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Topic: The Sopranos (Read 471 times)

MzzJoplin
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The Sopranos
« on: May 6^th, 2002, 12:29pm »

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« Last Edit: Sep 9^th, 2002, 10:57am by MzzJoplin »

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MzzJoplin
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #1 on: Jul 1^st, 2002, 5:44pm »

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Case Against 'Sopranos' Dropped
Mon, Jul 1, 2002 10:17 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES - Although they weren't made an offer they couldn't refuse, The Italian-American Defense Association were told by the courts that they would get nowhere with their lawsuit against "The Sopranos".

The Association brought the lawsuit against Time Warner Entertainment Co, alleging that the hit HBO series defamed Italian-Americans with the implication that they were all mobsters. They were not seeking financial damages or an end to the show, but a declaration from a jury that the show was offensive.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Richard Siebel didn't buy the argument, and dismissed the case with prejudice last September. The lawsuit cited the "individual dignity" clause of the Illinois Constitution, which Siebel found to be merely advisory, according to the AP.

On Friday, Illinois Appellate Court upheld Siebel's ruling.

It would seem that "The Sopranos" are darlings of the legal system, after all.

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Rhune
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #2 on: Sep 9^th, 2002, 8:15am »

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'SOPRANOS' CREDITS CUT VIEW OF WTC
Mon Sep 9, 3:53 AM ET

HBO has removed a brief shot of the Twin Towers from the opening credits of "The Sopranos ( news - Y! TV)," set to kick off its new season next Sunday.

The towers are seen briefly in the show's opening montage as Tony Soprano ( James Gandolfini) drives into New York from his New Jersey home.

The change was seen for the first time last Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall, at the show's star-studded New York season-opening party.

Several of "The Sopranos" characters refer to the Sept. 11 attacks in the opening episode, but it's not a major theme of the show, according to The Los Angeles Times.

"The Sopranos" hasn't aired a new episode since the spring of 2001, and the season premiere is one of the season's most anticipated events.

"The Sopranos," which could be entering its final season, isn't the only TV show or big-screen movie to remove images of the World Trade Center after Sept. 11.

NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," removed images of the towers, as did the big-screen movie "Spider-Man," starring Tobey Maguire.

The season premiere of "The Sopranos" will be followed by the season premiere of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

- Post TV Staff

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Mzz_Joplin
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #3 on: Sep 9^th, 2002, 10:25am »

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(singing) Next Sunday, next Sunday, the premier is next Sunday!

YAY!

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Rhune
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #4 on: Sep 18^th, 2002, 1:52am »

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'Sopranos' Sets HBO Record
Tue, Sep 17, 2002 06:54 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - HBO's previous viewer record has been whacked.

The Sunday (Sept. 15) night fourth season premiere of "The Sopranos" drew an estimated 13.4 million viewers, the largest audience in the pay cable network's 30-year history, according to the AP. It may be the first time an HBO program has drawn a larger audience larger than any of its broadcast rivals at the same time. HBO is available in approximately one third of the country's homes with televisions.

This was the first time HBO started a season of the mob drama in the fall. Network executives had worried that the show's 16-month hiatus would cause a drop off in viewers. The opposite appears to be true.

"This is higher than I thought we had the potential to reach," says David Baldwin, HBO's EVP of program planning.

HBO's previous viewership record was set by the 1989 Mike Tyson heavyweight fight. "The Sopranos" third season premiere drew 11.3 million viewers, it's previous ratings record.

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Rhune
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #5 on: Oct 4^th, 2002, 10:04am »

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YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS A BAD 'SOPRANOS'? WHY I OUGHTA...
NY Post

A lot of loose talk is going around that this week's "Sopranos" episode wasn't up to the show's usual standards.

And I just can't believe my ears.

I loved every minute of it, even the stuff about Columbus Day - which apparently makes me unique since everyone else is moaning that the battle between the Italian- and Native-Americans of Newark over the meaning of the holiday seemed out of sync.

Yeah?

I'll take a lousy "Sopranos" any day over the best the networks have to offer, and this week's "Sopranos" - titled "Christopher" (as in: Columbus) - wasn't lousy by any stretch of the imagination.

The complainers assert that real-life mobsters wouldn't be caught dead wringing their hands over the efforts of a bunch of Native-American activists to disrupt a Columbus Day parade.

In response to which, I have to ask: How do you know what mobsters talk about?

I'm no expert in that area, so the Columbus Day subplot seemed OK to me, even if it was a departure from the usual gangland activities.

Moreover, much more was going on than just a Columbus Day protest, although that storyline yielded some of the episode's finest moments - among them, Ralph Cifaretto trying to intimidate the Indian activist leader with a poster of Iron Eyes Cody, and Silvio Dante making this priceless declaration to Tony: "This battle's gonna be won on the p.r. level!"

In addition, Bobby's wife was killed in a car crash and Johnny Sack intensified his hatred of Ralph, who broke up with Rosalie and then was pushed down a flight of stairs by crazy Janice. In fact, the break-up with Ralph gave Sharon Angela, who plays Rosalie, the best single scene of any actor in the episode.

Some critics even tried to blame the episode's perceived shortcomings on its principal author, Michael Imperioli, the actor who plays Christopher Moltisanti. For the record, the actor has written three episodes (out of 42 that have aired so far since 1999) and at least two of them - "From Where to Eternity" (No. 22) and "The Telltale Moozadell" (No. 35) - are among the series' best.

This week's episode might not have been in quite the same class, but with only 13 "Sopranos" episodes coming along every few years, this is a series that should be savored, not scorned.

OK, crybabies?

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Rhune
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #6 on: Nov 11^th, 2002, 8:51am »

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Onetime 'Sopranos' Actor Implicated in Real-Life Mob Hit
Sat, Nov 9, 2002 12:38 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Prosecutors in New York say a man who once portrayed a Mafia enforcer on "The Sopranos" played the same role in real life.

Michael "Big Mike" Squicciarini was allegedly involved in the killing of a drug dealer in 1992 by an associate of the DeCavalcante crime family, the New Jersey crew on which HBO's hit series is based.

According to court documents filed by federal prosecutors last week, dealer Ralph Hernandez was lured to a social club by DeCavalcante crew members, the New York Daily News reports. They locked the door behind him, and Hernandez was shot four times by Joseph Conigliaro, an associate of the family. The crew members then wrapped the body in a rug, dumped it nearby and returned to clean up the scene.

The court papers say Squicciarini was "involved in this murder in various ways" but don't specify how.

Witnesses identified Squicciarini after seeing him on "The Sopranos," the paper reports. He appeared in two episodes in the show's second season, playing a character named Big Frank Cippolina.

Squicciarini died of natural causes last year at age 46.

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Rhune
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #7 on: Nov 14^th, 2002, 9:08am »

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'Sopranos' Taking Less Time Off Between Seasons
Wed, Nov 13, 2002 03:59 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Only four episodes remain in this season of "The Sopranos."

For those of you who winced reading that sentence, however, there's some good news: The show will be back for its fifth -- and possibly final -- season in a lot less time than it took for the current season to make it to HBO.

Series creator David Chase tells the New York Daily News that the show's writers are working on scripts for next season, with production scheduled to start in March. That would get new episodes on the air next fall, about 10 months after this season's Dec. 8 finale.

That's a lot less time than fans of the show had to wait for this season. After Chase informed HBO in 2001 that the current wouldn't be ready for a March 2002 premiere, the cable network decided to push it back to September -- almost 16 months after the third-season finale aired.

HBO said at the time that it didn't want to disrupt its summer schedule, which is anchored by "Sex and the City."

Chase says he expects all the regular cast members to be back for the fifth season -- provided no one's character gets whacked, as Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) was in Sunday's (Nov. 10) episode.

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Rhune
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Re: The Sopranos
« Reply #8 on: Dec 6^th, 2002, 4:54pm »

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Finale for a strange 'Sopranos' season
Loose plot threads may come together in Sunday's conclusion
Friday, December 6, 2002 Posted: 10:14 AM EST (1514 GMT)

(CNN) -- Some psychological expert -- Freud? Jung? Dr. Bob Hartley? -- once noted that it can be dangerous to bury one's thoughts and feelings. Repressed emotions and swallowed secrets eventually come out, like it or not, in unintended fashion.

Which explains the kind of year Tony Soprano has had on HBO's "The Sopranos." And perhaps also explains the series' up-and-down season.

Critics, though still acknowledging the show's brilliance, have carped about the number of stray story lines this season. Dr. Melfi, Tony's therapist, appeared in only a handful of episodes; certain plot strands, such as the Carmela-Furio infatuation, seemed to meander aimlessly; and several characters vanished for months at a time. (What have those FBI agents been up to, anyway?)

But, as the show heads into its season finale Sunday night, events appear to be coming together.

Furio, a Soprano family foot soldier, has apparently gone back to Italy for good, leaving Carmela (Edie Falco) to work on her troubled marriage to Tony. Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) is gone, brutally murdered at Tony's hands, clearing the way for Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) to take charge as Tony's No. 2 -- as soon as he clears up that heroin addiction.

The trial of Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese), after several fits and starts, is moving forward. And the battle between Tony's New Jersey crew and Carmine's New York mob seems to be coming to a head.

Most notably, there's Tony (James Gandolfini) himself. After a season of half-truths and sulky silences in his sessions with Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), he decided to leave therapy. Without Melfi's tenuous anchoring, he's like a loose cannon, his rages bursting out at the most inopportune times (witness the demise of Ralphie, whom Tony beat to death in a sudden fury).

Clearly, the man still has unresolved issues.

Tony Soprano is less in control of his world than he believes. He hasn't helped matters by leaving therapy.

The first episode of the season, which aired September 15, earned some of the highest ratings in HBO's history. Indeed, it actually knocked off the broadcast network fare that night. Subsequent weeks' ratings haven't been quite as strong, but the show remains one of the most popular shows in the entire cable universe -- free or pay.

Also, even the critics admit they've put down "The Sopranos" because they expect so much.

"Because we know how great this show has been, we hold it to a higher standard and aren't willing to settle for anything less than the best it can be," wrote EW.com's Bruce Fretts.

Its impact has been seen all over the TV schedule. One of January's replacement series, "Kingpin" -- an NBC show about a drug-trafficking family with its patriarch as protagonist -- is obviously inspired by "The Sopranos." Other shows have shown a willingness to be a little more blunt, a little more clever.

The broadcast networks are a little envious of HBO's leeway. As a subscriber-based pay network, HBO doesn't have to adhere to the same kinds of language, sex and violence standards the broadcast networks do, and NBC programming chief Jeff Zucker tweaked his HBO counterpart in The New York Times Magazine for only having to program one night a week.

But they know a good thing when they see it.

"Before 'The Sopranos,' broadcast networks felt like cable was a negligible cohabitant of the airwaves," HBO executive Carolyn Strauss told The Associated Press in September. "After 'The Sopranos,' they had to wake up and say, 'Here's something we have to contend with.' "

A long wait until next time
"The Sopranos" also has become the centerpiece of HBO's Sunday schedule. People plan their weeks around it, and its success has allowed the network to build several other series around it.

So the question becomes, after this Sunday night, then what?

The show is shooting its fifth -- and presumably final -- season. No doubt creator David Chase and his staff of writers have a few more whacks up their sleeves. After all, this year Pantoliano resolutely proclaimed his Ralphie, widely assumed to be at risk of being knocked off, was going to survive the season. He has -- but only in Tony's strange dreams.

This season has had its moments. Only on "The Sopranos" could a crude joke about the chubby backside of a mob member's wife almost lead to all-out war -- and yet resolve so touchingly. And only on "The Sopranos" could the ugly sight of a head in a bowling bag be twisted for laughs when that head's toupee comes off.

Sunday's episode clocks in at 75 minutes: plenty of time to resolve more story lines -- or leave 'em hanging. That's when "Sopranos" fans will say, "Wait till next year." Fans better enjoy it. When the show's over and "Cathouse," a documentary about a brothel, fills the screen, they'll be in for a long wait.

At least until the DVD comes out, and they can watch it all again.

HBO is a division of AOL Time Warner, as is CNN.com.

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