[Bubba Ho-Tep]

The Gangs of New York was taken from a non-fiction book (as well as the books of Luc Sante).

The Leo DiCaprio character is a complete fiction. The real Bill the Butcher was dead almost a decade before the riots. The Old Brewery was torn down even before that. Unlike the movie, there were virtually no Chinese in New York until after the Civil War. And that's just a start of what the movie gets completely wrong.

Frankly, serious historians don't put much stock in Asbury's book, The Gangs of New York , either. He was more of a journalist cranking out pop nonfiction than he was a historian.

[miss marmelstein]

I'm sorry but I don't judge films on its fictional aspects. Film writers have to make adjustments to history. Obviously, the movie makers wanted to bring in all these various characters together to make an entertaining film. What the movie captures beautifully is the fetid and frightening slums of New York at a point in history culminating in the Draft Riots. And Daniel Day Lewis gave a superb performance considering how over-the-top his character was. These kind of movies send young people running for the history books. I hope audiences don't sit there with a checklist as to what is accurate and what is not. How boring!

When I was a kid, I read Egyptian history books because I was growing up on Hollywood depictions of that era. I never believed that Victor Mature or Anne Blythe represented the royal family of Egypt! The important thing about these movies is to encourage interest.