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HBO has made many great crime shows since The Sopranos, but Boardwalk Empire explored America’s mafia culture from a historical perspective. Set within Atlantic City during the prohibition era of the 1920s, the series starred Steve Buescemi as the political tycoon Nucky Thompson. Similar to Tony Sopranos, Breaking Bad’s Walter White, or Better Call Saul’s Jimmy McGill, Nucky was a character that wasn’t quite a hero or villain. Despite his ruthless qualities, Nucky’s tragic childhood and love for the young widow Margaret Thompson (Kelly MacDonald) made him a likable character.

Over the course of five seasons, HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" interwove the fictional plot lines of a Prohibition-set crime drama with figures and events from real American history. Though it was based on a non-fiction book, "Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City," series creator Terence Winter took a page from the show's premium channel cousin "Deadwood" about what not to do in that he wanted to keep it from being easily spoiled by reading up on the history behind it. Steve Buscemi's antihero, Nucky Thompson, is only loosely based on politician and gangster Enoch L. Johnson, while other characters such as Nucky's protégé, Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), were invented out of whole cloth or, at best, nominally inspired by real people.

Winter enlisted the aid of researchers like Edward McGinty to keep "Boardwalk Empire" historically accurate, even as it went about dramatizing situations that never happened.

News of a possible Trainspotting sequel - based on Irvine Welsh's follow-up novel Porno, released in 2002 - has left us climbing on the ceiling with anticipation. Could director Danny Boyle really wrangle together the cast once more? And could Trainspotting 2 - as they definitely won't call it - live up to the hype?

With the 20th anniversary coming up just next year, here's what Spud and company have been up to since they all chose life...

Digital Spy's Porno poster:

The original Trainspotting poster:

1. Robert Carlyle

Character: Francis "Franco" Begbie

Age then: 33

Age now: 54

Biggest acting gigs since: The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes and TV's Once Upon A Time, Stargate Universe and 24: Redemption

Carlyle joined forces with Boyle again on The Beach, and worked alongside Samuel L Jackson in 51st State, but his "career highlight" has been directing his first film, The Legend of Barney Thomson,...

News of a possible Trainspotting sequel - based on Irvine Welsh's follow-up novel Porno, released in 2002 - has left us climbing on the ceiling with anticipation. Could director Danny Boyle really wrangle together the cast once more? And could Trainspotting 2 - as they definitely won't call it - live up to the hype?

With the 20th anniversary coming up just next year, here's what Spud and company have been up to since they all chose life...

Digital Spy's Porno poster:

The original Trainspotting poster:

1. Robert Carlyle

Character: Francis "Franco" Begbie

Age then: 33

Age now: 54

Biggest acting gigs since: The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes and TV's Once Upon A Time, Stargate Universe and 24: Redemption

Carlyle joined forces with Boyle again on The Beach, and worked alongside Samuel L Jackson in 51st State, but his "career highlight" has been directing his first film, The Legend of Barney Thomson,...

The Screen Actors Guild handed out the 21st annual SAG Awards Sunday night live from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Here is a rundown of all the nominees and winners as they are announced. And be sure to re-live our live blog of the show here! Theatrical Motion Pictures Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role Steve Carell / John du Pont – "Foxcatcher" (Sony Pictures Classics) Benedict Cumberbatch / Alan Turing – "The Imitation Game" (The Weinstein Company) Jake Gyllenhaal / Louis Bloom – "Nightcrawler" (Open Road Films) Michael Keaton / Riggan – "Birdman" (Fox Searchlight Pictures) **Eddie Redmayne / Stephen Hawking – "The Theory Of Everything" (Focus Features)** - Winner Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Jennifer Aniston / Claire Bennett – "Cake" (Cinelou Films) Felicity Jones / Jane Hawking – "The Theory Of Everything" (Focus Features) **Julianne Moore / Alice Howland-Jones – "Still Alice" (Sony Pictures Classics)** - Winner Rosamund Pike / Amy Dunne – "Gone Girl...

When a season is proclaimed as the final of a series there are certain freedoms it is given, and high expectations from its audience. With Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Fifth Season we see the conclusion to the story of Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve Buscemi) in some episodes that are easily the best the show has offered over the years.

Season five of Boardwalk Empire starts six years after the events of the fourth and it’s now 1931. To close the stories and look to the future of the mob we see the fates of not only Nucky, but also Al Capone (Stephen Graham), Nucky’s brother Eli (Shea Whigham), Chalky White (Michael Kenneth Williams) and a few of the other characters that have made it to the end of the show, or at least into this season.

With the skipping of years this season it is easy for the...

Nominees for the 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performances in 2014 in five film and eight television categories, as well as the SAG Awards honors for outstanding action performances by film and television stunt ensembles were announced this morning in Los Angeles at the Pacific Design Center’s SilverScreen Theater in West Hollywood.

SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard introduced Ansel Elgort (“The Fault in Our Stars,” “Divergent”) and actress/director/producer and SAG Award recipient Eva Longoria, who announced the nominees for this year’s Actors. SAG Awards Committee Chair JoBeth Williams and Vice Chair Daryl Anderson announced the stunt ensemble nominees.

The 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be simulcast live nationally on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015 at 8 p.m. (Et) / 5 p.m. (Pt) from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. An encore performance will air immediately following on TNT. The SAG Awards can...

The 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Nominations were revealed Wednesday morning, serving as yet another precursor on the long road to the Oscars.

In the film categories, Birdman was the big winner, scoring four nominations, including for Michael Keaton, Edward Norton and Emma Stone, as well as the collective ensemble cast. Boyhood followed right in its footsteps with three nods for Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and another ensemble nomination.

The big surprises of the morning’s nominations started with Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler, a bubble contender in a crowded Best Actor race, Jennifer Aniston for Cake, a bubble contender in a disappointingly less crowded Best Actress race, Robert Duvall in the poorly reviewed The Judge and Naomi Watts for St. Vincent (Watts was in Birdman as well, but that must’ve slipped SAG’s minds).

Rounding out the prize for Outstanding Cast, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game,...

As some of you may know, I'm a bit of a jack(ass) of all trades. I follow the film industry for Lr, and critique films. But I'm also an actor, I front a rock band, I'm a DJ, film editor, and director as well. Basically, when it comes to entertainment, there's nothing I don't do. For some time now, I've been mulling over bringing some of my other interests to Lr, and I'll be starting with the SAG Awards. How? Well, I've been a member of SAG for 6 years now and I also am part of the voting process. That means every year I am sent screeners of all the films being considered for awards.

Here's where a new running feature comes into play:

As I start receiving these screeners, I will write special reviews for each one and publish them here. Then, as we near the voting deadline,...

Here is the full list of nominations for the 21st annual SAG Awards, which were announced this morning at La’s Pacific Design Center.

Fox Searchlight topped the film studios with six nominations, led by Alexander Gonzales Inarritu’s Birdman, which nabbed four total nominations: for Outstanding Cast, which is the closest thing the guild has to a Best Picture category; and for star Michael Keaton and supporting actors Edward Norton and Emma Stone. It was joined in the top cast category by IFC Films’ Boyhood, which also got nods for its co-stars Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette; Searchlight’s Wes Anderson pic The Grand Budapest Hotel; the Weinstein Co’s The Imitation Game; and Focus Features’ The Theory Of Everything. The latter two biopics landed lead noms for Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones.

On The TV side, HBO led all networks with 14 noms, thanks to multiple acting...

The Screen Actors Guild announced this year's nominees for the 2014 SAG Awards. The winners will be announced during a live telecast on TNT and TBS on Saturday, Jan. 25. The nominees are as follows... Theatrical Motion Pictures Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role Steve Carell / John du Pont – "Foxcatcher" (Sony Pictures Classics) Benedict Cumberbatch / Alan Turing – "The Imitation Game" (The Weinstein Company) Jake Gyllenhaal / Louis Bloom – "Nightcrawler" (Open Road Films) Michael Keaton / Riggan – "Birdman" (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Eddie Redmayne / Stephen Hawking – "The Theory Of Everything" (Focus Features) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Jennifer Aniston / Claire Bennett – "Cake" (Cinelou Films) Felicity Jones / Jane Hawking – "The Theory Of Everything" (Focus Features) Julianne Moore / Alice Howland-Jones – "Still Alice" (Sony Pictures Classics) Rosamund Pike / Amy Dunne – "Gone Girl" (20th Century Fox) Reese Witherspoon / Cheryl Strayed – "Wild" (Fox Searchlight Pictures) Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in...

As we approach the final reckoning in Boardwalk Empire, there's little room for escape. Here's Michael's review...

This review contains spoilers

5.5 King of Norway

It’s hard not to see this season in a valedictory light, offering a pattern of reunions, score-settling and closure as characters, willingly or otherwise, attempt to find and secure a sense of closure before the shutters finally come down. It comes across like the closing of a circle, or rather several interlinked circles, that bring characters back to where they came from, again whether they like it or not. Such a view places this episode’s reunion of Nucky and Chalky in a similar context to that of Nucky and Margaret last week. In both cases, the exiled come to Nucky, surprising him by their unannounced return. In both cases too, Nucky takes the opportunity to nurture his sentimentality, seeking sweet reminiscences with Margaret and...

When the new, final season of Boardwalk Empire starts Sunday, the Roaring Twenties will be over. The Depression will will have set in, and the end of Prohibition will be just a couple of years away. That, however, doesn’t mean that the aftermath of the series’ fourth season won’t linger, even as the show settles into 1931.

In its past four seasons, Boardwalk Empire has proved that it is interested in the entirety of the sprawling gangster culture of the 1920s, not just Nucky Thompson’s bootlegging business. By moving the action to 1931, the show will most certainly contend with the changing crime landscape.

It doesn’t get more (old-timey) gangster than Boardwalk Empire’s bootlegging, gun-slinging, punch-throwing brawls. So, at Wednesday night’s season premiere and after-party at Cipriani 42nd Street, we asked the cast and other partygoers about the most gangster things they’ve ever done in real life. Michael K. Williams (Chalky White) The most gangster thing I’ve ever done was walk up to Eve the rapper and ask her out. I said, "What’s up? Will you go out with me?" She said no. But I thought that was pretty gangster. Anyway, she’s married now, so that ship has sailed. Kelly Macdonald (Margaret Thompson)Having babies. That’s pretty gangster. You can’t get tougher than that. Vincent Piazza (Lucky Luciano)Ooooh. I don’t know, probably playing Lucky Luciano — that’s the most gangster thing I’ve ever done. Pulling fake guns on people and threatening them...

On Boardwalk Empire's final day of production, Steve Buscemi broke one of his own cardinal rules. Shooting at their Steiner Studios stage in Brooklyn, the actor stood with his back turned to his onscreen counterpart, Kelly Macdonald, waiting patiently for Margaret Thompson to say the line that cues the nebulous Nucky to turn to her, and the camera, for the very last time. "Usually, I get very distracted by people in my eyeline," he told The Hollywood Reporter at the show's season five premiere on Wednesday. "But for the very last take, I requested the whole crew to watch.

read more...

We’re getting pretty close to the end of this season of Boardwalk Empire and, true to form, things are really starting to heat up. Everything that has been slowly building over the course of the season is now coming to a head: Nucky’s business dealings in Florida, Chalky’s feud with Dr. Narcisse, the fallout from Willie Thompson’s brief stint at college, and the team up between Capone and Van Alden in Chicago. The only subplot that wasn’t touched this episode was Gillian Darmody’s, and let’s be frank: it was not missed.

In fact, if you look at the quality of this season from episode to episode, it is generally the Gillian-free episodes that have been the strongest. That’s not to say that nothing interesting will happen with her subplot, but it sure hasn’t happened yet. She is not a sympathetic character,...

"Only kings understand each other." HBO's new trailer for "Boardwalk Empire" season four, premiering September 8th, highlights the arrival of the magnificently mustachioed Jeffrey Wright as Dr. Valentin Narcisse, "Doctor of Divinity, philanthropist, student of culture and the man who runs Harlem." Will he prove the new complication in Nucky Thompson's (Steve Buscemi) always complicated life? Also notable about the trailer is that, while it features glimpses of Al Capone (Stephen Graham), Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol), Richard Harrow (Jack Huston), Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon) and Chalky White (Michael Kenneth Williams), there's not a glimpse of Kelly Macdonald's Margaret Thompson. Has she exited Nucky's life for good?...

The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were handed out today in Los Angeles, with Argo taking home the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Modern Family and Downton Abbey won the top awards in the television categories. Take a look at the full list of the Screen Actors Guild Awards winners and nominations.

The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Winners and Nominations

Theatrical Motion Pictures

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Daniel Day-Lewis / Abraham Lincoln - Lincoln (Touchstone Pictures)

Bradley Cooper / Pat - Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company)

John Hawkes / Mark - The Sessions (Fox Searchlight)

Hugh Jackman / Jean Valjean - Les Miserables (Universal Pictures)

Denzel Washington / Whip Whitaker - Flight (Paramount Pictures)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Jennifer Lawrence / Tiffany - Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company)

Jessica Chastain / Maya - Zero Dark Thirty...

Ben Affleck's "Argo" continues its march as the Oscar front-runner this awards season. Yesterday, the film was the big winner at the 2013 Producers Guild Awards, and tonight, it won the big prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards taking home the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture trophy.

As predicted, Daniel Day-Lewis won the Lead Actor award for "Lincoln" while Jennifer Lawrence won the Lead Actress award for "Silver Linings Playbook."

Tommy Lee Jones won the Best Supporting Actor award for "Lincoln," and my fave, the lovely Anne Hathaway won the Best Supporting Actress award for "Les Miserables."

In the television category, "Downton Abbey" won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series and "Modern Family" took home the Comedy Series award.

Here's the complete 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® Winners (bolded and highlighted); for winners/nominees of other award-giving bodies, click here:

Theatrical...

This week Ripper Street’s H Division contended with a Victorian plague of poisoning believed to be the return of “King Cholera”, possibly inspired by the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak after a public well had been contaminated by a leak from an old cesspit that was only three feet from the well. The episode opens with a man dying, vomiting and convulsing in a fit of hysteria. It is pronounced to be cholera by the preacher who had been describing the water from the well as a “signifier of unity” of different people from different backgrounds and class; in this instance you begin to believe it is indeed, a union through death. Indeed, with the squalor conditions of Ripper Street’s Victorian London you would attribute cholera to the deaths and making the usual bustling streets become vacant. Having fought off a sexually depraved killer (I Need Light) and the...

The Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations have been announced, continuing the awards season we’re currently in the midst of, and further recognising a handful of films that are already buzzing ahead of the Oscars.

Les Misérables, Lincoln, Argo, and Silver Linings Playbook all have prominent positions in the SAG announcement, along with an interesting appearance from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in the ensemble category, Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

The awards celebrate not just the year’s best performances on the big screen, but also those on television, and some of the biggest and best TV shows have deservedly earned their places in the nominations below.

Modern Family, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and The Office continue to dominate the comedy categories. And joining them in the drama nominations are naturally Breaking Bad, Homeland, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire, and The Newsroom.

It’s...

Nominees for the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performances in 2012 in five film and eight primetime television categories as well as the SAG Awards honors for outstanding action performances by film and television stunt ensembles were announced this morning in Los Angeles at the Pacific Design Center's SilverScreen Theater in West Hollywood.

SAG-aftra Executive Vice President Ned Vaughn introduced Busy Philipps (TBS' Cougar Town and The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Social Media Ambassador) and Taye Diggs (Private Practice) who announced the nominees for this year's Actors. SAG Awards Committee Vice Chair Daryl Anderson and Committee Member Woody Schultz announced the stunt ensemble nominees.

The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be simulcast live nationally on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. (Et)/5 p.m. (Pt) from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. An encore performance will air immediately following on TNT at 10 p.

The Screen Actor Guild has announced the nominees for its 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards for outstanding performances in 2012 as well as the SAG Awards nods for outstanding action performances by film and television stunt ensembles.

Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables," David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook," and Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" led the pack with each film receiving 4 nominations including Best Ensemble.

We'll see the results of the winners of the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. (Et)/5 p.m. (Pt) from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center.

19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® Nominations

Theatrical Motion Pictures

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Bradley Cooper / Pat - .Silver Linings Playbook. (The Weinstein Company)

Daniel Day-Lewis / Abraham Lincoln - "Lincoln. (Touchstone Pictures)

John Hawkes / Mark - "The Sessions" (Fox Searchlight)

Hugh Jackman / Jean Valjean...

Pack up the women and children, the guns are out and the boys have come to play. Actually, in the case of the sane woman - that would be Margaret Thompson - there's no need to pack her up, she's getting the hell out of Dodge all on her own. But the moderately insane Gillian Darmody? She's going to take some convincing and her single mindedness may very well put young Tommy into the crossfire unless Harrow can do something about it.Recall, if you will, that last week's episode of Boardwalk Empire ended with the body of Owen Slater being delivered to Nucky Thompson's door in a plain wooden crate. Recall also that this week's episode is the season's second to last. It comes as...

Diego Corredor/MediaPunch

Talk about timeless!

At the season three premiere of Boardwalk Empire on Sept. 5, mom-to-be Kelly Macdonald graced the red carpet in a polished all-black ensemble befitting of her prim character Margaret Thompson.

The actress, who is expecting her second child with musician husband Dougie Payne, elegantly donned A Pea in the Pod‘s Lace Maternity Dress ($150), strappy heeled sandals and a smokey gray snakeskin clutch.

Love Macdonald’s classic and feminine maternity style? You’re in luck. We’ve rounded up similar styles — all under $50!

Courtesy A Pea in the Pod

Dress

Swap out your standard Lbd...

It’s the Boardwalk Empire Season 2 Finale, entitled “To The Lost”, which Proves my theory that this whole show has just been a big extended prequel to Lost. What Did I Tell You??? Van Alden is Jacob, Nucky is Rose, Jimmy is that jug of wine that got dramatically shattered in the last season, Margaret is the island, and Al Capone is Al Capone (who was secretly on the island the whole time you just never saw him). We open on Jimmy and Richard confronting a secret Klan meeting (not one of those fun ones where they sing cool Bluegrass songs), and they immediately open fire, killing two Klansmen and demanding to know which three members shot up Chalky White’s warehouse in the Season Opener: Two people violently dead two seconds into the episode? The Season Finale is underway! Jimmy presents the three tied-up Klansmen to Chalky along with...