Word: pileggi
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Like Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy, Underboss is fascinating for its anthropologically detailed portrait of a subculture some of us can't get enough of, Al Pacino or no Al Pacino. Both Gravano and Maas (author previously of The Valachi Papers) claim Gravano will get no money from this de facto memoir. But why a man who recently left the federal witness-protection program would want to draw such attention to himself is a mystery. Maybe, given his gift for aphorism, he's thinking about going out on the corporate lecture circuit. "There's enough people to shoot in the head...
Because the story was written by Ken Lipper, a deputy mayor in the Koch administration, and snazzed up by a trio of old-pro screenwriters--Nicholas Pileggi, Paul Schrader, Bo Goldman--and because it was shot in Gotham's city hall with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's blessing, the movie has a burly verisimilitude. It drops the right names, purrs with silky threats. The ancient code of Mediterranean machismo operates here. You make deals partly to get things done and partly to make deals. It's what...
...center of "City Hall", a cluttered drama that imagines a Faustian battle between Pappas and his deputy mayor, Kent Calhoun (John Cusack). Because the story was written by Ken Lipper, a deputy mayor in the Koch administration, and snazzed up by a trio of old-pro screenwriters -- Nicholas Pileggi, Paul Schrader, Bo Goldman -- and because it was shot in Gotham?s City Hall with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani?s blessing, the movie has a burly verisimilitude. "After a few reels, though, things get goofy," says TIME's Richard Corliss. "Suddenly every room is preposterously dark; the most powerful men in town can?t afford...
...Best Actress winner for Casino, spent a full three minutes thanking her co-stars, director, several Universal executives, her parents, publicist, hair and makeup people and "the girls at Chaos [her production company]: Paulette, Mindy and Kristen." Backstage with Dick Clark, she had more: "I forgot to mention Nick Pileggi...
When these characters are driven by greed and last--those traits which are celebrated in Vegas--this film works. But soon the main characters lose their passion and the script, by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi, can offer them no real options. In "Casino" everyone is content to gamble without worrying. When Ace, Ginger and Nicky finally do lose everything, it's too late--the audience has stopped caring. The impression which remains is a richness of atmosphere which is sickening...