GoodFellas

Rating:
Summary: Gonna chop 'im up!
Review: The film is really five stars, but the absolutely shoddy DVD has to take away.

Goodfellas is rightly considered one of Scorsese's masterpieces, a moment where a great filmmaker got everything right. It's based on the Nicholas Pileggi true crime book about Henry Hill, a low-level hood in the Lucchese crime family in the 60s and 70s. Tracing his rise from fetcher for local mafiosi in his 50s Brooklyn neighborhood, the film tracks Henry to the end of the line: the Federal Witness Protection program. Along the way Scorsese stages some great scenes, charting the dangerous, thrilling, and ultimately miserable life of a mob hustler. Ray Liotta has a perfect sleaza factor working as Hill. However, he is almost too nice to be convincing as the same guy in the source book. The real Henry Hill comes off as a real lowlife in the book, a guy who deserves no sympathy. Ironically, years after leaving the program Hill now runs a website, writes wiseguy-related books, and calls into Howard Stern, though he's still watching his back.

The cast is Classic Mafia Cast. Robert DeNiro plays the greedy and devious Jimmy 'the Gent' Conway, Joe Pesci plays Joe Pesci in an Oscar-winning role(!) that basically defined the Pesci persona for life, and Paul Sorvino plays a portly Mob captain who has an amazing scene where he emotes while frying up some tasty sausages, tears in his eyes, handing Henry a massive wad of cash.

The film can't be recommended enough. It was robbed at Oscar time, criminally losing to Dances With Wolves, but it doesn't matter. This has sealed itself as one of the ultimate guy films of all time.

Unfortunately, the DVD is absolutely appalling. You actual have to flip the disc over in the middle of the film to finish it. This is simply unacceptable. I haven't seen another like it, I mean, why bother with the DVD format? The film looks and sound just fine, it's great, but how about some extras? This film was highly praised and will hold up for a long time, so how about something?

Not sure if Scorsese can be bothered or has not been asked to do special edition discs of more of his films. The Taxi Driver DVD is very nice, for instance. Goodfellas has a trailer, whoopee, and again, it's two-sided. Lame.

Buy if you've never seen this, else if you have a widescreen VHS this DVD won't offer you a whole lot.

Rating:
Summary: Goodfellas
Review: Goodfellas is, (in my opinion), one of the definitive films of the genre (exception of "The Godfather," "The Godfather Part II," and Martin Scorsese's most under-rated films "Casino") and one of Scorsese's masterpieces. The film is shown through the eyes of teenager Henry Hill. Like his opening words "I always dreamed of being a gangster. Even as a little kid, I dreamed of it. To me being a gangster was better than being the President of the United States" the film starts out as a uncompromising look into the Mafia. Then Scorsese cuts to Henry about ten years later. He's grown into a successful mobster. We see one of Henry's best pal's Tommy. He's a gangster that scares most other gangsters. Along with Tommy is the excellent Robert Deniro playing one of Henry's mentors Jimmy Conway. A lifetime gangster, whose as lethal as a bullet. The way Scorsese tells the story is absolutely amazing. It's power not only lies in Scorsese's directing, but in the performance from Academy Award-Winner Joe Pesci. His performance still gives me bad jolts watching the film (which originally came out in 1990) even with friends. An amazing film, worthy of facing up against monumental films as "Scarface" and "The Godfather." The only problem with this excellent film is the treatment they game the DVD. The sound is fairly crisp, but the picture quality is that of a VHS tape that has been rented out on too many times. The other problem I have with the DVD (and this is the truth) is that it is single-layered. Everytime I watch the DVD it ticks me off, because you have to flip the disk about two-thirds through the film. Now if they can fit "The Godfather" (which is about 3 hours and a few minutes) on one disk, then what's the problem with this picture? Terrible DVD, with little special features (a theatrical trailer and cast bios) that are worth nothing.

Rating:
Summary: This movie's overrated
Review: It's good, but comeon...don't you dare compare this movie to the Godfather. If you've seen it and you liked it, then the DVD's worth your money. However, if you're just going based on what you've heard, rent it first.

Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece of the 1990s
Review: Some day this film will be recognised as one of the five or six greatest films of the 1990s.
I watched this film practically by accident, only half interested in the film that was famous for being one of the best of the gangster films.
I watched the first scene - the scene with the Mafia guys driving around with a corpse in a car - mildly interesting, and certainly a gangster film.
But then - all of a sudden - the film freezes in a view of Henry Hill's face. And the unforgettable first line of narration is spoken: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster".
From that point on the film is an absolute joy - a procession of scenes that are incredibly inventive and whimsical in style, over the most amazingly perfect soundtrack.
Although it is a masterpiece, it is also incredibly, unbelieveably funny. And not just in terms of gags or one-liners. The whole film has this cynical and anarchistic joy - such as whenever Henry Hill narrates. I believe the narration in this film, by Ray Liotta, is the funniest and best I have heard (Fight Club a close second). He is always ready with smart comments: when the mob beats up a mailman for delivering truancy notices to his house, he remarks calmly: "That was it. No more letters from school - no more letters from teachers - in fact no more letters from anybody. Finally my mother had to go down to the post office and complain!"
First person narration in films is the hardest kind of dialogue to write, because the narrator is essentially talking to nobody - except the audience. The narration in Goodfellas is particularly noteworthy because it isn't actually written, at all. Actually, almost every word spoken by the narrator comes directly from the words of the testimony of Henry Hill as recorded by Pileggi in "Wiseguy", the book upon which this film is based! The charming bit of dialogue about the mailman is directly from Henry Hill's mouth.
There are countless memorable scenes in this film; the whole childhood montage; the scene showing wiseguys getting lobsters and red wine in jail; the montage showing Jimmy Conway's murders (including Frankie Carbone in the freezer truck!). The film's style is made more amazing because, like the narration, it is extremely realistic. The detail is incredible; and very true to the reality. Like Band of Brothers, the extreme attention to detail is carefully wedded to a masterly sense of drama. Real life, even for a gangster or paratrooper, has to be very carefully manipulated to be interesting. Scorsese does the impossible and makes a film that is at once baldly realistic, and highly contrived. It shouldn't work so well - but it does.

Overall, Goodfellas is a masterpiece of cinema that will probably be recognised more as such in the future.

Rating:
Summary: CAN A FILM BE ANYMORE OF A WASTE?
Review: Too f**king long!! If I knew how the film ended, I might have given a darn about what was going on, but even the ending is mundane.

Rating:
Summary: New Special Edition Coming in July 2004
Review: As I have the same complaint about the DVD being a single layer (having to flip over in the middle of the movie) the good news is I just read at digitalbits.com is that the Special Edition is going to be released this year in July. Hurrah!

Rating:
Summary: Mafia life
Review: Definitely one of the best movies to see not only for Mafia lovers but for everyone since this movie is an amazing piece of cinematic culture.
Possibly Scorses' best movie ever.
The cast is great and includes Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, Robert DeNiro as Jimmy Conway, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill and Loarraine Bracco as Henrys wife Karen.

The movie is based on Henry Hills novel Wiseguy which I also reccomend.

The story is about a young irish italian boy who dreamed of being a wiseguy and who finnaly got his wish. It's a mafia story told from the lower end of the system. Wiseguys are the ones who have to bust their humps to earn the money for the family, however there are perks which most of them enjoy, beautiful women, the best seats at restaurants, and lots of cash.

There's alot of violence in this movie, also narcotics use and faul language.
The plot is interesting, and witty. The cast is entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece! A wonderful look at petty organized crime!
Review: This film is quite frankly a masterpiece of storytelling, and it does an excellent job of explaining how it might be to be on the inside of organized crime. This is the story of petty gangster Henry Hill, and is based on his actual, true-to-life autobiography. As Hill explains in the movie "I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States..." Now that's ambition!

Hill and his fellow gangsters (known among themselves as "wise guys" or "good fellas") look down at working men and women as schmucks. Why should anyone slave away and work for a living in a real job when you can make ten times more money (or a hundred times more!) stealing and playing the rackets? Hill couldn't see one single reason to engage in legitimate work for just this reason. For a time, for Hill crime paid and paid big. This film chronicles gangster Hill's initial ascent into the prosperity of being a successful gangster, and his eventual descent into drug dealing, wanton murder and horrific violence, and in the end, poverty, jail, and betrayal.

The film is great entertainment, although it has sufficient really bad violence such that this is no movie for young children or even teens under maybe 16 years old. The violence is pretty graphic, but it is not gratuitous and I will say that it is a necessary part of the story because it shows the terrible price that these gangsters paid in order to keep the easy money rolling in.

Ray Liotta is very good in this film as Henry Hill. Robert De Niro turns in his customary subperb performance as Jimmy "the Gent" Conway. Joe Pesci is effective as the rabid mobster Tommy DeVito, and Pesci's excellent performance in this film is what really caused his career to ignite. The rest of the supporting cast does extremely well also, making this film one of the really great gangster flicks. While The Godfather in a sense glorifies organized crime as a modern day Roman Empire (as Tom Hagan refers to it in Godfather II), this film shows the mob's dirty, gritty underbelly of pointless violence, cruelty, and corruption.

The film never fails to hold the viewer's interest and entertain. It is not for young children, however.

Rating:
Summary: Scorcese strikes gold!!! A classic mobster film!!!
Review: The mobster flick is one of Martin Scorsese's best films!!! And his best list is quite long!!!The story of Henry Hill is quite gripping and this film is headed by an all star cast that includes Ray Liotta,Joe Pesci(In his Oscar winning performance!),Robert Deniro,Paul Sorvino and Lorraine Bracco,others include Michael Imperioli,Vincet Gallo,Samuel L. Jackson,Vinny Pastore,Paul Herman,Henny Youngman,Frank Deleo,Jerry Vale,Beau Starr,Mike Starr,Illeane Douglas,Tony Darrow,Frank Vincent,Peter Onorati,Chuck Low and many others!!!The DVD is great but, this disc is a flipper, which means you have to flip the disc mid-picture. But thats OK, because this films quite long, and you can have a small break if you want to before watching the other half of the film!!! The picture and sound of this DVD is great, and the only extras are two trailers and production notes,but still this movie and DVD get Five Stars!!! A CLASSIC!!! Two thumbs up!!! A+

Rating:
Summary: horribile dvd, great film
Review: This is one of the best film's of the 90's and next to the godfather, the best mafia film ever. The dvd however leaves a lot be desired. number one you have to turn it over halfway thourgh the movie. they couldn't put the whole movie on one side this is riddiclious, i can atleast watch the vhs without intruption of turning it over. The other problem is there are no features at all and that is pittiful for such a great film. Warner brother's please put this out in 2 disc special edtion, untill then I will stick to my vhs and recomend you do to.