well-acted?
But is there some Platonic form "well-written" or "well-acted" against which one is supposed to hold up the object under consideration for comparison?
What constitutes a well-acted performance or a well-written script?
> I loved it for the characters, the dialogue, and the jokes.
A much more modest claim. Although we disagree about an approach to character, I agree that the dialogue often had zing and there was humor.
> I think yo hit on the crux of the difference before. people who are film
critics/appreciators watch in entirely diff. ways than cultural
studies/sociologist types like doug, dennis, me.
Which makes the issue of spectatorship so fascinating to me. Two wonderful texts are Brett Farmer's "Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships" and Patricia White's "Uninvited."
>but what that show is doing is making you find him attractive because
women do -- not because he is attractive according to *you*.
But though the show may invite you to find Tony sexy does not mean you are compelled to do so.
> the show makes you desire tony by observing the desire of women in
the show.
It is also dependent on the positioning of the spectator.
> how often have you not seen someone as particularly attractive, but
when you observed others desiring them, you did?
Never. But I am sure it can happen.
> (seriously, i know you love me Bryan)
And I know you love me.
> Anyway, Bogdanovich speaks the same language as you do when
talking about film and he finds a great deal that is good about The
Sopranos and Chase.
Sucking up to the boss maybe? But there were moments where the series moved beyond competence visually. I just do not think they were numerous/complex enough for THE SOPRANOS to be deemed a great work of visual art.
> And I guess there's room for disagreement about whether whether Chase
demonstrated some (I'd say very great) facility with visual idiom. And I'd
pretty damn picky about visuals.
I am open to an argument defending the visuals. I am just waiting to read one.
What is the term for someone like me, who never watched this show, even once, and yet was following the story of how the story was going to end, even going so far to have his own preferred ending (Dr. Melfi kills Carmela and runs off to Brazil with Tony)?
The quintessential Sopranos viewer. That is what made the show great -- you never had to watch it to appreciate it. What was best -- the story -- was easily commuicated in ways other than the methods of television. It represents the triumph of plot fetishism over imagery in a visual art.
Brian