August 20, 2001
Sorry about the delay last week, everybody. The good news is that it
actually turned out to be beneficial to this week's Boyfriend because it
gave me time to rent his latest movie, which only made my feelings for him
stronger (aw shucks! I'm in love!). In case you have no idea who that
mean-lookin' dude up there is, he's James Gandolfini, and yes, he
CAN kick your butt. But he wouldn't. Why? Because even though 9 times
out of 10, James is playing a bad ass hit man, 8 times out of those 9 he's
a hit man with heart. No, really. I'm serious. Take, for example, the role he's definitely the most famous for these
days -- that of Tony Soprano, on the HBO drama "The Sopranos." I've been
renting the first season tapes over the last month and I have to say, not
only is that probably one of the best shows I've ever seen on television,
but that Tony, I tell ya, he's totally irresistible. Yes, he shoots
people. Sorry, he "whacks" people. Yes, he beats people up. Yes, he
swears in Italian a lot. But what about that thing with the ducks in the
first episode? A family of ducks moves into Tony's swimming pool and he's
so charmed by them that when they finally fly away, he's so depressed he
ends up in therapy! Granted, a member of the mafia (sorry, I mean the
"waste management business") would probably have a couple of other issues
needing exploration in psychotherapy -- issues other than just the fact he
was really missin' those ducks. But still, this just goes to show you
that Tony Soprano is no ordinary tough guy. His problems with his family
and friends just adds to the fact that Tony is a troubled, sensitive soul
with strong loyalties to those he loves. No, really! I can tell you don't
believe me, but it's true. Okay, okay, don't take my word for it. Go rent some episodes -- you'll
see what I mean. And if you still don't get it, there are at least two movies you can
rent to get the same kind of character from James. The first is "The
Juror," in which James plays a reluctant hit man helping Alec Baldwin
convince Demi Moore to sway the jury at the trial of a mobster. The
second is the one I alluded to in the first paragraph up there, "The
Mexican." Now, to be honest, I wasn't looking forward to watching "The Mexican."
Julia Roberts can REALLY get on my nerves and ex-Boyfriend Brad Pitt still makes me
nervous -- when he's good, he's very, very good, but when he's bad, oy
vey. But since I had the extra week, and since I was sure that if I
didn't mention it, I'd get a bazillion email messages asking me why, I
decided just to go for it. Hey, James was in it and I heard he was great.
Plus, as you all know, I DO have a secret crush on Brad Pitt. Especially
when he wears those earth tones, you know? But, in reality, I loved "The Mexican." Yeah, Julia started to wear me
out after awhile, but James Gandolfini was just wonderful. The plot
involves an old Mexican gun that Brad Pitt is sent down to get for a bad
guy he owes one last favor to. Instead of being an easy pick-up, though,
it turns out to be a disastrous trip. Everything goes wrong. So, the
bad guy gets nervous that Brad has decided to sell the gun to someone else
instead and sends a hit man to kidnap Brad's girlfriend, sort of as a
safety net. The hit man? James Gandolfini. But he's no ordinary hit
man, that's for sure. To begin with, he's gay. To end with, he's
extremely sensitive (cries at least twice, spends hours talking to Julia
about her relationship problems with Brad, even eventually falls in love).
He's a big, fat, balding sweetheart and I loved him. Even though at the
end, things turned out not to be exactly as they seemed. It's worth your time and the rental fee, that's for sure. Especially
if you love it when James plays a hugable bad ass instead of a scary bad
ass. There are, of course, many examples of that latter type of role for
James -- "True Romance" leaps right to mind. But one of the things I love
about James Gandolfini (aside from his great Italian name, totally cute
face, completely lovable big ol' belly, and extremely knee-weakening
smile) is that even when he plays those really bad, bad dudes, you
still get a little twinkle that makes you wonder whether, if you just
hadn't pissed him off quite so badly, you might've been friends. A little background about James: he was born in Westwood, New Jersey
on September 18, 1961. Unlike many of our ex-Boyfriends, he didn't start
acting when he was a kid and grow into stardom by his early 20's. First
he got a degree at Rutgers. That took a few
years. Then he went on to be a bouncer (something I'm sure he was really
good at -- one glare and you would be on your way out the door) and
nightclub manager. Few more years. When a friend took him to an acting
class in the late '80s, though, he found it so challenging he kept going
back. After a tour of Scandinavia in "A Streetcar Named Desire," James
returned to New York and started to get parts on Broadway. Yay! His big-screen debut was in "A Stranger Among Us" (1992), which is a
fine little mystery though it does, unfortunately, star Melanie Griffith.
He was also in (and I think I'll just list the movies of his I've seen):
"True Romance" (a Quentin Tarantino movie), "Crimson Tide" (playing a
little dough-faced lieutenant named, of all things, "Bobby Dougherty"),
"Get Shorty" (bad-ass), "She's So Lovely" (playing the neighbor that tries
to rape The Princess Bride), a television remake of "12 Angry Men,"
"Fallen" with ex-Boyfriend Denzel
Washington, "A Civil Action" with John Travolta, and "8MM" which I
also saw recently and was impressed by (it was much better than I thought
it would be, though not the kind of movie you ever really want to see
again). Of all those movies, I think he plays a good guy in 3 at the most.
Wait, maybe it's just 2. But still, even when he's bad, he's good. And
that's why I love him so much. Lucky for me, he's got three new movies coming out, as well as the next
season of "The Sopranos" (and the second season is probably going to show
up at my video rental store pretty soon too). The first of the movies is
"The Man Who Wasn't There," the next Coen brothers movie, also starring
ex-Boyfriend Michael Badalucco
and future Boyfriend Billy Bob Thornton. After that comes "The Last
Castle," about a wrongfully court-martialed general who rallies together
1200 inmates to rise up against the system that put him away. It looks
like James plays Colonel to Robert Redford's General, which sounds like a
nice pairing. Incidentally, ex-Boyfriend Mark Ruffalo is also in it. And this
is starting to seem like "Six Degrees of Separation," isn't it?
Hold on here! I think there's an ex-Boyfriend in every James Gandolfini
movie!
Wait, wait, let's check the third one first. Lessie, the third movie is "Catch Me if You Can" and is about an FBI
agent who
tracks down and catches a young con artist, Frank Abagnale, the youngest
man to make the FBI's most-wanted list for forgery. Co-starring is. .
.dang! Leonardo DiCaprio! The Anti-Boyfriend! Well, okay, two outta three ain't bad. And besides, we're really only
in it for the Gandolfini hit (pardon my pun, har har), right? Why?
Because, for the thirtieth time, James Gandolfini is a big, sexy, cool,
talented, scary, sweet, cute-as-the-dickins bag o' lovability. And if you
still don't believe me after all this, there is officially NO HOPE FOR
YOU.The Boyfriend of the Week
MacGyver
Factor Score: 99.324%. Pretty high score, huh? Know why? Because I
can't get the theme song to "The Sopranos" out of my head. And that, my
friends, is a VERY good sign.
The Official Sopranos Site at
HBO
His IMDB page
James
Gandolfini -- The Man
My
favorite Sopranos site
Gandolfini.com
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