In the NYT, Amy Winehouse > James Gandolfini

Yeah, the laughter never stopped at our house watching those episodes of Roots and Lonesome Dove and The Twilight Zone and Law & Order.

 

That shouldn't need to be said. And he does deserve it.

 

Oh, no, no, no. I've explicitly acknowleged this as a potential factor limiting Gandolfini's influence.

 

Then why compare him to Lucille Ball or Carroll O'Connor?

 

Because he was arguably ground-breaking and influential in high-quality dramas in the same manner that Ball and O'Connor were in sitcoms. His universe of influence may be smaller. The intensity within that universe, that genre, is very much comparable.

 

Jesus Christ. The NYT fancies itself the authority on high brow taste and cultural intellect. Of course Galdolfini should be on the damn cover. All the people staring sentences with "I never watched The Sopranos, but... " should just wander over into the kids' section. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, just like a hockey ignoramus like myself would never pretend like his opinion mattered on a thread about the NHL Finals.

TV is the most influential visual medium we have today. It makes 99 percent of movies look like Michael Bay wank fests by comparison. Gandolfini made that kind of avant garde storytelling work. If he'd been a piss poor actor, and The Sopranos had been a flop (the two are related) we'd have missed out on a ton of fascinating, important visual art. The fact that *only* 12 million people watched the finale of The Sopranos *as it aired* is about as dumb a justification possible for why his passing isn't a 1A story. The Times puts all kinds of agenda-driven, thinly-sourced trend pieces on its front all the time. It doesn't bow to what's popular, it bows to what rich people, snobs and influential people like. And they liked The Sopranos, and whether you get glassy-eyed thinking about the final scene of M*A*S*H* or the giggles thinking about Lucille Ball stomping on grapes is irrelevant. The Sopranos was art that mattered now, and it will matter 20 and 30 years from now. He was one of the best actors of this era. If you were too *busy* to appreciate or understand that, or think popularity is relevant to that discussion, well, you're trapped in a quaint little time that truly doesn't matter much anymore.

 

That's a reasonable point. I'm betting if there's a TV actors guild newsletter, he'll be on the cover.

 

It's nice to have a visit from Gandolfini's agent. Welcome, and get me a beer

 

Just wait until the guy who played Omar dies. Then H.L. is going to go OFF about this stupid world.

 

According to my math, about 300 million Americans "are trapped in a quaint little time that truly doesn't matter anymore" because they either spent their Sundays doing something else or didn't care enough about the show to keep watching.

Fine if you believe that. But in a 1,000-channel universe, ONE character on ONE show watched by --- at most --- 4 percent of the population can only have, by definition, an extremely limited amount of influence.

 

Influential? Yeah. But Mad Men, the Sopranos and Game of Thrones. Their influence pales in comparison to Kim Kardashian's influence on culture.

As far as movie quality, I don't agree.

 

Debatable. I can watch Goodfellas and get the same stuff, plus it's shorter, plus it's better, plus it's DeNiro and Pesci, both of whom can and repeatedly did outact Mr. Gandolfini. Liotta's a better actor, too.