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daveyh's Replies
"Solozzo himself was alert of him" - this.
It's actually because Michael goes against the earlier advice of "you relax, you make them relax" that he has to adjust his approach - he seems to let his emotions get the better of him and can't contain his disgust with Solozzo when he refuses to guarantee no more attempts on his father etc. and blurts out mid-conversation, maybe even while Solozzo's mid-sentence, that he has to go to the bathroom, almost as if to say 'i can't listen to anymore of this'.
Solozzo, who has been as friendly as he can towards Michael all night, is now more hostile than we've previously seen him - Michael's attitude has him so on edge that he frisks him even though the experienced police captain has already done so.
Therefore Solozzo would have been hyper-vigilant when that toilet door reopens, maybe with a hand ready on his own gun if Michael did "come out blasting" as originally advised.
If Solozzo did have some henchmen in there, it's off-camera and down to speculation.
Doesn't matter if there were or not, though, because Michael still had to deviate from Clemenza's plan because he'd put Solozzo on edge. And fair play to Michael, he adapts brilliantly.
presumably because it was too late, and I don't mean because their boss was already dead, I mean because Michael was in position to shoot them if they tried anything (the time they'd take to stand up and get their guns out, Michael, with his gun already in hand, would have shot - channelling his inner Biggie - 'while you're guns raising, mine is blazing')
I suppose they could have followed him out the restaurant, because, as Riraho says further down on this thread, "he makes a major production of flinging the gun down" so there's no way people will think he still has it (as Clemenza advised). Then again, as soon as he stepped out of the restaurant, the car came for him, so maybe it's a good thing for them that they didn't follow him out because if there were other Corleone people in the car, it would have been the end of Solozzo's hitters too.
I watched a documentary a while ago that suggested that a lot of the tension was stirred up by the media.
Easter weekend (which, for non-UK readers, is a 4 day weekend here) of 1964, a load of youths went to Clacton on Sea (a beach resort in Essex), some groups of "mods" and some groups of "rockers". Problem was, Easter was early that year, and the wintry weather was still going on. Consequently, a lot of the seasonal places that these kids would normally go to were still closed.
With nothing to do but wander the freezing streets, some of the visitors began committing acts of vandalism/criminal damage, couple of smashed windows etc as would happen in most city centres at the weekend, and a few dozen of them ran onto the pier which was still closed for the season - not that there was anything to break into there because there were no shows or anything on, what with it being closed! They were just doing it for a lark, as kids do - and this prompted the guy guarding the pier to call the police, who were ready to arrest them when they were done.
All in all, though, no group-related violence (or fighting of any kind) took place.
The newspapers, however, exaggerated the extent of vandalism/criminal damage that had taken place to say that the youths had been rioting, and worse still, wrongly stated that the mods and rockers had been fighting against each other.
The sensationalist headlines whipped up a frenzy, it made mods and rockers a national thing (instead of just London based and a cult/niche lifestyle), that everyone under the age of 25 had to pick a side etc
It meant that the next holiday weekend, both "sides" hit the coastal areas in numbers to "protect their own" against a potential onslaught by the other side. Both sides were on the defensive and also fired up on booze and/or drugs. So the large scale riots that happened were like a self fulfilling prophesy because such a big deal had been made out of some very minor disorder in Clacton a few weeks earlier that wasn't even anything to do with any mods/rockers rivalry.
exactly. A very awkward misunderstanding that could easily have been prevented if the patrolman Frank was shadowing had explained the situation before they went in.
Frank didn't know that it was free, and so ordered what he wanted thinking he'd be paying for it. The deli owner didn't know that Frank didn't know it was free, and thought he was taking liberties by requesting something other than the "free special" of the day.
And even then, the owner could have given Frank the nice lean beef and explained the situation, that in future you take what's on offer, instead of giving him the fatty beef out of spite.
Like another poster has already said, it was his first taste of "corruption" and shows that some of his colleagues were more interested in using their position to literally get a free lunch than they were in doing their jobs properly. And it shows that no-one wins because often this free lunch wouldn't be what you wanted.
also the way he talks after being shot (and throughout the movie, to an extent) reminded me of the way Michael talks after McCluskey breaks his jaw, before he gets it fixed
thanks, I wanted to ask that too! Also, the park where all the corrupt cops have that big outdoor meeting and you can practically see into the stadium in the background - where is that?
if he hadn't been so disillusioned after the mayor's office proved to be a bust, he might have gone with the other suggestions (including the Times). It's a pity Tony Roberts didn't suggest this option first, but I guess his friendship with the guy at the mayor's office influenced him to opt for that at the beginning.
Serpico only reaches out to him about going to the times when he does out of sheer desperation. Like he says, in case anything should happen to him. And it's a nice touch that Tony Roberts is now playing down the impact it might have, in complete contrast to his bragging earlier in the movie.
and it doesn't help that in S5, the Homicide offices has so much more screen-time than in the other series - between McNulty being back there and then the whole fake-serial-killer story, Kima working murders on her own, and Bunk working back on old cases relating to Marlo, so really it needed a change of scenery for other scenes more than any other series, and instead we got more of the same
i found that to be my experience with the entire latter part of Season 5. I'm not normally a binge-watcher and can happily wait for the next episode, but with this I was going through episode after episode because it was so intense.
I thought I might get more out of it on second viewing, because I wouldn't be impatient to find out what happens next/how it ends, and could therefore relax and enjoy the show, maybe catch stuff that I missed first time around or appreciate bits that foreshadowed what would happen later. Instead I found it to be rather flat and there's enough recent posts on here poking holes in some of the goings on towards the end.
In fact the only part of all 5 seasons I enjoyed more 2nd time around was the early part of season 2 (prior to the introduction of Saul). That aside, I've never known a show be so much less satisfying second time around, especially when it was so enjoyable and gripping on first viewing.
he was civil with him at that first meeting, even wishing him well at the end. I guess the 2nd encounter, when Benny wanted Steffi to be sent over to him, offering champagne in exchange, Carlito let his pride get in the way. Conceding to this would feel like letting Benny take advantage - while he was happy to tolerate/be civil towards him, he drew the line at having to show respect towards him. He more or less said those words himself. "moves a couple of ounces, I've supposed to respect him?!" or something to that effect
Going off the figures people are saying here, the 30k he pockets after that thing with his cousin and the pool table would be worth at least 100k in today's money. While not exactly enough to live off forever, it would certainly be enough to move to another city and keep him going for a few months, maybe even a year, while he figures out what to do. Instead he invests almost all of it into Saso's club because that world is all he knows (hell, Kleinfeld was willing to front his 25k investment for that anyway).
Basically instead of using that "found money" to go straight and get away from the old life and the old temptations, he buys into a club owned/run by someone who's at least connected to the street in Saso, frequented by gangsters and invested into by his mob lawyer and associates. It was always going to drag him back in, especially since he seemed to be spending almost every night there.
They were preoccupied with Vincent Tag, who they'd just gunned down. Still, Benny must have been using one hell of a silencer.
Even if Benny hadn't been there, I also wonder how likely it would be that the Miami train would still leave given what had just happened
I hadn't really thought about that before, but yeah, in 2 they extended to the docks and general port area, and like you say in 4, they had the school. OK, in 3 the political offices maybe weren't as exciting but at least it was an upmarket change of scenery. But in 5, the journalists, their clothes, their bosses, and the office itself were kinda interchangeable with the Homicide unit. It could even have been filmed in the same room! You even have Gus drinking in a cop bar by the end of it (ironically played by one of the original actors from Homicide!).
I think because it was only a 10 episode series, there wasn't time to flesh out the characters enough, and i've read elsewhere that that, combined maybe with David Simon's bias from his own experience as a journalist, caused the Baltimore Sun staff, especially Templeton and the bosses, to come across as caricatures .
It's a shame because Gus and the guy who does the story on Bubs were kinda cool and I'd like to have seen a bit more depth to them. But the fact that I can't tell you his name speaks volumes. The only other one I could name was Alma.
Going around in broad daylight was the whole point though at this stage - shouting Marlo's name, calling him a coward in front of all the street players. His reasoning may have been that none of the adult or even teenage dealers would seize on this, not because they were scared of the clearly incapacitated Omar, but because it would mean Marlo would find out that Omar was wandering around giving him a bad name in the street and would either be annoyed with his closer members for not informing him (which could lead to retaliation by them), or Marlo might want to teach a lesson to the individual who killed Omar for daring to act on his behalf without authorisation.
They way Omar saw it, either word gets back to Marlo, who faces him man to man, or word is out that Marlo is weak and is nothing in the streets.
What he hadn't factored in, as you say, is a child with nothing to lose and no prejudices towards Omar's reputation seeing it as an opportunity to take him out. As other posters have said, he maybe had gotten a little complacent re his reputation in that sense, especially since he'd been away from the street for at least 18 months.
In some way, though, it worked posthumously for Omar. Michael raised concerns with Chris and Snoop about them not wanting to let Marlo know that Omar had been calling him out in the street. This proved to be the final straw as far as their relationship with Michael was concerned, it led to the legendary MY NAME IS MY NAME rant from Marlo, and more importantly, their botched attempt on Michael led to the demise of Snoop (a key member of the Stansfield organisation) and later to Michael robbing that rim shop which had previously been Marlo's main stash house.
It's evident in the final scene featuring Marlo, too, that Omar's become a legend of that world while they don't even know who Marlo is. So in that sense, too, Omar "died the hero" and so arguably won in that way too.
only saw this movie a couple of weeks ago so i'm replying to a 15 year old question and a thread that hasn't been updated since the imdb days, but anyway....
As others have said, it depends on the individuals - and by that, both the chaser and chasee.
It's actually shown brilliantly in the movie, when they're at that party and 2 of James Franco's jock friends are shooting firecrackers at girls. Upon seeing this and overhearing James Franco saying words to the effect of"they'll be getting laid later", Aaron Paul does the same to the 3 girls that he and his friends had been sat opposite in awkward silence all night. It doesn't go well. He even says "I'm being a jerk" when one of the girls asked why he did that. To no avail.
So what works with one couple might not work for another.
There are numerous reasons why the firecracker stunt was OK for the jocks but not for Aaron Paul's character, the biggest one being context. I guess that's what it's all about.
i've gotta say, of all the teen-movies of that time (and there was a glut of them at the turn of the millennium, until Not Another Teen Movie destroyed them all, including this one!), this is the only one that I can re-watch and still enjoy.
Maybe it's simply one of those guilty-pleasure rainy-day movies - it possibly helps that I first saw it on TV in the daytime during winter, so I don't really associate it with being a big schools-out summer-friday-night kinda movie, even though that's what it's supposed to be.
I also think, though, that when you get past all the cheese and some of the over the top characters (plus the dubious "moral of the story" that obsessive behaviour pays off in the end), there is some nuance and depth to it. Whether it was intended or whether I've just seen this movie too many times and am reading to much into it, I can't say.
wouldn't really need it to have her fingerprints on it though if he was going to put the knife into her hand after the deed anyway
the original Invisible Man doesn't have this problem - at the beginning, he's even wearing clothes (including a hat, sunglasses and a scarf around his face) to mask the fact that he's invisible.
just to add, I'm about halfway through the book and there's no mention of any kind of music at all. Dickie's a wannabe painter, Freddie's a self-styled playwrite. They only go to bars/clubs to get drunk. They do go to San Remo but not for any kind of special jazz festival. There's also no mention of Tom being a amateur pianist or liking classical music either. Peter's not made an appearance yet though so maybe that will change.
Marge is still a wannabe novelist.
It's interesting the the film makers chose to bring the music element into it. Maybe they felt it would be more relatable, or maybe they figured a few musical numbers (especially My Funny Valentine and Americano - oh, and how could i forget May I?!) would make the movie flow better and add a bit of fun to what is a pretty dark story.
that, for me, is the problem - they were treating Casey and Frank as dual protagonists, when, for me, Casey is the main character - think how much more screen time she has, and the story is predominantly told from her side - in fact, if the "fix" the OP mentions is applied, the entire thing is from her point of view only.
Anyway, long story short, the first appearances of Casey and adult Frank were originally supposed to be the ones we only see well into the story, and the "is this thing on..." intro was added in post production. But not because it was originally supposed to be shown in the OP's "fixed" way, which for me is still the best option and how I view the movie now. If I knew anything about it, I'd make a 'fan edit' that way, maybe throwing some of the deleted scenes in there too. But not the 'extended family' ones, because they kinda sucked