This painting is not important to the plot of Goodfellas but it is important to my enjoyment of Goodfellas.

Why I should have seen it already:

Joe Pesci won an Oscar. Also: GoodFeathers.

Now That I Have:

The film begins with Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) driving a car. Then they remember there’s a dude in the trunk they should kill. Tommy goes crazy on him with a kitchen knife and Conway shoots the dude. He’s dead.

The movie then decides to tell you about how Henry grew up. But don’t worry, that dead guy will be waiting for us later on. He ain’t going no where.

Young Henry (Christopher Serrone) was allowed into the local group of wiseguys at an early age. There he meets a young Tommy DeVito (Joe D’Onofrio, the adorable baby Pesci look-alike) and Jimmy. From Jimmy and the rest of the men he learns the ins and outs of the trade and falls in love with the life. He also becomes enamored with the mafia’s simple solution to all of life’s problems: Hit stuff and yell. For example, when his school sends a letter to his parents saying he hasn’t attended class in months, Henry gets whipped by his dad. The mafia isn’t willing to let Henry get grounded again. So they hit stuff and yell! Stuff: the mail man. Yell: “Don’t bring Henry’s parents any more letters from the school!” It’s never a problem again. Life is great!

The glamor of Henry and Karen's relationship...

After growing up and changing actors Henry falls in love and marries Karen (Lorraine Bracco). At which point the job of narrating switches from him to her. She explains how she too falls in love with the lifestyle and learns to be proud of her criminal husband for providing in his own way.

Life is great! Then Henry starts sleeping around. Karen points a gun in his face. He hits things and yells. Problem solved! Life is great!

Henry continues to sleep around.

At one point Henry helps score a large amount of money during a job. So he rises even higher in the ranks alongside his friends Jimmy and Tommy. Jimmy continues to be smart and in charge. Tommy continues to be crazy and the worst friend. After Tommy is insulted by a made-man, he and Jimmy kill the dude in front of Henry. So the three of them put him in their trunk to bury upstate. Only later to hear him banging around in the back during the drive there.

...eventually ends.

So the movie remembers to finish the story it was telling earlier and they kill and bury the guy. Life is great!

After a big job, Jimmy starts to grow suspicious of the competence of his partners and has everyone killed besides Henry and Tommy. They are the bestest of buds. Plus they now have tons and tons of money.

Then Henry winds up in jail. While there he does two things. 1.) Make spaghetti, which the movie explains in great detail. 2.) Sell drugs. Back at home Karen is barely able to pay the bills. Life is great!

Once he’s out of jail Henry and Jimmy decide to go into their own drug business behind the backs of the mafia. Which is a no-no on account of how much the mafia will shoot you in the head for going behind their backs.

For instance, they tell Tommy they’re throwing a party for him. When Tommy enters the room he doesn’t see a single colored streamer and knows he’s been duped! They shoot him in the head.

With Tommy gone and no longer killing people for no reason, Henry and Jimmy get depressed. Then Henry gets arrested because the government hates drugs. But Henry loves drugs! They butt heads on this issue. Then the government wins because it has a helicopter (Nuts!).

Henry comes back from jail this second time extremely broke. He decides the smart thing to do is go into witness protection and testify against all his friends who just gave him some money. They all go to jail and Henry goes into the suburbs to live out the rest of his life. But you could argue he has it worse than the friends he betrayed because the spaghetti there is really bad.

You could argue that, and Henry does.

The Verdict:

Something about Goodfellas feels hollow. When I was watching it the movie seemed more concerned with getting to a select few scenes than it did with telling a complete story. For instance the famous “What do you mean I’m funny?” scene between Pesci and Liotta is great out of context, but it sort of comes from no where in the film. There’s no reason for that scene to happen other than the fact it’s a pretty cool scene.

Martin Scorsese has done better directing than this as well. Goodfellas is filled with long, single shot scenes of a camera moving and showing people’s faces. Sometimes the camera is introducing us to people. Sometimes its just panning across a collection of dumb heads. This technique comes close to being comical the fourth time you’re treated to a bunch of characters with identical expressions.

Despite a less than stellar script and direction, Ray Liotta handles his role as the film’s protagonist nicely. Though my favorite part of the movie was when his character was young and learning the criminal trade, when Liotta took over he made Henry someone knowable. Liotta gives Henry a fake, bellowing laugh which he fills conversations with. It’s a phony laugh which tells almost all you need to know about Henry.

Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro aren’t doing anything we haven’t seen them do before, but dang if they aren’t great at it. Pesci’s Tommy is a character you hate to love to hate. While De Niro could make Tommy feel dangerous and cool if he was wearing a clown suit.

Lorraine Bracco is stuck with a crummy role, but she still was half of my favorite scene of the movie. The scene I’m speaking of is where she is pointing a gun at an awakened Henry after learning of his affairs. You know Henry isn’t going to die, but she’s crackling with enough emotion you find yourself second guessing this simple fact.

The plot of Goodfellas was frustrating to me. Most movies about criminals usually end with them becoming too cocky, making simple mistakes, or letting ego and paranoia get in the way of their success. This one is obnoxiously no different. Early on Henry explains to Karen no one goes to jail if you follow the rules. Then he starts breaking the rules! Then other gangsters start breaking the rules! Then they even start breaking the rules they set about breaking the first rules!

With the easy to follow trail of rule debris its no wonder they all get caught or shot.

Have you heard of this guy called Robert De Niro?

Finally, when the movie ends with Henry living a quiet life, you can’t help but wish it was another character that made it out okay instead. After the drugs and affairs and betrayal of all his friends, he’s not very likable. But I suppose he was never supposed to be to begin with.

Even if he was the dude who looked mad whenever Tommy killed someone for no reason. Even if he tried to talk Jimmy out of whacking all his partners after the big score. He let it all happen. He was content with continuing to let it happen.

I think I’m coming to terms with the fact that I like new Martin Scorsese films better than old Martin Scorsese films. I’m sort dreading seeing Taxi Driver now. Also! I’m coming to terms with the fact that Ray Liotta gives every character he plays something special. He’s a pretty cool actor.

Tags: Goodfellas, Joe Pesci, Martin Scorsese, Netflix Queue of Shame, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro

Some unemployed guys are living in your corn field. Magic!

Why I should have seen it already:

It’s a kind of movie they don’t make anymore. Also, I’ve seen enough parodies of “The Voice” scene that I should probably know what it’s parodying.

Now that I have:

The movie starts out with Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) narrating his entire life up to the current point. With his mom dying very early in Ray’s life his dad had to raise him on his own. His dad was super old already so they didn’t have much in common. Ray was also bothered that his dad always pronounced “Pokemon” as “Pokey Man”. So Ray went to college (Berkeley!) across the country after a big fight. Ray gets married to his college sweetheart, has a daughter, buys a farm, and he goes to his dad’s funeral.

BUT THEN he starts hearing ghosts in his corn field. “If you build it, he will come.” Through the miracle of scripts-that-need-to-be-finished Ray knows exactly what that means. If he builds a baseball field on his farm, Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) will come over and play baseball with him!

Ray explains to his family that Shoeless Joe is a baseball player and not a train hobo. Shoeless Joe was accused of being paid to lose games on purpose and banned from baseball for the rest of his life. Being his Dad’s hero, Ray sees returning Shoeless Joe to his former glory as a way of making it up to him. Also, by former glory he means “Shackle his spirit to my backyard and watch him play baseball for eternity.”

Well, “If you build it, he will come.” is a little misleading. It implies Ray has a choice in the manner. Really, it should be saying “BUILD IT.” The Voice torments Ray with sleepless nights and makes him look crazy in front of his neighbors until he agrees to make the field.

Anyway, Ray’s wife Annie (Amy Madigan) agrees that Ray should look crazy and helps him with his task. Even his daughter helps him build his financially problematic baseball field in order to see ghosts. Ray is a bad dad.

"You are my prisoner now. Dance for me, slave!"

The baseball field sorta works like a roach motel for the ghosts of forgotten baseball players. They wander in, all bright eyed and curious, then SNAP! They’re trapped! The players are forced to return to the field everyday so Ray and his daughter can watch baseball games for free while Annie… I dunno… she cleans the house or something. THIS IS NOT ABOUT HER IT’S ABOUT MAKING RAY’S DREAMS COME TRUE.

Eventually, The Voice makes Ray go on a road trip with Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) and travel through time to talk with a dead doctor (Burt Lancaster). The dead doctor played one inning of one game in the Major League before having to quit. So he became a doctor and basically took care of every kid in town for free. Which sucks! (I guess?) Either way, what he needs is a prescription of more baseball.

Back at home, Ray’s family is about to become homeless because the baseball field makes it hard to grow enough crop to keep the land. Darth Vader tells them not to worry. He predicts people will come visit the farm and pay Ray twenty bucks a person for no reason at all

Then he looks into the camera, giggles, and runs into the corn field never to be seen again.

Ray realizes one of the baseball player ghosts is his dad. “If you build it, HE will come.” Ooooooooooh… I get it!

Ray has chained his dad’s spirit to his baseball field trap. The Voice was the devil. The end.

The Verdict:

At its best, Field of Dreams is an overly romantic look at the past and a slightly ham-fisted way of showing that missing out on one dream leaves room for others. Take the dead doctor for instance. He missed his chance of playing in the Major Leagues, but then he became the well loved and respected doctor who really made a difference in his town. The movie takes the time to point out we shouldn’t feel sad he didn’t get to play baseball. When his younger self shows up as a ghost to play on Ray’s field he finally gets to live his dream. But the second Ray’s daughter gets hurt he runs off the field, becoming his older self permanently and does the doctor thing to save her. For a movie about how magical and American a sport based off Cricket is, it’s a strangely powerful scene.

At its worst, Field of Dreams doesn’t really know what it’s doing. At one point its about not wanting to become your father. At another point its a life changing road trip film. Then its about getting back what made America great (sport betting scandals!). It feels like multiple incomplete scripts were stapled together. Also, for a movie about baseball it has surprisingly little baseball in it. The characters seem more interested in the aesthetics of the game (hats, hot dogs, doing the Wave) than they are with the actual game.

Someone allowed an actor on set eventually.

I like Costner as an actor. He’s really good at being totally unassuming, which is by no means a stab. The way he reacts and talks on film doesn’t feel Hollywood and by proxy: fake. He’s a normal dude. But “normal dude” can be a little boring. That’s why it’s such a revelation when James Earl Jones shows up. The dude has presence! It gives the movie a second life.

Field of Dreams‘ opening narration was unneeded for the film. Everything that’s covered in this introduction is also touched upon during the movie. It’s like we weren’t trusted understand that Costner and his wife used to be hippies from merely their use of the word “righteous” and constant talk about the 60′s. It wasn’t that subtle, guys.

I do like that it’s a counter culture family who is given this magical “All-American” task of taking care of the spirit of baseball. It would have been cooler if they were more hippie and less Iowa-y though. Speaking of which… why they bought a farm in the first place is never explained. They were radical, pot-smoking, English majors from Berkeley. WHY DID THEY BUY A FARM IN IOWA?

While watching Field of Dreams, how unfair Ray was to his Annie was always in the back of my mind. The movie loves Ray and wants him to live out a great adventure and make up for past mistakes with his dad. Annie on the other hand has to deal with the terrible finances and never gets anything out of the sacrifices she makes for her husband. Also, at the end of the film, she’s basically doomed to the fate of running a stupid tourist trap in Iowa. Earlier in Field of Dreams we see her during a PTA meeting full of passion and a sense of right. She could have done SO much more than carry her husband to all his goals.

In the end, Field of Dreams ain’t a bad flick. There are moments where it gets close to what it actually thinks it is, but the film never makes physical contact with the ideal. There are better movies about baseball and lost chances out there.

And they are all called Rookie of the Year.

Tags: Amy Madigan, Field of Dreams, James Earl Jones, Kevin Costner, Netflix Queue of Shame, Ray Liotta

Kicking Bird's mohawk is more punk rock than mine will ever be.

(Read part one here)

Now that I have (Part 2):

Lt. Dunbar (Kevin Costner) misses his friends in the Sioux tribe so much he stops cleaning the fort. Or he’s gotten lazy. I ‘unno. Either way the place is a wreck. Out of mourning for his once clean fort he shaves off his awesome mustache. He decides his place sucks so he’d rather go back to living with his parents/his Sioux friends who give him free food and rent.

Two Socks follows him as he leaves for the tribe but Dunbar starts to flip out. I guess he was worried about the Sioux killing Two Socks on sight or maybe he just didn’t want his college friends to meet his high school friends. Anyway, he tries to chase Two Socks away but it turns into a game of tag between the two. Kicking Bird (Graham Greene), Stone Calf (Jimmy Herman), and Wind in His Hair (Rodney A. Grant) watch their game and decide it’s time to mention the movie title.

Lt. Dunbar, now given the Sioux name “Dances With Wolves”, is asked to watch over Kicking Bird’s family while he and the boys leave for a mens’ getaway. They’re going to fight some battles with the Pawnee, who the movie has already let us know are the Sith Lords of Native Americans.

So, now granted some privacy Dunbar With Wolves and Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell) start having unprotected sex knowing they can explain away any pregnancies as “prairie magic”.

Then some scouts return with the news that the Pawnee are going to try to attack the now under-protected Sioux tribe. Dunbar With Wolves puts his white-dude brain to work and comes up with the solution to this problem. Guns! He retrieves all his guns from his fort and the Sioux obliterate the ill-prepared Pawnee. Realizing this is the first time he has fought a battle for a good reason (Ignoring the war against slavery he just fought in, I guess.) Dunbar With Wolves decides to go all the way Sioux.

So he gets permission to marry Stands With A Fist and they have tons more sex. Later, he finally lets Kicking Bird know that tons of white dudes are on their way. The tribe decides it’s time to head to their winter camp.

Dunbar With Wolves makes a last minute trip back to his fort in hopes of removing any evidence which could lead the military to the Sioux only to find the military are already there! This is why you shouldn’t put things off, dude!

The army shoots Dunbar With Wolves’ beloved horse dead mistaking him for an Indian and then take him captive. Some military dudes are mean. Some military dudes are calm and merciful. Some military dudes are jerks who have stolen the journal which proves Dunbar With Wolves’ innocence even though they’re illiterate. All of them are killed when the Sioux help Dunbar With Wolves escape. You don’t feel very bad about their deaths though, since they just spent about 3 minutes shooting and eventually killing a terrified Two Socks.

The ending of the Lt. Dunbar/Kicking Bird bromance.

The movie ends with Dunbar With Wolves realizing he’s only going to draw more military towards the tribe as they search for him. So he makes the decision to head back home in hope that he’ll be able to talk the white dudes into not killing any more Sioux. Then a bunch of text comes up on screen letting us know he was unsuccessful.

The Verdict:

After the recent release of Avatar, there has been a lot of talk about the kind of movie Dances With Wolves embodies. The kind of movie where a white dude working as a military scout befriends the local natives, learns their ways, becomes the greatest warrior among them, then helps them repeal the very forces he was originally working for.

Though, I don’t think this kind of thinking about Dances With Wolves is fair. There are other examples of this phenomenon (The Last Samurai, Pocahontas, Ferngully) but this particular film doesn’t fit into their mold. Dunbar’s never much more than a dude hanging out on the frontier. He visits the Sioux because it’s something to do, not because he’s lost or trying to do recon. When he becomes a member of their tribe, he doesn’t become a great warrior among them. He’s just another member of the team. Also, there’s never a big battle against the military. The tribe just runs away and Dunbar makes a sacrifice by leaving in hopes of saving them all but probably just going to get himself executed.

The film also focuses on how awesome the Sioux are. It’s got a huge crush on them. It’s kind of adorable. The Pawnee are depicted and devilish. The Sioux are depicted as humble monks. They are more efficient than any military, have a good sense of humor, and cherish family. In contrast, every white guy we see besides Dunbar is dumb and foul.

Culture shock also plays a huge part of Dances With Wolves. Dunbar and the Sioux are constantly weirding each other out with their own natural habits. One instance is where Dunbar finds them celebrating the killing of some white dudes who were hunting buffalo for their hides. He thinks this is kind of unsettling since the hunters were just trying to make a buck. It’s the butting of heads between cultures and ideals which makes the story seem more realistic.

Kevin Costner does a great job as the role of Dunbar, a romantic who enjoys writing in his journal and being a bit of a klutz. Unfortunately, Kevin Coster as the role of the narrator falls a little flat. He reads it like a six grader reading a section of a book out loud for the class. Sans emotion.

All the characters in the Sioux tribe are instantly likable. Even the hot headed Wind In His Hair wins you over with his camaraderie and self awareness. And Graham Greene can tell a story with just a look, which he happens to do a lot in this film.

This lug couldn't possibly become the greatest warrior of anything. He's lucky the Sioux let him hang out with them.

Costner, the director, clearly loves the prairie as much as the character he’s playing. Why make a close up when you can have a wide open shot? Why show a dude when you can show Two Socks and just narrate over that? It makes the film always enjoyable to look at and helps you understand where Dunbar’s affection for the place comes from.

Dang though, is this movie long. FOUR HOURS LONG! That’s twice the hours of normal films! This is definitely a full day movie, one you have to commit to. I can’t see myself being ready for that sort of venture again any time soon, but if you have never seen Dances With Wolves it’s worth watching. Strong characters. Slow moving but satisfying story. I give Dances With Wolves two out of Two Socks.

Tags: Dances With Wolves, Graham Greene, Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Netflix Queue of Shame

Dunbar is the Civil War version of Christopher McCandless.

Why I should have seen it already:

It’s that long movie which kind of proves why Kevin Costner is a big deal.

Now that I have (Part 1):

The movie opens up with some people wanting to cut off Lt. John Dunbar’s (Kevin Costner) leg. It’s all messed up on account of the Civil War. But Dunbar mindset is that of “Uh-uh, no way. I’d rather die while riding a horse than let you do that to me.” So, he saddles up for a suicide mission across the battlefield. Unfortunately for him (I guess), he fails to get killed and instead provides the inspiration for his army to charge and overtake the southern forces. A Major General takes note of this fact, and let’s one of the good surgeons operate on and save Dunbar’s leg.

Good surgeons: Save the leg. Bad surgeons: Hack it off. This could be applied to nearly every profession except lumberjack.

Dunbar is also given the choice of being transferred to any post he desires, so he chooses one far West in hopes of seeing the American frontier before it’s gone. Looks like things aren’t going to be easy though since the man who sends him there goes crazy and kills himself and the men at the fort Dunbar was assigned to have decided to abandon their post. Basically, nobody knows Dunbar is there and he has no clue when his reinforcements will arrive.

Regardless, he really enjoys his time alone at the fort. He loves the frontier, the solitude, and makes best friends with his horse and a local wolf. He names the wolf Two Socks because that is about how much clothing he could make with the scrawny wolf’s pelt.

MEANWHILE, INDIANS.

Back at camp, Dunbar is dealing with the mystery of his abandoned fort but not for too long. It’s never solved anyway, so he sort of stops caring. He finds a lake filled with dead animal carcasses. Doesn’t care. He learns the men were living in local caves instead of the fort. Doesn’t care. He finds no evidence of any battles or any reason for the fort to be deserted. Doesn’t care. The delayed shipment of supplies which arrived with Dunbar can explain why the soldiers left, but what about the caves and the dead animals?

We’ll never know. Because a Native American is about to see Dunbar’s wiener.

A Sioux Native America finds Dunbar’s fort and attempts to take his horse while Dunbar’s taking a bath. Luckily, Dunbar manages to scare him away with the shame of his naked body. The Sioux is a holy man by the name of Kicking Bird (Graham Greene). This encounter gives the rest of his tribe all the reason they need to show up and bother Dunbar. Frequently they try to steal his horse but that horse loves Dunbar so much he always fights them off and returns. They also like to scream at Dunbar about how they aren’t afraid of him. Dunbar most often plays dead during these encounters.

"I found this dead girl! Are you missing a dead girl?"

Eventually, Dunbar decides to act rather than react and goes in search of the Sioux. On his way there he finds the recently widowed Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell) who is trying to kill herself. He saves her and brings her back to the Sioux. Turns out, Stands With A Fist is an orphaned white woman who’s been living with the Sioux all her life. She has hairy armpits and perfectly tweezed eyebrows. Yeah, try to figure that out!

Well, since both she and Dunbar are white, attractive, and suicide survivors the sexual tension between them is a’cracklin’ immediately.

This act of kindness confirms Kicking Birds beliefs that Dunbar ain’t totally a bad dude. So he begins frequent visits where they share knowledge and attempt communication. Dunbar gives them coffee and sugar. They give him a buffalo pelt, which are animals Dunbar has been hoping to see for a while. Dunbar also teaches them how to awkwardly wave to people you don’t really know. The awkward wave spreads like WILDFIRE.

Dunbar starts spending more time with the Sioux after he becomes a hero during a buffalo hunt. He saves a kid from getting trampled by a buffalo, which I guess is cool, but in the buffalo’s defense they were trying to shoot him with arrows until he died.

Stands With A Fist becomes the translator between Dunbar and Kicking Bird since she sorta-kinda remembers English.

Do you remember that one summer where you would never see Kicking Bird and Lt. Dunbar apart? They even went on family vacations with each other.

This makes things quicker but more awkward when Kick Bird wants to know if more white dudes will be showing up. Dunbar knows they will, but he doesn’t want to ruin the party he’s having just yet. The Sioux basically do everything for him. He doesn’t have to work, he’s given his own tent, and he keeps makin’ eyes at Stands With A Fist even though she’s supposed to be sad about her husband dying until Kicking Bird tells her to stop. Why would Dunbar want to spoil a good thing?

Anyway, Dunbar returns to the fort after an extended visit and realizes being in the army sucks.

Will the Native American’s be able to beat the white dudes back to Europe? Find out in the exciting Part 2!

(Continued at Part 2)

Tags: Dances With Wolves, Kevin Costner, Sioux