Mafia News

AMERICAN GANGSTER (18) ***
DIRECTED BY: RIDLEY SCOTT
STARRING: DENZEL WASHINGTON, RUSSELL CROWE, CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, JOSH BROLIN

Denzel Washington gives a typically electrifying performance as Frank Lucas

ON THE DVD of Brian De Palma’s ultra-trashy Cuban gangster epic Scarface is a documentary acknowledging its odd status as “a hip-hop classic”. Over the years, and apparently without irony, America’s biggest rap stars have embraced the rise and fall of drug monster Tony Montana as a “how to” guide to making it big and living it large on the streets of America. It’s one of the film’s stranger legacies, but this fictional icon’s reign as the “ultimate ghetto superhero” may be about to come to an end if the seductive portrait of real-life New York crime lord Frank Lucas served up in American Gangster anything to go by. Continue Reading »

TORONTO (AFP) — Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg came close to the bloody underworld he depicts in his latest movie “Eastern Promises,” about the deadly Russian mafia.

The crime thriller with ripped-from-the-headlines details of the Russian mafia premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this week. Continue Reading »

Italian-German mobster Giorgio Basile killed 30 people before he was arrested
A German court will hear evidence Wednesday from infamous Italian-German Mafioso Giorgio Basile. For 10 years, his testimonies, in exchange for his freedom, have helped police crack down on organized crime. Continue Reading »

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Hit inspired Pesci role in gangster flick Casino

MOBSTER Tony “The Ant” Spilotro met a grisly end because he broke the Mafia code - by having an affair with another gangster’s wife.

Spilotro, said to be the inspiration behind Joe Pesci’s chilling character in the gangland movie Casino, was buried in a cornfield along with his brother. Continue Reading »

Producer Joseph Isgro nails the rights to a legendary mobster’s life story.

BEFORE Tony Soprano or Don Corleone or Tony Montana there was Lucky Luciano — the real-life patriarch of modern organized crime.

Luciano was the Sicilian immigrant who rose to power in the Mafia in the U.S. in the 1920s and transformed it into a flourishing enterprise based on legitimate economic models. He ordered gangland killings, consolidated warring crime factions and began laundering profits from narcotics and prostitution through lawful businesses. Continue Reading »

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For decades, gritty stories about the Mafia have occupied the pages of popular literature and dominated the big screens of Hollywood. And yet, few people know the real story behind how and when this formidable system of organized crime actually began. Continue Reading »

“The Departed” is up for five Academy Award nominations including best picture and best director for seven-time nominee Martin Scorsese. Now it is out on DVD.

The special edition two-disc DVD is full of special features, including nine additional scenes with introductions by Scorsese. Continue Reading »

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One of several flavorful morsels of Sicilian dialect that go untranslated in the re-release of Alberto Lattuada’s 1962 film “Mafioso” is picciotto. It means child, or little man, and is also a term for a mafia foot soldier. Another indigenous word that pops up in the subtitles is cornuto, or cuckold. It means the same thing all over Italy, but in the proudly patriarchal southern region in which most of “Mafioso” takes place, it’s an especially loaded word. “Never, ever call a Sicilian cornuto,” warns the brief (and cleverly conceived) vocabulary lesson that precedes the opening credits. “Never.” Continue Reading »

Actor James Gandolfini may be too old to exercise, but that does not worry him, for he feels that he needs to be overweight to play Tony Soprano in ‘The Sopranos’. Continue Reading »