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This is one the best movies I have ever seen in my entire life. If you have never seen this movie you might as well just shoot your self.
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An excellent mafia movie:
GoodFellas in indeed one of the best 5 ever made mafia crime movies together with the
Godfather 1 and 2, Casino and Once upon a time in America, in any order. It is also one of the best 5 movies ever. While the Godfather depicts the Mafia's upper circles at the Don level, GoodFellas concentrates on the street level guys who all aspire to once become made guys, hence the much rougher language and cold horrible violence with perhaps some touches of Sergio Leone who years before directed Once upon a time in America and the fantastic dollar movies. All truly great movies have several key ingredients in common one of which is an absolute perfect casting. It is fantastic to see how carefully each and every character appearing in the film has been selected and chosen. Perfect roles by Robert de Niro and Ray Liotta and of course for many Joe Pesci made the movie. How nice to see Paul Sorvino, Tony Darrow, Frank Vincent, Michael Imperioli, Tony Sirico and Vincent Pastore. All these guys act as people did in the late 60's in Brooklyn and Queens. All of them went on to excellent careers and have become familiar faces. Some 20 minutes into the movie the now world famous restaurant scene begins when Pesci wants to know why he is found to be so funny. Scorsese gets all the milage from his actors, many directors have tried to imitate this scene, see for example Training Day but no one came close to the performance by Joe Pesci. The score is also very well selected with some exiting music by Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones matching some of the cruelest scenes. This 2 disc special edition has excellent quality of color and sound and the special features are worthwhile, I am so happy to add this movie to my very special collection and can recommend it highly. Thanks to the great Martin Scorsese and to Amazon for its
always great service!
Jan in Aruba.
Rating:  -
This is a good movie it's show life inside the mafia, but the GODFATHER got into more detail.
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Goodfellas is often compared to The Godfather favorably, and although I think those movies are remarkably insightful and on the same pillar, Goodfellas stands out on it's own. Really, when it's compared to that series, you know there's something remarkable about the movie. Goodfellas is fast paced, well-made, and very entertaining. And there's plenty of insight alike into the world of mafia, and interesting insight at that.
Goodfellas's rather unique style, storytelling and Scorcese's direction is one thing that makes Goodfellas such a good watch, especially from some of the competition (how many crime films come out each year, anyway?). Unless most sub-standard mafia movies that have substandard dialogue and a lack of identity, Goodfellas doesn't seem to have much of this. The fast cutting movie is rather energetic, and it comes together well. Especially when it comes to Henry's fbig score in Pittsburgh (which doesn't end exactly well), I kept on checking the time in real life. There's plenty of great monologues and interactions between characters, such as the Billy Batts, "How am I Funny", Spider, Henry and Karen's interactions, that really let you get to know what kind of person Henry Hill and the various people he interacted with daily. The last one is a major entertaining aspect, as they really do match the kind of people that were in the mafia. From the introduction to the faces of the mafia, Henry's sense of misfit status (at the dinner table with Tommy's mom), the various people that get in the way and what happens, and even Karen's neighbor across the street. It makes everything seem so alive.
The cast is great, and two of them effectively narrate the Scorcese regular Robert De Niro gives a good performance as the threatning mafia man Jimmy Conway, as well as Ray Liotta's portrayol of Henry Hill. When Henry Hill gets somewhat shifty eyed and paranoid at the end, you have to laugh. However, it's been said, but Joe Pesci's portrayol of Tommy is well deserves. He's darkly hilarious, funny, violent, yet totally likeable in some odd way. Maybe because it's Joe Pesci or something of that nature. He's not somebody you would want to mess around with, that's for sure. The supporting cast is great as well, from whoever played Paulie, and Frank Vincent as the ill-fated Billy Batts. One thing I found well-casted was the young Tommy Devito, which was strangely hilarious. It's also really nice to see Jules Winfield.....err Samuel L Jackson and Saw's Tobin Bell (!) in the movie.
Scorcese's use of mood music is really nice. Oh sure, it's not quite on the calibur of a Tarantino soundtrack in my opinion, but I figured that already. Still, it's massively impressive with some great tunes. The Crystals, a band produced by the lunatic Phil Specter (seriously, his goal really wasn't that remarkable or respectable) have a bunch of songs featured, and there are catchy and really bring out some of the scenes. Other notable tracks include Beyond the Sea, Rags to Riches, a song by Cream, and others. His use of camera angles and shooting techniques demonstrates the movie's great use of telling the story. One of my favorite scenes, the one that features then He Kissed Me, is a good example of what Marty does best in this movie. Other scenes on display would be Henry's explanation on the process of wacking, the last half hour of the movie, and the reference to The Great Train Robbery at the ending of the movie.
Goodfellas isn't my favorite Scorcese movie. I like Casino more. It's insight and topic is more interesting, it's violence (the Baseball scene actually disturbs me) is a bit more brutal, and Sharon Stone's character is frightening and extremely pathetic beyond words. However, Goodfellas is pretty much the same level of quality (then again, Raging Bull is quality yet not really entertaining). Like the other best crime movies (Pulp Fiction, The Godfather, Scarface) )It's a mafia movie that doesn't bore and transcends any ordinary crime, especially mafia film out there. This isn't a film that stuck with me the first time I saw it, but I think it takes more than once to appreciate and be entertained by it. But when you get it, there's no forgetting it. A high recommendation.
On a side note, the two disc special edition is kind of nice, but the documentaries aren't very long and total to about an hour. So you might want to reconsider getting the single disc version instead of the two disc special edition.
B+
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I was just blown away by this film when I first saw it and have re~watched it several times since. Unlike the silly romanticization of the Godfather or the antihero nonsense of Tarantino's films, Goodfellas shows the grim reality of organized crime in all its depressing glory. The temptation to turn gangsters into romantic antiheroes is great, but Scorsese resists it and goes totally in the opposite direction, and thus accurately captures the true stroy he is trying to portray. That acting is perfect, and the oldies soundtrack fits the action beautifully. I can't recommend this highly enough.
Ivan Rorick
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