Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Agent_Orange_X Saw a midnight screening of Gone with the Pope at the New Beverly. They usually screen it once a month and I hope it's a mainstay there for a long time. It is a BLAST! It's not Goodfellas so leave your cynicism at home. Gone with the Pope is grindhouse/independent filmmaking at it's best. It's a gritty, don't give a toss mobster masterpiece that is hilarious on so many levels. Loaded with unforgettable scenes and quotable lines that I'll leave up to you to go out and experience for yourself. You can see how much love and effort went into making this film outweighing any of it's imperfections. Big thanks to Bob Murawski and Sage Stallone for tracking down this gem and getting it out to the masses.

GardensOfStone This 'movie' takes 40 minutes to get to the premise; this is the moment Paul tells his mates that they are going to kidnap the Pope.The scene showing a Las Vegas act pretending to pick his nose, then smear the product down a mike stand is drawn out, and totally unnecessary. A momentary redeeming feature is the guitar skills of the woman in the 'band' who plays a great solo in a scene minutes before - I think Duke Mitchell was wanting to showcase Las Vegas nightlife. Largely he fails. The scene, in Italy, of getting the obese young woman back to the hotel room is pitiful with respect to movie-making, and derogatory towards people with weight control issues.Shame on you, Mt Vic Flicks for showing it, although the bloke selling tickets commented on 'B-grade genre'. The premise sounded exciting though - a comedy about gangsters who kidnap the Pope, then demand $1 from every Catholic in the world. Funny in 3 or 4 places from its poor line delivery, mostly. I remain sickened by the amount of shootings (and a drawn-out slo-mo beating).And the blunt ending is near bewildering as the situation the character finds himself in. Pathetic overall.

konowd Being a major fan of Duke Mitchell's film Massacre Mafia Style, I couldn't wait to see Gone With the Pope, and I was not disappointed. Seeing the pristine, restored print in a theater was great fun, and Bob Murawski, who won the Academy Award for editing The Hurt Locker, did a great job resurrecting Duke Mitchell's lost masterpiece. Bringing Gone With the Pope to the world has been a passion of Bob's and it shows. Grindhouse Releasing has done some amazing re-releases, especially Cannibal Holocaust, I Drink Your Blood, and now Gone With the Pope is the next hit on their roll. If you're unfamiliar with the work of Duke Mitchell, just wait until you see Massacre Mafia Style, which Grindhouse will also have on DVD soon, and if Gone With the Pope comes to your neck of the woods, be in, don't be in the way.

nickyak Inspired by THE GODFATHER, director, writer, and actor Duke Mitchell tried his own hand at a gangster film, and in 1978, his violent THE EXECUTIONER was released (the film is more commonly known as MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE). The low-budget Video Gems label released THE EXECUTIONER on VHS in the mid-80s, while a double-disc DVD came out a few years ago and sold out of its limited edition. Hence, few people can actually say they've seen this film. Flash forward to 2009: The always-seeking-for-another-classic psychos at Grindhouse Releasing manage to get in touch with (the late) Duke Mitchell's family and are granted access to his archives. Among the goodies was a never-released sequel (of sorts) to MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE, titled GONE WITH THE POPE. Currently on a 35mm-print tour of the U.S.A., I attended a midnight screening in NYC with a few buddies, and needless to say, the entire audience seemed to love this lost underground mobster movie. When life-long criminal Paulie (played by Mitchell) gets out of prison (the film claims he did 15, then later 20 years, so take your pick), he goes to Vegas (I'm assuming they shot most of these scenes without permission) and manages to take out 7 guys (who I'm assuming were part of a rival family…the audio in the theater was ridiculously low for some reason) and then spends one last night with his wife before going on a lengthy trip to Rome. With 3 members of his crew, Paulie sets out (on his wife's yacht) on a 48-day cruise from California to Italy, mapping their course with nothing more than an atlas and an ancient piece of nautical equipment (which we see him use once). While having espresso at a bistro in Rome, Paulie explains why they're here: They're going to kidnap the pope, then charge a dollar from every Catholic in the world as ransom (when his buddy tells him, "But what about all the Chinese?", Paulie agrees to drop the fee to 50 cents). But before doing their task, Paulie tries to get one of his prison-partners laid (and brings an obese woman back to their hotel room in one of the most disturbing—and hilarious—scenes I've ever seen). After dressing as priests and abducting his holiness, the men keep the pontiff on their yacht as their ransom message goes out. During this time, The pope manages to talk sense into the whole crew, except for Paulie, who tells the pope he thinks the Catholic church is a scam, citing reasons such as all their not doing enough to help all the poor children in the world and the Catholic church's silence over the slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War 2 (hey—even Vito Corelone didn't get this deep!). Paulie agrees to let the pope go back to Rome with his two friends, but swears that if he doesn't take care of them, he'll kill 100 priests "as revenge for the Jews!" (Folks---the quotability of this movie is endless). Paulie manages to get back to America where he finds one of his best friends has been whacked. He takes out those responsible, then keeps his promise to the pope of lighting a candle on Christmas Eve. The film ends where a couple of supernatural occurrences go down as Paulie keeps his promise in a local church, and Paulie runs out in terror—leaving the audience to debate if Paulie has seen the light or has been rejected by the church. GONE WITH THE POPE is a lost, "authentic" grindhouse film. It's a fine example of everything we, the lovers of trash cinema, love about trash cinema: the plot is all over the place, there's enough bad acting to rival anything H.G. Lewis or Ed Wood has done, it's chock full of horrible 70s staples (polyester suits, bad make-up on the ladies, an acid-rock soundtrack, plenty of super-politically incorrect dialogue which, again, had the audience in hysterics). I'm now on a mission to find the first film, MAFIA MASSACRE STYLE (which one article I read said is a stand-alone film and not a prequel to GONE WITH THE POPE). Duke Mitchell has only left behind these two Godfather-esquire films, and although I've only seen the second one, he has managed to muscle his way into my exploitation film hall of fame. This sucker's PRICELESS.