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The Sopranos ended on a note that left many fans dissatisfied, but when you look at the overall arc of the show that David Chase created, it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.
After watching the final season, I had to go back and rewatch the entire series, because it had been too long, and a lot of key characters and plot points had been forgotten.
As a result, I had an even deeper appreciation for the show. The layers of complexity, the subtle humor and pop-culture references, the fantastic music--all of these things that David Chase and his excellent group of writers and directors no doubt mapped out with attention to every little detail.
The music: Oh, the music. It was revealed that David Chase played drums for a garage band when he was a kid, and on one of the commentaries, Steven Van Zant mentioned that Chase had a hand in almost all of the episodes in terms of what music was picked.
One of the key musical moments in Season 6, Part 2 is in the episode "Stage 5," with the use of John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown." The song conveys such a feeling of unease and it's especially worth noting that it's used as a soundtrack to the christening of Christopher and Kelli's baby, which would normally require more of an uplifting number.
Instead, it hints at the demise of Christopher and the Soprano family as a whole. Little by little, the Soprano empire is pulled out, like pieces from a game of Jenga. First Christopher, then Bobby, Silvio gets shot up, and Tony...well, what happens to Tony? We do know that Phil Leotardo gets it and has his head crushed like a friggin' grapefruit, which was well-earned.
Regarding the finale, I think that Chase's intention was to infer that life is not filled with tidy endings or neat resolutions; it's a complex mess, and whatever happened to Tony, it can't be good. The overall feeling of the final season is impending doom, and the supreme excess of the Sopranos can only lead to punishment, not reward.
I'm not gonna lie: 2007 wasn't the best year for music. I ended up unearthing a lot of records I hadn't listened to in a long time or getting into a lot of older music. These damn kids today with their iTunes and their iPod and their hippity-hoppity....
I'm noticing that a lot of the end of year music lists look the same. Is this just a coincidence or does everyone have the same bland taste in music?
At any rate, here's what tickled my gizzard for 2007:
Shellac- Excellent Italian Greyhound
At what point did rock music start not rocking? That's a question better left to those music scholars with pipes at Harvard, but someone forgot to relay the memo to Shellac.
Shellac, like AC/DC or ZZ Top, are a pretty locked-in institution at this point. They've slowly evolved over time, but you're not going to be hearing any strings, electronic bleeps and bloops or Kanye West sampling any of their stuff.
No, just stripped-down rock free of artifice, and you can always count on Shellac to deliver the goods. Plus, isn't that dog cute?
Bottomless Pit- Hammer Of The Gods
No surprise here. Silkworm, as everyone knows, was one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and Bottomless Pit are hellbent on carrying on in that tradition. Hard rocking, heartbreaking, and absolutely beautiful.
Richard Hawley- Lady's Bridge
Richard Hawley won me over with his 2005 album Coles Corner, and I'll be damned if he doesn't do it all over again with this one. Some of Coles Corner was a bit too syrupy for my taste, but this time, Hawley throws some rockabilly in the mix, and if anything, is an improvement on his previous album. Hawley's voice is a mix of Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Lee Hazlewood, which is never a bad combination. Hawley is much more than a novelty act, though--his songs are a timeless, great companion to the classic crooners.
I'm Not There- Original Soundtrack
Just like the soundtrack to Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, I'm Not There gathers the cream of the crop to pay tribute to good ol' Bobby D.
The highlights include Sonic Youth doing a feedback-drenched cover of the lost Basement Tapes track of which the film is named, Stephen Malkmus doing his best snide Dylan, and Mark Lanegan's smoky voice filling up "Man In The Long Black Coat."
Grinderman- S/T
Sick, just plain sick! I'm not even that big a fan of Nick Cave, but this one rocked.
Queens Of The Stone Age- Era Vulgaris
2005's Lullabies To Paralyze didn't quite match up to their mammoth 2002 album, Songs For The Deaf, but to be fair, that was a pretty hard act to follow. QOTSA seem intent on proving everyone wrong on Era Vulgaris, which is drenched in sleaze, cheap liquor and random freaks on the Sunset Strip.
Nina Nastasia & Jim White- You Follow Me
I think at this point I'll probably follow Nina Nastasia wherever. Totally stripped down arrangements--just vocals, drums and guitar, which really lets her songs breathe. Nastasia is quickly becoming one of the best songwriters out there, without anyone really noticing.
I'm Not There (directed by Todd Haynes)
It comes as no surprise that a director like Todd Haynes could pull off something like I'm Not There.
Always the provocateur, Haynes is famously known for telling the Karen Carpenter story with Barbie dolls and handmade sets in his early short film Superstar (still unavailable as a result of a cease and desist order slapped by Richard Carpenter) as well as his tribute to glam-rock, Velvet Goldmine, whose main inspiration, David Bowie, refused to allow any of his songs to be used in the film.
Luckily, Haynes' third shot at a music-related film fared much better for the filmmaker, as the former Robert Zimmerman allowed his own music to be used, along with a somewhat biographical account of his life and all of the folklore associated with it.
For anyone familiar with Dylan, particularly the fabrications Dylan made about his background once he moved to NYC, I'm Not There serves as an entertaining document of all of the myths surrounding the crotchety songwriter.
Haynes made a wide decision not to structure the film in a linear way, or attempt to tell the Dylan story in a traditional biopic fashion. If he had, his film most certainly would have failed as an attempt to dissect a nonlinear person.
Cate Blanchett received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Jude Quinn, a model of the Dont Look Back-era Dylan. The other performances are fine for what they are, but Blanchett undoubtedly steals the show. The late Heath Ledger mostly just mopes around as the Blood On The Tracks version of Bobby, and Richard Gere is a chore to watch as Billy the Kid.
The main reason for checking out I'm Not There is Blanchett and the fantastic use of Dylan's music, which is more than any Dylan fan could want.
Charlie Wilson's War (directed by Mike Nichols)
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts are two of the most overused (and overrated) movie stars of all time, so it's fitting that they should appear in a movie together, both as Texans, with horrible accents. However, seeing Hanks as the bad-boy Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson isn't quite as painful as you might think. Hanks brings his requisite charm to the role of a man who (along with the help of the CIA and other friends in high places) helped Afghanistan defeat the Soviets and in turn brought about a chain of events that ended the Cold War.
The script by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) is plenty sharp, and Philip Seymour Hoffman tosses off the great role of Wilson's CIA contact Gust Avrokotos like removing pocket lint, particularly notable considering he's already starred in two other great movies of 2007, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and The Savages.
Juno (directed by Jason Reitman)
For those yet to be taken under by Juno's spell, it's about a teen (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant, decides to have the baby, hands it over to a slick yuppie couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) and dishes out acerbic one-liners like nobody's business. It also stars the great Michael Cera (Superbad) as the baby's would-be Dad, and the wonderful Allison Janney and quick-witted J.K. Simmons (of Spider-Man fame) as Juno's parents.
What elevates Juno above typical romcom fare (and other grating indie comedies like Garden State) is its affection for its characters and a great script by newcomer Diablo Cody. Yes, Juno is hipper-than-thou, but she is also a confused teenager using her sarcasm to shield her own insecurities.
If the final, sweet scene between Page and Cera doesn't win you completely over, you must have Dick Cheney's black heart.
There Will Be Blood (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson)
Speaking of black hearts, they don't get much blacker than the character of Daniel Plainfield (Daniel Day-Lewis) in PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood, his best film to date.
Anderson already caused a few exploding heads with his epic porn opus Boogie Nights and Magnolia, but in comparison to his new film, they were merely appetizers for this grand explosion of oil.
Daniel-Day Lewis and Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) go head-to-head, and it's a true delight to see both of them chew their scenes like Plainfield chews his steak. Plainfield is a greedy oil man, you see, and he doesn't want anyone else getting his milkshake. The score by Jonny Greenwood of the band Radiohead helps to underline the tension of the characters and sets a particularly creepy mood.
In an interview, Anderson described There Will Be Blood (based on the Upton Sinclair novel Oil!) as a horror film, and it's not hard to see why. Here's a horror film where instead of massive body counts, we see just how nasty people can be to each other--and without that much blood.
The Savages (directed by Tamara Jenkins)
The Savages begins in Sun City, Arizona, quite possibly one of the nine circles of hell, along with Green Valley, where old folks drink, screw and pop pills as they await their inevitable fate.
Jenkins' film centers around the fear in every son or daughter's heart: What do you do with Mom or Dad when they've gone cuckoo? Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney play those people, who have to figure out what to do with their Dad (Philip Bosco) once he starts writing messages with his fecal matter on the wall.
The Savages can't strictly be described as either a comedy or a drama, so it decides to find solace in both.
Hoffman's character is a college teacher and is busy writing a book about the life of Bertolt Brecht. It wouldn't be all that funny if I hadn't just read some of Brecht's work, and listening to Hoffman sing along in German to Brecht/Weill's The Threepenny Opera is worth the price of admission alone.
At this point in his career, Philip Seymour Hoffman is so good that it almost seems like giving a great performance for him is an afterthought.
Laura Linney is similarly great as a woman that's still figuring out her life, taking temp jobs and attempting to get her autobiographical play financed. In the meantime, she carries on an affair with a married man with a pooch (Peter Friedman) as she pushes her way to midlife crisis.
The character observations in The Savages are so richly detailed that it makes you still have faith in character-driven dramedies.
No End In Sight (directed by Charles Ferguson)
While it's true that there have been a slew of Iraq-related documentaries and films within the past few years, very few come close to the startling power of Charles Ferguson's No End In Sight.
By taking the anti-Michael Moore approach of getting his facts, information and sources right, Ferguson tells the story of a war gone horribly wrong from the insider's point of view. As a result, it leaves you captivated for its entire running time and even more enraged at our current administration.
Hot Rod (directed by Akiva Schaeffer)
If you happened to catch any of the SNL digital shorts/skits starring either Andy "Dick In A Box" Samberg or Bill Hader (who does a killer Al Pacino impression) you'll probably go into Hot Rod already a fan.
Samberg and Hader are two of the best cast members on the current SNL, and they waste no time dishing out the laughs in this, a tribute to the late Evil Knievel. Rod (Andy Samberg) wants to help raise $50,000 for his stepfather's (Ian McShane of Deadwood) heart transplant by jumping 15 school buses--and he enlists his buddies (including Hader and Jorma Taccone) to help him out with his scheme.
If this all sounds like a bad SNL sketch, that's because on paper, it pretty much is. Samberg and co. pull it off by sheer hilarity and an over-the-top tribute to Footloose.
Paris, Je T'Aime
The concept of having 18 different established directors do five-minute short films set in different districts of Paris sounds like an idea that could just buckle under the weight of its own lofty ambitions, but the talent behind the film is too great to yield anything other than a worthwhile effort.
Not every segment is completely successful, but the ones that do make you wish you had more time to spend with the characters. Gus Van Sant, The Coen Brothers, Alexander Payne, Wes Craven and Richard LaGravenese are the Americans thrown into the mix, along with foreign directors Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) and Tom Tykwer (Perfume).
