John Travolta is set to play John Gotti Sr., the mobster known as the Dapper Don, in the indie pic Gotti: Three Generations.
Nick Cassavetes will direct the screenplay by Leo Rossi, which focuses on the relationship between John Gotti Sr., the head of the Gambino crime family who died in prison in 2002, and his son John Gotti Jr., who took over the family business for his father, served time in prison, but then successfully escaped conviction in four subsequent racketeering trials.
Marc Fiore is producing for his Fiore Films. Marty Ingels, the former comic turned talent broker, has come on board the project as executive producer.
Gotti Jr., who's given his blessing to the project, plans to join the producers, Travolta and Cassavetes at a press conference on April 12 at the Sheraton New York Hotel.
Travolta, repped by WME, last appeared in the action thriller From Paris with Love.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Top 10 Best Irish Mob Movies
You like your criminals bleeding green, pissing Guinness and eating a steady diet of catholic guilt, so you turn to the 10 best Irish mafia movies. Well done, lad. Here you will find some of the best crime films of our time, thrilling pictures with complex depictions of violence, morality and religion.
Thanks to Screen Junkies
- 1. “Angles With Dirty Faces” – This 1938 masterpiece is the original Irish mafia movie and surely one of the genre’s best films. “Angels With Dirty Faces” starts a volatile James Cagney and concerns the ultimate of all Irish moral battles: the church versus a life of violent crime, and the manner in which those two aren’t exactly mutually exclusive.
- 2. “On the Water Front” – Marlon Brando’s performance will wow you, but there’s more going on here than generation-defining acting. One of the best Irish mafia films, “On The Water Front” tells a tale of the Irish mob’s infiltration of unions and the influence organized crime had on the fates and fortunes of the American working class.
- 3. “The Departed” – Scorsese struck gold with this Irish mafia saga. An operatic film peppered with stellar performances and nail-biting intensity, “The Departed” digs beneath the skin of its characters like a tapeworm and doesn’t let up until the final shot is fired. This cat-and-mouse film details with mafia infiltration of the police and vice-versa.
- 4. “Miller’s Crossing” – This early Coen Brothers masterpiece is based on noir novelist Dashiell Hammett’s ground breaking early novel “Red Harvest.” The film tells the tale of prohibition-era Irish gangsters in a manner that is both hushed and menacing.
- 5. “State of Grace” – Opening opposite “Goodfellas,” this Irish mob movie didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a broad audience. Despite this initial box office disappointment, “State of Grace” is easily one of the best Irish mafia movies. The film deals with the moral and religious turmoil of Irish criminals and features excellent performances from Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, and Ed Harris.
- 6. “Gangs of New York” –“Angels” is the original Irish mafia movie and “Gangs of New York” is a movie about the original Irish gangsters. Though Leonardo DiCaprio comes across like a high school actor who’s trying his best to be worthy of standing next to Daniel Day-Lewis, the grandiose scope of the film and Day-Lewis’ jaw-dropping performance makes this one of the best Irish mafia movies of all time.
- 7. “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” – This 70’s crime gem doesn’t laud or glorify the Irish mob as other films on this list do, but rather portrays with stark and very depressing honesty the way in which criminal organizations ruin the lives of well intentioned working class people with no opportunity for societal advancement beyond crime.
- 8. “The Road to Perdition” – Sam Mendes turned his attention to Chicago’s Irish mafia circa 1930 in this stately and elegiac film. The film concerns the nature of love and relationships, particularly those between father and son, and the manner in which familial duty and desire often conflict with disastrous consequences.
- 9. “The Public Enemy” – “Public Enemey” was James Cagney’s first film. The film is about organized crime and the American mafia underworld in a very board sense. It’s a great movie, and a number of colorful Irish characters drift in and out of its narrative.
- 10. “The Town” – “The Town” concerns small time Boston Irish hoods. For its empathetic portrait of working class depression, anger, alcoholism and violence and the mob’s role in all of that, it is one of the best Irish mafia movies.
Thanks to Screen Junkies
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Museums Worse than the Mob?
Frank Cullotta knows having his character assassinated isn't the worst thing that can happen to a guy with his pedigree.
In his former line of work, names could hurt you, but it's the sticks, stones and bullets that do most of the real damage. Cullotta, the former Chicago Outfit hitman-turned-government witness, just received word he's depicted in less than flattering terms down at the Tropicana's new Mob Experience. Specifically, he says, the exhibit devoted to the life and death of his childhood friend Anthony Spilotro portrayed Cullotta's defection in a negative light.
On Monday
, Cullotta tried not to weep openly and only briefly contemplated seeking therapy before thinking better of it. That plot line has already been used in "The Sopranos," and he probably didn't want to scare the psychologist. But that's the way it is these days in Las Vegas, where warring traditional mob factions appear to have been replaced by sparring mob museums. In this corner, wearing the black trunks, Jay Bloom's Mob Experience at the Trop. In that corner, wearing red trunks, the Oscar Goodman-inspired downtown Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the Mob Museum.
The Mob Experience has been faster on its feet and secured the cooperation and memorabilia of members of a number of mob families along with the faces of a number of gangster-movie stars. The Mob Museum, conversely, is focusing on creating a historically accurate depiction of the battle between organized crime and law enforcement. It also is gathering big-ticket items such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall and Albert Anastasia's last barber chair.
Cullotta, 72, could give a graduate seminar in the Chicago Outfit and its role in Las Vegas during Spilotro's era. He also knows something about making money from mob imagery, participating in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" and co-authoring his autobiography Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, with Dennis Griffin. (Cullotta, Griffin, Henry Hill, Andrew DiDonato and Vito Colucci will sign books at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Royal Resorts on Convention Center Drive. Bring your own bulletproof vest.)
That's the challenge for reformed wiseguys, killers and other characters who used to carry shovels and rope in the trunks of their Lincolns. How do you go reasonably straight and still earn a living?
By telling and selling your story, of course.
So that's why Cullotta is keeping his sense of humor about getting the cold shoulder from the Spilotro family exhibit. Although, he reminds me, the worst thing Tony would have received from Cullotta's testimony was a prison stretch. It was Tony's supposed friends, headed by Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, who in 1986 murdered him and brother Michael and buried their bodies in an Indiana cornfield. "I didn't give him a death sentence," Cullotta says. "If he would have went to jail, he probably still would still be alive."
In case you're wondering, Cullotta is a cooperating witness for the downtown museum. He was interviewed by museum personnel for about four hours, he says. Although Cullotta figures his books will be on display in the gift shop, "I'm doing it for free. If you think you're going to make a million dollars doing this, you're kidding yourself." But he's not joking about the irony of living long enough to see the way Las Vegas is courting the mob imagery.
"Usually it's the mob making money off legitimate people," he says. "These are legitimate people making money off the mob. They're worse than the Outfit."
A Cullotta pal took one look at the Mob Experience and suggested Frank the former hitman sue for defamation. Cullotta just laughed.
"Sue? With my character and my reputation?" the mob survivor cracks. "Are you out of your mind?"
Thanks to John L. Smith
In his former line of work, names could hurt you, but it's the sticks, stones and bullets that do most of the real damage. Cullotta, the former Chicago Outfit hitman-turned-government witness, just received word he's depicted in less than flattering terms down at the Tropicana's new Mob Experience. Specifically, he says, the exhibit devoted to the life and death of his childhood friend Anthony Spilotro portrayed Cullotta's defection in a negative light.
On Monday
, Cullotta tried not to weep openly and only briefly contemplated seeking therapy before thinking better of it. That plot line has already been used in "The Sopranos," and he probably didn't want to scare the psychologist. But that's the way it is these days in Las Vegas, where warring traditional mob factions appear to have been replaced by sparring mob museums. In this corner, wearing the black trunks, Jay Bloom's Mob Experience at the Trop. In that corner, wearing red trunks, the Oscar Goodman-inspired downtown Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the Mob Museum.The Mob Experience has been faster on its feet and secured the cooperation and memorabilia of members of a number of mob families along with the faces of a number of gangster-movie stars. The Mob Museum, conversely, is focusing on creating a historically accurate depiction of the battle between organized crime and law enforcement. It also is gathering big-ticket items such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall and Albert Anastasia's last barber chair.
Cullotta, 72, could give a graduate seminar in the Chicago Outfit and its role in Las Vegas during Spilotro's era. He also knows something about making money from mob imagery, participating in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" and co-authoring his autobiography Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, with Dennis Griffin. (Cullotta, Griffin, Henry Hill, Andrew DiDonato and Vito Colucci will sign books at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Royal Resorts on Convention Center Drive. Bring your own bulletproof vest.)
That's the challenge for reformed wiseguys, killers and other characters who used to carry shovels and rope in the trunks of their Lincolns. How do you go reasonably straight and still earn a living?
By telling and selling your story, of course.
So that's why Cullotta is keeping his sense of humor about getting the cold shoulder from the Spilotro family exhibit. Although, he reminds me, the worst thing Tony would have received from Cullotta's testimony was a prison stretch. It was Tony's supposed friends, headed by Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo, who in 1986 murdered him and brother Michael and buried their bodies in an Indiana cornfield. "I didn't give him a death sentence," Cullotta says. "If he would have went to jail, he probably still would still be alive."
In case you're wondering, Cullotta is a cooperating witness for the downtown museum. He was interviewed by museum personnel for about four hours, he says. Although Cullotta figures his books will be on display in the gift shop, "I'm doing it for free. If you think you're going to make a million dollars doing this, you're kidding yourself." But he's not joking about the irony of living long enough to see the way Las Vegas is courting the mob imagery.
"Usually it's the mob making money off legitimate people," he says. "These are legitimate people making money off the mob. They're worse than the Outfit."
A Cullotta pal took one look at the Mob Experience and suggested Frank the former hitman sue for defamation. Cullotta just laughed.
"Sue? With my character and my reputation?" the mob survivor cracks. "Are you out of your mind?"
Thanks to John L. Smith
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