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Had a desire to watch the Jerk tonight, but cannot lay my hands on him, so have decided to bring out my gentler side by watching Mobsters(1991) starring Cristian Slater, Costas Mandylor, Richard Grieco and Patrick Dempsey as the lads, and Michael Gambon as Don Salvatore Faranzano, Anthony Quinn as Don Giuseppe 'Joe the Boss' Masseria ,the old guard. One of my favourite mob films although it failed to make a return on its $23 mil outlay which I thought odd.
Anthony Quinn was a close friend of gangster Frank Costello so I'm sure he got some nice tips on mob etiquette there. This was also Michael Gambon's first film in the states interestingly.
The film focuses primarily on Luciano and Lansky. They start as young men victimized by the current mafia. They rise from petty criminals and bootleggers to push aside the old guard of the Mafia and eventually establish The Commission ...... It's all pretty loosly based but entertaining all the same as long as you like this sort of thing. Personally I love the music by Michael Small, who also did Mountains of the Moon(reviewed earlier) and Target that starred Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon.
The movie was loosely based on the book, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano written in 1974 by Martin A. Gosch and Richard Hammer. The film is generally in line with historical truth although The Castellammarese War from 1928 to 1931, is never actually named.
"What's the secret of America?" .... "It's MONEY! ...Everything is MONEY, Charlie. But you'll never make any money, because you dress like a schmuck"....sounds like My Dad:eek:
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Goodfellas sparked a whole raft of gangster films around that time but that is not one of the better ones IMO. Although Goodfellas did set the bar pretty damn high. Donny Brasco would be my choice.
I've always thought that someone should do a remake of The Valachi Papers in the Goodfellas style. The original was a lost opportunity and the book is very similar to 'Wiseguy' on which Goodfellas was based. I've always wanted to do a tour of New York with a copy of the Valachi Papers and visit all of the 'battlefields' of the Castellammerese War. Most are in The Bronx if memory serves.
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Goodfellas set the modern bar in a way, and I watch it often. love the narrative style and the general dialogue; and even though the budgets were fairly similar it did rather better, especially in rentals.Better Director, better actors helped a better script, but Mobsters imo was a lot better than it got credit for.
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Have you read 'Wiseguy'? The screenwriters did not have to do a lot as pretty much all of the voice over is just chunks lifted from the book. That doesn't include Joe Pesci's 'Am I a clown? Do I amuse you?' bit which he pretty much ad-libbed, basing it on a true incident he had witnessed in his youth.
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Not Yet, no, but it is in my Kindle lists. Have to say I have been a tad lazy reading wise lately and have a number of books still to read b4 I buy anymore Martin. I also have the moneytrain of the TT to think of lol, although That, spend wise is now pretty much over. I have done the sums and it was not as bad as I thought actually. so, once I catch up, I will get a few on my list, and convert them to my master list(dont trust Kindle). That way I can read the books on any device I choose in any format.
There were some discrepancies I believe but as you say it was a pretty good facsimile of the book.
moving on now, I think next up will be Red Dwarf.....not sure which, I think the last series as it was a return to the quality humour of old(although I admit it is a niche).
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Micsmacs (directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV..._SX214_AL_.jpg
From the director of Delicatessen, City of Lost Children and Amelie, comes another delightful film about ‘getting even’.
The cover of the UK DVD describes the film as a “live-action Wallace and Gromet”, which says it all.
Avid movie-watcher and video store clerk Bazil has had his life all but ruined by weapons of war. His father was killed by a landmine in Morocco and one fateful night a stray bullet from a nearby shootout embeds itself in his skull, leaving him on the verge of instantaneous death. Losing his job and his home, Bazil wanders the streets until he meets Slammer, a pardoned convict who introduces him to a band of eccentric junkyard dealers including Calculator, a math expert and statistician, Buster, a record-holder in human cannonball feats, Tiny Pete, an artistic craftsman of automatons, and Elastic Girl, a sassy contortionist. When chance reveals to Bazil the two weapons manufacturers responsible for building the instruments of his destruction, he constructs a complex scheme for revenge that his newfound family is all too happy to help set in motion.
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Not actually seen Wallace and Grommit embarrassingly. Looks and sounds quite good though.
The Boy bought Pompeii today so I'll get it off him when he's watched it. It received approval from every vulcanologist and historian he has shown the movie to, having received "high marks for both scientific and historical accuracy" but other than that it was classed as old fashioned by many and got poor reviews. That means it'll probably be good!
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Tonight it is the ww2 blockbuster, The Dam Busters (1955) directed by Michael Anderson, who also did The Yangtse Incident and the 1956 version of 1984 starring Edmond O'Brien and Michael Redgrave.
Real Dam Buster developer Barnes Wallis is portrayed by Redgrave coincidentally, and Richard Todd plays Guy Gibson. Todd also played Major John Howard in "The Longest Day". Major Howard led the first action on D Day, the attack and seizure of the bridges over the Orne River and Caen Canal,now known as Pegasus Bridge In reality, Richard Todd, who was a paratroop Captain on D Day, led the first of the main force paratroops sent to relieve the Pegasus Bridge attackers.
This is one of the films that George Lucas used clips from to edit the rough cut of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (which utilizes many features of the finale of this film quite closely, notably the briefing, the ground staff waiting for news, the troika formation of the attacking aircraft and so on). In Addition, the following exchange from this film is reproduced almost verbatim (with the exception of the characters' names) in "Star Wars": Gibson: "How many guns d'you think there are, Trevor?" Trevor: "I'd say there's about 10 guns - some in the field and some in the tower".
Footage used to show the bombs as they skipped on the surface of the water towards the dams was drawn from footage of the bombs being tested. The backspin placed on the bombs, which was secret at the time, gave them gyroscopic stability when skipping across the water, then held them against the dams as they sank. To conceal the backspin, the bombs in the footage were painted over frame by frame.
The Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire (the test area for the real raids) doubled as the Ruhr valley for the film. The scene where the Dutch coast is crossed was filmed between Boston, Lincolnshire and King's Lynn, Norfolk, and other coastal scenes near Skegness. Additional aerial footage was shot above Windermere, in the Lake District.
An Avro Lancaster B.VII modified for the film with cut-out bomb bay and mock bouncing bomb demonstrating to a crowd at Coventry Airport in 1954
While RAF Scampton, where the real raid launched, was used for some scenes, the principal airfield used for ground location shooting was RAF Hemswell, a few miles north and still an operational RAF station at the time of filming.
Leighton Lucas, a Former ballet dancer and had served in the RAF during WW2, did the incidental music for this, and Ice cold in Alex, which coming to a cinema near me. The DamBusters march was done by Eric Coates athough he had composed it before he was asked to do the job, he submitted it and it is now a classic. He turned down the job of doing the whole film, and died 2 years later, so a fine epitaph.Elgar was one of his admirers.
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Jolly good show....Gibson's dog was buried supposedly that night, but at a later date he was dug up(no pun intended) and low and behold the bones were not that of a dog.....I wonder what happened? Ufo bodysnatching:eyebrows:
56 men died I think...tragic losses, but it did divert enemy time and material away from other areas. My salute to the whole RAF, which my dad was one.
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Now on to Escape from Alcatraz (1979) directed by Don Siegel and Starring Big Clint Eastwood. Although unlikely any got away, it has never been proved conclusively, and a launch without lights was seen in the area at the time. one body in a prison uniform was supposedly found but I have no real evidence of it. The dangerous escape down the prison wall and into the water was performed without stunt doubles. It was performed by Clint Eastwood, Fred Ward, and Jack Thibeau, the latter two were cast in the film partially due to their athletic ability. The prison was closed shortly after.
