Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 42: Gotti featuring Tyler Austin
45 Plays3 months ago
Tyler, from Skylight Books' Better Than The Movie Podcast, joins Chris, Anna and Greg and they unravel the conundrum that is Gotti (2018). Is there something in John Travolta’s mouth? How many dead people's clothes are worn in the film? How did this even get made? Are these reviews honest? Who’s the real villain here? Tune in for a lot of laughs and good amount of speculation. Long Live John Gotti.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. The only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:53
Speaker
I'm your capo de tutti capi, Chris Anderson. And with me, i have the queens to my Brooklyn, Greg the Greg Bossy.
00:01:10
Speaker
How are you, Greg? Yeah, I have my microphone on mute. Hello. Sorry about that. My apologies. No problem. Now you're a little hot. Am I?
00:01:21
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's great. Okay. I think mostly I was just referring to you physically. Oh, sure. And I've also got with me the Manhattan to my Staten Island.
00:01:33
Speaker
Anna, Mr. Anna Anderson. Absolutely obtuse comparison. Hello.
00:01:43
Speaker
It feels right to me. I don't know. And of course, we've got with us a very special guest this week. You might know him from the Skylight Books Better Than the Movie podcast.
00:01:55
Speaker
He's obviously got to be the Los Angeles to our New York. It's Mr. Tyler Austin. Tyler, how are you? I'm doing great. I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait to get into this. Yeah, you chose this week's movie, and you chose right off the dome, no hesitation, always a good sign.
Movie Selection: 'Gotti'
00:02:14
Speaker
You chose Gotti. Gotti. You gotta do it. You gotta do it. And this is the 2018 Gotti, not 1996 Armand DeSante Gotti.
00:02:25
Speaker
armand desante gotdi i I did watch that for research because I wanted to be more familiar with the John Gotti story before I watched Gotti. ah But listeners, if you're not familiar with the John Gotti story, I'm just going to give you a quick synopsis of the movie Gotti.
00:02:51
Speaker
John Gotti rises through the ranks of the Gambino crime family only to wind up dead in prison. His son is also in the movie.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yes. Perfect. Yep. ah So Tyler, what what drove you to pick Gotti?
Fascination with 'Gotti'
00:03:12
Speaker
Well, i first I just want to say it was a great idea to watch a different movie about Gotti if you actually wanted to be familiar with Gotti.
00:03:19
Speaker
Because by watching Gotti... you're not going to really know that much. You're you're going to be pretty much sure left hanging. I think. No, it was pretty much just assumed you were familiar with Gotti. I think that was one of the big problems with Gotti. Yeah. just You know, god and we all know Gotti.
00:03:36
Speaker
it was like jumping into the fifth Harry Potter movie. like Yeah, yeah, yeah. you knew all both Uh, why specifically? I, I remember this movie coming out and I, and I can get into the, one of the big things, uh, I, as I was taking, cause I was trying to remember as well. I've been a few years since I'd watch it, but I remember in 2018 going into 2019, I actually hosted multiple screenings of it. One of them for my birthday, one of them where we made like a big spaghetti spaghetti dinner.
00:04:02
Speaker
Like it was just truly because it took over my life for like six months where I was like this, I'm just obsessed with every frame of this
MoviePass and 'Gotti' Promotion
00:04:08
Speaker
movie. And for many reasons, um, Like all these like confluence of events of like first and foremost, it's in association with MoviePass.
00:04:17
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. It does have a complicated history with MoviePass. It has a complicated history with MoviePass. It was being just promoted to a to to us MoviePass users. I don't know if everyone else got in on it.
00:04:28
Speaker
I'm sure we all did. I did not. You were not in on the movie. It was the greatest thing in the world. i was I was a home video guy. I worked in a video store for 12 years. I got spoiled from just sitting on the couch.
00:04:39
Speaker
That is totally fair. When MoviePass came out, and you could for the price of one ticket, for less than the price of one ticket, you could go to a movie a month. It was $9.99. It was the worst business model of all time.
00:04:50
Speaker
It's the greatest thing. We you don't have to rehash it. But they just kept pounding, because they were like pounding the table, being like, MoviePass... go see Gotti they're like the critics are afraid to let you see Gotti why do you not want to Gotti like they just kept punching it so like I'm already so invested in this clearly bankrupt organization that I was like all right I gotta see and then you just look at that it's it's E from Entourage it's directing it's Travolta in the craziest wig and makeup you've ever seen in your life and just all that coming together it's it's it's an indelible maybe an indelible mark on
Initial Impressions of 'Gotti'
00:05:24
Speaker
my brain
00:05:26
Speaker
That's understandable. It is a powerful text. It will oh yeah leave ah psychic imprint on any viewer, I want to say. ah Greg, had you seen this one before?
00:05:37
Speaker
no like I had heard about it a little bit, you know, i just like knew it was a John Travolta movie, sort of forgot about it. And that was the extent of it, really. No, understandable. How about you, Anna? You hadn't seen this one, had you?
00:05:50
Speaker
ah No, i I didn't know it existed either. I had heard i hadd heard of John Gotti. yeah Yeah. I had heard of Gotti. I was never like a big, like Gotti guy. I was never a crime guy. i grew up in the, in the tri-state.
00:06:07
Speaker
So I guess it was part of our larger cultural heritage, but it was never something that resonated with me personally. Uh, and I feel like I heard about the movie coming out and I heard that somebody names all five boroughs. Somebody says the five boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens.
00:06:31
Speaker
And you listen, and it obviously like, that's great that somebody, and it does happen and it is great. And, but that's sort of all I knew about it. Yeah. They make a fist. They make fist.
00:06:43
Speaker
And, uh, And i I watched it after you chose and I thought it was fantastic. I had a great time. ah it It took me a little while to come up to speed. I think it took it a second to find its sea legs or for me to get woven into its spell.
00:07:02
Speaker
But I think it builds as you watch it. Yeah,
Production Challenges and Casting Issues
00:07:08
Speaker
I would agree with that assessment. It takes a little bit of time, and then it finds a rhythm, and it just goes. Yeah.
00:07:14
Speaker
i also feel like my appreciation for it grew afterward. Like when I would, like, I felt like for me, it was like an experience that kind of washed over me.
00:07:25
Speaker
Then I was like telling my mom about it. And as I was, it was like exciting to recall all the sort of madness-y stuff and things that didn't make any sense.
00:07:37
Speaker
I was enjoying it at the time, but I feel like, I really am enjoying it now, if that makes sense. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I enjoy having seen Gotti more than I enjoyed watching Gotti.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, that might be the right way to put it. it ah Well, you guys want to hear what context I found out about this movie? Please. Sure would. All right.
00:08:02
Speaker
Then I'll play the context of bumper.
00:08:17
Speaker
I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What was going on on screen? I wanna hear some details.
00:08:28
Speaker
Gossip stand for all that shit. Can't imagine all that.
00:08:44
Speaker
So Gotti came out June 15th, 2018. Summer movie. Director Kevin Connolly. What's that? Kevin Connolly?
00:08:56
Speaker
No. Kevin Connolly. ah Tagline for the movie, he showed the world who's boss. Okay.
00:09:08
Speaker
The tagline that I would have given it, ah his only crime was crimes. That would be a great tagline. ah Now, in 2010, eight years before it came out, producer Mark Fiore and his production company Fiore Films secured John Gotti Jr.'s life rights.
00:09:31
Speaker
This was a very big get for Fiore because his only previous film credit was a producer on one too many, a vanity film starring Howard Stern, whack packer, stuttering John Melendez.
00:09:45
Speaker
Oh my God. Wow. this guy ah loves to buy the life rights to people who are big amongst Italian Americans in the tri-state areas.
00:09:59
Speaker
He's got that market cornered. yeah Yeah, he knows what speaks to those people. This is what they want to see. They want to see stuttering John in a sex comedy, and they want to see ah movie about John
Directorial Challenges
00:10:12
Speaker
Gotti made in 2010. Now,
00:10:17
Speaker
just to jump ahead a little bit, Fiore's only film credit after Gotti was working in the sound department for 2018 reboot of The Match game. Cati does not go well for Fiore.
00:10:31
Speaker
No, that doesn't surprise me. If you try to find webpage for Fiore films, you can only find a wedding videography company. So o it's done.
00:10:42
Speaker
No more Fiore films. Now, Initially, allegedly, Barry Levinson was in talks to direct, followed by Nick Cassavetes of The Notebook, followed by Joe Johnston of The Rocketeer.
00:11:00
Speaker
Eventually, the director's chair was given to Kevin Connolly, who is most famous for being a member of the entourage from the show Entourage. He wasn't even... And not the one who got Mercury poisoning from Sushi.
00:11:15
Speaker
That's the only one I know. Right. Yep. Jeremy Piven. No, it wasn't Jeremy Piven from PCU either. ah Now, this was Connelly's third feature film as a director, and to date, his last.
00:11:29
Speaker
He's done some other TV work, but this was his last feature film. Yeah. That may be for the best. No offense. Well... The stresses of trying to shoot a film that spanned 40 years of a man's life in roughly 20 days, ah combined with the extreme negative reaction of the film, resulted in Connelly being hospitalized for anxiety attacks.
00:11:52
Speaker
Wow. wow I'm sorry to hear that. I'm so sorry to hear that. and Yeah. Now maybe you shouldn't have been so mean to Gotti, a movie that everyone loves.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yes, it's true. ah Now, there was also a revolving door for on-camera talent on Gotti. Actors who were said to be attached to the film but were not actually in it include, but were not limited to, Al Pacino, Lindsay Lohan, Ben Foster, Sylvester Stallone, Shia LaBeouf, Channing Tatum, and James Franco.
00:12:32
Speaker
Almost all of those people would have done a better job than anyone else in this film, so it's a real shame. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I just, who do we think Lindsay Lohan would have played even?
00:12:44
Speaker
i Yeah, that was my question. I think she was supposed play Victoria Gotti, a young Victoria Gotti. Ah, okay. Okay. I mean, and at this point, once you started, she would have been in her mid thirties, so she could have played both young and then you put some old age makeup on her. She'd be 50 year old Victoria Gotti.
00:13:01
Speaker
Victoria Gotti was, Victoria Gotti was the wife. Yes. Yes. Of John Gotti. Yeah. John Gotti Jr., not John Gotti, the son. Or was he Frank?
00:13:14
Speaker
No, John Gotti Jr.'s son's wife. I don't think she had a name. I kept track of Kim. Oh, Kim. Okay. okay yeah yeah Names are difficult to keep track of in this thing.
00:13:30
Speaker
I believe Victoria and Kim were the only female characters that had names. ah John Gotti also had several daughters that definitely did not have names in this film. Yeah, he did. Maybe they didn't want to sign over the rights. I don't know. Now, Gotti would have been better off if these were the only problems that they had in casting.
00:13:52
Speaker
Unfortunately, They also cast Joe Pesci to play John Gotti's best friend, Angelo Ruggiero, promising him $3 million dollars to do it. They then said, ah maybe you could take a smaller role for less money because they only had a $10 million dollars budget.
00:14:08
Speaker
and Pesci at that point had put on 30 pounds for the role, and so he sued them. Wow. ended up settling out of court, but I'm sure that fiasco ate up a large chunk of their shooting budget.
00:14:24
Speaker
Holy crap. Now, also, wild there's more bad news. They could not afford to shoot in New York, so the role of New York City was largely played by Cincinnati, Ohio.
00:14:38
Speaker
Oh,
00:14:40
Speaker
That's even funnier in Toronto. It is the most Cincinnati ass look in New York you've ever seen in your life. ah The moment I saw it in the credits, i was like, that explains everything.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, it it really does not play. as Because obviously, if you're shooting in New York, you're going to get skyline. You're going to something. You're not just going to get close ups of row houses.
00:15:03
Speaker
Exactly. I might as well put it on a back lot. I did see Connelly say something to the effect, and God bless him for spinning this the way that he did. He's really trying. He's like, we didn't have the money. He's like, New York doesn't even look like New York the way it did when Gotti was in charge. You know, we went to one of his hangouts. There's like some big club next door.
00:15:23
Speaker
So actually downtown Cincinnati, it looks more like New York in the 90s than New York does.
00:15:31
Speaker
Nice. I'm not saying you couldn't make that argument. But it didn't pan out. I don't think it might. To the viewer's eye, I think he might not quite, that that argument might not hold up.
00:15:45
Speaker
But that's just, you know. Yeah. Now, it's not all bad news. ah Victoria Gotti and John Jr. were available for consulting work, as well as, you know, J.Ju's life rights.
00:16:01
Speaker
They even provided some of Gotti's clothes for the production. Great. That's real weird. Yeah, that's very strange. It's very strange.
00:16:13
Speaker
Here's my dead dad's clothes.
00:16:17
Speaker
How much is that worth to you?
00:16:21
Speaker
But yeah, Travolta, the tweed overcoat that he's wearing in both the opening and closing monologues to camera. ah That was John Gotti's tweed overcoat. And Travolta said that it still smelled of Gotti's cologne.
00:16:35
Speaker
i I would, I would, i just, the idea of wearing John Gotti's coat is so strange to me. Like, like if someone's like, would you like to wear Al Capone's pants? It'd be like, I don't know.
00:16:49
Speaker
and It feels strange. I'd wear Al Capone's hat. Yeah. The hat I would do. The coat might be over the line. I don't know. It's weird. It's interesting to have to draw these lines. Anyway.
00:17:01
Speaker
A movie so striving for verisimilitude that they shot it in Cincinnati. I think it's really important that wore the coat. You can really feel that's how Gotti's coat, for sure. Well, you can see this being, you know, Kevin Connolly's an actor. He was probably trying to go for performance-forward films. He was like, I bet this will really help Travolta get into that Gotti mindset. yeah man And ah Travolta did provide his own wigs for the film, so that probably helped him save a little bit of money right there. That's interesting.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yes. Problems did not stop after the movie finished. It was initially supposed to be distributed by Lionsgate, but Lionsgate sold the distribution rights back.
00:17:44
Speaker
Something I've never seen happen on this show yet. Wow.
Controversial Reviews and Audience Scores
00:17:47
Speaker
like Actually, ah this is too bad. how much Can we just eat the loss and give you this back?
00:17:56
Speaker
ah The rights were then bought by MoviePass and Vertical Entertainment to team up on the distributing. MoviePass got in a little bit of hot water when it came out that they were juicing Rotten Tomatoes scores.
00:18:09
Speaker
On opening weekend, Gotti had an audience score of 80% and a critics score of 0%. most of the positive ratings came from people who were never reviewed anything before and or from people who had only reviewed the only other film distributed by MoviePass, American Animals.
00:18:28
Speaker
Incredible. One interesting side note that i of the 45 movies that Wikipedia listed as having a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, three of them star John Travolta.
00:18:40
Speaker
For him. Also, Staying Alive and Look Who's Talking Now. Oh, wow. Battlefield Earth? I was just going to say, not Battlefield Earth? Not a 0% on the critics. Some critics liked it.
00:18:53
Speaker
Okay. Or maybe maybe it was four. I didn't look at the list that closely, if I'm being entirely honest. That's fair. At least three had John Travolta.
00:19:06
Speaker
Other biopics of 2018 to put a thing in its place. You got First Man starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong. Didn't see.
00:19:20
Speaker
Mary, Queen of Scots starring Sorcy Ronin as Mary, Queen of Scots. Didn't see it. The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman as Gary Hart.
00:19:34
Speaker
Didn't see it.
00:19:37
Speaker
Bohemian Rhapsody. Rami Malek? Anybody? Didn't see it. Nope. Didn't see it. Vice starring Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. Oh, gosh.
00:19:51
Speaker
Didn't see it. You could do it on here at some point for sure. i I bet it's interesting. I mean, Bale, I bet Bale would have a lot of fun with that performance. yeah like I like Bale.
00:20:03
Speaker
ah Black Klansman with John David Washington as Ron Stallworth. Anybody see Black Klansman? Good. Always wanted to, but never did. All right. Finally, we got one.
00:20:13
Speaker
One person on the panel has seen one biopic in 2018. Hollywood. This is a sign about biopics. Last one on my list. The Mule. Anybody see The Mule? The Clint Eastwood as The Mule?
00:20:25
Speaker
plain movie that's a biopic i bet that would be a yeah that's based on a real guy uh but i i watched uh sully over the weekend sully now that's a good clint eastwood biopic strong recommend for sully interesting they tried to railroad him greg he was a hero mind
00:20:52
Speaker
Well, you guys want to get into the plot of God. Yeah. body I like to call it. Yeah. All right. It's time for the plotty party.
00:21:18
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:21:30
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
Film Analysis: Opening Scene and Timeline
00:21:42
Speaker
So we open up on John Travolta. wearing a tweed coat and standing by the river at night. And he's in his prime Dapper Don era John Gotti.
00:21:55
Speaker
And he turns to the camera and he says, Oh, I didn't see you there. New York's a crazy place. I'm John Gotti and this is my story. And then the movie's done.
00:22:07
Speaker
I mean, I do have a sound clip of what he actually said because I did kind of want to play it because it is kind of wild. It's really great. All right. Let tell you something. York is the greatest fucking city in the world.
00:22:20
Speaker
My city. I was a kid in these streets. I started in a fucking gutter and I made it to the top. This life ends one of two ways. Dead or in jail.
00:22:31
Speaker
I did both.
00:22:37
Speaker
He did both. he did all Yeah, and I think... You can hear a little bit of ah Travolta's Gotti there, audience. What did you guys think of Travolta's Gotti? Let's talk about the 500-pound elephant in the room.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it was really distracting that I feel like he's got something in his mouth. And I spent a lot of the movie, when he was talking, thinking about what he, if it was just cotton or some kind of prosthesis or there's just, there's something in there.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, he was in sort of an uncanny John Travolta Valley that didn't help. Yeah. i I really thought he was going to be over the top based on everything that I had read. I really felt like he was very under the top.
00:23:26
Speaker
Like, I really feel like he was doing the opposite of chewing the scenery. Like, he was maybe making more of it, maybe? Or the opposite of chewing the scenery. He's, like, making it, you know? Yeah. if that's a metaphor that works, but it was just strange. And I was often like, just perplexed.
00:23:45
Speaker
What about you, Tyler? Where'd you land on the big man? The accent is wild. There was, I took notes and there was one, there's a scene much later in the movie where he says, literally, it sounds like I wrote it down as phonetically as I could.
00:23:58
Speaker
Like, Ticka than thieves. This is like ti like, we're thicker than thieves. yeah But there's no H's in anything. We're ticka than thieves. It's crazy. It's it's absolutely insane accent work.
00:24:13
Speaker
um i also It's as pretty much as broad as Favarino. yeah yeah definitely ah Up your nose with a rubber hose is like basically what he's trying to say exactly at any moment.
00:24:25
Speaker
ah yeah I also just can't get over This life ends one of two ways. Prison or death. I did both. Which implies that somehow, like, if a gangster goes to prison, they'll they'll live forever or something. but Or, like, yeah he would never die. it's got some It's got some logic problems, definitely.
00:24:44
Speaker
Which is right off the top. Right off the bank. For a movie that was in pre-production for roughly seven years, they could have spent ah another time taking another couple passes at this script, I feel like.
00:24:58
Speaker
Probably, yeah. Yeah, I found John Travolta to be very odd. He definitely just looked... Kind of like Frankenstein. he had a very weird physicality about him. And like the high flat top hair.
00:25:14
Speaker
He looked like a Dick Tracy villain. It was very strange to have him be the center of the film. And yeah, for a guy that's from New Jersey. Yeah, it's especially and you said it where it's like it's it's crossing 40 years of his life.
00:25:29
Speaker
So John Travolta, when the movie gets made, 64 years old. He's two years older than Gotti is when he dies. And he's playing Gotti from like age 20 to 62.
00:25:40
Speaker
to sixty two Wow.
00:25:45
Speaker
An insane choice. yeah Yeah. So then we cut to the opening credits, ah which is all full of stock footage from the Gotti family video archive. Presumably J.J. was handing all that stuff over.
00:25:59
Speaker
Now, we cut back to a young John Gotti who makes his bones in the mafia by shooting an Irish guy in a bar while smoke on the water plays on the soundtrack.
00:26:10
Speaker
This is the first of many very, very obvious, very lazy needle drops that this film deploys. I loved every time they dropped another pop song on the soundtrack. Yeah. you like You're doing a house of the rising sun. How long did you think about that? 30 seconds.
00:26:32
Speaker
And with a $10 million dollars budget, they must've dropped so much. Cause there are like nine needle drops in this. Just wild budgeting. Yeah. They all feel like somebody.
00:26:44
Speaker
bringing up ah the list on Wikipedia of, you know, singles released in yeah X year and just going like, okay, okay. And cross-referencing it with like, you know, prices and figuring out just spending enough.
00:26:59
Speaker
But yeah, it was, and they, they definitely had an additive quality over the course of the film. Like by the time the last one hit, I was dying. And he was so good. House of the Rising Sun really got me because that's also in Casino.
00:27:14
Speaker
So it's like obviously in the world that this is trying to build and go for, which is just like so you're just directly taking from like it's not even at a certain point you'd be like, well, some of these are like songs that would be in those so when you just do it outright. I'm always like, come on, come on.
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah. Just insanely lazy. yeah So ah we cut to the present or sort of the present. the The time, the timelines in this are incredibly convoluted.
00:27:45
Speaker
They don't make sense. They don't make sense. It's way too ambitious in what it's trying to do. They shouldn't have done it like this, but through most of the film, we cut back and forth from a J.J.
00:27:58
Speaker
talking to an old Don Gotti in prison back to going through John Gotti's life. So I call where they're in prison, the present. Okay. Because it's the prison of the now.
00:28:11
Speaker
um Here we have an older John Gotti talking to his son, Jeju. Gotti is riddled with cancer and in prison for life. And on top of everything, Jeju is thinking about taking a plea and quitting life in the mob.
00:28:28
Speaker
Things are going rough for John Gotti. What did you guys think of the actor that played Jeju? Speaking of performance reviews, review the five. I wrote down, this kid cannot act.
00:28:41
Speaker
Woof. I think that's fair. Yeah. Yeah, I saw his name. I did not internalize it. I did not write it down. Kid, I hope you're doing better now because this one, keep it off the reel. This is rough, man.
00:28:57
Speaker
It's a tough one. We go back to the past. Yeah, he he does not he does not crush it. he kind of has Not that he has a lot to work with. No, he really doesn't. He's mostly just like getting monologued at by Travolta about how, like, I have honor.
00:29:13
Speaker
But there is like an action figure quality to his head. Like, he can't really emote. And this is maybe we're getting too... I don't want to be too mean. But it yeah, he he struggles emoting.
00:29:27
Speaker
i don't I think he's not asked yet to to display a lot of emotions. That's for sure. he i don't think he got a lot of direction from Connelly. And I don't think ah they did much to differentiate him through time.
00:29:45
Speaker
No. At the end, he just looks like the same guy, but he's wearing glasses because he's serious. But I thought he had just had not aged. I literally wrote the guy something down.
Narrative Confusion and Character Development
00:29:54
Speaker
as well i was like just to show time has passed they put glasses on him it's so good i was so confused by that i was really confused by the interspersing of the like real footage with the actors because they don't really look a lot alike and especially that one with the glasses where they show them i was just like are those supposed to be the same people i guess he's wearing glasses now so yes
00:30:16
Speaker
bizarre but they also gave him like a really distinctive haircut that was not the same haircut that he had it was extremely distinctive that's all i remember of him is that hair yeah the hair which felt so 2018 it's like it's so the year they're making in the movie like that undercut thing was like such a big deal that time so yeah well also felt very jersey shore to me I feel like that could have been going on for a while.
00:30:47
Speaker
But it definitely was very distinctive. It was very odd. right, so we go back to the past. Gotti is in jail for shooting that Irish guy. And now it's Halloween. And he says, ah, don't dress my kid up as a cop.
00:30:59
Speaker
And then he's out of jail. And then he's back in jail. I don't know why all this is happening. it still like And it made so much sense watching this movie when I remembered that this is based on J.Ju's life rights.
00:31:12
Speaker
So this was just him telling somebody everything he could remember off the top of his head about his dad. And a guy being like, i'm going to put all that in the script. And then that's the movie. Ah, that makes things make more sense now.
00:31:25
Speaker
they could have put like titles up they gave the dates consistently they do sometimes but not always and that would help yeah so uh god he's out of jail but then he's back in jail but we're told that this time when he's in jail it's not that big a deal because he can get work release where he can go and kill people yeah yeah and then but nothing really comes with that it's just to make him look awesome i guess or crazy he kills someone at least right Yeah, he he kills someone while he's in prison. They make that very clear, that he's let out, kills someone, and then he goes back.
00:32:01
Speaker
I think it was the person who somehow was involved in the event that got him into the jail. That was my understanding of it. Good, yeah. Very difficult to read.
00:32:13
Speaker
They were the witness to the first crime, I believe. Right. Which okay is one of my favorite moments is in the voiceover. We've seen him do the first killing where he like makes his bones.
00:32:25
Speaker
And then like two minutes later in the film, he's like, you remember that hit I pulled that made my bones? And what's funny is in the 1996 Gotti,
00:32:38
Speaker
in the ninety ninety six gotdi ah Gotti isn't the trigger man in that. It was an incompetent guy and it was like a much more convoluted story. and Interesting.
00:32:50
Speaker
It's weird that there were like little contradictions in there. Also, the other Gotti had a much better cast. It had at least four guys from The Sopranos. Half the guys in this movie were not even Italian.
00:33:02
Speaker
ah Truly. Yeah, that was wild.
00:33:06
Speaker
Like, they're going to get a letter from somebody about this. You can't pretend to be Italian and say all this obvious stuff. That's not cool. Now, ah we then cut back to modern prison, where J.Ju continues to ask his father if he can cop a plea.
00:33:22
Speaker
And John Gotti says, no, don't cop a plea. And then we cut back to 1979. ah J.Ju's off to military school, and Gotti's other son, Frankie, well, he got straight A's.
00:33:34
Speaker
Good job, Frankie. yeah Yeah, good work. We see Gotti hanging out with some other mafiosi, specifically Angelo Ruggiero, his childhood best friend, played by a guy that you might recognize from Constantine, but i don't know his name, but he's a great character actor.
00:33:53
Speaker
And we also see his boss, Mr. Neil, played by Stacy Keech, possibly the least Italian man I've ever seen. Yeah.
00:34:04
Speaker
We see John Gotti encourage Jeju for standing up for himself in a fight. And we also see that ah John Gotti does not respect his boss, Paul. Back in modern prison, Jeju continues to debate with his father.
00:34:19
Speaker
Should I take a plea? John Gotti says, don't take him No. No. No. Still, no. No. no ah Quickly also, we missed it, just in the modern prison, they do like put a lantern on it in the moment, but it's so goddamn funny that they roll him down the hallway into the visiting room on a holly like he's Hannibal Lecter.
00:34:46
Speaker
yeah And then he says, they rolled me in here like I'm Hannibal Lecter or something. Yeah. Which makes me feel like that. I feel like that's a J.J. story. I feel like that happened.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah. i buy bus I could see that. And they're like, we got to put that in the movie. Have him say, oh, I'm like a Hannibal Delecta guy.
00:35:10
Speaker
So that that that that back in 1980, little Frankie gets hit by a car and dies. All right. e Frankie. I got to say that car crashes. just one of the worst car crashes ever filmed I've ever seen, by which I mean, it was very difficult to tell that the two were going to connect until it happened.
00:35:28
Speaker
And it was like, Oh, that was, they were filming it. That was supposed to be building tension for a car crash that didn't read at all.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah. And like, you would have to like, the child was just like wandering through the street in circles And the man was driving straight at him. And it's like you would notice it eventually at some point unless you were closing your eyes the entire time.
00:35:53
Speaker
And it's just I feel like the ah Kevin Connolly was a bit out of his ah bit out of his breath here, bit out of his range. Well, maybe ah maybe this was no accident.
00:36:04
Speaker
Maybe. b Maybe this was a message. Difficult to say. No, it wasn't. if They say explicitly it was accident. We know that ah John Gotti is taking this very hard because Jeju sees him crying alone at night.
00:36:20
Speaker
That's how we know John Gotti has feelings. no This one time. Yeah, this one time he had feelings. We also know he had feelings about it because the film strongly implies that John Gotti had the guy that accidentally killed his son, Kilt.
00:36:34
Speaker
He then denies God and tells his wife to cheer up. And then it's Christmas 1984.
Plot Execution and Character Arcs
00:36:43
Speaker
Things seem fine now, so that's good.
00:36:46
Speaker
There's a Christmas party and everybody's there and it's fine. Then it's 19. I don't know why this scene happened. Then it's 1985. did i um Did I miss anything? Am I crazy? no, no. It's just in there.
00:36:59
Speaker
the The only other thing i was going to say is that they're also establishing, along with his emotions in that one scene, that he's also like a good guy who's beloved by the community because he has one of his associates help an old woman with her groceries and he reopens a box.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah. You don't see him do that either. He just says he will. He says he will. He might not ever do that. I mean, they didn't want to have to actually like go to a boxing gym. You gotta rent a boxing gym to shoot that and go down to the bank and be like, you're going to cut a new lease for the boxing gym. You have to rent out a bank.
00:37:39
Speaker
ah So then it's 1985.
00:37:43
Speaker
J.J. gets in a bar fight and John Gotti yells at him because somebody in the bar died. Uh, Angelo gets caught on a wiretap, breaking the rules.
00:37:54
Speaker
And also Mr. Neal has cancer. So things aren't going great for John Gotti. Uh, he also gets brought up on Rico charges, but he gets off even though his co-defendant, Wilfred Johnson, turned out to be an FBI informant.
00:38:09
Speaker
Uh-oh. Interesting. Lots of things going on for John Gotti. I don't think they're supposed to just announce that in court. That seems like bad form, but that is indeed what the prosecutor does.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah. I also love the scene after the bar fight when he approaches his son, because I believe this is the moment, unless I'm mistaken, where he's like, his son's like, yeah, dad, well, I was thinking maybe I'd drop out anyway, you know?
00:38:37
Speaker
And, you know, John got in. He's already mad at him because he got in a fight and he's like, oh, what were you thinking? You're going to drop out. You think you're going to come hang around with me? You think you want to be in the mob like your good old dad?
00:38:50
Speaker
Like he half-cocks it into it, basically. He's like, I never even seriously considered that for you. Hmm. you more i if you want to be like me, huh?
00:39:02
Speaker
You know, it's like always the... Maybe... You think thinking about the mob? He tricked his dad into that one for sure. It's great. Now... John Gotti gets off on those charges and Wilford Johnson gets whacked.
00:39:17
Speaker
John Gotti celebrates with a big block party and everyone's chanting his name. Gotti, Gotti, Gotti. Well, that's after there's some cops show up and try to shut it down.
00:39:31
Speaker
But I don't know. He just makes them leave. And they they literally say as they leave. Next time, Gotti. Next time.
00:39:41
Speaker
It's so good. And then everybody starts chanting because they love him. like He's a man of the people. They've been doing this 4th of July party there for their whole lives.
00:39:55
Speaker
Little Italy loves John Gotti. Talk about a huge needle drop in this moment. What was it this time? I don't recall. The 4th of July party...
00:40:07
Speaker
is It's a completely anachronistic song choice because it is from Mr. Worldwide Pitbull. oh It's Can't Stop the Party, I believe is the title.
00:40:19
Speaker
i do I do have a Pitbull song for our closing credits ah called So Sorry ah from the soundtrack. Pitbull did apparently sign up to do the score after seeing a picture of John Travolta in costume and be like, God damn, that's John Gotti. I got get it.
00:40:37
Speaker
but for him. Good for him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Follow your heart. Uh, pit bull. I mean, who am I to question? Uh, so also at this party, Juju meets his future wife, Kim.
00:40:50
Speaker
Great. Uh, cause obviously that's why there's so much Juju content here is because it's based on Juju's life rights. And so he's like, yeah, you gotta, it's about the two of us.
00:41:01
Speaker
People care about me too. Juju. Definitely. Now, Mr. Neil at this point is dying of cancer. And ah John Gotti is so shook up by it, he's going to kill their mutual boss, Paul, about it.
00:41:17
Speaker
Neil tells him that if he wants to kill the boss of the Gambino crime family, he'll need to get permission from the other four bosses and unite the five boroughs. So it's kind of like an open world RPG fetch quest situation. Yep. the chin and the cheese like I need you to whack four goombas and now you have my approval and you also get obviously the five borough lines from Stacy Keach it's a great line I put it in our trailer check that out over on our YouTube screen
00:41:53
Speaker
Now, ah Mr. Neal dies, and then John Gotti leads a team of hitmen to take out Paul as he leaves Sparks Steakhouse. John Gotti is named the new boss of the Gambino crime family.
00:42:07
Speaker
Everybody's happy.
00:42:10
Speaker
And this is the hackiest needle drop because it's a it's a December hit. So they it's Silent Night. Oh, yeah. like right Chris, you you audibly were just like, oof.
00:42:27
Speaker
So upset by it. this was when they hadn't turned the corner yet for me. I had, you know, like that no man's land between being funny and being funny again.
00:42:40
Speaker
So then it's 1986.
00:42:43
Speaker
John Gotti is running shit. Everybody loves him. Well, not everybody. somebody blows up John Gotti's consigliere. Angelo is convinced that the bomb was meant for John Gotti and that it was put there by a guy named Gas Pipe.
00:42:58
Speaker
There are too many characters in this fucking movie. yeah Yeah. Yeah. ah Gas Pipe shows up at some point and I didn't know who he was. And it's like, you're supposed to know who he was, but they showed him for a moment.
00:43:10
Speaker
And I feel like he was older. I didn't know who it was. And it wasn't until like 30 minutes. I was like, oh, Gas Pipe is a person I should already know. Okay. good to Good to put all of this together now.
00:43:23
Speaker
I feel like they could have handled this many characters if they looked more distinctive yeah or right we spent a little bit more time with them but once again it's it's very much operating from the idea that you know john gottie you know the players you care about these people and i don't and it doesn't help that every scene is like two minutes long max like yeah cutting and moving quickly yeah Yeah, they want to cover a lot of ground.
00:43:57
Speaker
This movie really could have benefited from focusing up and telling just one part of John Gotti's life. This was way too ambitious. Now, Angelo is convinced that Gas Pipe is behind the bombing.
00:44:12
Speaker
So he sends a shooter after Gas Pipe. The shooter fails to kill Gas Pipe. Gas Pipe finds out that Angelo tried to kill him. He's very upset. Understandably. Now, everybody agrees that Angelo should die for trying to kill Gas Pipe without prior authorization.
00:44:30
Speaker
You can't clip a made man. There are rules. that's That was pretty much what the other gaudy was the entire time. It was just two hours of debating whether or not you could clip a made man because there are rules.
Mafia Rules and Story Accuracy
00:44:45
Speaker
Interesting. John Gotti convinces the other bosses that his old buddy should just get fired from the mafia instead. And everyone's like, yeah, okay. He would really hate being fired.
00:44:58
Speaker
That's the word. It's worse than death to him. He dies of a broken heart.
00:45:05
Speaker
So he flashback to the future where J.J. is still thinking, maybe I should take that plea. John Gotti, he's thinking, maybe not. Back in 1987,
00:45:17
Speaker
John Gotti fires Angelo Ruggiero. ah John Gotti then goes on trial again and wins again. Future him. Yeah. Fantastic. He's on a real hot streak.
00:45:30
Speaker
Jeju becomes a made man in a ritual led by Sammy the Bull Gravano. Now, it's my understanding that to become a made man, you have to kill someone. That is certainly what they meant by making your bones at the beginning of the film.
00:45:45
Speaker
Is this Jeju saying, yeah, I did kill somebody? Is that what we're getting from this? You know, I hadn't put that together, actually. Do you guys think Jeju killed somebody?
00:45:59
Speaker
Probably. um yeah Probably. Or do we want to avoid speculating about ah criminal actions taken by alleged Italian-American organizations? That might be a good idea. this isn't Australia, I don't think we can we can defame John Gotti Jr. by saying that he probably killed some guy.
00:46:18
Speaker
I mean, we're going to say we all have our theories, but we mean absolutely noci no disrespect. no disrespect. To anyone that would want to kill me.
00:46:30
Speaker
yes Okay, fair enough. I'll go with allegedly, probably. Case open. ah Angelo dies of cancer. ah John Gotti goes to his gravestone and tells him, hey you fucked up.
00:46:46
Speaker
different so good so but It's a really good scene. yeah yeah but I love you, but you blew it. That is the most yeah crazy thing you could say to a headstone. i think Hey, you fucked up.
00:47:02
Speaker
Then it's 1990.
00:47:05
Speaker
John Gotti gets indicted again. Jeju gets married and John Gotti gets caught on tape ranting about crimes and also for some reason, a tuna fish sandwich.
00:47:17
Speaker
The audio yeah that play of him at this trial is incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
Then Sammy the Bull turns state's evidence and John Gotti gets sentenced to five life sentences and a $50 court fine. He's got a zinger about it. You know, that's in the court record.
00:47:35
Speaker
ah But also that's not the end of the movie for some reason. Nope. Assorted Gambinos get killed by Johnny, ah by John Gotti's emboldened enemies.
00:47:47
Speaker
Jeju continues to try to represent John Gotti on the outside until he gets arrested in 1998.
00:47:54
Speaker
do yeah He goes to see his father and now our timelines have converged. And Jeju says to John Gotti, Pop, I'm thinking I should take this plea deal.
00:48:07
Speaker
John Gotti finally relents enough to say, You know what I think. Do what you want. Which I think John Gotti put in... He was like, you gotta put that in the film that John Gotti said it was okay for me to take a plea deal. Yeah, you gotta put that in there.
00:48:24
Speaker
I actually wrote at this point, do you think that this meeting in the framing device really happened? Because I absolutely do not. I think it did.
00:48:35
Speaker
I believe I don't Because of the Hannibal Lecter detail. Yeah.
00:48:43
Speaker
I could go either way. That's a tough question. I would be surprised.
00:48:51
Speaker
I'm sure in reality it was like a two minute conversation and they're like, we got to hang the movie on this bad boy. I could go either way. I think I don't think anybody in the film is creative enough to imagine anything.
00:49:06
Speaker
So I think everything in this film is at least a variation on the truth.
00:49:13
Speaker
I think they're creative enough to dissemble, but not to create from whole cloth. thats ah It was also interesting to me that during that scene, at the end of it, he's like, I'm probably never going to see you again, so do what you got to do.
00:49:26
Speaker
and it's just like, that's one heck of a way to say goodbye to your son as you say goodbye to him in jail. Well, he did say he was going to cop a plea, so. yeah And also, you it's also one of those things where it's just like, I know you're probably not coming back before I end up dying. So, you know, do what you gotta do, kid.
00:49:48
Speaker
Now, J.J. does finally cop a plea for a reduced sentence. John Gotti dies of cancer with his son Peter by his side. Peter also in the film.
00:50:00
Speaker
As near as I can tell, John Gotti's wife and daughters did not have dates. He did not allow... I mean, he says in the film that Gotti did not allow his wife or daughters to visit him on his deathbed because he, quote-unquote, didn't want them to see... like Basically, I think that even if he had done like nothing else in his life, that is monstrous behavior. Yeah, absolutely insanely cool. Insane thing to do.
00:50:32
Speaker
in ah An amazing moment on his deathbed with the nurse... Who's like, why are you fighting so hard, Mr. Gotti? Even if you get out of here, they'll put you back in solitary.
00:50:46
Speaker
It's like everyone who comes in contact with him immediately loves him so much. that they yeah and I loved his response. Every day I'm still alive.
00:50:59
Speaker
it's It's another fuck you to the government. It's so good. Incredible. that was That was the only part where it was like, okay, I get it. I get it. I get it, John Gotti. Okay.
00:51:12
Speaker
That's okay. Let's see. Jeju serves his time, and the government tries to railroad him just like his father said they would, but he does finally get released.
00:51:24
Speaker
And yeah I do love his mother just being like, you railroaded my husband in ya railroad and railroaded his son. The government of the real gangsters. Your husband was the head of a major crime family. Yeah.
00:51:37
Speaker
Also, like in the movie, he's basically admitting his guilt to a lot of the stuff that he was like on trial for. and the movie never addresses the fact that I think it came out that he was like paying juries to get off and stuff. So he definitely never got railroaded.
00:51:52
Speaker
Now, ah we cut back to John Travolta as Prime Gotti again, back in the river, back in the code, and he's addressing the kid. And he says, it's me, John Gotti.
00:52:05
Speaker
Boy, what a crazy life. The end. And then some screen text pops up, and it says, J.J. was innocent the whole time, and the government is the real criminals.
00:52:17
Speaker
Credits roll. Yep. So what did you guys think of Gotti? Final thoughts, five-star rating. Where did you land?
00:52:28
Speaker
um i can say again what I wrote on Letterboxd, which is ah this movie ah felt like a Scorsese movie that got kicked in the head by a horse.
00:52:44
Speaker
ah just really trying to be a certain kind of gangster movie and just not understanding what makes it, what makes those movies compelling at all.
Final Thoughts and Ratings
00:52:55
Speaker
um Two stars.
00:52:58
Speaker
Fair enough. What about you, Greg? Where did you land? Yeah, I feel like I'm in a similar boat. I was very torn on what kind of ah rating to give this. I think two stars is where it's at. I think it's super interesting to watch.
00:53:13
Speaker
It's especially interesting to have watched it, ah perhaps more, as we were saying, more interesting to have watched it than to watch it in some ways. um But I also think that it's just super interesting. And I feel in the way that like you could learn a lot about filmmaking by watching this and being like, how did they make these mistakes or why doesn't this work? Like you could do a course in this movie in a weird way, I think.
00:53:42
Speaker
And I think that's why I wound up at around a four. Yeah. Because I found it very interesting in terms of just like straight up. Filmmaking incompetence.
00:53:54
Speaker
Just a good poorly made, ramshackle film that, you know, maybe it was because the budget was wrong. maybe I mean, there were all those reasons.
00:54:04
Speaker
Everything was going wrong with this movie, and it all shows. Nobody stepped up to the plate. Nobody saved the day. This is a movie that went wrong, and you can see it, and you can see why. And I...
00:54:18
Speaker
And it definitely for me as watching it, like I said, it had sort of a snowballing effect where it built up momentum or by the end, I was very punch drunk laughing out loud at every needle drop that came down the line.
00:54:33
Speaker
And then to cap it off with Travolta turning towards camera as Gotti again and being like, what a tail was just like the cherry on top.
00:54:45
Speaker
yeah I think in some ways, like in my heart, it's a four, but in my brain, it's a two. You know what I mean? That's fair. Tyler, out of five, where would you land on this one?
00:54:56
Speaker
I mean, there's only one answer for me. It's five stars. so It's incredible. Yes. Perfect. it's Fair enough. Right on. yeah I knew right away what I wanted to pick. It's the movie that I recommend to anyone who's like, I want to watch something dumb and bad. I'm like, I got you.
00:55:11
Speaker
I know what it is. Everything you said, it's just a melange of terrible choices. Probably like movie star ego, no budget, no time, no you know, just no eye for how to shoot a movie.
00:55:27
Speaker
One of the co-writers is in the film and that character gets a lot of screen time for some reason. We'll talk about it later, maybe. it's crazy he's one of the other friends who of the of the goddy who's like when the when they meet at when uh john goddy jr and his wife meet he's the one who's like hey yo young love uh oh yeah yeah yeah he's ah also a co-writer on this as well which is crazy which i imagine his past was to make his character bigger um
00:55:58
Speaker
And yeah, i I would kind of, to your point, Anna, i was thinking about this film and I was like, this is the movie that everyone who's like mad at Martin Scorsese accuses him of making, which is like, it glorifies gangsters.
00:56:13
Speaker
Like, you know, and it's like, this literally is like John Gotti and John Gotti Jr. were unimpeachable good guys. The government were evil. How dare they come at these good men who helped the community and murdered a lot of people.
00:56:25
Speaker
um Yeah. It's only murdered their own kind. ah Yeah, I did leave out a lot of news footage. Like there was a lot of cutting to news footage that would have people like genuine actual news footage from the era of people being like, i love John Gotti.
00:56:42
Speaker
I love that he's a criminal. was almost like an American Ned Kelly. it like It was just part of that outlaw spirit. But for the 80s, you know, he's he was a Jesse James that we got to live through.
00:56:58
Speaker
And boy, just a massive piece of shit. The streets were cleaner with Gotti. He only, he never came after us. He only gave to the community. It's crazy. Yeah.
00:57:09
Speaker
Wild stuff. Well, speaking of wild stuff. Yes. Greg did the segment this week. Greg, are you ready to present your segment?
00:57:21
Speaker
I certainly am. All right, then let's head on over to the review review.
Review Controversy and Audience Opinions
00:58:05
Speaker
Review, review. La, la, la, la, la.
00:58:15
Speaker
All right. So as spoken about earlier, there was some question as to whether or not some of these Rotten Tomatoes reviews that were popping up were real or not. So I went back all the way to the very first review And I started looking at the dates. i was like, I'm going to go all the way back. I'm going to see what all of these are. Now, I got to say, most of the reviews, if not like like basically all of them, are anonymous.
00:58:43
Speaker
I found one person where the user hasn't been like deleted or something. And he basically just likes everything that critics don't like and dislikes everything critics like, except for Hotel Mumbai.
00:58:57
Speaker
For some reason, that's the one where they both agree. I didn't like go over his stuff a lot, but it was just like critics like it, but it's garbage. It's just like, i don't know what the critics are saying. It's great. Everyone else uses are deleted, got no information about them.
00:59:11
Speaker
So the movie was announced in 2010, right? i think and ten and it wasn't released until June of two thousand and eighteen So I'm going to be reading the dates instead of the names, because what I found is as you're looking at these reviews, you're wondering, are these sincere reviews?
00:59:33
Speaker
Are these fake reviews or these people who are now aware of the story and are now leaving insincere fake reviews? Uh, so it's like how many people are like trying to bolster movie pass and how many people are trying to glom onto that.
00:59:48
Speaker
And you can see people talking about it. So just gets really confusing. Uh, but it's interesting. And as to whether or not there's a genuine or not, I'm going to leave that up to the, uh, to the listener.
01:00:00
Speaker
So love first off, there are three reviews that were posted well before the movie came out by like 10 years. Sometimes. ah That was interesting. I'm assuming those are all technicalities. they One of them could have been real. Maybe was like some sort of weird timestamp thing.
01:00:16
Speaker
The other ones are definitely like ones like we got to make one about Tommy Patera. It's like, okay, this is obviously not about this movie. Okay, so here come the reviews. And I kind of grouped them up by a couple of interesting categories here.
01:00:28
Speaker
So okay June 16th, 2018.
01:00:32
Speaker
I love this movie. It was great. Me and my husband both had tears in our eyes. We both felt like we were present in the film, like it was happening right in front of us. Long live John Gotti. Five stars.
01:00:45
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Now this one is going to be difficult to read because of how they did the punctuation. I'm correcting general spelling mistakes, but the punctuation is difficult here. So i'm going to read it as best I can.
01:01:00
Speaker
June 17th, 2018. I thought the movie was really well done. Honestly, the problem is that it's not a action movie and people expect nonstop action. The movie is about John Gotti and the family wanted to show people how he was with family, etc.
01:01:14
Speaker
Also, the hardship of losing Frankie boy. It was a good. Sorry, let me do that again. Also, the hardship of losing Frankie boy. It was good. And Travolta did an excellent job and hard off. And congratulations to the family.
01:01:26
Speaker
Long live John Gotti. Five stars. this
01:01:32
Speaker
Okay. Long live Gagotti. Five stars. All right. So now here's our longest one. So sit, get ready. June 17th, 2018. This is easily one of the most underrated movies I've seen.
01:01:43
Speaker
By no means does this movie deserve a bad score. Nevertheless, a zero percent. It was well put together in the Pitbull slash Jorge Gomez composed soundtrack made the movie what it was.
01:01:55
Speaker
I remember when A Quiet Place was rated very well by Rotten Tomatoes. And after seeing it, it turned out to be one of the worst. It's not the worst. It's not the worst movie I've seen. With this in mind, I find that the critics opinions are biased based on factors other than the movie itself.
01:02:11
Speaker
In conclusion, Gotti is a must-see. Despite not being the greatest mobster movie out there, it's not a question to why 80% of the movie's reviews are positive. In the movie theaters that are playing Gotti are selling out shows left and right.
01:02:24
Speaker
Hashtag long live John Gotti.
01:02:29
Speaker
So seeing that, I was like, is like long live John Gotti a thing? Were they trying to make that a thing? So I went to Instagram. It looks like a lot of the hashtags are actually just like for a memorial for someone named Gotti, I think, who used looks like a young black man.
01:02:46
Speaker
And then there's also, so there's a lot of photos related to that. And then just a few of John Travolta for some reason. It's very bizarre. Because you play John Gotti. Right. So it's just weird. It's just like these two things don't go together.
01:02:59
Speaker
um These two I'm not going to read, but I'm going to do the last lines because I have some questions. Can I guess? Are they both long-lived? Sure. No, if actually, we're moving on these and so these ones. We'll see here. ah You'll love this movie. And if you know the story behind Gotti and the mobsters back then, then this movie is the one to see dot, dot, dot, space, question mark, question mark, five stars.
01:03:29
Speaker
So don't know what the dot, dot, dot is about, but here's another one that does something similar. This is June 19th. That was June 18th. This is June 19th. Excellent movie. The only bad thing about it is that I could have kept watching more of it.
01:03:40
Speaker
Dot, dot, dot, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark five stars. Okay. I don't know if these people, i don't know what the question marks are for. I don't know what they're trying to convey.
01:03:55
Speaker
And then this one, I have a question to pose to everybody. June 15th, 2018. Don't get the bad reviews. This is one of Travolta's all-time best films. It's up there with Saving Private Ryan and Cast Away, but just way better acting. Five stars.
01:04:10
Speaker
Do you think that they think that John Travolta's in those movies? ah They got him confused with the old Tom. Tom Hanks. That's fun.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. I i mean, therere they're similar, but different. It would be weird to imagine them swapping filmographies. It's so strange to me to think about like seeing Castaway and be like, that John Travolta was great.
01:04:34
Speaker
yeah I would love to see Tom Hanks in Face Off. That would... Oh my god. you've You're onto something. You are onto something. Hollywood, get at me. Do it. Tyler, spread the word around the town. Tom Hanks in Face Off.
01:04:48
Speaker
We're going to get some Whiskers going, build some buzz. Yeah, just start writing it down on pieces of paper and just leaving them them around. Tom Hanks in face-off? Question mark? Question mark?
01:04:59
Speaker
Dot, dot, dot. Question mark. Question mark. my personal word Question All right. So now we're going to do some rapid-fire ones. these So an article came out on June 19th that was talking about the controversy.
01:05:11
Speaker
So I think things were building a little bit before that. So, again, up to the listener as to which of these are real or not. ah June 18th, 2018. Best movie ever. Being born into the mob. i have to agree. Five stars.
01:05:25
Speaker
Okay. June 19th, 2018. Excellent. Not understanding the negative reviews. Definitely got the most out of the budget. Five stars. Fair enough.
01:05:35
Speaker
ah Mildly supportive. Yep. June 15th, 2018. Great movie. These tomatoes are just worried there will be no use for them in in a few years. Five stars. Hmm.
01:05:47
Speaker
Oh. Watch out, tomatoes. That's right. June 19th, 2018. Good movie. Lots of detail. Music was poorly mixed in the movie, but decent story. Five stars.
01:05:57
Speaker
Very glowing, I think. ah June 19th, 2018. My friend went to see it, and she said it was so good seeing it tomorrow. I will then be saying what I think. Excited. Five stars.
01:06:11
Speaker
So hasn't seen it yet. Hasn't seen that one. So June 19th. June 19th, 2018. This movie opened this week in Austin, Texas, a city with a metro service area of almost 2 million people, and it is at one theater 22.8 miles away.
01:06:26
Speaker
I would love to see it, but I'm not driving almost 23 miles. Don't know who this movie pissed off. Five stars.
01:06:36
Speaker
Wow. Confusing. Yes. And now emotional rollercoaster. And now here's my favorite review. It's our last one, and I'm not going to read it this way, but you have to imagine it's all in caps because it is all in caps.
01:06:49
Speaker
Okay. June 19th, 2018. How to change movie pass password. I don't remember it. Please. Five stars.
01:07:02
Speaker
great stuff okay There you go. were those yeah Were those genuine? Were they fake or were they insincerely fake? It's up to you.
01:07:14
Speaker
yeah We report, you decide. I'm mostly shocked there wasn't like a turning rotten tomatoes into sauce pun or something. no I didn't see anything about that, actually. That would have been pretty smart.
01:07:28
Speaker
Yeah. They didn't hire me to do fake reviews back then. That's my fault. genuinely a lot of the reviews were just about rotten tomatoes. It was sort of like, I had to cut out all, it was just like these rotten tomatoes, they don't know what it's just like, just, just review the movie, not the critics response to the movie. This is so bizarre.
01:07:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's weird that this has become like a de facto forum for this debate. Yeah. It was really weird looking through it and just being like, what is going on in the minds of all the people quote unquote involved in this? Yeah.
01:08:04
Speaker
Well, do you guys want to play a game? Please. Yay. Yeah. Yes. All right. We're going to play a little Guess the Title.
01:08:21
Speaker
Let me tell you about this brand new game. Where you guess the movie's name.
01:08:36
Speaker
Guess the title. Whippa, whippa, whippa, whippa. Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. on, honey. Guess the title.
01:08:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:08:56
Speaker
All right, so we're going be playing a game of Guess the Title ah with the films of John Travolta, specifically the post-Old the Dogs films of John Travolta. Nice.
01:09:08
Speaker
Old Dogs, I believe, the film that killed John Travolta's career. Great, bad movie. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's got a few more on this list. Yes. All right.
01:09:19
Speaker
So what going to do is I'm going to read the plot description and then I'm going to read out three titles. You will buzz in, buzz in by saying your own name. And ah then you will tell me which title you think it is. And there will be an opportunity to steal if they don't get it.
01:09:37
Speaker
Everybody ready? Yes. All right. Question number one. Mason Goddard and his brother Sean are bank robbers, but things go wrong and they find themselves surrounded by law enforcement and the police negotiator is Mason's former lover.
01:09:59
Speaker
Ooh. Is that cash out, money heist, or love crime? Greg? Greg.
01:10:11
Speaker
Cash out. Correct. Greg is on the board. okay Question number two. Carson Phillips is an ex-NFL player turned PI who returns to his hometown to track down a missing heiress.
01:10:30
Speaker
Is that Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep? Flatlands or The Poison Rose? Wow.
01:10:43
Speaker
Anna. Anna? ah The Poison Rose? Good job, sweetie. It is the Poison Rose.
01:10:54
Speaker
Question number three.
01:10:57
Speaker
Speedboat racing champion and multi-millionaire Ben Aronoff leads a double life that lands him in trouble with the law and drug lords. Is that boatman?
01:11:11
Speaker
and Speed kills... Or Drug Coast? Tyler. Tyler. Speed Kills. It's a good one. Correct.
01:11:23
Speaker
Oh, you've seen that one. Yeah. Recommend. Okay. Okay. I will add it to my list. Question number four. A mysterious stranger and a random act of violence drag a town of misfits and nitwits into the bloody crosshairs of revenge.
01:11:42
Speaker
Is that blood and dust in a valley of violence or law, Marshall? Greg. Greg? yeah Blood and dust?
01:11:56
Speaker
Man. I'm sorry. Can either of guys steal? Tyler. Tyler. In the Valley of Violence?
01:12:04
Speaker
Correct. Nice. Wow. It was apparently a Ty West movie, if you're a Ty West person. I haven't checked out his stuff yet. Question number five. A crew of men who do the high wire work of fixing the electrical grid are hit by a sudden deadly storm.
01:12:21
Speaker
Is that end of the line, crossing the line, or life on the line? oo Anna? Anna.
01:12:32
Speaker
ah First, I just want to say that the linemen are our greatest heroes. My wife a bucket bunny. Life on the line. Life on the line, you said? Yes. Correct.
01:12:44
Speaker
Nice. and So is it one to two to two? That seems right. right yeah yeah All right. um'm I'm doing a great job running this game, you guys. Excellent. You're doing excellent.
01:12:59
Speaker
A thief works with his father and his son to forge a painting by Monet and steal the original. Is that the forger, the highwayman, or like father, like thief?
01:13:18
Speaker
Greg. Greg? Like father, like thief. got i voted with my heart I voted with my heart. I appreciate that about you. Anna or Tyler?
01:13:29
Speaker
ah The Forger. Correct.
01:13:36
Speaker
Question number seven. Veteran race car driver Sam Monroe and his son must overcome personal and professional conflicts in order to come out stronger on the other side.
01:13:50
Speaker
Is that Born to Win, Trading Paint, or Race Day? Tyler. Tyler? believe that's Trading Paint.
01:14:03
Speaker
Correct. Tyler and Anna tied up. Question number eight. I watched this movie over the weekend. ah if So if any of you subscribed to my Letterboxd, you'd have a distinct advantage.
01:14:19
Speaker
A rabid fan stalks his favorite action hero and destroys his life. Is that The Fanatic, your biggest fan, or no autographs, please?
01:14:31
Speaker
Greg. Greg. This is The Fanatic. Correct. It's great. If you like bad movies, you should check that out Directed by Fred Durst.
01:14:43
Speaker
And that's been one of the many reasons to check it out. Yeah, strong recommend on the fanatic. Question number nine. Nick has never been married.
01:14:55
Speaker
And Patty has a secret from her past that makes her keep men at arm's length. But when these two emotionally damaged people meet and their families get involved, the results are hilarious.
01:15:08
Speaker
Is that late to love? Kiss me first? Or that's amore! Greg. Greg?
01:15:20
Speaker
Kiss me first.
01:15:24
Speaker
Again, the heart. you Either you... Tyler, I'll say late to love.
01:15:35
Speaker
Anna. I mean, there's only one left. That's the more. yes Correct! oh But if you don't guess the correct answer, you can't get the point and win. Congratulations.
01:15:50
Speaker
Woo. Woo. Oh, well, you hate to win like that. but Win by ah caution and prudence. I think that's a perfect way to win.
01:16:03
Speaker
You guys ready for some batty awards? Yeah. All right. Let's hit it. it
01:16:16
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards! Now you're messing with the Batty Awards! Now you're messing with the Batty Awards!
01:16:27
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards!
01:16:32
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees!
01:16:39
Speaker
That's right, congratulations to all our nominees! It's the Batty Awards. Who wants to give out their award first? I could start. All right. i will.
01:16:50
Speaker
And I will start by giving out the least convincing needle drop of the entire film. The one that I thought this was the one that broke me. This is the one that really hit me as hilarious was when they played West End Girls.
01:17:05
Speaker
Yeah. like the pet shop so right So the car bomb went off. the The notes that I showed you before with all the scratching, that's me reacting to the Pet Shop Boys being in this movie.
01:17:18
Speaker
I was so upset by this. I was so upset by this. It was such an odd choice because every other Needle Drop was like so ham-fisted yeah like obvious. And then this was just like so... like ah It didn't convey anything to me. That song just does not communicate with this film at all. No, it has nothing to do with this. It doesn't seem to be associated with this or even the time period. it was weird. It was weird.
01:17:45
Speaker
It upset me. it just It felt like they were strictly like just going off of the 70s and 80s and 90s hits all on KPBR. That was the soundtrack of this movie.
01:17:58
Speaker
What about you, Greg? Do you have a Batty Award? Yes, I do. It's also soundtrack related. So ah and also just for context, for everybody, I'm a pretty big Pet Shop Boys fan. So that's why I was so upset by that. But I actually wrote also shame Pet Shop Boys, which you shouldn't wish shame on anyone. So I do apologize for that.
01:18:15
Speaker
But yeah, not a good look. Anyway, my music based award goes for the The Room Got Quiet at Just the Right Moment Award. which is ah the soundtrack at one point they're playing so Sorry, the song you're going to be playing at the end here.
01:18:32
Speaker
a you can't really make out any of the lyrics, but there is one moment where everything kind of cuts out and you just hear Pitbull go, David Koresh. And it was so distracting to me.
01:18:43
Speaker
It was so wonderfully distracting to me. i was just like, why is this being brought up now? And why is that the only part of the song I can hear? it's just punctuated this like vibe. I was so crazy.
01:18:56
Speaker
ah So yeah, I love it. I love it so much. How about you, Anna? Do you have a batty award? um Well, you know, it's been brought up before, but it's just, I've got to give the award for the the most unexpected narrative technique.
01:19:17
Speaker
And that's, honestly, if you had given me an hour to guess how this movie started, i would not have guessed John Gotti turns to camera and directly addresses the, yeah the audience just blew my mind.
Tyler's Podcast and Show Closing
01:19:37
Speaker
Yeah. Really bold choice. Really variable. Very strong start. A fantastic batty word. What about you, Tyler? Do you have a batty word? The one that I've been, was going over what I want to give, because there's, there's so many, but the one I've landed on is just worst lawyer.
01:19:55
Speaker
Okay. we For John Gotti Jr.'s lawyer who to show that John Gotti Jr. is smart has to explain to his own lawyer what RICO laws are. frank Wow.
01:20:09
Speaker
And his lawyer is like, well, he knows because he's in the business. Yeah, exactly exactly. He's basically a lawyer. He knows how it works. And he's like, yeah know you know, you take the plea you're going to get off. They'll never come after you again. He's like,
01:20:21
Speaker
You know, you can you or if you don't take the plea, ah you you know, they'll you'll beat the charges. and's like They can still get me with Rico. it's like Why are you saying that your lawyer?
01:20:31
Speaker
yeah Get a new lawyer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Poor J.J. He really he got the short end of the stick. He sure did. He was railroaded just like his father. Yeah.
01:20:42
Speaker
Well, we railroaded right through that. Absolutely.
01:20:48
Speaker
We railroaded right through that episode listeners. Thank you for listening. We hope you had a great time. Thank you Tyler for choosing such a fantastic movie and coming on the show. Yeah. Do you have anything you want to plug?
01:21:01
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for having me. Any chance to talk about Gotti, I will take it. No, hands no questions, you know, ah just, uh, I would say if you enjoyed, this and you enjoy the sound of my voice, you can hear it as one of three other voices on the skylight books podcast.
01:21:18
Speaker
Um, Um, we do, uh, our own little subset called better than the movie where we, uh, compare, uh, source material, usually their graphic novel, short story, novel, and the film and determine if it's better than the movie.
01:21:31
Speaker
And, uh, that's, uh, so I would recommend that and you can find it on the skylight books podcast feed. Yeah, and listeners, if you need a place to jump in, you can check out the episode where I'm on there talking about Ghost World, a little familiar face to help introduce you to the gang. yeah and it's a great show. Check it out. I always think it's a lot of fun.
01:21:50
Speaker
ah Listeners, I'm going to plug our stuff now. You know how I do it. You know how I do it every week. If you want to hear the closing credit song, you got to pay the fun tax.
01:22:01
Speaker
The fun tax is me saying, why don't you give us that five stars? Why don't you tell a friend about the show? They're not going to believe me. They're going to believe you. You're respected in your community.
01:22:13
Speaker
Like John Gotti. Long live John Gotti. And just like... La Cosa Nostra, you're part of the family, our family, possibly literally.
01:22:25
Speaker
So it'd be a huge help if you could ah tell somebody about the show. And it'd be great if you came back next week when we'll be talking about Get Over It with Julie's setting.
01:22:39
Speaker
I'll be doing a great little ah early aughts rom-com. I can't wait to dive into that. ah So come back. But until then, be good.
01:22:52
Speaker
Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. Long live Gaudi.
01:23:55
Speaker
two