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The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

Bryan^H

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Title: The Many Saints of Newark

Tagline: Who made Tony Soprano?

Genre: Crime, Drama

Director: Alan Taylor

Cast: Alessandro Nivola, Michael Gandolfini, Leslie Odom Jr., Ray Liotta, Michela De Rossi, Vera Farmiga, Corey Stoll, Jon Bernthal, Billy Magnussen, John Magaro, Michael Imperioli, Samson Moeakiola, Joey Diaz, Germar Terrell Gardner, Alexandra Intrator, Gabriella Piazza, Mason Bleu, Aaron Joshua, Lesli Margherita, Talia Balsam, Kathryn Kates, Nick Vallelonga, Ed Marinaro, William Ludwig, Mattea Conforti, Matteo Russo, Robert Vincent Montano, Chase Vacnin, Patina Miller, Rob Colletti, De'Jon Watts, Nick DeMatteo, Matt Grossman, Chris LaPanta, Patricia Squire, Amelia Fowler, Prema Cruz, Maliq Johnson, Sam Labovitz, Daryl Edwards, Matthew Elam, Anthony Angelo Pizza Jr., Audrey Bennett, Nicola Gabriele, Spenser Granese, Michael Zegarski, Michael Kaves, Vinnie Costanza, Ian Unterman, Lizzy Plimpton, Erik Weiner, Alex Morf, Bryce Burke, Joel Boyd, William Youmans, Andrew Polk, Ohene Cornelius, Craig Geraghty, Nygel Bush, Carrie Compere, Oberon K.A. Adjepong, Lexie Foley, Phyllis Pastore, Tatienne Hendricks-Tellefsen, Ayodele Olatunji, CJ Fly, Dessy Hinds, Laurie Sheppard, Marianne Ferrari, Julian Lerner, Stella Chivee, Louis Vanaria, Latoya Edwards, John Borras, Jodi Capeless, Lauren DiMario, Danny Schoch

Release: 2021-09-22

Runtime: 120

Plot: Young Anthony Soprano is growing up in one of the most tumultuous eras in Newark, N.J., history, becoming a man just as rival gangsters start to rise up and challenge the all-powerful DiMeo crime family. Caught up in the changing times is the uncle he idolizes, Dickie Moltisanti, whose influence over his nephew will help shape the impressionable teenager into the all-powerful mob boss, Tony Soprano.



I have to say that the trailer hasn't got me excited for this movie, and I'm a huge fan of the Sopranos. I think that too much time has past between the series and this film. So much so that all the references, and characters will most likely be lost on audiences (including me).

We will see how this does when it opens, but I think it will fail unfortunately.
 

TravisR

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I have to say that the trailer hasn't got me excited for this movie, and I'm a huge fan of the Sopranos. I think that too much time has past between the series and this film. So much so that all the references, and characters will most likely be lost on audiences (including me).

We will see how this does when it opens, but I think it will fail unfortunately.

Financially, I doubt it's going to make money. People who think The Sopranos was about Tony killing everyone every week will be disappointed that there isn't a triple-digit body count. Then there's the trailer that I saw that makes this look like it's "Tony Soprano: The Origin Story" but the interviews I've read with David Chase have him saying that it's not that at all so both of those things are going to hurt the word of mouth. And then it's available for free on HBO Max and this isn't an action movie so people won't mind watching it at home and that's going to hurt the box office too.

All that being said, anything from David Chase has my money and my attention.
 

Bryan^H

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Financially, I doubt it's going to make money. People who think The Sopranos was about Tony killing everyone every week will be disappointed that there isn't a triple-digit body count. Then there's the trailer that I saw that makes this look like it's "Tony Soprano: The Origin Story" but the interviews I've read with David Chase have him saying that it's not that at all so both of those things are going to hurt the word of mouth. And then it's available for free on HBO Max and this isn't an action movie so people won't mind watching it at home and that's going to hurt the box office too.

All that being said, anything from David Chase has my money and my attention.
I'm defiantly going to watch it, I'm just going in with low expectations because all of the trailers I have seen just have me feeling nothing. And going from my entire life experience 99% of the time that is a really bad sign for my viewing of the actual film.

EDIT: Will report back on Friday.
 
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Sam Favate

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I remain anxious to see this. It'll likely be Saturday night's movie for me. I think the cast looks amazing, and I would never bet against David Chase.

BTW, if anyone is curious, it seems the running time is 2 hours. Also the "many saints" of the title is a reference to the father of Christopher Moltisanti (the main character of the film). "Moltisanti" translates to "many saints."
 

Bryan^H

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Financially, I doubt it's going to make money. People who think The Sopranos was about Tony killing everyone every week will be disappointed that there isn't a triple-digit body count. Then there's the trailer that I saw that makes this look like it's "Tony Soprano: The Origin Story" but the interviews I've read with David Chase have him saying that it's not that at all so both of those things are going to hurt the word of mouth. And then it's available for free on HBO Max and this isn't an action movie so people won't mind watching it at home and that's going to hurt the box office too.

All that being said, anything from David Chase has my money and my attention.
Yeah, me too.

The Many Saints of Newark is a really good movie, and I enjoyed so many things about it.
I actually felt really bad for young Tony Soprano (played brilliantly by Michael Gandolfini), going in I didn't think that would be the case.
 

JohnRice

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Unfortunately, it left me rather flat. It felt more like a destination than a story, if that makes any sense. I'm not sure how else to express it. It was also disjointed. Alessandro Nivola and Vera Farmiga were both excellent, but so many of the others seemed strained. Silvio was so distracting. He struck me more as an actor, imitating Steven Van Zandt, playing Silvio, than a young Silvio. Also, the atrocious face shaping of Michael Gandolfini constantly took me out of the movie. His face is SO obviously foam and painfully fake looking. They should have just left him natural.

I was fully expecting to like this, but it didn't end up that way.
 

TonyD

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Maybe I'm wrong, but his cheeks look like they are puffed up with foam. I could be wrong.

What are you talking about?
Puffed up with foam?


Anyway, didn’t care for this movie.
I guess it was The Sopranos, the Early years but so what.

Was anyone asking for the story of Christopher’s parents?

Silvio was pretty bad as a character and the actor was terrible.
If he tilted his head just a little more he would be looking at the floor all t(e time.

The only interesting character in this was Sal, the twin brother in prison.
 

Bryan^H

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Tough room.

I thought it was a decent mob movie.
With a huge bump in overall score because I love the Sopranos. It is a story that probably didn't need to be told, and probably 10 years too late, but It was certainly worth the money.

Michael Gandolfini looks the same in all the interviews I've seen with him as he does in the film. I don't think anything was done to alter his appearance.
 

TravisR

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Tough room.

I thought it was a decent mob movie.
With a huge bump in overall score because I love the Sopranos. It is a story that probably didn't need to be told, and probably 10 years too late, but It was certainly worth the money.
Yeah, I thought it was a solid but not outstanding movie. And I found myself surprised by how bad I felt for young Tony. Considering all the terrible things that he does in the series, I've never felt pity for the character but seeing Tony as basically a kid at a crossroads and making all the wrong choices was really sad. The harshest scene in that vein is seeing him talking to baby Christopher knowing that in about 35 years, he'll be killing him.

As for the actors playing established roles, I thought that Vera Farmiga, Michael Gandolfini, and Corey Stoll all did excellent work. Especially Farmiga as I completely believe her as an earlier version of Tony's monstrous and damaged mother. The guys playing Silvio, Paulie, and Pussy didn't really get much to do so they couldn't rise above being an "impersonation" but even those still worked for me.
 

Bryan^H

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Yeah, I thought it was a solid but not outstanding movie. And I found myself surprised by how bad I felt for young Tony. Considering all the terrible things that he does in the series, I've never felt pity for the character but seeing Tony as basically a kid at a crossroads and making all the wrong choices was really sad. The harshest scene in that vein is seeing him talking to baby Christopher knowing that in about 35 years, he'll be killing him.

As for the actors playing established roles, I thought that Vera Farmiga, Michael Gandolfini, and Corey Stoll all did excellent work. Especially Farmiga as I completely believe her as an earlier version of Tony's monstrous and damaged mother. The guys playing Silvio, Paulie, and Pussy didn't really get much to do so they couldn't rise above being an "impersonation" but even those still worked for me.
And that is the part that got to me the most. We start out in the Sopranos season 1 seeing Tony as a hateful, angry mob boss with slight, fleeting moments of humanity occurring very rarely throughout the series.

In The Many Saints of Newark we see young Tony with a good heart trying to do the right things with real dreams but hindered at every turn by his family, and friends. I think for that reason alone is an essential part of a "Sopranos" rewatch.
 

TravisR

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And that is the part that got to me the most. We start out in the Sopranos season 1 seeing Tony as a hateful, angry mob boss with slight, fleeting moments of humanity occurring very rarely throughout the series.

In The Many Saints of Newark we see young Tony with a good heart trying to do the right things with real dreams but hindered at every turn by his family, and friends. I think for that reason alone is an essential part of a "Sopranos" rewatch.
It's very much akin to Better Call Saul but even sadder because at the start of that show, the Saul character is not a perfect person but he's also not the bastard that he eventually is in Breaking Bad. With this movie, Tony isn't perfect but he's still a kid that I felt bad for and I wanted to see him not take the path that I know he takes.
 

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Having just come from seeing this, I unironically think Sally Moltisanti was a great character, and his scenes with Dickie were reminiscent of a more spiritually-minded version of Tony's sessions with Dr. Melfi. That last convo where he instantly sees through Dickie's bullshit and tells him to stay away from Tony was perfect.

(Although Ray Liotta sure looks like he hasn't given up the smoking in real life like he said.)
And having Uncle June whack Dickie over such a tiny little trifle of a slight was a great twist-ending that I absolutely did not see coming, but is completely in tune with the spirit of the TV show itself.
 

TravisR

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And having Uncle June whack Dickie over such a tiny little trifle of a slight was a great twist-ending that I absolutely did not see coming, but is completely in tune with the spirit of the TV show itself.
Which raises a question from the series
was that old cop that Christopher killed in S4(?) actually the shooter we see in the movie or was Tony using Christopher to kill the guy and bring them closer? Personally, I think as far Tony knows that was the guy who killed Dickie and it's messed up enough that Tony held on to that info until he needed it to manipulate Christopher.
 

Jake Lipson

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Here's an unusual question:

I have never seen The Sopranos. We never had premium channels when I was growing up, so I didn't have access to the HBO library until recently with the advent of HBO Max. I've seen the final scene of the series because the uproar over it was so loud that I looked it up on YouTube to see what people were complaining about. Otherwise, I couldn't tell you the first thing about the show.

Will the movie work for me as an independent entity or is it just targeting fans of the series who want a prequel story?
 
Movie information in first post provided by The Movie Database

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