This Savage Art

There’s a new feature at The House Next Door. Check it out.

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Since The Sopranos has left us we luckily have another great show to take its place. The House Next Door covers the Monday morning analysis once again, thank you Andrew Johnston. Here’s episodes one and two.

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While some sites are dicking around with reviews of Kung Fu Panda [I kid, I kid] there’s an avalanche of good stuff on the interweb today:

• A massive film resource database is here for all to enjoy. The Moving Image Source. Well…enjoy! [via The Reeler.]
• Writer/director/one of the reasons I pray to the film gods Paul Schrader and cinematographer extraordinaire Ed Lachman speak at BAM. [Video clips.]
• More Schrader. Notes from Kevin B. Lee on the underappreciated Light Sleeper.
• Steven Boone crashes Antoine Fuqua’s Brooklyn block party.
• How dare you disrespect Abel Ferrara!!!

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The House Next Door contributors get into it over which of the three quality shows, Deadwood, The Wire and The Sopranos, is the best [podcast and transcript available.] Now all I have to do is catch up.

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[Entry in the Close-Up Blog-a-thon, hosted by The House Next Door, running Oct. 12 through Oct. 21. Close-up image from Once Upon a Time In America.]

DeNiro’s poppy induced smile is such a far removed sentiment from the whole of Sergio Leone’s Lower East Side spaghetti crime epic. A man at peace with himself, maybe the only time, only through flashback and only through the use of narcotics, David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson slips away to dream. Of what? We can only image. Wherever he is it is far from the life of a petty criminal filled, upon reflection, with much regret and loss.

The close-up is preceded by Noodles as an older man unknowingly attending the party of a dear friend from days long gone. Aged, listless and drained of any real joy Noodles looks on at the gate where his friend Maximilian ‘Max’ Bercovicz stands in front of his massive Gatsby-esque estate. A garbage truck passes in front of Max as Noodles gazes on. The truck grinds. Max disappears – another ghost from Noodles’ past gone as the truck’s lights fade into the darkness and magically [really, a great visual match dissolve] transform into a Prohibition era car’s headlights full of young men and women celebrating the New Year. Noodles wistfully watches his youth drive off.

Ennio Morricone’s heart-swelling tinny score leads us to the next scene that takes place in the past where we find Noodles, a young man looking to fix what is ailing him. The close-up rides us out – it being the last image we see in this melancholic journey through New York’s immigrant gangster origins to this final destination, a Chinatown opium den.

Noodles tokes up, leans back on a prepared bed and lets his mind wander to blissfully find his gauzy happiness. He does. He is free.

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Now that the television viewing population has tailspun into a tizzy over the episode of The Sopranos here are some links to bring us all back down to earth, get some closure and move forward:

Alan Sepinwall from the New Jersey Star Ledger interviews David Chase about the aftermath, killing off “straw men” and the possibility of…a movie.

As always, Matt Zoller Seitz & Co. give us insightful Monday morning analysis of the episodes, a feature on The House Next Door that I and many will miss.

Edward Copeland has a collection of Sopranos related postings if you get misty eyed and nostalgic.

Screenwriter Larry Gross muses on audience expectations.

Culture Snob gives us an audio play by play analysis of the last five minutes.

TV comedy writer Ken Levine takes a humorous look at the final episode if it was on network television.

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Odienator reflects eloquently on the city with his 5 For The Day:New York Stories. Excuse me, I have something in my eye.

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For those of you still guessing what Tony’s final line of last night’s Sopranos episode was, The House Next Door gives us a little help:

I just called HBO. They’ve had a number of calls today from TV critics requesting a ruling on “I did it” versus “I get it.” According to the writers, Tony yelled, “I get it.”

It makes it even more chilling. Thanks to Matt Zoller Seitz for the inquiry to HBO. As always The House Next Door gives us the day after recap with Sopranos Mondays.

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