You Should See "Monument Ave."

With word of Whitey Bulger’s arrest, everybody’s talking about Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Because the Irish gangster boss played by Jack Nicholson in that movie was based on Bulger. (I saw an ABC News report yesterday about the arrest, in which a photo of Nicholson was included in a string of pictures of Bulger — with no mention of Nicholson or the movie or anything. Just, “here are some pictures of famous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger.” Except that one of them was Jack Nicholson. I was in a cab at the time. Which might explain a bit. But still, come on ABC News!) Anyway, while everyone else is talking about The Departed, which is a movie I do like a lot, you should rent or download from Netflix or whatever, an even better movie about the Irish mob in Boston: Ted Demme’s Monument Ave., starring Denis Leary, and Colm Meaney in the Bulger role. (I haven’t found anywhere that it was an explicit portrayal in this case. But with the mythology surrounding Bulger, it’s safe to assume that it at least went into the thinking.) And the Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli as one of Meaney’s thugs!