I am beginning this week’s Mafia Fest with Staten Island, the film although it features Staten Island the place. The largest New York District in terms of area but the smallest with under half a million citizens. Paul Castellano – Gambino Crime Boss, lived in the Todt Hill, Staten Island Buried in Moravian Cemetery in unmarked grave. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano – mob turncoat also lived on Staten Island as did the Watergate White House Jeb Magruder:
This 2009 film was only released in New York before going to DVD. The story involves three residents of the state who interact. Staten Island Mafia crew boss Parmie played by Vincent D’Onofrio decides that he wants to expand and become boss of all Staten Island against the advice of his closest associates. He lives with his invalid mother.
Sully is a regular guy who clears septic tanks for a living and has been trying with his wife to have their first child. Test reveals that she has an internal problem where the right position should solve the problem but at the fertility clinic Sully learns of special facility which costs $50000 to produce a child which enhances genes to create an above average achiever and which uses artificial insemination. But how can he raise the money. He discusses the problem with his work partner who knows the right individual to carry out a theft on the home of the Mafia boss when he is not there and the alarm is not turned on. The mission is successful in that the take is over $100000 dollars except that the woman is shot in the shoulder. This results in Parmie’s work colleague being captured and tortured to death and Parmie going on the run but only after the procedure is successful and his wife has become pregnant.
The third resident is Jasper who manages a Deli where he makes his own sausages. He is a deaf mute who spends all his spare time keeping records on horse racing and the betting long odds accumulators unsuccessfully. He earns the money for his gambling by chopping up Parmie victims and where we are left to speculate that the remains and then used in the Deli! He dislikes Parmie intensely and when he wins big at the race track he used part of the money to hire an assassin to kill Parmie. Unfortunately Parmie is only grazed and although his car goes into a lake he survives because he has been training to break the world record for holding breadth under water.
When he recovers he finds himself in the midst of a large woodland area part of which is being cut down to make way for development and where a protestor has created a tree platform. He persuades a motorist to drive him back to restaurant bar he uses as an operational base only to discover his associates have joined forces with the main Mafia boss on the Island against him. He devises a plan to protect himself by changing into a white suit climbing onto the tree top platform and proclaiming to the authorities his conversion to saving the trees. The authorities decide on a media clamp down but after a while one journalist manages to interview with the help of the policeman on duty. The follow day the story is national news and he wakes to be greeted by hundreds of others attaching themselves to threatened trees. The Mayor and city authorities intervene and the woodland is saved. Parmie returns home believing that he is protected.
Jasper is then asked to do another slicing up job and this is Sully who Jasper has been friends with. Sully then sets out and successfully assassinates Parmie and a carload of associates and rivals. The films ends with Sully’s wife and walking age child visiting the new parkland which Jasper helped create. The child runs away from his mother falls over. Jasper helps him up and mother first criticises why he did not call out to her until he explains that he is deaf and dumb. The child immediately communicates using sign language to the amazement of his mother thus demonstrating that the gene enhancement programme worked. This therefore is a black comedy and at the level of intention I thought the film is successful although quickly forgotten
The latest episode of the Sopranos, The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti also had its amusing moments and begins with Christopher Moltisanti having recurring nightmares about his first killing, coincidentally in a meat sandwich making deli reminding of the sausage making store in Staten Island.
Christopher (Michael Imperioli) is so troubled that he digs up the body with the help of an associate to relocate in case the area is property redeveloped and reburies it elsewhere. When he tells is friend about his anxiety over the body the friend comments that why should the dead man give him warnings about the future when he had killed him. He also advises that the reaction is normal, but the more killings you do, the better it gets.
He goes into motel hiding with his girlfriend, Adriana (Drea de Matteo) as soon as he hears that the Feds have initiated a Grand Jury investigation into the Garden State mafia and its links with New York. He is writing a script about the mafia which his girl friend advises he should set aside and start covering his tracks given that the laptop is stolen.
He is summoned to a gathering of the captains by Tony who says “we are exterminating” and told bring in a selection of Italian pastries. He quickly loses his temper on finding there is a queue and becomes aggressive when serves comes in who was permitted to leave while keeping his place. Christopher lets off his weapons, takes a carton of the pastries without payment and then shoots the terrified assistant in the foot. He moans that he has only completed 19 of the required 120 pages for a full length movie when Pussy Bonnier (Vincent Pastore) calls to give support and warn that the police have his description after the incident in the pastry shop. Christopher says he feels that nothing good is ever going to happen like that and asks Pussy if he ever felt like that. Pussy responds- all his life.
When Tony learns of the incident he warns Christopher of his behaviour and using knowledge gained from his own therapy sessions asks Christopher if he wants to be caught and suggests he needs therapy. Christopher reacts with horror. The next day Christopher receives a call from his mother saying his name is mentioned in the newspaper within an article on the known members of the mafia gang under investigation and he grabs the stack of papers in his road side vending machine and drives off with them in his car.
The episode begins with a wedding within the mafia family when they get the news of the investigation. Tony’s mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand) reacts angrily when the father of the bride welcomes her as “my darling“; she respond with her usual venom by asking if he is still seeing all his other women!
New family boss Uncle Junior says that they should continue with all their activities when several of the captains suggest they should drop out. They ask Tony for his opinion which upsets Junior who says he has ruled. Tony agrees with Junior, concerned that rivals would move in, but suggests that they should undertake some spring cleaning and Junior again steps in to say he was just about to order this.
Tony removes a bundle of notes from behind an air condition grill as well as a variety of weapons. Carmela (Edie Falco) advises that the rest of money is located all over the house. Their daughter Meadow is secretly overseeing and listening in. She advises her young brother, Antony Junior A-J he should re boot his computer. Antony resists until being reminded about all the porn he has recently downloaded. Carmela makes a surprise visit to Livia to take her out to lunch and this takes a lot of persuading. Out of the way Tony finds somewhere to temporarily hide their money, Carmela’s jewellery and the guns. The Feds arrive and turn over the house but go away empty handed. Earlier at the wedding reception, the captains praise Tony for his foresight in not becoming the Capo and making Uncle Junior the primary target of F.B.I interest.
Psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is having a family meal with her ex husband, her son and her parents. He expresses concern that she has someone under investigation as patient and begins a diatribe about how the mafia affects the position of the 20 million Italians the USA, suggesting that the national will never elect an Italian as President. He estimates that there are no more than 5000 Italians in the USA Mafia and the son points out that mafia gangster films have become an Icon in American cinema. This theme is later continued in a conversation between Tony and A-J that Italians are unfairly targeted by the Police and that Antonio Meccui invested the telephone and not Alexander Graham Bell.
At his next session Tony warns his psychiatrist that he may not be able to attend the next session and she asks if this is to do with recent publicity. She reminds that under their agreement he will have to pay even if he does not attend. This makes Tony very angry can calls her a whore showering her with money. She says the money will show as paid in his next account. She admits his behaviour has frightened her. Her ex husband has reminded that she needs to go past the moral relativism of her profession into the good and evil of humanity and that Tony is evil. Later the situation is discussed when she attends a counselling session with her ex husband and son.
It is Livia, Tony’s mother who has the last word during a concert at the retirement home in which a comedian tells bad jokes and attended by Uncle Junior. He admits to feeling under pressure because he relieves there is a bad apple. She asks if he has told her son. Junior says he has not wanted to add pressure on Tony and this provide Livia with the opportunity to reveal that Tony has been seeing a psychiatrist for several months, no doubt blaming her for his life. Uncle Junior quickly realises he now has a great hold over his powerful nephew.
There are also sensitive moments in the latest episode of the Boardwalk Empire, The Emerald City which covers the Mafia in the USA prior to the formation of the national organisation, although these quickly turn to passion and to violence.
Jimmy is impressed with the ability of his wife to paint and then tries to explain how difficult it was to retain cultural interests once in he trenches of World War I. The new loving bond between the couple is quickly shattered when passing the photographers, their son points to the photograph of the wife of the photographer as says Mummy’s kissing friend which Jimmy interprets as meaning the husband who he then beats up in full public view claiming her infidelity while he was away fighting for his country. Later Angela calls on her lesbian lover to apologise for the behaviour of her husband but Mary declares that she had no love for her husband and urges Angela to escape with her and the child to Paris where Isadora Duncan and opened her academy.
Margaret expresses concern at the presence of Jimmy’s First World War friend when he is employed by Nucky as a bodyguard for Margaret and her children. Later she apologies after reading the story of the Wizard of Oz to her children and drawing the parallel of the Tin man with the former soldier taping the mask which hides his disfigurement.
Margaret’s self esteem has risen together with her standing in the community after she is persuaded to give a speech to the League of Women’s voters, endorsing the candidature of Nucky‘s nomination for the New Mayor. She has to overcome her scruples over his dubious suitability for the position but afterwards realises it has strengthened her position as Nucky’s number one mistress.
She is visited by Van Arden the senior F.B.I prohibition enforces in the area after he has been strongly criticised for the loss of the key witness against Jimmy. At the same time his boss exonerates Van Alden deputy for the alleged killing in self defence of the witness who would be able testify against Jimmy.
Although he gains entry to Margaret through his official position he quickly discloses his knowledge of her background and potential for deportation and then his despite for her and ability to protect her and save her soul. After she throws him out he is seen entering an illegal drink and prostitution establishment where he quickly drinks several glasses of whisky and then picks up a woman who we then see having explicit sex as well as a view of his self mutilated back.
In Chicago Al Capone is still wearing his boyish cap and making practical jokes with the Jewish friend of local boss Torrio who suggest they talk further about expanding further in the territory of the North side at the Bar Mitzvah of the man’s son. In the synagogue Al Capone takes off his cap and the man in front explains that he must keep his head covered and take note when the man also suggests she should wear a hat rather than the boyish cap. He is also impressed by the explanation that the ceremony is to mark the entry of the thirteen year old into manhood. Al Capone is then seen wearing a hat calling to apologise at the home of the Jewish associate of Torrio and offering his services demonstrating as well as that he has grown up and deciding to accept responsibility for his actions, an epiphany which is to have dramatic consequences.
In New York the D’Alessio brothers and Mickey, the displaced owner of the Funeral home/liquor diluting plant, are given a final warning by Rothestein and Lucky Luciano over their failure to kill Nucky and to kill a passing tourist who got in the line of fire. Mickey realising that his days are numbered throws himself at the mercy of Nucky who works out a scheme to capture the D’Alessio brothers and Rothstein’s men but getting Chalky White to pretend that he wants to switch sides. The plan is only partially successful because chalky reacts prematurely when he realises that the brothers and Lansky were involved in the lynching his assistant and takes then prisoner, calling in Nucky and Jimmy. Because of their attitude Jimmy shoots one of the brother’s in the head and Chalky strangles the other to death. Nucky releases Lansky so that he can report the events to Rothestein.
He returns late to find Margaret still awake and persuades her to drink a glass of champagne with him in celebration to the new that women are to get the vote, in praise of her speech earlier in the day and the way his interests have progressed.
This 2009 film was only released in New York before going to DVD. The story involves three residents of the state who interact. Staten Island Mafia crew boss Parmie played by Vincent D’Onofrio decides that he wants to expand and become boss of all Staten Island against the advice of his closest associates. He lives with his invalid mother.
Sully is a regular guy who clears septic tanks for a living and has been trying with his wife to have their first child. Test reveals that she has an internal problem where the right position should solve the problem but at the fertility clinic Sully learns of special facility which costs $50000 to produce a child which enhances genes to create an above average achiever and which uses artificial insemination. But how can he raise the money. He discusses the problem with his work partner who knows the right individual to carry out a theft on the home of the Mafia boss when he is not there and the alarm is not turned on. The mission is successful in that the take is over $100000 dollars except that the woman is shot in the shoulder. This results in Parmie’s work colleague being captured and tortured to death and Parmie going on the run but only after the procedure is successful and his wife has become pregnant.
The third resident is Jasper who manages a Deli where he makes his own sausages. He is a deaf mute who spends all his spare time keeping records on horse racing and the betting long odds accumulators unsuccessfully. He earns the money for his gambling by chopping up Parmie victims and where we are left to speculate that the remains and then used in the Deli! He dislikes Parmie intensely and when he wins big at the race track he used part of the money to hire an assassin to kill Parmie. Unfortunately Parmie is only grazed and although his car goes into a lake he survives because he has been training to break the world record for holding breadth under water.
When he recovers he finds himself in the midst of a large woodland area part of which is being cut down to make way for development and where a protestor has created a tree platform. He persuades a motorist to drive him back to restaurant bar he uses as an operational base only to discover his associates have joined forces with the main Mafia boss on the Island against him. He devises a plan to protect himself by changing into a white suit climbing onto the tree top platform and proclaiming to the authorities his conversion to saving the trees. The authorities decide on a media clamp down but after a while one journalist manages to interview with the help of the policeman on duty. The follow day the story is national news and he wakes to be greeted by hundreds of others attaching themselves to threatened trees. The Mayor and city authorities intervene and the woodland is saved. Parmie returns home believing that he is protected.
Jasper is then asked to do another slicing up job and this is Sully who Jasper has been friends with. Sully then sets out and successfully assassinates Parmie and a carload of associates and rivals. The films ends with Sully’s wife and walking age child visiting the new parkland which Jasper helped create. The child runs away from his mother falls over. Jasper helps him up and mother first criticises why he did not call out to her until he explains that he is deaf and dumb. The child immediately communicates using sign language to the amazement of his mother thus demonstrating that the gene enhancement programme worked. This therefore is a black comedy and at the level of intention I thought the film is successful although quickly forgotten
The latest episode of the Sopranos, The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti also had its amusing moments and begins with Christopher Moltisanti having recurring nightmares about his first killing, coincidentally in a meat sandwich making deli reminding of the sausage making store in Staten Island.
Christopher (Michael Imperioli) is so troubled that he digs up the body with the help of an associate to relocate in case the area is property redeveloped and reburies it elsewhere. When he tells is friend about his anxiety over the body the friend comments that why should the dead man give him warnings about the future when he had killed him. He also advises that the reaction is normal, but the more killings you do, the better it gets.
He goes into motel hiding with his girlfriend, Adriana (Drea de Matteo) as soon as he hears that the Feds have initiated a Grand Jury investigation into the Garden State mafia and its links with New York. He is writing a script about the mafia which his girl friend advises he should set aside and start covering his tracks given that the laptop is stolen.
He is summoned to a gathering of the captains by Tony who says “we are exterminating” and told bring in a selection of Italian pastries. He quickly loses his temper on finding there is a queue and becomes aggressive when serves comes in who was permitted to leave while keeping his place. Christopher lets off his weapons, takes a carton of the pastries without payment and then shoots the terrified assistant in the foot. He moans that he has only completed 19 of the required 120 pages for a full length movie when Pussy Bonnier (Vincent Pastore) calls to give support and warn that the police have his description after the incident in the pastry shop. Christopher says he feels that nothing good is ever going to happen like that and asks Pussy if he ever felt like that. Pussy responds- all his life.
When Tony learns of the incident he warns Christopher of his behaviour and using knowledge gained from his own therapy sessions asks Christopher if he wants to be caught and suggests he needs therapy. Christopher reacts with horror. The next day Christopher receives a call from his mother saying his name is mentioned in the newspaper within an article on the known members of the mafia gang under investigation and he grabs the stack of papers in his road side vending machine and drives off with them in his car.
The episode begins with a wedding within the mafia family when they get the news of the investigation. Tony’s mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand) reacts angrily when the father of the bride welcomes her as “my darling“; she respond with her usual venom by asking if he is still seeing all his other women!
New family boss Uncle Junior says that they should continue with all their activities when several of the captains suggest they should drop out. They ask Tony for his opinion which upsets Junior who says he has ruled. Tony agrees with Junior, concerned that rivals would move in, but suggests that they should undertake some spring cleaning and Junior again steps in to say he was just about to order this.
Tony removes a bundle of notes from behind an air condition grill as well as a variety of weapons. Carmela (Edie Falco) advises that the rest of money is located all over the house. Their daughter Meadow is secretly overseeing and listening in. She advises her young brother, Antony Junior A-J he should re boot his computer. Antony resists until being reminded about all the porn he has recently downloaded. Carmela makes a surprise visit to Livia to take her out to lunch and this takes a lot of persuading. Out of the way Tony finds somewhere to temporarily hide their money, Carmela’s jewellery and the guns. The Feds arrive and turn over the house but go away empty handed. Earlier at the wedding reception, the captains praise Tony for his foresight in not becoming the Capo and making Uncle Junior the primary target of F.B.I interest.
Psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is having a family meal with her ex husband, her son and her parents. He expresses concern that she has someone under investigation as patient and begins a diatribe about how the mafia affects the position of the 20 million Italians the USA, suggesting that the national will never elect an Italian as President. He estimates that there are no more than 5000 Italians in the USA Mafia and the son points out that mafia gangster films have become an Icon in American cinema. This theme is later continued in a conversation between Tony and A-J that Italians are unfairly targeted by the Police and that Antonio Meccui invested the telephone and not Alexander Graham Bell.
At his next session Tony warns his psychiatrist that he may not be able to attend the next session and she asks if this is to do with recent publicity. She reminds that under their agreement he will have to pay even if he does not attend. This makes Tony very angry can calls her a whore showering her with money. She says the money will show as paid in his next account. She admits his behaviour has frightened her. Her ex husband has reminded that she needs to go past the moral relativism of her profession into the good and evil of humanity and that Tony is evil. Later the situation is discussed when she attends a counselling session with her ex husband and son.
It is Livia, Tony’s mother who has the last word during a concert at the retirement home in which a comedian tells bad jokes and attended by Uncle Junior. He admits to feeling under pressure because he relieves there is a bad apple. She asks if he has told her son. Junior says he has not wanted to add pressure on Tony and this provide Livia with the opportunity to reveal that Tony has been seeing a psychiatrist for several months, no doubt blaming her for his life. Uncle Junior quickly realises he now has a great hold over his powerful nephew.
There are also sensitive moments in the latest episode of the Boardwalk Empire, The Emerald City which covers the Mafia in the USA prior to the formation of the national organisation, although these quickly turn to passion and to violence.
Jimmy is impressed with the ability of his wife to paint and then tries to explain how difficult it was to retain cultural interests once in he trenches of World War I. The new loving bond between the couple is quickly shattered when passing the photographers, their son points to the photograph of the wife of the photographer as says Mummy’s kissing friend which Jimmy interprets as meaning the husband who he then beats up in full public view claiming her infidelity while he was away fighting for his country. Later Angela calls on her lesbian lover to apologise for the behaviour of her husband but Mary declares that she had no love for her husband and urges Angela to escape with her and the child to Paris where Isadora Duncan and opened her academy.
Margaret expresses concern at the presence of Jimmy’s First World War friend when he is employed by Nucky as a bodyguard for Margaret and her children. Later she apologies after reading the story of the Wizard of Oz to her children and drawing the parallel of the Tin man with the former soldier taping the mask which hides his disfigurement.
Margaret’s self esteem has risen together with her standing in the community after she is persuaded to give a speech to the League of Women’s voters, endorsing the candidature of Nucky‘s nomination for the New Mayor. She has to overcome her scruples over his dubious suitability for the position but afterwards realises it has strengthened her position as Nucky’s number one mistress.
She is visited by Van Arden the senior F.B.I prohibition enforces in the area after he has been strongly criticised for the loss of the key witness against Jimmy. At the same time his boss exonerates Van Alden deputy for the alleged killing in self defence of the witness who would be able testify against Jimmy.
Although he gains entry to Margaret through his official position he quickly discloses his knowledge of her background and potential for deportation and then his despite for her and ability to protect her and save her soul. After she throws him out he is seen entering an illegal drink and prostitution establishment where he quickly drinks several glasses of whisky and then picks up a woman who we then see having explicit sex as well as a view of his self mutilated back.
In Chicago Al Capone is still wearing his boyish cap and making practical jokes with the Jewish friend of local boss Torrio who suggest they talk further about expanding further in the territory of the North side at the Bar Mitzvah of the man’s son. In the synagogue Al Capone takes off his cap and the man in front explains that he must keep his head covered and take note when the man also suggests she should wear a hat rather than the boyish cap. He is also impressed by the explanation that the ceremony is to mark the entry of the thirteen year old into manhood. Al Capone is then seen wearing a hat calling to apologise at the home of the Jewish associate of Torrio and offering his services demonstrating as well as that he has grown up and deciding to accept responsibility for his actions, an epiphany which is to have dramatic consequences.
In New York the D’Alessio brothers and Mickey, the displaced owner of the Funeral home/liquor diluting plant, are given a final warning by Rothestein and Lucky Luciano over their failure to kill Nucky and to kill a passing tourist who got in the line of fire. Mickey realising that his days are numbered throws himself at the mercy of Nucky who works out a scheme to capture the D’Alessio brothers and Rothstein’s men but getting Chalky White to pretend that he wants to switch sides. The plan is only partially successful because chalky reacts prematurely when he realises that the brothers and Lansky were involved in the lynching his assistant and takes then prisoner, calling in Nucky and Jimmy. Because of their attitude Jimmy shoots one of the brother’s in the head and Chalky strangles the other to death. Nucky releases Lansky so that he can report the events to Rothestein.
He returns late to find Margaret still awake and persuades her to drink a glass of champagne with him in celebration to the new that women are to get the vote, in praise of her speech earlier in the day and the way his interests have progressed.
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