Posts with tag TheSopranos
Posted Aug 8th 2008 4:23PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Interviews, Reality-Free, Mad Men
When Matt Weiner was a successful sitcom writer -- CBS's
Becker -- he had this idea for another kind of show. He couldn't figure out how to pitch it, so he wrote a sample script.
The Sopranos' creator David Chase read it and hired him. After copping a couple of Emmys for his work on that HBO drama, Weiner finally got his spec script sold. Now,
Mad Men has earned 16 Emmy nominations and Matt Weiner is working on the second season of the show.
Recently, for
TV Week, I interviewed Matt about the Emmy nominations. Here are some other thoughts he shared with me about
Mad Men:
TVS: What's the show all about to you?Matt Weiner: A lot of the episodes are about "who am I." A lot of the shows are about what's embarrassing. A lot of it's about denial, about how we juggle our work and our private lives. A lot of the issues that came up in the early 1960s are really hitting us right now.
Continue reading Matt Weiner of Mad Men: The TV Squad Interview
Posted Aug 1st 2008 2:26PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Daytime, Casting, Reality-Free
If there's one thing we can count on with
General Hospital, it's the mob. Other soaps lean on corporate shenanigans, the fashion business, medical drama.
GH used to be about the latter, but that was a long time ago. Now, the hospital storylines are thriving more on
Night Shift, General Hospital's SoapNet spin-off. But on
GH proper, the mother ship if you will, the main thrust remains Sonny, Jason, the Zaccharas and mob wars.
They're bringing in a new actor to the scene, and he carries major TV mob credentials.
Vincent Pastore is joining General Hospital as Maximus Giambetti, father of Sonny's two main bodyguards, Max and Milo. Vinny is best known as Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpenserio on HBO's
The Sopranos. On
GH, Maximus comes to Port Charles to see his boys, under the false assumption that Max and Milo are running the syndicate in town.
Continue reading General Hospital snags a big cat
Posted Jul 21st 2008 9:20AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Celebrities, Reality-Free
Some actors from
The Sopranos have won awards, Emmys, Golden Globes, et. al. At least one has achieved another kind of infamy.
Federico Castelluccio, who played the Italian hit man Furio, has sold a painting inspired by the show for $175,000. The image, a variation on the famous 15th century dual portrait,
Duke and Duchess of Urbino, is called The Duke and Duchess of North Caldwell. That would be Tony and Carmela Soprano of Caldwell, New Jersey.
Federico, who has no less that eight film roles to his credit for release this year, doesn't need to paint to pay the rent. He paints because he's an artist and -- clearly -- a good one. This original work was created after his appearance on the show. As Furio Giunta, the Italian made the mistake of becoming a wee bit too enamored with his boss's wife. Rather than stay in Jersey and potentially have an affair with Carmela, Furio returned to Italy and never came back -- as far as we know. David Chase may have a whole other story that was written and never filmed involving Furio. Chase is funny that way.
Continue reading Huge payday for Sopranos actor
Posted Jul 9th 2008 8:42PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: TV on the Bigscreen, Reality-Free
Last week,
the rumors about the Friends movie were shot down by Warners. Now, you can put
The Sopranos feature in the dead zone, too. Who's the voice of authority with the lowdown on what's really going on in David Chase's fevered mind? A psychiatrist, of course.
Okay, seriously, he's not a shrink, he just played one on
The Sopranos.
Director-actor Peter Bogdanovich was asked about a possible big-screen Sopranos and he said it's not going to happen.
"I spoke to David Chase a month ago, and he said no. He said he thought about it, and he can't figure out a way to do it. So I don't think it will ever happen. I don't think you can ever say never, but my hunch is it won't happen."
Bogdanovich should know. He played Dr. Melfi's psychiatrist, Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, and he spoke directly to Chase. No middle men, the big enchilada himself, the creator of
The Sopranos himself, told it to him straight.
Continue reading That Sopranos big screen movie? Fuggeddaboutit
Posted Jun 30th 2008 9:40PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Casting, Reality-Free
Remember back in February when we told you that Edie Falco was signed for a
new dark situation comedy from Showtime about a harried nurse?
Well, they've started filming the show in New York and given it a tentative title,
Nurse Jackie. What's more, the cast surrounding Edie includes some familiar faces.
Nurse Jackie will have a boyfriend and he will be played by Paul Schulze. The name may not be familiar, but the face sure is. Paul was Father Phil on
The Sopranos, the priest who spent a lot of time with Carmella and had her thinking they were going to replay
The Thornebirds.
On this Showtime series, he's Eddie and he works in the hospital in the pharmacy. That's important because reportedly Edie's character has a problem with drugs.
What's this, she's a female
House? Could she be popping Vicodin as prodigiously as he does? Could anyone?
Continue reading More info on Edie Falco's new Showtime series
Posted Jun 26th 2008 11:02AM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, News, Industry, OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Yesterday at Christie's in New York,
Tony Soprano's costumes went up for auction. You not going to believe how much money a bloody wifebeater goes for these days. One fan of the show paid $43,750 for the outfit pictured to the right: a bloody tank, a stained button down shirt, and pants. The outfit was the one the Jersey mob boss wore when Uncle Junior mistakenly shot him.
Also up for bid was a four-piece set containing boxers, a robe, a sleeveless undershirt, and a pair of slippers (a costume Gandolfini donned many times on the show). It took home $21,250. Another robe (the tan one with an "S" monogram that Gandolfini wore in the pilot) went for $13.750. Overall, the iconic mafia boss's clothes brought in over $185,000.
Continue reading Tony Soprano's bloody costume auctioned for charity
Posted Jun 24th 2008 3:39PM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Reality-Free
TV Guide is reporting that the complete series of
The Sopranos will be available as
a box set on Nov. 11, 2008, with a $400 price tag. That seems like a heckuva deal to me, given that fact that most seasons of any given show cost anywhere from $30 to $60. The individual seasons of
The Sopranos sell for $60 each
on the HBO Web site, and the complete series was
released last year for $515.
So let's do the math here: Six seasons (
TV Guide says seven, but
the official HBO site refers to Season Six, Parts 1 and 2, as one season, so we'll go with that) divided by $400 comes out to $66.66 per season.
Continue reading The Sopranos DVD Set for $400? What a Deal!
Posted Jun 4th 2008 7:05PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Cable/Satellite, Reality-Free
It sounds like HBO is looking for another series in
The Sopranos tradition. Or maybe it was
The Sopranos that was in the Scorsese tradition? Either way, we recently told you about Oscar-winning director
Martin Scorsese's HBO project Boardwalk Empire (teaming with Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson of
Entourage fame), and now
we can report that they've hired Terence Winter to pen the script for Boardwalk Empire. That's the name of Nelson Johnson's book about the dark underbelly in the rise and fall of Atlantic City, on which this project will be based. Call me crazy, but this sounds like perfect material for Scorsese's sensibilities, even if he's producing rather than directing.
Continue reading HBO signs writer to Scorsese's Boardwalk Empire
Posted May 25th 2008 9:00AM by Paul Goebel
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, OpEd, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
When one of our favorite TV shows goes off the air, it can be devastating. However, many times, the cancellation is the birth of a spinoff. Sometimes it can be a great thing (Frasier) and sometimes not so much (AfterM*A*S*H).
Here are some of this month's spinoff ideas that I would love to see.
Mr. Hawkins Goes to Texas
After the conspiracy of the Cheyenne government was revealed on Jericho, Robert Hawkins (Lennie James) thought the hard part was behind him. He had no idea what was in store. As America tries to form a new governing body, they are desperate for honest men to help lead the way. With help from Mimi Clark (Alicia Coppolla), his personal assistant, Hawkins fights government bureaucracy with the same zeal that he fought domestic terrorism.
Continue reading Even more spinoffs I would like to see
Posted May 9th 2008 10:22AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Lost, Reality-Free
Now we'll have even more opportunities to get lost over
Lost. ABC announced today that the 2009 and 2010 seasons will be 17 hours each, not 16 as previously planned.
We can thank the
WGA strike, which knocked three hours off the current season. The extra hour will be added to Part 2 of the season finale airing May 29.
When all is said and done,
the series will wrap with the same number of episodes that producers and ABC negotiated last year. "We were supposed to do 16-16-16, but we ended up doing 14 this season, so we owe two," co-creator Damon Lindelof told
The Hollywood Reporter.
Continue reading Get Lost with more hours
Posted Apr 15th 2008 11:01AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, 24, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, TV Squad Lists, Lipstick Jungle, Reality-Free
Last week's episode of The Office now ranks high on my list of Awkward TV Moments. It got me thinking about other all-time great awkward TV moments. Sure, we've all seen the episode where a disheveled Mary Richards shows up at the awards banquet wearing one fuzzy pink slipper. And the one where Frasier and Roz nearly do it on a cruise ship. But let's take a look at a few recent awkward TV moments.
1. Jan heaves a Dundee at Michael's flat-screen TV. Okay, we'll start with last week's episode of
The Office, in which Michael coerces Jim and Pam into attending a couples-only dinner party at his and Jan's condo. The entire episode is one long awkward moment, from Dwight showing up with his former babysitter as his date to Pam realizing she'll be held hostage for three hours, thanks to Jan's poor culinary planning. But the topper is when Michael and Jan's love spat escalates into a huge fight, ending with her heaving one of his treasured Dundee awards at his new (and tiny) flat-screen TV. The cops show up after the neighbors report a disturbance, and Michael ends up going home with Dwight.
Continue reading Ten awkward TV moments
Posted Apr 7th 2008 11:07AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: In the Limelight, Psych, Reality-Free
The other day was actor James Roday's birthday; on April 4, he turned 32. For the Texas born star of
Psych, life is quite nice right now.
Psych is coming back for a third season on USA this summer, and starting the other night, episodes from season two will be showcased on NBC. Oh, and he's dating Maggie Lawson, a.k.a. O'Hara, his co-star on the show.
There's a fine line between charming and obnoxious, amusing and annoying, cute and cloying, funny and trying too hard. James Roday veers close to the line. He's a daredevil of a comic actor, daring to be almost too much to take. But like other actors of his ilk, he succeeds in flying close to the sun, but never burning his wings. Like Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, James Roday is willing to push the comic envelope. So far, he's proved to me that watching him is always interesting, arresting and fun. While he may never reach the box office glory of Carrey or cop an Oscar like Williams, he's definitely going to be a TV star for today, tomorrow and down the road.
Continue reading In the Limelight: James Roday
Posted Mar 24th 2008 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, CSI, House, Law and Order, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, NCIS, TV Squad Lists, Lipstick Jungle, Eli Stone
The world of primetime TV are primarily set in the real world. The real world based on the fiction they create. So,
Law and Order -- in all its incarnations -- is set in New York City, but it's not the real five boroughs. The newspapers they read are not
The New York Times, the
Post or the
Daily News. For contemporary TV fiction, reality is on the margins of the storytelling because you can't really set those characters in a real world. However, when the two worlds intersect, the results can be magic. Here's 8 big-time, primetime examples:
1) Cowboy Up TimeRemember the episode of
Lost when Ben wanted to convince Jack that he was in communication with the world outside the island? To prove that he was telling the truth, he showed Jack a video of the Boston Red Sox winning the world series in 2004. You can't get more real than that, right? And yet it was used in one of the most out of this world shows on the air. In fact, using
Lost's own terminology, the Red Sox video is a constant truth in a universe that's a complete fiction.
Continue reading Eight real world moments in reel TV
Posted Mar 9th 2008 10:01AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, TV on the Bigscreen, Watercooler Talk
Back in November we reported that a movie version of the award-winning HBO series The Sopranos would not be happening. The source of that information was none other than show creator David Chase. So, you would think that this information would be very reliable. Mmmm, perhaps not. For, you see, another rumor has popped up from a resource even more reliable than the man who actually created the program.
Continue reading Bada Bing! Rumors of a Sopranos movie come from an unlikely resource
Posted Feb 21st 2008 4:41PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CSI, Cable/Satellite, Pickups and Renewals, 30 Rock, Awards, Weeds, Emmys
If you've watched
30 Rock this past season, you've seen how funny actress Edie Falco can be. As C.C. (Celeste Cunningham), she's been a hoot opposite Alec Baldwin. Well, Showtime noticed, and they announced today that the three-time Emmy-winner, best known as Carmela on
The Sopranos, will star in a new show for their network. She'll be playing a "strong-willed, iconoclastic New York City nurse juggling the frenzied grind of an urban hospital and an equally challenging personal life" is the 30-minute, single camera, dark comedy.
Continue reading Showtime pilot for Edie Falco
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