By Matt Zoller Seitz
If the first six episodes of this season felt like a voyage into unexplored territory, Sunday night's "Sopranos" episode felt like a return to familiar stomping grounds -- specifically those stretches of Season Two and Three when you felt pretty sure that David Chase and his writers were trying to run out the clock a bit while they figured out how to stage the mandatory season-ending string of whammies.
Written by Matthew Weiner and directed by Danny Leiner, this episode, titled "Luxury Lounge," wasn't unwatchable. It had unifying emotional threads, specifically envy and its twin, resentment. Diverse groupings of social strivers directed those feelings toward higher-ups on the food chain (aspiring Hollywood player Chris Moltisanti flying to L.A. to bag Ben Kingsley and becoming obsessed with the swag handed out to the sorts of people he dreams of emulating; failing restaurant owner Artie Bucco resenting Tony Soprano and the freelancing mob goons who were robbing him in a credit card scam) while the powerful expressed indifference or condescension toward those beneath (Kingsley's wary rebuffs to Hollywood parasites; Tony realizing the depth of Artie's despair too late to halt its consequences). All in all, though, the hour still felt slack and formulaic. (Admittedly that may seem an odd complaint, considering that last week's episode, "Live Free or Die," struck many viewers as meandering and uneventful -- but I thought it was the year's second most suspenseful episode, after "Join the Club.") 
Yes, the episode moved season-long arcs a few steps forward. Tony subcontracted Johnny Sack's hit-by-proxy to a couple of triggermen from the Old Country. Chris tried and failed to sign Ben Kingsley to star in his digital horror flick, fell off the wagon, spiraled into swag-envy and mugged guest star Lauren Bacall for her goodie bag. While Chris made an ass of himself on the left coast, his Jersey crew ran wild, ruining Artie's business, violently exacerbating tensions between Artie and Benny Fazio and ultimately leading Tony to rebuke Chris for his lack of focus. There were further hints that the Arabs, one of many clients in the credit-card scam, will prove important later, perhaps as a tool to entrap Chris into becoming an informer. (Years ago, I predicted that Chris' story would end with him becoming a postmodern cousin of Henry Hill in "Goodfellas," perhaps retroactively establishing him as the series' invisible storyteller -- but for now, I can only wonder.)
Still, these plot points weren't so much integrated into the episode as jabbed in like tent stakes, and the script seemed to have been written by somebody wearing work gloves. This was definitely an episode 
where you could say it wasn't the characters who were cloddishly transparent, but the show itself. Chris has always been a dunderhead who can't keep his trap shut, but his flattery of Bacall ("You were great in 'The Haves and Have-Nots'") was a badness twofer, a fumble-fingered summing-up of the episode's themes and a gag so lame it almost made you feel sorry for a character who deserves no sympathy (which, I concede, may have been the point). I also winced at red-hot immigrant hostess Martina rebuffing Artie with, "You stare at me like food." Her follow-up image, of laughing at Artie while screwing Benny atop a pile of stolen money, was more potent, if equally obvious.
Poor Artie got stuck with the lion's (or mouse's) share of clunkers -- a real shame considering the caliber of John Ventimiglia's performance. He was exquisitely desperate, Willy Loman by way of "Big Night" (a film indelicately referenced in the pre-credits, back-to-square-one cooking montage -- scored, naturally, to 'old country' music). He and coastar James Gandolfini saved that pro forma Bada Bing scene between Artie and Tony, where Artie indicated a gyrating stripper and told Tony, "You could fuck her" and then went on to establish that Artie couldn't, because he's the responsible one. But on this show, the actors shouldn't be asked to perform salvage work. This isn't "Six Feet Under," where subtext equals text -- or at least, it doesn't have to be that way. The same point could have been made with silent expressions, or with a more oblique bit of dialogue. There were too many lines like that--particularly, "We lead the world in computerized data collection!", which sounds like Todd Solondz after a lobotomy.
My Star-Ledger colleague Alan Sepinwall was fonder of this episode than I was, and found Artie's scenes especially effective. "'Luxury Lounge' had the same starting point as 'Everybody Hurts,' one of the low points of the already-low Season Four," he wrote. "Artie gets a crush on the sexy new Vesuvio hostess, she winds up costing him a lot of money and he tries to play tough guy to get revenge. But where 'Everybody Hurts' wallowed in what an ineffectual joke Artie was, 'Luxury Lounge' worked because it took Tony's oldest friend seriously. For the first time since the season one finale (which got referenced both with Artie's hunting rifle and Tony's story about Vesuvio being his port in that storm), Artie wasn't just the clown good for nothing but making antipasto. He was the honest man in the dirty town, the guy who struggles trying to do things the right way while his pal Tony is rolling in crooked cash. Artie's no saint, as evidenced by his yearning for Martina and then the way he dogged her when he realized she was with Benny. But in that scene in bed with Charmaine and the one at the Bing with Tony, you saw a man who had gone past midlife crisis (remember the earring?) and into existential despair."
I'll give Ventimiglia his due. He's a versatile, often sly actor -- rent "Trees Lounge" or "On the Run" if you don't believe it -- and he managed to sell (or at least rescue) every scene he did. He has a soulfulness that this show rarely taps because of its vested interest in portraying Artie as Tony's schmucked-up, law-abiding doppleganger (a role ceded to Ventimiglia's pal and frequent collaborator, "Trees Lounge" 
director Steve Buscemi, throughout the first half of Season Five). In some images, your heart just couldn't help but go out to him: depressed and smoking at the Bada Bing; backing away in mute shock after Tony told him to shut up and cook; addressing a freshly-shot rabbit carcass with a faux-street-tough "Motherfucker!" He was credibly frightening when thrashing Benny, then joyous-yet-pathetic executing a karate move afterward. (Am I remembering wrong, or did the episode "Test Dream" confirm that in high school, Artie was the dangerous one, and Tony the tag-along hero-worshiper?) Still, improving on "Everybody Hurts" doesn't strike me as the best use of the show's time or Ventimiglia's, especially considering that the six-hour run-up was more ambitious and focused, and much less obvious.
Moving on to product placement, I know the high-toned Home Shopping Network blather was "ironic" and germaine to the episode's themes. But it was still painful, because if the brand names are real, there's no such thing as a satire on advertising. Really, now -- "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" get creamed for this kind of thing. From Oris watches to Cingular phones, every product featured in "Luxury Lounge" got one, sometimes two closeups, plus a worshipful verbal description that sounded like ad copy. Unfortunately, this has been the "Sopranos" norm since the opening of Season Two, when Home Depot was name-checked as a great place to buy body disposal supplies and Coke products started showing up on every dinner table. HBO insists it gets no money from product placement, that the merchandise is given to the show in hopes of exposure. 
But considering all the self-conscious, ass-kissy, take-you-out-of-the-moment dialogue that goes along with the goodies, "free" doesn't really mean free. And Kingsley's public-service-announcement statement that Hollywood goodies are an obscenity, and he only accepts them for charitable purposes, seemed less like a condemnation than an excuse for whorishness. (Was that Ben Kingsley talking, or "Ben Kingsley"? And either way, why didn't I believe him?) Like Steven Spielberg, whose "Minority Report" featured product placement out the wazoo and justified it with a scene that humorously criticized high-tech selling techniques, the "Sopranos" gang has found a way to sell out while seeming to be above that sort of thing.
Am I being too hard on the episode? Almost certainly. But it couldn't help but suffer in comparison with the preceding six. "Luxury Lounge" wasn't quite a stand-alone like "Pine Barrens" or "College," nor was it a carefully sanded piece in a larger dramatic puzzle; it fell somewhere in between, and that neither/nor quality highlighted irritations that a stronger episode would have minimized. After six brisk laps, this was a leisurely stroll. The downtime gave you plenty of opportunities to think about the show's irritating tendencies, which surely wasn't the intent. Even the mugging of Lauren Bacall -- which was admittedly both shocking and grimly funny, given the show's subtheme of starfucking-as-manifestation-of-social-envy -- left a sour aftertaste. Notwithstanding certain obvious exceptions -- Hal Holbrook's great guest shot this season, for instance -- it's telling that both people and products wrangle their way on to "The Sopranos" so that they can be mocked and abused. Frank Sinatra, Jr., whose dad publicly (and hypocritically) groused about being associated with the mob, did a "Sopranos" guest shot, and now Bacall, the epitome of class, shows up and gets punched in the face. That's entertainment.
Monday, April 24, 2006
The Sopranos Mondays: Season 6, Ep. 7, "Luxury Lounge"
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33 comments:
Got to agree with everything you wrote except the idea that Lauren Bacall epitomizes class. She is notoriously mean and demeaning to younger actors and people. She epitomizes living off a fame that came her way 60 years ago that she has done nothing to deserve for about 50 years, "Applause" notwithstanding.
Matt--great take, as always. This time, though, I disagree with you, for the most part. When I was watching this episode, full as it was with violence and tits, I thought "Well, this oughta go over very well with the kind of Sopranos watchers who complain about not enough people getting wacked and not enough trips to the Bing." But a part of me also suspected that those of us who've styled ourselves as the antithesis to that kind of Sopranos fan would adopt a contrarian position. Which is not to say that I think you're just being snobbish--but you not liking this episode is something I kind of expected, yeah. :)
"There were further hints that the Arabs, one of many clients in the credit-card scam, will prove important later, perhaps as a tool to entrap Chris into becoming an informer."
This thought occurred to me in a lightning-like flash just as I hit play on my TiVo to watch this episode last night. Once it became apparent that the Arab guys weren't just a throwaway, I tried to figure out to what end they were being deployed, and since I just have a gut feeling that we're not actually going to see a terrorist strike on The Sopranos, I couldn't figure out what would happen. Then I remembered the various FBI stings where extremists unwittingly ask a Fed to help them smuggle rockets into the US, and it all clicked into place. (I guess it's possible that they were introduced simply for last night's credit-card scam storyline, but I doubt it.)
Both the lines you cite as being clunkers--"The Haves and the Have Nots" and "You stare at me like food"--were enthusiastically water-coolered at my job today, so I suppose I have to disagree with you there too. But you're absolutely right about Ventimiglia being terrific as Artie Bucco, one of my favorite characters on the show. I think your "existential despair" line hits it right on the head. Keep in mind that he's not just a hard, honest worker--as a chef, he's also an artist, and there's absolutely nothing more frightening for an artist then to suspect that your talent, your gift, ultimately isn't worth a damn. If Nuovo Vesuvio folds, it's not just Artie's ethic and ethics that are at stake--it's his aesthetic as well. Read that way, his acts of unbelievable ballsiness--taunting Benny about his stupidly obvious implied threats, assaulting him, making a crack about his mistress in front of his entire family, being so pissy with Tony--can almost be seen as a death wish. There's nothing that can be done to him that's worse than what his mind is no doubt already doing to itself.
Speaking of Artie, I don't think the cooking scene was "too obvious," as you say. At first I was moved (in a too obvious way, I suppose, but still) to see him take out the old composition book and begin doing the honest, hard, and no doubt beloved work of cooking--until we discovered that he was cooking the rabbit he essentially murdered out of frustration with the rest of his life. Maybe it's just the recently converted vegetarian in me speaking (since October, thank you!), but the only thing that scene showed me was how really sick Artie has gotten.
Which is why Tony's offer to hook him up with a shrink has got to be the strongest evidence yet that Tony is an absolute genius compared to the rest of the characters. That was an insightful and, get this, constructive offer to make. When was the last time ANYONE on this show did something that might actually be of some real help to anyone else's well-being?
I also think you're too hard on the product placement. I suppose you're technically right about satire being impossible if you use an actual brand name, but a truly realistic depiction of how our existence as people is so deeply intertwined with our existence as consumers is impossible if you DON'T use an actual brand name. The grotesque label idolatry of the luxury lounge really would not have worked at all if they'd all been knock-off names, like Big Belly Burger in a DC comic book. And really, I defy you to find your relationship to those brands un-problematized after watching that scene.
Also, "Kingsley" was OBVIOUSLY lying about giving his stuff away to charity--even Christopher saw through that one. And heck, he pretty much set Christopher and Murmur on Lauren Bacall's scent, didn't he? He knew they knew she was an award presenter, and all of a sudden he's saying how much MORE obscene their gift packages are than what he was getting. A sly dog, that Sir Ben.
Finally, I found this episode to be--easily--the most tense and frightening one of the season. My heart was literally pounding during the Rusty assassination; ditto Artie and Benny's confrontations, particularly the one in the kitchen. All those heat sources had me scared to death the second Benny burst through those doors, and sure enough, that fear of being burned is exactly what he (and the filmmakers) chose to exploit. As horror, it worked like a charm. Put it all together and "this episode wasn't unwatchable" is an understatement.
(PS: I was listening to Imus this morning, usually a reliable gauge of what the "whack 'em all" school of Sopranos fandom would think, and to my surprise Imus and co. didn't like the episode--they felt it was too disjointed and they weren't sure what the point of any of it was, but mostly they didn't like that it centered on a chef rather than a gangster. I wonder if other people feel that way--that the attraction of watching a show about criminals is so strong that when it ceases to be about criminals, even for one episode, they cease to be interested.)
This one left me cold, frankly. Ventimiglia is an OK actor, but I very rarely find Artie Bucco stories to be particularly compelling. I loved "Live Free or Die," but then I'm predisposed to enjoy episodes that are basically 60 minutes of Sopranos characters voicing their opinions of "fanooks." (sp?)
The only examples I can think of where product placement has been effectively satirized was that brief bit in Wayne's World (where they talk about Pizza Hut, Reebok, and "little, yellow, different" Nuprin) and the grossly underrated Josie and the Pussycats, where the product placement starts out subtle and then becomes grotesquely, hilariously absurd. (And none of Josie's product placement was paid for, either.)
Wow - I didn't think this episode was a one-off at all. I felt it fit in perfectly with the themes presented so far this season. Specificially, the quest for redemption, and more superficailly, life outside the mob versus life in the mob.
I thought that the problems at Vesuvio were a reflection of Tony's struggles this season, in the same vein that Vito's problems last week were liked to Tony's problems.
Artie was concentrating on the "front of the house" at Vesuvio, and failing. Artie was trying to be a great host and comedian, and the attractive girl at the front door was supposed to bring in customers. But Artie's new star hostess and his overbearing antics in the dining room didn't help Vesuvio at all - he was driving away customers just as quickly as she was stealing their credit cards.
But when Artie followed Tony's advice to get back to the kitchen ... Artie seemed at peace again. The kitchen is the soul of the restaurant. All the decorations and niceties out front won't make the restaurant matter if the food is rotten. When Artie focused on what really matters, he managed rid himself of his metaphorical demon by serving up the rabbit that had been plaguing his garden.
Tony has been putting up a nice front himself since his hospitalization. He hasn't put a hit out on Vito, he's denying involvement in the job for Johnny Sac ... he's certainly turned over a new leaf. In the front of the house. Will he go back into the kitchen and truly make a change that matters? Will he make a serious change on the inside, in an attempt to redeem himself? Or will he follow Carmella's advice to Artie to continue dress up the dining room - with his lies and self-denial about the life he is leading?
Leery writes, "But when Artie followed Tony's advice to get back to the kitchen ... Artie seemed at peace again. The kitchen is the soul of the restaurant. All the decorations and niceties out front won't make the restaurant matter if the food is rotten. When Artie focused on what really matters, he managed rid himself of his metaphorical demon by serving up the rabbit that had been plaguing his garden."
And Sean T. Collins writes, "Speaking of Artie, I don't think the cooking scene was "too obvious," as you say. At first I was moved (in a too obvious way, I suppose, but still) to see him take out the old composition book and begin doing the honest, hard, and no doubt beloved work of cooking--until we discovered that he was cooking the rabbit he essentially murdered out of frustration with the rest of his life. Maybe it's just the recently converted vegetarian in me speaking (since October, thank you!), but the only thing that scene showed me was how really sick Artie has gotten."
Good points, both. And I admit my heart did leap at the sight of Artie pulling out that old recipe book -- a "composition" book, reinforcing Sean's point about Artie=artist fearing he's lost his gifts. My problem wasn't the scene or even that whole thread -- the rabbit, its killing and its eventual transformation into art/sustenance was nicely handled -- but the execution (particularly the shift-into-montage with that on-the-nose, back-to-your-roots music -- all of which I felt put an exclamation point at the end of ideas that would have been exquisite if they'd been capped with periods.
PS to Sean: That "existential despair" line isn't mine, it's Alan Sepinwall's, as indicated. Credit where credit is due.
I am late to the Sopranos party, so I cannot connect thoughts to previous seasons. So from a season 6 perspective: the two restaurants --clearly the point that the usual Vesuvio is no longer nourishing Tony the way it once did. The importance of food and fellowship to this community. Maybe Tony's life isn't nourishing him any longer. Don Giavonni is filled with people, and laughter, and the food is praised by all, except Tony, who says it made Carmela sick. He chooses to stay in the empty, hollow, sad Vesuivo. Loyalty, or a denial about where life is.
The other major element for me was, again, identity. Artie thought he was an interesting, engaging host, whose conversation was enjoyed by his diners. He was deeply mistaken. His wife and Tony told him so, and it seemed he found himself again at the end, as a good, Italian cook.
The whole cult of celebrity is built on certain people being singled out simply because of "who they are." Kingsley says as much with "I don't know what my publicist could possibly do to help you"--you, Chris, who are not a celebrity. It's not part of your identity. And if you don't realize that, the world will remind you.
Bacall was the wife of the sui generis Bogart, ultimate portrayer of gangster and the godfather of the Rat Pack in real life. Decking her was shocking, darkly funny. Was it also Chase's throw down to the baggage of his own creation?
I haven't seen much discussion about Chase's relationship to what he hath wrought. And I haven't found much bio info on him. Wikipedia says he is "an Italian American who grew up in a Baptist family in New Jersey" and that his family name had been DeCeasare. Well, that's a boatload of deep identity issues right there. Rejecting the ethnic name, and what would it be like to grow up in a Baptist family with such heavy shadows of an assumed ethnic religion?
Tony and Vito's identity struggles also reminded me of Pirandello's (a Sicillian himself) liberated characters, who speak up on the rights of the created. Maybe Tony and Vito are following their lead. . .
I agree with you Matt about this episode -- it definitely felt like it was running out the clock. It also seemed like past episodes where they tried to insert Chris into actual film-related storylines -- they inevitably fall on their face. Also, by focusing largely on the Artie-Benny storyline, it seemed to me like one of those late Moonlighting episodes where Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd were busy elsewhere and they had to focus on Curtis Armstrong and Allyce Beasley. Those episodes had their moments, but they spawned more impatience than entertainment. It also seemed like it stopped most of the stories dead in their tracks -- a few mentions of Vito aside, it seemed odd to suddenly push that to the back burner. Though say what you will about Bacall, she sure looked like she could convincingly take a punch.
Hardly any reassurance in Christopher's insight that these guys aren't potential terrorists - "he's got a dog" - as anyone who knows will tell you, a Saluki is very OK! you don't need a gun for that rabbit dinner, to guard your tent or sleep with your women and kids.
EC: I can't even remember the last time I thought of Herbert Viola and Miss DiPesto. so thanks. Even though, as you say, they were no substitute for Maddie and David.
UPDATE: Just rewatched the Kingsley scene, referenced above. Commenter Sean T. Collins is right -- he's obviously lying.
An interesting article at South Dakota Dark says that Season Six's purgatorial vibe may have only now begun to flower, but the seeds were planted in Season 5. Evidence included. A very convincing case.
The scene I liked in this episode was Artie's thrashing of Bennie. It came totally out of the blue to me. I figured Artie was going to get himself killed. Then, bam, Artie won the fight. I never figured Artie to win a fight like that in his life. Granted, Bennie is no Tony Soprano, but he is a street tough guy, and Artie beat him up. I thought Artie was going to turn a corner then. This was not to be in a David Chase world, though.
Why do I suspect that Kingsley made getting an appearance on The Sopranos part of his price for acting in Mrs. Harris, and Chase took one for the HBO team? I'm sure the business doesn't really work that way but "Luxury Lounge" has made me cynical.
This episode had two fatal problems. The first is that Ben Kingsley doesn't belong in a show about Jersey thugs. He's an incredible actor but spot-welding a role for him here is a huge disservice to both the show and himself. The same goes double for Lauren Bacall.
Problem 2 is the idea that some goodfella would target a restaurant Tony Soprano eats at regularly for a credit card scam. Especially when the goodfella in question both drinks at the place and works for Tony. You don't shit where you eat, indeed.
So all the other crap the show strung between those two collossal pillars of implausibility just made things worse. Artie used to be a reasonably nice guy if something of a schmendrick, now all of a sudden he's a monster? Christopher drives a Maserati but goes gaga over some tchochkes and knocks an old lady down to get himself some? Look, I realise it's a rare plot which doesn't, on inspection, prove to have holes you could drive a truck through but how stupid do Chase and co. really think we are? That's a rhetorical question but what kills me is that while Christopher is doing a clueless-in-Hollywood number in a poolside cabana there is a true abundance of great characters and great stories waiting back in Jersey.
I took a more charitable view to the product placement in the Luxury Lounge. Re-watching the entire series, it's critique of consumerism seems to be the most reoccurring theme, the idea that the quest for more stuff turns you into a monster. In that context, I didn't see the swag in the Luxury Lounge as "product placement" at all. It's just more fuel for the characters' sociopathy, and to me it came off as an obscenity. It also emphasized the difference between the "haves and have nots" back home--witness the dismissive way Tony (the "have") tosses back the crap when Chris comes to give him his taste.
Regarding Artie, I've always thought of him as not only a sometimes foil for Tony, but also as something of an audience surrogate -- always close enough so that he can get a sense of the large living of the mobsters, but still far enough away that he can never get a piece of it himself. And just as sometimes the show becomes grotesquely violent so that we don't forget just who we're dealing with (e.g., "University"), I guess Artie sometimes needs to have his hand shoved in boiling sauce to remind him too.
Come on, now -- Christopher punched Lauen Bacall! That moment alone was worth the price of admission.
Matt, Very interesting review, and observations, but I can't agree that the episode wasn't up to par. I liked the scenes with Artie, and I think we got some depth out of his character. I kind of see the episodes leading up to a falling apart or a radical reorganization of Tony and his co-horts. It seems as though everyone is doing there own thing, and slowly the center has to give. Chase may be bidding his time, but I think in this episode he shows us how the family is slowly falling apart. Loyalties which were always suspect begin to be questionable, and as Tony tells Christopher that "he's loosing focus". I'm still enthralled at the series, and wonder where Chase will take us. It's like looking at a car wreck. It's horriable, but I can't avert my eyes just yet. All I can say is Chase has me hooked.
jre writes, "I took a more charitable view to the product placement in the Luxury Lounge. Re-watching the entire series, it's critique of consumerism seems to be the most reoccurring theme, the idea that the quest for more stuff turns you into a monster." True, but here, as elsewhere, it's not so much the idea as the execution that annoys me. When they insert those little one or two-sentence summaries of how great the product is, often accompanied by a kiss-ass closeup, the satire vanishes and you're just flat-out watching an ad. The same point could be made without the ad copy posing as dialogue and the Home Shopping Network closeup of the merchandise. There's no law that says it has to be done this way; the show made the same point back in Season One with the characters arguing the merits of various gangster films and laserdisc vs. VHS, and later, DVD.
I honestly don't know if the substitution of generic products would be a less compromised way to satirize consumer culture -- though I thought it worked pretty well in Quentin Tarantino's movies, with Red Apple cigarettes and Big Kahuna burgers -- but THE SOPRANOS is set in some version of this modern world, rather than in Movie Geek Land, so some fidelity to observable reality makes dramatic sense. It's all in the execution. Right now, when the show mocks materialism while trotting out loving closeups of swag complete with ad copy, it reminds me of an old chain-smoker warning kids, "These things'll kill you."
Karl writes, "I kind of see the episodes leading up to a falling apart or a radical reorganization of Tony and his cohorts." Chase and Imperioli said in a press conference early this year that the sixth season was unitd by a sense of dissatisfaction and anxiety about the future, a feeling that things were getting worse, not better. Barring surprises, that seems to validate your suspicion.
Personally I think that once one of these guys gets pinched, the whole organization will collapse, and everybody will start fleeing or selling out his crewmates (or both). Rats from a sinking ship. Look at the first three episodes -- Tony had barely gotten his tubes hooked up, and already the goons were lining up to claim his throne, and jack his wife out her traditional matronly skim when she needed it most.
M.A. Peel: I haven't seen any interviews with Chase where he goes in-depth on the identity issues you mention (Italian-American Catholic raised Baptist, etc). But I did come across a fascinating article that addresses these issues -- an interview with Chris Seay, author of "The Gospel According to Tony Soprano,". Seay's a smart, observant man who also happens to be the pastor of the Ecclesia Church in Houston, TX. He makes good points about the show's guilt/sin/redemption motifs, defends it against charges of immorality, and argues that most religious art, unlike THE SOPRANOS, is fantasy that has nothing to do with how people actually live.
And as my partner Dave White observed: "Since when is Kingsley picky about scripts? He was in Bloodrayne!"
Well, as a general rule, all British actors are whores. Remember back in the 1980s when Michael Caine would appear in your wedding videos if you slipped him $100?
Good point about british actors now that you mention it. I was idly flipping through HBO the other night and damn if Dame Judy Dench wasn't lending her talents to a truly dreadful Vin Diesel vehicle, pardon the redundancy. Well you can't fault their work ethic, anyway.
MSZ, I agree with you about the lingering shots on the products, but at least in this episode, these are POV shots for Christopher, no? And if not actually POV shots, I feel like we are supposed to see them as he is seeing them. Which in this case, for me, justifies them. Esepcially since Chris has always had a desire to try his luck in Hollywood, the Luxury Lounge and what he sees there, is a harsh reminder of what he will never have...even the stuff he gets as part of "mob swag" still has the price of work. To Christopher, he sees the luxury lounge stuff as free...(it doesn't occur to him the years of work that actors / writers put in.) Regardless, I thought this might be a set-up for Chris's eventually turning rat...the Feds dangle Hollywood in front of him, and he is too greedy not to take it.
I guess that's the long way 'round of saying the shots didn't bother me; I thought they were motivated by character.
Also -- I know we have already discussed in here the journeymen directors the show uses, but why was I not surprised that the episdoe featuring Lauren Bacall getting punched was the one directed by the same guy who directed "Dude, Where's My Car?"
He also directed "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," which is a Jersey movie, so I guess they figured he was qualified!
Wow, Matt. We really aren’t on the same page with The Sopranos. The first show of the season you didn’t seem to like is the only one I could tolerate. The correlation between the thug and celebrity lifestyle may be facile but at least it was a cogent point-of-view—taking on Christopher’s notions of entitlement. This actor who plays Artie is pitiful—did anyone see how he pounds the pillow before hitting the sack? (LOL!)—and the whole rabbit-shooting/back-to-my-roots scenes were embarrassing (I guess we agree there) but I appreciated the scene where Tony advises Artie in the kitchen. I tend to think Tony feels richer in episodes where he is more of a peripheral character. In these episodes, his conflictions—usually a crisis between his human and thug self—feel really thought-out to me. I’ve always bought his democracy, and I think I needed this episode to wash down the stank of that episode a few weeks back where he beat the shit out of his driver. This may be the last episode of the series I watch if what I think is going to happen next week actually does…
Ed: Yeah, at least we agree about the dreading-next-week part. I fear we're in for a SOPRANOS version of that episode of SIX FEET UNDER where David spent three-quarters of an episode being abducted and terrorized by a deranged drifter just so the show could have a "powerhouse" hour.
"wasn't unwatchable"
I disagree, but only because I found the episode beyond "Curb Your Enthusiasm" uncomfortable to watch and spent most of it looking at the TV between my fingers. I didn't dislike the episode, I just spent most of it cringing.
I liked the episode. I acknowledge that it was slow and out of place, and I've felt like the hints they've been dropping all season about Vesuvio's decline were heavy-handed at best -- how many damn mentions of the fact that Artie never changes the menu do we need? Pull the trigger, please -- but I had a good time watching it even though the concensus on the couch was that, when S6 comes out on DVD, we'll probably skip this one.
richard cobeen: yeah, I wasn't unhappy to see Bacall take one to the face. She terrorized a friend of mine in Knopf PR years ago when her memoir came out; not a gracious person.
MZS--thanks very much for the link. Love having yet another new Gospel to ponder.
Question: you didn't comment on Chase's cameo. What do you make of it? I read somewhere that Chase's other cameo was in "Commendatori," so someone over at TWoP commented that he was going home here, home to Naples. That's an interesting idea--going home. Some theories of narrative argue that there really is only one story--the Odyssey. And that all stories can boil down to the protagonist trying to return home. It is curious that Chase chose to step into his creation on the plane, rather than the myriad other, Hitchcock-like ways he could show up.
M.A. Peel: Regarding the plane cameo, I bet if you gave a reading like that to Chase, he'd probably be taken aback at first, then concede that subconsciouly he might have been working some things out.
The Odyssey-as-only-story has been invoked throughout the show's run, starting with Tony's anecdote of the ducks in the pilot and continuing throughout, most notably in the Season Five finale when he flees Johnny Sack's bust, walks home across a great distance and finally finds his way into his own backyard. And of course both Tony's Coma Land adventures and Vito's sojourn in the small town had that flavor as well, with a wandering hero encountering characters and situations which represent aspects of the life waiting for him back home, or aspects of his own personality or values.
I found this episode a continuation of the theme you've been referencing all season: wanting to change your life but finding yourself unable to. Christopher wants to work in the movies and Artie wants to be someone who can pick up strippers. I'm not really sure if Artie is holding himself back or if he's simply not capable of making that change. In Christopher's case he's unable to choose between the life he's known the unknown on the west coast. He wants it both ways but he'll never have the life he wants without taking risks. Not just the risk of failing in Hollywood but the risk associated with trying to leave the family.
Also, I thought there was something very empowering in the final scene where Artie is cooking the rabbit he shot. Wasn't there a reference earlier in the episode to his problems with obtaining quality meat? Cooking up something he killed himself signaled to me that he's decided to take control of his own life. Although I actually find that a bit contradictory with the fact that, after finding out Vinnie Delpino is stealing from him, he doesn't run to Tony to fix the problem, he takes care of buisness himself (so to speak).
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