A pretty good year with a few movies that I would classify as great. The most popular movies were “Home Alone” and “Ghost,” the first of which inspired three sequels and the latter of which inspired what I still contend is the funniest movie trailer of all time. The Oscars were particularly competitive and geeks are still mad about the outcome.
Dances With Wolves: I love it, but then my Indian name is Struggles with White Guilt.
Ghost: I distinctly remember thinking, really? Ghost? Really?! I don’t dislike it, but it wasn’t exactly Oscar bait. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Awakenings: Mmmmmm, L Dopa. Yummy, delicious L Dopa.
Goodfellas: Scorsese’s career seemed to build to this and plateau with this. I love some early Scorsese, and I love some later Scorsese. But this is the centerpiece of his career, in my opinion.
The Godfather Part III: Okay. Really? Really?!!! There were about a hundred gangster movies released in 1990, so it was practically unavoidable that two of them would wind up Best Picture Nominees, but seriously?
WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED
Dances With Wolves: Probably my dad’s favorite movie. He dragged me to it, I didn’t want to see it. And while I don’t think it should have won, it’s not the blow-out that some people make it out to be. It’s a legitimately great movie, as noted by Nolte.
Total Recall: Get. Your ass. To Mars.
Miller’s Crossing: Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.
Goodfellas: From the first line (“The f*%k is that?”), Scorsese’s masterpiece sucks you in and never lets go. Scorsese tells the story of Three Decades of Life in the Mafia through the eyes of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), an Irish-Sicilian kid who longs to be a part of the Lucchese crime family. His Sicilian blood allows him access to the family and he becomes an earner, but his Irish heritage prevents him from ever advancing to any sort of official leadership in the organization. As such, he provides a perspective on the mafia that we didn’t get in “The Godfather” saga. He’s a blue collar guy, working for the man, whereas Michael Corleone was the man.
Surrounding Henry are thugs and assassins, many of whom we get to know on an intimate basis. You just knew watching this movie that no one involved would probably ever be this good again. Lorraine Bracco. Ray Liotta. Frank Vincent. But Joe Pesci’s performance is an example of the perfect actor finding the perfect role. His Tommy is menacing and hilarious, his dialogue endlessly quotable. Of course there are exchanges and lines that became instantly famous, like, “Whaddaya mean I’m funny?” and “No more shines, Billy,” but the movie is also jam-packed with throwaway, inconsequential lines that add authenticity and never fail to make me laugh.
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“Maybe I should let him drive.”
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“Trying to make me think what the fu*% I did here.”
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“Can you believe that? A Jew broad, prejudiced against Italians.”
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“No, you ain’t alright, Spider, you got a lot of f*%in’ problems.”
As a rule, I try not to get too pretentious, but this is exquisite filmmaking. Scorsese invented neither the freeze frame, nor the extended tracking shot, nor the use of pop songs in place of a score, but he uses all of these tools and techniques to the greatest effect possible.
The violence is always brutal, often horrifying, and more-than-occasionally funny. Most of all, it’s casual. It just happens. Guys are smiling one minute and getting whacked the next. Sometimes without cause. Notice, though, that Henry is rarely in on the violence. He’s often at least mildly horrified by it. He pistol whips a guy for attempting to put the moves on his wife, but this act of violence is portrayed as darkly chivalrous: he was protecting someone. During a jaunt to Florida, Henry and Jimmy (Robert De Niro) hassle a guy who owes the mob money. Henry definitely participates, but it’s an act of violence that’s on the record — Henry serves time for it. But the rest of the time, he’s an observer. At the end of the movie, we learn that his narration has been courtroom testimony — Henry has wisely painted himself as less involved than those who are on trial. The revelation gives new meaning to earlier narration, for example, his description of Jimmy:
He liked to steal. He actually liked it. He was the kind of guy who rooted for bad guys in the movies.
For all we know, Henry also liked to steal and also rooted for bad guys in the movies, but the circumstances of his narration dictate a need to make everyone else out to be the bad guy.
The key scene in the movie, for me, is the one where Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry go to Tommy’s mom’s house in the middle of the night to borrow a shovel so they can bury a nearly dead gangster wrapped in tablecloths in the trunk of Henry’s car. Over a sumptuous meal, the boys engage in a casual, friendly conversation with Tommy’s mom. They discuss her paintings (noting that one of her subjects looks like the guy in the trunk), Tommy asks to borrow a knife (“Well. Bring it back,” his mom responds), and the mom notices that Henry isn’t very talkative.
“I’m…just listening,” he stammers.
The mom goes on to relate a story about a quiet guy who never talks. When asked why, the guy responds, “What am I going to say? That my wife two-times me?” To which his wife responds, “Shut up, you’re always talking.” Tommy reveals that in Italian, it sounds better, and that the guy’s true nature is lost in the translation, explaining, “He’s content to be a jerk.”
This perfectly describes Henry, as he’s seen on the stand at the end of the movie, casually identifying Jimmy and Paulie (Paul Sorvino) for the prosecution.
It’s my favorite movie. It never fails to entertain or suck me in. Others in my personal top five or ten change places depending on my mood. But “Goodfellas” leapt to the top of the list around 1991, and has stayed there. So it goes without saying that I believe it should have beaten “Dances With Wolves.”
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