Stephen Graham

News, Reviews & Features

Review: The Irishman is a slow burn deconstruction of mafioso mythos

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 14th December 2019

I wonder if I'll live to be old, and if so, what secrets will I have accumulated by then? I don't mean secrets like things I ate that weren't mine; more like the sort of intimate knowledge that could change the course of history, sunk so deep it weighs down the soul of even the hardest immoral criminals. I guess that's why Martin Scorsese chose to make a three-and-a-half hour film about violent mob assassins involved in some of the most shocking conspiracies the world has ever seen, and not the time I took my girlfriend's Toblerone from the fridge and denied it because I was scared.

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Review: Hellboy (2019) is... nope, already forgotten it

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 15th April 2019

In this social media driven age of bite-sized criticism and speedy reactions, opinions often get reduced to simplistic extremes. Fleabag is perfect. Bohemian Rhapsody is the worst. Paul Rudd is life. Liz Lemon is everything. Aquaman is honking bonkersness. Avengers: Age Of Ultron is the best film of the MCU. So it’s surprising when a film like Hellboy (2019) comes along and defies such snappy judgement. And it’s not because the film isn’t bad –it is, it's awful - but because it is neither entertainingly good nor entertainingly bad. It just plays out to dull, listless effect, utterly devoid of a single scintillating superlative that can be attributed to it. It’s a near-unremarkable, mostly forgettable, practically ineffectual film in almost every way. After first coming to the big screen 15 years ago to keep the theological peace, Hellboy has ended up confined to cinematic purgatory.

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Period detail on new Boardwalk Empire not what it was

TV News | Ed Williamson | 3rd August 2014

They've got the clothes out of storage again but the cost of rebuilding the sets was a bit toppy so they just shot it in the car park.

(via Domenick Lombardozzi's Instagram.)

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Too soon: the end of Empire

TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 13th January 2014

This year's fifth season of Boardwalk Empire will be its last. Most good shows these days have the knack of stopping just at the right time, but for me, this one could have run and run.

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You can't be half a gangster (acceptable fraction unspecified)

TV Video | Ed Williamson | 13th August 2012

Well then, what is a permissible fraction of gangsterdom, Boardwalk bloody Empire? Three-quarters of a gangster? Wouldn't I look stupid wearing a fedora with a quarter of it cut out? If I show up at a backroom card game with only three-quarters of the usual stake, what's going to happen? I'll be laughed out of the place, that's what. Think it through.

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If he looks enough like a woman it's not gay, right?

TV News | Ed Williamson | 14th January 2012

Like, you've spent a load of money on drinks and taxis and stuff, and once you actually figure out he's a dude it's pretty late anyway, and if he looks and sounds enough like a woman it's OK, right? That's the code, isn't it guys? I'm asking for a friend.

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This is England '88 looks like wonderful misery-fest again

TV Video | Ed Williamson | 3rd December 2011

Remember This is England '86? Well it turns out that, two years on, this was still England. Despite the widespread calls at the time to change the country's name to 'Diego Maradona Must Die'.

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Boardwalk Empire promo vids now legal tender in Greece

TV Video | Ed Williamson | 28th September 2011

In the absence of an economy strong enough to keep it in shoulder-hair trimmers and baklava, the National Bank of Greece has asked HBO to lend it some of its billions of teaser clips, character videos and behind-the-scenes trailers for Boardwalk Empire's second season to use as its currency. "We were happy to help," an HBO executive explained. "It's got to the stage where even hobos won't take them off us anyway."

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A guide to Boardwalk Empire's various synonyms for 'vagina'

TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 21st June 2011

Because in the twenties they knew how to swear. The bunch of cunnies.

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Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Movie Review | Matt | 16th May 2011

Franchises don't usually recover well from a post-trilogy hiatus when coming back for a fourth instalment (I'm looking at you, Indy - and you McClane), but Pirates Of The Caribbean has the added obstacle that each previously released film got progressively worse anyway, ending on a bloated CGI mess of a finale. So has the studio learned its lesson and made a worthy reboot? Of course not – it's utter 'yarrr'se.

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