the sopranos Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Nothing gets the blood boiling like an ambiguous movie ending. You've invested roughly two or more hours of your time on a film only to watch the freakin' thing fade to black right in the middle of a conversation or before the main characters had time to resolve all their issues. The person you're watching the film with almost always goes "That's it!? That's how they're ending it!?" before turning to you and saying something like, "That's the last time I let you pick the movie!"

Well, good news is those maniacs at College Humor managed to dig up the actual endings for a group of movies whose ambiguous finales are pretty memorable. They have Lost in Translation, No Country for Old Men, The Graduate, The Wrestler and even The Sopranos. Always wonder what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson? Or ponder what happened to Mickey Rourke's character after he jumped off the top rope? (I like to think he went and had a couple of beers with Sly Stallone while the two discussed a possible confrontation in Rocky 7, but that's just my imagination running wild.)

Watch the video after the jump and find out all the answers ...

If you live in or around the New York City area, you're no doubt well aware of the Lillo Brancato Jr. murder trial. Brancato Jr., who's most known for his six-episode stint on The Sopranos and for starring in Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale as Calogero (or 'C'), was on trial for murdering an off-duty police officer after breaking into a house to obtain drugs with a friend. The friend, Steven Armento, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison earlier this month. Brancato Jr. claimed he did not shoot the officer, but only broke a window in the house because he was suffering intense heroin withdrawal. The house, according to Brancato Jr., belonged to a Vietnam veteran who gave the men permission to come over from time to time to get drugs.

But when no one answered the door that night, the two men -- itching for that next high -- decided to break in. That's when Daniel Enchautegui, a neighbor, came to check things out. Upon finding the two men breaking in, Armento shot Enchautegui, who returned fire hitting both Brancato Jr. and Armento several times. Apparently a jury found that Brancato Jr. had nothing to do with the murder and acquitted him of those charges, but did find him guilty of attempted burglary -- a charge that could send him to prison for up to 15 years (he's already served three).

I don't spend a lot of time imagining the business concerns of strip club owners. I'm sure they involve many questions of labor relations, plus the question of how warm you have to keep the place so that the goosebump factor is low -- but one New Jersey club manager's long-term business decisions may have given us the heads-up on a well-loved HBO series heading to the big screen.

The good people at /Film are linking to a story at the Times Herald-Record explaining how the manager of the Satin Dolls gentleman's club recently received a phone request asking him to hold off on some upcoming renovations -- which may seem less than germane to the world of film until you realize that Satin Dolls also served as the Bada Bing on The Sopranos. Nick D'Urso, manager of Satin Dolls, relates in the piece how his planned renovations might be held off so as to preserve the, uh, Bing-ness of the location: "I got an inside tip that they're going to do a movie, so I don't want to make any major changes ... I'm not going to reveal my sources, but we got a call from somebody (working) on the script."

Let's imagine Tony Soprano in one of his 3 am near-comas. Rich food and stress is keeping him awake, as the rest of his family sleeps soundly in their Jersey mini-mansion. Having just loaded an extra-extra large hot fudge sundae into his gut, he's half-awake on the sofa, watching television. This is a scene that happened repeatedly during The Sopranos, when Tony would sometimes see an old movie that would cut him to the quick, or else plant a seed of doubt in him, tipping him off to some unsuspected treachery in his world. Tonight's screening is a weird, weird film from 1968...so damned weird that the next day, Tony wouldn't be sure if he didn't doze off during it, adding plot details from his own dream-life.

Skidoo by Otto Preminger--a resounding, loathed failure in its time--has a cult, like almost all failures do. It includes the first appearance by the reliable character actor and acting teacher Austin Pendleton. Also making her debut was the famed pioneer African-American model and Warhol star Donyale Luna (memorable from this photograph you've seen in every beauty salon, in which Luna's leanness and sinew is visually contrasted with a line of elephants). (here's a famous photo of her) Unique casting compliments a really one-of-a-kind musical/satire that shows how beyond "good" and "bad" some films are.

Now that The Sopranos has aired its final show, folks (including me) have been dying to hear from show creator David Chase, as if he were this angel capable of swooping down to explain it all. In true Chase fashion, the man granted one interview following the finale with The Star Ledger of Newark, a local New Jersey paper. And, as you can imagine, they were all over him about a possible Sopranos movie. Is that why Chase left the ending open? Is he planning to bring The Sopranos to the big screen? He says, "I don't think about a movie much. I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, 'Wow, that would make a great movie,' but I doubt it. I'm not being coy ... if something appeared that really made a good Sopranos movie and you could invest in it and everybody else wanted to do it, I would do it. But I think we've kind of said it and done it."

So, like the ending that had so many people talking yesterday, the possibility for more Sopranos is left open to debate -- seems like Chase is fond of these, "let's just wait and see" conclusions. One interesting note is that, originally, he had an idea for a movie that would take place prior to the deaths of some of the main characters. He then realized that the kids (Meadow and AJ) would be older and it probably wouldn't work; not to mention everyone would know that Tony doesn't die. As far as that final "Don't Stop Believing" scene goes, Chase admits that he wanted to leave it up to fans to interpret themselves. "I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there. People get the impression that you're trying to (mess) with them, and it's not true. You're trying to entertain them. Anybody who wants to watch it, it's all there." Make of that what you will folks, I'm just the messenger.

Note: This post will contain spoilers, so if you haven't watched The Sopranos series finale yet, then I suggest not reading the rest of this post.

Say what you want about the choose your own adventure ending last night, but David Chase shoveled out one of the most talked-about finales in television history. And if that was his original goal right from the start, then the man succeeded ... big time. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what went down, while I surf around and read what other folks have to say about the ending. About the Journey. About the highly amusing cut to black. Some people believe they have it all worked out, but others (like myself) aren't putting a label on it. Like Tony's life, it is what it is. I don't know why people always made it out to be about Tony either dying or getting pinched. Wasn't this show, at its core, always about a man trying to save his family? And if that's the case, then last night's ending definitely did satisfy. Ah, but was it an ending?

We've mentioned before that a Sopranos movie would be hard to pull off since a bunch of the major characters are now dead. But Tony's not. And neither is his family. As you could see, there was so much that was about to go down last night (an indictment, etc ...) that when Chase decided to end it that way, you couldn't help but wonder what his other intentions were. Was he just out to mess with us? Or, did he leave open the possibility of bringing The Sopranos to the big screen? Personally, I'm more than satisfied with the ending that was given to us and wouldn't be interested in any further continuation of the Sopranos story. I didn't need Tony to either get whacked or go to jail in order for me to walk away with a full stomach. But I do know there's a lot of people out there who weren't satisfied, and would love to see more.

So, I ask you: Did David Chase leave some space open for an eventual trip to the big screen? And, if so, would you be interested in a Sopranos movie?

When I hear the word 'playboy,' I tend to think of one of two things: Either I immediately think of Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story, or the Euro-trash gigolo type (if you need a point of reference, think Warren Beatty in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone). Either way, it will be a pretty neat hat-trick if a new film about a penniless playboy can inject some new life into the archetype.

Variety announced that Filippo Bozotti has signed to star in The Great Pretender. The film was written by Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson (Little Black Boot) and follows a penniless European playboy who is caught with the wrong woman. To pay off the debt to a dangerous casino magnate our playboy friend has to charm and bed a famous American actress. I'm not entirely sure how that would get him out of trouble, but hopefully Lipkin and Burson have come up with something.

Bozotti isn't exactly a household name, but if you are an avid fan of The Sopranos, then you might recognize him as Giovanni Coppito. The Great Pretender will start shooting in Italy, France and Spain next summer with Maverick Films and Article 19 Films (co-founded by Bozotti) footing the bill.

• Date Movie - Nowhere in the formula "Comedy = Tragedy + Time" does "Cruelty" figure in, something that this caca-palooza -- "from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie" -- sets out to correct from the very first scene. When they introduce us to morbidly obese Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), it is with ridicule as they paint her as a hideous beast that makes men vomit and turn gay. Of course, when we remember that 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie were Wayans Brothers, whose stock in trade is that kind of cruelty, it makes sense (even if these are another two writers.)

A parody of romantic comedies like Bridget Jones's Diary, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Hitch, this lame spoof goes for the easy laugh almost every time, beating to death with a golf club every gag with the subtlety of, well ... someone who beats someone else to death with a golf club. The "13" in the movie's "PG-13" rating would seem to be either a limit for either I.Q. or emotional age, as the movie's show pieces are either juvenile blue bits or have something to do with either poop, pee, puke or pus (the dreaded "4 P's"). Putting gifted comic actors like Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge in this stinky mess makes them both stinky by association, though as time goes by, the whole lot of them will only be guilty of contributing to a vast background of white noise that we will have learned to filter out when we grow up. Presently #64 on the IMDB's Bottom 100 of all time.