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Post by Michael on Jun 12, 2007 4:00:31 GMT
Aside from Edie Falco and James Gandolfini, the acting on The Sopranos is pretty damn awful.
I only saw the first 2 episodes of this season, and only because I got this free preview thing for HBO. My parents fucking cancelled HBO last winter. Assholes.
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Post by Vercetti on Jun 12, 2007 5:01:15 GMT
So I will assume you mean "Soprano Home Movies" and "Stage 5."
How the hell is the majority aside Falco and Gandolfini bad actors?
Are you telling me Vince Curatola didn't kick ass? He has been the most intelligent and calculating of the criminals on the show, and Stage 5 was his peak of acting, especially when the guard yells at his family for embracing him. Frank Vincent in the final scene? Michael Imperioli?
I can see you knocking Cleaver's acting, considering it's a mock movie, but the actual show?
The Sopranos is the best written and acted television drama of all time.
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Jun 12, 2007 6:08:09 GMT
Frank Vincent and Michael Imperioli were both excellent in the last season to name two standouts. Lorianne Bracco, Steven Schrimpirra, and Aida Turturro are all good. I have actually been suprised with Robert Iler too, he was great in this last season
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Post by jrod on Jun 12, 2007 6:30:03 GMT
Spoilers of course....
We didnt even see it coming, but now the story is over for us. This phase of Tonys life began with a psychiatrist, now he is about to begin a new phase that we dont get to see. We got whacked, and now its over. Fade to black.
The last scene was excellent. We got a sample of what Tony is going through every second for the rest of his life. The tension, the fear. Hell, even if he manages to survive he still has to worry about realigning his biggest crew, replacing his guys, and dealing with a probable court case prompted by a probable rat. Its all in the lyrics of the song playing at the time "and the movie never ends it goes on and on and on and on".
Kudos to Chase for not taking one of the obvious routes at the end. Most people probably didnt like it, but I thought it did an excellent job summing up everything the show was about.
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Post by Michael on Jun 12, 2007 7:23:48 GMT
So I will assume you mean "Soprano Home Movies" and "Stage 5." How the hell is the majority aside Falco and Gandolfini bad actors? Are you telling me Vince Curatola didn't kick ass? He has been the most intelligent and calculating of the criminals on the show, and Stage 5 was his peak of acting, especially when the guard yells at his family for embracing him. Frank Vincent in the final scene? Michael Imperioli? I can see you knocking Cleaver's acting, considering it's a mock movie, but the actual show? The Sopranos is the best written and acted television drama of all time. I don't know, sometimes it seems like the characters are overblown caricatures of the stereotypical "How you doin'?" type Italians. In the scenes where they need to be passionate, it works well, but a lot of the dialogue seems a little forced and cheesy. I think it was an episode last season where two guys were going around to local businesses to extort them, and came upon a coffee shop that was owned by a corporation. The conversation that took place between the two guys and the black supervisor was so poorly done, it made me cringe. And in one of the first few episodes I remember Chris shooting some guy that worked at a bakery in the foot and saying something really cheesy like, "You're gonna wish you took that job at McDonald's!" Then the guy whimped out, and said something like "You shot me in the foot man!" where Chris replies with "It happens." Kind of lame. Falco and Gandolfini are always amazing though, especially Falco. Her acting gave me chills in the episodes where Tony was in the hospital. BTW, all I've seen of the Sopranos are the first 3 seasons, and the first 14 episodes of season 6.
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Post by Valenti on Jun 12, 2007 10:30:56 GMT
I don't know about the coffee shop thing, but the scene with Christopher shooting that bakery guy in the foot I thought was very well done.
The lines pretty well showed that Christopher views himself as one of those hardcore don't take shit from nobody gangsters. He was trying to act cool, and of course it would sound cheesy, as it often does when people try to act cool.
I don't know, that's what I took from it.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jun 12, 2007 14:46:30 GMT
I don't think every actor that has been on the show is outstanding. Joseph R. Gannascoli, who played Vito, was not very good, in my opinion. If they had gotten a stronger actor in the beginning to play his role, I think there would be less complaints about the Vito storyline.
Browsing around the IMDb boards, it seems a lot of people don't like the acting of Robert Iler or Jason Cerbone (who played Jackie Jr. in Season 3), but I have a problem with those complaints. For one, Iler, in my opinion, improved dramatically this season. And Cerbone's character was an idiot anyway, so I thought the actor did a perfect job with that.
Vercetti, you are right on in praising Curatola. I think the main cast is excellent, and always has been. Joe Pantoliano comes to mind as probably giving the best performance on the show, for me at least.
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Post by Vercetti on Jun 13, 2007 1:08:00 GMT
Not every moment can be dramatic. The "how you doin" stereotype you're referring to is simply characters acting normal. The Sopranos mirrors how my family acts, especially since I have relatives from Jersey and New York. Paulie can be emotional for instance in the hospital crying over his mother issues, but when he's around the guys, joking around, it's perfectly realistic. The extortion scene you referred to isn't cheesey to me, and neither is the bakery. The only cheesey moments I can think of is a handful of scenes involving extras mainly, considering not every extra is a gifted actor. But otherwise on a whole, the core cast is very well cast and acted.
Omar, on a comedy level I always loved Paulie and Ralphie as favorites, however on a serious level, Johnny Sack and Chris definitely reign as my favorite characters, especially Sack. Curatola brings an amazing punch of collected intensity to the role.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jun 13, 2007 17:30:31 GMT
Ralphie was always a funny character, but the episode "Whoever Did This" is one of my favorites, and it really shows what a complex character Ralphie was, and what a great actor Pantoliano truly is.
And don't forget, while Chris was a more serious character, he could be funny too, i.e. "Pine Barrens", or just about any scene with him and Paulie. Actually, if anybody had a scene with Paulie, it was probably a funny one.
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Jenson71
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Post by Jenson71 on Jun 17, 2007 4:15:21 GMT
Okay, I have unfortunately only seen 1 episode of The Sopranos, and that was the pilot. I would like to see all of them some month. Just go crazy nonstop sitting and watching.
But I did see the ending, and I think it's brilliant. I've even read some theories, and my vote is yeah, he died. It was such a great way to end. I can't imagine watching it in real time. I would have gone crazy! WTF WTF WHO SHUT THE F***ING TV OFF YOU SONS A BITCHES!!! *dies of heart attack*
Brilliant.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jun 18, 2007 3:54:32 GMT
Good job I stayed well away from this thread until I watched the whole season. Kudos to my discipline, it served me well. Thoughts to come later, on each episode. For now, I'm very pleased with the way it ended, but still pissed off with that really cheap flashback in the second episode, to the season 5 finale with the whole "2004" thing. Also, I realised that AJ has always reminded me of DVC.
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Post by Michael on Jun 18, 2007 3:59:03 GMT
Also, I realised that AJ has always reminded me of DVC. I actually said that a while ago. There are a lot of parallels between me and him. A lot of people think he's an annoying character. ;D
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jun 18, 2007 4:00:26 GMT
(In response to a deleted post):
But for now
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Don't like the way Chrissy was killed off without any sort of emotional complexity at all. I think the writing this season was a shambles at times and never reached the heights or sophistication of previous seasons, and I don't for a second buy into the notion that Chase planned the finale with foresight beyond two or three episodes. The whole structure of this final season was pretty loose... it always is, of course, but I found it somewhat irritating that some major characters who we've followed for seven years now are killed off and forgotten about. Chris was out from the start of this season, that was hinted at and I inferred it with looming resignation, but still, fuck me, what a lazy way to wrap things up.
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Post by Capo on Jun 18, 2007 4:00:57 GMT
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Post by Capo on Jun 18, 2007 23:22:17 GMT
(In response to a deleted post):
I found them all on SoulSeek, and since I have the house to myself for a week, I left them on overnight.
Perhaps I was irritated last night because I basically watched the last seven episodes in a row, and finished the season at half five in the morning. Too much of a good thing...?
In the past, a lot of people have criticised certain episodes for being "filler" episodes, in which nothing much happens, it's just to pad the series out to thirteen episodes or whatever. I might have had a problem with these, if that were the case, but for the most part, filler or not, I've always thought the episodes dedicated time to characters fascinating enough to make it worth watching. And I very much like the lapses in continuity, and understand that Chase wants each episode to stand alone as a mini, resolved film.
But this season, if the structure was the same, I think it had the opposite effect. Things are hinted at, but they never really gain momentum or emotional weight or potential until they're actually happening. I don't have a problem with the tying up of certain characters, not even in the way they were tied up, but I think the writing leading up to climaxes was erratic and all over the place - the result of different writers for each episode, I suppose.
On the one hand, a lot of plot twists were genuinely surprising, but on the other, I think they chose to skirt over the psychological implications of such would-be intense situations. It might be uber-ambiguous, or it might be bad structuring, inconsistent narrative flow, that makes me think that Tony's callousness following Chris's murder was very inconvincing and lazy. It was hinted at early on this season that Chris was on his way out, but Imperioli had little air time - compare it with the air time Curatola got in the episode in which Johnny Sack passes. I've watched and followed this show closely for seven years now, and have come to love Christopher in the same way I love Tony, in the same way, even, that I love watching Phil Leotardo. So all of a sudden, when Tony kills him, I'm supposed to think, "Yeah, Tony's such a dark character underneath"? I already knew that; but sorry, I'm not buying into the notion that he feels nothing but relief. It has the same emotional shallowness as some of Michael's scenes in The Godfather Part II (which I love, by the way).
I also had a problem with how quick Melfi got her act together and threw Tony out; very convenient, very unconvincing. I think killing off Bobby, Sil (more or less) and Chris was very bold, and I don't disagree with any of them. But if we get a real sense of tension when Tony's on the run from New York, we get little sense of the devastating loss it is for everyone involved - Janice, thanks to Aida Turturro's fantastic skills, was the most convincing.
I think this season had the most potential to be the best, to be the strongest in acting, to really stretch the actors - Gandolfini especially, Falco perhaps even more so - but the writing and editing let it down. It was, after Chris's death, pretty much empty of feeling.
That's not to say I didn't like it; it's too fascinating to dismiss, though it probably is the most dissatisfying of all the seasons, it's still very good. I just think it was very, very irritating at times.
A word on the second episode, which begins with "2004", a flashback to the season 5 finale. And it's suddenly revealed that someone saw Tony drop his gun. I have absolutely no problem with this as long as it was left over from that scene in the first place (ie. it was planned all along, as a loose-end which comes to stab Tony in the back). But nooooooooo, what I suspect happened was Chase and co. are thinking up ways to get Tony back under the Feds' scrutiny, so hey, why not go back to that scene and add something. Borrowing from their own material instead of fresh creative heads. Very cheap. I see that season 5 finale as a narrative device to get Johnny Sack behind bars, not Tony. And now its original intentions have been marred and changed, and I'm supposed to go along with it? No thanks.
And episode 4, in which Tony suddenly has a gambling addiction. It annoyed me in the same way Tony suddenly has a cocaine addiction in season 5 when he and Ade almost screw each other. Both times, the addiction isn't even hinted at before that episode, and is never explored again thereafter.
It's the result of a) Chase wanting each episode to be like a self-contained mini movie (he's said this from early on, its basis can be found in season 1's fifth episode, "College", and each season has become more and more fragmented and episodic), and b) having different writers and directors working on the same characters.
So, what, now we're supposed to see that Tony is a gambling addict, and believe that it's been there all along? I think it's verrrrrry cheap writing, at best. Though the scene in which Carmela throws the furniture at him (because he says some really nasty things) brought, as ever, the best out of Edie Falco.
Thoughts?
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Post by Capo on Jun 21, 2007 3:37:52 GMT
(In response to a deleted post): Tony despite his charisma, charm, and occasional tenderness (that in the wider scope of the series, rarely comes out), he's not a good human being. Ultimately, he is selfish and killing Chrissy was an act of self-preservation. He isn't going to the can for a drug/alcohol abuser. Well, like I said, I don't have a problem with Tony killing Christopher. I just get the feeling that there was not enough airtime given to their relationship falling to bits. It was clear, but it was dwelled upon - you'd probably disagree with this, but where were the lingering shots of Tony realising Christopher was just another fucking disappointment? Some things are dwelled upon on the show, and I felt this, the most interesting relationship after Tony/Livia (Chris is virtually Tony's groomed heir until season 4), was skirted over somewhat. Again, my problem isn't so much that Tony killed Chris, but still, I don't believe there was enough airtime given to their dwindling friendship in order to make it fully credible. Perhaps they wanted Tony's murder to be as shocking as possible, but I think they could have shown Tony was fed up in more convincing detail and it would have still been shocking. She has, yes, but I feel it was extremely out of character for her professionalism to suddenly be dropped. It might have been more credible had we had more catalysts; as it is, though, I don't think that was even possible given how little time was dedicated to Melfi and the Tony's therapy in the latter seasons. Those were some of my favourite scenes, and I think their absence left a big psychological void in the show. No, I don't mean that; I mean it was a convenient and rushed - and frankly, a skirted over issue - way of tying up a narrative thread which had little impact on the overall show anyway in the episodes leading to it. Good point; but whereas Jackie Jr. got almost an entire episode (and season finale no less) dedicated to his wake, Bobby gets one scene in a rapid episode dedicated to his. (More on this to come.) Yeah, on the characters' parts. And I suppose it does fit the way the story is going; things are all down the drain, Tony is beyond redemption, and I suppose too that the final quarter of the show speeds up only to follow the convention of a final, Shakespearean act, in which things have already been set up, and so events happen and characters act, and we no longer need to dwell on motives, because that kind of stuff is a given now. But I don't know; it seemed very messy in rhythm, this last season. It's been erratic for a few seasons now, of course, far from consistent, but I've always been fond of its slow pacing, its coming and going of characters and plot strands - but while I never complained about those so-called "filler" episodes, now in retrospect it seems as though they all led to padding out seasons, to reach thirteen episodes, and then when the real action comes, it comes compressed, with not so much narrative drive and purpose as "let's finally give everyone what they want". It felt rushed. I should note again, though, that I watched the last seven episodes back to back through the night. My mood might have had something to do with my reaction. Yeah, definitely, it probably could bring his entire empire down. But I still have major problems with it. I see that scene as a way of getting rid of Johnny Sack, not Tony. And now we're revisiting it as a sort of plot twist. I hate that kind of stuff; I felt really cheated, and it stuck out like a sore thumb for me. I may well have muttered the same thing as you: "What if someone finds that gun?" But the fact is, at the time of watching it, nobody did see the gun - if Chase intended that they had, then I think he's a bad storyteller in not showing us, and if he hadn't had that in mind, I think he's a lazy one. I don't know either way, but it bothers me that we even went back to that scene... and in any case, nothing came of it anyway. That in itself is "filler" material, to me. No, you're right. But even if there are references, suddenly there's an episode dedicated to it, exploring it as a serious issue in his character trait, a major flaw. I feel like I'm coming across as if I despised the last season, but I didn't. I think this season had the most creative and memorable deaths. I just found that the little things that bothered me and irritated me in previous seasons came to prominence when I expected them and needed them the least. How would people rate the seasons? I'd go with: 3, 5, 4, 1, 2, 6a, 6b
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Post by Capo on Jun 21, 2007 15:11:57 GMT
(In response to a deleted post):I thought season 4 was the worst by far when I first watched it, but whenever I revisit it now I find its dark humour, rich cinematography and acting much appealing, and more sophisticated than all bar season five, and more consistent than all bar season three. I like shooting the shit, by the way; especially with you. I went over the final scene on the GangsterBB. This is what I wrote: (In response to this article.) For what it's worth, although I don't like them that much, I always eat onion rings whole. I noticed how they were devouring them - Carmela doing so seemed most odd, or out of character, or deliberate, or symbolic. But let's deconstruct things a little further, here, not to demystify that incredible final scene and prove what happened this way or that way; whether Tony lives or dies takes nothing away from the brilliance of that scene, and frankly, whether Tony lives or dies is besides the point. Firstly, if Chase intended all of those things (which, for the sake of argument, let's say he did), the colour palettes, the food references, that Tiger, the bulge in the guy's jacket, the cut to black, the flashbacks to Tony's conversation with Bobby, AJ's entrance, everything - and so it's so fucking "obvious" to us, right? Yeah, of course: Tony dies, deal with it. Well, no, not exactly. Before I go on: that oepning shot of the episode, which shows Tony lying possibly at a wake - I don't think Carmela would have agreed that he's dressed like that at his own wake - he is, after all, Head of the Family. My first point of contention, then, is that this guy Bob Harris is writing as if the symbolism is obvious (a "two by four over the head", he calls it). Symbolism is obvious, otherwise it's abstract - it needs to be obvious in order to be extracted and understood - and Chase and the other writers and directors have been very obvious in their meaning and signifiers throughout the show; I've nothing against that at all, by the way, it makes for sophisticated narrative threads, and it reached its peak in season 6 part I. But if this is so obvious, if everything points to Tony dying, then why is it even a point of discussion? Why is it even open to debate? It is symbolism, but it's not symbolism to infer something in one way, it's suggestive symbolism, to suggest something in one way only to manipulate and offer an opening in the other way, the other possibility (and hence the question "Is He Dead?") Secondly, Harris's whole argument amounts to, "I'm either right on this, or I've been undone by a massive, massive coincidence". Riiiiiight. Like we don't already know. (Actually, forget that sarcasm, the majority of people actually don't know, that the entire mise-en-scene in that scene was deliberate, was intended, and that's why it's such a fucking tense scene, and why it's ultimately a brilliant one.) So, because of this, I'm not disputing that everything which happens in the scene is deliberate - Chase knows what he's doing, he's well aware of the psychological manipulation of an audience that mise-en-scene is capable of, and responsible for. But coming back to my first point of contention: my favourite novelist John Fowles once said of the climax to my favourite novel The Magus that, "They never saw each other again". He said this years after telling a dying man who wished to know that, "Yes, of course they saw each other again." My point isn't merely to remind us of the ambiguity of the final scene of The Sopranos, but it is to lament how curiosity leads to reductive demystification. I realise sometimes the need to find out, to prove something this way or that way, to wonder what happened or what happens. At the end of the second season of 24 I was like WTF? I couldn't wait for the third season to start, to find out what happened. Why couldn't I wait? Because I knew that a third season was being made and going to be released, so I was in the hands of an artificial show, and was happily going along with it. Now, The Sopranos is finished (for now, at least), with that finale. It's final. Furthermore, like my 24 example, it is a product of artifice. We all know this, of course, but to follow the insightful Bob Harris's line of thinking, Chase not only was deliberate in including oranges, onion rings, references to Catholic death and "The Last Supper" in that scene, but was also deliberate to include a narrative thread in season 6 I and II with Christopher making movies - we see an artificial work inside an artificial work, and Tony and Carmela drawing up different interpretations as to what Christopher intended or didn't intend with his portrayal of Tony in Cleaver. That's as much a stroke of genius as is that tiger on the wall of the restaurant (a big stroke or a little stroke, I don't know). And so if I've gone along with the show and been happily manipulated by its fine acting, writing and directing (despite irritating moments), then I can do nothing but go along with the ambiguity of the finale. A profound scene? A cop-out? I don't know, but what I do know is that I could easily (as I did by pointing out Tony's clothes at that possible foresighted wake) get onto issues as to who, of all the remaining characters, would want Tony dead, and furthermore, why? Bob Harris might answer, "But that could be anybody, that's the whole point", in which case I'd answer that that final scene was indeed lazy. But I don't think it is. On top of this, hasn't anybody heard of subjective verisimilitude. For an example, watch David Fincher's recent masterpiece Zodiac, and see the scene in which Jake Gyllenhal enters a basement of a benign man who suddenly turns into prime suspect for serial killer. He isn't, of course, it's just Gyllenhal's paranoia - and, more importantly, our paranoia, as an audience. Just because Tony's paying attention to AJ doesn't mean he's oblivious to Members Only guy; it's because, in light of what's happened, we as an audience are entrenched in his way of thinking. It's a very expressionistic slant on dramatic irony. But coming back to withholding some sort of integrity and respect for ambiguity. I'm the kind of person who, as you may have gathered, so long as it doesn't strike me as contrived pap (which, had that scene gone on for three seconds later than it did, would have), goes along with a narrative's ambiguity. To me, it's not even a question of whether or not Tony Soprano died, it's a question whether or not the scene worked. Which it did, because I'm going to watch it again in a minute.
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Post by Michael on Jun 30, 2007 5:32:40 GMT
I've been watching some episodes of the Sopranos on A&E, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't like this show. At all.
And I can't really explain why at this point.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jul 22, 2007 1:32:00 GMT
(In response to a deleted post):
Kino, sorry for the late reply, mate; what I meant by the Christopher narrative being rushed, or Tony's (murderous) thoughts toward him being unfounded, if you watch a few scenes in season five and six, with the directors using slow-motion to show characters' paranoia... in the scene where Tony's telling jokes at Feech's card game, and Paulie et al. are laughing at him, but Feech isn't; in season six A, when Tony's eyeing up all of his soldati's muscles, and ends up punching his new chauffeur all over; and in season six B, when Christopher gets drunk in front of the others and realises they're all taking the piss out of him. That's what I meant by lingering shots.
But, for the record, I've re-watched the entire season six A and B since I last entered this thread, and must say I absolutely loved them both. Many of my annoyances with B were discarded on a rewatch, Christopher's demise being one of them.
A new ranking of the seasons:
3 6A 5 6B 4 1 2
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jul 22, 2007 20:26:18 GMT
The past few weeks or so, I've been coming home pretty late and have been catching the reruns on A&E. It seems as if they've only been showing season four, but I'm almost convinced that this is the best season.
It's a lot slower, but it spends more time focusing on what many would consider mundane aspects of the show in future episodes. The HUD scam is very interesting, and gives great insight into other criminal empires that both the mob and politicians embark on. There is also great focus put on Carmella, and her struggle with finances and her crush on Furio. No doubt, it was her best season. And for some reason, I like seeing Paulie in jail.
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