| ||||||
 Arts & EntertainmentBooks Comics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Arts & Entertainment stories, go to the
Arts & Entertainment home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Arts & Entertainment Music Review Movie Review Music Review Movies Movie Review Complete archives for Arts & Entertainment - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The gay, the bad and the hottie | page 1, 2
I don't know about you, but I found the graphic depiction of Tony Soprano in the throes of food poisoning infinitely more disturbing than the scene where Tony, Paulie and Silvio execute Big Pussy for ratting them out to the feds. On second viewing though, I realized that Tony's noisy digestive problems did serve a purpose -- the food poisoning was a metaphor for Tony's inner turmoil and moral decay, just as his lithium-induced hallucinations at the end of last season suggested the power of the subconscious. Tony (James Gandolfini) still remains a strangely sympathetic figure, just trying to hold his families together. But the bad things he does at "work" (pumping a kid full of lead in retaliation for a hit on Christopher Moltisanti, driving a pathetic gambler into bankruptcy to collect on a debt) are eating at his soul.
Joyce Millman Joyce Millman's column appears every other Monday in Salon Arts & Entertainment. This season, though, belonged to Tony's wife Carmela (Edie Falco), who is emerging as an even darker and more complicated figure than her husband. Carmela considers herself a deeply religious person; when Pussy's wife talks of leaving her husband, Carmela will not hear of it: "Marriage is a holy sacrament!" But that doesn't stop Carmela from pursuing an affair with a wallpaper hanger. Carmela is a hypocrite, but she doesn't see it that way. As this season played out, we understood for the first time the depth of Carmela's revulsion and anger over Tony's keeping of a mistress. Tony's infidelity justifies every holy sacrament she breaks, every harsh word and disgusted look she flings her husband's way, every extravagant, unnecessary purchase, every flirtation. Normally, Carmela is not a negotiator; she takes what she wants, as we saw in the extraordinary scene where, armed with a ricotta pie and a dazzling smile, she intimidates a Georgetown alumna into writing daughter Meadow a letter of recommendation to college. But Carmela is willing to negotiate with God if it means protecting the people she loves. In one episode, as Christopher lies gravely wounded in the hospital after the hit, she slips into an empty room and, kneeling before a crucifix, promises to try to guide her family toward righteousness if Christopher is spared. How can a woman of such obvious faith, who can communicate so easily with God, live with herself for choosing to marry a mobster? It isn't easy. As a Mafia wife, Carmela must share in all her husband's sins, because they've bought her suburban matron respectability -- the mink coat, the jewelry, the faux-stately house with its little Martha Stewart touches of gracious living, the book club get-togethers with the girls. But Carmela thinks she can balance it all out, maybe even come out ahead, if she's a good enough Catholic. She's caught between a deal with the devil and a deal with God, and, next season, something has got to snap. The final curtain How do you say farewell to a show that changed the face of television as we know it? A show that provoked controversy, that drew us in with the harshness of its disturbing imagery and then said, "Ha-ha, made you look?" I'm speaking of course about "Wonderland," the ABC drama series set in a New York public hospital's psych ward. Many series have closed up shop this season -- "Party of Five," "Boy Meets World," "God, the Devil and Bob" -- but the loss of "Wonderland," which solidly anchored ABC's 10 p.m. Thursday slot from March 30 to April 6, is one from which network prime time may take minutes to recover. Created, directed and written by Peter Berg (Dr. Billy Kronk on "Chicago Hope"), "Wonderland" drew the ire of mental health professionals who claimed it sensationalized the mentally ill and portrayed them as untreatable, wild-eyed freaks. For instance, in the main storyline of the first two episodes, a mentally ill man refused to take his medication and then slaughtered a bunch of cops in Times Square; he later heard voices in his head that told him to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the neck with a pen, but not before sticking a hypodermic needle into the belly of a pregnant psychiatrist. But perhaps the mental health professionals were nitpicking. Because "Wonderland" certainly made you appreciate the plight of those poor souls who think they're receiving radio transmissions through their fillings. After watching the show, with its psych ward inmates babbling and skulking around like extras from "The Snake Pit," its unrelenting din of a dozen actors shouting at once and its dark, grimy, depressing sets and spinning camera work, I felt on the verge of a full blown anxiety attack, not to mention a migraine; I had to lie down in a dark, quiet room and be very, very still until the Martians told me it was safe to get up again. Alas, ABC quietly canceled "Wonderland" after approximately 98.9 percent of its viewers switched over to "ER" during the second episode. But then, who knows how long "Wonderland" would have lasted anyway? After the series was canceled, a gossip column reported the anonymous comments of one of the show's stars, who revealed that some cast and crew members resented Berg's on-set antics, which included bringing his large pet dog to work and letting it defecate in people's dressing rooms. It's that kind of creative energy that made "Wonderland" the show it was. R.I.P.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
