Cosa Nostra News

" There’s nothing new under the sun .”  -- Ecclesiastes 1:9 Agent Harris and Tony sit down at Satriale's. The late-blooming alliance (dare we say friendship ?) between FBI Special Agent Dwight Harris and New Jersey gangster Tony Soprano was one of our favorite parts of The Sopranos. In that now-extinct parallel world, Harris (Matt Servitto) was a member of the FBI's Newark Organized Crime Division Task Force who probed DiMeo crime family boss Tony Soprano. A minor character in the first five seasons, Harris played a pivotal role in the final season as, wonder of wonders, a full ally to Tony in his half-ass war with New York boss Phil Leotardo. What were they fighting over, even? Our favorite character, Paulie Gaultieri, once cautioned, "there's not a bigger c--ks--ker than Phil Leotardo," which was enough of an explanation for us.  Those wanting to rehash the details can  check out  The Chase Lounge , where folks left weighty discussions of su...

Tony Soprano, aka James Gandolfini, died on June 19, 2013, in Rome at the age of 51. Personally, our interest in a new Sopranos project went with him. That's why we've been sitting on this. Even though it's a prequel, the whole idea of a new Sopranos film is bittersweet, at best. David Chase, creator of the iconic HBO series, will co-write and produce the movie, which is set in 1960s Newark. Deadline.com reported that creator and showrunner Chase sold a script to New Line, the Warner Bros. unit. The working title is The Many Saints of Newark. Chase wrote the script with Lawrence Konner, a veteran TV/movie writer who wrote a handful of Sopranos episodes. It's been 11 years since we all thought our cable died in the final moments of the long-running series. The groundbreaking show ran for six seasons from 1999 – 2007. It won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and Peabody Awards for its first two seasons. Other stars on the show includ...

John (Cha Cha) Ciarcia, who played a brief but pivotal role on The Sopranos as the consiglieri of the New York-based Lupertazzi crime family, was a Genovese crime family associate in real life. He allegedly "was involved in everything" regarding the San Gennaro feast, a Genovese capo reputedly told an undercover FBI agent. Whether he was a former or active associate is open to interpretation, but it's suggested that he was active up until his death at age 75 of natural causes. James Gandolfini, RIP...... This story, simple as it is, is unbelievable -- and maybe a decade or two ago, it would have been inconceivable, incomprehensible -- but it's true... That makes two, so far. Tony Sirico, who played Peter Paul (Paulie Walnuts) Gualtieri, was once a Colombo crime family associate . Some mention Tony Darrow. The one and only... He was allegedly a Gambino associate, but he apparently got hooked up with a mob family after his Sopranos stint (or during) as ...

"One thing about us wiseguys, the hustle never ends...." In "College," Tony brutally murders a rat, Fabian Petrulio.  Tony Soprano whispers those words to Fabian Petrulio (aka Frederick Peters, a former member of the fictional New Jersey mob family, who flipped.) The two -- Tony and Fred -- had been effectively hunting each other for the past day. Fabian blew his chance to kill Tony the night before at the motel where the New Jersey mob boss was staying with his tiny young daughter. Too many witnesses. The next morning however he was still trying. Petrulio (or Peters) tries to hire a junkie to kill both Tony and his daughter. "Gray Lincoln town car. New model." But not even a junkie and his girlfriend will cross that line. They are not going to commit murder. Fred Peters then begins to work the phone (our rat hasn't changed much since Witness Protection. He deals drugs and participated in an arson...) It is precisely this ambiguity which Da...

I've been thinking a lot about The Sopranos since the death of James Gandolfini. I dug out the box sets and watched my favorite episodes, sometimes my favorite scenes. I grabbed my Kindle Fire and looked for stories about the man. Eventually, I came across one piece that I literally spent Saturday afternoon reading. It has to do with that final scene of the final episode of that amazing television series. The final moment of Tony Soprano's life? I firmly believe that the theory of the writer of the piece, who is anonymous, is 100% correct, and my innocuous analysis of the ending is wrong. Interestingly, it was over that house of questionable construction that Carm was trying to sell. She had meetings that night and thus had no time to cook the manicotti AJ was looking forward to. Hence, they were going out for dinner.

This is one of the last pieces I wrote about Gandolfini ... RIP, Tony, you were an actor's actor... I hated the ending of  The Sopranos ; I mean, I really, really hated it. When the screen went black, I threw the remote, yelled "Shit!" and thought why does the Emergency Broadcast System pick now to run a system check. Then, I thought maybe the cable had gone out -- dying on me at the worst moment. When the credits started rolling, silently, I still didn't get it. I immediately set up my DVR to record the replay, thinking somehow, someway, my cable had dropped out on me for the end of the last scene. Then realization sank in. My anger started rising. That sonofabitch Chase, I thought, he screwed all of us... for all these years we -- the legions of loyal fans of the show -- have all been waiting for one thing: to discover Tony's fate. Would he live or get whacked? Get prison, or escape? I actually thought at the end he was going to rat out everyone -- w...

Riggi made Johnny Boy acting boss, then made him dead after D'Amato's mistress began discussing what happened in the bedroom. New Jersey mobster John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato was murdered in 1992 while holding the title of acting boss of the Decavalcantes, a position he supposedly won thanks to some secret maneuvering by Gambino boss John Gotti. D'Amato's gumare, or mistress, told the wrong people that Johnny Boy was a homosexual and they killed him in a hit that supposedly inspired Sopranos creator David Chase to create the Vito Spatafore story line realized towards the end of the series. Described as a member of the fictional DiMeo crime family -- the crime family Tony Soprano was boss of --  Spatafore (played by   Joseph R. Gannascoli) was married with two children and was a closeted homosexual close to the fiction New York mob boss, Phil Leotardo, played by Frank Vincent.