Entertainment Binge

By Isaac White.

I know the subject matter from last week may have been a bit of a shock to the system. In all fairness, I did warn everyone from the outset. I’ve decided to write about a piece of entertainment this week that is even more grotesque than Bones and All. I’m just kidding.

That’s not what I’m doing this week. Just a spot of fun to open our discussion this week. I did think about last week’s article quite a bit. Still confident that I did the right thing. Hopeful that some of you watched Bones and All as well. Forging ahead.

At this point I have a difficult time recalling every reference I’ve made to movies and television series in my series. And yes, I know it’s only been about 20 articles I’ve put in thus far. Things move fast for me. Just like you, my week seems to build to the point of work completion, then its finished and the next cycle starts with seemingly no true delineation of beginning and ending.

No, this isn’t some existential crisis and I’m laying out my soul for all to read. I wish I could be that poetical. Unfortunately, I’m just a loudmouth who can’t distinguish the beginning and ending of work. This is only a guess, but I think most of you are the same way.

I have no life altering meaning behind this. I’m saying this because I can’t remember if the works I’m going to mention moving forward have been discussed in prior articles. Even if I have, just bear with me.

So, this week I’m focusing on one particular film that I watched. The surrounding genre or sub-genre of the movie itself is going to play a large role here. Not only because it’s what the current film is based in, but because I love the material that forms the basis for this particular picture.

Mafia Mamma is a film directed by Catherine Hardwicke and stars Toni Collette as Kristin, a middle-aged woman who is dissatisfied with her husband, unhappy with her job, and generally looking for something new in life.

Right away, I think it’s important to get into the world where the movie takes place. Cosa Nostra. The Mafia. The Mob. The Outfit. Organized Crime. This is subject matter which quite frankly I love. I’ve been reading, watching, and learning about the American Mafia (Italian American Organized Crime) since I was a teenager. Yes, back in the glorious 90s.

I haven’t thrown in a 90s reference in a while. At least I think I’m correct about that last statement. So back when I was about 16 (Almost 26 years ago YIKES!!!) I got my hands on the book Underboss. The book is about the infamous “rat” Sammy “The Bull” Gravano who was the Underboss of the Gambino Crime Family just a step below one of the most notorious gangsters of all time, John Gotti.

When I read that book, I knew very little about Cosa Nostra. The book enthralled me entirely. Yes, I know that Sammy is a snitch and that many people look down upon him. Quite frankly I do. Reading the book, I could understand why he did what he did. If he’s telling the truth about everything, which in all candidness, he most likely is not. After all, Sammy made a living lying and killing people to enhance his wealth and power.

So, this particular book sent me on a journey. I was already set that Goodfellas was my favorite film of all time. Though that was true and yes Goodfellas is also based in a real story, I didn’t study the mob until reading Underboss. Once I did, a healthy appetite for all things mafia was launched.

As I picked up more and more mob related materials to read and found things to watch about the mob, I became more and more desirous for mafia content. There are some absolutely wonderful movies about Italian American organized crime. The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, the list goes on.

Before I forget, I have to tell you about my second favorite mob movie of all time, next in line after Goodfellas. I’m sure that some of you have seen the film Gotti, starring John Travolta. I tried watching that movie and I was appalled at how awful it is. If any of you reading this are offended, I don’t intend to hurt your sensibilities. I just think the 20 minutes I watched of that horror show was so bad I couldn’t resist saying it here.

You’ve all probably heard of John Gotti. I don’t want to go through his saga. I just want to let you know that this gem from 1996 is out there and that it’s one of the best mob movies of all time. It puts the Travolta offering to shame. Which to be fair, isn’t a tall order. Boy I can’t stand that movie. Am I cranky? My wife says I’m a curmudgeon. But I say nice things about movies and shows too. Don’t I?

To support my claim that the 96 version of Gotti is a superior mob movie, I will reference a former made man, Michael Franzese, who has said more than once that the original Gotti is one of the best mob films ever done. He also said that it’s the most accurate of any mafia movie in terms of how the existence of a made man in one of the five families is in real life.

Obviously I don’t know that from personal experience. Or am I secretly a member? I’m not going to play around anymore with that. You know I’m joking but I don’t want to end up on the wrong end of a federal wiretap, or worse, with concrete galoshes.

I’m just trying to give you my bona fides in terms of mob movie knowledge, as well as that I’m fairly knowledgeable about the real-life mob as well. Not so much the current affairs but the history of the mafia as an entity. And I also want to shout out 1996 Gotti to make sure some of you watch it. It’s hard to find but if you do, you won’t be disappointed.

By the way, I was just thinking about my statement earlier that the first Gotti film was my second favorite mob movie of all time. I’m not entirely as confident in that statement the more I wrote. The Irishman, yet another classic Scorsese film, may have taken the silver medal place for me. That movie is brilliant and I absolutely love it. When it was first released on Netflix, I probably watched it 5 times in two weeks.

That is probably an exaggeration, but I have at this point watched it at least 20 times. It’s just that good. So is early Gotti. I’ll call it a draw for now.

So now that I’ve laid that all out, I want to go over Mafia Mamma. It’s not bad. The film is not good. It’s bordering on bad but there are some truly hilarious moments in the movie. Kristin the focal point of the film, is a bored woman as I described above.

We learn that Kristin has a grandfather in Italy who she never met and didn’t know existed until she gets contacted with a request for her to fly to Italy and settle the affairs of her now deceased Grandpa.

When she arrives, Kristin discovers that her grandfather was the mafia don for one of the largest Cosa Nostra families in Italy. Her father was killed by a rival mob family when she was just a baby. For fears about her and her mother’s safety, the pair were moved to America and true family (Like that one eh?) background was never known to her.

So, hijinks ensue as I’m sure you would expect. Really quickly. I want to talk about mob comedies. I’m not really a big fan. Analyze This is the best one in my view and that’s not really all that good if I’m being honest. Johnny Dangerously starring Michael Keaton is great. As is Oscar, starring Sylvester Stallone.

Aside from those two I’m not really a fan of mob comedies. Mafia Mamma is definitely not on the level of those two films. It’s not as good as Analyze This. The premise is fun, even though it doesn’t feel original. Which it isn’t.

The writing is very hit or miss. There are moments where I could see opportunities for awesomeness that were lost. At times the intentional buffoonery were way too over the top and took me out of the experience. Toni Collette is an actor who I usually enjoy. She felt out of place in this movie. It was hard for me to buy her as a tough mafia boss. The violence is just ridiculous. It is so corny that I really ended up not liking it the further out from viewing I got.

I’ll end without complete negativity. Those criticisms aside, I didn’t hate the film. While the film borders on bad, the great moments make up enough to pull it back from disaster. I still don’t understand how people can produce a movie that has some real guffaws then flop back into terrible scenes. I don’t get it.

But if you’re looking for something light with no complex story line this is it. You won’t be challenged mentally. You won’t find yourself laughing all the way through. You won’t be wowed by the writing or acting.

Wait a minute. I don’t like this film. I just convinced myself of that throughout the writing of this article. So, I take back what I said earlier. Mafia Mamma is not good. It’s not one of the worst movies of all time and I wouldn’t watch it again. I won’t tell you to avoid at all costs. Just beware. If your time is precious anyway.

I’m ending this abruptly.

Thanks for reading and until next week…..