopranos is the difficulty the show had with it's own audience not understanding the core concepts Chase was going for. So it comes up in discussion from time to time. Oh and for a Gandolfini performance that nobody talks about, watch Killing Them Softly. He shows up in the story as a hitman brought in to do a job so you kinda expect a certain type of character and well....lets just say Gandolfini is great in it as he always was.
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Nov 17, 2020 16:09
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Looking back at early Sopranos, Season 1 is far more episodic than the other ones, it has a lot of Mobster of the Week episodes. It has a similar structure to something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer's early seasons, where there is a season arch but a lot of it is just Monster of the Week. Random thought that came to mind: the show at several points shows that people who do not understand the stakes of things get it bad later, like Adriana and Robert Patrick's character. When I rewatched the show a while back, it's fairly apparent that the FBI doesn't actually have that much of anything on Adriana, but she falls for the ruse. Demanding a lawyer would have been the right move, but Adriana just didn't know it, unlike the mobsters.
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Nov 17, 2020 17:51
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Kemper Boyd posted:Looking back at early Sopranos, Season 1 is far more episodic than the other ones, it has a lot of Mobster of the Week episodes. It has a similar structure to something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer's early seasons, where there is a season arch but a lot of it is just Monster of the Week. I remember this was one of the reasons Chase didn't want the show to go on too long that it could turn into episodic with the additional problem of running out of ideas. He sort of dreaded looking at TV Guide (dated) to read a capsule of "Tony has to deal with finding a mechanic to fix his Escalade... and one to deal with his Philadelphia problem; Paulie thinks the Bing is haunted."
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Nov 17, 2020 19:46
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Wanna watch the episode where Paulie thinks the Bing is haunted. Already got the Virgin Mary and Christopher in cat form, so he's got good reason to.
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Nov 17, 2020 19:51
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I've watched Twin Peaks and The Prisoner, and still one of the weirdest most jarring scenes I've ever seen on TV was Gandolfini turning off the Tony Soprano bit. Yeah. It's easy to take for granted what a good actor he is, because most people subconsciously just think he is Tony Soprano. Or at the very least assume he has injected himself into the character to a major degree. Then you see him in interviews and other movies and it's like, holy poo poo. The voice, the mannerisms, everything is a character. it's a travesty that he didn't get a nice, long post Sopranos career. he probably would have played some really memorable roles by now 
veni veni veni fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Nov 17, 2020 |
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Nov 17, 2020 20:02
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We met Gandolfini back in 2009 after the show when he was in God of Carnage on Broadway. Just a big friendly teddy bear. But he did get annoyed and refused to talk to one guy that just kept yelling "Tony! Hey T!"
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Nov 17, 2020 20:14
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PostNouveau posted:Wanna watch the episode where Paulie thinks the Bing is haunted. Paulie being the lapsed Catholic boy was a really good bit of his character as he clearly has absolutely 0 concern or care for morals and spiritual guidance but as soon as his life goes to poo poo in some way suddenly he's all introspective and leaning on his religious upbringing to support. It's all so much of a performance to him that the only thing that matters is what "is" not what should be, like when he finds out the woman who raised and loved him and he's done everything for isn't his actual mother, he goes berserk and plans to completely abandon her. Even him walking that back feels less like any kind of remorse of understanding but more of he can't lose essentially the only connection to a normal life he has.
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Nov 17, 2020 20:34
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Pope Corky the IX posted:We met Gandolfini back in 2009 after the show when he was in God of Carnage on Broadway. Just a big friendly teddy bear. But he did get annoyed and refused to talk to one guy that just kept yelling "Tony! Hey T!" Every interaction I've heard of people meeting Gandolfini mirrors this. (The he was super nice bit, not the annoyed at being called 'Tony' bit but I can't blame him.)
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Nov 17, 2020 21:09
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I can't imagine how many annoying Bad Fans he must have had to deal with. It's great that he managed to be personable and approachable in the face of that, I wouldn't have that kind of patiene.
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Nov 17, 2020 21:11
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcNhjbdrcAY&t=114s
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Nov 17, 2020 22:22
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In hindsight, for C to work, it should have been time for him to start to seriously consider salads.
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Nov 17, 2020 23:04
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I get it, guy drives a Lincoln.
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Nov 18, 2020 01:00
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pentyne posted:Paulie being the lapsed Catholic boy was a really good bit of his character as he clearly has absolutely 0 concern or care for morals and spiritual guidance but as soon as his life goes to poo poo in some way suddenly he's all introspective and leaning on his religious upbringing to support. Paulie genuinely seems to struggle with the idea that other people are really people. It struck me in that same episode where he completely forgets to pretend to give a poo poo about the little girl with burns until prompted by Tony. Yeah, he was preoccupied at the time, but you also see it when he forgets to pretend to care about Carmela or the kids. Like, none of them care about other people at all, but Paulie more than any of them seems to have had to learn to pretend to care in the first place, rather than suppress his empathy or let it wither away
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Nov 18, 2020 12:52
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Barry Foster posted:Paulie genuinely seems to struggle with the idea that other people are really people. It struck me in that same episode where he completely forgets to pretend to give a poo poo about the little girl with burns until prompted by Tony. Yeah, he was preoccupied at the time, but you also see it when he forgets to pretend to care about Carmela or the kids.
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Nov 18, 2020 13:27
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I don’t care if he’s got a hundred kids in the ICU with arrows in their heads.
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Nov 18, 2020 13:30
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lurker2006 posted:I remember watching one of the thousands of mob documentaries on youtube and one of the guys they were interviewing giving an aside about the sopranos said in his opinion the most unrealistic thing was how soft Tony was in terms of empathy, everyone he knew in the game was a Paulie. Yeah, that happens a lot. Paulie in Goodfellas is this laidback, slow-moving calm and collected type but the real-life Paul Vario had a hair-trigger temper and was pretty much entirely a monster.
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Nov 18, 2020 14:08
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Joe Pesci's character was even worse in real life, having carried on an affair with Karen Hill for years knowing that Henry couldn't really stop it.
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Nov 18, 2020 14:21
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lurker2006 posted:I remember watching one of the thousands of mob documentaries on youtube and one of the guys they were interviewing giving an aside about the sopranos said in his opinion the most unrealistic thing was how soft Tony was in terms of empathy, everyone he knew in the game was a Paulie. Jesus, imagine living like that
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Nov 18, 2020 14:34
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I dunno. Paulie does seem to express some empathy at times. When Chris dies Paulie mourns all the arguments they had and wonders if he could have been a better father figure to him. Meanwhile Tony feels nothing but relief. And I think Beansie is correct when he tells Tony that the crew is "all Paulie has got" in life. And obviously he goes to great lengths to take care of his mother (at least while he still thinks she is his mother). That is at least in part an image thing I think, but I do also believe he has some affection and caring for her. I don't think he's entirely without empathy, as greedy and awful as he can be. Though it does say a lot about Paulie that even the few caring things he does do (like taking care of is mother) are also at least partially tied to his image. How many times does he do nice things for his mom and then say something like "I'm the hero now boy"? He loves being thought of as a caring and dutiful son.
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Nov 18, 2020 16:07
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Ginette Reno posted:I dunno. Paulie does seem to express some empathy at times. When Chris dies Paulie mourns all the arguments they had and wonders if he could have been a better father figure to him. Meanwhile Tony feels nothing but relief. And I think Beansie is correct when he tells Tony that the crew is "all Paulie has got" in life. And obviously he goes to great lengths to take care of his mother (at least while he still thinks she is his mother). That is at least in part an image thing I think, but I do also believe he has some affection and caring for her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwSLKtY1eUQ&t=280s Probably one of the most 'real' Paulie moments.
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Nov 18, 2020 16:11
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jgaAfWS64 All forms of art and entertainment are mostly dead but at least we can go back and research the greats
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Nov 18, 2020 16:23
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I don't think Paulie's love for his mother was just for show at all, otherwise he wouldn't have felt so "betrayed" by the revelation that Dottie was his mother and Nucci was his aunt. He eventually comes to realize it when he visits Nucci and silently watches the Lawrence Welk program with her as sort of an apology. There are several times he loving loses it when it comes to Nucci, like the aforementioned "kids with arrows in their heads" incident with Ralph, or his panic over not getting enough money to keep her in Green Grove. Or sending Benny and Little Paulie to beat the poo poo out of a high school principal in public because his mother was being mean to Nucci. These Parker House rolls? They belong to my Ma. 
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Nov 18, 2020 16:26
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David Chase posted:I felt I was out of step with everything. I remember seeing Pretty Woman (1990) on an airplane. Everybody was laughing their heads off. "Ho-ho-ho!" It wasn't funny to me, it wasn't dramatic--it wasn't anything. I thought, "Why don't I just open the door and jump out?" This is how I feel about literally anything of any misconceived public relevance today
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Nov 18, 2020 16:52
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Yeah, decent counter-arguments re: Paulie. I guess he is capable of empathy, but I suppose what I was more grasping at was that he's just incredibly solipsistic. It's like his capacity for theory of mind is way out of whack - Paulie really doesn't 'get' people, which in turns means it's really easy for him to act like they aren't real people with real thoughts and feelings of their own when it's time to beat or rob or kill them. Conversely, Tony fully understands how other people think and feel, he's just so greedy and spiteful he either doesn't care or takes active glee in hurting them.
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Nov 18, 2020 18:24
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