Posted on 06/10/2015 6:11:48 PM PDT by OddLane
The first time I saw “GoodFellas,” on a rented Blockbuster videotape in 1991, I was in a daze as the final credits rolled. If I had been a cartoon character, I would have had stars dancing around my head like Wile E. Coyote. I turned to my girlfriend and said, “What’d you think?” “Boy movie,” she declared — and I knew our relationship was doomed. Just kidding. (We split up because I was a jerk.) But women don’t get “GoodFellas.” It’s not really a crime drama, like “The Godfather.” It’s more of a male fantasy picture — “Entourage” with guns instead of swimming pools, the Rat Pack minus tuxedos.
“GoodFellas,” which starting next week will have a 25th anniversary showing at the Film Forum on Houston Street, and whose 25th anniversary Blu-ray DVD just hit the streets, takes place in a world guys dream about. Way down deep in the reptile brain, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy the Gent (Robert De Niro) and Tommy (Joe Pesci) are exactly what guys want to be: lazy but powerful, deadly but funny, tough, unsentimental and devoted above all to their brothers — a small group of guys who will always have your back. Women sense that they are irrelevant to this fantasy, and it bothers them.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Try Witness to the Mob. Also The Death Collector (aka, Family Enforcer). The movie apparently had 2 titles. Death Collector was Joe Pesci’s first film. Also Frank Vincent’s first I think. FV was Billy Batts in Goodfellas.
Nice! Thanks.
The Killer Angels (Gettysburg) is the same way.
I grew up mere blocks from where many of them hung out and lived. My father, a non-criminal, regular guy, working stiff, hung out at one of the bars several of them did. Guy’s Vinegar Hill, across the street from Aqueduct, in Ozone Park, NY. But I doubt he knew or talked to them. Gotti’s club was in Oz Pk, too.
Aqueduct racetrack, that is.
What’s to understand?
It’s red and white candy.
What?
“Good & Plenty”?
Ohhhhhh.....the movie.
Well, back in high school, the girls used to call me “Good & Plenty”.
Because I was so sweet to them, you dirty minds.
What a dumb article. I love the movie, my sister loves the movie and my best friend loves the movie.
And we all understand it.
I was laughing when the Pesci character got whacked. Twisted little Napoleonic douchebag deserved to be kneecapped before they blew his pointed head off.
That’s just silly.
There are a lot of movies out there that have good guys doing good things, even when it’s violent and dirty. Gangster chic is crap.
Bury him while he’s still breathing.
Just like the scene in “Blood Simple”
Who’s That Knocking At My Door is similar to Mean Streets. It was Martin Scorsese’s first film. MS was, I think, his second film. A friend of mine grew up with him on Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy section.
This scene was based on a real life incident that happened to Joe Pesci as a teen with a local mobster (minus the shooting, of course).
Yeah, he was a despicable little P. But, in a crazy way, funny.
Will have a look thanks.
I agree.
I didn’t care much for Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables either.
I’ve only seen the first part of Scorsese’s Mean Streets but it sort of sets the template for much of his career that followed (the use of rock songs, the casting, the camerawork).
Mean Streets (1973) is a ‘smaller’ film and as such it is overlooked by modern audiences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ7UwnfQ2nA
Mean Streets - De Niro’s entrance
trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAQZzfwQGHQ
This was the ‘treasure trove of quotes’ for earlier audiences
Agreed, my wife and I both like and understand it.
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