Did anyone see
The Many Saints of Newark (the Sopranos prequel) over the weekend? I'm not as in a hurry to see it as I might've once been. Me and prequels just don't have a good track record (and I'm kinda anti-prequel for several reasons at this point), and a lot of the reviews I'm reading seem to confirm my fears/doubts.
What the show did, in many episodes over many seasons, simply isn't going to be replicated by a single, one-shot two-hour movie that, as many prequels suffer from, has to spend half its time engaging in "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" dot-connecting.
When I see stuff like that, all I hear in my head is Peter Griffin saying "yeah, it's like that time when...".
Wears thin pretty quick. "Okay, we get it, George...".
I'm sure I'll see it at some point, being a Sopranos fan, but the urgency just isn't there. Even the presence of the lovely Ms. Farmiga isn't making me want to borrow someone's HBO Max credentials tonight. And if that isn't saying something...
I truly think this is one of those properties where no good comes from revisiting it. The show had a proper beginning and an unforgettable ending (it's obvious and plain to anyone with a brain what happened). It'll never live up the show, and there's always the danger of over-explaining what happened years/decades before (or, worse, simply having the explanation never be as compelling as what people have pictured/built up in their own minds for years).
My mom watched it over the weekend (she loved
The Sopranos) and told me yesterday that it seemed a bit pointless and "why bother?", almost more like a grim spoof/parody of period-set gangster/mob fare (
Goodfellas,
Donnie Brasco, etc.)...a bunch of Italian mopes and hardcases in retro lounge shirts saying "fuck" every fourth word, and shooting each other in the head.
Yeah, I've seen
that movie several dozen times already...
I saw an interview with David Chase (Sopranos creator, producer, etc. and behind this new movie) and he didn't even seen all that enthusiastic or convinced he was doing the right thing. Apparently, more so than any other Sopranos episode, there's a large racial element to this story, which Chase speaks about at length (and seems more interested in talking about).
My theory is that Chase actually wanted to make a movie about the 1967 Newark riots and the suits said "only if you can tie/cram some Sopranos shit into it". I kinda wonder if the Sopranos stuff was back-doored into a movie about a completely different topic.
