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Maybe Goodfellas was already spoiled for me because of the Goodfeathers segments on Animaniacs.

I enjoyed listening to the episode - I think it will be one of Unspooled's best. Not because anyone "won" an argument or anthing, but it was an actual discussion about how two people see a film. Amy's ideas about the casting was something I never considered before, and I can kind of see it. Not that I necessarily agree with it. Actually, I'm of two minds. Wasn't it Roger Altman who said that 90% of the director's creative work is in casting? It's a part of the palette the director can use to paint the film how he/she wants to. It *could* have lent something completely different to some of those key scenes. Not only that, but for a film that's meant to be autobiographical and therefore ostensibly more "real," a better air of authenticity such as with age ranges would help. That being said, Scorcese certainly wanted a "performance" on his palette rather than shades of "true to the age range." And we can't argue that the performances aren't great. (Also, this argument wasn't the "hill" Amy wanted to die on anyway, so it's not a key point or anything. I'd just like to add that this is the kind of criticism that is faulting a film for what it it *isn't*, which I never really put too much stock into.) I kept waiting for some more substantial criticism but it never really came. I don't like this movie. I tried a rewatch before the podcast episode, but it still never clicked. I watched it as a young person and didn't get why it was so praised. Rewatched as a more serious film student years later and said "Oh!" but yeah still didn't get it. It's a fine movie, not saying it's bad. Just overrated. For sake of context, I don't like gangster films in general. If that discredits my p.o.v., that's ok. I'll own up to that. I did enjoy Godfather 1 (and 2 even moreso) as those seemed to invoke something larger, more epic or akin to a tale of a dynasty. Goodfellas and others of its ilk are always so mundane, trying to normalize but deify the lifestyle, to delight in it and condemn it at the same time, ultimately rendering it pointless. Goodfellas in particular has no arc for its character. Granted, it's more nonfiction and documentary in its roots, but essentially the character Henry Hill is the same at the beginning and at the end. He and by extention the viewers don't actually learn anything. Noboby is truly challenged or conflicted, or if they are, they don't really do anything/can't do anything about it. I rarely like narration as a device, and here it just feels so random. Take that plus the breaking of the fourth wall at the end and the whole thing basically boils down to your old granduncle trying to tell the same story of his glory days for no reason whether you want to listen or not. Great, thanks, uncle Hill. Got it. Sure, tell me again about cooking sauce in prison, yeah.

I don’t want to be too long winded so I’ll try to be as brief as possible. I am third generation Italian-American. I related hard to Paul’s story of being put in a headlock at a graduation party because of his alleged “funniness.” And Amy’s response about being WASPy, and being confused by it is precisely why I don’t think she likes this movie. I agree with Paul that casting people on the edges of 20-40 makes sense for such a long timeline. You age ‘em down a little in the beginning, then age ‘em up later on. On Joe Pesci being too old for the role, it never once in my entire life occurred to me, probably because I have cousins who at 19 looked like they were as old as Joe Pesci. Seriously, 1/3rd of my family are balding, stout Italians at 19. Amy’s argument about Henry Hill “suddenly” caring about his brother. I would say “yeah, he’s gotta go pick up his brother.” Amy reminded me of the people who were mad we didn’t see Rey’s training in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, calling her a Mary Sue. I don’t understand how it’s hard to imagine Henry needing to pick up his wheelchair bound brother for some needlessly extravagant dinner he’s planned while coked up. We don’t need two additional scenes of him having a heart to heart with his brother about how he’ll always pick him up from the airport. I think Goodfellas is an amazingly crafted and entertaining movie that stands the test of time. I think that Amy simply doesn’t like it because she doesn’t relate, which is fine, it’s okay to not like a movie, but I think she’s wrong. I could go on for longer, but those were my three biggest issues with Amy’s assessment of the movie.

This was a pretty frustrating episode to listen to. I love hearing opposing viewpoints as it makes me think critically about why I personally may like or dislike something, but the complaints Amy had for Goodfellas felt so off-base and nit-picky that I wasn't sure if she was doing a bit or not half the time. Briefly, regarding Henry's love of cooking seemingly coming out of nowhere, I agree with Paul in that I don't think we need a scene that establishes his love of sauces or cooking for it to "make sense" that he is cooking at the end of the film. As was stated in an earlier post, that completely misses the point of the scene and how it's intentionally manic because he's high on coke. That being said, they totally do establish his love (or at least knowledge/interest) of cooking (and specifically sauces) during that first scene in the prison when they are having dinner. The scene opens on Paulie thinly slicing garlic with a razor as Henry's narration explains that this "very good system" allows the garlic to liquefy with a little bit of oil. He then complains that Vinny uses too many onions in the sauce he cooks, though it's still very good. The scene is a full minute of Henry talking about and critiquing cooking. Now, for my experience: I first saw Goodfellas when I was a teenager and had dismissed it as a typical gangster film that glorifies being in the mob. I realized during this rewatch just how wrong I was and I ended up, surprisingly, loving this film. I think there are maybe 2 or 3 instances that briefly show some benefits to the mob life such as having the mail man roughed up or the aforementioned dinner privileges at the prison. But for every seeming benefit there are half-a-dozen horrors tipping the scale back: Dealing with psychotic men like Tommy who have no qualms about killing anybody for almost anything; the creeping realization that the whole "family" thing is BS and that ANYONE may turn their back on you or kill you for any reason; the ever-looming risk of going to jail; having to bury bodies; the list goes on and on. This time around I did not feel like it glorified the life at all. Much like Fight Club or The Sopranos I'm shocked by how many people watched this film and thought "yeah, that's so badass, I wanna be like that." You'd have to completely ignore the messages of these films/shows to think that Tyler Durden or Tony Soprano were people to idolize or that the mafia was a cool organization to join. All that said, while I ended up loving this film so much more than I thought I would, I have to admit that there are a handful of Scorsese films that I think deserve spots on the AFI top 100 above this. I find Scorsese's films that deal with faith and religion to be so much more interesting and thought-provoking than any of his mob films (haven't seen Casino, though) so I would gladly take Kundun, The Last Temptation of Christ or Silence before Goodfellas any day of the week. I still voted to keep it on the list as I think it's a vastly superior to 90% of the other films currently on the AFI Top 100.

I think one of the major points glossed over was upending the "noble Mafia criminal" trope that the Godfather films spawned. When I saw the movie my first thought afterwards was that I loved how it subverted the HUGE cultural Godfather Mafia myth. The film basically tears down all the noble, family first, "we're not animals, we're businessmen, our families are important" theme of both Godfather movies. They are venal, fairly dumb, violent thugs and not criminal masterminds looking to create an Empire. They are making jokes, robbing, getting loot - but then murdering someone because they get irked for 2 seconds, destroying their own efforts.

I thought the entire movie is that Henry Hill is supposed to be an unreliable narrator. The highs are never that high. The lows are never his fault. And with what we know from the real life person, that seems consistent with who he is. I feel like a lot of the inconsistencies (but certainly not all of them) are tied to Henry Hill saying one thing and him just being wrong. If Amy doesn't like the movie, that's fine. I like the movie okay but am maybe not a huge fan of it either. I genuinely agree with the criticism that Pesci is too old but I felt like the rest of her criticisms didn't make much sense. Especially the sauce argument. It's such a huge stereotype that Italian Americans love sauce that I don't think we need our hands held with an earlier scene of it. Unless the movie makes a point of saying "this guy really hates cooking" I won't balk at them showing an Italian American cooking tomato sauce.