The Many Saints Of Newark...

Really looking forward to this.

I cannot imagine viewing The Sopranos and thinking that Tony was my dad let alone get to play his younger self.
 
marcus said:
Just watched it. Cant say how disappointed i was with it. A million miles from the Sopranos and films of its ilk
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I thought it was a decent enough film but the thing is the Sopranos was just so utterly brilliant, it was never going to compare favourably. The series was and is the best tv drama of the last 30 years.
 
marcus said:
Just watched it. Cant say how disappointed i was with it. A million miles from the Sopranos and films of its ilk
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I'm with you on that. I rate the Sopranos as the best television show of all time, and have re-watched it numerous times.

That movie was horrendous in so many ways. I could rant, rave and nit pick so much about it, but that would probably be more effort then was actually put into the script.

There were only two decent parts to it.
 
billymumphrey said:
I'm with you on that. I rate the Sopranos as the best television show of all time, and have re-watched it numerous times.

That movie was horrendous in so many ways. I could rant, rave and nit pick so much about it, but that would probably be more effort then was actually put into the script.

There were only two decent parts to it.
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I was just at a bit of a loss with it really. I couldnt really grasp what the story was.
I enjoyed seeing silvio and paulie etc but i just feel so much more should have been made of tonys journey into the mafia

it wasnt the worst film ive seen , it was ok. It couldve just been so much better

ah well
 
marcus said:
I was just at a bit of a loss with it really. I couldnt really grasp what the story was.
I enjoyed seeing silvio and paulie etc but i just feel so much more should have been made of tonys journey into the mafia

it wasnt the worst film ive seen , it was ok. It couldve just been so much better

ah well
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I just felt so much of it was simply callbacks and fan service and added nothing to the story at all, and that includes Paulie/Pussy/Silvio. You could have replaced them with any other mafia goon and it wouldn't have changed anything. They shoehorned so many of the past references that again added absolutely nothing to the story (varsity athlete, shooting the hairdoo, poor you etc etc). I groaned every time one of them was there.

There was zero subtlety to so much of the movie. One example is the following, and I'm not going to spoiler tag it as the actual directors and writers spoil it themselves. There's a scene in the warehouse where they talk about a shipment they've just stolen. One random character who's line is the only one in the whole movie says something about "boosting some tv trays". So any fan of the show knows exactly what happens next. It just treats the audience like an idiot and has to be spoonfed. A better way would have simply been to have Sil say something like "that latest shipment we boosted, I left you a Christmas present in your car". Then have Dickie drive home, get out of his car, open the trunk, have a POV shot of what's in the trunk and then a second later the shot rings out.

The whole racial subplot was tenuous at best, and just seemed extremely forced. And don't get me started on how they fucked up the relationship between Tony, Junior and Dickie. There was a nice way they could have wrapped up their respective story's rather then the hamfisted way they attempted.

The only things that I thought they did well was the revelation of who was responsible for Dickie's hit (but they really messed up the motive), and that I thought the actress who played Livia was a cross between Carmela and Livia from the series - I thought the mannerisms were a blend of both which was a subtle nod that maybe Tony chose Carm because he was trying to replace his mother, but given how bad the rest of the film was I can only conclude that was purely by chance as opposed to design.
 
billymumphrey said:
I just felt so much of it was simply callbacks and fan service and added nothing to the story at all, and that includes Paulie/Pussy/Silvio. You could have replaced them with any other mafia goon and it wouldn't have changed anything. They shoehorned so many of the past references that again added absolutely nothing to the story (varsity athlete, shooting the hairdoo, poor you etc etc). I groaned every time one of them was there.

There was zero subtlety to so much of the movie. One example is the following, and I'm not going to spoiler tag it as the actual directors and writers spoil it themselves. There's a scene in the warehouse where they talk about a shipment they've just stolen. One random character who's line is the only one in the whole movie says something about "boosting some tv trays". So any fan of the show knows exactly what happens next. It just treats the audience like an idiot and has to be spoonfed. A better way would have simply been to have Sil say something like "that latest shipment we boosted, I left you a Christmas present in your car". Then have Dickie drive home, get out of his car, open the trunk, have a POV shot of what's in the trunk and then a second later the shot rings out.

The whole racial subplot was tenuous at best, and just seemed extremely forced. And don't get me started on how they fucked up the relationship between Tony, Junior and Dickie. There was a nice way they could have wrapped up their respective story's rather then the hamfisted way they attempted.

The only things that I thought they did well was the revelation of who was responsible for Dickie's hit (but they really messed up the motive), and that I thought the actress who played Livia was a cross between Carmela and Livia from the series - I thought the mannerisms were a blend of both which was a subtle nod that maybe Tony chose Carm because he was trying to replace his mother, but given how bad the rest of the film was I can only conclude that was purely by chance as opposed to design.
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Youre barry norman

a fair point very well written
 
Stoned Rose said:
The Wire pats this post on it’s little head.
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HAHA Fair enough. The Wire was also amazing television. I honestly never knew when watching it that Iris Elba was British. And I loved the big detective who called everyone “Good Po-Lice“. Bunk I think he was called.
 
billymumphrey said:
I just felt so much of it was simply callbacks and fan service and added nothing to the story at all, and that includes Paulie/Pussy/Silvio. You could have replaced them with any other mafia goon and it wouldn't have changed anything. They shoehorned so many of the past references that again added absolutely nothing to the story (varsity athlete, shooting the hairdoo, poor you etc etc). I groaned every time one of them was there.

There was zero subtlety to so much of the movie. One example is the following, and I'm not going to spoiler tag it as the actual directors and writers spoil it themselves. There's a scene in the warehouse where they talk about a shipment they've just stolen. One random character who's line is the only one in the whole movie says something about "boosting some tv trays". So any fan of the show knows exactly what happens next. It just treats the audience like an idiot and has to be spoonfed. A better way would have simply been to have Sil say something like "that latest shipment we boosted, I left you a Christmas present in your car". Then have Dickie drive home, get out of his car, open the trunk, have a POV shot of what's in the trunk and then a second later the shot rings out.

The whole racial subplot was tenuous at best, and just seemed extremely forced. And don't get me started on how they fucked up the relationship between Tony, Junior and Dickie. There was a nice way they could have wrapped up their respective story's rather then the hamfisted way they attempted.

The only things that I thought they did well was the revelation of who was responsible for Dickie's hit (but they really messed up the motive), and that I thought the actress who played Livia was a cross between Carmela and Livia from the series - I thought the mannerisms were a blend of both which was a subtle nod that maybe Tony chose Carm because he was trying to replace his mother, but given how bad the rest of the film was I can only conclude that was purely by chance as opposed to design.
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I agree with this. Every scene with Paulie, Sil etc I found distracting as I was expecting them to add something and they barely did (except for poor impressions and catch phrases) - as mentioned above the scenes could've played out exactly the same without them in it... and they made Tony look wetter than AJ, which is actually pretty impressive!

Also Harold shot at made guys (and killed Joey Diaz's character) so surely there was beef that wasn't resolved. I thought his character was interesting though and it would've been good to explore his world post- riots more.

It would've been much better had it been made as a short stand alone series (6-8 EPs) rather than trying to cram so much in just two hours imo. We could see the fall out of Dickie's slaying, who got blamed (Harold?) And any war that would then ensue and Tony getting more involved - maybe even see the Feech's card game he and Richie Aprile rob.

On Livia being reminiscent of Carm I saw an interview with David Chase where he said that was an intentional choice and wanted people to make the Freudian connection.
 
Gogootz said:
I agree with this. Every scene with Paulie, Sil etc I found distracting as I was expecting them to add something and they barely did (except for poor impressions and catch phrases) - as mentioned above the scenes could've played out exactly the same without them in it... and they made Tony look wetter than AJ, which is actually pretty impressive!

Also Harold shot at made guys (and killed Joey Diaz's character) so surely there was beef that wasn't resolved. I thought his character was interesting though and it would've been good to explore his world post- riots more.

It would've been much better had it been made as a short stand alone series (6-8 EPs) rather than trying to cram so much in just two hours imo. We could see the fall out of Dickie's slaying, who got blamed (Harold?) And any war that would then ensue and Tony getting more involved - maybe even see the Feech's card game he and Richie Aprile rob.

On Livia being reminiscent of Carm I saw an interview with David Chase where he said that was an intentional choice and wanted people to make the Freudian connection.
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I agree with you that it seemed rushed, and potentially a mini-series would have been better, One thing I liked about the original series was that it felt like a movie that never ends. There was always space for reflection in it, which allowed the audience to draw their own conclusions to the events and characters.

The biggest missed opportunity was to explore the interrelationship between Tony/Dickie/Junior, especially as all we had with regards to Dickie were a few asides and anecdotes about him from the series. It was a chance to actually introduce something new in a movie that seem fixated on ramming down your throat references from the series. It could have played out like this.

  • Tony is at a crossroads in terms of what to do with his life and who to fill the void left by his fathers incarceration.
  • His two options are Junior and Dickie. He opts for Dickie, well because Junior is Junior.
  • Junior takes offence to this as he sees it as a snub by his nephew, but also undermining his own position as Johnny's younger brother.
  • This generates tension between Junior and Dickie as they are both competing for Tony's affection, Dickie unknowingly (because Tony has chosen him) and Junior willingly (as he is jealous).
  • This jealousy can then explain Juniors varisty outbursts as he's acting petulantly like a scorned lover.
  • Dickie, through the revelations of the rest of the movie, and his interactions with Uncle Sal in jail realises that by accommodating Tony, he is setting him on the same path of self destruction
  • Attempting to rectify this he gives Tony the cold shoulder, and confronts Junior telling him to stay out of Tony's life (we also get to see parallels to Tony/Jackie Junior/Chris interactions in the series)
  • Tony struggles to accept this rejection and Junior seeing this, uses it to his advantage to curry favour with him and bring him further into the fold against Dickie's warning.
  • Dickie learns of this and confronts Junior, threatening him with his life if he doesn't stop. He also then schedules a meeting with Tony to give him a warning about Junior.
  • Before he can warn Tony, Junior orders the hit on Dickie
I think the above is a much better approach to what they actually landed on with Junior killing Dickie because he made a joke about him hurting his back.
 
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