October True Crime: Getting Gotti (dir by Roger Young)

Posted on October 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1994 made-in-Canada movie, Anthony Denison plays John Gotti. We watch as he goes from being a street boss to Paul Castellano to assassinating Castellano so that he can take over the Gambino crime family. Gotti thinks that he’s the king of New York and he’s convinced that no one will ever bring him down. U.S. Attorney Diana Giacalone (Lorraine Bracco) is determined to prove him wrong. She becomes the first of many prosecutors to try to get Gotti and Gotti reacts by having his attorney launch a series of outrageously misogynistic attacks against her. Gotti doesn’t just want to defeat Diana. He also wants to humiliate her. Diane may have the evidence but Gotti’s got the money. Who will get Gotti?

Now, I guess I could argue here that the horror aspect of this film comes from the crimes that Gotti commits. And it is true that we see Gotti kill a number of people. He’s a sadistic killer, the type who will shoot someone twenty more times than he needs to. As the last of the truly flamboyant gangsters, Gotti would go on to become something of a pop cultural institution. But one should not overlook the fact that, for all of his charisma and bravado, John Gotti was not a nice guy. Of course, I should also point out that none of that charisma is really present in Anthony Denison’s performance as Gotti. As played by Denison, John Gotti — the so-called Teflon Don whose greatest strength was his shamelessness — comes across as being a little boring.

Actually, the scariest thing about this film is Lorraine Bracco’s performance as Diana Giacalone. Bracco does a lot of yelling as Giacalone. Sometimes, it’s understandable. Giacalone is portrayed as being someone who grew up on the same tough streets as Gotti and who resents people like Gotti and the Mafia giving a bad name to Italians in general. The problem is that Bracco yells her lines even when there’s no reason to be yelling. At one point, she discovers that someone screwed up her lunch order and she screams about it as if the world is ending. Visiting her mother (Ellen Burstyn) for the holidays, Giacalone yells at her family. When the verdict comes in, Giacalone yells some more. The yelling is pretty much nonstop and, as a result, one starts to feel that the other U.S. attorneys might have a point when they say that Giacalone is a loose cannon. The film tries to present her as being a strong, no-bullshit woman who is going up against an army of misogynists but there’s more to being strong than just yelling. It would be such a big deal if the film had given her a personality beyond yelling but it doesn’t. I blame the script more than I blame Lorraine Bracco, who can be a very good actress when cast in the right role.

Getting Gotti pretty much hits every Mafia cliche. Whenever anyone drives around the old neighborhood, Italian string music plays. There’s a moment where Giacalone yells that her goal is to make sure that people understand that the Mafia isn’t “Al Pacino looking soulful” in The Godfather. I had to wonder if Giacalone had ever actually watched The Godfather. Seriously, an Italian attacking The Godfather? Who does she think she is, Joe Columbo?

Gotti remains the Gotti film to watch.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: Unforgiven (dir by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1992 Best Picture winner, Unforgiven, begins as a story of frontier justice.

In Kansas, a young and cocky cowboy who calls himself the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) rides up to an isolated hog farm. He’s looking for Will Munny (Clint Eastwood), a notorious outlaw with a reputation for being a ruthless killer. Instead, he just finds a broken down, elderly widower who is trying to raise two young children and who can barely even manage to climb on a horse. Will Munny, the murderer, has become Will Munny the farmer. He gave up his former life when he got married.

The Schofield Kid claims to be an experienced gunfighter who has killed a countless number of men. He explains that a group of sex workers in Wyoming have put a $1,000 bounty on two men, Quick Mike (David Mucci) and his friend, Davey Bunting (Rob Campbell). Quick Mike cut up one of the women when she laughed at how unimpressively endowed he was. While Davey didn’t take part in the crime, he was present when it happened and he didn’t do anything to stop it. The local sheriff, a man named Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), had Davey give the woman’s employer several horses as compensation. The Kid wants Munny to help him collect the bounty.

At first, Munny refuses to help the Kid. But, when he realizes that he’s on the verge of losing his farm, Munny changes his mind. He and his former partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), join with the Kid and the three of them head to Wyoming. Along the way, they discover that the Kid is severely nearsighted and can hardly handle a pistol.

Meanwhile, in the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, Little Bill ruthlessly enforces the peace. He’s a charismatic man who is building a house and bringing what many would consider to be civilization to the Old West. When we first meet Little Bill, he seems like a likable guy. The town trusts him. His deputies worship him. He has a quick smile but he’s willing to stand his ground. But it soon becomes apparent that, underneath that smile and friendly manner, Bill is a tyrant and a petty authoritarian who treats the town as his own personal kingdom. Little Bill has a strict rule. No one outside of law enforcement is allowed to carry a gun in his town. When another bounty hunter, English Bob (Richard Harris), comes to town to kill the two cowboys, Little Bill humiliates him and sends him on his way but not before recruiting Bob’s traveling companion, writer W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), to write Bill’s life story. Bill’s not that much different from the outlaws that he claims to disdain. Like them, Bill understands that value of publicity.

Unforgiven starts as a traditional western but it soon becomes something else all together. As the Schofield Kid discovers, there’s a big difference between talking about killing a man and actually doing it. Piece-by-piece, Unforgiven deconstructs the legends of the old west. Gunfights are messy. Gunfighters are not noble. Davey Bunting is the only man in town to feel guilty about what happened but, because he’s included in the bounty, he still dies an agonizing death. Quick Mike is killed not in the town square during a duel but while sitting in an outhouse. Ned and Munny struggle with the prospect of going back to their old ways, with Munny having to return to drinking before he can once again become the fearsome killer that he was in the past. And Little Bill, the man who says that he’s all about taming the west and bringing civilization to a lawless land, turns out to be just as ruthless a killer as the rest. A lot of people are dead by the end of Unforgiven. Some of them were truly bad. Some of them were good. Most of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone’s got it coming, to paraphrase Will Munny.

With its violent storyline, deliberate pacing, and its shots of the desolate yet beautiful western landscape, Clint Eastwood’s film feels like a natural continuation of the Spaghetti westerns that he made with Sergio Leone. (Unforgiven is dedicated to both Leone and Don Seigel.) Unforgiven was the first of Eastwood’s directorial efforts to be nominated for Best Picture and also the first to win. It’s brutal meditation on violence and the truth behind the legends of the American frontier. Eastwood gives one of his best and ultimately most frightening performances as Will Munny. Gene Hackman won his second Oscar for playing Little Bill Daggett.

Unforgiven holds up well today. Hackman’s Little Bill Dagget feels like the 19th century version of many of today’s politicians and unelected bureaucrats, authoritarians who claims that their only concern is the greater good but whose main interest is really just increasing their own power. Unforgiven remains one Clint Eastwood’s best films and one of the best westerns ever made. Leone would have been proud.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Check It Out! 1.12 “Skip to the Loo”

Posted on December 23, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

We’ve got a weird one tonight!

Episode 1.12 “Skip to the Loo”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on December 18th, 1985)

This episode opens with Howard feeling a bit concerned. As he explains to Edna, an old army buddy visited him the previous night. Mad Mike Mulroney climbed through Howard’s window with three dead Dobermans around his neck. Having just escaped from prison, Mad Mike asked Howard to do him a favor and give his son, Brandon, a job. Howard felt that he had to agree because Mad Mike saved Howard’s life while they were serving in Korea. Why, Howard cries, why did I let him do that!?

Brandon (Jeremy Ratchford) shows up and turns out to be as fearsome as his father. Howard suggests that Brandon fill in for bagboy Murray, who is on vacation. Brandon replies that he was hoping he could be a bouncer. Brandon then proceeds to literally toss a lot of people out of the store. Realizing that Brandon should not be on the sales floor, Howard suggests that Brandon spend the day in the meat locker where he can beat up the meat, Rocky Balboa-style.

Meanwhile, nerdy Herman Fastback (Howard Busgang) is trying to set the world record for skipping rope in the store. Unfortunately, the world record is 12 hours and Herman keeps getting distracted and having to start over. As well, Brandon keeps coming out the meat locker and taunting him.

When it’s time for the store to close, Christian agrees to spend the night in the store so that Herman can continue to set his record. The next morning, Christian wakes up in a shopping cart and discovers that all of the cash registers have been emptied and the employee locker room has been ransacked. Herman has disappeared and Brandon is dead in the meat locker! When Howard and Alf come to work, they surmise that Herman robbed the store and then killed Brandon.

No one is that upset about Brandon being dead. In fact, Howard doesn’t call the police and just leaves the body in the meat locker. But then Mad Dog (George Buza) shows up in full military gear and announces that he is just a few hours from heading to South America, where he plans to overthrow another country’s government. He tells Howard that he’s a mercenary and “I kill people for a living.” Mad Dog asks how Brandon is doing. It takes a while but eventually, Howard admits that Brandon is dead.

Mad Dog is not extremely upset about his son dying but he does request that Howard give him a funeral in the store. Realizing that Mad Dog will probably kill him otherwise, Howard agrees. He closes down the store and then Brandon’s frozen body is wheeled into the break room. Howard conducts a respectful funeral. Mad Dog is touched.

This episode was so strange that it was only during the end credits that I realized that Herman apparently got away with not only robbing the place but also killing Brandon. In fact, I don’t think Howard or anyone else at the store bothered to call the police about any of this. Instead, they just left Brandon in the meat locker. I’ve never worked in a grocery store so I have to admit that I’m not the expert on these things but I think leaving a corpse inside a storage area would have to be a health code violation of some sort.

It’s difficult to dislike anything that’s this cheerfully weird. This episode full embraced its own absurdity and, for that reason, it worked quite well. We’re about halfway through the first season of Check It Out! and the best episodes are definitely the weird ones.

Next week …. well, I don’t know what’s happening next week. Hopefully, they will have gotten Brandon’s body out of the store.

October True Crime: Easy Prey (dir by Sandor Stern)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 film, Easy Prey, tells the story of Tina Marie Riscio (Shawnee Smith), a 16 year-old who was approached in a mall by man (Gerald McRaney) who claimed to be a photographer looking for models. The man told the insecure Tina that he wanted to take her picture but that he needed her to come out to his car and sign a release. At first, Tina was reluctant to follow the man out to his car but when he acted embarassed and apologized for making her feel uncomfortable, Tina decided to sign the release. Later, she would say that the man reminded her of her father.

The man, however, was Christopher Wilder. At the time that he approached Tina, Wilder was already a suspect in several murders and had been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. In many ways, Wilder did not seem to fit the typical profile of a serial killer. Born in Australia, he was a naturalized American citizen who had started his own business and lived what seemed to be a glamorous lifestyle. He was a millionaire. He owned a Porsche. He was a race car driver who competed in races across the country. Even with his receding hairline, he was considered to be charming and handsome. It was only under a close examination that cracks started to appear on his perfect surface. He had a criminal record in Australia. His girlfriends described him as being paranoid, insecure, and abusive. His business partners said that, despite his apparent wealth, Wilder was always one step away from financial ruin.

Because Wilder was killed by the police while resisting arrest, it’s not known how many women he murdered over the course of his six-week crime spree in 1984. It is believed that he definitely murdered eight but the actual number is thought to be much higher. (He’s a suspect in the disappearance of actress Tammy Lynn Lepert, who appeared in Scarface as the woman who distracted Steven Bauer while the latter should have been keeping track on what was happening with Tony’s meeting with the Colombians.) However, he did not kill Tina Marie Riscio. Instead, after kidnapping and assaulting her, he drove across the country with her. After using her to lure victims in both Indiana and New York, Wilder eventually drove Tina to Boston and bought her an airplane ticket home. While Tina was flying back to Los Angeles, Wilder was heading for Canada. (He would be shot and killed by police near the border, in New Hampshire.)

Easy Prey follows Wilder and Tina as they drive from location-to-location. Along the way, Tina is shown to develop a case of Stockholm Syndrome. As much as she hates Wilder, she still fails to take advantage of many chances to escape from him. Unfortunately, the film’s script itself doesn’t provide much insight into how this happened, beyond the fact that Wilder reminded Tina of the father who earlier abandoned her. The film does feature two strong performances, from Shawnee Smith and Gerald McRaney. Smith gets a a powerful monologue, in which she talks about how easy it was for Wilder to take advantage of her insecurity. Meanwhile, McRaney plays Wilder as being a pathetic man who is desperate to convince the world that he is actually a dynamic businessman and adventurer. If he were alive today, there’s little doubt Christopher Wilder would be on twitter, siding into people’s DMs and posting a bunch of “alpha male” nonsense. Wilder was a monster who still feels very familiar.

Retro Television Reviews: T and T 1.5 “The Drop” and 1.6 “Something In The Air”

Posted on August 25, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Mr. T takes on drug dealers and mad bombers!

Episode 1.5 “The Drop”

(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on February 8th, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “a kid’s life is shattered when he’s arrested for dealing drugs. Amy and I try to pick the pieces, with some unexpected help from Renee!”

This episode begins with one of my favorite cop show clichés. A suspected drug courier is grabbed by two cops. They open the envelope that he was carrying and discover a white powder. One of the cops puts some of the power on her fingers and then sticks her fingers in her mouth.

“High grade crack!” she announced.

Hey, just be happy it wasn’t anthrax!

In this case, the accused courier is a 14 year-old named Norm (Gerry Musgrave), who says that he has no idea what was in the envelopes and he was only carrying them because he answered a classified ad asking for delivery people. However, the prosecution is determined to send a message by trying Norm as an adult! Fortunately, Norm is friends with T.S.’s goddaughter, Renee (Rachael Crawford). Renee brings T.S. and Amy onto the case.

“Loosen up, brother, you already convinced us,” T.S. tells Norm, “Now we just got to the convince the court.”

Norm moves into T.S.’s home, where he is looked after by the gospel-singing Aunt Martha (Jackie Robinson). While Jackie helps Norm get settled in, Renee approaches T.S. and says, “I’ve seen the ads on crack. I know what it does.”

“And you want to help Norm,” T.S. says, “Don’t get involved! People dealing drugs are very dangerous!”

Renee does not take T.S.’s advice and instead, approaches the school drug dealer, Bob Douglas (Jeremy Ratchford). She compliments Bob on his red trans am and Bob invites her to meet up with him at a local disco. Renee’s friends tell her that she might be making a mistake but Renee snaps that she can’t look the other way like everyone else at school.

While Renee skips class so she can meet up with Bob at the most depressing nightclub I’ve ever seen (seriously, there’s just one very sad disco ball hanging over the dance floor), T.S. meets with Fat Sam, who is not fat and who is played by future television director Clark Johnson! (As an actor, Johnson is probably best-known for playing Meldrick Lewis on Homicide and later Gus Johnson on The Wire.)

“Fat Sam,” T.S. says, “you’re the coolest dude I know!”

“As long as the dice keep rolling my way,” Fat Sam replies, “Rumor on the street has it that you’re looking for a specific crack dealer.”

“Be honest with you, Fat Sam,” T.S. replies, “I want to bust all the crack dealers but I want this one first.”

Fat Sam makes some phone calls and tells T.S. that the crack dealer he’s looking for is …. BOB DOUGLAS!

“Thanks, Fat Sam, I owe you one,” T.S. replies.

Meanwhile, Bob Douglas has taken Renee to his loft apartment! When Bob discovers the Renee has been searching his apartment while he was distracted, Bob has a paranoid breakdown, accuses Renee of being a narc, and makes a run for it. Fortunately, T.S. and Amy show up in time to catch him and clear Norm’s name! Yay!

This episode suffered a bit because, for all the build-up, it turned out that all Amy and T.S. needed to do to prove Norm’s innocence was to get Fat Sam to make one phone call. It felt a bit anticlimactic, to say the least. This is a case where the limits of that 30-minute running time really worked against the story the show was trying to tell. That said, Mr. T growling against crack is always enjoyable to watch.

Episode 1.6 “Something In The Air”

(Dir by Allan A. Goldstein, originally aired on February 15th, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T tell us, “a radio DJ is the target of an angry phone caller. While Amy fights to keep the D.J. on the air, I get to make a few calls of my own.”

After radio DJ PJ Reynolds (Lee Curreri) encourages his listeners to “take it to the streets,” one of his listeners blows up a mailbox. The district attorney wants to take Reynolds off the air! Fortunately, Reynold is a client of Amy Taler’s! When Louney (Neil Munro), the smarmy D.A. tries to convince Amy and T.S. to deliver a court summons to the DJ, T.S. replies, “Sorry, brother. We ain’t a delivery service!”

Because there’s only one explosives dealer in all of Canada, Turner confronts his friend Whisperer (Martin Donlevy) and demands to know who he has been selling to. Whisperer says that he sold a timer to a man who said that he wanted to take down Reynolds. “He sounded like someone who was used to getting what he wants.” Somehow, T.S. figures that this means Louney is behind the bombings. Turner needs Louney to call the show again but Reynolds has voluntarily taken himself off the air.

“Let’s talk responsibility,” Turner snaps at the DJ, “That’s the big talk!”

Convined that he has a responsibility, Reynolds goes back on the air and Louney can’t help but call him. Though Louney hangs up before the police can trace the call, T.S. is staking out Louney’s house and, as soon as Louney steps outside with a briefcase bomb, Turner goes after him. It leads to a car chase that ends with T.S. capturing Louney and forcing to Louney to defuse his latest bomb right before it detonates.

A grateful PJ promises that, from now on, he’s going to be “Mr. Mellow” on the air. When Amy says she doesn’t think it’ll happen, PJ says, “You’ll have to tune in and see.”

“Not me, brother,” T.S. replies, “I’m going to stick to my TV …. it’s my favorite medium!”

I liked this episode because it stood up for free speech. Any show that exposes a power-crazed bureaucrat, I’m going to enjoy.

Next week, Amy and T.S. search for …. THE SILVER ANGEL!