Goodfellas

Goodfellas dialogue and introduction

0:00No more podcasts, Bailey. What? I said no more podcasts. Maybe you didn't hear about it. You've been away a long time. They don't go up there and tell you. I don't podcast anymore.

0:30Relax, will you? Flip right out. What's got into you? I'm breaking your balls a little bit, that's all. I'm only kidding with you. Sometimes you don't sound like you're kidding. You know, there's a lot of people. I'm only kidding with you. We're having a party. I just came home and I haven't seen you a long time and I'm breaking your balls and you're getting fucking fresh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sorry, too. It's okay. It's no problem. Okay, salute. Now go home and do your fucking podcast.

0:56I said to you, we have to do it. It's among my favorite dialogue exchanges in the history of movies. The only objection I would have, of course, is I can imagine there's a million other things we could do because it's the most quotable screenplay. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a podcast. Certainly. And then Ben could just put in the, you know, the cue.

1:21You're a funny guy. I'm sure we could do something about, you know. I looked at that, but you know how much I love Shinebox. Well, the thing about Shinebox is, the thing about Funny Guy especially, is that it's all in the back and forth. And it's also like, you know, trying to do an imitation of one of the most famous, like, dialogue exchanges. It's very tough. It is. Yeah. Shinebox is a little bit the path less traveled. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I love in the Shinebox scene, though, is, you know, is De Niro, who we didn't do.

1:52Yeah. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. That's later, though. That's part two. I know, but it's so good. A little bit. That's when, uh, when, uh, fucking, uh, Jim Brewer would do the Joe Pesci show on SNL. You motherfucking mutt! He says mutt a lot. It's one of his favorite, uh, uh, sort of slurs. Yes. It's a mutt. But Alec Baldwin would play De Niro, and his De Niro was all based around Little Bit. Yeah, well, I mean, Baldwin's De Niro is, is Top Show.

2:22A little bit. I mean, he did it on a podcast recently. I see it going around. It's really good. It's Top Shelf. Yeah. It's a Top Shelf De Niro, and obviously a lot of people have a De Niro, you know, but. Should Alec Baldwin do a one-man show of Trump versus De Niro? Sure. Fine. I should do it in his bathroom. I should. You're corrupt. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit.

2:44Oh, man. I'm now, I'm now I'm just trying to find what else. What other lines? Yeah. I'll dig the fucking hole. I don't give a fuck. What is it? The first hole I dug? Not the first time I dug a hole. I'll dig the fucking hole. Where are the shovels? Look at these. It's a long quotes page for the movie Goodfellas. It's a long quotes page for the movie Goodfellas. Jimmy Conway after kicking bats to a bloody pulp. Look what this fucking mutt did to my shoes.

3:14Oh, my goodness. And then there was Jimmy two times who got that nickname because he said everything twice. Like, I'm going to go get the papers. I'm going to go do the podcast. Do the podcast. That would be good. That would be good. It's like grabbing the tie, the physicality that makes it. I rewatched Palsy's, which is the Mr. Show sketch, where the bit is, it's a Goodfellas ripoff, but it's been, it's the censored for TV version. Okay, right, right, right. But they have Jimmy one time, so only says things one time.

3:46That's funny. And it's David Cross, and someone goes, what do you say? And he just gives them a look. But the best part of Palsy's is that it's all about like how bad the TV dubbing is for the cursing. I vaguely remember. And it escalates to you mother, father, Chinese dentist. Um, you know, one thing I like, uh, is, um, with, with, uh, the mafia in, in media. But you like, oh, okay. You like everything about the mafia in real life. They're doing great. Yes. Better than ever, as far as I know. Still kicking.

4:17Yeah, yeah, they're still around. They are still around. They are still around. Yes, yeah. Um, what you like about the mafia in media is how they, uh, describe a terrible thing in the vaguest way possible. I'm going to quote here them, them telling Jimmy on the phone that they killed Tommy. Uh, we had a problem and, uh, we tried to do everything we could. I mean, you know, uh, he's gone and we couldn't do nothing about it. That's it. Like, that's how they're telling Jimmy, like, your friend of many years, your criminal in arms, who we told you was getting made.

4:48We just shot him in the head and buried him somewhere and you'll never see him again. Except they basically repeat that exchange five times. This is a great repetition movie. He's gone and, uh, we, uh, never, well, you know, all I'm saying is we had a problem and there was nothing we could do. But then it goes into like, what are you telling me? I'm telling you this, there was a problem in this. Like, there was nothing we could do. It's like, no, you did do something. You, you killed him. Yes. In fact. So there was something you could do and you, you sure did it. I mean, obviously this whole mini series is building up to, it is what it is. They wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare.

5:19They wouldn't dare. God, it is what it is, is. It is what it is. We're getting there. Yeah, we're getting there. We'll get there. But today we're on Goodfellas. Wow. Martin Scorsese's best loved movie. I think so. Is this his definitive film? Remote dispute. I don't think that's even really in remote dispute at this point. I mean, it's his most well-known. Yes. Certainly. And we are podcast fellas. We sure are. Hey. Hey. And now no one's going to complain about it anymore because we've gotten to the Goodfellas

The 1990 Oscar race

5:49episode. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. And sometimes they do pretty well in theaters, get a ton of nominations, are snubbed for best picture, and then go on to become one of the most canonical American films in history. Yeah. Was there ever a chance of this winning best picture?

6:21I wonder. Yeah. I don't think so. You think in retrospect, there was no chance it actually could have won. At the time. Yeah. To be clear. Like now I'm sure if we did a re best picture. You know, I kind of sometimes like Bill Simmons's argument of like, they should do the Oscars five years later. Like, this year's Oscar should be for the movie five years ago. And you continue with that window because by five years, everyone's kind of settled on like what they think the best movie was. And you can't be tricked by like, CODA, you know, we all like CODA, you know what? We all like CODA or whatever.

6:52Also, what if AI did the Oscars? What was that? Oh, because Bill Simmons was doing Chad G, right? Yeah. Because like Goodfellas made decent money, but it wasn't a big hit. It wasn't a huge hit. Where his Dances with Wolves was this hit. Yeah. And also it's, I know this sounds ridiculous, but there were two mob movies because it's the year of Godfather 3. Right. Now, obviously Godfather 3 was not winning best picture. Yeah. But it's in there kind of like sapping attention and votes a little bit, maybe. It is an interesting question. Although Goodfellas stands in such great parallel to it of like, that is starting to feel like

7:25a tale, you know, being woven in a fantasy world, whereas Goodfellas is about the reality. Of the mob, much more. But yeah. Could Goodfellas not have afforded to lose any votes to Godfather 3? Yeah. Who knows? And then also Ghost is that year. Right. And one assumes Ghost had some juice just as the like, this movie came out of nowhere and everyone's talking about it. You're wondering, was Ghost maybe number two for best picture? That's a good question. Because there's a chance there. And then what's the fifth nominee? Uh, Awakenings.

7:56Sure. You know, and get ready for our Penny Marshall series one day. But Awakenings. Let's actually promise that we will cover Awakenings someday. Yes, we're going to. Yes, exactly. Jesus. But Awakenings didn't even get a directing nomination because of sexism. Yeah. Or whatever. Because they really needed to get Barbae Schroeder in there. And he's all right. For Reversal Fortune. Which I've never seen. Good movie. Yeah. Very fun. Yeah. Um, you know, I don't think, I'm not sure that Goodfellas is probably ever, too nasty and shocking for the time, probably, blah, blah, blah. But obviously the best film, in my opinion, of 1990.

8:27It was the critic's pick of 1990. And I think in many people's opinion. Yes. And, uh, one of the great movies and maybe Marty's best movie. It's a boring opinion, but it's hard to argue with. But it's treated as one of the great, the Oscars got it wrong. I think so. Sure. Yeah. I mean, Dances with Wolves just hasn't kept, yeah, no, yeah. Yeah. No question. I've been thinking about watching Dance again. Again? I've been thinking about doing another Dance. We watched it not that long ago. I know, but it really bounced off me. And I'm like, do I need to watch a different cut?

8:58Do I need to watch it in a different mood? Yeah, maybe. I found myself so perplexed by it that I wonder if I gave it an unfair shake. But maybe in the lead up to Horizon Part 2 coming to theaters. Right. Definitely. Lead up. Definitely coming to theaters. I mean, I think it will come to theaters at some point in human history, barring the apocalypse. Could it be five years from now? Could it be 50? I don't know. It'll probably happen someday. I think it's unwise to bet on it coming to theaters. It might get out there in some way. It's out there! Yeah.

9:28Ah! Two of the best movies I saw last year might never be released. The other one's the Michael Bay parkour documentary? Which is excellent. And then one of the members of the parkour team was busted for inappropriate sexual conduct with underage children. It's really bad. And that movie is never coming out. It was called We Are Storer. It will never be seen. It also has a very rural juror title, unfortunately. Yeah. Many unfortunate things going on with that movie.

Mafia nicknames and real-world parallels

9:55But this is a miniseries on the films of Martin Scorsese. It is called Podcast Fellas. That is who we are. We're talking about Goodfellas. Who's with us? Ben Hosley. Nobody else. No guests. Now, wait. Didn't we have like a mafia-esque nicknames that we had established? I feel like yours was like David the Bag Sims. David the Bag Sims. It's not that exciting. When did we establish this? Early on into the series. Really? Yes. And I can't remember what mine is or what yours is.

10:26I think it's maybe pasta dinner. I got a random... Pasta dinner. That's pretty good. Griffey pasta dinner. David Bean's Sims. I got a random mafia name generator up here. You want another one? I'm, of course, wearing a hat themed to today's episode. Oh, I don't see what it says. Sorry. It says Witness Protection Program. Relocation. Oh, Relocation Program. Excuse me. What are you talking about? That's not what my hat says. I'm a normal civilian. What was I going to say? Bandana. The Horse.

10:57The Grocer. David the Grocer Sims. So what? Can you give me one? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Whatever the first one it spits out is. All right. The Beast. Wow. Ben the Beast. All right. I prefer the ones, though, that are kind of like affectionately mean. Like Jimmy the Nose or whatever. It's just like, well, this guy's got a big fucking nose. And that's so now that we call him that. But, you know, I or like he's called like, I don't know, like two kicks because he like

11:27kicked a guy once or I don't know, you know, like some weird shit that happened. David the fucking idiot Sims. Is that what you want? You said you liked affectionately insulting. Wow. That's pretty mean. Hey, that's that's what it's like. Then there's the really insane ones like, you know, like Anthony Casa, who, you know what they called him, gas pipe, because he would fucking hit you with a pipe. Oh, I thought because he farted a lot. No, that would be fun, though. OK, wait. I pulled up the scene where they go through the nicknames. OK. There is Anthony Stable. OK. Not a great nickname.

11:57Yeah. Frankie Carbone. Right. Carbone is the guy who ends up in the meat locker. Great. The great head of hair on him. Fat Andy. Do you know about his lawsuit? We'll get to his lawsuit. We'll get to him. Frankie the Wop. Right. OK. That's a slur to be. Yeah. Freddie No Nose. Maybe say it with a little less excitement. And yet he has a nose. Yeah. Then there was Pete the Killer. I wonder why he got that nickname. He's Killer at Chess. Exactly. Right. He was a killer in the boardroom. Yes. He actually didn't even belong to the mafia. Nicky Eyes.

12:27He had him. Yeah. We assume. Two of them. And then Jimmy Two Times. Jimmy Two Times. He went to get the papers. Yeah. So when I covered labor unions, when I was a union reporter for the chief, Maddie the horse, Ianello, who was very involved with the ATU Local 1181, allegedly. I don't want anyone coming after me, but you can read some stories about it. The bus drivers union. I always thought I thought I was pretty good.

12:57The horse. Why is he called the horse? Let's see. Oh, and this is, this is what I love. A youth baseball game, the opposing pitcher threw a hard pitch into the face of some batter and, you know, knocks down the pitcher. I don't even know if he got the ball thrown at him. He just, there was just a fight. He knocks down the pitcher and someone said, that boy's as strong as a horse. That's it? Then he's Maddie the horse forever? He got in one fight at a baseball game? This is like how Mitch's Quincy friends get their nickname.

13:30Right. Like one thing they did in fifth grade.

13:34You know, Vin the Chin Gigante, who is the head of the Genovese family. He's the one who, they called him the Chin, I think, because he was a boxer. So he had like a tough chin. And then he did the thing that Robert De Niro doesn't analyze that when he was under trial, where he pretended to be insane and started walking around in a bathrobe. And they started calling him the Oddfather, which I thought was funny. The Oddfather's good. Yeah. You know, he pretended he was crazy.

The seductive first hour of the movie

14:02He probably was not crazy. Is this your favorite Scorsese movie? It is. It's so boring of me. But you know, I'm not going to fuck around. I do prefer Taxi Driver. That's just my own taste. The Lonely Man. I got to admit, it's also mine. Yeah, no, no. I mean, this is one of the most watchable movies in history. I've watched this movie so many times. Me too. I've seen this movie one billion times. It's one of those movies where every single scene is compelling to watch. And you can kind of watch it at any moment. Because I feel like I would come over to like a friend's house and they would just have it on.

14:35And then you just get locked in, even if it's like the last 20 minutes. Yes, but I, you know, I watched it in two parts as I often do because of the vagaries of my life. And I watched the first 70 minutes for my first chunk, which I am now calling like Goodfellas, you know, everything's going great edition or whatever. Like, it's basically like if you 70 minutes is where they kill Billy Batts at the end around there. Everything up until then is easy street.

15:06Things are going good. Nothing bad happened to this guy. I was talking to my friend about like, what if like that just because she was like, I love Goodfellas. It's always too bad when, you know, it has to descend into mania and, you know, degradation and them all. And I'm like, imagine if the movie was just him being like, I always wanted to be a gangster. And then I was. It rocked. I was so rich. I got away with everything. I went through cool entrances. It was so cool. Right. I got to do whatever I wanted all the time. I walk into a restaurant. They bring a table out from nowhere and put it down so I can sit there.

15:36Anyway, my life continues like that to this day. I'll see you guys later. Regrets. I'm out of view. The cops tried to get me. They failed. Yeah. Marriage. Healthy. Intact. She loves me. I'm a great father. Yeah. But I think it's so vital when you think about Goodfellas that it's like, what's the most fuck? Like, where does it start to go wrong with them? They kill another mobster. It's not like they commit some cardinal mortal kind of ethical thing. You know, of course they start dealing drugs.

16:06That's always going to fuck you. Blah, blah, blah. But like, they just, they kill Billy Beth. They kill a maid guy. Why did they do it? Well, he said to go get his fucking shine box. He dared suggest to go get a shine box. I'd like to say this to you. Yeah. Go get your fucking shine box. What the fuck you say to me? Oh my God. Wait a second. Ben is bringing over a cardboard box. Did you know you knew I was going to fucking, because I talk about shine box so much. Yes, I know. So I got you a little something. This is literally a shine box. Whoa. Look at that. It looks like a vintage shine box.

16:37Take a look at the brand. Oh my God. The Griffin Shine Master. Oh my God. Is that, is that a. It has a little Griffin logo. Is that inscribed? Like, how did you find this? No, this is a company. I went onto eBay and I typed in shine box and somehow one of the top results was the Griffin Shine Master. There's a full kit inside. I got two brushes. I got shining wax. What if I start shining shoes? I would love to see it. What if this becomes my new thing? You should do it. Yeah.

17:08This is incredible. Shoe polish. I got shoe polish. This is unbelievable. You're going to need to start wearing more loafers, though, and less Toy Story branded sneakers. Yeah, I am wearing Toy Story branded sneakers. They're under the table. You got your shine box. I was just guessing. It's a fucking Kenny Rogers roaster. I say that to you. You get mad. And then Ben's like, hey, you insulted him a little bit. You insulted him a little bit. A little bit. A little bit. It is funny that Billy Batts is like, I didn't insult him. It's like, Billy, you definitely insulted him. Go get your fucking shine box is definitely insulting.

17:41I also love how they have this exchange. There's like this beat of silence. And then he's like staring straight at the bar. He goes, go get your fucking shine box. That's my favorite. It's so good. You know what my favorite moment is? My favorite moment is Tommy just saying, maybe you didn't hear about it. You've been away a long time. Just that little barb in there. And he no-sells it so hard. He goes, you might not have heard about it. I'm going to remind you you were in prison a long time. Just to get this out of the way. I can't believe I have a shine box. I'm like glowing. I'm so excited.

18:12Because Pesci is one of the great screen performances. Right? It's the most unbelievable thing. The riskiest and craziest thing the movie does in a way is kill him off. Obviously, it has to. It's part of the story. It's part of the reality. It makes sense in the story. But when they just kill him off like that, you're like, I thought this was... No, shit. He's just dead, huh? Pesci's, I think, around 45, 46 when he makes this movie. Tommy DeSimone, the guy who's playing, died at the age of 32. Right? Billy Batts, played by Frank Vincent, who looks, God bless him, in this looks 50.

18:46I mean, I know he's had a long career since. He died at the age of 37. They were all so much younger than they are in the movie. Also, unlike... I mean, Leota is age-appropriate, I think. But everyone else. Unlike Pesci's character in Casino, the guy he's playing was built in real life. Was he? Tommy DeSimone? Yeah. He was bigger, right? Yeah. He was a bigger guy. Yeah. So everything about his casting doesn't make sense on paper. And yet, like, I mean, the most unbelievable... Like, it's right? Like, I mean, it's so fast with him, how quickly we get to funny.

19:20Yes. How? It's so early in the movie. It's so early in the movie. Imagine just seeing this for the first time. Because I already knew about it when I watched this movie. I already knew about that. Like, my dad told me about that scene. And I remember him telling me about it, and me being like, I don't really get it. You know, him being like, you don't get it, he's so scary. And I was sort of like, okay. You know, like, it was hard to communicate how the scene works. That scene is always over so much faster than I think. And then I remember, no, the juice of this scene is the stuff he does after funny. Right. It's the follow-up.

19:51No, no. Now, I watched some special features last night. Okay. Congratulations. Welcome to the club. And apparently, that was a conversation that Pesci really had had in his life. Right. With a guy. With a connected guy, let's say. Right. And they improvised it at some point. And then Scorsese wrote it into the screenplay. This is a common misconception about this movie. That, like, cameras rolling, Pesci comes up with that scene out of nowhere. What Scorsese did, and a lot of this is, like, what he does in his career post-American boy,

20:25where he talks about how he got so into the rhythms of that. And Italian-American and those two docs, the real rhythms of how people talk, where it's like, hone a script, then do extensive rehearsals with the cast, then let them riff. Yeah, and then transcribe it. Describe the riffs, revise the script, and then you have dialogue that has a rhythm that you maybe wouldn't be able to write as a solitary person alone in a room. Wait a second. Griff the riff. Griff the riff. Newman. Well, there you go. Or David the twin Sims. There you go. David the twin Sims.

20:56That's not nothing. Rude to David's daughter. But, like, for me, it's like David, wrap it up Sims. You know what I mean? Like, something like that. You know, like... But that also sounds like you just wear condoms a lot. Well, that's interesting that you say that, because... Snip, snip. That is, for one, I've had work done. For one. I'm not sure that's what I think of when I hear wrap it up. I'm like, wrap it up like condoms. Like, that's not right where I go. Sorry, that's just, I guess, my twist in mind.

21:27Yeah, exactly. First of all, Benny the Twister, Hosley. First of all... David, timepiece. I'm just trying to think of, like, me as, like, the clock watcher. You know, like, what the mafia version of that. He's always looking at the fucking clock. You should keep telling people that you've had work done, but never clarify what you mean by that. I've had work done. You've had work done. And then wiggle your eyebrows. Secondly, I was on Podcast the Ride recently to review... Wait, what? Hold on. Podcast the Ride? Stay seated to review the new Fast and Furious roller coaster. You're kidding me. What expertise do you have in that sort of thing?

21:58The episode came in at two hours and ten minutes, and one of the top comments was, two hours and ten minutes only? I assume David must have had a heart out. Which I like. He's, like, I somehow intervene in a podcast I'm not even in. I'm like, I've got a heart out. Wrap this up. I've got a heart out. Wrap it up. You know what? We're going to go as long as we want on this episode. It will not be the longest episode in Blank Check history because it doesn't need to be. Doesn't need to be. All the length stuff drives me completely crazy. But we are here. This is an episode with no guests. David's not a size queen. Let's make it clear. David is not a size queen. No, I truly am not.

22:28Fuck that. Truly not. I love all shapes and sizes.

Adapting Nicholas Pileggi's Wise Guy

22:31I love Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese's 1990 biographical gangster film. Based on a novel called Wise Guy by Nicholas Pelleggi, which I did read in anticipation of this episode. Good job, me. Really fun to read. Very interesting how certain things are ported right over and other things are omitted. It's a beautifully written screenplay. It's a very impressive work of like kind of making sense out of this one guy's life. And my favorite just weird factoid is that the same year this comes out, Mitch Pelleggi's...

23:08Is it Pelleggi or Pelleggi? I don't know. Okay. His wife, Nora Ephron, writes My Blue Heaven. You're talking about Nicholas Pelleggi. Now, Mitch Pelleggi, of course, is from the Xbox. Right. I'm sorry. Nicholas. Nicholas Pelleggi. Yep. His wife, Nora Ephron, writes My Blue Heaven, which is the sequel to this movie, basically. Essentially. What's life like for the mobster who's now in witness protection? Right. Yeah. But based on the same accounts of Henry Hill, just picking up from basically where this movie ends. The fact that both of these films come out in 1990, written by husband and wife, is fascinating to me.

23:41Yeah. It's also just interesting that in My Blue... That in Goodfellas, you know, they go for these actors who feel quite authentic. Yes. And in My Blue Heaven, it's Steve Martin. Right. And he's like, what if I try something with my hair for the one and only time? Right. Yeah. Well, Steve Martin's done hair stuff other times, doesn't he? Like, I'm trying to think. Well, mixed knots. I was going to say, I feel like, obviously, Steve Martin has iconic gray hair. He's worn it well for much of his career. White, you could even say. One could even call it white. One could even call it white. One could even call it white.

24:13Sure. But like later in his career, he started wearing wacky wigs and stuff once in a while, right? Like when he did the sort of funny supporting... Like in Looney Tunes, isn't he? Looney Tunes, you're right. Looney Tunes back in action. He's got a funny wig. Yeah. Baby Mama, he's got a funny wig. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think he's very good in Baby Mama. He chills down my spine. Yes. He's very good in Baby Mama.

24:32Good fellas. I first saw this film, like anyone I think my age who was too young to be seeing in theaters, just like in a basement. On cable. Some friend's house or something like that. You know what I mean? Yep. I think I saw it in a basement too. What the fuck? VHS. You can't watch this on a porch. This needs to be watched in shadow. Yes. Yes. Yes. No, you really need to take it in. Like, I mean, I probably saw it before I saw The Godfather. Interesting. I would assume it's a good question.

25:03You know, these are movies I saw as a teenager and I can't remember the order of it. I remember my dad stressing to me whenever I was old enough, just sort of like, you got to understand Goodfellas is the reality and Godfather is the fantasy. And that was why Goodfellas was so important. Like, it was like, these are thugs and psychopaths and all they like is being rich and, you know, beating each other up and being the big, you know, the Godfather. It's this like beautiful, romantic, epic tale of immigration and America. You know, Goodfellas is just like this poke in the eye.

25:34Like, these are what these fucking people are like. I feel like this is a thing you brought up a lot on the podcast. I bring it up a lot. Really, it made sense to me. And I mean, that's true of all, you know, starting with Mean Streets, right? Marty's like, this is the reality. These are just fucking guys hanging out most of the time. When you read the book, his life, especially early on, was fucking hanging out. They hung out all day and night. That's why he wanted to be a gangster. Yes. Truly, that is why he wanted to be a gangster. It is so funny, Ben, if you read it, Ben Griffin, it's East New York, you know, which now is like a, you know, at best up-and-coming neighborhood,

26:07obviously a very sort of like, you know, in the 90s, like scary kind of crime-ridden neighborhood. It's changing a little bit, blah, blah. But back in, you know, the 60s, 70s, it's still kind of run by the mob and all that. And they're just like, we just fucking hung out in Pitkin Avenue, sitting outside of a barbershop or a restaurant, just being mean to each other, you know, parking up nicknames. Yeah, exactly. Then once in a while, you have to go beat someone up and get some money from them, basically. The tax on that lifestyle is every once in a while, you got to kick a guy to death.

26:39Yeah, like, you know, go like rob a truck or, you know, just like sort of get some illegal shit and bring it to someone else, pay off somebody. Hey, do me a favor. Go get some illegal shit. Do me a favor, you know. Now, I think about all the time, good fellas, like, I would love to be Paul Vario. I mean, to be clear, I don't want to live a life of organized crime. You never want to be a gangster. I never did. But like that, like, just where it's like, I'm the big guy. I don't say much. And it's like, hey, this guy's disrespecting me. He owes me seven grand and blah, blah, blah.

27:10And the other guy's like, oh, here's what's going on with me. And I go like, okay, here is what I decide. You give him four grand. I get to eat at your restaurant free for a year. That's it. I made my decision. And then everyone just has to leave. This is the way you can't fuck with me. You often describe wanting to be a film festival consultant. Not a consultant for a film festival. A consultant to the studios on which film festival they should go to. Here's our movie. It's about a movie star and he's having a bad day or whatever. I'm like, don't do Venice. They're not going to like that in Venice. You're going to want to go to Telluride. You're going to call Jimmy at Telluride.

27:41He'll set you right up. I'll set you up with Jimmy. You do one of those screenings. It's on. You go up the ski lift. It'll be great. This sounds like a ski lift movie. You go to the Chuck Jones. Yeah, right. They'll take care of you. You're going to want Tuesday. You'll call Cameron. He's going to set you up Sunday night premiere. Okay. It's a very nice premiere. You're not going to want to do Roy Thompson Hall. Okay. The acoustics are terrible in there. See, I'd be great at this. You got to be great at this. I feel like the two things I always talk about with Goodfellas are the shine box scene being the funniest scene. You enjoy the shine box scene. And I mean no hyperbole when I say this.

28:13I mean this from the bottom of my heart. The slicing of the garlic with the razor blade being the sexiest shot in the history of cinema. Okay. Thank you for bringing this up. I'm going to bring this up right away. This shot is incredibly controversial in cooking Reddit. Really? In cooking in general. Okay. Now, I read the book. It's in the book. Like the book has like them describing like, oh yeah, he would slice the garlic to liquefy in the pan. Just a little bit of one. Garlic doesn't liquefy. Like it's just, and so I want people to weigh in. I wish it did. We all wish it did.

28:44Because like, you know, because this is a big thing. People are like, if you slice your garlic into thin little discs, you are going to get a bunch of burnt garlic on your hands. Garlic burns really fast. Because it's got the sugar content. Yeah, exactly. So like, it's not like, garlic isn't like anchovies where it truly will kind of just like dissolve into your sauce or whatever. Evaporate through the walls.

29:04Shutter Island call forward. Shutter Island. Shutter Island. Shutter Island. Do they move Shutter Island? Do they appoint a federal marshals? Shutter Island. And so maybe I'll try to like, when I do my next, when I make my next sauce, to like slice some garlic with razor blades. Yeah, try it. Way to do it. But like, you know, because it's like, it's a great notion. And when you see it in the movie, you're like, ah. But you're like, maybe it's smart that the movie doesn't show you the little slices going into the pan, that it leaves it up to your imagination.

29:36Maybe if you drown them in oil. Maybe, maybe that's, maybe you're not using enough oil. But the thing with olive oil too. Garlic burns so fast. Is you can't get it too hot. No, because it doesn't. Yeah. Anyway, look, it's a fast, but I have seen on Reddit all the time. People who are like food nerds get mad. They're like, that's not going to work. Garlic doesn't, you know, what? It's a great shot. I was looking for GIFs of the sliced garlic and I noticed it was popping up a lot on r slash recipes and r slash cooking. Right. With a lot of anger. A lot of anger. A lot of anger.

30:07It's a little disrespectful. That's a, that's some garlic's friend.

30:12Shallot? Yeah, shallot. Oh, I love a shallot. That's better than a shallot. Yeah. I can't answer that question. You can't answer. Vidalia onion. Pretty good. Uh, sure. I would say plays a different role, but yeah, no, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Love. I love it. Uh, um, fuck. What's the, um. It'd be so funny if he said like blowjobs. He just like goes through completely different. Garlic and blowjobs. What's the annoying, um, thing that comes around seasonally that everyone goes crazy for that's really expensive that's in the garlic onion family starts with an R ramp ramp ramps.

30:48That's a fancy, I know fancy boy. I don't mess around with ramps too often. I try like a rant restaurant ramp. Cause I'm like, you guys know what you're doing. I'll just mess up the ramp. Same. Yeah. Same.

31:08Good fellas. Griffin, when did you first see good fellas? I definitely saw Godfather first. That was a movie that was shown to me, I think on a sick day from school as, I don't know if I ever talked about this. You're feeling sick. It's time for the Godfather. When I was homesick, which would happen a lot because I have a bad body, my mom would insist that I could only watch classics. Oh, interesting. I don't think I've ever brought this up. You don't get to watch like a trashy cartoon today. You're going to have to watch a canonical film. I'd be like, I want to watch the Rosie O'Donnell show. And she's like, you can watch Rosie, but then I'm going to go across the

31:40street to couch potato video and I'm going to rent you a classic that you've never seen before. So there was one point where it was like, you might be old enough to watch The Godfather. Probably when I was like 11 or 12, homesick from school. So I saw that first. Then I definitely saw scenes from Goodfellas on TV. But I think I didn't actually see Goodfellas in full. I felt I had kind of seen a Cloverfield style. I didn't watch it properly until it was screening at MoMA when I want to say I was in my early 20s.

32:11Yeah. That's when I really contended with it. And I saw it at MoMA where it's being presented in a historical artistic context. Yeah. Right. A 35 millimeter print of a movie that at that point is already like 15. Yes. Close to 20 years old. Yes. And I just remember I was sitting next to an old couple who just kept going, oh, my God, the language. The language. Oh, my God. These young men are saying fuck. But as if like it was a new release film, they couldn't believe what they were hearing.

32:43They're sitting there watching Goodfellas in like 2008. Oh, my God. The mouths on these guys. It's they wouldn't like like vocally disgust. Oh, I will say. Oh, they do use profane language quite a lot in this movie. I think they do. I think beautifully. They really do. It is really beautiful. It's for a while. Well, it was always the one that like was up there for the most fucks, which I feel like Casino kicked its ass. Nill by Mouth has a lot of fucks. Nill by Mouth has an insane amount of fucks.

33:15Yes. Onora. Onora is like a very recent like onora. Like every other word is fucking Onora. Paw Patrol, the dino movie. Oh, God. They those dinos. The mouths on. Zero fucks given. Many fucks said. I'm going to open the dossier. We might as well. Very soon. Following the production of The Last Temptation of Christ, which is the last movie that Marty makes before Goodfellas. That's wild. And that movie kind of kicked his ass. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit.

33:45Kick your ass a little bit. A little bit. You're being a little disrespectful to the Lord. Christ might have kicked your ass a little bit. Putting him up there. It's a little disrespectful.

33:53Giving him the hi-hat. No, that's Miller's Crossing. That's a different movie. That's Miller's Crossing. Um... Martin Scorsese directed a music video for his friend Robbie Robertson's solo single Somewhere Down the Crazy River in January 1988. It was only a second music video after Bad. Which was quite good as a music video. Yeah, totally. JJ included a lot of Life Lessons, New York Story stuff in this dossier, which we're not going to read at all because that will be its own episode on Patreon. Oh, sure. Okay. Well, I'll make sure to skip Life Lessons then.

34:25You also... Robertson asked Scorsese to direct a concert film titled Robbie Robertson and Friends, which would feature other performers like U2 and Peter Gabriel. Never happened. No, that stalls out. So then they start dreaming up a fictional feature that was going to be like a combination of the red shoes and all that jazz dealing with music instead of dance. It never came to pass. Interesting. Uh, yeah. So I'll skip all this Life Lessons stuff. Okay. 1985. Nicholas Pelleggi, a veteran crime reporter, publishes a book called Wise Guy, Life in

34:57a Mafia Family. It's his second book. Two years on after he marries Nora Ephron. Uh, uh, Nick Pelleggi on the origins of the book. It was initially a piece for New York Magazine. He chooses Henry Hill, uh, not because he's maybe the most interesting mafia mafioso he's ever met, but he's willing to talk. That is also arguably what makes him kind of interesting. Of course. I mean, like, I think in the world of the mob, like some mobsters are like, fucking Henry Hill wasn't even a made man. He's just this like schnook who hung out with guys. He, you know, was a rat, blah, blah, blah.

35:28But it's like, yeah, but Henry Hill fucking talked to you. He's, he's, he paints beautiful pictures with his words. In a way, um, you didn't hear that he paints houses, but he does paint beautiful pictures with his words. That's right. Uh, so Scorsese's reading the New York Review books. In 1985, he reads a review of this book while he's shooting Caller of Money. Uh, he gets the book in galleys. He really enjoys it because the free flowing, uh, easy style, the arrogance of it, something he knew from his own experience, speaks to Marty. He's like, this is what it's really like these fucking guys. These are the guys I know that I witnessed.

36:00Yes. Um, he likes that Henry is an outsider, sort of had different access to the different levels of organized crime. As an outsider, he would be sort of like, you know, sometimes talking to the big guys, but he likes the sort of cross section that he's portraying. Very interesting. Likes the sort of documentary approach. Gives you a sense of the day-to-day life, the tedium, how they like end up taking over a business and then kind of ruin it. You know, how like the sort of day-to-day work of the mob is done. Um, what's the name of the tropical bar, the tiki bar? Oh, I forget. It looks so good.

36:31It's now, it's now like a Guyanese restaurant. I have one, I have long thought about, you can do like a little tour at East New York, like of all like the locations because they're all gone. The diner's gone. The diner's gone. You can go to this neighborhood, a neighborhood, this area that's called the hole, which is still, it's like this weird kind of like New York. It's like in Brooklyn, like it's like a ditch basically where they used to bury bodies all the time. Bamboo lounge. Yeah. I wish I could go to the bamboo lounge. I wish I could go to the bamboo lounge. I'm sorry. Continue. Scorsese's like, Nick Pileggi is taking us through the different levels of purgatory and

37:03hell, he feels like, right? You sort of start out, you know, things are going good and you just get deeper and deeper into nastiness. And yeah, he's like, look, people think gangsters kill people. Of course they do. But the main purpose is to make money. After a while, Tommy's making more noise than money. That's why he gets killed. He starts killing people for no reason. They have to get rid of him. Like fundamentally, you just sit there and make money. You're in much better shape. So, okay. Pileggi. One day he answers the phone. Guy says, my name is Martin Scorsese and I'm a movie director.

37:36I know who you are. I said, he said, I read your book, Wise Guy. I've been looking for it for years. I'd love to do it. And Nick says, I've been waiting for this phone call all my life. I'd love you to do it. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be adapted by Martin Scorsese. He says, look, finish the movie you're working on, which at the time was Color of Money. But if you want to do it, it's yours. He calls his agents and he's like, Marty's going to do it. His agents are getting mad because they're like, we're trying to get like a fucking deal for you. But, you know, Irvin Winkler, Irvin Winkler, who has already worked with Marty already.

38:08He's in Paris. He calls up and he's like, Marty wants to direct. Marty wants to write it with you. Great. It's all happening. Produces Martin Scorsese's least successful, most out of control movie and then gets in exchange for Raging Bull and Goodfellas. This is true. Wise guys love The Godfather because, according to Pelleggi, because it sort of ennobles them. But their favorite is Mean Streets because they're like, that's what it's really like. Henry Hill and others loved that movie so much. They basically kidnapped Paul Vario, who is, you know, Paul Servino in the film, Paul

38:39Scissor, made him go see it. Vario didn't have a TV set or go to the movies. Like, I think Vario truly is like, you know, like what he's portrayed like in this. He hates phones, hates devices. He just sits, sits all the fucking time. People just come to him. I was so shocked in whatever behind the scenes thing I watched, hearing him talk because he's such a like... Paul Servino? Yeah. An opera singer. Really? Yeah. He's got a beautiful voice. Yeah. He just seemed like completely the opposite of that character.

39:09Yeah. It's an incredible performance. Yes. Every performance in this movie is good. He should be the fourth guy in the poster. He gets a little forgotten in the lineup. Some posters I've seen that put him on there, it's interesting. Obviously, his screen time in the movie is pretty brief because, like, that's the point of him. Anyway, but yeah, they dragged Paul Vario to go see it because they were like, someone made a home movie, essentially. You know what I mean? And Marty was like, it's a high compliment about this sort of just, you know. Oh, fuck.

39:40I got Vario and Servino mixed up. That's fine. I get it. That comes to the territory. Sorry. Servino had a quote where he said the thing he found challenging was finding that kernel of coldness and absolute hardness that is antithetical to my nature, except when my family is threatened. Oh, so he's got it there. Right. But it speaks to what you're saying, Ben, of he's just like, I can't relate to this guy at all unless you threaten my fucking family. And then he's like, oh, that's what I should play. Servino is in season two only of Law and Order.

40:10It's unbelievable. I recommend it to people all the time. Season two of Law and Order, where it's Servino and Noth are the two cops. Chris Noth is so good. Noth? Noth? I don't even know. Noth.

40:22Servino famously does one season and is like, the cold air in New York is hurting my vocal chords. I won't do any more seasons. And they replace him with Jerry Orbach, who's obviously a G and the king. We love him so much. And I love the Law and Order with Orbach. That one season with Servino is so fucking good. Anyway.

40:41So they start writing the script together. They kind of each take sections, Nick and Marty, and sort of just like, Marty's like, we don't need a traditional narrative. Like, we don't need to worry about like sort of three-act structure or whatever. We're just going to go episodic. And then they just kind of like tackle all the blocks and they just sort of start putting them together. And I realized if the scenes were kept short, the impact would be like terrific as it like builds up, which is so clever. There's the quote he has that like he wanted the entire movie to feel like a trailer for

41:13itself. Yes. One long trailer for a lifestyle, basically. I mean, especially the first hour of this movie. It's so seductive. It's the best. You just want these guys to like you. But it's a big deal, too, because like as far as Scorsese writing it, because this is the first time since Mean Streets that he's written. That he gets a credit. I believe so, because he doesn't have a credit on Last Temptation. I'm trying to think. Yeah. I think it's just. Yeah. Other big element of the screenplay, along with the sort of, you know, what we're talking about, the voiceover.

41:45Previous films had had it, but this is where the Scorsese voiceover becomes, I feel like, a crucial part of the Scorsese movie. Like, God, fucking Ray Liotta's voiceover performance in this film. It's so good. It's so good. And it's really vital. Important, yeah. Like, because he's really explaining things to you in this like kind of clipped way that feels really, yeah, he's really, really good. But it really is a performance, and he somehow sells feeling like he's just talking to you. Like he's letting you in on a secret. And he's being like, you understand? Let me just tell you how this fucking works.

42:17But he's just like, you get it. Why would, you would, you would do this too? I, I, how could I not do this? He gets excitable sometimes. You know, it's the best thing in the world. I've always wanted to do this. And you're like, yeah, yeah, no, of course, of course. Yeah. Because like, this is a movie about pieces of shit. Mm-hmm. They're, they're irredeemable little fuckers. Bad fellas. If you encountered any of these people, it would be the worst day of your life. Right? Yes. Any single person in this movie. Yes, yes. Even like if fucking Lorraine Bracco, like bought a cup of coffee from you, she'd probably

42:48be awful to you. I couldn't handle it. I would melt. Like who is the most sympathetic character in Goodfellas that is not a child or animal? Kevin Corrigan. Kevin Corrigan or like Samuel Jackson or like someone like that. All he wanted to do was get stoned, listen to records. Hang out with his girlfriend. Yeah. Um, yeah, so, uh, Scorsese watches the opening of Jules Le Gim, uh, when he's thinking about, um, you know, voiceover and all that. Uh, he also feels like that early French New Wave narrative is not very important.

43:22Um, Ernie Kovacs. And he says that to Pelleggi, like, let's start in the middle and then go backwards, then catch up and then go forward. Yeah. It also feels very French New Wave that the characters are talking to the camera. Uh, yeah. Um, Pelleggi had some contact with Hill throughout production, but Scorsese didn't talk to him. Uh, he said at the end of the phone, at the end of the film, I talked to him on the phone for like 30 seconds. He thanked me about something, but Scorsese kind of keeps away from that. He's like, I'm not gonna, you know, get involved with whatever the reality. Yeah.

43:52Uh, these 11 or 12 drafts, they said every draft was good, basically. Brag. Uh, it is indeed Scorsese's first credit since Mean Streets. And, uh... Scorsese said he was a little concerned about making another gangster movie. Brando apparently had told him, don't do another gangster picture. I don't know when he was talking to Brando. I guess he went to the island that one time. Right? Um... Of Dr. Monroe? I mean, pretty... Monroe, yeah, basically.

44:23It was... The movie was gonna be called Wise Guys, of course, because that's what the book is called. Do we think the movie's better, uh, suited with the name Goodfellas or Wise Guys? I think Goodfellas is a perfect title. Pretty great title. Yes. Yes. It's not called Wise Guys because there's that TV show in the 80s called Wise Guy. Yes. That was, like, kind of like an early, like, way before the golden age of TV. But, like, ooh, it's... It's a little sophisticated. It's sophisticated. Yeah. It's, like, got a longer narrative to it. It's, like, darker. Uh, Michael Powell, he says, I don't know if I want to do Wise Guys.

44:53Uh, Michael goes, uh, back home. He's basically blind at this point. And so, Belma Schoonmaker reads the script to him. And he says, you have to do this. Like, it's so funny. No one's ever seen this way of life before. You've got to do it. I pulled up... There's the infamous letter that Michael Powell sends him in response. And the opening is, Dear Marty, read the script of Wise Guys. It is one of the best constructed scripts I have ever read. At the same time, it is not academic. It is not a script just on paper. It is very much alive.

45:24And then he gets into some questions and suggestions. And at the end, he says, Dear Marty, it is a stunning script and will make a wonderful film and a priceless social document. Hey, it kind of is. It's what we do once a week here on Blink Check. Yeah, it's priceless social documents. Priceless. Priceless.

Casting Ray Liotta and the ensemble

45:43All right.

Casting Ray Liotta and the ensemble

45:44Ray Liotta is Scorsese's number one choice. They had run into each other at Venice in 1988. Um, I guess Marty had seen something wild. Yeah, that's what makes sense. Like Demi shows it to him. Yes. When, before it even comes out. And he loved it. Uh, you know, they run into each other, you know, and chat about Last Temptation and how that's crazy. You know, and Marty says, uh, like, you know, I love something wild. That sounds great. Um, but he has, Marty then has to convince the producers that this is his guy.

46:15Uh, apparently someone suggested Tom Cruise. I mean, I'm sure everyone was suggesting Tom Cruise for everything those days. Marty, Liotta says they suggested Eddie Murphy. I think Liotta might be kidding. I assume he is. He, his joke was they, they're naming everyone. They didn't want me so badly. They would have been happier getting Eddie Murphy. Yes. Right. Yeah. Um, obviously Liotta probably considers this one of the best films ever made behind his favorite film of all time. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Isn't that Liotta? No, that's Tony Curtis.

46:46It's Tony Curtis. Who is sort of the Ray Liotta of the fifties and sixties. Would you agree with me? Yes. Although Ray Liotta is a much better actor. Yes. Yes. I would agree with that. Yeah. But just the prettiness. The stunning eyes. Ray Liotta is so pretty. Like. Yeah, but it's the fascinating thing with Ray Liotta is that he's also scary. He's scary. I mean, Tony Curtis could be scary too, but like he's scary and he gets scarier. I feel like his face kind of gets a little bigger and he gets like, you know, but that early Liotta likes something wild and in Goodfellas, like where he's just got the

47:16angles, the cute little chin. He's very pretty. His eyes are so blue that they're almost frightening. And then he's got the sort of acne scars on his cheeks. So Liotta, you know, Marty wants him very badly. Winkler feels like they could do better and is like, let's keep looking. And then he goes to dinner in Venice, California, not Venice, Italy. And lo and behold, like Ray Liotta just comes up to him and he's sort of like, you know, talks to him and says like, look, I really want the role and sells him there. And Winkler calls up Marty and says, I see what you mean.

47:50Pelleggi gives him like hours of cassettes of Henry Hill talking. And Liotta says like the whole time he's eating potato chips, talking with his food in his mouth. And it's like, yeah. And then we killed that guy.

48:04But yeah, like Liotta, I mean, think for Liotta, it's like everyone else knows each other. And I don't know anyone. Like I wasn't like in the group in the same way, but that's probably good. It's absolutely good. Keeps him on edge. Yes. Right? I mean, the other, the obvious piece of this puzzle is they get De Niro to play Jimmy Conway and then the studio's happy. If De Niro's in a mafia movie, they're like, fine, you can cast whoever you want in the other roles. So Liotta's there. Robert De Niro. Now, this is interesting. I feel like Marty's worked for him before.

48:34There are a couple other films. Yeah. Okay. Madonna apparently was in the mix for Karen. It makes sense. It does. She might have been good. She might have been good. I don't think she would have been as good. No. And we should mention that, of course, this episode is making good on a promise. Oh, what's that? That we had to cover Goodfellas because of how poorly we've treated Lorraine Bracco on the past. We came after her for Medicine Man. What's the other one? Robert Zemeckis' Pinocchio, where she plays a screeching seagull. Pinocchio, where the fuck are you going?

49:06Don't touch that fucking turd, Pinocchio. That was an active performance. That's what I'll say about that. At least she was making choices. Exactly. Yeah. She didn't phone that one in. Yes. Medicine Man similarly. Ah, what are you doing in the jungle? But during our Medicine Man episode, we said like, I guess we need to do Scorsese now because we've done such a disservice to Lorraine Bracco by only discussing her worst performances. No one was going to top her in this. She's just fucking phenomenal. She's unbelievable. Yeah. She was a model in France.

49:38She starts making movies just a couple years earlier. She's in The Pickup Artist, you know. A pretty tobaccy in film. Yeah. One of the greats. She was brought up in a Jewish neighborhood in New York, so she kind of related to Karen Hill enough. Marty gets, you know, her and Ray together. He likes their, you know, their chemistry. Joe Pesci. Now, they'd worked here before. They had, but he's interesting to consider, as I feel like we already talked about. Obviously, he's in Raging Bull. He gets nominated for the Academy Award. He makes movies in the 80s.

50:08He makes... Go ahead. Two Lethal Weapons in the 80s, or has only Lethal Weapon 2 come out by this? No, there's only been Lethal Weapon 2, which is 89. Okay. And obviously, he's in like Once Upon a Time in America in kind of a small role. Small-ish. Yeah. No, I mean, like, you know, small role in like Eureka. The original Man on Fire. He's in the Dangerfield movie Easy Money, but like, it's still like, you know, he's not really on fire. The Raging Bull Oscar nomination made him a working actor.

50:40Yeah, totally. Which he didn't have before, but he's not doing huge stuff. Lethal Weapon 2 feels like the first moment where the studios figure out, like, this is how Hollywood uses Joe Pesci. Right, and so 1990, he has Goodfellas and Home Alone. Which is just insane. It's a pretty good year. It's almost like a Schindler's List Jurassic Park year. Like, kind of. You win Best Supporting Actor, and you're in the highest grossing film of the year, the third highest grossing film of all time at that point. Like, Goodfellas comes out September, and Home Alone comes out Christmas time, or is it like a little before?

51:15It's November, like Thanksgiving time. Like, yeah, it's a good run. He's owning the full. Yeah, yeah. Joe, as it feels like it's true for every movie, he's like, I don't want to do that. And Marty's like, well, let's have a conversation. Let me just stay at home.

51:30Then Joe's like, let me tell you a couple stories, I guess, from those days. You know, like the funny story that comes up, and you know, that's where it all gets started. They changed the name, because Pesci's like, look, I'm not tall like Tommy DeSimon, so we got to change the name. I'll be Tommy DeVito.

51:50Is that meant to be a Danny DeVito slide? That's a fair point. I don't know. That's a real fucking short guy name. He's saying like, you know, I knew people like Tommy DeVito. I read about him. You know, I don't take that stuff into the film with me. Bob and I will figure out everything about his character. Take those traits, little things with him. Let it start to feel like that. This is not an easy quote to read, Joe. Jesus. What I do is I think of somebody that I knew very well who's the same type, and I play him. I do my Tommy Simone. I do Joe Pesci as if I was this killer.

52:22Okay. Looking up Tommy DeSimon, born 1946, says here, disappeared. Oh, where'd he go? January 14, 1979. Tommy, where'd you go? He was secreted. He was secreted, yes. He was secreted. You know, Pesci, which is interesting, where he's like, I think the wise guys justify what they do like their soldiers, which is something that Tony Soprano says in The Sopranos.

52:53I feel like at a certain point where he's like, it's my job and I'm a soldier. Like, that's how I think about it. Obviously, Tommy's a psychopath, like, and kills people for no good reason. For example, he kills Spider because, I don't know, he tells him to go fuck himself. Actually, it's a really good reason. Good job, Tommy. It's the best reason. De Niro, not the first guy considered. Many listicles mentioned that Al Pacino turned down the role, but J.J. couldn't find good sourcing on it. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Ellen Lewis, who's the casting director, does say Marty had offered it to someone who turned

53:27it down. Definitely John Malkovich, who was discussed at some point. Malkovich says, it came up at a bad time in my life when I wasn't feeling well and I didn't want to think about working. It's hard to explain why you end up in Eragon and not Goodfellas. Damn. That's an incredible quote. That's a good quote. I can see why they thought it might be overpowering to put De Niro in this role. For sure, especially because he's not the main character. He's not the main character. And you kind of can't help but think that he is because he's Robert De Niro. He's also going to run throughout the whole movie.

53:57It's not like Capone in Untouchables where you're isolating him to a few scenes. Like, he's a lead actor. Correct. Right? Like, if you're submitting him for the Oscars, it's in lead, right? He's all over the... No, I think it's supporting. I think it's supporting. Because obviously, Leota is the lead of the film. Yes. Yes. And obviously, Joe Pesci is a supporting actor. De Niro, it's one of these weird things where it's like, the movie's not really about him, but it's not not about him. He's in a ton of it, but he's not the main character. And he'll disappear for stretches. He will.

54:27Yeah. Yeah. The end is when he comes on really strong, the last hour. I don't know what you're talking about. He's just trying to get her some coats. What do you mean he's coming on strong? Just go right around the corner. Let me tell you who's great in this movie. Christopher Cerrone. Yes. Who plays young Leota. I remember... Where did they fucking find this kid? When Irishman came out and you re-watched this movie and you're like, right, they used to just do this. Like, even a guy like Ray Leota, who is so visually distinctive, you just find a kid who looks kind of like him and we all just accept it. Like, no one complains that, like, this doesn't look like a de-aged Ray Leota.

55:03Yes. He's beautiful. He's had a couple minor credits since, but really, this is it, you know? Just to circle back to the De Niro thing, though. Yeah. It's like, I'm sure they were hesitant to offer him because they thought it might destabilize the movie. But the second you cast De Niro, the studio is going to let you cast Ray Leota. It's the tit for tat. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, it all worked out. This is not one of the five best De Niro performances in his career, but it's also unbelievable and

55:35like iconic and you think about it every single day of your life. But this is almost the same. Yeah. It's the start of De Niro Elder Statesman. It's the start of a type of De Niro that you can sprinkle into a movie with some instant gravitas or weight or menace or whatever it is, but him not needing to be the guy. Is this when he's starting to kind of read more like an older man? Well, they age him up in this. I mean, the gray hair kind of gives you a preview of what late 90s, early 2000s De Niro is going to be.

56:06I also, here's the thing I love about this movie. It's a poster that is so satisfying and that it does the triangular. De Niro's name is highest, but Leota's name is first. Yes. Everyone's happy. And everyone's name is properly aligned with where they are on the poster. You know, this is like a big pet peeve. It is always so annoying, right? When like Kate Winslet's name is over Leo's face, Titanic or whatever. You're like, come on. Right. It's just so thoughtfully designed where you're just like, it makes sense that De Niro is

56:36the most famous, but Ray Liotta is first and De Niro is up highest. I would say it's a good poster. It's a great poster. I would say it's pretty iconic when you think about it, actually. It could use one thing. Wait, I need to look it up. What does it look like? I've never seen it. You've never seen it before. You've never been in a college dorm room. What were you going to what's it lacking? It could use Joe Pesci holding some dice very tightly. So true. We'll get there. Griffin, I have to say this. Yeah. My Halloween project this year. Mm hmm. You know, I always pick a horror franchise.

57:08Oh, I thought you meant your costume you were building. Yeah. No, I'm not building a costume. Although I did my daughter's Princess Peach costume arrive. Okay. And we, you know, she were like, let's try it on to make sure it fits you. I, she was drunk with power. It was crazy. She started saying things like, you know, like, let me find some of the quotes she was throwing at me. But, you know, uh, you have to call me your majesty. Um, uh, I will boss you around. She started using like at once at the end of phrases.

57:39Like no one told her to, you know, like you have to get me this at once. Wow. She took a bath and was like, it's the royal bath. These are the royal toys. I'm like, you're not even in the costume anymore. Um, no, my Halloween project this year, Griffin, is the ring movies. Oh, sure. And I don't mean the Hollywood ring. You mean everything. I mean everything. Right. There's so many. Yes. It's just like Halloween. There are four ring twos in Japan alone before you even get to America. Right. But beyond that, there is also a 1995 TV movie of ring, Ringu, you know, the, the original

58:12Japanese novel that came out before the iconic first film was TV only. It's like heat. It's like heat. It is loaded with, to my total shock, tits. It's basically like a dumb soft core horror movie. TV tits. TV tits. It's like, I don't know the rules in Japan of boobs, but it's got them. You know, it's like, you know how like in the ring movies, the little girl in the well is kind of like a scary ghost who kills you and is scary. Well, in the Japanese TV movie ring, she's a sexy ghost who fucks you. I don't know why, but the other thing about it, and it really is like heat where you watch

58:47LA take down the, you know, and you're like, huh, this is like the dialogue and plot of heat, but it's not very good. That's weird ring. It's the same plot basically. But then you watch the movie that kills you. You watch the tape. It's so unscary. It's hysterical. And at one point there was a shot of rolling dice, which to me is like the least scary thing you can imagine. It's exciting. Unless you get snake eyes. Ooh. I'm sending you guys a particularly bad Blu-ray cover for Goodfellas. Please.

59:17Why mess with perfection? I feel like there's been... The poster is perfect. I'm sorry. What's Bobby Cannavale doing here? Leota looks insane on this poster. Leota looks insane. They decide that... It doesn't even look like it. The color is yellow. It is piss yellow. The entire poster is piss yellow, like a piss Jesus. And then it's... They cut out Joe Pesci, the guy who won the Oscar for the movie. And who's well known, I would say. His name is still above the title, but it's only De Niro and Leota. De Niro's huge. Leota's behind him, you know, off to the side. There's a gun. And then there's just a gun.

59:48A gun. A gun. Also, it has the Manhattan Bridge, which kind of just makes me think of Once Upon a Time in America, not Goodfellas. Yes. Although I will say the Goodfellas poster, you know, has like, you know, the three guys and then the sort of elevated train line, you know, in the body. And I'm like, that doesn't actually really happen in Goodfellas so much, but I guess there's enough of it. It's just Manhattan Bridge and random Chinese food restaurant. I mean, hey. Yeah. These guys did love Chinese food, we assume. Yeah. I just find the gun so funny because the Goodfellas poster has the beautiful, the body lying in the middle of the street. Yeah.

1:00:20And they're like, that's lame. What do people want? Just a gun.

1:00:35Goodfellas. Frank DeLeo plays Cicero. I'm trying to remember which guy he is in Goodfellas. Because he was a music industry executive. I guess he's just, he's one of the big guys who shoots Tommy at the end, you know, from behind. Okay. Yeah. He's Michael Jackson's manager. Ooh. Okay. Interesting. Must have met him on Bad. Right. They're shooting Bad. And Marty, one day they're in like the subway station, Hoyt Skirmhorn, where they're shooting it.

1:01:05And Marty is like just looking at him with Mike Chapman, who's a cinematographer. And he's like, what? My zipper down. What's going on? And Marty's like, eh, nothing. I might do this movie and I might have a part for you. You look like this guy I know. You know, like you look like this character. And three years later, he calls him up and he's in Goodfellas. He's never acted before. Michael Imperioli plays Spider, says, I would not have the career I had if I hadn't done Goodfellas, even though he's in the movie for two minutes. I mean, same with Kevin Corrigan. Like, this is a movie where, and even Samuel Jackson, like, just every single part in this

1:01:36is kind of iconic and everyone pops. Michael Ballhouse, the great cinematographer, says, Marty cast a lot of non-actors because these people, strange people knew about the sense of the movie. Debbie Mazar, to make it more clean, says, a lot of the extras were gangsters. Uh-huh. Just see. My favorite is Chuck Lowe, who plays Morris Kessler. Uh-huh. Yeah. And was incredible. De Niro's real estate guy. Originally, De Niro lived in an apartment in a building that he owned. And then when De Niro starts taking over Tribeca, this is the guy who, like, does all of that

1:02:08for him. And he's just perfectly, like, he's in a couple movies, a couple De Niro movies. He's, he's in King of Comedy very briefly, but he's really fucking good in this. He's so good. Yeah. The scenes where he's, like, exploding with anger and then Leo, like, there's that scene where Leo is like, fine, you want to go talk to him? And he, like, kind of goes right back down to neutral. In the book, it's really clear. Like, they really say, like, Jimmy, the gent, Jimmy, fucking hated that guy so much. Yes. Just sort of, like, personally, it was like, I fucking hate that guy.

1:02:39I hate his stupid commercial. It's just annoying. I hate his stupid wigs, like, just hate it, like, really just, like, could not wait to kill that guy. One of my favorite, this is Pileggi, Warner Brothers had to put a lot of these guys, these extras on the payroll. So they'd be like, what's your security number? And the wise guys would be like, uh, uh, one, two, uh, six, uh, seven, uh, four, three, two, one. Oh, I said too many numbers. Nobody really knew where the money was going. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, ten, eleven, ten, ten, yeah, I got your social security number right here.

1:03:10Um, all right. Marty had gotten better on budgets since the last time he'd worked with Winkler. I don't know if you know this, but his old movies kind of went over budgets a little bit. Okay. Um, a little bit, a little bit. Went over budget a little bit, a little bit. Marty, you know, was very detail oriented. Yeah. Who cares? Uh, who cares about the way he makes his movies? these. It's all storyboarded, but Marty wants a very fluid style, which he achieves, I would say. Did you see that on the special features, Ben? Yep. Very good. Also, he was very

1:03:40specific about all of the needle drops, the music, as always. The costumes, everyone's ties have to be tied perfectly. My wife, who works in the watch industry, she just kept pointing out all of the watches. They have incredible watches in this film. Do you think they paid for those watches? The characters, the mobsters? Maybe a full of a truck. Who knows? No, I think... You don't think they went to, say, like the Diamond District and paid full price, full ride for those items. They were happy to be wait-listed. They waited patiently. They did not haggle. No,

1:04:10they didn't haggle at all. There was no favor trading. That we know, right? No one owed each other favors. And zero intimidation.

Cinematography and the Copacabana shot

1:04:20Michael Ballhouse says, very tough movie. Marty knows so much about the subject. He wants everything to be absolutely correct. The results are great. It all looks real. It's very different from anything I've ever done. A lot of wide angles. Extreme high angles. Long lenses. Light is not soft. Not bounced. Very harsh and direct. A lot of darkness in it. Very rich colors. Rich reds. Rich blacks. They've got a couple freeze frames. Marty, kind of the master of the freeze frame, would you say? Yeah. Which is very French New Wave inspired.

1:04:51Scorsese says it's basically all Truffaut. You know, all those techniques from the early 60s are really like, in my mind. The long shot at the Copa, where they go through the back entrance. Part of it is practical. Like, they can't get permission to go the short way, so they have to go around the back. But then Marty's like, this will be fun. Like, this is great. We'll do one shot. Right? Like, there's a reason to do it one shot. Henry's whole life is ahead of him. He's taking over the world. Like, this is his reward. He doesn't have to wait in line. Like, so

1:05:22it's seduction. Right? Like, the big sweeping shot. It's also a perfect magic trick, because if you watch this shot and study it closely, they go in a complete circle. There's a hallway. Right. Then they enter into the kitchen. Yeah. Go all the way through the kitchen. They do one loop of the kitchen. They go back to the hallway that they were in. Oh, shit. And then go through a different door. I've never noticed that. The entire kitchen is irrelevant. But it's so well-blocked that it feels like... It feels fluid. Yes. Right. Um... Marty... Ileana Douglas also says

1:05:52Brian De Palma had just done a really long Steadicam shop in the Untouchables, and Marty's is one minute longer, and she thinks it was... There was some dick measuring going on. Yes. Uh, they only did seven takes, which is pretty impressive for that. Um, Thelma Schoomaker's husband, Michael Powell, Marty's mentor, uh, dies of cancer at the age of 84 during the editing of Goodfellas. So, this is kind of like, whatever. You know, a big moment for the two of them. Um, she was flying back to England with him. Marty arranges

1:06:23for all of that, like, private planes, private cars, and all that, to make that all happen. When he dies, Marty shuts down editing for two months. Like, when he dies, when he's near, you know, near the end of his life. Uh, she says, the work saved me, like, after he was gone and all that. Uh, so, very pivotal to their relationship, I feel. Um, first Scorsese film to have studio-mandated preview screenings? That's crazy. Uh, it led them to tighten the last two reels a little bit. Uh, a lot of the preview audiences were agitated by the last day

1:06:55sequence. Why? It's so relaxing. Good day. This is, this is what, uh, Ice Cube was rapping about, right? Good day? Uh, yeah. That's what he's talking about. He had a really nice day when he watched a test screening of Goodfellas in California. The previews were scary, according to, uh, Daphina. Who's Daphina? I don't know. Daphina? Barbara Daphina? Yeah, that's right. There you go. Um, because people would get mad when Spider got killed. That's where, like, you're starting to lose the audience where it's like, why am I with these people? They're awful, right?

1:07:26Um, we wound up hiding in a bowling alley because one audience was angry. One guy wrote, fuck you, on the comment.

1:07:34Um, so, let's discuss Goodfellas. Mm-hmm. Five stars! Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. One hour, nine minutes. Pretty long up. Pretty long up. How do we feel about the decision to start kind of in the middle? Uh, I think it is Is it like that in the book? a good choice. I don't think so. Fuck. Well, let me call up the book. Let me see if I remember. Um, Barbara Daphine, we should call up, was a producer on this movie,

1:08:05produces Scorsese's movies for decades, was married to him. It's another example. I feel like we've covered a few of these. He's been fucking married to everybody. He's been married to everybody. The thing I just discovered, he was married to Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist's Way. Yes. And they have a daughter together. Correct. Wild. Um, Barbara Daphina, uh, uh, it's, it's like a Deborah Hill situation. We love the examples of divorced couples still making movies together. They actually get along better. Galen Hurd and James Cameron.

1:08:35Right. I mean, that's, James Cameron, you basically can't be friends with him until you've divorced him. Right? That's when things get good. That's when you're like, you know what? You're not so bad. Uh, here, I'm calling out the books. I'm actually trying to remember if it has that. Um, I think it's vital that you sort of know, if for one, it would be a little boring if it was just like, here I am, a young man, and what I want to be is a gangster. The, no, the book start, the prologue, right, actually, of the book is like, he's going into witness protection.

1:09:06You need to, you know, like, which makes sense too. Like, you know, so Henry Hill has decided to not exist anymore. This makes more sense just in terms of like, the casualness of it. Um, but I think it's all, it's just the crux point in his life. This is when things started to go bad. Right? Is the Billy Bats thing. And as he, they've just done, they have to re-stab someone who's already in their trunk. Already, they think dead. It's, it's, because Pesci's a slight guy. So, there's maybe a proportion thing going on, but the knife just looks so huge.

1:09:38It looks like a cartoon knife. It's an itching and scratchy knife. It's truly. Yes. That's, that's what it looks like. It looks like scratchy holding up a human-sized weapon, just a little mouse. And so, you've got Henry Hill, obviously, like, all of those scenes that are lit by the car lights where it's all red and it's like, we're in hell, like, you know, just slamming the car shut. He's like, well, but I've always wanted to do this. Right? Like, this is what I've dreamed of my whole life, to be a gangster. He's a gangster. When I did an animation program at NYU, a summer program when I was considering becoming an animator,

1:10:09the teacher showed us the opening scene from Goodfellas to try to teach us about blocking composition. And this was a period of time in my life where I was really resistant to, I felt like, overanalyzing movies. Uh-huh. Versus now what my life has become. I like it or I don't like it. Right. Um, but I remember him just saying, like, look at how much information you're already getting from the positioning of the three of them in the car and their body languages. Yeah. So you've got, like, De Niro's asleep.

1:10:40De Niro's asleep. Yes. Pat, you know, Leota's driving, Pesci's in the back. But looking antsy. Yeah. Yes. And you're hearing the sound in the back. And, like, as I've gotten older and re-watched this movie over and over again, I do just look at this and think back to that class and as the reminder of just, like, what he was actually trying to convey to us is everything is an opportunity to convey information. If you're making a movie properly, every single choice doesn't need to be loaded with, like, metaphor,

1:11:10but it is an opportunity to say something. And right off the bat, you're introducing these three guys, a banality of a drive, then you're hearing the sound in the trunk, then you're realizing there's a guy they need to bury, right? And that he's still alive. Right. And he's going to require re-murdering. But it's also because then when we jump back ahead or jump back to the beginning of Henry Hill's childhood, we know we're hitting this inevitable point of when things get bad. As you said, it casts a shadow over the everything's good, good times,

1:11:42first hour and change of the movie. Obviously, the movie is so seductive successfully, despite you knowing, you know things are going to get sort of unbearable. But yeah, right, you need a little, little salty with the sweet. If you didn't have the ominous opening, 40 minutes into the movie, everyone would be leaving the theater to go sign up to become a gangster.

1:12:08Where's the nearest cab stand? Where's the recruitment station?

1:12:14Like my friend, like the first hour of this movie is you're just eating cake and then like tummy ache. It's just in the last hour plus you're just like, oh boy. He gets himself into a real wicked for good situation. Way too much steak. Yeah. He's always wanted to be a gangster. He's a little boy and it's just the thing Marty said of just like one minute long scenes. Just like little scene after little, little memory after little memory. It's great. He always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster is better than being the President of the United States. Being the President of the United States sucks.

1:12:44Seems like a tough job. Ben, you could argue there's a gangster in the White House right now. Ooh. You could argue that one man has found a way to combine the two positions. Who's the President remind me? I don't know. He's in charge of the country right now. Unfortunately, it is not Red Hulk. It is a certain man. Yet. We wish. We wish it was Red Hulk. We'll get there someday. Unfortunately, it is a certain man named Donald J. Trump who has made himself enemies with Robert De Niro, star of Goodfellas.

1:13:13Henry Hill, my favorite thing and this is right out of the book is when the truant officer, you know, they start getting the truancy letters in the mail so their solution is great, we threatened the mailman. The mailman. That's problem solving, baby. And the new problem created, no mail. Mailman's like, oh fine, they don't want truancy letters, they don't get any fucking letters. You're not getting your fucking CS catalog.

1:13:38Not only will they threaten him, they'll be like, here's what we're going to do. See this pizza oven? You will be a pizza if you send the most Italian threat possible. They try to pizza face this guy for real. Tony Sirico, Pauly Walnuts. Yeah, you see him briefly. He grabs the postman, throws him in the car. Yeah. Love that guy. Yeah, I mean, the thing about him that's so interesting is, you know, he had no connection to the mob at all. No, he's just acting. He's a classically trained. He's such a natural. They talk about it all the time with like those

1:14:08Sopranos pods where they're just like, you know, Tony and Pauly, like the line between them, vanishingly thing. Someone, someone shared, I can't remember which of our group texts it was, but that clip of James Gray talking about his bachelor party. Yes, where, who was it? It was James Conn and Duvall. A bunch of scary guys. It was both of them. Right, and he does a very good Duvall. And he was like, yeah, but he said, that guy's gonna kill you. When they were making The Godfather

1:14:38that Coppola was like, you should spend some time with some real mobsters and Pacino like dipped his toe in and was like, I'm good. I can try acting. And the other two guys got way too close and James Gray had worked with both Duvall and Conn at that point and he invites them to their bachelor party and they each show up with like three real life mobster assassins who brought up like a $70,000 bill and they kept being like, isn't this funny? He killed people. It's great. You should watch the clip. It's, the voices are incredible.

1:15:09Yeah. Do you think Paul Vario, he sits there, right? He won't answer the phone and I feel like every conversation he has about business is like this. Griffin, say like, how you doing? Yeah, you know that guy we were talking about who lives in Brooklyn? No, the other guy, you know, the guy who lives, the thing, the guy who lives up, you know, Uptown, you know, the guy, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, sure, the Uptown guy. Can you take care of that for me? It's like, how often did something wrong happen? Like, his instructions are so meaningless. You know that guy who likes sandwiches,

1:15:40you know, can you go talk to him? And you know what I mean, right? You know what I'm talking about. The guy, the focaccia. All he does is sit there with like his napkin tucked into his collar, like having lunch all day, I feel like, and guys just come up to him and they're like, hey, I need your help with that thing. He's like, yeah, that's sure. Jimmy will take care of it. Go talk to him. The violence feels kind of cute and cartoony in a way, right? Like the threatening the mailman when he blows up the car and it's so like cinematic and you have the freeze frame of the explosion.

1:16:11It's so like cool, right? Like there's nothing nasty. Like, I mean, obviously it's very, you know what I mean? Like, like, versus like casino, which people critique for being too similar to this movie is so much more operatic. Yeah. And this is just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Flash. Yes. Then there's like little stuff coming in, like the guy who's shot, who comes up on the, the pizza restaurant stoop and the guy won't let him in. Who's the guy? Who's the pizza guy? That guy's the pizza guy. You know, the guy who's sort of like

1:16:42his first boss, kind of, that actor. Yes. I forget who it is. It's, it's Pauly's brother, right? Yeah. I guess that makes sense that it's like another, another Cicero. I don't know. Um, but he's great. But where he's like, this kid wasted seven aprons on this guy, you know? Yeah. I like aprons as a, uh, unit of measurement. Right. Yeah. Um, but, uh, you know, uh, first sign of like a little bit

1:17:13of nastiness, right? You know, obviously Hank's, Henry's parents, his dad does not approve. Uh, and then De Niro comes in, orders the seven and seven. Very cool kind of mobster order. Uh, I know that's your favorite drink. Uh, is that someone? You love ginger ale. I love ginger ale. Someone, who was, someone was, oh, oh, oh, oh. We were just talking about this. Fantasy. With fantasy. Yes. Uh, the brother's name, Vito Tuddy Cicero. Hell yeah. He just slips the, uh, you know, the, the 20 into his top pocket

1:17:44and you're just like, this is the coolest guy in the world. But what's appealing is, you said, you know, how much of it is hanging out, but also how casual it is. That's just, let me, let me just, let me give you a little more. You know, the Will Senate tweet about, um, Mad Men? No, I don't think so. Okay. I'm just going to read it verbatim. Recently rewatched Mad Men and this time around, it struck me that Don is not the hero. Crackets. Girlfriend leaves room. If Don Draper was a firetruck, he would be the biggest one in the world. Like, that's how I feel about pretty, all the characters. Yes. I'm like,

1:18:14no, no, he's a very flawed character. He's the coolest guy. He's the coolest guy. Oh my God. Do you see how he puts the money in that guy's pocket? Yes. This is the thing though. I mean, you, you going back to your dad's point of like, mob movies had been romantic up until this point. Yes. And Goodfellas was the one that was trying to show like how nasty shit is. Right. And you watch this movie and you're like, these are the classiest guys I've ever seen in my life. This face, you know, you might know who you are. We know who you are. When De Niro's holding up like the little ticket from his wallet. Yeah. I mean, obviously again,

1:18:46the last half of this movie is there for you to convince you that in fact, a life of crime is not all. Might not pay. Sunshine and rainbows. That's right. But you need the seduction. You have to get why people would do this. If I was 13 and I could explode cars and make bad money, I would be enticed a little bit. Do you think, Ben, it would work out for you? This is my question. No. I want the listener to know that Ben was reading that off of the smallest notebook I've ever seen. Ben has taken out the tiniest

1:19:16like college rule journal. It is in your tiny little notebook. It's very, very, I agree with you. I think it would be really great. Ben, I hope I'm not blowing up someone's spot here. I'll keep this as vague as possible. I was talking to a professional screenwriter who listens to the podcast and he was telling me about his new project he's working on and he was like, it's basically inspired by Ben's if I did this, everything would work out for me. Oh my God, that's, I'm hugely honored. Where he was like, I tried that as a writing exercise.

1:19:47Is that actually dramatically interesting? What if the starting point of this is a bad thing you shouldn't do it actually turned out to work out great for everybody and what does that do to their psyches? Well, I fully co-signed. Yeah. What I love about Jimmy when he sets him off, he's like, look, yeah, sure, Jimmy would kill someone if needed. What he loves to do is steal shit. But this, stealing shit is just, that's, that's, that's his joie de vivre. That's the spice of life. That's what he's in it for. He loves to steal anything that's not

1:20:18bolted down. Do you know what I love about Jimmy? What? His slutty little glasses. Well, he only gets them later. I know, but that's my favorite. When he goes gray, he wears those slutty little glasses. But they're not that little. They like really make his eyes look sort of large, right? I think that's the thing about slutty little glasses is they have to be kind of big. But like, him putting on those glasses late, it is one of those things where you're like, Jimmy's not the same anymore. No, no, no. I can't trust him anymore. Yeah. Just go around the corner. You just, I'm doing him.

1:20:50It's the, it's the Scorsese magic of like, not just repetition, but something going on longer than it should. On, good one, and Polar asks him like, is he going to kill her? And he's like, you know, I think it's supposed to be ambiguous, but I think I played it. Like, yes. And he really wants her to go in there. He does. Well, he wants her to get a free jacket and I have no idea what you're talking about. She's in a rush. She's just in a rush. What's the emotional peak of baby? I think it's when he gets pinched and then everyone's like, hey, you popped your cherry and they all give him the hugs,

1:21:21right? Yes. I was just going to say, to your dad's point, it's wild that, and obviously this movie is set earlier, but Sopranos is only nine years after this comes out. And shares cast members in a general kind of vibe, I would say. And Sopranos is like, the thesis is, don't you feel like the best things, best times happened before we got in? That this is now like, so lame and sleazy and gauche. Right. Because in this movie, at least still like, everyone's dressed to the nines

1:21:52and has the kind of like, classic look to them. It's not late. I mean, later things start to get tacky. Again, very vital to the vibe shift of this movie. The suits start to go away. The polyester starts to come in and all that. When you get to Sopranos, it's either like, an 11 on the tackiness scale or everyone's a thug. Right. Right. And like, you know, this is about a guy, these are, this is a movie about guys who live in Brooklyn. By Sopranos, it's like, they've all relocated to the suburbs. Like, their involvement is not as, you know, sort of street level anymore. This is a movie about us.

1:22:23Well, because we live in the suburbs? Oh, because we live in Brooklyn. Three boys who live in Brooklyn. Yeah. That's so true. Yeah. Okay, the two rules that are stated. Oh, and then we have Bamboo Lounge. Yeah, Bamboo Lounge. Never ride on your friend, number two, and always keep your mouth shut. That's so true. He breaks these rules. I would say there's some overlap to those rules. Would you agree?

1:22:43It's kind of don't talk. No, but I mean, like, that's the thing. We're talking to someone who basically, I guess we don't know in the movie right away in the same way. In the book, it's like, right. So, by the way, this guy is going to give everyone up. He's going to turn on everyone. But there's a hint of that in the fact that he's telling this story to us. You're like, this guy's fucking blabbing and he's too excited to share these stories. Oh, sure. You know? Yeah. And are we complicit? Frankie the Wop, I believe. Watch your mouth. Sorry.

1:23:14Is played, yeah, is played by Tony Lip, aka Frank Vallelonga Sr., who is, of course, the father of Nick Vallelonga. Academy Award winner. Yes. But who also plays Carmine Lupertazzi in The Soprano. Director of That's Amore coming to theaters right after Horizon Part 2. Now, what was the movie that Kevin James was in? Solomio. And how was that one? I haven't seen it yet. Yet. Yet. That's coming for me on a plane ride. Freddie No-Nos indeed

1:23:44doesn't feel like he actually has a bit of a schnoz. Pete the Killer, who is Sally Balls' brother, and then he just goes, I took care of that thing for you. When you call Pete the Killer, do you think it's like to pick up your dry cleaning? Like, you know, hey, Pete the Killer, can you do me a favor?

1:24:04Guy, anything else you guys want to say about the Bamboo Lounge? I had to look up Idlewile. Did not realize that it was, that was the original name for it. Yeah. We renamed it JFK when he was assassinated. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I think it should go back to Idlewile just because it's a cool name. Wait, how did they know he was going to be assassinated?

The funny how and diner scenes

1:24:25Wait a second. Wait a second. At the top. No, I mean, let's talk about the Funny How scene for a second. Yeah, because, right, because like, right, we have the Bamboo Lounge, we have the fur coats being brought back. What the fuck? It's a sum of, what are we going to do with the fur coats? Oh, fine, I'll take away. No, no, no, let's put him in the freezer with the meat. And then it's right to Funny How, I think, because it's, yeah, it's right to, no, yeah, Tim, he talks just like, you know, you see Lyota talking to someone at the bar or whatever, but then it's right to Funny How. Oh, he talks to the airport guy

1:24:57because they're setting up that heist. That's where they get in the air france tip. Yeah. But, and I think Funny How starts with Tommy telling the story of him telling the cops, like, go fuck your mother, like when he was being into, bing, pow, right? Like, first he does tell a funny story. Isn't that funny? He's also saying that he's like laying in like a swamp area and the cop comes up and he's like, I'm resting. That's pretty funny. It's so funny. This guy likes entertaining. This big prick again. Yeah. He says, what do you want to tell me now, tough guy? I said,

1:25:28what are you doing here? You go fuck your mother? It's pretty good. Because I feel like the trademark of this type of Scorsese movie and this movie in particular is the conversation, the circular dialogue going on longer than you think possible, just like stretching the rubber band, you remember the funny how being much more drawn out than it is. Yes, and being like unbearably tense. Right. But it's pretty quick and then it's more that he doesn't let go of the tension afterwards.

1:25:58They shout this out in the behind the scenes, the framing to not do a close up like this medium shot with like the guys kind of cropped out. You feel like you're in the group watching along. Yes, it's very intimate like you're at the table. Yeah. That makes sense. There's another thing which I think they're cross-shooting it which is when you have two cameras going at the same time. Right, yeah, yeah. Which DPs hate because it fucks with lighting. Right. It's hard to like two shots well at the same time but it feels like it's such overlapping dialogue

1:26:29and it's so much about the tension between the two of them and this is another thing that makes people erroneously report that the whole scene was improvised is just that like you need the take where the two of them you need to be editing from the same take. I agree. Do you think their collars are a bit much? What are they? The arrow collars? A little skinny like this thing. They look like vampire things. It's so weird. It really is. It's a weird-ass look. I feel like I've only ever seen it in this movie. It's weird that it

1:26:59It's in some of the other mob movies. The no neck thing. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's so stiff. It's also weird that it basically hides the knot of the tie. Completely hides it. Yeah. You don't really see it. It's just like a thin line. You're totally right though. It's very Count Dracula. Yes. Which we'll be talking about over on Patreon. Ray Liotta. A good actor in general. Quite good in the film Goodfellas. Rudely summed up an Oscar by the way or nomination at the very least. The best on-screen

1:27:30fake laugher. Like his fake laugh in this movie. Oh my God. And like everyone's laughs in this movie are fake which I love. Like they clearly have those practice laughs that you know you have to do. Where you're just like ah ha ha ha ha. Like you just kind of like open your mouth and make noise. But he feels like he has such deep affection for Pesci's. Yeah. You can really like see it in this scene especially. It's also that thing where you're like a little starstruck so you're laughing too hard. Like he still kind of can't believe

1:28:00he's at the table with this guy. It's a good story. You're a funny guy. It's a funny guy. Well, funny how? It's just, you know, you're just funny. It's funny the way you tell the story. By the way, Henry doing an admiral job trying to explain what being funny is. He nails things. He really does. Like it's no, it's in the way that you tell the story. Like you really. It's in the way that you use it. Yeah, maybe he should have been like, didn't you see Color Money? Yeah. It's in the way that you use it. Yes. Funny like a clown. Funny like a clown. Maybe it's me I'm all fucked up. You know,

1:28:32funny like a clown I amuse you. He picks the perfect moment to puncture. Right? But it's like he judges it so accurately. It's a big risk. It's a huge risk to do it. But he nails it. Is Joe Pesci one of the scariest guys with the slight stature of all time? Well, yeah. Him, me.

1:28:54If we're talking scary short kinks. Yeah. Joey, Griffey, and Wally. Pesci is terrifying. No, Pesci, Pesci's the, Is DeVito ever scary? Like, did Danny DeVito ever play like a kind of a threatening guy? The penguin. That's true. He's terrifying in that movie. He's terrifying in a different way. He's monstrous. I'm not really afraid of him in this way where I'm like personally afraid of him. I'm afraid of him because he's scary looking and he's scary behaving. He's also the mayor. He's cloaked in immense power.

1:29:24That is so true. Mayor of Gotham, of course, a really well run city. You know, in heist, I guess he doesn't get elected. He gets close. He runs. Yeah, he runs. He's in the mix. Heist. In heist, he's the mob boss and he's great, but he's not really scary. Like, he's more doing like funny motor mouth kind of. No, DeVito can't be scary the way that Pesci can. You motherfucker! I almost had him! I almost had him! It's just the way, like, ugh. There's something out of Pesci that's just really hard to like, you stuttering prick,

1:29:55you! Like, do it all day. To pin down. It's like, not only will he beat you up, but he will mercilessly make fun of you. Yes, and he seems to be getting enjoyment from it. Yes. And right after that is when the guy, another actor who's in The Sopranos, whose name I forget, comes over being like, hey, you have a seven grand bill. Which, I gotta say, that guy is fucking up. It's like, that's where the scene really starts exploding is in like, he takes out the residual energy from the funny how on everyone else around him. And then he yells at the random waiter.

1:30:27Well, he's, it's like, he's already told the waiter to put it on and said, this is the owner coming, or whatever, the manager is, you know, coming over, being like, I don't mean to be out of order, but it's seven grand, you know, it's a lot of money. And like, yeah, you're right. Like, now, the tension's off Leota, but he's watching in horror. Because he's like, this guy almost attacked me. And now he's like, right, and then he hits him with the glass. Leota nailed the dismount, but the energy still has to go somewhere. And obviously, Leota's reaction

1:30:58to Pesci brutally assaulting him is, ha ha ha! Yeah. It's a funny bit. And yet, you're watching this, and you're like, you know what I should be? A mobster. Ha ha ha! And then this guy goes right to Paul Vario, and Paul Vario's like, I've got to, he's Paul Cicero and the movie goes, I've got a great idea. I guess I'll run your business. And then, like, next scene is like, and then he was out of money. It's just great. Don't you think? Yeah. Yeah. Which they knew would happen.

1:31:29Yeah. They bust you out. They just, they're like, oh, your restaurant has, like, credit? Great. We'll order one billion bottles of liquor. Yeah. And then it'll be for us, not for the restaurant. And then we'll burn it down for insurance money. Yeah. And then the last thing we do is we burn it down for the fucking insurance money, and that's that. He, at one point, when he's having that meeting with Paul, he's like, maybe you should kill Tommy. And there's just, like, this beat, and he's like, I'm sorry I said that. Yeah. That was out of line. I don't mean any disrespect. And then we move on to the girls, right? Like, how he meets Karen. I love that Karen wins him over

1:32:00by yelling at him. I mean, it feels like in this world, this was a very, very important thing. Like, they end up marrying these ladies who've got a lot of toot. In front of everyone. Yes. Like, they're all like, I think. They love it. Delighted by her. When she's chewing him out in front of the cab stand, you know, and he's like, well, I forgot. And she's like, you don't do that to me. And she's right. She's too hot. You can't disrespect her. The angrier she gets, the more he laughs. He's treating her like she's some nobody. Right. She's the somebody. He's trying by it. But Tommy, right. Tommy needs a wingman.

1:32:32Yeah. Tommy needs a wingman. What do you think going on a date with Tommy's like? Horrendous. Now, the lovemaking, I'm sure, is exceptional. Yes. Right. Yeah. I think that's the bigger opposition is just like, Henry doesn't want to be tied to anything going on in Tommy's romantic life. Probably, but they were friends. Yeah. I have no idea what this friendship is like. But he bristles the second Tommy starts soft pedaling when he's complaining about, I'm going with this girl, but she won't sleep with me. I've been putting in months on her. And Tommy,

1:33:02Henry is just clearly like, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me. I just like, I guess if you go on a date with Tommy, he will talk the whole time. Like, I don't see Tommy being like quiet and awkward on a date. He will pick up the bill in a sense. Sure. He'll pick it up, look at it, and throw it in the car. Yes. I also just think we need, it's an important detail to shout out that when he's asking him to go on this double date, they have just rigged a restaurant to be burnt down. They're waiting for it to catch on fire.

1:33:32And just killing time to wait to make sure that it's successful. In a parked car. Yes. But then to make it up to her, he does the Copa thing. I'm like, I'm just watching it right now. I'm just watching the Copa. Like what you described, Griff, where they do, it's so good. You ever been to the Copa? Still there. You want to go? Should we go? Yeah. I wonder if it's any good.

1:33:53Let's see what's at the Copa. Is Henny Youngman still playing? Dude, and that's the real Henry. That's him, right? That's him. I looked it up. That's him. Yes. Do you think Henny Youngman was good?

1:34:03He is the epitome of a certain type of comedy. Take My Wife, Please. Take My Wife, Please. But do you think, as the epitome, if you were at the Copa and you saw Henny, you'd be laughing? I laughed at his jokes. I mean, it's another... Because he's building. You know, start to Take My Wife, Please. You're like, I'm laughing. He's like, I got more. I got more. It's another famous thing about this movie. You saying they only had to do seven takes of the Copa thing. Most of those takes were blown by Henny Youngman, where the final moment is him needing to nail his joke. Oh, interesting. And infamously,

1:34:34he blew a couple takes and Scorsese's like, you've been telling the same fucking jokes for 50 years. How do you fucking blow this shit? You're the one person who should be relied upon to nail this. God, he's so good though. He says, my wife asked, take me somewhere I've never been before. He said, how about the kitchen? Oh, wait a second. Wait a second. He's holding a violin because I guess he would be part of the band and then he would sort of come out and do the one liners. God. Do I personally find him funny? No. I don't know. I take my wife everywhere

1:35:05but she finds her way home. I might be like, this guy's wife sounds like a bit of a piece of work. A battle axe?

1:35:13God, I hate to break this to you guys but I feel like the COPA these days might be using AI in some of its newsletter generation. Here's a real problem I have. Sending the link to the COPA. I know we all love policing bad AI. Sure, of course, you know, maybe everyone's getting a little too, you know, kind of like on everything, a little too worked up. Sometimes I will. Well, I think AI is really bad. We don't like AI to be clear. And what you're sending me is I like it. We love it. When my local taqueria

1:35:44did an AI poster, I'm not about to run in there and yell at them. I'm like, I don't, whatever. I understand like that this thing is becoming pushed on everyone. But also, when I see stuff like that, sometimes I'm like, graphic design has been so bad for so long. I know, yeah. That the line is thin occasionally between there's stuff that is like self-evidently like this is shitty AI art. And then there's stuff where I'm just like, this could just be the work of someone who really doesn't care about their job. This is possible. But what's your point? What were you going to say? That was my point. That's what I was going to say. The Copa art is unforgivable,

1:36:15I would say. I think they might have consulted with a Mr. GPT on a few of these. Also, I'm surprised at how expensive these ticket prices are. They're a little pricey. Yes. I guess, or I guess that's the high end. Yeah, for the sort of VIP table. If we wanted to go to the 666 annual after parade Halloween immersive party. Hmm. And I do. The price is, it's, it's, it's a range. It's a sliding scale. But there is one that is an intriguing number. It starts out at $6 entry level.

1:36:46Oh, early for advanced tickets. Yes. It goes all the way up to 666. 666. Oh no.

1:36:54What a waste of money.

1:36:58That's why it's scary. And everyone was so thrilled when we tried to waste our money on the big Bambino. And we didn't do it. We didn't do it. Right? Yes. No, no, I should take that back. We'll never do it. This is funny that the, the three tiers are $6, $66, and $666. It's a good bet. But the 666 includes an appetizer platter. Oh, I bet it's good too. I bet it tastes delicious. It's real good. Can we go to the Copa for lunch? I don't think so. Like, I'm not sure the Copa's open all that.

1:37:29Maybe it is. Can we do a live show at the Copa? That, I think might, we might end up losing money. That would be my fear there. Let's see. What is Yelp? The Copa Cabana is on Yelp. Okay. What kind of star rating does it have? I'm seeing a three and a half here. It's hours are, it's open from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday. It's only two nights a week. Okay. Sunday, it's 10 p.m. It opens at 10 p.m. on Sunday. What the fuck are you doing on a Sunday that you go to the Copa

1:37:59at 10 p.m.? The 10 p.m. Sunday crowd. It's, you know, it's on, it's on 51st and the water, you know, it's like all the way over by 12th Avenue. Uh, yeah, I mean, it, I think it's seen better days. I'm looking at some of these pictures. The food's not looking so great. It'd be fun to do the walk though. Yeah. If you go through the side entrance. If you go through the walk. Yeah. I also am getting the sense that they probably don't even have live performers and maybe just DJs.

1:38:29I think it's probably mostly DJs. There might be some bands once in a while. Uh, yeah, I don't want to go. Sorry. You're actually, you're going to weigh in and say you don't want to go. I'm out on the Copa. It won't, it won't live up to it. The most seductive moment, I think, when, because like what's interesting after the first chunk where it's Henry, Henry Hill, you know, is we switched to her narration, right? We switched to Lorraine Bracco doing some voiceover, right? I'm sorry. I'm going to send you this. It's making music.

1:39:00But it's important that you see this before we move off of the Copacabana. Something very important is happening on Halloween that adds to the 666. It's called Glizzy Mania. Okay. And it's a hot dog festival and it has AI art of Freddy and Jason. They're fighting over hot, well, fighting over and with hot dogs. They're fighting over hot dogs, but also Freddy's famous glove has been replaced with hot dog fingers that also have knives on them. Free hot dogs for the whole event. The whole event has free glizzies. I bet you those glizzies

1:39:30are real good.

1:39:35Yeah. We're diving into the Copa. We're diving into the Copa. That's the end of the Copa section. I just needed glizzy mania to be acknowledged. Someone weighing in here on the Instagram comments. You're complaining about the time. It's a day party. You want to gobble glizzies after hours? Good point. I stand corrected. Points were made.

Karen Hill and the romantic dynamic

1:40:09So, we switch to Karen's voiceover perspective as he's starting to seduce her. Because initially, she's mad. And then she tells him that this guy who lives across the street from her got fresh with her and grabbed her, was clearly trying to assault her when she rejects him and throws her out of the car. And he goes and beats the shit out of him with a gun. Like, you know, pistol whips him. It is so sexy. You cannot, like, it is like, you totally get it. He is appealing. He's incredibly, and it's just like,

1:40:39as she keeps saying throughout the movie, like, we were attracted to each other. Like, we could, I cannot deny that I found it sexy. You know, it's not just that he's being a man, he's being tough, and he's beating the shit out of this asshole. Like, but it's like, it's sexual. He's hot. So shifting to her perspective is what makes this movie a masterpiece. Of course. And like, the first time they do it, you're like, I didn't know that was allowed. Something that they would tell you not to do in screenwriting school. Exactly. Like, wait, you're going to have two narrators all of a sudden? What the fuck are you talking about? And obviously Casino's like, two? Yes. Hold my dice.

1:41:09I have a narrator every five minutes in this one. But this, it feels like you need her interior monologue to basically explain to you, I hate that I like this. Right? Like, in that scene, she's basically admitting, it sucks that I find this attractive. And then he's like, hide this gun. What's the next shot? They're getting married. And guess what happens when you get married? Big guys in suits come over and give you envelopes with money in them. I love the whole everyone's named either what? Tommy? Tommy, Joey, Jimmy,

1:41:40you know, Servino's like, even I get confused. Is it Marie? Yes. Hey. Everyone's woman. Still, I wouldn't marry him personally. Me? No. No. I have actually gone my whole life without marrying Henry Hill and I intend to maintain that streak. I can fix him.

1:41:58The book makes it clear, you know, if the movie doesn't know it abundantly, you know, like, they were kind of obsessed with each other. Obviously, he went out and fucked like one billion women a day or whatever, you know, like, that is the mob lifestyle. Like, there's that moment later on when like, Paul and Jimmy are like, you got to get back with her where they're like, obviously, you can do what you got to do. You know, we understand. Like, you know, everyone's like, oh, no, no, we understand. We understand. Like, no one is disputing that, but, you know, we're not going to get divorced here. Like, come on, we're not any Molly. But, yeah, like, they were connected.

1:42:29There is some powerful, crazy thing with them. Yes.

1:42:34But, yeah, if, if he, it's so crazy that they don't have a house for a while and then he just lives with them and then he's coming home at like 3 a.m. every night and they're yelling at him. But her mom loves him. He's half Jewish. Only the good half. Only the good half. Only the good half. He wears a cross and a star on his neck. It's classy. Yeah. Kind of cover your bases. What are you fucking talking about? Just in case. What are you fucking talking about? We don't know who's up there.

1:42:59And then all the stuff with the wives, you know, when she's like hanging out with the ladies. Mm-hmm. Yeah. God. It's sexy. It's, it's a little bit sexy.

1:43:11Um, okay. What happens now? Right. The, the, the feds come into their house. Uh, just like the, you know, like the little, the cute pictures of them all like, you know, like hanging out together the way she's like, we were all a family. We only saw each other. Yeah. You know, these like wacky pictures of De Niro, like mugging for the camera. Come on guys. What else? What else? All his suits. Oh my God. The suits. Yeah. And then, and she's got a, like they have both huge wardrobes.

1:43:42It's a big, you know, you need some big closets. Um, and then, and then it's, we catch up with Sean box. Yeah. It's Billy bats. Yeah. Then we're, there we go. We're at the bar. And by the way, he's kicking off Ben and you can weigh in with, with some anti-Irish behavior. Yeah. Get some of those Irish hoodlums over there. Top of the morning to you. But they kind of, they know. Oh, I know. They're busting balls. Yeah. It's one of the best needle drop moments in history. I mean, obviously this movie might have the best soundtrack ever. It's a good one. Yes. And it's just like wall to wall,

1:44:13like perfect music cues. But the opening strains of, uh, it's a, he's sure the boy I love, right? They're like, yeah.

1:44:23Uh, onto the establishing shot of the bar where you just know something dramatic is going to happen. I just remembered that you gave me a shine box. I'm so happy. And we, of course, we'll post pictures of Griffin with his Griffin shine master. Yeah. I'm just holding onto it now. Yeah. You know, if I was busting balls, I would tell you to go get your shine box. That's if, if, hypothetically, which I am not. Nope. I were to bust. What I would do. And David, I,

1:44:53I have a feeling you and I are never going to tell Griffin moving forward to go get his shine box. Oh, this is why you fucking give to me a shine box. So you can tell me to go get my fucking shine box. Relax. Will you? Relax. Will you? Relax. Okay. Relax. Relax. Sometimes it doesn't sound like you can. There's a lot of people around. You were in Spain for six weeks shooting murder bot. I don't know if you know. Something's changed. You make up for a while. I'm sorry. You know, I didn't mean to offend you, but you know, one thought I'm having as I say, this is maybe you should go and get the fucking shine box though.

1:45:27Okay. Here's another thing I love about go get your shine box that he's, he's marrying it to real compliments. This guy was so good at shining shoes. They look like fucking mirrors. He is saying, but it's, it's like the best of that. It's so demeaning. Like I totally get it. Yes. Cause he's one. He's basically like being like, this is a child to me. Like I remember when he was just a child who wanted to impress all of us. Right. Yeah. He's a shoe shine boy. But he is saying it in that way. Like, what are you, you were great at it. What are you talking about? Fucking mirrors. Fucking mirrors. You should go get it. If you think about it,

1:45:58go get it. I got a great idea for you. What if you left here, went home and go got your fucking shine box and you brought it back here and you shine my fucking shoes. Just the layering of it. And it's why, like, I mean, like why I will go to YouTube and, and like load up like Sopranos, like cut scenes where it's just arguments or like sit downs. The most fun thing is just the rhythms of like, you know, the insult. And then they're like, I, you know, and I'm sorry. And we're all having fun here and I am just breaking balls.

1:46:28But then like, so now I'll go back to the insults now that we've layered that in. And then the insults build and the way like it sort of cools off and goes up again. And the positive, the gladiatorial kind of style. We will get to it, but I've been rewatching the Kyle Chandler boat scene from Wolf of Wall Street a lot, which gives me a similar rush. Absolutely. I mean, that's a great. Let me say that one more time. And I mean, the Kyle Chandler scene in the first episode of Lanterns, where he spent the whole episode kind of being like,

1:46:58you know, like where you're like, I get it. He's sort of like over it. And then he like crushes that interrogation scene with the guy. That seems incredible. I don't know if I liked the finale of Lanterns. I was fine with it. It was mildly underwhelmed. It was a little underwhelmed. It was a little surf Dracula at the end of the day. It was. And I read an interview with Lindelof where he was like, well, we had to do this. And I'm like, I think you could have done more, you know, anyway, but you know, generally it was, I had an enjoyable time watching that show. It did not live up to its early promise. Not entirely,

1:47:29but hopefully they can run with the right things. Yes. If that makes sense. If they do more of it. Well, it's the most popular show in like the history of HBO Max. Really? It's getting insane ratings. It's crazy. Then do more. It's a huge hit. I know everyone's coming back for Man of Tomorrow. Right. And that's fun. Yeah. Did you see that like Frank Grillo was sharing fan art with like characters that aren't in the movie and James Gunn was like, Frank Grillo, what the fuck are you doing? You know what? Posted their text exchange. Maybe don't cast Frank Grillo in things if you don't want him to be posting random fan art. I think James Gunn literally said,

1:48:00Frank Grillo just reposted this Photoshop because his face was in it. He likes attention. Again, have you seen Frank Grillo's IMDb? Yes. The man does everything he wants. Yes. But maybe just go get your fucking shine box. Maybe just go get your fucking shine box. Another scene where you're like, oh, the tension diffuses. They fight. They're broken apart. They stay drinking there for hours. There's, it's, you know, you can't touch him. Like Tommy says like that guy bought his button.

1:48:31You know, he's an old fucking tough guy. He's sort of accusing him of like, he's a fake made man. Like, which, you know, who knows what he's even talking about, but he's sort of trying to argue like, no, I can fuck with him. And Jimmy's like, no, you know, but it's all right. It's all right. Atlantis sounds so ominous. Yeah. What is ostensibly kind of a relaxing hippie song. You insulted him a little bit, a little bit. You got a little out of order yourself. You insulted him a little bit, a little bit. I didn't insult nobody. Everyone have a drink. Let's have some drinks on the house.

1:49:01I think, I think we should let this lie. And, you know, drinks are on the house. Okay. I'll fuck him in the ass. I'm just like, it's incredible. He says to his friends, like, yeah, PS, I will fuck him. I'm going to fuck him in the ass. the, uh, a De Niro's kicking acting in this movie is unilaterally so good, which we must acknowledge because in the Irishman, it's going to hit an all time low. We are going to, um, disrespect him a little bit.

1:49:31And the Irishman is kicking. Let's put it this way. We're going to disrespect. We're going to break some balls. When we, when we, when we get to the Irishman, we are going to kick him while he's down. The phrase breaking balls. Yeah. What are we doing there? Where does that come from? If you actually try to visualize it, imagine them shattering like glass. Like, where does this come from? Does bust balls make sense to me? I'm like, that's what it feels like. A little bit more ball breaking, ball breaking. But you have to think that when you get hit in the balls, it's kind of always funny.

1:50:02Kind of. Not to you. No. Yeah, but to other people. A nut shot is classic. And here's the thing. Balls have been around for a long time. Balls have been around for a very long time. So I have a feeling that that goes way back. I'm, I'm, I'm looking it up a little bit. There is the Italian idiom. Non romperi caloni. Like do not break my balls. So it is sort of a, you know, it's coming from there. Um, apparently, yeah, ball busting, ball breaking, those things existed already,

1:50:32but it seems like the early fifties is where it became common. Uh, a painful yet common practice among beef cattle operators where they bust the bull's balls. I don't think that's where it comes from. That doesn't sound real, right? No one's out here saying that because cows get castrated a certain way. Have you ever said, I'm breaking your balls. Sincerely Griffin. Have I? No, I've never been making fun of someone. And when they get mad at you, you've been like, I'm breaking balls. I've never said it and meant it. If that's what you're asking. Right.

1:51:03Exactly. You will only set it in an ironic kind of like, I'm breaking your balls. I'm someone who grew up in New Jersey. I can confirm. I haven't said it, but I have witnessed it be said many a time. I'm realizing because there's a similar kind of timestamp title card before the Billy Batts sequence, which is October 11th, 1970. No, it's June. Okay. But it's both, both are the 11th. It's 1970 though. And like, it's all the, the party's over by the end of the 70s. Which is 1980.

1:51:34Yeah. It's, it's June 11, 1970 to Saturday, May 11th. 1980. 1980. So it's, it's just under 10 years to the day. Right. And this is like, we're cresting here. Yes. Billy Batts is where we're just starting to slowly, obviously like the Lapanza high school happens. It takes so long for things to actually crash. Right. Right. But, but like once they kill Billy Batts, it's over. And we should shout out Marty's mother. Oh. She's great in it. I mean, because this is the thing, they beat the shit out of him and then they go to her house. This is. To get a shovel.

1:52:05Obviously. And a knife. Right. And, and what, what do I say about night shoveling? Cause they hit a deer. Well, of course. It's a, what do you call paw? It's a hoof. It's a sin. It's a sin. She's in obviously many a Marty movie. This is her crowning performance, right? Yeah. She's excellent. Um, the painting. I mean, I just think about it all the time. I want to get the exact framing of it, of what she says. God. Like, I do love that. Like, Jimmy is so,

1:52:35he's just tucking in. He's eating her food. I mean, what do you think? It's like 10 o'clock at night later. Like, have they woken her up at like one in the morning? They were already carousing at a bar. Some night pasta. It truly is some night pasta. Yeah. She just clearly was like, oh, I'll warm. Henry's the only, she's like, you're not eating. Like, he's the only one who's clearly like kind of rat. A little freaked out by this. Yeah. Right. And you see it in that opening shot I was talking about of Henry driving. One dog goes one way, one goes the other way. One's going east, one's going west. So what? And this guy's saying, what do you want from me? He's got a nice out of white hair.

1:53:06Do you know one of the most astonishing discoveries of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which I recently visited in Los Angeles? Yes. That George Lucas owns the original dogs playing poker painting? That is crazy. And do you know when that painting is from? No. The 1890s. Hell yeah. They were, they were, that guy was funny. That guy nailed it. But you think of that as like, oh, this is like Americana kitsch from like the 40s or the 50s. No, no, no, no, no, no. At the earliest. That's some Gilded Age humor. Yes. We all know dogs. The next season of Gilded Age is going to be about that painting.

1:53:39Yeah. And then Carrie Coon gets in a war with like, you know, Miss Bleaker or whatever over like who gets to own the painting. You know, they have a big fight. Wait, sir, I want you to do your act out of the painting. We all know dogs. Oh, we all know dogs. Yeah, yeah. They walk around outside. They pee, they poo. No, no, no, no. This dog's inside. Yeah, sure. My dog comes inside. Yeah, every once in a while.

1:53:59Now the game of poker, who plays that? David Poges. Humans. Obviously. Not in this painting.

1:54:08I want to tell you that that painting was painted by Susan Pileggi, the mother of Nicholas Pileggi. No. Yes. It was based on the artwork of a 1978 National Geographic photograph of a retired English banker and river nomad who lived on a houseboat in the River Shannon in Ireland with his two Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Brocky and Twiggy. It is so funny that he had this clearly in his possession and was like, let's throw this one in the movie. It's got to be part of the movie. And it is so funny too that then they're like,

1:54:39that looks like a certain guy. Yeah, that looks like a guy we know. That they just murdered. In fact, not murdered. He's still alive. Right, right. But like, and it's like then, you know, they're burying him. I wanted to point out a subtle thing. Cause I wonder David, if you noticed it, De Niro, they're sitting at the table, they're eating. He picks up a bottle of ketchup and puts it on his spaghetti. That is so disgusting. But that is the thing that my mom,

1:55:09Irish Catholic family, my grandfather, he would eat his pasta with ketchup. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's in this episode of this, the episode of the Sopranos where they go to, um, Italy. And it's kind of about how like they're, they, the Italian food baffles them. Cause it's not like the food they grew up eating. And like, and like that one point, like, uh, Polly Walens, I want some ketchup or whatever. And it's so beyond me, like the idea that you'd want to add ketchup to, but yeah. Well,

1:55:39so the ultimate like insult to injury at the end of this movie is that he's got to eat ketchup with buttered noodles. Oh, egg noodles with ketchup, egg noodles with ketchup. There we go. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, disgusting. I don't really like ketchup that much though. I know some people. I used to love it so much and I, I rarely use it anymore. And it is, uh, interesting as, uh, friends of mine have children such as yourself, David, to be reminded that kids love ketchup so fucking much. It's like their favorite food, period.

1:56:10Some kids like the fries are just an excuse to eat the ketchup. Correct. Like they want the ketchup first. That's my, Sophie and Hawk and my best friends, their kid. Ketchup is his number one favorite food. Ketchup. They use ketchup to convince him to eat chicken nuggets. For me, it was rice. I remember. Okay. They would put it in rice for me. Yeah. So I would eat the rice. Yeah. Disgusting. It's weird that just the most palatable thing to like every child. Um, just want to share something with my grandpa. He's a meat inspector for the railroad. He's a meat inspector for the railroad.

1:56:41What does that mean? So he was, he was inspecting to make sure that the meat was all up to code.

The downward spiral and Billy Batts

1:56:47That they were properly stored for the railroad as in like shipping. Oh, okay. And my mom said growing up, they would have roast beef basically every single night. Yeah. And the thing was about the roast beef is that it fell off the train. Well, well, well, those trains have a lot of integrity. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm sure he paid full freight for that. You got to feed five kids. I just want to like, there's the scene right after that is where the, the girl says like Sammy Davis jr is talented and tame Tommy has to be like, Hey, you know,

1:57:17you don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what you're talking about here. I'm just, this is this. I want to, I'm just doing, this is Polly talking to Henry. What do you hear about that thing? What thing? That Brooklyn thing? No, no, the guy from downtown, the guy from near where Christie used to live, that thing. No, the guy who disappeared up the block from Christie, the one they made the beef on. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know the guy I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that's them talking about Billy bats, but it's just, I love it. It's the most obscure way to talk about anything.

1:57:48I'm looking for the conversation Tommy has with his mom about settling down with a nice girl. I got a nice girl every night. Yeah. He doesn't want to be with anyone. I want to be with you, ma. Yeah. Oh, these boys and their mothers.

1:58:03Yeah. So, you know, the true putrid beginning of hell, it's 65 minutes into the movie. It's when they have to go dig up Billy bats his corpse. They're shrouded in red because of the car lights. Uh, it's the worst. And it's when Tommy's going like, Hey, here's a leg. Here's a wing. What do you want? Um, and like Henry's like barfing or whatever. And it's like, Henry has to wear a mask. He's so disgusted by this. The other two barely care about it or unaffected or joking around.

1:58:36Obviously like Henry's the one telling the story. He's the one telling the real story as well. He's probably trying to make himself look good. I didn't like doing it. I do not think Henry Hill was a noble guy, but I do think it's sort of vital to the movie kind of in the Sopranos way of like, you have the guy who stands slightly in comparison to the even more sadistic characters, right? Like Henry likes money. He likes success. He likes people being nice to him. He doesn't seem quite as like interested in violence. Like he's fine. He can be violent,

1:59:08but he's not like, he doesn't like get off on it in the way that Tommy clearly does. He doesn't, he's not like sent to whack people. No, he doesn't. I mean, like, like one of the murders they tried to get Jimmy on was the murder of spider. Like, you know, so Tommy obviously gets killed. He gets murdered before Henry turns, uh, states witness, but Jimmy's still alive. And Henry gets Jimmy in prison. And one of the murders is spider where he's like, Jimmy was an accomplice to this murder. Tommy shot him, but Jimmy's there.

1:59:38Right. And they were like, no, we can't because you're the only witness and you are also an accomplice. And Henry's like, oh, I see. They're like, that doesn't really hold up in court where you're like, no, I saw it happen. I participated in the crime. I found the dialogue I was looking for where he goes, why don't you find yourself a nice girl? And he goes again, nice girl almost every night. And she goes, I mean, settle down. And he goes, I settled down almost every night, but then in the morning I'm free. Pretty good comedy from him. Pretty good comedy. You know what? Tommy's not so bad. No. Oh wait, no. Here's the scene where he shoots a spider. Cause a spider doesn't get him a fucking drink.

2:00:10I thought you said you're all right.

2:00:13I'm just, I'm just, you guys, I'm just watching. You're enjoying. Oh, you're watching the movie. I'm scrolling through it. Sure. I'm just making sure we cover everything important in Goodfellas. Right after he shoots spider is when Karen wakes Henry up with a gun to his face. You remember that? Yeah. It's not my favorite way to wake up. Okay. And you should, we should say the first time he shoots spider. Yeah. Shoots him in the foot. Yeah. Cause he's the Tennessee kid. Here's the thing that I think sucks about Pesci. Uh-huh. He was picked on.

2:00:45Yeah. In a very similar way. It's why the shine box gets him. Right. Yes. And then he's carrying on the tradition. And this is the thing about bullying. It's the cycle. He's unbelievably insecure. Obviously. I am not, I am not interesting for making this observation or whatever, but like you couldn't make fun of Jimmy. There's no way you can get under that guy's skin. You can't touch him. You know what I mean? Yeah. Whereas Tommy, you can get under your skin immediately, clearly by just like his stature saying he's funny. You think he's got Napoleon complex? Like, that's why him being like funny,

2:01:15you know, clearly does piss him off. Cause he's like, I'm not here to be funny. You know, like I'm scary. I'm here to be scary and tough. Pauly later says about Tommy, he's crazy. He's a cowboy with too much to prove. It's like such an accurate. Cowboy is good. Nail it. Exactly. That's what's going on with that guy. Like there's that scene where he's like, they robbed the truck and he's like shooting the gun. Like, like a cowboy, you know, out the window.

2:01:40Henry then gets pinched, goes to prison. There's, we have the prison scene. I want to point out in the book, there is a sequence that they do not cut on that put in this movie, which makes sense, which is the other time Henry was removed from mob life, which is when he was in the army. And it is similarly fascinating in both times in the book. It's clear. He loves it. He loves being in the army and he loves being in prison. He loves systems. Like he loves being plugged into a system and with a hierarchy, which is just what the mob is to him. Like he crushes army. It's like, you know, when Buster is in the army and he's like,

2:02:11I do a great job. Henry's so good at being in the army. I mean, he's kind of a piece of shit like, or whatever. And he's, you know, doing criminal shit, like running, smuggling stuff or whatever. But like he generally is into it and he likes being in prison because it's like cool prison where they're, you know, you know, in charge of the prison and they smuggle shit and they have all their, you know, there's probably some part of him to jump ahead that like not, not to jump ahead for the conversation. No, no, but like there's some part of him that probably enjoys being in witness protection.

2:02:41Yeah. I wonder in, in a weird sort of controlled version of domestic life and also having that amount of attention on him. One of my favorite jokes in the prison. How do you want your steak? Medium rare. Oh, an aristocrat. The guy just says that. This is also, uh, Papa Scorsese's best performance. He says the three types of meat in the meatball guy. They always put too much onions in the sauce. In the sauce. The sauce looks so good. It does. Can you put too many onions? I guess you could. I'm usually just putting that one. As someone also who gets agita from too much onion. Yeah. It'll make you real gas.

2:03:12Okay. But that's thinking long-term, thinking short-term just to taste. I love an onion. Yeah. I guess it could make it too sweet if you're really like overwhelmed. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have an onion. Um, and like, they do it a little bit in this, like her having the big jacket and smuggling the shit out. But like, there was a lot of that. Like, she's walking out of prison. It's like Marge in the, in the episode where they're smuggling the candy, like prison with just like cigarette cartons and drugs, like sewn into her jackets. The bit with the babysitter where he gets everyone working for him. Right. And the babysitter has to use the baby to smuggle drugs back and forth.

2:03:45Right. Yeah. So, I mean, this is when he gets into drugs. Yes. So after he's in prison, the problem is he makes money in prison through his Pittsburgh connection, which is drugs. And that is how he makes money after prison. Even though Paul is like, don't you do that? Because like, you'll get in trouble. You've got to prison for life. They can get you, you know, way worse for drug smuggling and all that. But also it is kind of what saves him after the Lufthansa heist. Because what happens after the Lufthansa heist, which is what, you know, is the sort of second half of the movie is Jimmy starts killing everyone involved

2:04:18with it. Cause he just doesn't want to give them the money. It's not cause he's scared. It's like a little bit. He's scared though, but he's mostly just doesn't want to give people their cut. He just kills them. He doesn't kill Henry because Henry gets him drugs. Like, you know, it gets him drug money. The Pittsburgh connection is kind of what protects Henry in that point of the movie. Now there's a problem on the other side of this, which is he gets addicted to drugs. That's true. Yes. I got to say Ray Liotta looks pretty bad. Oh, you don't think. I think the cocaine use is sort of catching up with him a little bit.

2:04:51Yes. Yes. As well as his new girlfriend. Yeah. He, he, he agrees to get rid of the old girlfriend. Right. Then he's got Debbie Mazur. Yeah. She's a babe. Oh, I would get in trouble for Debbie Mazur. I bet you. I, I, I, oh God, I would be in so much trouble. Have you ever seen space truckers? No. She's the female lead. And how does she do? She does well. She quits herself quite well. The Lufthansa heist is so funny to me because it's basically just like, we realized there'd be a lot of money there.

2:05:22Someone told us. Sure. So we, when we got it, lots of money for us. Then we left. Like that's the, it's not like fucking tenant over here. You know, money here. Go get it. Now I know you're shouting out. Yes. He kind of fucked up. Maybe one of the easiest jobs was just, to just drive it to New Jersey to get it like crushed. Yeah. But I relate to him more than any other character in this movie where it's like, this guy just kind of can't be bothered. He procrastinates.

2:05:53Yeah. And it fucking gets him. And then, yeah, like we don't even really see the heist, which is kind of an interesting decision. And I think it's cause like Henry's not really involved in it. Like the actual doing of the heist. Like he finds out about it on the radio and he's in the shower, you know, and like that's, and basically it's just like the vibes are ruined. Basically, Jimmy's just like a paranoid psychopath at this point. Just starts killing everybody. They kill Samuel L. Jackson. You know, in his bedroom. Uh,

2:06:25yeah, it's just bad. And then obviously you have Maury. It's so much blood. Something I noticed about the script rigging in this movie is insane. Yeah. Is that they do another angle of Pesci. Yeah. Then just with the slow motion, him shooting the gun. But there's, there's blood already on the wall. Yeah. And it's like the kind of thing where, is it a mistake or? No, I think it's that he keeps shooting him. Yeah. He keeps shooting the dead body. Okay. Yeah. Uh, they kill Maury,

2:06:55uh, with the, uh, sort of ice pick through the neck. Maury's a pain in the ass. He is. It was a great performance. Uh, that's, that's the worst death to me. It's really nasty. It's really nasty. And then we have one of the great needle drop choices of all time. We all know Layla. What do we know about Layla? No, we're doing the second half of Layla. The people sometimes kind of turn off because they're like, all right, with the piano. It's like six minutes of this. And he's like, yeah, that's the, like the vibes are,

2:07:26you know, are leaving us part of the song. Like, it's just the, the bodies, you know, the, the kids seeing the, the pink, the pink car. And then the, uh, the garbage truck with the bodies in it. And then what's his pants with the meat? What's, what's his lawsuit. Oh, okay. In the, uh, the meat freezer. So the character Louie on the Simpsons, there's Louie and legs who are fat Tony's two side. He does really look like him. He really looks like him. You know, the guy with the kind of crazy hair. It's, is it a piece or is it just like a perm? I can't tell what it is. What is the hair?

2:07:57It looks like it is made out of rocks. And it's the darkest black you've ever seen. The deepest black. Um, Frank, uh, Severo. Uh huh. He in 2014 sued the Simpsons for $250 million. I would say that's a little high. It's a little high saying that they built, uh, one of their most popular characters off of his reputation, not just his look, but everything that he had developed in his style and his sensibility,

2:08:28in his attitude. Most people couldn't name Louie from the Simpsons. No, maybe not. Uh, but there was a, uh, line of Simpsons action figures that was very successful and ran very deep into character selection. Right. And that is apparently the thing that kind of broke him is he saw that there was an action figure of a Simpsons character that looked like him and was like, they're making money off of me. Grab this tide. Yeah. Adjusted it a little bit. I bet they sold $250 million worth of it. I was about to say, how much money are they making off the Louie action?

2:09:00By that point, the series was like, you know, we're, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Right. We've done 18 runs of. It's Louie and Princess Cashmere and the Penny Marshall babysitter. How many Simpsons action figures do you have, Griffin? I used to have an almost complete collection of that line. And then I gave most of them away. And then I've been rebuilding it a little bit. And there's a newer line. Damn, you gave them away. I know. How do you? Yeah. You feeling good about that? Uh, no, I'm not. Um, but I'd say,

2:09:30I'd say, um, 20. Um, that's pretty good. I mean, this is a, this is a big town in Springfield. What's your favorite? Uh, what's my favorite is a really good question. I know. I asked the best question. I really do. Um, there's, uh, well, you know, relevant to coming up, the, uh, vampire Mr. Burns from Treehouse of Horror is very good. Uh, that is, that rocks. Yes. With his coffin. Yeah. Um, I don't own the Louie. Love that episode. So he,

2:10:01yeah. Frank Servio couldn't murder me. Yeah. Um, yeah. Uh, and then, uh, it's Tommy's going to get made. It is right near the end, I guess. There's still half an hour to go. Yeah. Um, but the last half an hour is just the spiral. It's so shocking. Yes. Don't you think? Yes. Like the movie is setting it up as like, this was it though. It was going to be okay. Cause he was going to get made. And then he just knows he's in this shitty, you know, it's a bad room. You've got the, like the, the Marlin, like a plastic fish hanging on the, nothing good's going to happen in this room.

2:10:32No, no, no. Yeah. He doesn't make it. He doesn't make it. I, in my opinion, he kind of did kind of, maybe had it come in a little bit. Yeah. It's, I, there are obvious exceptions to this rule, but I do feel like best supporting actor winners usually either run the length of the movie, even if it's a small part, have one contained scene. Yeah. Or just come in at the end. But he's undeniably a supporting actor, obviously.

2:11:03No question. No, no, no. My, my bigger point is, I feel like for the winners, you often want the best supporting actor candidate to deliver some closure on the movie. Sure. And he sort of unceremoniously dies with 30 or 40 minutes left. Right. It's important. It is closure in a way of like, right, that's their last kind of link to the mob in a way is getting cut off. Like that was their guy. And now he's not even alive. The Mahershala Moonlight win is similar as is the Alan Ark and Little Miss Sunshine win, where the absence of the guy in the final act.

2:11:35Yes. It's very powerful. So vital to the Mahershala win, I feel like. I mean, with Pesci, it's also like, he basically wins the Oscar with scene one. Correct. And then every scene he does after that is also good. But I also think, genuinely, I think it helps his win that he puts in Scorsese, the later great train robbery, Tommy shooting straight at you at the camera, just to remind you at the end of the movie. Remember this guy? Yeah. Remember how great this guy was to watch? I wonder if people thought about that. I'm like, what was that about? You know what I mean? Because like,

2:12:06Marty isn't able to like do interviews right away, being like, by the way, I'm paying homage to a famous silent movie here. Well, sure. I think it's also just like Scorsese, he doesn't like to moralize during his movies until the end. He delivers the hammer blow thesis like at the end of the movie. And that's part of it of like the, the you are complicit. You know, it's, I think a similar shot to the end of Wolf of Wall Street of cutting to the audience at the seminar. Yeah. And the departed has ending. We may or may not discuss. I don't know. It's got sort of a bit of a button.

2:12:37A little button. No, but I think that shot is, it's like, this feels different if it's directed at you, doesn't it? You've been able to watch this stuff without any culpability. Imagine looking down the barrel. Yeah. Like the other side is Tommy DeSimone. Yes. That's pretty scary. Uh, Tommy DeVito. Right after he dies is the helicopter is that sequence. I've just want to say something. That is what cooking dinner is like for me. Every night feels like that. It is so funny that like, yes, he has like weapons. He has to deal, right. He like tries to sell Jimmy some guns and,

2:13:09or like silencers or something, you know, Jimmy's like, but like he has silencers and he wants guns for them, but they can't put it together. They don't fit or whatever. But like he has added maybe a little too much to his plate with, I'm making meatballs and chicken cutlets. Like for an appetizer sauce and you got to make sure to stir the sauce. Like this is why Kevin Corkin's the most sympathetic character. Yeah, it's true. And like, and all he was trying to do was stir the sauce. They're just so fucking whacked out. Yeah. God, he looks so fucked up and good.

2:13:40It's so, it's so, yeah, it's so vital. It's the extremity of Ray Liotta. It's just everything about him physically, visually is very extreme. You can crank it up. Somehow managed to go fuck Debbie Mazar in the middle of all this or fuck. I don't know. Like if he gets it up, but like at least make, make out with her and kind of, they rub coke all over each other. I think he actually pulls them over. He's like, yeah, yeah, I'll do it. And then he runs out and he's like, ha ha ha.

2:14:06Um, and it's like, he's right that they're coming after him. Do we know that the helicopter is him?

2:14:14We don't know. We don't know. It, it speaks to his state of mind. Uh, and I guess you never see guys come out of the helicopter. No. Right. Right. And I think also before that we see Jimmy fucking with the FBI agents. Uh huh. And I feel like it does this thing of establishing that they're used to being tailed. Uh, yes, totally. Um, but you know, the dole,

Witness protection and the final stretch

2:14:37the final fuck up, it's not him getting pinched. It's that she then flushes the drugs, which was their money. And then he goes to Pauly and Pauly's like, you made me look like a jerk. You know, you said you were going to knock, do this and you did it. Now I have to turn my back to him. You don't want to hear that from him. Now I'm going to turn my back. And he gives him $3,200.

2:14:57An iconic Henry Hill thing, in my opinion, is that he complains about this. He's like $3,300. Like what? Like I'm an asshole. I'm like, he is not killing you. Henry Hill is an asshole. Yeah. That's why he's treating you like that. Yeah. You're being treated like an asshole because of your asshole behavior. On grounds of asshole-dom. And then like his triumph is that he doesn't get killed. Like clearly he probably would have gotten killed. And that's why he, that's why he turns state's witness. The scene where De Niro is clearly going to kill Kathy

2:15:27is Smith Ninth, basically. You know, it's, you've been there a million times. It's underneath the F train, right down there in the Culver Viaduct, which is like now, you know, you can go get yourself a $60 fucking pancake or whatever. Back then was basically just like warehouses and factories and shit. $60 pancakes. New York's doing great. You know what I mean? It's a five hour line. You know what I mean by $60 pancakes. It's not in a stack. It's one. It's like that pie shop down there. Great. There's like eight pie shops down there. Are you kidding me? But they only sell crust. And it's $50. And they sell out at 10 a.m. every morning.

2:15:59And people, yeah, line up anyway. For four days. This is when Jimmy puts on his slutty little glasses. Here we go. I love the performance of the guy. I'm not sure who plays the FBI guy. Uh-huh. But I love when, when she's like, will I be able to see my family? He's like, no. Am I wrong in thinking it's Bo Diddle? No, it's not Bo Diddle. It's not Bo Diddle. Okay. I thought I saw Bo Diddle in here somewhere. He might be in there somewhere. In good balance. Let's see. Let's see. Edward McDonald. And guess what? He was a real lawyer.

2:16:29Bo Diddle is the arresting narc. Oh, that makes sense. That's who he is. That's probably how, you know, yeah. But yeah. I love the quick Isaiah Whitlock Jr. check-in as well. This is right. I knew, I needed to check on this. This is the real guy who put Henry Hill in witness protection. Okay. That's why that guy's so fucking good. But there's that moment where he says like, don't give me babe in the woods. I listen to the wiretaps. When like, she's like, I didn't do anything wrong. He's like, I said that exact thing to Karen. You know what I mean? Like, and he's just so, where he has no sympathy. He's like, I want you to go into witness protection

2:16:59because it'll make him a better witness. That is the only reason. I have no compassion for you whatsoever. Like, this is not, I'm not your friend. Which I love in The Sopranos how it portrays how those relationships could get muddy. And like, the FBI guys would kind of get into the mob and kind of root for guys. Right? You know, like they kind of have their favorites and all that. But this guy is just like, fuck you. Like, you know, I know you're coming to me because you're going to die otherwise. It's also a thing too with Debbie's character how subtly you see now in the 80s she's gotten into drugs.

2:17:30And she's really gotten in in a way never before. No, she's like really deeply involved. She's as stuck as he is. Yeah. She's, she's testing the limits. She's, you know, she's pushing boundaries. Yeah. I would say. Sometimes you miss. Just the really quick gimme shelter also over the cocaine mirror. I think it's with Debbie Mazur when he's telling her not to, not to use it all at once. But just that like, Marty's like, just like, I'm doing fucking gimme shelter again just as shorthand. I'm like referencing myself

2:18:01to tell you what type of scene this is.

2:18:05And then, yeah, that's it. He's a fucking schnook. He's a fucking schnook. He lives in the suburbs. His life sucks. Yeah. He did it his way. You want, yeah, the best ending needle drop. Incredible. Who does that cover? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's Sid Vicious, right? It's Sid Vicious. It's, it's, yes, right? Yeah. It's just Sid Vicious. It's not right. Yes. It's solo. Yeah. The best. And everything ended up great for him too. Yeah. Turned out perfectly. The audaciousness of him being like, and you know who the real victim is here?

2:18:35Me. Yeah. Like, where I'm like, buddy, you're alive. I just watched that movie. My life is boring now. And Marty, you know, giving you the after, you know, after points of kind of like, he did get busted again. He's kind of on the straight and narrow now. They have gotten divorced. They could not handle the mundanity of life together. They only lasted a quarter century. Yeah. Where does he end up? In witness protection? We don't know. What do you mean? He's in witness protection. I can look up for you what happened later years.

2:19:07He's so like publicly out though. It's, I mean, I know it is interesting. I think what happened is like, eventually guys die and people start caring less and less. And the mob loses power too. Yeah. He lived in Nevada at some point. At some point he married someone else, despite the fact that he was still married. So that was considered bigamy. So that was an issue. Later on, he was arrested in Nebraska, Illinois in 2009.

2:19:38He was arrested. Eventually he lives in like Topanga Canyon, like near Malibu. But yeah, I mean like he was on Charlie Rose and shit. Like he would host screenings of the movie. You know, eventually I feel like he was pretty out and about. He died in 2012 of a heart attack. Wow. He worked it for a time at a, as a chef. Oh, his spaghetti sauce Sunday gravy was marketed over the internet. Wait a second. I'm going to look this up. Paul Stravino has an extensive food line as well.

2:20:10I don't know if that's ended since his death. When did he die? Paul, I feel like Paul was more pretty recently, right? 2022. Yeah. Yeah. What a legend. Yes. Henry Hill Sundays. Rabie recipe. I'm going to look this up. One pound pork butt, pound field shanks, eight cloves of garlic, two cans of tomatoes, 12 basil leaves. Isn't it funny, Griff, that people use pork butt. Yeah. In cooking. And that they call it that. Yeah. I'm trying to find a picture of the Paul Stravino.

2:20:40Like I remember like the Paul Stravino tomato sauce. All the jars just had his big mug on it. You know what? I found it. You found it. It's a really good picture, right? Why wouldn't you want this on your pasta? Look at that. Paul Stravino foods. Look at that. Simply the finest. Look at that. That's classy though. Very classy. Yeah.

2:21:00No idea if it was any good. I feel like once you're jarring pasta sauce, you're losing a little bit of authenticity, but. And we should announce now the blank check pasta sauce. Oh yeah. Yes. We're doing it. Blank sauce. Yeah. This movie came out in September. This movie came out September 18th. Never forget. Never forget. 1990. And let me call up the old box office game for Goodfellas. It's opening at number one.

2:21:30Six point three million dollars. It's going to gross 46 domestic. It's pretty good. Yeah. It's about double its budget. Plus 25. How much did it make overseas? What was the worldwide total? The number listed here is very small. Okay. I think it's, you know, they don't have the international numbers. It was a reasonable hit. It was a reasonable hit and it, it had a long life. It has a very long tail on it. I think it's made some extra money. Yes. For the good people. It's like the comic strips episode of High and Mighty. And they are good people. Oh. Currently. The finest. Number one is Goodfellas. Number two is a comedy drama based on a sort of semi-autobiographical novel.

2:22:10Comedy drama. Very good movie. It's a very good movie. Yeah. It's like, it's like memoirs. It's a memoir of sorts by a famous person who became a great writer and wrote books and movies. It's not, is, is it Postcards from the Edge? Postcards from the Edge. I just think of that as being a little later. Yeah. 1990. That's a good movie. Good movie. Good movie. It's not like a masterpiece. No, but it's a solid as hell movie. It's a very well done movie. Yeah. Of course, based on Carrie Fisher's book.

2:22:36Yeah. Number two at the box office. Number three is one of the big hits of 1990. And it's going to pip, Lorraine Bracco to Best Supporting Actress at this year's Oscars. It's called Ghost. Ghost. Because you're always like, God damn, how did Bracco not wait? I know. It's like, Whoopi was pretty unbelievable. The major movie star, giant hit. Had already been snubbed. Like, you know, like was, yeah. Ghost. Ghost. Do you like Ghost? Yeah. Great. Ben? Ghost? It's okay.

2:23:07Pretty cheesy. Yeah. It's good cheese, though. It's like Parmigiano Reggiano. Sure. Number four at the box office is an episode, is a film that I imagine will come up on a new, an upcoming big picture episode that hasn't posted yet. Gene Hackman, Hall of Famer. Oh. I've never heard of. Is it the one with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio? It is not. Fuck. That one's called Class Action? Correct. This has a sort of similar kind of like title, like a little two-word phrase. Interesting. It stars Gene Hackman.

2:23:38Gene Hackman's also in Postcards from the Edge. Yes, he is. He plays the director. So this is a big weekend for him. He's doing great. He's doing incredible. Okay. It's got a two-word title. Yeah. It's directed by the great Peter Hyams. I feel like maybe Tarantino covered this one on his episode. I feel like they covered a lot of Peter Hyams movies on their podcast. I can't think of what this movie is. The other star is Ann Archer. I don't think I got it. You've got J.T. Walsh in a supporting role. He never did that. No. I'm sure he was approving. It is a reimagining of a 50s like kind of noir movie.

2:24:11It's about a DA who's trying to keep a murder witness safe while traveling on a train. It is called Narrow Margin. Oh, sure. I've never seen it. No, me neither. Now, number five at the box office. It's a very red poster. Yeah. Yeah. There's a train on there, though, so I'm intrigued. Yeah. Number five at the box office is a film starring one of your favorite comic actors. I think you've said it's not very good. We've discussed it before, partly because of the actor and partly because of the director, who's an actor-turned-director who's made some movies we've discussed on this show's Patreon.

2:24:43Interesting. Is it an Eddie Murphy? No. It's not a Bill Murray. No. It's not Steve Martin. No. It's not Gene Wilder. It is. And it's one that Gene directed? No. A different actor-turned-director made this film. Oh. I've never seen this movie if it's the one I'm thinking of. Which is. Is it A Lot Like Love? It's called Funny About Love. Funny About Love. A Lot Like Love, of course, had the great architecture. There we go. No, Funny About Love. It's the one where he's got a baby on his head holding a clock. Correct. And the tagline is tick, tick, tick. Yes.

2:25:13Which I don't really... Directed by Leonard Nimoy. Directed by Leonard Nimoy. Yeah. So you've never seen? I've never seen it. This is pretty late in the Wilder filmography. It always has looked very depressing to me. It does look kind of... Everything about the movie feels like it's got a sad patina, a sad sheen around it. Like, he makes another you the year after, and that's it, right? That's it. Like, then he's done. And then he just... He does, like, little appearances. He did that Alice in Wonderland TV movie. Like, he would pop up in little things. But he basically is done with movies after that point. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he did have something wilder, though.

2:25:45Never forget. Something wilder? Yeah. His weird sitcom that he did. Oh, right. A year on NBC. And he was on Will and Grace. Yeah, of course. He'd pop up. Two episodes of Will and Grace. But basically, he only does TV after another you. Which was... Why? Because the movie started getting bad? Like, was he just kind of like, eh? I think so. There was this misconception that, like, he was so depressed by Gilda Radner's death that he disappeared. But I... I think that's a slight romantic... It is. I mean, obviously, he was depressed about that, but like... He also remarried and was married until his death. Right. And had a happy final marriage, by all accounts.

2:26:17And did work. I think it was just sort of like the industry's changing and he's tired and the work is bad and whatever. Yeah. But he lived, obviously, many more years. He dies in, like, the 2016 or whatever. He was one of those white whale, can we get him out of retirement, guys, for so long. That was the whole thing Spielberg wanted him for Ready Player One. Yeah. But you know what? He ended up with Mark Rylance. In a coffin. Hello. Funny About Love. You've also got Death Warrant. Ooh, what's that? Okay. That's good.

2:26:47That's all you need to hear. Yeah. Jean-Claude Van Damme. Perfect. That sounds great. Phenomenal. How have I not seen this film? 10 out of 10. Oh, a police detective goes to a prison facility as an undercover cop to find out who is behind a series of murders? Things go well. And finds himself locked up with his nemesis, Christian Naylor, a psychotic serial killer who calls himself the Sandman? Well, wait a second. Played by Patrick Kilpatrick. The actor's so nice, they named him twice. Written by David S. Goyer. Sounds fucking great. Second build Robert Guillaume. I'm queuing it up.

2:27:18I'm adding it to the old watch list as we speak. How have I never seen this? God, where they were just like, Van Damme's in the film. And here's how we're going to sell the film. The poster will be a picture of Jean-Claude Van Damme. And he will be posing in an action pose. The end. This is David Goyer's first produced film. Nice. Yeah, he goes from this to Kickboxer 2. From strength to strength. Number seven is Flatliners, the Joel Schumacher picture. Number eight is the very fun programmer, Presumed Innocent, which is directed by Alan Pakula.

2:27:53Number nine is, hey, we love it, Darkman. Darkman. Sam Raimi's Darkman. We love him. And number 10 is the film Hardware, the sci-fi horror movie directed by Richard Stanley. Sort of an early cyberpunk-y kind of movie. A movie you're a big fan of, right? Yeah. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, Goodfellas does well. Let's see here.

2:28:17Apparently, the test screenings crushed it a little bit. Like, WB was going to open it really wide and they reduced it to about 1,000 because of the walkouts. Too much for some people.

Box office, legacy, and show credits

2:28:28They were a little freaked out, but it does well. The reviews are spectacular. It only wins the one? It only wins? New York, LA, National, Boston, Chicago, Film Critic, right? Like, it sweeps the Critics Awards. It wins Best Picture at the BAFTAs, but at the Globes... And Best Director. Yes, but at the Globes, at the DGA Awards, and at the Oscars, Dances with Wolves. It only wins Sporting Director for Joe Pesci.

2:28:58Some people thought that Marty might win Director. Yeah. You know, that there would be a split. Yeah. And Marty was, like, really bummed out when he lost. He said, they put me in the front row with my mother and I didn't win. Which is, according to Ileana Douglas, who's telling this story, which is such an Italian thing to say. He came home. They don't like me. They really don't like me. He always brings this up, that that was the night where he said, like, they just don't... I'm not going to win these guys. For whatever reason, they're never going for me. To your earlier point, David, at the BAFTAs, they did nominate De Niro for Best Lead Actor.

2:29:29It's... Because he's first billed. Yeah. Sort of the star. I don't know where I would put him. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting. Dances with Wolves came out late in the year as well, right? So it was sort of like, once it popped, it was unstoppable. Back when the Oscars, you know, are in, like, late March or whatever. So I think Dances with Wolves is one of those things where it comes out and then it has such crazy legs throughout. Like, and, like, Goodfellas, like, had done well, but it's the scarier movie. It's more violent. It's more... And so Dances with Wolves ultimately just lays there, takes it.

2:30:01I don't... Costner. He always has sex. Oh, sure. When he's asleep and... Forgot about that bit. I forgot about that bit. Yeah, clearly. It went over a great. You should keep it in. Double it. You should! Benny, two times. And so Dances with Wolves ultimately just lays there, takes it. And then he makes Cape Fear a year later. So I don't know, like, I assume that must have... We'll talk about it on that episode. That must have just kind of been in the works, right? Like, that was already spooling up. Yes. And remember, he owed Universal a movie from Last Temptation.

2:30:35Right. But it's funny. Like, this is a hit. And then Cape Fear, I feel like, is an even bigger hit. But, like... Cape Fear was his biggest movie at that point. Yeah. And, you know, it gives him... Those two give him enough juice, I feel like, to do Age of Innocence. Yeah. And then Casino is a little bit him being like, you know, I'll go back to the well. Casino speaks to how quickly Goodfellas had become canonized. That people were like, can you please do... Do that again, please. Do that. Right, yes. Some guys, mobs, please. And then, like, we'll talk, you know, post-Casino is the little swell. The little, like, Marty Cook, like, Casino wasn't as good as Goodfellas.

2:31:08Then he does Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead, Gangs of New York. Love Bringing Out the Dead. Yeah. I know, but I'm saying, right? Like, it's like the narrative kind of becomes like, okay... But also, the second you enter the 2000s, it's like, are we ready to finally give this man an Oscar? I mean, Gangs of New York is such a complicated text to dig into. But Gangs of New York and Aviator are these two movies... Yeah. ...that are not tailor-made, but are made for Oscar attention. A hundred percent. And they don't quite get it. Yes. Um, yeah. Anyway. We'll go through all of that. Here on Blank Check, a podcast hosted by two podcast fellows.

2:31:41My name's Griff the Riff Newman. David Wristwatch Sims. Davey Wristwatch. Um, yeah. We're going to go into all of it. And he made so many more good movies. And I think it's probably the most fun I'll have is talking about those 2000s movies. Mm-hmm. But, Goodfellas, you know, pretty fucking good. It's pretty fucking good. So, like we said, next week, Cape Fear with guest... Eva Anderson returned to the show from Margo's Got Money Troubles. That's true.

2:32:11You know who else had money trouble? Henry Hill? Henry Hill. Henry Hill. Should she pitch Henry has money trouble? Um, yeah. Henry's got money trouble. I need, I need Goodfellas to be a TV show. Oh, God. The worst nightmare of all. But, of course, Cape Fear became the best TV show of all time. Oh, we'll talk about that next week. Mm-hmm. Okay, also over on Patreon, coming up in a few days, we're getting near the end of our Resident Evil commentary series. We have Resident Evil, the final chapter. Ah, except it's not the final chapter of our Patreon series because we're also going to

2:32:42welcome you to Raccoon City. Yeah. Yeah. Final chapter, not so good. No. It's got a little bit of stuff in it. And our Raccoon City episode is a lot of talk about the 2026 Kragner movie. Just to give you advance warning, that's a space where we did that. But also, David recently did Critical Darlings, a great episode on Resident Evil. That's true if you want more Resident chats. People want David's Rezzy thoughts. Yeah. And I'm still trying to figure out how to live stream or Twitch stream. Sure. My playthrough of Resident Evil 4. Not playthrough of the whole game, but at least some of it. A little bit. You're down to do it?

2:33:12A little bit. Yeah, we're going to do it. We're going to figure it out. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. Just a bit of a hectic week or two for us. But we'll find a spot. We'll figure it out. Yeah. We'll figure it out. We'll talk. Or I'll figure it out. I don't know. I'll just do it at home one day. Thank you all for listening. Yeah. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. And as always, Ben got me my fucking shine. I almost forgot about that.

2:33:38Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and The Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

2:34:12Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.