Word: sopranoes
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...sense of how The Sopranos changed television, get a pen and make a list of the 20 best TV dramas before 1999. This Mafia saga showed just how complex and involving TV storytelling could be, inspiring an explosion of ambitious dramas on cable and off. In Tony Soprano's world, it wasn't the Mob that kept pulling you back into old, destructive patterns; it was your family--your controlling mother, your maddening wife, your feckless kids. Meanwhile, the big-F Family drama of the declining Mafia business offered popcorn entertainment alongside the deeper insights. Some fans may have hated...
...could organize the history of TV dramas into B.T. and A.T.: Before Tony and After Tony. Before The Sopranos, TV drama was mainly divided between good guys and bad guys (with the odd exception like NYPD Blue's Andy Sipowicz). Tony Soprano and his followers on HBO, FX and elsewhere showed that audiences would follow villains with sympathetic qualities and heroes with addictive, self-destructive personalities. Move over, good guys and bad guys, these dramas said. Make room for the good...
...more an instant nostalgia for the unironic, whole-hearted unanimity with which readers embraced the story of Harry. We did something very rare for Harry Potter: we lost our cool. There is nothing particularly hip about loving Harry. He's not sexy or dangerous the way, say, Tony Soprano was. He's not an anti-hero, he's just a hero, but we fell for him anyway. It's a small sacrifice to the one that Harry makes, of course, but it's what we, as self-conscious, status-conscious modern readers, have to give, and we gave...
Some effin' good news for Tony Soprano from the Italian Supreme Court. The fictional Italian-American mobster, and millions of law-abiding real folk in the old country, can now feel more free (not that Tony ever held back) to use the Italian "V" word that - more or less - corresponds with the English "F" word. Italy's top court ruled on Tuesday that "though representative of obscene concepts [and] of a sexual nature," that world-renowned 10-letter word is merely a "vulgar manifestation of irritation." The ruling overturned a verbal abuse conviction of a 60-year-old local politician...
...gangs are involved in the production and sale of methamphetamine, and deal in marijuana through outlets known as tinny houses, named for the tinfoil tubes the drug is sold in. Regular police busts give a clue to the scale of gang involvement in the drugs trade. In 2005, Operation Soprano resulted in the conviction of the head of the Auckland-based Black Power Sindi chapter, Abraham Wharewaka, whose marijuana dealing operation netted $NZ35,000 a week. A rival Mongrel Mob chapter in the South Island became so bold as to sell cannabis from their clubhouse, posting a sign...