Goodfellas (1990) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy. Director: a list of 25 titles created 17 Mar 2011 a list of 38 titles created 09 Sep 2013 a list of 22 titles created 31 Jul 2015 a list of 33 titles created 9 months ago a list of 28 titles created 2 months ago Search for " Goodfellas " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 37 wins & 35 nominations. See more awards » Videos The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate. Director: Francis Ford Coppola The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption. Director: Quentin Tarantino Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi. Director: David Fincher In Miami in 1980, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed. Director: Brian De Palma An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston. Director: Martin Scorsese An insomniac office worker, looking for a way to change his life, crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker, forming an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more.

Director: David Fincher A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients. Director: Milos Forman A former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did. Director: Tony Kaye A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. Director: Jonathan Demme Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny Curran, eludes him. Director: Robert Zemeckis A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which begin when five criminals meet at a seemingly random police lineup. Director: Bryan Singer Edit Storyline Henry Hill might be a small time gangster, who may have taken part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who might have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners could kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to think about climbing up through the hierarchy of the Mob.

Henry, however, might be badly affected by his partners' success, but will he consider stooping low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy? Written by Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com> See All (190) » Taglines: "As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster." -- Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955. See more » Genres: 21 September 1990 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Did You Know? Trivia Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta also appeared together in Cop Land (1997). Incidentally Liotta co-starred with Stella Keitel - Lorraine Bracco's real-life daughter and Bracco played Liotta's onscreen wife - in Goodfellas (1990), then her dad Harvey Keitel in Cop Land (1997). Additionally De Niro and Liotta's first names start with the same letter and have a vowel as the second letter. See more » Goofs After Tommy shoots Spider Jimmy grabs the gun by the barrel but doesn't react to the heat from the gun generated from the shot.

See more » Quotes See more » Frequently Asked Questions The Definitive Film of the 1990s 21 July 2000 | by tfrizzell (United States) – See all my reviews "GoodFellas" may be the most important film of the 1990s in the fact that its incredible success led to some of the other great movies of the decade. Films like "The Silence of the Lambs", "The Crying Game", "Pulp Fiction", "The Usual Suspects", "Fargo", and "L.A. Confidential" would have likely never been made as well as they were without the influence of Scorsese's "GoodFellas". The film is an intense study of a Mafia family over a 30-year stretch. Ray Liotta plays the half-Irish, half-Sicilian kid from Brooklyn whose only dream is to be a gangster. Although Liotta's story is at the heart of "GoodFellas", it is the supporting cast that is the film's calling card.

Robert DeNiro gives one of his greatest performances, Paul Sorvino is quietly effective, and Lorraine Bracco (in an Oscar-nominated role) does the best work of her career. However, it is Joe Pesci (in his well-deserved Oscar-winning turn) who steals every scene as the one who does the "dirty work". This is probably the definitive film in a decade that produced many film-noir styled classics. 5 stars out of 5. 230 of 400 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Goodfellas (Film) | Mafia Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit In the opening scene, main character Henry Hill ( Ray Liotta ) admits, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster," referring to his idolizing the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn in the 1950’s. Feeling the connection of being a part of something, Henry quits school and goes to work for them.

His father, knowing the true nature of the Mafia, tries to stop Henry after learning of his truancy, but the gangsters ensure that the father no longer hears from the school by warning the local postal carrier never to deliver any more letters from the school to Henry's house. Henry is soon taken under the wing of the local mob captain, Paul "Paulie" Cicero ( Paul Sorvino ) (based on the actual Lucchese mobster Paul Vario) and Cicero's close Irish associate Jimmy Conway ( Robert DeNiro ) (based on Jimmy Burke). They help to cultivate Henry's criminal career, and introduce Henry to the entire network of Paulie’s crime syndicate. Henry and his friends soon become successful, daring and dangerous. Conway loves hijacking trucks, and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci in his acclaimed Academy Award-winning performance based on Thomas DeSimone) is an aggressive psychopath with a hair-trigger temper. Henry soon commits the Air France Robbery and it makes his début. Enjoying the perks their criminal activities have provided them, the friends hang out most nights at the Copacabana night club with countless women.

Around this time, Henry meets and soon marries a no-nonsense Jewish girl from the Five Towns named Karen ( Lorraine Bracco ). Karen is both troubled and turned on by Henry's criminal activities. Violence is prevalent throughout the movie. With Jimmy’s help, Tommy brutally beats Billy Batts ( Frank Vincent ), a prominent mobster of the Gambino crime family on June 11, 1970 in Henry's restaurant, for an insult Batts made about Tommy when he used to be a shoeshine boy. However, Billy was a made man; he is untouchable by those who are not made. Realizing that this is an offense that can get all of them killed, they take the body upstate, where they find Batts still alive in the trunk of Henry's car. Tommy angrily takes a knife he had borrowed from his mother's house and violently stabs him multiple times. Jimmy then finishes Batts off by shooting him. Out of fear that the body would be discovered during imminent land development at the burial spot, Henry and his friends return to exhume and move the body about six months later. Tommy’s quick temper is shown on other occasions, even within their crew.

He attempts one night to provoke a young helper named Michael "Spider" Gianco (played by at-the-time unknown, Michael Imperioli). Tommy takes out his pistol and gratuitously shoots Spider in the foot. Shortly thereafter, as Spider is recovering from his wound, Tommy again provokes him; however, Spider surprisingly stands up to Tommy. After Jimmy razzes Tommy regarding the young man’s gumption, Tommy instantly shoots the young man to death. Goodfellas cast Ray Liotta , Joe Pesci , and Robert DeNiro in publicity photo from film Violence also begins to invade Henry’s home life. He begins seeing a mistress named Janice Rossi (Gina Mastrogiacomo), and Karen soon finds out about the affair. She wakes him up one night, sitting on top of him with one of his guns pointed at his face, and angrily asks him whether he loves Rossi. A shocked yet confident Henry repeatedly tells Karen that he only loves his wife, until Karen breaks into tears and Henry violently subdues her onto the carpet floor. He in turn threatens her with the gun, saying that he already has enough problems to worry about, such as the possibility of being killed on the streets. Soon it gets harder to evade the law.

Henry and Jimmy are sent to get money from an indebted Florida gambler in Tampa, and they hang him in the lion's den at a public zoo to intimidate him further after a beating doesn't sway the man. Henry, Jimmy, the gambler and most of the crew (except for Tommy) are then arrested, thanks to the gambler's sister, who is a typist for the FBI. However, prison for the mobsters proves to be not that different than having their own small house with free food and drinks. Henry makes drug deals in prison to support his family on the outside, and when he gets out, the crew commits the infamous Lufthansa Heist at JFK airport. Even after the successful heist, things begin to shake up even more. The crewmembers buy lavish gifts for their girlfriends, wives and families from their share of the stolen money, flaunting them in public. Out of fear of being traced, Jimmy orders anyone involved in the heist to be killed one by one, with the exception of Henry and Tommy. In the meantime, Henry further establishes himself in the drug trade after seeing its high value, and convinces Tommy and Jimmy to join him.

Tommy is then deceived into thinking that he's going to be "made," or become a prominent member of the Mafia. He is instead righteously executed by the Gambino crime family for Billy Batts' murder. Henry and Jimmy can't become "made men", because of Henry's half, and Jimmy's full, Irish heritage. On Sunday, May 11, 1980, Henry needs to make a big criminal deal with associates in Atlanta. He drives all over town, busy getting his brother from the hospital and cooking food for the family, and is a nervous wreck from lack of sleep and the amount of cocaine he has taken. He is finally caught by narc agents and is sent to jail. When he returns home, Karen tells him that she has flushed what amounted to sixty-thousand dollars worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent the FBI agents from finding it during their raid. Henry and his family are left virtually penniless. Henry soon is excluded by Paulie for lying to him about his involvement in the drug trade, and becomes a mole for the FBI while in the Witness Protection Program to protect himself and his family.

Henry is motivated to turn state's evidence when he learns that Paulie and Jimmy have set a trap for him in Florida. Although he is clearly thankful for escaping the mafia alive, he says that he will miss the life of organized crime, and laments the fact that he will now going to have to live a law-abiding life. Or as he puts it, "I get to live the rest of my life as a schnook.” Title cards shown before the closing credits state that Henry returned to narcotics dealing but cleaned himself up, Paul Cicero died in 1988 in prison, and Jimmy Conway (at the time of the film's release) was serving 20 years-to-life in a New York State prison and would not be eligible for parole until 2004 (although he died in 1996 of stomach cancer). Goodfellas - Trailer - (1990) - HQ - YouTube Goodfellas - Trailer - (1990) - HQ Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented.

This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Feb 16, 2009 Trailer for Martin Scorsese's film starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino, Frank Sivero, Tony Darrow, Mike Starr, Frank Vincent, Chuck Low, Frank DiLeo, Henny Youngman, Gina Mastrogiacomo, Catherine Scorsese, Charles Scorsese, Category Toby Jones on Goodfellas - Telegraph Film news Toby Jones on Goodfellas Toby Jones, the star of 'Berberian Sound Studio’ explains why Martin Scorsese’s 'Goodfellas’ rendered him breathless when he first saw it. Ray Liotta as Henry Hill (centre) with Joe Pesci (left) and Robert De Niro in 'Goodfellas' Photo: REX 7:00AM GMT 11 Jan 2013 I saw Goodfellas (1990) when it first came out and I was pinned to my seat. I remember being shocked by the violence for the first hour, but then the last half-hour seems to ramp up.

I was rendered absolutely breathless by the end and came out going “I want to go in again”. It was like coming off a ride. People talk about the violence, but after the film is over you don’t have that lingering feeling about it being superfluous. It feels integral to the plot, not least because of the verbal and physical violence between the gangsters themselves. Violence is in their very language, and it’s contrasted with this domestic, very warm, familial sense of camaraderie between them. That contrast is so striking. Scorsese is good at showing you this is a very subjective view of events. Not just by having one of the gangsters as a narrator — Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta — but also in the high stylisation of the film itself: the intensity of the colour, the suspension of action, the swoop of the camera, the way it is shot. You’re never not aware of the director’s influence, which makes you think twice about the memories coming from this very questionable character. When I watched it the first time the performance that shocked me was Joe Pesci as Tommy De Vito. With Pesci the violence is so febrile that it makes you very jittery.

It is quite extraordinary But watching it again recently, the striking performance is Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway. He’s equally as violent, but the viciousness is contained — it’s a slow-burn performance. Goodfellas - AMC Theatres Showtimes Sign in or Become a Member Get access to amazing benefits like free refills on large popcorn & up to $5 off tickets every Tuesday. Join for free now, or upgrade and get even more great perks. Sign In Goodfellas Remind Me The story of three men who have been friends since school but their intentions of good faith leads into a crime. Suspense Martin Scorsese's Best Marriage of Film and Music Is Showcased in 'Goodfellas' | PopMatters Martin Scorsese's Best Marriage of Film and Music Is Showcased in 'Goodfellas' Martin Scorsese is a master filmmaker and often just as brilliant at incorporating music into his work. Nowhere have those skills shone brighter than in Goodfellas.

Cast: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco (Warner Bros.) US theatrical: 4 Sep 1990 1990 Gangster flick Goodfellas (1990) is one of famed director Martin Scorseses’ best efforts and is considered by many to be one of the great films of all time. Ray Liotta, Robert Deniro and others have acclaimed roles, while Joe Pesci nearly steals the entire film in one scene alone, with his hilarious-but-scary-as-hell, “What do you mean I’m funny?” riff with Liotta. Perhaps the next most memorable parts of the film involve Scorsese’s use of rock music, including Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla (Piano exit),” and the frenetic mélange of hard rock that accompanies the film’s wild, jump-cut climax. Scorsese has a gift for marrying music, and especially rock, with film.

After all, his documentaries of The Band’s final concert, The Last Waltz, a Rolling Stones’ tour, Shine a Light, and George Harrison, Living in a Material World, are almost as highly-regarded as the rest of his works. In Goodfellas, Scorsese masterfully uses music to set time and place, to pull in historical context, to ratchet up both tension and excitement, and even to inject some humor. Especially, though, Scorsese uses music to capture what’s going on under the surface of these guys depending on, and often despite, their onscreen actions and bravado. Goodfellas is an adaptation of a book by Nicholas Pileggi telling the true story of mobster-turned-informant, Henry Hill (portrayed, as an adult, by Liotta). Pileggei and Scorsese, who collaborated on the screenplay, were both drawn to the gritty, day-to-day details of not the top guy in the mob, but of a soldier in the trenches. The story begins in the mid-‘50s with a 12-year-old Hill acting as an apprentice of sorts at a mobster clubhouse in Brooklyn.

Scorsese then tracks Hill’s rise through the mafioso ranks through the ‘60s and early7’0s, culminating with the big money—and big prison term—cocaine trafficking years of the late-70s. In fact, for Goodfellas, Scorsese only used songs actually released at the time the movie was portraying. (Thompson and Christie, 1996). Hollywood, and America in general, have had a love affair of sorts with the mob since the ‘30s, with classics films like Public Enemy (1931), Little Caeser (1931), and Scarface (1932), and on through Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy of the ‘70s. The allure is not hard to see: tough guys wielding devastating power, often doing so beyond the law (often due to bribes), flashing fat wads of cash, wearing flashy clothes, and having pretty girls on their arms. So compelling was organized crime life on the silver screen that real-life mobsters have actually taken cues on how to act and live from Hollywood, most notably from The Godfather. (Stanley, 1992).

That mob persona is further intertwined with a rich Italian American tradition, dating back to rural, southern Italy, as well. The mobster is often seen as a strong patriarch of large, close families, regularly united at family gatherings, and with amazing and ever-present Italian comfort food—recipes no doubt passed down for generations. Mobsters were seen as good Catholic, family men—which often really just meant keeping their mistresses out of sight—and they were great providers. When these Italian immigrants first arrived in America, many lived in the toughest and poorest of neighborhoods and had no political or economic power. A certain segment then not only held on to the culture that bonded them, but gravitated toward crime, as well. What was so wrong with these “goodfellas” organizing themselves and administering some of their own tough justice—with “honor,” of course? As Liotta’s Hill puts it at the beginning of the film, he wanted to be a “somebody in a neighborhood of nobodies.” To Hill and his buddies, mobsters had the best of everything and outsized personalities to mathc, not unlike like the biggest Italian American idol, and reputed mob pal, Frank Sinatra.

On that note, Goodfellas opens, musically, with Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches.” Bennett is another major Italian American star who began his career in the pre-rock era of the early ‘50s, a time when Italian American crooners like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin and Bobby Vinton, were the epitome of jazz/pop cool. Each has songs in Goodfellas, mostly in the first half of the film. Hill and his associates were hard drinking, men’s-men, and the kings of swanky nightclubs like the Copacabana in New York, the club depicted in the film. Scorsese shows the young Hill’s induction into mob ways and mob codes such as in one scene, for example, when young Henry learns that if you are bleeding to death, do not go to a mob-owned business because you will attract police. Scorsese intersperses classic Italian opera, and the post-war tenor, Giuseppe Di Stefano, in particular, throughout those scenes, also mostly in the first half of the film. This proud and timeless music harkens back to the honor and tradition of a glamorized Old World.

Everything these guys do is illegal, but somehow it still all feels somewhat noble. Sort of, anyway. Who doesn’t want to feel like they are part of a large, powerful, tight-knit clan that looks out for each other, and whose traditions have been passed on for ages? Musically, Scorsese represents Hill’s early career with the relatively innocent, late ‘50s/early ‘60s, doo wop of the street corners, and groups like the Cleftones with “Can’t We Be Sweethearts,” the Moonglows, and the Cadillacs. The young mob wives and girlfriends, as Hill’s bride-to-be (Lorraine Bracco) says, “wear too much make-up,” shop all day, and sit around talking about beating their kids, all to the backdrop of the dramatic, but sweet, girl group sounds of the same time, such as The Crystals and “Then He Kissed Me,” the Chantelles, The Ronettes, and the tougher, but still sweet, Shangri-La’s, with “Leader of the Pack.” These relationships and family values do not hold up, however.

These goodfellas were smooth alright, in an old-fashioned, Mad Men-misogynist kind of way, but worse. Lyrics from Jack Jones’ “Wives and Lovers,” also used in the film, sum it up: Day after day There are girls at the office And men will always be men Don’t send him off with your hair still in curlers You may not see him again In other words: I love you more than anything, honey, but I might be having sex with the secretary tonight if she’s looking good. In the few scenes in which Scorsese does not use music, the silence serves to heighten tensions by removing any cues as to what is really going on with these guys. Sometimes the quiet highlights absurd contrasts, such as Hill and his vicious buddies playfully joking with one of their sweet, elderly mothers, while a former foe lay dying in the trunk of their car.

Other times, Scorsese uses the lack of music to underscore the randomness of the violence, such as when one of the mobsters seems to be teetering either between just joking around or exploding in the worst kinds of violence, such as with the Pesci character, Tommy Devito’s, famous riff with Hill, or when Devito’s “playing around” suddenly and completely unexpectedly ends with his killing of an innocent kid. That threat underlies everything in these guys’ lives. When things first start to go really awry is in the mid-‘60s when DeVito flies off the handle and brutally kills a “made” man without permission — an inexcusable mistake under the mob code. Here, instead of East Coast doo wop, Scorsese inserts the first signs of the British Invasion and a new psychedelic-era with folk/psych star Donovan’s trippy “Atlantis.” The dreams of the Old Country and simple street justice are definitely over and here things officially get weird. A few scenes later, the underlying and uncontrollably violent nature of the main characters continues to spill out.

What should be scenes of the mobsters enjoying the fruits of a Big Score is instead DeNiro’s character, Jimmy “The Gent” Conway, finally being swallowed up by greed, fear and murderous rage. As Hill narrates, over a montage of grisly images, the police begin “finding bodies all over.” As these ended lives are discovered, the second half of the rock classic, “Layla”—“Layla (Piano Outro),” by the Eric Clapton-led Derek and the Dominoes, sets the mood. The first movement of “Layla” (not used in the film) is a Clapton-penned, fast-tempoed, blues-rock tale of unrequited love. The second movement was written by pianist Jim Gordon, with guitar-hero Duane Allman playing the melody from the first half of the song and adding a distinctive and soaring, “bird-call” effect. Where the first part of “Layla” is anguished but cathartic, the second portion provides a moving and graceful closure, bittersweet that it is.

Shortly after “Layla” is introduced, Scorsese exposes Hill’s cocaine problem to the music of the Rolling Stones’ hedonistic/nihilistic meltdown, “Gimme Shelter” (1969). It is a famously apocalyptic song featuring the harrowing but soulful vocal performance from Merry Clayton: “Rape! Murder! It’s just a shot away…” This is followed by the celebrated, climactic scene of the nearly seven-minute, car-helicopter chase sequence. Hill is, at that point, badly strung out, relying on incompetents, and trying to manage way too much as he runs about balancing gun running deals, drug running, his own addiction, a mistress, and all while being chased by the feds in a helicopter—unless that last part is just a paranoid delusion, Hill isn’t actually sure. Watching the frazzled Hill try to keep this circus afloat, and with everything at stake, is enough to put a knot in any viewer’s stomach. The musical choices perfectly complement a dizzying and completely gripping sequence. Here, Scorsese matches six different pieces of music, two used twice, to the disorienting jump cuts.

It all works because Henry Hill’s life is equally jumbled and disjointed and, in the end, each track feels exactly right. There is a Mick Jagger solo track and a Cream song, plus a quick snippet of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy,” while Hill snorts a line. Along with swirling confusion, there are other layers of emotions and even some humor: in the middle of all of the above, Hill is calling his brother at home to make sure his tomato sauce is being stirred. Scorsese conveys some of the crazed exhilaration with George Harrison’s classic fuzz-guitar, power pop track, “What is Life?” Otherwise, the wheels on The Who’s “Magic Bus” are coming off and Harry Nillson’s “Jump into the Fire” serves as another perfect fit as Hill literally races for his life. The Stones’ ode to primitive lifestyles, “Monkey Man,” is from the same album as “Gimme Shelter,” Let it Bleed, and carries with it the same frantic desperation/excitement. Finally, almost mercifully, the music stops, and Hill is surrounded in his driveway by a group of feds with guns drawn.

Scorsese has said that he wanted to capture Hill’s life as if it was about to “spin off the edge and fly out,” because it was. (Derek, 1990) An implosion seems to describe the end, as well. Hill’s dream of the good life was, at its core, pretty rotten; a mirage, even. Scorsese has also noted in an interview that the one scene where Hill is treated as a VIP at the Copa is the only time Hill really enjoys any fruits of his lifestyle. (Ebert, 2008). The rest is all a crazed chase. Hill’s supposedly loyal buddies, Conway and Devito, were true psychopaths; Hill himself was just a little less so. Hill’s drug addiction prevented him from keeping his word to the top boss. His family life was a mess to say the least, with a coke-addled mistress and a relationship with his wife best embodied in a scene in which at different points each has a gun in the other’s face. The Hill children are traumatized. By the end, it is time to forget great Italian opera, Tony Bennett and even the “Chairman of the Board,” himself, Frank Sinatra.

The next music to be heard starts at the final cut to black and the beginning of the closing credits. The singer is the Sex Pistols’ bassist and noted degenerate Sid Vicious, backed by an orchestra, as he sarcastically decimates Sinatra’s anthem, “My Way.” Vicious warbles and butchers the classic lines: And now the end is near And so I face the final curtain you cunt, I’m not a queer I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain I’ve lived a life that’s full and each and every highway And that, much more than this I did it my way Generally, songs used in movies are not so blunt, as they usually serve to enhance the onscreen action and not overwhelm or otherwise be too literal. This performance of “My Way” is an exception of sorts. The song was recorded just months before the heroin-addicted Vicious may well have murdered his girlfriend, Nancy Spungeon, before his own suicide attempt, and before his fatal overdose in February of 1979 before he could stand trial, and it sounds like it. Vicious had no respect for any traditions and whatever dreams he had were long gone by the end. Hill’s dream had similarly collapsed.

For Scorsese to make such a direct and spot-on connection between the Mafioso life and the contemporaneous but seemingly completely disparate punk rock scene of the late-70s is bold and fairly brilliant. Scorsese could scarcely have selected a more perfect song. The second and final song to play during the closing credits is the “Layla (Piano Outro),” again. After a nerve-wracking, stupid, violent, and at times awfully funny thrill ride, that song mercifully brings an end and much needed relief for everyone involved. For Hill, it could have been worse; for the viewer, perhaps: “Thank God that’s not my life.” * Ebert, Roger (2008). Scorsese by Ebert, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. * Malcolm, Derek (September/October 1990). “Made Men.” Film Comment. * Stanley, Alessandra. “Real-Life Tough Guys and Silver-Screen Gangsters.” The New York Times, 21 Feb. 1992. 03 Apr. 2008. * Thompson, David; Ian Christie (1996).

“Scorsese on Scorsese.” Faber and Faber. pp. 150–161. Original Soundtrack: Goodfellas No. Song / Performer / Composer / Time 1. Rags to Riches - Tony Bennett / Adler, Ross / 2:51 2. Sincerely / The Moonglows / Freed, Fuqua / 3:08 3. Speedoo / The Cadillacs / Navarro / 2:24 4. Stardust / Billy Ward / Carmichael, Parish / 3:14 5. Look in My Eyes / The Chantels / Barrett, Barrett / 2:20 6. Life Is But a Dream / The Harptones Cita, Weiss / 2:43 7. Remember (Walking in the Sand) / The Shangri-Las / Morton - 2:18 8. Baby I Love You / Aretha Franklin / Shannon / 2:38 9. Beyond the Sea / Bobby Darin / Lawrence, Trénet / 2:55 10.

Sunshine of Your Love / Cream / Brown, Bruce, Clapton / 4:13 11. Mannish Boy / Muddy Waters / Diddley, London, Waters / 5:24 12. Layla / Derek & the Dominos / Clapton, Gordon / 3:53 Jim is an attorney and music writer living in Philadelphia. His first book is DEVIL’S MUSIC, HOLY ROLLERS, AND HILLBILLIES: HOW AMERICA GAVE BIRTH TO ROCK AND ROLL (McFarland & Company, Inc.), available on Amazon, and was excerpted on PopMatters: and below at “More Features”). Jim has previously published several law review articles on the parent-child relationship, and his work has appeared in various outlets such as Curator magazine online and Gonzo Today, and he previously wrote for MusicOMH.com.

Jim can be contacted at [email protected] Share via Audience Reviews for GoodFellas ½ This modern classic is a fascinating tale about the rise and fall of an ambitious gangster, perfectly directed (and edited) and told in a most brutal way by Martin Scorsese, with many memorable moments and a remarkable performance by Joe Pesci, who steals the show. Carlos Magalhães Super Reviewer Martin Scorsese hits a home-run with this gangster classic. Goodfellas is a ruthless crime-filled biopic highlighting a lifetime vision of American crime families. From the visionary direction to its no-holds-barred performances from Liotta, De Niro & especially Pesci, the film embodies the notorious genre and is still labeled as one of Scorsese's best, as well as the best of the genre. 4/5 Eugene Bernabe Super Reviewer Career criminal Henry Hill reminisces upon his life of crime in this true life story based on an actual FBI case. Goodfellas is the perfect film. It has the perfect blend of drama, gritty violence and humour as we see the dark side of the American dream played out over 25 years of a wise guy's life.

The people depicted here do not play by society's rules and have their own set of laws and conventions revolving around the pure pursuit of profit in this, the logical conclusion of capitalism. The livelihoods and lives of others are commodities to be used up and tossed away and life is cheap to these mobsters whose stated obsession with loyalty and family is also soon forgotten for the "big score", leading to total anarchy. The combination of DeNiro, Liotta and Pesci makes for a brilliant triple act and there are so many classic scenes it's easy to lose count. The idea to tell the story in a "Wonder Years" format using one of the best soundtracks ever compiled was a stroke of genius and the post modern conclusion the perfect way to end the story. For me, Goodfellas is the best film ever made. Full stop.

xGary Xx Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta Reunite for ‘Goodfellas’ at Tribeca Fest | Variety Mike Coppola/Getty Images April 26, 2015 | 08:55AM PT The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival closed Saturday night with a 25th anniversary gala screening of Martin Scorsese’s “ Goodfellas ,” held within the gold-spun rococo of the Upper West Side’s Beacon Theater. The screening was followed by a panel with stars Paul Sorvino, Ray Liotta , Lorraine Bracco, “Wiseguy” journalist and writer Nicholas Pileggi, and (inevitably) Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro , moderated by “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart.

(The comedian sometimes slipped into a slightly Pesci-esque accent, conceding that if anybody from the production met him right around the time “Goodfellas” came out, he would have been annoying as hell.) De Niro and Tribeca’s other co-founder Jane Rosenthal introduced the film, with the movie icon offering that this year’s 14th iteration of the festival marked “13 more than we intended, and tomorrow we start work on the 15th.” He then went on to read a email from Joe Pesci (the arguable true star of “Goodfellas”) that was nothing more than a string of f-words, which De Niro duly translated: “Dear Bob /Sorry I can’t be there /Love to all /Best, Joe.” Next, Scorsese and producer Irwin Winkler appeared in a brief video taken from the set of Scorsese’s upcoming period epic “Silence,” filming presently in Taipei — “which is in Taiwan,” he clarified, getting a huge laugh from the audience. Ever the woebegone auteur, Scorsese deadpanned about his decades-in-the-making shoot: “It’s… hot.

And… Well, we’re shooting.” Moving on to “Goodfellas” with visible relief, Scorsese alluded to widespread controversy following its release. Citing his co-writer Pileggi from the audience, Scorsese described a nice Italian restaurant in Tribeca where the two would eat — only to be barred after the movie came out, because “we apparently denigrated a certain ethnic group in the picture.” The crowd went wild when Scorsese mentioned the infamous midnight snacking scene , wherein Henry (Liotta), Tommy (Pesci) and Jimmy (De Niro) take a break from burying a body in the backyard of Tommy’s mother (Scorsese’s own mother, Catherine) to sit and eat at the dining room table. “There was only one or two written lines, about showing (her) paintings. The rest was pretty much what it was like to be around my mother, Joe, Bob, Ray… Her son was just coming home to say hello to her with his friends. He didn’t tell her about…. the body.” Despite the heavy hitters on the panel, Scorsese may have received the most applause in total.

The film (projected in a new digital remaster) was punctuated with shrieks of delight and rolling ovations from the audience, especially during the vaunted Steadicam shot as Henry and Karen enter the Copacabana floor through the restaurant kitchen, Pesci’s legendary “Funny how?” monologue, even at the cue of an in-prison closeup on a pair of hands slicing garlic knobs with a razor blade. Some attendees even saw fit to yell out dialogue before it was said onscreen, imbuing the event with midnight-movie moxie despite its ritzy trappings. Stewart worked overtime to try keeping the panel lively; some members had clearly not been together in years if not decades. When asked how he became Paulie Cicero, Sorvino said, “A lot of actors talk about choices, but the fact of the matter is when you find the spine of the character, it’s kind of like an inhabitation, from which you might need an exorcism.

And it makes all the decisions for you.” Toggling between an almost academic timbre and the slurred, husky Italian brogue he has in the film, Sorvino then clarified that he nearly left the production until he found Paulie’s inner life — which he found when he caught a glimpse of himself fixing his tie and said, “Oh, that’s the guy!” On commingling real-life murderers with Hollywood actors, Pileggi said: “If that wiseguy has a very powerful character and is going in a different direction than the actor, that’s best. You don’t wanna confuse the situation.” Liotta said that he didn’t meet Henry Hill until after the picture had been shot, as Scorsese didn’t want him to get confused about his performance — but that he then ran into Hill in varying states of dereliction in later life. “After the movie, I got a call to meet him at a bowling alley in the Valley, in California, with his brother. So I went, and….

There’s Henry, I knew him from pictures, and uh, the first thing he said was: ‘Thanks for not making me look like a scumbag.’ I’m like, ‘Did you see the movie?!’” De Niro offered that he was, by the time “Goodfellas” was in production, too old to play Hill but asked Scorsese to cast him as Jimmy “The Gent” Conway. Stewart asked De Niro if the filmmaker would, had he been in attendance, have still wanted to tweak the film — to which the tight-lipped star replied, “I can’t answer that.” Stewart then fired back: “No, but I want you to.” In fact, Pileggi described Stewart’s exact scenario taking place at the premiere in 1990, wherein Scorsese elbowed him and moaned in pain from audience about a shot that needed to be trimmed. “‘Marty,’ I said, ‘You’re in a tuxedo. It’s the opening of the movie. We’re in the Ziegfeld. Editing is over!’” Following a D.O.A.

quip from Stewart in admiration that they never greenlit the sequel “Greatfellas” and a standing ovation for the many cast members and extras from the film in attendance, the talent decamped to Central Park’s Tavern on the Green for the festival’s closing night party. Over butternut squash ravioli and tuna tartare, ever-emerging independent filmmakers sipped drinks with neon straws and rubbed elbows with industry vets, against a glistening — but hardly Scorsese-worthy — background of ’80s pop hits. (Pictured: Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro, Paul Sorvino and moderator Jon Stewart at the Tribeca Film Festival closing night screening of “Goodfellas”)

Question: Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta played gangsters in which 1990 film?
Answer: Goodfellas