James Gandolfini

News, Reviews & Features

The Drop

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 13th November 2014

Now look. You might have seen some pictures of Tom Hardy and a puppy. And yes, it's all very cute and everything, but I'd like it if we could just get past that and focus on what is after all a very atmospheric crime thriller that makes good use of AWWWW LOOK AT ITS WIDDLE FACE

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#LFF2013: Enough Said

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 16th October 2013

It's hard to watch a recently deceased actor in one of his final films with your opinion of his performance uncoloured. See The Dark Knight and try not to wonder a little how much the Joker's intensity fed into Heath Ledger's state of mind. But James Gandolfini is a different case: I was five seasons into rewatching The Sopranos when he passed away in June, and the fact of his death barely occurred to me as I watched him in the subsequent episodes. I got to wondering why, and didn't fully figure it out until I saw Enough Said. It was because he didn't actually do all that much. But he did nothing a lot better than plenty of other actors do something.

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Fans saddened by abrupt ending to James Gandolfini

Movie News | Ali | 20th June 2013

James Gandolfini (1961-2013)

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James Gandolfini 1961–2013

TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 20th June 2013

The Sopranos seems like such a long time ago. Most of the shows this website discusses could be termed part of television's "golden age", and so much success and acclaim has been found in their anti-heroic lead characters, it's easy to forget where this era all started. Don Draper, Walter White, Dexter, Nucky Thompson: none of these could have existed in the same way without Tony Soprano. James Gandolfini's performance, brutally masculine with a childlike vulnerability, paved the way for all of them, and set the tone for audiences to accept, and even root for, lead characters who do terrible things. He died yesterday at 51, which is far too young.

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The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Movie Review | Neil | 12th March 2013

In order to raise this review to an intellectual level beyond all others, I learned the word 'prestidigitation', which means 'sleight of hand': the cunning technique by which magicians fool you into thinking you really do have a neverending supply of loose change behind your ears. That done, all I need to do now is slip it casually into my prose, like, oh, I don't know, a magician employing prestidigitation. That was pretty smooth, right? (*runs away in a puff of smoke*)

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Zero Dark Thirty

Movie Review | Neil | 21st January 2013

If you think your job's difficult, try being a CIA officer on the hunt for the world's least favourite terrorist. If it's not bad enough that your quarry is probably holed up in an anonymous cave in the middle of nowhere, you can barely enjoy your lunch break without something exploding all over you and you have to be across some of the world's most baffling jargon. So next time your PC point blank refuses to communicate with the office printer, think yourself lucky you're not involved in a black bag operation at angels two zero AGL with only three mikes left before you're completely winchester.

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How the new poster for Killing Them Softly was made

Movie Feature | Ali | 5th September 2012

The lovely new poster for Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly (formerly Cogan's Trade) has arrived: very atmospheric it is, too. Thanks to my inside source - I shall call him only Mr Photoshop - I can exclusively reveal how it was made. The results may dazzle you.

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