Last week I caught The Departed on TV in the middle and ended up watching until the end even though we have the DVD.¨Ü (I’m sure it’s a common thing for people to do, and Last Samurai is the first movie that comes to mind that I always end up watching until the end when I catch it on TV.)¨Ü Then I went on IMDB trivia and Wikipedia and realized that hey I also liked Gangs of New York and The Aviator, maybe I should watch some more Scorsese films.¨Ü Today I decided to follow through and searched for Goodfellas on Netflix.¨Ü It was available to stream.
An entertaining aspect of gangster flicks is seeing the characters living the lavish lifestyle–this is also why it’s fun to watch Entourage or read anything involving Gilbert Arenas spending money.¨Ü There’s a heavy amount of it in Goodfellas.¨Ü The best being a nearly four-minute tracking shot following Ray Liotta as he makes his way to a table in a crowded restaurant, skipping past the line, greeting other gangsters, and tipping doormen and busboys along the way.
There’s a reason why classics are classics.¨Ü The story reaffirms that fact is greater than fiction, and so do the characters.¨Ü The acting is pretty much as expected, which is to say very good. Joe Pesci won an Oscar for good reason; a number of times I was thinking, “Yeah, this guy’s really crazy.” The cast accomplishes what you want from a gangster movie: making it fun to cheer for the bad guys.