Well I would watch it because its excellent and well worth your time.

+++

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

Not the best movie ever, but definitely the best movie about gangsters ever. The Godfather Part II comes close, but it can't match GoodFellas' technical perfection and entertaining flow.

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

It was a hoot to see so many Sopranos actors in the film in their early days, ie Michael Imperioli and the guy who played Pauly Walnuts.

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

Definitely one of the ten best, IMO. But I prefer Taxi Driver just a bit.

A surprisingly fascinating video I just found on YouTube with tons of facts never heard before about Goodfellas


https://youtu.be/Ql9BxhD7buA?feature=shared

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

It's a great film, but I don't consider it the best movie ever. I would say it is the 149th best movie ever.

Haha, how did you come up with that specific position?

I have a ranked list of my favourite 305 films. Goodfellas is #149.

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

^It's good to have hobbies, I guess.

One of my all-time favorites. Love every part of this film.

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

An inspirational story about a man who just wanted to do an dishonest job that didn't involve actually working for a living. Could've been worse. He could've gone into politics.

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

Decent movie, but over-rated. I've seen gangsters before, and this one hits all of those usual notes. "Greatest Ever"....no.

I saw Goodfellas on the big screen a couple years ago and it's an insanely well crafted film and the pacing is just wild. The editing is spectacular and perhaps more importantly Goodfellas does something that few other films, if any, has ever done before which is to tell the story of a real person, yes a biopic, in such a way that it doesn't feel episodic or going through the motions of ticking off checkpoints of "greatest hits" the way most biopics do.

Now I haven't read the source material, but I could imagine Scorsese took on a monumental task and hit it out of the park the way maybe few suspected.

Goodfellas is a true A+ film, but it is a film that like Casablanca, is brilliant, but doesn't have that deep emotional core for me. None of the characters really resonated with me or challenged me on an emotional or intellectual level or are necessarily even iconic in terms of character development or how they face respond to conflict around them... minus perhaps Karen. The characters are archetypes and not necessarily even dynamic archetypes. They are greedy, one-note, and lack any moral or intellectual arc that sets them above being just entertaining.

So I love Goodfellas to no end, but I never felt it on the emotional or visceral level the way something like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Bringing out the Dead, Silence, and a handful of other Scorsese films hit me. The characters in Goodfellas are cartoons... entertaining and enjoyable as Hell to see their crazy wild ride, but that's about all.

That'd probably be about where I'd place it, if I ranked them. I will confess, it is NOT in my un-ranked top 100 films of all time.

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

The Scorsese character I care most about is probably Keitel's girl (played by Amy Robinson) in Mean Streets.
Then after that, everyone in The King of Comedy.
Maybe De Niro's wife in Raging Bull.

I think it's a good point about Goodfellas. Ironic bearing in mind that they actually are (or some of them are based on) real people, but for the purposes of the film they aren't real people at all they are characters (a bit like in a video game you're watching but not playing) who have been invented so that 'we' can do whatever we like to them just for sh*ts and giggles, and not actually give a sh*t because they aren't real.

Originally Posted by JKro159 (Post 465577)

Hey, everyone. This is my first post on here. I think that Goodfellas is probably one of the best movies ever made. The suspense is great and the story line, action, and characters do not leave you wanting more. I was wondering what you all think about it.

IMO, Goodfellas is not the “best” movie ever made, but it is one of my personal favorites. It is also the greatest movie Martin Scorsese ever made as well as the greatest mob movie ever made.

Mark

Re: Goodfellas: Best Movie Ever
 

Having found the movie to be well crafted and well acted but seriously predictable, I'd like to hear what its defenders think was great about it. To me it was just another stereotypical Mob movie. My recollection was NOT wanting to see another mob movie for a few years, not that there's all that many of them. Goodfellas broke the genre for me.

It's a true story, right? Should we dump on reality for being "predictable"? What's great about it? Great performances. A great "oner." Great music. Great editing. For whatever reason, it hangs together in a way that is tremendously rewatchable. Great quotable moments. Some wonderful dark humor. It's Deniro at the height of his powers. Best Movie Ever? Probably not, but we can say that about just about every movie ever made. Great movie? Absolutely.

My suspicion is that, for me, Italian gangster movies are just "used up", kinda like the 15th vanilla milkshake in the same week. I know the plot 5 minutes in, and part of me just wants to tell them to get a real job because, sooner or later they will die in a pool of blood or end up in jail.

It actually reminds me a lot of westerns with a different accent and horses instead of cars, which, for me, got used up a long time ago unless someone comes up with a different plot line.

Both are repetitive beyond endurance.