I love doing the column from Europe because your clock is way ahead of everyone in the States (especially L.A. — nine hours!). But I was asleep five or six hours ago when the biggest nuclear explosion to hit the movie and acting realm in many a moon — the sudden death of James Gandolfini, 51, in Rome — was first reported. I woke up at 5:30 am and saw the news…the fuck? WHAT? Okay, I wasn’t 100% surprised (and I’ve already been warned on Twitter to stay away from this line of thinking) but for me this is almost on the level of John Lennon‘s death in terms of its shock and untimeliness. I feel devastated. Thank God for Gandolfini’s brilliance in David Chase‘s The Sopranos and the way he conveyed those feelings of being trapped and haunted and terrified by that sense of being surrounded by goblins…he was our Hamlet, our Macbeth, our James Tyrone. Thank God I have all of that on Bluray to have and to hold.

My plane to NYC/JFK leaves around 5 pm afternoon, or about eight hours hence. One last stroll around the Place Bastille area, one last lunch at some busy-ass cafe, one or two final rides on the Metro. (I have three tickets left in my wallet — perfect.) I’m completely ready to leave but there are always those last-minute tingles of feeling, little twinges.

Does it bother anyone, at least a little bit, that when Warren Beatty co-starred wth Elizabeth Taylor in George Stevens‘ The Only Game in Town (’69) his character was called Joe Grady, and when he starred in The Parallax View five years later his character was called Joe Frady? Stevens’ final film, written by Frank (father of Tony) Gilroy, was a critical and commercial dud. It’s talky, flat, dull as dishwater. It was so inert and unfulfilling, in fact, that Stevens’ son, George Stevens, Jr., didn’t even mention it in his documentary, George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey. The limited edition Game Bluray is out via Twilight Time.

Last night some Guardian reader (“Loopy Tunes”) bitched about the comic-book superhero movies and reboots in…I was going to say “the usual way” but this guy was on fire. Grammatical and spelling issues aside, he spells it out plain as pie.

My younger brother is a bit of a reckless asshole, which may be due to his having a screw loose. I can’t change or save him. He is who he is and has to deal with his issues…or not. He went to Iraq on his own steam. Did he come back a little fucked up? Yeah, and I’m sorry. My father was a little fucked up also after Vietnam. Life is hard, man, but you have to sink or swim. But now that my no-account brother is missing, probably taken out by his bad-guy colleagues, I have to do the old “avenge the death (or the harming) of my brother” routine. Jesus.

Russell Brand, now embarking on his “Messiah Complex” tour, has been officially and completely forgiven for Arthur. He’s 100% redeemed and then some. Plus I’ve been waiting for someone to take Morning Joe‘s Mika Brzezinski down for her conservative-mannered smugness…zing! Brzezinski and her also-not-hip-enough co-hosts Katty Kay and Brian Shactman were, of course, speaking to Brand in a glib, patronizing way. “Is this what you all do for a living?,” Brand asked. “Thank you for your casual objectification.”

The fun starts around 4:45.

“Funny” if you’re from Bakersfield or Tucumcari or East Hartford and you recognize these smug, clueless smoothies because you know them from work or whatever. The behaviors are too easy, too broad. For me anyway. But if you’re not that hip and you’re an easy lay in terms of comedy, great.

Frances Ha director-cowriter Noah Baumbach speaking candidly (as far as that goes) with HuffPost’s Ricky Camilleri about…well, Frances Ha and Baumbach’s tendency to follow characters of a certain anxious, prickly and/or melancholy bent, and how Baumbach found this particular tone or voice or whatever. Answer: It all changed when Baumbach “stopped worrying about how I’ll be perceived….whatever critic you have in your head, I got rid of that guy and just went for it.” This is a good interview. Really. Camilleri opens up, explores, really gets into it.

In a 6.17 q & a with Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci, Karina Longworth, the author of Al Pacino: Anatomy of an Actor, discussed Pacino’s transition from a spirited but psychologically rooted actor into the “hoo-hah!” guy — the florid mannerist and shouter. And yet whenever I think of my favorite Pacino performances, it’s almost always a performance that includes the shouty stuff. The excitable gay bank-robber in Dog Day Afternoon, Vincent Hanna in Heat, Lowell Bergman in The Insider, the Devil in Devil’s Advocate, Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy. The only quiet Pacino performances I’ve really admired are those in Glengarry Glen Ross, You Don’t Know Jack and The Godfather pics. My favorite all-time Pacino moment? The “inches” speech in Any Given Sunday.

It’s soothing and nurturing to watch this shot every so often. When’s the last time a long dazzling uncut shot like this was the talk of film buffs the world over? The last one that really floored me was that first extended action sequence in Alfonso Cuaron‘s Children of Men, and before that the opening of Robert Altman‘s The Player. 95% of the apes who love the last 80 minutes of Man of Steel would never even watch a film like The Passenger and therefore never watch a perfect scene like this, but if they did most would sit there like metal lawn furniture and go “uhhm, okay…so that’s it?”

I’ve eaten at Irv’s Burgers maybe two or three times over the last 20 years. I sure as hell would never go near the place now with my cockatoo diet. But I love places like this for their authentically greasy downmarket L.A. atmosphere. Astrobuger, the former Tail of the Pup, the long-defunct Tiny Naylor’s. But now Irv’s, which has been around for 63 years and reportedly received a cultural landmark designation in 2010, has been told to vacate the premises by the landlord and will close by the end of June. A shame. I won’t eat at places like Irv’s, but I love looking at them as I drive by. I love their aura, their flavor. They exude L.A.-ness as much as Mulholland Drive or the Smoke House or the Formosa Cafe or the Hollywood Bowl or the Apple Pan.

No way can I accept Jennifer Lopez, regarded as one of the most flagrantly materialistic, super-high-maintenance divas in the celebrity-acting-performing realm of 2013, as a working-class Chilean woman in The 33, a drama about the 2010 Chilean mining disaster. The film, being produced by Mike Medavoy, will costar Antonio Banderas, Martin Sheen and Rodrigo Santoro. Okay, I don’t know precisely who or what Lopez will portray but what else could she play in a film like this?

Jennifer “gimme a break with the diva lifestyle” Lopez

The Chilean miners celebrate after the rescue of the 33.