HughBennie-777

A film genre packs as many landmark movies as the gangster genre does, it has to make room for the most lunatic entry that is writer-director-star and crooner Duke Mitchell's "Massacre Mafia Style"-also known by some vastly improved titles: "Like Father, Like Son" or "The Executioner." Mitchell, whose earlier acting credits include "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" is the whole enchilada here and gives a remarkable pre-Mickey Rourke performance as gangster Mimi Miceli Jr. That's exactly who he pre-dates here, and maybe Rourke saw this movie as a kid. There's plenty of effective tough guy, ethnic monologues, complete with teardrops. The story is pure incoherent mobster insanity-with lots of outrageous turns. Mimi (in flash-forward) goes about eliminating all his Los Angeles criminal competition (and most of these are "negro" bookies, pimps, their secretaries, and any nearby innocent maintenance workers). Then there's more craziness that involves financing pornography and kidnapping and mutilating a rival boss for ransom, but afterward everybody is friends again(?) Even though Mimi's old-school papà gangster back in Sicily says, "My son, when I killa da chicken, he run!" the man knows nothing. As long as the movie stays in L. A., people die. The movie is full of atrocities, and for 1974, the special effects are impressive, with bountiful squib workings--even on peoples' heads--meat-hookings, electrocutions, a pimp gets crucified on Easter Sunday, but not before a huge torrent of shocking bad language, and in one scene a man is shot in the back, toppling headfirst into his own pee-pee-filled urinal. Mimi doesn't just sing a few songs in between the ethnic monologues, flashes of boobies, and carnage, his bizarre physical appearance is its own movie: skeletal with a huge, leonine mane of grey pompadoured hair that flows into a mullet, Mimi sports sensationally hideous gangster outfits: casual wear, pastel pants-suits with huge-collared silk shirts that make his 11-year-old-boy frame disappear into polyester. The movie also contains multiple montages of editing weirdness with unforgettable strange cuts and lounge music. Mimi and his goons are like Dean Martin's wisecracking gangs from the 60s, except they massacre people in lurid color; the kind found in the movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis. Movie goes down in history for a memorable assassination scene involving a concealed shotgun and large filone of Italian bread.

A lot of drama is aspired to in this mob story, and some of it is achieved. Despite the dead-serious storyline, humor inadvertently enters when debt collector Vinnie (Jaren Anderson) can't do his job because, as his mobster dad observes, he has blinders on. This means he has careless sex with those he's supposed to collect from, and thus begins one plot. Vinnie picks up ex-con brother Gio (Matthias Cassar) and plenty of smoochy paisan, alpha-male bonding follows. The movie's mob bosses come off best, acting-wise, and Flavio Romeo as the boys' father supplies effective presence, speaks Italian, and adds some depth to the family storyline. Meanwhile, a gang war looms on the horizon and bumbling rogue cops decide to take down everybody. This "King of New York" element creates some legitimate suspense in parts, especially when smug officers' have to collect deadly evidence. The movie has some memorable dialogue: ("He's a sh*t stain on his family tree"), and Depth Charge's favorite: "I don't care if you got two hookers and a mistress giving you r*m jobs every night before bedtime..." Further support comes courtesy of the movie's vivid NYC/New Jersey locations. Unfortunately, gentrified hellhole Times Square makes an appearance; a food court of baseball-capped, selfie-taking gawking tourists who pollute numerous scenes, wobbling out of Dunkin Donuts, Rite-Aids, and Starbucks. This robs the movie of some effective location impact. Luckily, director Michael Fredianelli allows some long shots to zoom into telephoto shots, and this reduces bad background humans to blobs. Fredianelli also gives a great performance as a jealous realtive. He supports the other ethnic faces onscreen (including those of the leads) who possess interesting qualities and don't look like Reality TV graduates. Hannah Beck, as one of Vinnie's lays, has a great death scene. The enormous amount of sexist epithets and nonstop F-bombs will cause even 2025 grandparents (and members of both political parties) to gasp and moan throughout whatever Garden State theater hosts the premiere. An hour in, the dialogue starts adding Shane Black wisecracks, too, which doesn't help the cop story very much. At one point Romeo, who looks in his 70s, tells an immigrant success story to his son that sounds like an anecdote from the 1900s. Still, to those less discriminating fans of action cinema featuring CGI, this will match plenty of pizza and beers. For those looking to enjoy a mob drama that promises masculinity, violence, family themes, plus plenty of unapologetic misogyny--thanks to women characters who are nothing but mostly doomed, abrasive, insulting, promiscuous, fat loudmouths--this'll entertain all-male households across the country. Hey, the women in "Laws of Gravity" hung out with losers, too, and they paid the price.

For the amount of WWII-era features and made-for-TV movies Italy has been churning out, plus the same number of episodic cable series--most drenched in annoying butterscotch filters--director Cinzia TH Torrini creates a unique, sensitive (and properly color- corrected) movie about beloved pop singer Peppino Di Capri. His early career and marital struggles maybe weren't that shocking, but the young cast here really sells the drama. And that includes incredible 5-year-old child prodigy Alessandro Gervasi, who plays Peppino as a boy, and really plays piano. Di Capri's rise to fame doesn't involve tragedy or severe financial downfall (the guy doesn't lose his gorgeous villa on the sea), but Francesco Del Gaudio handles a sizeable part not written to include a lot of banal pop star content. Di Capri's story almost mirrors Beach Boy Brian Wilson and his father's disinterest (see: jealousy) of his son's hard-earned recognition--just without the abuse. Equally strong--if not more--is Arianna DiClaudio, here a long way from her blink-and-you'll-miss-it part on the Disney series "Penny on MARS", playing the complex, dysfunctional first wife to DiCapri. DiClaudio radiates plenty of sexuality and danger without any of her behavior crossing the line into caricature. A solid soundtrack includes effective contemporary music without distraction, and the Naples, Capri locations are stunning. Aaron Stielstra stands out as General Mark Clark who pays 5-year-old Peppino his first salary to play Scott Joplin in a brothel.