Many Saints of Newark

[Ezee E]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/TheManySaintsOfNewarkPoster.jp g

WIKI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Many_Saints_of_Newark)

[Ezee E]

Honestly think that David Chase started this as a separate story about the Newark Riots and then discovered the only way he could tell that story was by putting in Sopranos characters. Then 2-3 drafts later, it became this.

And the "fan service" is almost as comedic as it comes. And in not a good way.

Outside of finding that the "legend" of Dickie Moltisanti was a fraud, and that Junior is as conniving when he was younger as he was when he was older, there isn't really much else this has to offer.

Also, what a strange decision to have Christopher as the narrator.

[Peng]

Heard negative rumblings about Star Wars-level fan service beforehand, so almost laughed at the opening that's literally "The dead speak!" The thing though is, at the core, it is still unmistakably Chase's ethos from the series in often depicting the senselessness of this world, but it's so rushed and truncated that the way it arrives at the end doesn't wholly convince on a character level. Chase also uses the precious running time, which should be spent on this, on surrounding that core with some of the most bizarrely blatant easter eggs to The Sopranos (that baby scene in particular...). The actors are so good that they almost sell this all the way through though, especially Alessandro Nivola, with Leslie Odom Jr.'s intensity having his character rise above an in-retrospect certain narrative function. Michael Gandolfini is not required to do too much beyond his screen presence (both of his own and of his late father's portrayal), which he does, but he also just nails his expression in that last scene, which, maybe even more than Chase's writing, earns the film a stinging flash of tragedy to land, about this world's rot to come. 6.5/10

[Skitch]

Enjoyed enough, but not all that necessary. Ezee I didn't think it was odd to have that narrator considering the amount of supernatural stuff that came with Sopranos in the past. That was part of what made Sopranos Sopranos...weird shit.