[photopress:ildivo.jpg,thumb,alignleft]Behind the throne
Showbiz has its divas, writes Gerald Loftus – politics, at least in Italy, has ‘il divo’. AKA Giulio Andreotti, alias Mr. Italy, Little Caesar, eternal Giulio, Beelzebub, Gobetto (‘cute little hunchback’), and probably many more diminutives not fit for a G-rated film review.
‘Toni Servillo E Giulio Andreotti’ might scream the Italian trailers, [...]
[photopress:gomorra.jpg,thumb,alignleft]Death is a dirty business
In terms of cinematic markers for the Mafia, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990) has now maintained a generational hold over public perceptions of the world of organized crime and its associated values of honour, family and tradition, which almost ennoble the atrocities committed by the Corleone clan.
The approach [...]
Family values?
To call Donnie Brasco a ‘gangster movie’ would be like calling Dawn of the Dead (1978) ‘a film about some sick people wandering about’ – this has so much more to offer than the usual Mafiosi stereotypes (although they are there in spades).