Word: bosses
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...really its Commodus. As with the emperor in the movie Gladiator, when Gotti took over the Gambino crime family in 1985, some saw his ascension as a step backward for the family. He was muscle, a grunt, an obscure and none-too-bright soldier who wouldn't have become boss if so many of his betters weren't already in jail...
...Good Mob bosses--the ones who lead long careers and die of old age in their own homes--do not act like Mob bosses. Gotti was foolhardy, he was blowhard-y, he talked too proudly and loudly, and the government finally gave him enough blank tape to hang himself. In 1992 he was sent up for murder and racketeering. If his mobster act was his doom, though, it was also his source of legitimacy. Where did he learn what we expect a Mob boss to look like? Well, where did you? Pop culture's fascination with mobsters--in movies...
Today mobsters need Hollywood more than Hollywood needs them. Like the western, the Mafia myth is outlasting its subject. TV's The Sopranos may indulge our power fantasies, but the series is really about the end of empire. (Boss Tony Soprano constantly escapes his woes by losing himself in Mob flicks like Public Enemy.) And the Sopranos' counterparts? They're counting down their twilight days, like the New Jersey DeCavalcantes, caught on tape debating the show's merits and looking for signs that its characters are based on them. "It's not me," one says pitiably. "I'm not even...
...from outer space (Stitch) while persuading a social worker to let her stay with her big sister. The other is that the Disney movie they are in, Lilo & Stitch, must make a bundle--or Hollywood could hear a death knell for the traditional animated feature. Disney's beleaguered boss, Michael Eisner, has to hope there is still profit in the hand-drawn cartoons that made Disney's name and fortune but have faded as computer-generated (CG) films have flourished...
...suspects worked, turned up correspondence between Enaam Arnaout and Osama bin Laden dating back to the 1980s, as well as photos of the two men. At his home in the town of Zenica, the head of the local Bosnian branch of Benevolence, Alen Cosic, denied his former boss Arnaout was a terrorist. He claimed the FBI was fabricating evidence because it was "jealous" of his success. He also said large cash withdrawals without bookkeeping were normal in the aid business. "I can't say Enaam didn't see bin Laden," Cosic said, "but he is a serious guy who dedicated...