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The Sopranos

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Movie propaganda

Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) tries to be a good family man on two fronts - to his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco), kids Anthony "AJ" Soprano Junior (Robert Iler) and Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and widowed mother Livia (Nancy Marchand) - and as a capo in the New Jersey Mob. The pressures of work and family life give him anxiety attacks, so Tony starts seeing a psychiatrist - which is not the kind of thing a guy advertises in the circles Tony moves in: it could get him killed.

So he keeps it to himself. What caused all this stress? On the home front his marriage is shaky and his mother needs to be put in a nursing home (he calls it a "retirement community" but she still won't go). Corrado "Uncle Junior" Erico (Dominic Chianese) wanted to use Tony's childhood friend's restaurant to whack a guy named Pussy Malenga, but Tony prevented the hit by blowing the place up. When a Czech mob attempted to move in on The Sopranos' waste management business, Tony's hot-headed nephew Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) "handled the problem" by murdering their representative and dumping him on Staten Island - without getting the permission of the administration. To top it all off, Tony is haunted by the feeling that the glory days of mob life are long gone and that he might not measure up to the titans of the past.

Madon'! It's enough to make anyone want to see a shrink.

Written and directed by David Chase.

Cinematic intelligence sources

Sopranos official movie site
See also the following episodes:

Studios and distributors:

Warner Bros * Roadshow Films

Intelligence analyst

Field Agent Keith Dehle

Theatrical report

What happens when a leading family figure in the Mafia has problems dealing with his life, his childhood, and his mother and starts to see a shrink? What is he going to reveal to her about his past, the family "business"? How is his family going to react? When you have as many secrets to hide as the Soprano family you can guarantee that support is not going to be high on their agenda.

The Sopranos has set a new standard in serial TV. Each episode is packed full of drama and makes riveting viewing the pace is kept fast throughout the series and taking a break from watching the 13 episodes is not easy.

The character development is brilliant - not just Tony Soprano as the lead role, but also his wife as she starts having second thoughts about how they earn their income and support their affluent lifestyle, and his kids as they begin to suspect that their father is not really involved in the waste management business but something much more sinister. Nancy Marchand's performance as Tony soprano's mother is nothing short of superb. Her character needs to be watched closely as the series progresses.

The Sopranos does not attempt to hide the violence associated with Mafia activities. Nor does it try to glorify it. Some of the scenes are quite graphic but is to be expected in a story of this nature. The language, too, is as rough as it is violent.

Overall, probably the most enthralling entertainment to be released on DVD in years. An absolute must-have for the DVD collection.

Media intelligence (DVD)

Audio: Dolby stereo 2.0
Disc: Dual layer
Features:

Disc 1: Documentary 1 of 5: The Sopranos: Behind the hit "The Godfather"
Disc 2: Documentary 2 of 5: The Sopranos: Behind the hit "Family man"
Disc 3: Documentary 3 of 5: The Sopranos: Behind the hit "Adventures in the waste management business"
Disc 4: Documentary 4 of 5: The Sopranos: Behind the hit "The Tony tapes"
Disc 5: Documentary 5 of 5: The Sopranos: Behind the hit "Oh, poor you"
Disc 6: Music video: Woke up this morning"

Languages: English, French, German, Spanish
Picture: Fullscreen 1.33:1
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English captions, Finnish, German captions, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Croatian, Arabic, Romanian, Bulgarian