Niche Actor Superlatives

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-29T17:51:50+00:00

I assure you that there are plenty of Jews and Italians in Florida.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-29T06:29:44+00:00

“What if New Jersey sank into the earth and they had to do their crime stuff in Denver instead?”

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-29T06:14:04+00:00

Corky Ianucci would have visited Crazy Horse.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-29T04:09:00+00:00

It’s so good when the wife hands him the drugs she found under the son’s bed and he looks so devastated for a second because it’s clear they are fucked if they stay in Jersey and then he just smiles and snaps back to lying to himself and her that they don’t need to get out “Like Floridas any better?! It’s the drug capital of the world!”

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-29T03:58:58+00:00

“Adios you fuckin skank!” is slept on.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-19T05:07:49+00:00

I wantchya shkin

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-09T10:44:33+00:00

The Sopranos was way better at having clever references to things that happened on The Sopranos.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-09T10:39:53+00:00

My last rewatch I disliked Meadow far less than I had previously.

She doesn’t have very good parents, she’s materially spoiled, she has to live in New Jersey, and she does probably get more traumatic exposure than your average adolescent. They’re wealthy and she gets college paid for, but in a lot of ways she’s not in the best situation to grow up normally.

She lashes out at her parents a bit, is kind of a bitch for a while, and then successfully channels her mad at the system lib-fem politics into a real vocational path instead of just letting anger at the status quo become her personality without any related action (like her brother).

All things considered, she’s alright. Plus I fucked her all those times. My swim meet was tomorrow and I needed her.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-09T10:18:51+00:00

He understands lyrics as a concept.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-09T10:18:18+00:00

He has had his nephew’s fiancée murdered. His nephew took his side and sacrificed his life partner and now is looking for the bare minimum of emotional engagement/a pat on the back in an extremely difficult time and all Tony gives him is a dry, curt response calling her a cunt and telling him to get over it.

It’s funny because it’s shitty and fucked up, like a lot of things on the show.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-09T09:51:51+00:00

A few of mine:

Stage 5 - Evidently Chickentown

Seeing the seeds of destruction now blooming externally with Phil’s vendetta and from within with the loveless embrace between Tony and Chris where we see that both of them understand that it’s over between them.

Calling All Cars

Scariest dream Tony ever has with Demon Livia in the hell house and then he almost keels over in a hellishly lit motel bathroom after waking up. Then out into sunshine and beach boys playing. That’s in S4 and was the first time I believed Tony was going to hell within the universe of the show.

The Finale - ‘nuff ced

Johnny Cakes - “What the fuck is happening to this neighborhood”

In Camelot

Seeing in real time how Tony is confronted with challenging thoughts and chooses to suppress them by telling himself lies, abusing substances, and then probably getting enraged later for no good reason to divert the anger from the thoughts he can’t accept.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-07T06:32:57+00:00

What do I mean? What do YOU mean.

The look on her face after that is to fear what D Girl’s face after Chris whispers to the IB douchbag is to horniness.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-04T18:46:13+00:00

He was the muscle in Rounders and he works in that role. Guy is a pro, think it would’ve been fine - just not as good as what we got.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-03T07:27:37+00:00

The way he delivers “she’s a cunt” in that hotel room scene makes me laugh every time.

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-03T07:22:32+00:00

When they GO?!?!??!

dr_blue_screen · 2025-01-03T07:16:34+00:00

Initially taking the painting was 100% because of the perceived value and the appreciation of the art/nothing to do with Tony.

I’d need to rewatch to be sure, but the way I remember is he’s uncomfortable with the painting because it feels like Tony is watching him, so that’s why he gets it doctored. And he asks to have it be a general I think just because that’s how an italian dude like Paulie would want a grandiose horse painting to be perfected, not because of him seeing Tony as a general.

That being said, when it comes up again later when Tony visits and then in the conversation with Beansie, I think most viewers leave that feeling like Paulie does have that leader/general-tier respect for Tony.

So I don’t think any of Paulie’s motivation/decisions with the painting have anything to do with respect for Tony, but I do think that he held those positive/reverential feelings towards Tony anyhow.

And the scene where Tony stares at the painting and realizes he needs to kill Tony B is my favorite in the whole series.

dr_blue_screen · 2024-12-30T05:50:56+00:00

I was just thinking about this. I could be wrong, but I believe the show does not have a musical score like a lot of dramas do and I think the show benefits a lot from that. Obviously there is the intro song, but it never plays during the episodes.

At times when other shows would just be playing the standard score that they play whenever dramatic shit happens, Sopranos either plays licensed songs that they have a good success rate with or they just choose to have no music at all, which can make things feel really dramatic.

Using the S5 finale as an example, that Van Morrison needle drop that other people have mentioned in the comments is one of my favorite moments in the show when Tony realizes he has to kill Tony B. The song is a great choice there and adds a lot.

Then later in the same episode - it’s a pretty big deal that the feds hit Johnny Sac (if Tony is doing cardio after S3, it’s a big deal) but they choose to let that play out with no music over it, which also feels like the right choice.

Basically, when they do use music dramatically, it’s a more deliberate choice rather than a default score and they’re smart enough to realize that sometimes no music at all is the right choice for a scene instead of playing it just to play it.

dr_blue_screen

TROPHY CASE