Goodfellas (2008, DVD)

My grandmother, rest her soul, could tell stories of the gangsters she knew from her neighborhood. Her era was that of "Legs" Diamond and Dutch Schultz and could tell us stories about what it was like. I have to say that as a young child, all that did sound terribly glamorous and wonderful. It was only as I got older that I understood better what being a "gangster" meant and it didn't look as good as the stories she told. Goodfellas is a story told after her era, in the era of my parents and their generation of relatives. By this time, being a gangster was well beyond just protecting those...

While some people call Goodfellas the greatest mobster movie of all time very rarely do you hear them talk about the plot. When you boil it down there is a huge jump in them from Henry Hill's youth to his adult life of crime. It also jumped too far into the future for me when Ray Liotta's character is bending over a table snorting coke. Other than that there are too many mistakes in filming. Don't believe me? Pull out your copy of Goodfellas and fast forward to the scene where Henry Hill is in prison and his wife is visiting with the kids and she makes a scene about Janis visiting. Look...

"Goodfellas" is Director Martin Scorsese's contribution to the gangster genre. It concerns itself with an inside look at a crime family in New York City. Much like the original gangster movies starring James Cagney and Paul Muni, it showed the rise and fall of the main characters. Ray Liotta plays the protagonist, and the movie mainly follows his viewpoint, which possibly makes it more hard-hitting since he basically plays a milquetoast in this graphic story of modern day hoodlums. Oddly, Liotta is cast as an Irish thug, Henry Hill who can never be a true member of the Mob. Robert DeNiro and..

Intro... I've always considered myself to be a well-rounded, cultured girl. But up until February '00, I had never seen a real 'gangster' movie. Not even The Godfather! Everyone was always quoting GoodFellas and saying "Oh, you have to see this movie" and whatnot. I finally went out, rented it, and ended up buying it on DVD. I'll tell you why. By the way, Martin Scorsese is a genius. Characters... Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), the son of an Irish father and Italian mother, is the main character. He is overwhelmed with a sense of belonging when the neighborhood 'Wiseguys' employ him, accept him,...