October Positivity: I’m In Love With A Church Girl (dir by Steve Race)

Posted on October 7, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2013’s I’m In Love With A Church Girl, future Fyre Festival promoter Ja Rule stars as Miles Montego.

Miles is wealthy and powerful and glamorous and he owes it all to his career as a drug dealer. However, at heart, he’s still a good son who loves his mother and who worries about disappointing her with his criminal lifestyle. His mother is big into church and she wants Miles to settle down with a good Christian girl. Miles is like, “It’ll never happen.” But then, at a party thrown by his accountant (Vincent Pastore), Miles meets and falls for Vanessa Leon (Adrienne Bailon). Vanessa is a …. wait for it …. church girl!

Falling in love with Vanessa changes Miles. He realizes that there’s more to life than just making money and hanging out with the members of his drug-dealing crew. He goes to church with Vanessa and is shocked to discover that the preacher owns a nice suit and drives a fancy car. The preacher explains that it’s not a sin to by stylish. Tell that to the Amish, preach.

Anyway, Miles may be finding God but the DEA still wants to take down Miles and his crew. Martin Kove appears in one scene as the DEA supervisor who orders Stephen Baldwin and Michael Madsen to make Miles their number one priority. Madsen isn’t in much of the film but Baldwin makes many appearances, popping up regularly to remind us that Miles is still under surveillance.

Miles’s new-found faith is tested when his mother dies. Then, when Vanessa ends up in the hospital, Miles really struggles. If you’ve ever wanted to see Ja Rule deliver an angry and impassioned monologue about faith, I’m In Love With A Church Girl is the film for you!

To give credit where credit is due, I’m In Love With A Church Girl was clearly made with the best of intentions. The film was written by Galley Molina, a real life former drug dealer who later became a preacher. Molina reportedly based the film on his own life story and the end result is an very earnest film that does seem to believe it’s own message. That’s a good thing.

The bad thing is that the film, with its 2-hour running time, is almost painfully slow and the rather simple story is stretched so thin that the film itself becomes a bit of an endurance test. The other problem is that Ja Rule is, to put it charitably, not a very good actor. He sleepwalks through the film with a somewhat dazed expression on his face, projecting little of the charisma that you would probably need to get an otherwise sensible person like Vanessa to overlook your drug dealing career. He certainly doesn’t have the screen presence to carry a two-hour film and he big dramatic monologue is more likely to inspire laughter than tears.

(It doesn’t help that it’s hard to look at him without thinking about him bragging about how great the Fyre Festival was going to be.)

The film is so well-intentioned that I kind of hate to be critical of it but I’m In Love With A Church Girl doesn’t really work.

Lisa Marie Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Goodfellas (dir by Martin Scorsese)

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1990 and continuously acclaimed ever since, Goodfellas did not win the Oscar for Best Picture.

I’m always a bit surprised whenever I remember that. Goodfellas didn’t win Best Picture? That just doesn’t seem right. It’s not the other films nominated that year were bad but Goodfellas was so brilliant that it’s hard to imagine someone actually voting for something else. Seriously, it’s hard to think of a film that has been more influential than Goodfellas. Every gangster film with a soundtrack of kitschy tunes from the 6os and 70s owes huge debt to Goodfellas. Every actor who has ever been cast as a wild and out-of-control psycho gangster owes a debt to Joe Pesci’s performance as Tommy DeVito. When Ray Liotta passed away two years ago, we all immediately heard him saying, “I always wanted to be a gangster.” Robert De Niro’s Jimmy Conway remains the epitome of the ruthless gangster. For many, Paul Sorvino’s neighborhood godfather redefined what it meant to be a crime boss. Lorraine Bracco made such an impression as Karen Hill that it somehow seemed appropriate that she was one of the first people cast in The Sopranos, a show that itself would probably have not existed if not for Goodfellas. Frank Sivero, Samuel L. Jackson, Tobin Bell, Debi Mazer, Vincent Gallo, Ileana Douglas, Frank Vincent, Tony Sirico, Michael Imperioli, Tony Darrow, Mike Starr, Chuck Low, all of them can be seen in Goodfellas. It’s a film that many still consider to be the best of Martin Scorsese’s legendary career. Who can forget Robert De Niro smoking that cigarette while Sunshine of Your Love blared on the soundtrack? Who can forget “Maury’s wigs don’t come off!” or “Rossi, you are nothing but whore!?” Who can forget the cheery Christmas music playing in the background while De Niro’s Jimmy Conway grows more and more paranoid after pulling off the biggest heist of his career?

Plus, it’s a Christmas movie!

And yet, it did not win Best Picture.

Myself, whenever I’m sitting behind a garbage truck in traffic, I immediately start to hear the piano coda from Layla. For that matter, whenever I see a helicopter in the sky, I flash back to a coke-addled Henry Hill getting paranoid as he tries to pick up his brother from the hospital. Whenever I see someone walking across the street in the suburbs, I remember the scene where Henry coolly pistol-whips the country club guy and then tells Karen to hide his gun. I always remember Karen saying that she knows that many of her best friends would have run off as soon as their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide but “it turned me on.” It would have turned me on as well. Henry might be a gangster and his friends might be murderers but he doesn’t make any apologies for who he is, unlike everyone else in the world.

But it did not win Best Picture.

How many people have imitated Joe Pesci saying, “How am I funny?” How many times did Pesci and Frank Vincent have to listen to people telling them to “go home and get your fucking shinebox?” A lot of people remember the brutality of the scene where Pesci and De Niro team up to attack Vincent’s crude gangster but I always remember the sound of Donavon’s Atlantis playing on the soundtrack.

And then there’s Catherine Scorsese, showing up as Tommy’s mom and cooking for everyone while Vincent struggles to escape from the trunk of a car. “He is content to be a jerk,” Tommy says about Henry Hill. Just a few hours earlier, Tommy was apologizing to Henry for getting blood on his floor.

Goodfellas is a fast-paced look at organized crime, spanning from the 50s to the early 80s. Ray Liotta plays Henry Hill, who goes from idolizing gangsters to being a gangster to ultimately fearing his associates after he gets busted for dealing drugs. It’s a dizzying film, full of so many classic scenes and lines that it feels almost pointless to try to list them all here or to pretend like whoever is reading this review doesn’t remember the scene where the camera pans through the club and we meet the members of the crew. (“And then there was Pete The Killer….”) Goodfellas is a film that spend two hours showing us how much fun being a gangster can be and then thirty minutes showing us just how bad it can get when you’re high on coke, the police are after you, and you’ve recently learned that your associates are willing to kill even their oldest friends. No matter how many times I watch Goodfellas, I always get very anxious towards the end of the film. With the music pounding and the camera spinning, with Henry looking for helicopters, and with all of his plans going wrong over the course of one day, it’s almost a relief when Bo Dietl points that gun at Henry’s head and yells at him, revealing that Henry has been captured by the cops and not the Gambinos. Karen desperately running through the house, flushing drugs and hiding a gun in her underwear, always leaves me unsettled. It’s such a nice house but now, everything is crashing down.

There’s a tendency to compare Goodfellas to The Godfather, as their both films that re-imagine American history and culture through the lens of the gangster genre. I think they’re both great but I also think that they are ultimately two very different films. If The Godfather is sweeping and operatic, Goodfellas is the film that reminds us that gangsters also live in the suburbs and go to cookouts and that their wives take care of the kids and watch movies while the FBI searches their home. If The Godfather is about the bosses, Goodfellas is about the blue collar soldiers. The Godfather represents what we wish the Mafia was like while Goodfellas represents the reality.

Goodfellas is one of the greatest films ever made but it lost the Best Picture Oscar to Dances With Wolves, a film that left audiences feeling good as opposed to anxious. To be honest, Martin Scorsese losing Best Director to Kevin Costner feels like an even bigger injustice than Goodfellas losing Best Picture. One can understand the desire to reward Dances With Wolves, a film that attempts to correct a decades worth of negative stereotypes about Native Americans. But Scorsese’s direction was so brilliant that it’s truly a shame that he didn’t win and that Lorraine Bracco didn’t win Best Supporting Actress. It’s also a shame that Ray Liotta wasn’t nominated for playing Henry Hill. At least Joe Pesci won an Oscar for redefining what it meant to be a gangster.

Goodfellas is proof that the best film doesn’t always win at the Oscars. But it’s also proof that a great film doesn’t need an Oscar to be remembered.

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1994) – Nicolas Cage wins the lottery! Now what about that tip?!

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Bradley Crain

As much as I enjoy writing about movies and talking about movies, I make a living by helping people with their annual income tax filings. That means from around January 15th through April 15th each year, almost every waking hour is spent focused on tax return preparation. While I’m working on these tax returns, I will often play movies or TV shows on one of my computer screens. These aren’t just any movies, though. These are movies or TV shows that make me feel good and help me relax while I’m working so many hours. Over the years, I’ve used movies like THE OTHER GUYS, THE HANGOVER, and ZOMBIELAND. A few years ago, THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW was on Prime, and I watched the entire 8 seasons through 3 times during tax season. One genre I hit hard this time of year is romantic films, both comedies and dramas. The main thing I’m looking for is happy endings. My favorite romantic films include NOTTING HILL, RETURN TO ME, HITCH, YOU’VE GOT MAIL, PERSUASION & SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. As a big fan of Nicolas Cage, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU, Cage’s 1994 romantic comedy with Bridget Fonda has joined that list over the years as well. Since today, January 7th, 2025, is Nicolas Cage’s 61st birthday, and tax season is coming, I thought I’d write about this charming film!

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU revolves around Charlie Lang (Nicolas Cage), a New York City cop who seems like an all-around good guy. One day he’s having coffee at a local diner with his partner Bo (Wendell Pierce), when they get a police call. Charlie finds himself without the money to give a proper tip to his waitress, Yvonne (Bridget Fonda), so he improvises on the spot and tells her he has a lottery ticket to be drawn on that very same night. Further, he goes on to tell her if he wins, he’ll split the winnings with her as a tip. The two cops head on out, Charlie happy that he gave her something, and Yvonne, who’s not having a good day anyway, just shakes it off knowing that it’s just another small tip she missed out on. But wouldn’t you know it, on this night the stars all align and Charlie’s number is drawn as a winner. Charlie and his wife Muriel (Rosie Perez) are ecstatic with their win, which amounts to around $4 million. In the middle of their celebration, Charlie remembers his promise to Yvonne and tells Muriel. To say she’s upset is an understatement, and she begs him to stiff the waitress. Charlie is just too honest for that, so he is able to convince Muriel that $2 Million is enough for them to live comfortably on. She begrudgingly agrees, but the fuse has been lit between Charlie and Muriel. The next day, Charlie goes back to the diner and tells Yvonne that they won. At first not believing it’s true, Charlie is able to convince Yvonne that he’s honoring his tip by giving her half of the winnings. We have found out that Yvonne is having severe financial problems, and this “tip” comes as a completely unexpected answer to her prayers. Alls well that ends well, right? As we all know, money can bring out the very best or the very worst in people and we see that play out throughout the rest of the movie. I’ll just put it this way, as Charlie and Muriel grow apart with their newfound money, Charlie and Yvonne grow closer together, bound by this amazing experience.

It’s all a pretty crazy setup, but IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU is a movie that I relate to idealistically. I really like Cage and Fonda in their roles. I’d love to be as honest and likable as Nicolas Cage’s character Charlie Lang. He is just a good guy, way down deep. I want to be that kind of guy. And Bridget Fonda’s character Yvonne is also very appealing. She’s presented as a lady going through a lot of personal issues, but who somehow seems to always show a kind and compassionate spirit to everyone around her, especially to others who are struggling. The scene where Charlie convinces her that he really is giving her half the money is quite an uplifting scene. Both of these characters have an honesty and attitude about life that resonates with me. Some people might argue that their characters should have more depth to make them more realistic and less one-dimensional, and they might be right, but I personally enjoy seeing them as just really honest and kind people.

It should also be pointed out that you have to be able suspend your disbelief to enjoy IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. If your movies “have” to be realistic, this is not the movie for you. The entire premise is a fairytale, and the movie should be seen as such. For the movie to work, the good guys have to be really good guys, and the bad guys have to be really bad guys. I’ve mentioned earlier how kind both Charlie and Yvonne are throughout the film, with the money not changing their attitudes about life in any way. If anything, the money allows them to be even more kind and generous to others. Well, money has had the exact opposite effect on Muriel, and we soon learn that $2 Million isn’t enough for her and that the full $4 Million would not have been enough either. At this point, I’m not sure $100 Million would have been enough. In our fairytale story, she can’t be presented as a lady realistically struggling with her husband’s overly generous tip, she has to be presented as extremely selfish and cruel. I mean, how else is the story going to get Charlie and Yvonne together?!

All in all, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU works for me. I’ve said many times I’m a sucker for a good romance, and this film fits the bill for me. The main characters warm my heart as they are decent, kind and honest. I like a good fairytale. It’s one of the main reasons I enjoy the movies, and it doesn’t seem like we get enough good fairytales these days.

Check out the trailer for IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU below!

And if you’re looking for more awesome information about Nicolas Cage, check out John Rieber’s latest post where he celebrates Cage’s birthday with a movie marathon!

Happy Birthday Nicolas Cage! I Watched SEVEN “Cage-tacular” Films To Celebrate!

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Black Wake (dir by Jeremiah Kipp)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this film from 2018 (which is largely made up of “found footage”), authorities are confused by a series of mysterious, beachside deaths. The dead seem to have little to no connection with each other, besides having died near the Atlantic Ocean. Some think that the murders are the result of a cult. However, Dr. Luiza Moreira (Nana Gouvea) is convinced that the death are being caused by some sort of parasite that is transferred from host to host. Her boss (Eric Roberts) doesn’t buy it and he thinks that Dr. Moreira is becoming unhinged in her obsession with her theory. But soon, the streets are full of zombiefied killers, all of whom seem to be determined to reach the ocean.

As for Dr. Moreira, her boss may actually have a point about her behavior. Much of the film is made up footage of Dr. Moreira speaking straight to the camera, explaining her theory and also discussing how everyone that she works with is either too foolish or too in denial to understand that its right. Soon, she almost seems to be taking a bit of joy in just how out-of-control the situation has become. Meanwhile, she finds herself suffering from terrible headaches and occasional hallucinations. Two government agents follow her and watch her every move, ominously talking about how she doesn’t realize what is really happening. When she tries to go to her family to warn them about what is happening, she discovers that the situation is even more extreme than she originally thought.

Black Wake is a low-budget slice of Cthulhu-style horror, one that works because it embraces its low budget and basically tosses in every weird twist and situation that it can come up with. It’s an enjoyably weird movie and, if nothing else, it captures the extent to which some people will go to pretend that there’s nothing strange happening around them. My favorites were the dumbass frat guys who just had to pick up a hitchhiker, despite the fact that she was obviously homicidal and disturbed. One of the frat guys points out that it might not be a good idea to pick up a stranger while there’s a wave of mass murders occurring at the beach, one of his friends rationalizes the decision by saying, “She’s a chick.” Drunk frat boys so desperate to get laid that they’ll risk being murdered? That’s probably the most realistic moment in the entire film.

Eric Roberts appears in three scenes, playing an unsympathetic bureaucrat. (Is there any other type?) He’s not the only actor making a cameo here. Chuck Zito plays a sheriff. Vincent Pastore plays a doctor who memorably says, “Fuck this!” when confronted with the walking dead. And Tom Sizemore has two effective scenes as an unstable homicide detective.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Clinton Road (dir by Richard Grieco and Steve Stanulis)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2019’s Clinton Road features what might be my favorite Eric Roberts cameo appearance.

Roberts appears standing outside a club in New Jersey. He’s speaking to the woman who is working the door and trying to convince her that he should be allowed into the club, even though she doesn’t think that he’s on the list. He explains that he’s Eric Roberts. The woman replies that he’s not the Eric Roberts that she knows but then, suddenly, she realizes that he is Eric Roberts the movie star! She apologizes profusely. Eric says its okay and gives her a fist bump. Everyone waiting to get into the club applauds.

Seriously, that is the extent of Eric Roberts’s role in Clinton Road. It comes out of nowhere and it has nothing to do with the actual plot of the film. Why is Eric Roberts waiting outside of some club in New Jersey? Who knows? He’s just there and he’s a cool dude and everyone loves him. As with so many of his cameos, one gets the feeling that Roberts just happened to see some people shooting a movie and he decided to be a part of it.

Eric Roberts is not the only well-known actor to make a brief appearance in Clinton Road. The film itself was directed by actor Richard Grieco and it’s obvious that he asked some of his well-known friends to help out. The manager of the club is played Ice-T and he shows up long enough to tell the urban legend of the vanishing hitchhiker. The owner of the club is Vincent Pastore, who played Pussy on The Sopranos. Private investigator-turned-character actor Bo Dietl shows up, playing the mayor of the town and barking orders at people. Everyone gets a chance to be, at least briefly, the center of attention but none of them play characters who actually have anything to do with the film’s main story.

That story is about Michael (played by former American Idol contestant, Ace Young), a fireman whose wife disappeared while walking down Clinton Road, a haunted rural road in New Jersey. (For the record, Clinton Road is real and, as this film states, it’s the center of many urban legends.) Michael is ready to move on and marry his new girlfriend, Kayla (Lauren LaVera). However, Michael’s former sister-in-law, Isabella (Katie Morrison), convinces Michael to go out to Clinton Road with her and make one last effort to contact his wife’s spirit. Accompanying them is a medium named Begory (James DeBello), Begory’s girlfriend, Gianna (Erin O’Brien), and Michael’s brother, Tyler (former Big Brother houseguest Cody Calafiore). Tyler is loudly skeptical of Begory’s claims to be able to speak to the dead but it soon becomes clear that the group is not alone on Clinton Road.

To my surprise, I ended up liking Clinton Road. It’s a very low-budget film and the plot doesn’t always make sense but it was obviously made by people who both loved New Jersey and who loved the legends that have sprung up around Clinton Road. The atmosphere was ominous, the imagery was often surreal, and, when they did appear, the spirits were effectively creepy. The fact that the characters all had an attitude that was more appropriate to The Sopranos than to a standard lost-in-the-woods horror film only served to make the film all the more entertaining. If you’re going to set your horror film in New Jersey, you might as well go all out and make the most New Jersey horror film imaginable.

I enjoyed this film. I just hope Eric Roberts didn’t make the mistake of turning down Clinton Road on his way home.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Bully (2018, directed by Santino Campanelli)

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Sixteen year-old Jimmy Mulligan (Tucker Albrizzi) is a nice kid with a big problem. His high school is ruled by a gang led by a bully named Miles (Jack DiFalco) and the overweight and quiet Jimmy has become the gang’s number one target.

Miles has decided that Jimmy owes him a hundred dollars. Even though Jimmy has never borrowed any money from Miles and is obviously not from a family that would have a hundred dollars to just toss around, Miles insists that Jimmy is in his debt. When Jimmy refuses to pay, Miles beats the poor kid while he’s walking home from school. However, the beating is observed by a retired boxer named Clarence “Action” Jackson (Ron Canada). Action runs off Miles and then he makes Jimmy an offer. He’ll help Jimmy learn how to box as long as Jimmy agrees to only use his skills for self-defense. At first Jimmy and his parents are reluctant but, after he gets beaten up for a second time, it’s time to go to Manny’s Gym!

Manny (Danny Trejo!), who is a legendary trainer, takes Jimmy under his wing and teaches him how to throw a punch and avoid a jab. Soon, Jimmy is losing weight, gaining confidence, and even going out on a date with a supercool goth girl named Adrian (Elanna White). But Miles still wants his money and eventually, Jimmy is going to have to put his training to use.

In many ways, Bully is every bullied kid’s dream. Not only does Jimmy learn how to throw a punch and get a girlfriend but he also gets to hang out with Danny Trejo! Manny is a tough but funny guy with a rough past but a good heart and he is using his skills to try to make the world a better place. The same can be said for Danny Trejo himself, so he’s the perfect choice to play Manny. Ron Canada is also good as Action Jackson, bringing a lot of quiet dignity to the part. Tucker Albrizzi does a good job of going from being insecure to being confident.

It’s just too bad that the film itself isn’t better. Bully has good intentions but the execution is lacking. The movie kept suggesting that there would be a scene where Jimmy had to chose between using his new skills for revenge or just for self-defense but it never happened. There were too many scenes that did not seem to go anywhere and, for all of the build-up, the final fight between Jimmy and Miles was anti-climatic and confusingly filmed. During the final 15 minutes, several new characters show up and suddenly become central to the story. Somehow, the Mafia finds out about the fight and takes an interest in whether or not Jimmy is going to be able to beat up Miles. On the one hand, it’s cool because Vincent Pastore is one of the gangsters but on the other hand, what’s going on? Why are they there?

Danny Trejo’s cool, though. That counts for a lot.

Miniseries Review: Mario Puzo’s The Last Don (dir by Graeme Clifford)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First broadcast over three nights in 1997, The Last Don tells the story of a powerful and respected Mafia family. They control politicians across the country and they own casinos in Vegas and their power even extends all the way to Hollywood. Despite having many enemies, the family has thrived due to the leadership of a wise but ruthless Don. This Don remembers the old ways and imparts lessons about honor to the members of his own family. Never let anyone know what you’re thinking. Never side against the family. If someone like you were to make enemies, they would become the Don’s enemies and then they would fear you …. you know, stuff like that.

However, times are changing and America is changing with it. The underworld is no longer run by men of honor. On top that, the Don is aging and in ill-health. Who will succeed him? One possible successor is respected by all but he’s stayed out of the dirtier aspects of the family’s business and, in fact, he seems to have no desire to be a feared man. Another possible successor is ruthless and has a terrible temper. He sometimes speaks out of turn, because the Don has a sentimental weakness for his children. This possible successor’s anger is feared but perhaps fear is the future of the organized crime in America. The old ways are changing but one thing remains the same. The Don believes in America and he believes in family and….

Wait.

Okay, is it just me or does this all sound just a little bit familiar?

If it does, that’s probably because The Last Don is based on a novel by The Godfather‘s Mario Puzo. Though the family may be called The Clerichuzios and the action may have been moved fro the 40s and the 50s to the 60s, 70s, and 80, the story is still the same basic one that was told in The Godfather. Don Clerichuzio (Danny Aiello) is an honorable man whose time is coming to an end. His grandnephew, Cross (Jason Gedrick), is the possible successor who isn’t crazy. His grandson, Dante (Rory Cochrane), is the possible successor who is violent and doesn’t know how to negotiate. Don Clerichuzio’s dream is for the family to become completely legitimate but good luck with that when the film business and the political world are just as corrupt as the Mafia. I supposed one could argue that The Last Don is narrated by Don Clerichuzio while The Godfather has no narration at all but, seriously, once you have to add a voice-over to explain what’s going on, you have pretty much already last the war.

And yes, I did mention the film business. When Francis Ford Coppola first read The Godfather, he famously hated the Hollywood sections of the book and, with the exception of Tom Hagen’s visit to Jack Woltz (and Woltz’s subsequent discovery of a horse’s head in his bed the next morning), Coppola refused to include them in the movie. The second half of The Last Don, however, goes full Hollywood and, more or less, proves Coppola’s point. Cross’s sister, Claudia (Michelle Burke, who also co-starred with Cochrane in Dazed and Confused), gets a job as an agent and one of her clients is the world’s most famous actress, the ludicrously named Athena Aquataine (Daryl Hannah). When Athena has trouble with her crazy ex-husband (Chris Meloni, bringing a spark of genuine danger to the production), Cross helps her out, falls in love, and gets involved in the production of her next film. This brings him into conflict with a studio exec named Bobby Bantz (Robert Wuhl). Unfortunately, all of the Hollywood stuff is pretty dull. One gets the feeling that Puzo was perhaps settling some old scores with the character of Bobby but Robert Wuhl is one of those goofy actors who belongs nowhere near a Mafia drama. And don’t even get me started on country singer k.d. lang, who is bizarrely cast as a film director.

(Add to that, how can anyone take a character named Athena Aquataine seriously? I never miss an Athena Aquataine movie!))

The Hollywood stuff distracts from the Mafia stuff, which is unfortunate because the Mafia stuff is at least occasionally interesting and it’s certainly better-acted than the Hollywood scenes. Joe Mantegna plays Pippi, who is Cross’s father and who, years earlier, killed Dante’s father. (Mantegna’s always good but it’s a struggle to take any character named Pippi seriously.) Kirstie Alley plays Rose Marie, who is Dante’s mentally unstable mother and the Don’s only daughter. Aiello, Mantegna, and Alley all give good performances, as do Burt Young and Seymour Cassel in the roles of family associates. As for the “younger generation” of Clerichuzios, Gedrick is a bit dull but then again, Cross isn’t a very interesting character. The slightly-built Cochrane is miscast as Dante but ultimately, that miscasting kind of works in that it reminds us that, due to his father being the scion of a rival family, Dante is destined to always be viewed as being an outsider.

As I said earlier, The Last Don was originally broadcast over three nights. I watched the whole thing — all five hours of it — in one sitting and, yes, it was a bit of an endurance test. It’s not just that it’s long but also that it keeps getting bogged down in all of the Hollywood stuff. You don’t watch a film like this because you want to spend five hours watching Robert Wuhl mug for the camera. You watch a film like this for the Mafia action and, for a film called The Last Don, there really wasn’t enough Mafia action. It has its moments but it never feels as authentic as The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, The Irishman, The Sopranos or any of the other classic films and shows about the Mafia.. The Last Don needed to be extremely Italian but instead, it was only slightly Italian. Robert Evans famously said that Coppola was selected to direct The Godfather because Coppola would make audiences “smell the pasta.” There’s very little pasta in The Last Don.