Word: wiseguy
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
GoodFellas, the homicidally funny fresco of a Mafia family that Scorsese has made from the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguy, is the centerpiece in a new rogues' gallery. Mob movies are gathering, like capos at the Appalachia conference, from all over America. You want Italian-American hoods of the New York City stripe? We got 'em by the hundreds in GoodFellas. In My Blue Heaven, written by Pileggi's wife Nora Ephron as a kind of comic coda to the Scorsese picture, Steve Martin plays a Mafia rat in a Witness Protection Program out West. At Christmas, Paramount has The Godfather...
Sterling's book is not as sprightly as Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy, but it is thoroughly researched, with details of drugs shipped in wigs, cows' bellies, and women's girdles. Sterling studied wiretap and court transcripts, then interviewed cops, judges, prosecutors and even Mafiosi. Her book shows how the failure of U.S. and Italian authorities to compare notes and settle turf disputes allowed the Sicilians to win the heroin war. While Washington focuses on the Medellin cocaine cartel, the Sicilians merrily push heroin Stateside and are opening up new cocaine channels to Europe -- both East and West. Their newest target...