22 December 2024: The three latest written interviews of me are here, here and here.
Showing posts with label Hamlet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamlet. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Mayans M. C. 1.5: "Not Fredo" - "Putas and Plata"



One of my favorite parts of Mayans M. C. are the conversations - cool and wise, literate and tough, all at once.  Episode 1.5 last night had plenty of this, especially in the conversations between E. Z. and Angel, the brothers Reyes.

Talking about The Godfather, E. Z. says he wouldn't want to be Fredo.  Can't argue with that.  But the deeper import of that conversation is the meta-point that Mayans M. C. is another retelling of The Godfather story, just as Sons was a retelling of Hamlet.

And, in another highlight, Angel tells E. Z. that if they succeed in their plans, they'll have "putas and plata".  Nothing more I can say about that great line, except how's that alliteration.

Another conversation, one I won't tell you too much about, features Angel holding up a severed head - shades of a different part of Hamlet - and telling E. Z. and Coco what he'd like to do with it.  (Yeah, it's better scene than described.)

But I will tell you that I thought the rescue of Adelita was a fine piece of work.   And the closing scene, in which Miguel and Emily go at it, and she's fantasizing about E. Z. in Miguel's place, was a fine scene, too.  In fact, Mayans M. C. is top notch in just about every scene, with only three more episodes left this season (hey, did you see the news?  it's been renewed for a second season).

So far, no really major characters - ones we've come to know and love or hate - has meet his or her fate.   I find all of these characters so compelling that I almost hope none of them do.  But that's not likely to happen.   And, like Chucky - good to see this Sons alumnus in his second Mayans appearance - I'll be somewhere on the sidelines watching, though totally off-screen.


Thursday, June 21, 2007

The Sopranos and Hamlet

"And the rest is silence" - the famous, many-sided ambiguous last line of Hamlet.

The "rest" could mean respite, sleep, or remainder. The "silence" could mean quiet or death. Is the remainder - what comes after the story of Hamlet - just a time-out, or a death of everything we have seen? When Horatio says this about the bodies he finds on the floor - which we presumably know are dead - what is he telling us about what happens after?

As I was reading Dick Cavett's excellent piece written before The Sopranos' finale, I realized that, in addition to The Lady, or the Tiger echoes, The Sopranos also partakes of Hamlet.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to make that connection - just as I was not the only person to call forth The Lady, or The Tiger - but I thought it useful to record it here.

"And the rest is silence" has been praised by I. A. Richards and other literary critics as the ideal ambiguous ending. Like The Lady or the Tiger, it is a triumph of written language.

In the case of The Sopranos, the "rest" was not just silent, but sudden black. And it was shocking - in a way that the last words of Hamlet were not - because it spoke in image rather than words, and defied our expectations of how a television show, let alone a series, should end.

I'm more sure - less ambiguous - than ever that The Sopranos as a whole and its ending in particular will take its place next to Shakespeare.

listen to free podcast of this review, and reviews of all the other final nine episodes
Further reading:

The Sopranos and the Closure-Junkies

The Sopranos, or the Tiger?

The Sopranos Ninth of Nine: The Anti-Ending Ending

The Sopranos as a Nuts-and-Bolts Triumph of Non-Network TV my 2002 article

I. A. Richards' Practical Criticism

also -
Sopranos Symposium at Fordham University, May 22-25, 2008: Final Program


The Sopranos Podcasts - listen to reviews and analyses to your heart's content

And ...  A Conversation with Dominic Chianese  ... complete video and transcript

And ... reviews of the first eight episodes this final season: The SopranosFirst of NineSecond of NineThird of Nine,Fourth of NineFifth of NineSixth of NineSeventh of NineEighth of Nine



The Plot to Save Socrates





"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book





Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
 
InfiniteRegress.tv