BEFORE: It's a Corey Stoll Labor Day weekend, as he carries over from "West Side Story" - this hard-working actor played a federal agent on Friday, yesterday he worked as Lt. Schrank, a NYC cop, and today he's a mobster, the youngish version of Corrado "Junior" Soprano in the prequel to the famous/infamous HBO series. Mr. Stoll's so prolific this weekend, he's playing good guys AND bad guys, cops AND robbers, now that's a hard-working actor.
We drove out to Long Island yesterday and hit a few flea markets - not really looking for anything in particular, just to see what was there. We found a list online of "Things to do in Long Island This Weekend" and blocked off five craft fairs and open-air markets, thinking about the places we like to go when we're on vacation, looking at antiques and such. We started in Huntington Station, and the craft fair turned out to be a store in a very upscale mall, then drove to Hicksville for an event held outdoors at a museum, which turned out to be a bust, more like a bad garage sale. But there was an IHOP in between the first two stops, so naturally we had to fuel up with breakfast before proceeding. Third stop was in Westbury, a really janky open-air market outside a half-abandoned mall, where all we bought was a bag of flavored popcorn, and then moved on to Freeport, for probably the best event, a bunch of artisan stands both indoor and outdoor at a yacht club. Didn't buy much there either, but at least there were better craft items available.
Today we may go grocery shopping, but after that, I think it's all about videogames today. What's weird is that I just finished playing GTA3 (again) about a week ago, and I transitioned over to GTA: Liberty City Stories, which tells the back-story of Tony Cipriani, the game's riff on Tony Soprano, and now today I'm watching the Sopranos prequel, which has the potential to be kind of the same story. Maybe.
THE PLOT: The story that reveals the humanity behind Tony Soprano's struggles and the influence his family - especially his uncle, Dickie Moltisanti - had over him becoming an iconic mob boss.
AFTER: If you watched the entire run of "The Sopranos", this is sort of the "Rogue One" prequel movie - or maybe it's more like "Solo: A Star Wars Story", in that it definitely takes place BEFORE the stories that we all know, but there's probably a bit of room still, they could fit in one more movie if they wanted to that shows how Tony Soprano really got drawn into the mob life, and connected with his crew, maybe how he became a made man and rose to capo. It's important to remember that during THIS film, he was still an awkward chubby high-school kid, was into rock music and smoking pot, and he wanted NOTHING to do with his father's business.
Tony's father was Giovanni "Johnny" Soprano, who did not appear in the HBO series, not at all. There's probably a story there, about how Johnny died, and left his brother, Corrado "Uncle Junior" Soprano in charge. But Johnny's not the central character here, either. So if it's not about Tony, and it's not about Tony's father, who is it about? Exactly.
You may remember Christopher Moltisanti, played by Michael Imperioli - he's the narrator here, despite being dead, but the main character is his father, Dickie Moltisanti, who also died before Season 1 of "The Sopranos" began - are you spotting a running theme here? And we all know that the actor who played Tony, James Gandolfini, died in real life, so the story couldn't move forward, it had to flash back. And "Moltisanti" is Italian for "Many Saints", so the title of the film is a big clue that this is going to really be about the Moltisantis. They got James Gandolfini's real-life son to play Tony as a teenager, and man, does he look like his father - so that's sort of a tribute to James G., and then Ray Liotta's here too, in a dual role as the father of Dickie Moltisanti, "Hollywood Dick", and also his twin brother, Salvatore "Sally" Moltisanti. What's really cool, I think, is that Ray Liotta plays one brother as a real hot-head, just like his character from "Goodfellas", but the other brother is much more serious, and he's serving time in prison, he just wants to do his time, think about his mistakes and listen to jazz records. Sorry, just ONE jazz record, Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool".
Anyway, Dickie Moltisanti is a lot like Tony Soprano, in that both men seemed rational and logical and clear-headed most of the time, but if they saw a threat, they would react with extreme and quick violence. Dickie was, I think, Tony's "uncle" and mentor, maybe he was really his uncle, but this is a bit unclear. (NITPICK POINT: Dickie can't be Tony's real uncle, because we all know that Christopher Moltisanti is only related to Tony Soprano through marriage, as Christopher is cousins with Carmela Soprano, who was born Carmela DeAngelis. I believe that Christopher and Tony are both cousins to Tony Blundetto, but they are NOT cousins to each other. Makes sense? Unless they consider themselves "Italian cousins", which is a different thing from real cousins...)
But hey, it doesn't matter, because "The Sopranos" finally and got six seasons AND a movie! Isn't that the goal of every show? OK, so they had to go back in time to do that, it's all right! And they set part of the movie during the 1967 Newark Riots, which is a real thing that happened. Dickie Moltisanti has black associates working the numbers games for him, so I guess he's a really forward thinker for the mob, because he's all for affirmative action, if it gets him more money out of the black community. But over time, his black friend, Harold McBrayer, starts to feel more like an employee than an associate, let's put a pin in that because it might be important later.
Also, Dickie's father, "Hollywood Dick", comes back from Italy with a new young wife, and it grates on Dickie's nerves when he starts mistreating her. This leads to one of those violent outbursts I mentioned before, and well, things don't end well for Hollywood Dick. Dickie manages to bring his body to one of his garages during the Newark Riots and burns it down, blaming the fire on the rioters. Dickie feels so guilty that he starts visiting his uncle in prison, buying his stepmother (and future "goomar") a hair salon, and also looking out for young Tony Soprano, who's acting out while his father is away in prison. Tony's been running his own numbers game in elementary school, but more hijinx lay ahead.
The movie then skips ahead four years, to when Johnny Soprano gets released from prison and tries to get back in the swing of things. Harold comes back into town and doesn't want to work for the Italian mob, he wants to start his own operation. Dickie's crew kills one of Harold's men, Harold's men kill one of Dickie's crew in a drive-by, and meanwhile teen Tony Soprano steals an ice cream truck. Actually a lot more than this happens, but I'm summarizing here.
What's really important here, especially if you're a fan of "The Sopranos", is what happens to Dickie Moltisanti - during the run of the show, his son Christopher tracks down the man who he thinks killed his father, and deals with that guy. BUT, we learn here that rumors being what they are, and people not taking credit for who they killed, Christopher might have tracked down the wrong guy. No spoilers here, but it's possible that Christopher maybe killed the wrong guy - this is SHOCKING news for any true "Sopranos" fan.
I was just talking with my wife last night about "West Side Story", and how back a few years ago when they were casting that "Solo" movie, my first choice for the young Han Solo would have been Ansel Elgort, not Alden Ehrenreich, after watching Ansel in the trailer for "Baby Driver". Pause any frame of "Baby Driver" or "West Side Story" and tell me Ansel's not a dead ringer for a young Harrison Ford. (And sorry, Alden, my second choice for a young Solo would have been Anthony Ingruber, who played young Harrison's character in "The Age of Adeline".)
There's similar stunt casting ALL across "The Many Saints of Newark", as actors needed to play younger versions of Tony's crew from the HBO show - they had to find actors who, with the help of make-up and various hairpieces, could believably age into the characters of Big Pussy, Silvio Dante and Paulie Walnuts, and for the most part, the casting department did a great job - I could tell just from the look of the "Buddha" character that he was probably Big Pussy Bonpensiero's father, and, yep, I was right. You can cast just about any teenager as the young Artie Bucco, but you better get Livia Soprano right, and they did - I could believe that Vera Farmiga could age into the character played so notably by Nancy Marchand.
But it's essentially the same question tonight that I asked about the "West Side Story" remake last night - is this follow-up really necessary? Well, on one hand, no, it doesn't matter what happened BEFORE the "Sopranos" series, because Tony's story began for us with Episode 1 and ran for six seasons, and whatever happened, happened. But, on the other hand, it's a DAMN SOPRANOS MOVIE! Of course it matters, of course I'm going to watch it, and there's some stuff here that changes EVERYTHING that came after it. Maybe if Dickie had made different choices, he still would have been around when Tony came into the family business, and maybe things would have been different. Or maybe Dickie would have tried harder to keep Tony OUT of the family business, and maybe Tony's life could have been very different. We'll never know, but it's an interesting exercise in speculation.
And look, Dickie wasn't such a bad guy, he just killed his father and slept with his step-mother and kept the black man from advancing in the organization, was that all so wrong? Geez, I just realized how Oedipal his story sounded - that's the making of a classic Greek tragedy, right there. And of course it ended badly, because that's the case for EVERY character from "The Sopranos" - maybe that's why the story never resolved itself, the last episode just cut to black, leaving the audience to speculate over what happened next. Well, they couldn't really have a happy ending for anyone, that's not what the show was about. 99% of the show's characters were doomed to be killed, if not by their enemies than by their own crew members, as punishment for not properly dealing with their enemies. THAT'S THE LIFE they lead, it's the whole point of the show. You can't just have the characters walk off into the sunset at the end, because things just aren't going to be OK - or if they seem like they will, it's only for a moment. And THAT is what the famous "cut to black" ending of the series really means.
Also starring Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "Mansfield Park"), Leslie Odom Jr. (last seen in "One Night in Miami..."), Vera Farmiga (last seen in "Captive State"), Jon Bernthal (last seen in "Snitch"), Ray Liotta (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Michela De Rossi, Michael Gandolfini (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Billy Magnussen (last seen in "Ingrid Goes West"), John Magaro (last seen in "Liberal Arts"), Samson Moeakiola, Joey Diaz (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Germar Terrell Gardner (last seen in "The Week Of"), Alexandra Intrator, Gabriella Piazza, Mason Bleu, Aaron Joshua, Lesli Margherita (last seen in "Opening Night"), Talia Balsam (last seen in "The Wackness"), Kathryn Kates (last seen in "The Jesus Rolls"), Nick Vallelonga (last seen in "Green Book"), William Ludwig, Mattea Conforti (last heard in "Frozen II"), Matteo Russo, Robert Vincent Montano, Chase Vacnin, Patina Miller (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), Rob Colletti, Prema Cruz, Maliq Johnson, Sam Labovitz, Daryl Edwards (last seen in "Human Captial"), Matthew Elam, Bryce Burke, William Youmans, Oberon K.A. Adjepong (last seen in "Tallulah"), Lexie Foley, Phyllis Pastore, Lauren DiMario, David Chase, with the voices of Michael Imperioli (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Frank Sinatra (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture") and archive footage of Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "Sammy Davis: I've Gotta Be Me") and Edward G. Robinson.
RATING: 6 out of 10 free soft-serve vanilla cones
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