Cosa Nostra News

Mobster movies have produced household names such as Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. The great brains behind the blockbuster titles were gentlemen like Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, and Francis Ford Coppola.  Goodfellas Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, and Robert DeNiro. When you are done playing your favorite casino games on JackpotCity online casino , please get a top-rated mobster movie to help you relax; you won't regret it. And yes, it can be Casino with Robert De Niro , though it isn’t ranked in our top 4 list… In this review, you'll discover four highest-ranked mobster movies you must watch. 4. The Departed (2006) The Departed was adapted from the Hong Kong movie Internal Affairs. Directed by Scorsese, the film paints a compelling picture of South Boston crime. Jack Nicholson stars in the movie in what is dubbed his all-time great performance. You can think of this film as the exact opposite of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. While the former is loud, explosive, and influ...

Moretti was killed in an empty restaurant at lunchtime. Which mobster inspired  The Godfather ? None of them. Mario Puzo told us that Don Vito Corleone was based on his mother. Why shouldn't we believe him? The problem is that the historical focus has been misaligned. The big question was always,  was Puzo writing from experience or research?  In   other words, take Francis Ford Coppola's reply in a recent  NPR interview . "I  knew nothing about five crime families which had recently become exposed to the public with the publication of "The Valachi Papers." But neither did Mario Puzo, who was also Italian-American. But he knew nothing about it, and he wanted to write this book sort of to get some money for his family. He thought it could be commercial, and he did everything on research. He knew nothing. He never had met any of these figures, and he advised me never to meet them, which I never did....  " The question: Well, WHAT resear...

With thanks to Julie Bonette, Media Relations Officer, Dartmouth College. Puzo in Paramount Lot office in1969. (Photo by Bob Peterson, courtesy of Dartmouth Library.) ... When Michael Corleone was discharged early in 1945 to recover from a disabling wound, he had no idea that his father had arranged his release. He stayed home for a few weeks, then, without consulting anyone, entered Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and so he left his father’s house.... -- The Godfather Michael Corleone, The Godfather Vito Corleone's  WWII veteran son who reluctantly assumed control of his father's criminal empire, and during a Catholic baptism ceremony had all his enemies murdered, was depicted in the book and films as a Dartmouth graduate. In fact, both Hanover and Dartmouth colleges figure prominently in Mario Puzo's works. The oddest thing about this is that Mario Puzo—the son of Italian immigrants raised in 1920's Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan—neve...

Scene from the television show. Key character, Ciro, on left. Robert Saviano's Gomorrah correctly depicts the Camorra — Italy's Neapolitan Mafia — as having a horizontal structure. This simple fact plays a key role in the plot machinations of the television show. The Camorra, established in Campania and Naples, may be older and even larger than Italy's other Mafias, with its roots possibly dating back to the 16th century. The vertical Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia and the proper name of America's Mafia ) is run by bosses with a hierarchy in place. There's a "commission" to help, literally, organize crime, specifically, inter-family criminal activity so wars don't break out. It was quite effective, in America, anyway.

The town apparently doesn't suffer amateur buglers  either. This is why I need an editor! The municipality of Corleone, Sicily, is no more. And it's the Mafia's fault, the Italian government proclaimed . Other local administrations tied to the Camorra and Ndrangheta  -- Arzano, near Naples, and Calabria's Bovalino and Tropea -- also were done away with. The towns will be administered by a government-appointed commissioner until new elections are held, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government revealed on August 10.

This article was first published in the Den of Geek NYCC Special Edition Magazine; you can find the online version here .  It's written by Tony Sokol, the admitted "Gangster Geek" at Den of Geek, for which he writes. Tony is a quite talented writer, in fact (in addition to being a  playwright and musician). Aside from writing for Den of Geek, he also writes for The Chiseler , KpopStarz.com , and  hypnocloud.com . Previously, he wrote for Altvariety, Coed.com , Daily Offbeat, Dark Media Press, Wicked Mystic and other magazines.  He has had over 20 plays produced in NYC, including Vampyr Theatre and the rock opera “AssassiNation: We Killed JFK.” He appeared on the Joan Rivers (TV) Show, Strange Universe and Britain’s “The Girlie Show.” Goodfellas is a classic movie in the gangster genre. It tells the story of a crew of working criminals from the working class section of East New York, Brooklyn. These wise guys pulled off the biggest haul of the Twentieth Cent...

Seem to be a couple of Godfather games going around.... Eric Lang, game designer and "self- styled  'disciple of fun,'" recently posted an image of his Bloodborne card game box, about which he commenced tweeting last November. He'd dubbed it "Project Dream," which he said is the code name for the Bloodborne game, which is "based on the Chalice dungeon runs, where players compete to kill monsters and take their blood. But don't die," Lang  tweeted Lang also revealed what another codename he's been tweeting means:  Project Suitcase is a board game based on "The Godfather."

From left, Al Pacino, Genovese capo Patsy Eboli and Al Lettieri. I found the following while researching where in Sicily Al Lettieri 's family arrived from. Lettieri, the great character actor of the 1970s, was noticed for his infamous turn in the Godfather ; my next personal favorite Lettieri character after Virgil (The Turk) Sollozzo has to be the villian in the Steve McQueen flick The Getaway (based on the excellent novel of the same name by Jim Thompson, the blackhearted writer of criminal fictional masterpieces .) I couldn't find a reference regarding from where the actor's family hailed, but I did find interesting information about a former Genovese acting boss murdered gangland style in 1972. (His brother disappeared a few years later.) I got the chills after finding a story that seems to substantiate a claim I'd heard from one of my sources. The source is from Manhattan's Greenwich Village and lived about one block away from the Tr...

Here's a story I wrote for  Mob Candy's  celebration of the  Godfathe r's 40th Anniversary issue, a profile of Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo and the great actor who played him,  Al Lettieri , who died too young. Lettieri knew how to speak Sicilian fluently. You have to see Lettieri in Sam Peckinpah's 1972 violent masterpiece "The Getaway," based on the brisk book written by iconic pulp writer Jim Thompson.  T he Getaway , in which Lettieri plays a hood named Rudy Butler, the film's "heavy," was somehow released with a PG rating; this was quickly corrected and replaced with an R rating. The actor, who spoke Sicilian, put on weight (you won't believe you're looking at the sleek, barrel-chested guy who played the Turk when you see the film).

One of the best things about  The Godfather  was  Richard Castellano , aka Peter Clemenza, a caporegime under  Don Vito Corleone . Richard Castellano - the last name ring a bell? Never mind that the film likely served as one of the mob's greatest recruitment tools ever. And if you're wondering, I did ask a couple of wiseguys what they thought of The Godfather. One, who asked to be referred to as anonymous, told me that Don Vito actually was based on a composite of all five titular family bosses. Also, he revealed, a made guy was murdered as a direct result of the film's release, a story I'll save for another time (it had something to do with the actor who played Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo  -- "a top narcotics man," in consiglieri Tom Hagen's words). Former Gambino capo Micheal "Mikie Scars" DiLeonardo was succinct. "Epic," he described the first two Godfather films.  As for the widely despised third offering: ...