Film

FILM ‘Goodfellas’ — the mother of all mob movies

JIM KEOGH “ G oodfellas” is 30 years old. How did that happen? Three decades ago Scorsese released his best mob movie. You can have “The Departed” and its good cop/dirty cop and Dropkick Murphys tunes (Scorsese’s Oscar for best director was merely a makeup call for his many years of being screwed by the Academy). “Casino” brought some of the GF gang back together, but it’s still second tier. And I’m no fan of “The Irishman,” with its clammy computer-generated “young” faces planted atop 70-year-old bodies.

No, it was “Goodfellas” then, and it’s “Goodfellas” now. Here in 2020 are 20 of my favorite things about it: • The extended tracking shot of Henry (Ray Liotta) and Karen (Lorraine Bracco) wending their way through the bowels of the Copacabana and into the dining room where they’re treated like royalty. Perfection. • Harry Nilsson’s “Jump Into the Fire” on the soundtrack when Henry insists he’s being tailed by the feds in a helicopter. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re not being watched. • The food! My god, I’d kill a man just to be served the midnight snack whipped up by Tommy’s mother (Scorsese’s real-life mom) for her murderous son and his buds. And I’d gladly do time if Paulie (Paul Sorvino) is doing the cooking inside the prison kitchen, chopping his garlic so fine it melts in the pan. • Jimmy’s (Robert De Niro) verbal emasculation of two lackeys involved in the Lufthansa heist who buy their wives a fur and a Cadillac, potentially tipping off the feds about their sudden riches. • “I’m funny how? Like I’m a clown? Do I amuse you?” • The “Oh no!” that Tommy ( Joe Pesci) emits when he realizes he’s not getting made — he’s getting whacked. • Tommy’s mom proudly showing off her painting of a white-haired man, and Jimmy smirking, “Look’s like somebody we know” just as the bloodied white-haired Billy Batts begins pounding for help from inside the trunk of Jimmy’s car parked outside. • Eric Clapton’s “Layla” gracing the requiem for the Lufthansa gang as their bodies turn up in garbage trucks, freezers and pink Cadillacs. • Henry’s dead-fish handshake of Karen’s preppy neighbor at the tennis club. • Henry’s pistol-whipping of said neighbor after he moves on Karen. • The almost mischievous expression on De Niro’s face as he stands at the bar, dragging on a cigarette, and silently concluding that Morrie, the loose-lipped toupee salesman, has gotta go. • Morrie’s rendition of “Danny Boy.” • Tommy’s response to the antsy Henry who wants to leave the restaurant early during a disastrous double date: “Wait a few minutes and we’ll all leave together. That way we don’t go out like a bunch of hoboes, staggering out one at a time.”

• The breakfast meeting where Jimmy asks Henry to do a hit in Florida, and Henry realizes he’s the target. Still, Henry does order an English muffin. • The nicknames. Johnny Roastbeef. Jimmy Two Times. Freddy No Nose. • The Sex Pistols’ “My Way” over the closing credits. • Henry’s voiceover at the trial of Jimmy and Paulie, explaining how a mobster skirts responsibility: “My birth certificate and my arrest sheet. That’s all you’d ever have to know I was alive.” • Karen’s intuition whispering to her that Jimmy means her harm when he suggests she pick out some designer dresses inside a lonely storefront. “No, Jimmy, I’m in a hurry! My mother’s watching the kids!” she lies as she sprints to the car. • Paulie’s dead-eyed stare in the courtroom when Henry fingers him for racketeering. • Henry’s argument with the babysitter/drug smuggler who refuses to fly to Pittsburgh with dope taped

Ray Liotta plays an apprentice to mobsters in director Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed 1990 crime drama “GoodFellas.’’

to her leg until she can retrieve her lucky hat.

OPEN YOUR OWN KUMON MATH AND READING CENTER

AND GET UP TO $ 36,000 IN EXPENSES COVERED! Franchise Fee: $ 1,000 | InvestmentRange: $ 74,428 to $ 156,590 Learn More Today! CALL201.692.3159 VISITKUMONFRANCHISE.COM

If you are an artist, or know of a local artist, email WMeditor@gatehousemedia.com. Fair warning, in order to publish your work, you’ll need to provide a small bio and high resolution digital copies of some of your art. We reserve the right to choose what will run, based on resolution and what will reproduce best on newsprint. CITY LIFE artists

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Colette Aimée is the daughter of an actor and a ballerina. Throughout her upbringing Aimee had all kinds of art flowing in and out of her life in the small town of Kent, New York. Musicians, ac tors, dancers, poets, painters and aristocrats were many of the influences that Colette took in to create the artist that she is today. Aimee found herself going on to art school at SUNY New Paltz in New York, receiving her BFA in 2006. She now shows all over the country in gallery shows and events as well as at various music and arts festivals. She continues to surround herself with the same types of creative people which inspire her to paint the luminous colors of her surrealistic world. For several years now she has been working with the idea of the Harlequin, a magical being that can change itself and the world that surrounds it. These esoteric Harlequins are sexual, playful and sometimes devious in their thoughts of traveling beyond the boundaries of our world and their own to reach tremendously elastic points of views. Check out more of her work at rawartists.com/coletteaimee or at the following events: Spencer Street Party in downtown Spencer: Aug. 24, Wormtown Festival: Sept. 13-15 in Greenfield.

A U G U S T 15 - 21, 2019 W O R C E S T E R M A G A Z I N E . C O M

Let us feature your artwork in Worcester Magazine’s Artist spotlight! Email WMeditor@gatehousemedia.com high res samples of your work and a brief bio! wanted