Somebody ought to talk to David Chase. With a pipewrench.
With the whole nation sitting up on Sunday night to see the grand finale of The Sopranos...with people making book on whether Tony gets hit or rats out his own people to the FBI to save his own hide...with eight years of loyal Soprano-watching audiences demanding a grand finale...
Chase pulled the ultimate copout.
Nothing happened.
Actually, it was worse than nothing. In the last few minutes of the last episode of The Sopranos, the screen suddenly went blank and silent.
Big joke on the audience. Get it? A lot of us went crazy thinking our TVs had suddenly died, or the cable company went kerflooie.
That's not drama. That's sadism. That's an attack, an attack against the very people who supported you and stayed loyal to you all these years
Film snobs may argue that Chase did that to let viewers come to their own conclusions, write their own ending.
I crankily declare that Chase is a little rat. No worse, he's a rat's turd. We paid our admission and he turned off the projector. That's the equivalent of putting a contract out on his own family.
So let me tell you what, David Chase. Don't come around my TV set no more. If I see you, if I see any program you're behind, it's dead. Got that? Dead. I'm going to blast it with my remote like it's a clay pigeon.
You're finished, Chase. You'll never eat calzone in this town again.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
"Sopranos" Producer David Chase Puts A Contract Out On His Audience
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7 comments:
I guess if I had cable TV, instead of an antenna on the roof, I might have gotten to see more than a passing episode of the sopranos; (or any new shows for that matter)and could empathize with Peter's plight. But the reality is that this show is not reality. and those who pledge fealty to this unrealistic series should not be surprised when the producer forsakes thee. - Leib Lurie
Funny, the Mel Brooks movie I watched last night ended just fine, thank you very much.
:-)
THE MINORITY OPINIONS CHECK IN
The press –from the solemn New York Times to the racy New York Post – this morning pretty much had to say the same cranky things about the Sopranos that I said. The Post even headlined the idea that Sopranos fans got whacked by the cheesy ending.
But there are other people out there who know my e-mail address but who don’t blog and therefore, according to the protocols set up by Blogspot.com, cannot automatically post here.
For their sake, I reproduce the following:
Nancilee W. in Florida wrote:
“While you were watching Tony I was watching "The Tony's" what's up with dat?”
Yeah, well Nancilee went on to tell me she had a sister who has a partner who was up for a Tony nomination. She then went on with a whole song-and-dance about unsung people behind the scenes.
But if she wants that stuff on a blog, she’d better start blogging.
My pal Bruce S in the glitzy hills around Los Angeles wrote:
“You clearly forgot that the name of the game is show BUSINESS.
………………..
“FADE-UP…
“HOSPITAL ROOM TONY IS WHEELING SILVIO, STILL UNCONSCIOUS, OUT. HE’S BEING. TAKEN TO A LONG TERM CARE FACILITY. A.J. IS FILMING THE WHOLE THING WITH THE HD CAMERA CARMELA “BOUGHT HIM FOR HIS BIRTHDAY…
“Tony: Carm… let’s go to dinner after this. I feel manicot…
“Carm: I love my new bracelet.
“AND SO BEGINS “SOPRANOS – THE FEATURE.”
I dunno, Bruce. First of all, if Chase won't read your script when you mail it to him, what makes you think he'll read it here?
More to the point, there are lots of angry fans out there who might start picketing – maybe even torching – the movie theaters. Jimmy Breslin used to write about a guy named Marvin the Torch. I didn’t read anywhere that Marvin died. Or even retired. But I can bet you if Marvin watched the show last night, he's feeling as much ire as me.
Right now David Chase and his movie company are not exactly the toast of New York. Even the legit press wants to skewer him.
Bob B. in Brooklyn writes,
“Apparently everyone on the radio agrees with you but I do not. They cleared up all of the issues in the last two episodes. Phil is dead, Janice will get her money, Uncle Jr. is a loony tune and they will not find his money, Meadow gets married and apparently is pregnant and she has a job waiting for her after law school, AJ gets a job and goes back to being AJ, and Pauly Walnuts was not working for the Brooklyn gang. Even though Chase and Gandofini are tired of the show who knows how they feel three years from now. They can still do the movie for big bucks. Silvio is still alive and they can have him recover. As for the ending it did have scrambling because I thought I accidentally hit the remote control but the family was happy. There was no need to kill Tony at the point and kill anything that could happen in the future.”
I don’t know, Bob, but if I were you, I’d stay away from the movie theaters until I get to read Marvini The Torch’s obituary somewhere.
Cranky thanks to all of you.
--The New York Crank
Naa, Tony's dead, we observed it from the one perspective the series has been tracking since episode one: his. Tony had already said once that when you get wacked "you won't feel a thing, everything'll just go black". We saw how this works with Phil L.
AND BRUCE S IN LA WEIGHS IN AGAIN. HE SAYS:
"Actually, I think the real message of the show was 'nothing ever really changes.'
"Once the deal is struck with the NY guys to rub-out Philly, they move back into the house… and return to their 'somewhat dysfunctional' (ha) everyday life.
"Tony is still so totally self-absorbed that even when he goes to his kid’s therapist, he talks about himself. Note the therapist is a clone of Malfi… right down to the chair, skirt and shoes.
"Tony is concerned about indictments… but haven’t we seen that before?
"Tony is rightfully paranoid about being assassinated… but haven’t we seen that before, too?
"The ducks will fly in each spring and out each fall.
"The whole point of the show all along has been to see the mob through the eyes of a suburban family that happens to be headed by a sociopath crime boss. Dinners. Breakfasts. Parties. Murders. Car wrecks. Promising kid. Troubled kid. Uncle with Alzheimer’s. Shrinks. Medical troubles. All the stuff we have (except maybe the murders.)
"This was a righteous ending.
"(And, it leaves the door open for a feature… which would do $100MM the first weekend."
Yeah yeah, Bruce. And how come nobody weighs in with a tenth the passion when this blog talks about real -- I mean REAL real -- life and death issues? War for instance? National security? Healthcare?
I'm beginning to think Ruppert Murdoch has it right. Take over the Wall Street Journal and turn it into a gossip rag.
--Crankily yours
Now don't throw a brick...but...I liked the end. Tony tied up the loose ends, somebody finally pulled the plug on Phil, Paulie gets spooked, and the closing sequence with Meadow was a breathtaking conjecture. I've been a loyal fanatic of the show since it started...and this formula for ending each season on a reflective note is not uncommon for these producers. Plus, they couldn't go out with a big bang if they're planning a reunion show down the road...it isn't in the production values or writing sensibility. I heard everything but the Pope making an appearance on the finale...I saw the low key ending coming, why didn't anybody else?
A comment by Joe Noory keeps getting caught in some kind of Internet glitch and not getting posted here. But I like it. He said:
"I'm not feeling particularly post-structural today. In fact I don't know that it's possible for humans to be "post anything" at all.
"If they want to take a point on something, why would they need to latch themselved onto a "school of thought" (one as flimsy as post-modernism) or any other for that matter.
"They do it to ligitimate their stupidity and to keep you from noticing just how weak the concept is. I mean if a notion (by, say, some guy named "Bob") was really that strong, it would immediately draw raves of "Bobism". The only problem for Bob is that no-one cares about attention seeking behaviour, and that Bob should get an apartment-friendly Dachshund or something. "
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