CHRISTOPHER: I’m workin’ my ass off on this movie script. You know how many pages I got? Nineteen.
PAULIE: Is that a lot or a little?
CHRISTOPHER: Books say a movie’s supposed to be about 120 pages.
PAULIE: [whistles softly].
CHRISTOPHER: With this f***in’ computer, I thought it would do a lot of it.
PAULIE [menacingly]: If you’re bein’ frank about the business, kid—
CHRISTOPHER: I would never do that. It’s only “Suggested by.”
PAULIE: That writer—with the bullfights? He blew his own f***in’ head off.
CHRISTOPHER: I bought a script-writin’ program and everything.
PAULIE: My advice? Put that thing down a while. We go get our joints copped and tomorrow the words will come blowin’ out your ass.
—The Sopranos, episode VIII

Television is the great postmodern medium. In “The Soprano ...

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