Mob Rule: Part 3
Going to the mattresses
John Armstrong's novel continues with a quick lesson in mob warfare and an ancient saying that prophecies a turbulent tomorrow
By John Armstrong
Vito Genovese is, like my uncle, one of the last of the originals, the men who founded the organization and saved the country when it was ready to go up in flames. Maranzano, Lansky, Siegel, Costello, Anastasia – they were giants, let’s face it. And a good thing they were there, too, or we might all be speaking Russian or Chinese. Personally, I find English hard enough.
I found Frank in his office, on the phone, with a dozen soldiers scattered throughout the foyer and gunmen posted around the mezzanine. There were more outside the front doors, young, tight-jawed men with black eyes, hard as stones from the river bottom. For them, this was an opportunity to shine, to be noticed by the higher-ups. It’s hard for a gunsel to make an impression when there’s no shooting going on. Frank ...
Listen to Me Marlon filmmakers found heart of darkness
Brando narrates his own story in new documentary
Surviving a broken home with alcoholic parents, Marlon Brando found a way to heal using a tape recorder, isolation and a professional obsession with truth that made every performance vibrate with all the beauty, and ugliness, of the human condition
By Katherine Monk
PARK CITY, UT – When Marlon Brando was still alive, his face was scanned using what was, at the time, cutting-edge digital technology. Pulses of laser light crisscrossed his famous profile, swallowing each feature into an algorithm, resulting in an animated, glowing green grid: a Marlon matrix.
The footage lingered for years. Then the producers behind Restrepo, Waiting for Sugar Man and James Marsh’s Project Nim got a call from Brando’s estate.
“They approached us to do something and we said we’d be delighted, but only if we can make it in a way that is entirely original,” says John Battsek, one of the founders of London-based Passion Pictures – ...
Movie review: Best of Enemies is galvanizing
A documentary about the 1968 televised debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal becomes a study of two fascinating men, but also of the way TV, and politics, were changed forever
