Goodfellas (1990)

“By the way, I took care of that thing for ya” 

            For the longest time I have been a shame to my family for the fact that I have never seen The Godfather or Goodfellas. I knew what they were about especially The Godfather, I mean any member of my family can quote it and name more than five characters and what their jobs are. We could not call ourselves true Italians if we never saw The Godfather. So I guess you could say I could not call myself a real Italian because I had never seen The Godfather or Goodfellas. Goodfellas is almost as classic as the first one. Most of my friends who are Italian grew up watching either one of them or both movies during Sunday dinner. I finally watched Goodfellas today because my brother Anthony who is a huge movie fanatic loves it (He says it is better than The Godfather… I do not think you can compare) and I wanted to spend time with him before he left and there is no way in hell he will sit through old movies with me unless they are Charlie Chaplin. I ran out of Charlie Chaplin films on DVD to show Anthony so I gave one of his favorite movies a try. As with any movie I enjoyed the experience of finally seeing it and now being able to have an opinion on it. I liked Goodfellas I liked the story and the characters.

            Goodfellas is a pretty long movie. The movie is about a guy named Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) who when he was younger he became part of the mob. His father was abusive and angry and his mother really did not do too much. He got a job at a pizza place across the street from where he lived that was owned by a guy named Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino). Everyone knew Paul. He had connections all over the place and his racket was offering protection and stealing goods to make money. When he is a teenager he is introduced to the well known gangster Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and his best friend Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci).

            Running around with Paul and Jimmy, Henry gets all the money he could ever want and whatever he wants. Every night they were out to eat or they would have a get together at Paul’s place. Family means everything to Paul and what he says goes. Tommy sets him and Henry up dates. Henry’s date is a Jewish girl named Karen (Lorraine Bracco). He thinks she is prejudice against Italians when they first meet and their date does not go over too well. But they meet again and they eventually get married.

            Henry’s life goes pretty well until he starts to screw up in the seventies. He keeps another woman on the side and Karen is not happy at all with it. She tells Paul and his wife so Paul and Jimmy step in saying he needs to get rid of the other girl. Not too long after that he, Jimmy, and Tommy get arrested and sent to jail. Tommy and Henry are in the same jail while Jimmy was shipped out to somewhere else. While in jail Henry gets hooked on drugs and starts to sell cocaine when he gets out with Jimmy and Tommy. Paul cannot know because Paul does not want to deal with drugs.

            With the help of a guy named Morris Jimmy and Henry pull of a huge heist. Jimmy wants the money for himself so he begins killing off everyone that was involved. He plans to kill Henry and Karen. He cannot go to Paul but Paul has found out and will eventually have him killed as well. One day Henry suspects that he is being followed by the cops in a helicopter. That night he is arrested for drug trafficking. So as not to go to jail again and to not be killed by Paul or Jimmy’s men he turns state’s evidence and becomes a witness. He, Karen, and their daughters have to go into witness protection.

            There is a lot more to this movie than what I was able to explain trust me it is very good.

            Every cast member and character were great. Ray Liotta I have not seen him in too many movies but he was perfect. He had the look of a little kid and innocence in his eyes but he was just a crazy young guy who got mixed up in the wrong things. Lorraine Bracco I could not get over how young she was because I am so used to seeing her as Angela Rizzoli on Rizzoli and Isles. She was so pretty. Now Bracco is more than Angela Rizzoli (sorry never watched The Sopranos I know she was in that). Robert De Niro is Robert De Niro the man is just awesome. Joe Pesci is nuts and hilarious. He drops more F-bombs than I have ever heard in my life. 

            Martin Scorsese is such an amazing director. There was one scene where he filmed it in one panning shot that was awesome. I like Scorsese as a director because he loves movies especially the classic ones. Since he likes the classic films he knows about their quality and care that went into making them and that is exactly what he does with his films he makes them quality and puts care and thought into them. You get to know his characters and that is what I love about some directors how they are able to make you get to know the people he is filming.

            Goodfellas is a very good gangster movie but to me it drags in some parts. I love movies that have narration and the whole movie is narrated mostly by Henry but also by Karen in some parts (you will see why at the ending). If I had to recommend a real gangster movie to watch besides The Godfather it would be Goodfellas. Hell, I would make people watch this even if they do not like gangster movies it is just so good.

            Now I am proud that I can finally call myself a real Italian (you would never know I am ass white with light brown hair and blue eyes like my mom whose family is from the northern Italy)… but it is going to take quite some time to be able to know either movie to the point where I can quote them. 

After Hours (1985)

 “What do you want from me? I'm just a word processor!” 

            Dear God I do not think I have ever been more bored watching a movie before than when I sat through After Hours! (I feel like I am going to be hit with flying objects now) The concept is great but I found the whole thing way too creepy and boring it moved way too slow for me. The only good thing I can say about the movie is that it was directed by Martin Scorsese. There some awesome editing, zoom ins, and panning shots… and that was about all I liked of the whole thing.

            The story is about this guy Paul Hackett who working as a word processor during the day. We are shown that his life is pretty boring and lonely. After a day of work he meets this girl in a diner and they get to talking. She gives him the number for her friend and when he gets home he calls the number. The girl’s name is Marcy and she lives down in Soho with her Marcy sculptress friend Kiki. Paul gives the number a call and speaks to Marcy who tells him to come down and talk. On his way downtown he loses his cash when the cab driver drives too fast along a corner and the money is taken by the wind.

            As soon as he gets to the apartment the whole movie becomes really dark, surreal, and creepy. Kiki is this weird artist who lives in a huge loft; no offense to anyone who is an artist living in a loft. Marcy is not there when Paul gets there so he hangs out with Kiki and works on her sculpture a bit. Marcy comes back and they get to talking but she is a little flaky and odd. Sometime later Paul storms off and leaves.

            When he leaves his life for the next few hours is just turned completely upside down. He gets blamed for robberies happening in the neighborhood, he meets the craziest women ever, he meets Marcy’s boyfriend who was a bartender. All Paul wants to do is get back home.

            I really just could not get into After Hours. As I said the concept sounds good but everything else was just too much for me. Only see After Hours if you are a huge Scorsese fan.  

Hugo (2011)

“I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.” 

            Since Hugo came out I have been reading more about Martin Scorsese. Sure the guy has been around for a long time but now with Hugo out Scorsese has been getting more attention than he usually does. And I am paying more attention to him now since I really like movies. I admire the man for his love of cinema and film history. My brother saw Hugo in the movies when it was released and since then he has been saying how incredible the movie was. He bought it last week and from beginning to end I adored the movie. When the movie was over I was so happy to have seen such love and care go into making a film about a man who was so much a part of film history.

            Hugo Cabret lives in the French train station Montparnasse. He fixes the station’s clocks and makes sure they run on time. He did not always live there. His father died in a fire in the museum he worked at and his mother had died when he was much younger. He was sent to live with his uncle in the train station where the uncle worked as the clock fixer. Before living with his uncle, Hugo’s father used to have a clock shop. One day he found an automaton in the museum and the two spent evenings trying to make the automaton work. Hugo still works on the automaton by stealing parts from a toy shop in the station.

            One day Hugo goes to steal some parts from a windup when he sees the owner has fallen asleep. The man (Ben Kingsley) catches Hugo before he can snatch the toy and run away. The man tells Hugo to empty his pockets and one of the things in his pocket his is father’s notebook with drawings of the automaton. The man has a look of shock on his face and asks where he found the robot. Hugo tells him and the man says that he is to work off stealing by working for him in the shop.

            Hugo sees that the man knows a young girl and thinks she is his daughter. He meets the girl named Isabelle (Chloe Grace Mortez). Isabelle tells him that she is not the man’s daughter but she calls him Papa Georges. Hugo asks her to get his notebook back for him but she cannot Georges has put it somewhere she cannot find it and also that it caused Georges and his wife Jean a great deal of stress.

            Hugo begins to trust Isabelle since she is very nice to him. He sees that she has a key with the end of it in the shape of a heart. The automaton has a keyhole in that shape. He wound the automaton once but it did not work because he did not have the key. He brings Isabelle to his living quarters to see try the key. It works and the automaton begins to write something. It stops but when it starts again and finishes it has drawn a picture of the moon with a rocket in its eye and the signature of Georges Méliès in the corner.

            The picture is the beginning of marvelous things and heartbreaking memories.

            As I said at the beginning I loved Hugo. The story is so interesting the way it unfolds. I really liked how the story used Georges Melies who if you do not know was one of the French pioneers of filmmaking in the early 1900s. He used camera tricks to bring to life wonderful stories. His most famous film is Le Voyage dans la Lune (Voyage to the Moon).  Everyone has seen the part of Le Voyage when the rocket hits the moon in the eye it is one of the most famous film clips ever. Melies’s films were rediscovered in 1931 and his reputation restored to glory.

            The story comes from a book entitled The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Yes, he is related to David O). Selznick wrote such an entertaining and heartfelt story. You can tell he cares for his subject which was perfect for Scorsese to make a movie out of because he has a great passion for film and its history.

            The blue and gold tones in the film are fantastic. If I had to assign a color or colors to Paris it would be blue and gold: blue because it is a city and I think of cities as cold places and gold because it is the City of Light.

            The time period that Méliès was rediscovered could not have been more perfect. Paris in the 1920s and 1930s is so interesting to learn about and the city was never more alive and flowing than in these times.

            Hugo is nothing short of a masterpiece. It is entertaining and beautiful from the moment it starts. I had a wonderful time seeing and hearing old film references as well as art references to the surrealists with their magazine Vu. The cast is large and incredibly well put together everyone is wonderful in their parts. Hugo is in line with films like The Artist and Midnight in Paris that keeps my faith in Hollywood producing high class and truly original films.

            In an interview, Scorsese comments on why it is important to look to classic films to absolute perfection:

“I’m often asked by younger filmmakers, why do I need to look at old movies; I’ve made a number of pictures in the past twenty years. And the response I find that I have to give them is that I still consider myself a student. The more pictures I’ve made in the past twenty years the more I realize I really don’t know. And I’m always looking for something to, something or someone that I could learn from. I tell them, I tell the younger filmmakers and the young students that I do it like painters used to do, or painters do: study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand your canvas. There’s always so much more to learn.”

           

            As a classic film admirer and a lover of the art of filmmaking I am so happy and grateful for directors like Martin Scorsese and Michel Hazanavicious for making quality films and shedding light on film history for younger generations to see and hopefully become interested in.