Question: In your Dispatch column, you said that you enjoyed Vito's Splendor in the Grass moment on The Sopranos this week. Don't you think it was a little too reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain? From the fight outside the bar, to the Splendor in the Grass moment, the whole thing was either a deliberate, or at least conscious, imitation of Brokeback. Why do something so unoriginal? Even if the story line was conceived before Brokeback came out, it seems that they should have changed the way, or at least the place, in which that last scene played out.
Answer: Let's see. A fat mobster in exile and a volunteer fireman/short-order cook ride their motorbikes into the New Hampshire countryside for a clandestine getaway where they can finally show some affection for each other, and you think that's ripping off the angst-filled, awkward yearning of those Brokeback cowboys? The only thing these stories share in common is how these characters' homosexuality upends the usual stereotypes not just of
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What's a fella to do when he has Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and (that's right, and) Ginnifer Goodwin for wives (other than invest in Hallmark stock, that is)? Big-screen star Bill Paxton talks with TV Guide about getting some real action as a Viagra-popping polygamist in HBO's new dramedy Big Love (Sundays at 10 pm/ET).
TV Guide: You're a big-screen actor with a solid career who's never done a TV series. Why make the exception for Big Love? Bill Paxton: What I saw right away was that this was a brilliant way to take an alternative lifestyle as far out there as polygamy and use it as a prism to examine contemporary society and mores.
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