Craig's MovieBlog

Life Does Go On

The loss of Sydney Pollack is incredibly sad.  The world has chimed in with their loving thoughts: Roger Ebert, Ray Pride, David Poland, Jeff Wells, Anne Thompson, the LA Times, the New York Times, and so on.  The world is worse off without him.  Even if I just thought of his recent roles in The Sopranos, Entourage, and Michael Clayton, I'd feel that the entertainment world would have lost someone special.  Fortunately for us, Sydney Pollack gave us so much more, directing Tootsie, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, Out of Africa... and even producing The Fabulous Baker Boys, Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Iris, Cold Mountain, and on and on.  He was a powerhouse.

I had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago at the annual Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley.  I was a measly peon, there to support a non-entertainment executive, but I felt that I just had to go speak to Mr. Pollack during a down moment.  As you would expect, he was warm, generous, friendly, funny, engaging, and a good listener, even to a person who was clearly the least important person in the room.

I liked these quotes from his friends and colleagues:

George Clooney: "Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better.  A tip of the hat to a class act. He’ll be missed terribly."

Robert Redford: "Sydney’s and my relationship, both professionally and personally, covers 40 years.  It’s too personal to express in a sound bite."

I'm selfishly using this opportunity with the loss of Sydney, to also express why I stopped writing for a few weeks.  My heart truly wasn't in it, due to my family's own recent loss, making the entertainment world seem appropriately insignificant.  A few weeks ago, we received some tragic news.  In a horribly shocking, violent, awful moment, we lost our friend and family member, Kevin - a husband and father of two beautiful little girls, and my brother-in-law.  My heart hurts every day with the thought of Kevin, his wife, his girls growing up without him, and my kids not being able to play with "Dodo" anymore.

We are incredibly lucky though, in that Kevin's family is surrounded by hundreds of family and friends who love them and will support them through whatever it takes, whatever they need.

This is beginning to sound cliche and tacky.  I think I now understand Mr. Redford's hesitancy to put his true thoughts about Mr. Pollack in a sound bite.  At times like this, I wish I was a more elegant author.

We miss you, Kevin. 

We miss you, Sydney. 

And for me, it's in ways that are so different, I just don't have the words...

Sopranos Parodies

Today everyone is talking about Hillary Clinton's Sopranos spoof, but if you ask me, it's a good idea, horribly executed.  Of all people who would turn out to be bad actors, isn't it ironic that it's Bill and Hillary?  I'm just sayin... if I were David Chase today, I'd want to kill myself.

On the other hand, step into Bizarro World with me for a moment, and watch something brilliantly carried out.  Look at what the Pittsburgh Pirates did with their mascots, shooting an almost shot-for-shot remake.  As Best Week Ever says,

"the end result is so surreal and inexplicable, it almost gets the franchise off the hook for 14 straight losing seasons and raising ticket prices in 2002 after a 100-loss season"

Don't Stop Believin'

This fascinates me.  Only 11 million people or so watched The Sopranos finale.  Yet Marc Caro reports...

"Late Thursday night, four nights after it played over the tense conclusion of the “Sopranos” finale, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” is No. 18 on iTunes’ Top Songs list.

Although it’s too early to get actual sales data, Nielsen BDS reports that the 26-year-old song was played on radio 178 percent more this Monday through Wednesday than over the same days last week.

“Journey’s Greatest Hits” is currently ranked No. 54 in Music on Amazon.com. (It was higher Thursday.)"

Is it me?  Or does it seem like it doesn't take that much to make a blip on the music radar these days?  I'm not saying it's easy, but it does feel like making a minor ripple in the cultural zeitgeist has a far bigger impact on today's various music charts than I would have anticipated.

More Sopranos Analysis

This article from Larry Gross on Movie City News Voices is probably the most interesting in-depth look at The Sopranos finale, as well as the phenomenon as a whole.

What clearly must have begun to obsess Chase (and who knows how many of his creative collaborators) as the show evolved, was how the phenomenon of the show's very success itself, mirrored back the contradictions in these thematic arcs.  Vast widespread love and popularity for Tony Soprano must have often felt, for an already-conflicted sensibility like Chase's, an almost insupportably agonizing irony. 

And as always, I can't let a good David Poland article go by unlinked.  [SPOILER ALERT]

So in the end, we are back where we began.  Tony and Carmella's kids are older.  We, as an audience, are still waiting for some shady character to pull out a gun or some innocent to be killed.  Tony is under threat of indictment.  Tony and Carmella are in a therapist's office talking about his mom.  The family is together.

Cut to black.

Already, many think that the end is literally the end of Tony Soprano... that the show is Tony's point-of-view and that by going to black and silence, Chase signaled that Tony took one to the head and that was that.

Oops... Tim Goodman just posted his final column (actually his second one on this episode alone).  [SPOILER ALERT]

If you watch again, and put all Big Ideas and Murky Mythology aside, you'll see an episode that has Carlo flip to the Feds, Tony's lawyer concede that the process is in motion and Tony, at the end in the diner, tell Carmela that Carlo is going to testify. If you believe Tony is alive and life goes on for the Sopranos - the window shuts on their world - then the biggest of the myriad unanswered questions is, "Does Tony get indicted and found guilty and go to jail?" We'll never know. And we don't need to know. Closure is for broadcast television and tiny minds.

Okay, But Tell Me Your Heart Wasn't Pounding

Regardless of whether you think last night's episode of The Sopranos was genius or a cheap cop out (I find myself in the camp of the former), you cannot tell me that the final five minutes were not some of the most intense television you've ever seen.

It took everything I had to stay on the couch and not get up and pace frenetically during what may (or may not) have been a completely mundane family dinner, and that is just part of the genius of David Chase.

Ambiguous ending or not, that program moved you.  You know it did.

"Oh the movie never ends.  It goes on and on and on and on..."

When I Grow Up, I Want to Write Like David Poland

This final season of The Sopranos has been phenomenal, but even better is David's analysis in today's column.

The Sopranos vs. Entourage - Right Now

It pains me to say it, but two episodes into this mini-season, The Sopranos is crushing Entourage.  It doesn't hurt because I want The Sopranos to do poorly, but because Entourage has missed the mark for two consecutive episodes, and I can't remember that ever happening.

Not only was the fight between Bobby and Tony in episode 1(and the aftermath) incredible, but I laughed more times during the last Sopranos episode (and so did Tim Goodman) than I did during the first two episodes of Entourage combined.  Which one of these shows is supposed to be a comedy again?  Plus, the Sidney Pollack character was perfection: 

"I killed my wife. Not that it's any excuse. I had reason to believe she was cheating on me at the time with her chiropractor. Granted, I was abusing cocaine at the time. And alcohol. But I came home one day, shot her four times. Twice in the head. I killed her aunt, too. I didn't know she was there. And the mailman. At that point, I had to fully commit."

[Extra editorial note from Craig: Sincere apologies to anyone offended by finding humor in gun violence in the wake of this week's horrific tragedy.  Interesting how things can be blisteringly funny on a Sunday, and then shockingly devastating two days later.]

Sure, Ari's reaction in the gay club was funny (in a completely homophobic sort of way), and Carla Gugino slammed Ari a few times in the first episode, but the whole "fight" with Eric and Simone (and Vince) was dumb, and the dog park episode wasn't half as clever as Turtle and Drama's usual shenanigans  (That's right - I said shenanigans.  Deal with it), such as Drama getting head shots done during a Photoshop class in an Apple store.  Plus, I'm pretty sure Turtle sponsored a party for Vince in season 1, so I'm not sure why it was a surprise when he did it again for Vince's birthday this year.

If you're a Sopranos fan, you have to read Tim Goodman's blog, as he deconstructs each episode.  He calls out the best lines, the funniest moments, references back to previous episodes, wonders if we're seeing foreshadowing for future events - it's phenomenal.

I do think he missed out on a few of my favorite moments of the latest episode at the after-party, where Jersey and Hollywood collided:

1. The only guy arrested at the party was Daniel Baldwin's agent, a Hollywood guy, not part of the family.
2. "We went to the set, and did you know that actors don't make up their own lines?  Not even Bobby DeNiro..."  "That's right.  They have script girls."
3. "Sure, I knew Christopher was talented, but comparing him to Marty?  Who knew?"

The Sopranos: I'm a Little Slow Sometimes

Even though I'm not making it to the movies as much as I used to, I feel like I'm making it up with the amount of great television on these days. 

If you're enjoying this season's Sopranos as much as I am, then you'll probably get a kick out of Tim Goodman's blog, who is a television critic for the SF Chronicle.  He deconstructs each episode, recounts the best lines, gives us his own pet theories on how the series will end, and sometimes even explains something that you might have missed the first time around.

For example, last night when Phil thanked Tony for "the recent headlines" and Tony denied all knowledge of the hit on Rusty, Phil then opened his coat saying "my heart is an open book."  Me?  I thought he was being dramatic.  Turns out he was showing Tony he wasn't wearing a wire.

Like I said... I'm a little slow sometimes.