luka

Well-known member
Barely a step up from Guy Ritchie. Same juvenile mentality. Goofy teenage boy films.
 

version

Well-known member
"The issue with Scorsese is that there's a spectrum of human emotions, and cocaine is maybe 2% of the spectrum, but he thinks it's like 90%."
 

luka

Well-known member
I watched wolf of wall street earlier in the year and thought oh dear scorsese has got very dumb what an ugly film but now I realise he was always dumb
 

version

Well-known member
I actually didn't like Goodfellas when I first saw it, but it grew on me over time. They're just fun, flashy mob movies to me. I group him and Tarantino together.
 

luka

Well-known member
All the teenage boys loved it in my day pesci whacking someone over the head with the telephone receiver ah ya fucking hump
 

version

Well-known member
Apparently The Irishman casts a colder eye on the mob thing and feels somewhat critical of those earlier films.
 

Leo

Well-known member
he's a totally different animal than tarrantino. they both do period films, but that's about it. goodfellas is great, fugetaboutit.
 
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version

Well-known member
he's a totally different animal than tarrantino. they both do period films, but that's about it. goodfellas is great, fugetaboutit.

The two of them share this snappy, frenetic, very 90s, very American sensibility, imo. Oliver Stone had it when he did Natural Born Killers too.

I don't think everything Scorsese's done fits that description, but Goodfellas, Casino and Bringing Out the Dead definitely do.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I think there's a certain art to realising that story world so completely re. Goodfellas. There's so much in that film. It's very teenage boy, the appeal but I think they're great films for what they are. That kinda flawless machismo seems pretty alien to me but that's part of the point. Was going out of fashion even then. It's a defining genre classic in the way that only really Americans get to create - set huge trends that a million derivative products flow from. Scorsese is like fucking Jay Z or something. I don't want to listen to him but there's a grudging respect for times gone past. I admire the creation of that mythology.

I read the book last year. Its pretty good, much more fucked up and casually brutal than the film. This is worth a read as well, it's what happened after the story of the film. Henry Hill sounds like a barrel of laughts:
 

version

Well-known member
Gangs of New York was the worst I've seen by him. Unbelievable dreck.

Yeah, I hated that one. I still can't believe that was Scorsese. I can't even work out what he was trying to do. It was just stupid. I've never liked DDL either. People rave about him, but I can't think of a performance of his I've enjoyed.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Goodfellas is 5 stars but it's hardly profound. Same goes for The Irishman really, although the Irishman has more scope to it in terms of showing the influence of the mob on politics/history.

King of Comedy and Taxi Driver are his masterpieces afaic. Nothing stupid about those ones.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
DDL was a force of nature in There Will Be Blood and I also thought he was great in Phantom Thread. But I know you don't rate PTA so whatcanyedehhh.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The problem with mob movies that don't idealise the mob (such as the Godfather) is that mobsters are mostly quite boring people. They're crafty but stupid. You have to be a bit dim, as a general rule, to be so good at intimidating and killing people. That's also the issue with Wolf of Wall Street, I suppose. He's showing the emptiness of these people's lives but that makes those movies a bit empty, too.

The Sopranos got around this by making Tony Soprano a bit implausibly deep and conflicted, and going to a therapist. The more goonish mafiosi in that are side characters, walk-on parts.

And of course they're very seductive, too. They make crime seem cool in spite of themselves. Although what I like about Goodfellas is the slow but sure unpeeling of that glamour. Everyone dies. (Ditto The Irishman.)

I watched that 'Legend' the other night, about the Krays. It's a good exercise to watch that b2b with Goodfellas because Legend is a sort of wannabe Scorcese flick that is piddling away in the Championship division mid-table while Goodfellas is eyeing the European cup. (The Godfather 1/2 are probably lifting it though.)
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Apparently The Irishman casts a colder eye on the mob thing and feels somewhat critical of those earlier films.

Goodfellas ends up cold on the mob, I'd say. They all turn on each other like jackals. All dead or in jail. People always remember the more glamorous bits, of course. That's the problem with glamour.
 
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