The Sopranos

On Monday, Feb. 25, Lorraine Bracco—who around here is still better known as the shrieky wife in GoodFellas than for her role as the shrink with a smoky voice on The Sopranos—threw a launch party for her new line of wines at the Hard Rock Café on Broadway and 43rd Street. No matter how you slice it, a TV actor launching an eponymous line of booze at a Times Square theme restaurant on a Monday night in February is a tad depressing. Fugeddaboutit! The event was well attended and star-studded—even Mayor Bloomberg showed up to support the 53-year-old actress and her vino.

“I have a lot of energy and didn’t want to just walk around in my apartment in circles,” Ms. Bracco told the Daily Transom of why she decided to put her name on a collection of wines, which range from Amarone Classico to Pinot Grigio.  read more »

The Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men won the top prize at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild awards show, while The Sopranos cleaned up in the television categories. With this year's Golden Globes reduced to a press conference and the fate of next month's Oscars uncertain, the ordinarily downplayed Screen Actors Guild Awards made big headlines thanks to the WGA’s promise that it would not picket the show, a sign of solidarity with actors who have been supportive of the writers’ ongoing push to be compensated for new media content. AP has the complete list of awards after the jump.  read more »

Robert Baer lost his lawsuit against David Chase, the Sopranos' series creator, last week, but the trail revealed how Hollywood writers turn their ideas into successful television and the way the industry often revolves around friends doing favors for friends. Mr. Baer was seeking compensation for giving Mr. Chase a tour of Mafia sights around New Jersey and for arranging meetings with mob experts that Baer claimed inspired many of the ideas for the HBO hit show.  read more »

Today, a federal jury in New Jersey threw out a case brought against Sopranos creator David Chase by a certain Robert Baer. After the verdict was read, following less than two hours of deliberations, the defense attorneys hugged one another.

As we reported yesterday, Mr. Baer, a budding screenwriter and onetime prosecutor, claimed that he was not adequately compensated for helping Mr. Chase in 1995, when he was developing the pilot episode. Mr. Baer apparently arranged for the writer-producer to meet with several mafia experts during a tour of New Jersey, Mr. Chase’s native state. Both the Sopranos creator and Mr. Baer testified that the latter man turned down Mr. Chase’s offers to pay him thrice. He did, however, claim that Mr. Chase said he would “take care of him” if they show was a success.  read more »

Life imitated art in a New Jersey courtroom earlier today when David Chase, the mind behind The Sopranos, testified in the state's federal court to defend his creative ownership of the HBO series.

Twelve years ago, it seems, he collaborated with a man named Robert Baer, a budding screenwriter and former prosecutor who set up meetings between Mr. Chase and mafia experts during a tour of the Garden State. Mr. Baer, in part, claims that he was not adequately paid for his services—assistance that may have led to the show’s foundational plot. Asserting ownership of the pilot’s core themes, Mr. Chase, a New Jersey native, told the judge that he has been fascinated with the mob ever since watching The Untouchables. (Whether he was referring to the 1959 TV series or the 1987 Brian De Palma feature film was not made clear.) As if quoting Tony Soprano, Mr. Baer said he declined payment from Mr. Chase several times in 1995, if only because the series’ creator assured him that he would “take care of him” in due time. Likewise, the screenwriter has called the hired helper “self-delusional” in legal papers. [AP]

Sopranos star Steve Schirripa cooks Italian ‘on demand’ in December. ‘I’m a meatball kinda guy!’ he says.  read more »

Two locally filmed shows took top series honors at last night's Emmy Awards.

'The Sopranos' took home the Best Drama award, and creator David Chase and director Alan Taylor won for writing and directing.

But in a big upset, favorite James Gandolfini lost to James Spader of 'Boston Legal.'

'30 Rock' took home its single primetime award--but it was a big one: Best Comedy. During their acceptance speech Tina Fey thanked the show's 'dozens' of viewers and thanked NBC's Zucker for sticking with the show.

Altogether the program was its usual mix of bathos and strained humor. But in case you still feel like you missed, something, after the jump is the exhaustive, chronological account put out by the show's organizers. It has a similarly strange, incantatory charm to the show itself.  read more »

By now my readers have taken a stand on David Chase’s ending episode of The Sopranos or feigned an unconvincing lack of interest in the whole tortured subject. I have followed The Sopranos with reasonable fidelity over the past eight years and was not at all surprised by the now famous or infamous “onion rings” ending. After all, The Sopranos was always something of a long-running shaggy-dog story with many characters one wanted to get whacked, and Mr. Chase wouldn’t oblige. Life and death are very much like that.  read more »

Sopranos Auteur David Chase Left a Majestic Wrap-Up, But His Onion-Ring Existentialism Causes a Panic—Where’s Dr. Melfi? It’s a Media Anxiety Attack!  read more »

The Sopranos is over, and one thing’s clear: Real estate played the strongest role among the non-human characters—except perhaps for those geese that alighted in Tony’s pool in Season One.

Here’s Tony in the final episode of Season Three, to a just-expelled A.J.: “I work all day to pay for this 6,000-square-foot house!” Here’s Paulie in the same season demanding a cut of the Jersey Shore esplanade development money: “I shouldn’t have my taste?”

Throughout the six seasons of the epochal series, real estate drenches the desires, motives and mechanics of the characters. Really, pick a season, pick an episode—find the real estate.  read more »

Of all the characters--and of all the actors--still around for this last season of The Sopranos, David Chase has not only chosen, but has actually succeeded in doing something with A.J. (Robert Iler).

Long the afterthought of the ensemble, A.J.’s only memorable contribution to the series was when he got his eyebrows shaved off at some party in the city, while Iler’s only memorable contribution was when he pleaded guilty to mugging two fellow teenagers and marijuana possession..

Anyway, it is really surprising that A.J. has not only become the focal point to the second half of this season, but also appears to be the key to wrapping up the entire show in a nice big bow.

A.J., as the episode title tells us, is "the second coming." He’s Tony Soprano alright, but without any of Tony’s personality, menace or charisma. If there is a twist to these last episodes of The Sopranos, I’d say that is it.

And like the much-maligned Dominic Monaghan on Lost, Iler has actually shown himself to be quite an actor when given his chance in the spotlight. In a season filled with great performances—mostly from the usual suspects: Gandolfini, Falco, and Imperioli—Iler can stand proudly along side his cast mates.  read more »

The Observer's own Spencer Morgan, probably hung over from a long night out with Christopher Hitchens and friends, sends us this from his Treo as he crawls his way back to New York from Washington today.

"The Transom's dad has been a lawyer all its life--albeit one with a wild set of eyebrows and a sinister Sopranos-esque scar on his left cheek.

"Then David Chase, who used to live down the street from the Transom's family growing up in Santa Monica, suggested him for a part on his show. His performance airs tonight!

"Without giving away too much, Papa Transom plays Uncle Junior's nemesis in the mental institute, a deranged former history professor, in tonight's installment.

"Since the filmming, Papa Transom has been going to the gym five times a week, taking acting classes at night, getting color headshots (see above) and trying to engage the Transom in late night script readings. He could be the next Jerry Orbach!

"Charles Morgan, whose own father, Harry, you may remember from M*A*S*H or Inherit the Wind, was kind enough to offer one spoiler a scene of particular interest to me, the part where Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) knees him in the family jewels:

I will say that Dominic was very concerned during the scene where he needs to knee me in the groin, lest he might actually hurt me.  read more »