At 7/29/12 06:09 AM, Confucianism wrote:
At 7/28/12 09:33 PM, TomsFrulp wrote:
Hello IÃf'Ã'´m Sirtom93 can I join?
Generaly what happens is that you are given a kind of trial period to see what kind of a poster/user you are. Then your post count here and it's quality is checked. And then some other things, but you don't need to worry about them. Just be active here and don't be a pillock and we'll see.
Well its good to see some new(er) blood and all but if we really want this place to be active again and encourage others to join who aren't thirteen year old nerds to dumb to read past the first page we should really do something. Stories are nice but the Dramatis Personae is going to be a bit short for a while. I tried to start a discussion about Mob films but apparently nobody gives a damn....
Or perhaps I should of given some examples. I have seen several very interesting films involving the Mafia two of which where different versions of the same event, namely the rise of Jimmy Hoffa. I had wondered why so many Americans seemed to equate Unions (and from a European perspective quite toothless Unions with a very right wing leadership) with organised crime. Thanks to these films I have my answer.
The films where called Hoffa and FIST and for the sake of coherency I'm going to split them up now.
Hoffa starring Jack Nicholson and directed by Danny Devito whom also co stars is a fairly accurate biography of the life of Jimmy Hoffa and his leadership of the Teamsters Union and what obstacles Unions in America faced, greedy bosses, brutal police, strike breakers fears of "Red Infiltration" etc. And how after some Union members where hospitalised and even killed Hoffa turned to the Mafia for help. The acting is great as is the period settings, though some of the riot scenes need work theres a lot of obvious pushing and shoving and arm flailing going on.
What I really liked about Hoffa is that it points out the blatant hypocrisy from the government in particular Bobby Kennedy whose ancestors built the Kennedy fortune on smuggling and bootleg alcohol. It also makes clear that the only reason the Union and the Mob are working together is because it makes good business sense, rather then some strange comic book convergence of evil. By using Mob muscle and contacts they can wage successful strikes to get concessions, and the mob can use membership and donations to invest some of there funds into the Union pension fund to keep it off the radar of the authorities and use the strikes as a cover to pull a number of heists.
Of course it isn't long before both the Union and the Mob make to many powerful enemies and they both start to feel the strain and well the film takes the obvious step of portraying the Hoffa was killed by the Mafia to get him out of the way theory as the truth and to the films credit its framing device manages to keep the hit a surprise.
Now FIST is something special. It was made in 1978 just three years after Hoffa disappeared, and so does that little trick controversial films do by changing some names. Jimmy Hoffa is now Walter Kovak and he's being played by Sylvester Stallone, whom actually manages to act in this film. This was before the Rocky sequels and Rambo (even though his performance in that was a good representation of a burned out and jaded Vet) showed him all he needed to do was grunt and lift weights to earn his paycheck. Anyway the name change also allows them to spice up the details abit more. For starters the Unions name is now Federation of Interstate Truckers (F.I.S.T.) and at several points Kovak actually turns them into an army of street fighters.
And here he actually makes friends with the Mob and uses them to kick start what in real life would be an urban insurrection, including Sniping police (though he did kill first) ambushing scab trucks and beating up local security. Though again the bosses at the factories and police started the violence, Kovak is ambushed and beaten early on purely for trying to get drivers to take FIST leaflets, and several friends where shot for picketing. Although Stallone is doing a good job of acting, he's no Jack Nicholson, so whereas Jack humiliates the pompous offcials and management Stallone just threatens to "Cut of your balls" so basically imagine a proto Rocky leading an army drivers teaming up with Tommy gun toting Gangsters in Fedora's.
It isn't as clever or inciteful as Hoffa but it certainly is entertaining.