the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Jay Coyle and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Jenn Gannon, with Andy Melhuish, Jack Hodges and others, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, continuing our Summer of Scorsese season, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.

Martin Scorsese is one of the defining directors in American cinema, with a host of massively successful (and cult) hits that have shaped and defined cinema across generations: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Colour of Money, The Aviator, The Departed, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street. The Summer of Scorsese season offers a trip through his filmography via the IMDb‘s 250.

As far back as he could remember, Henry Hill always wanted to be a gangster. However, the life that Henry leads doesn’t turn out exactly as the young hoodlum might have expected, as he finds himself navigating a web of betrayal and violence involving his closest friends.

At time of recording, it was ranked 17th on the Internet Movie Database‘s list of the best movies of all-time.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 25th August 2020.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• Note: Because this the 200th episode of the podcast, we thought we’d try something a little novel with the format. We’re not sure if it works. It will be business as usual next week.
• Goodfellas at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDB 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
• Follow Jay on Twitter.
• Listen to Jay at the Scannain podcast.
• Follow Jenn on Twitter.
• Martin Scorsese talks to Empire about the development and production of Goodfellas, September 1990.
• Kyle Smith at The New York Post argues that Goodfellas is not a film for women, June 2015.
• Noah Berlatsky at The New Republic critiques the portrayal of masculinity in Goodfellas, June 2015.
• Sam Adams at IndieWire provides a list of prominent female critics who love Goodfellas, June 2015.
• Noel Murray reviews Goodfellas for The Dissolve, May 2015.
• Gary Sussman at Time looks back on the Best Picture race between Dances With Wolves and Goodfellas, February 2013.
• William Orazi at AMC on how the Academy snubbed Goodfellas for Dances With Wolves, March 2010.
• Brendan Michael at Collider argues that Dances With Wolves is a better film than Goodfellas, November 2019.
• Producer Irwin Winkler talks to The New York Post about how Goodfellas almost starred Tom Cruise and Madonna, September 2010.
• Greg Miller at Wired discusses how the average shot length of movies is getting shorter and shorter, September 2014.
• David Bordwell discusses Scorsese’s average shot length at Observations on Film Art, October 2006.
• Debi Mazar explains to Entertainment Weekly what she was snorting instead of cocaine in Goodfellas, May 2020.
• GQ offers an oral history of the production of Goodfellas, September 2010.
• Brian Raftery at The Ringer on the appeal of Martin Scorsese’s eighties output, November 2019.
• Brian Phillips at The Ringer on how Goodfellas is the missing link between cinema and prestige television, September 2020.
• RTÉ reports on the purchase of Goodfella’s pizza by BirdsEye, January 2018.
• Tim Robey at The Telegraph explores the infamous “… funny how?” scene from Goodfellas, May 2020.
• Shea Serrano at The Ringer fact checks the “… funny how?” scene from Goodfellas, September 2020.
• “Raging Fred”, July 2006.
• “The Dabba Don”, July 2002.
• Ray Liotta talks to Little White Lies about his life and career, November 2019.
• Ray Liotta reflects on his career to Square Mile, December 2019.
• Ray Liotta discusses the legacy of Goodfellas with NPR, September 2016.
• Ray Liotta talks to Entertainment Weekly about subverting his screen persona in Killing Them Softly, November 2012.
• Owen Gleiberman at Variety looks back on Something Wild, May 2020.
• Ryan Vlastelica at The A.V. Club discusses the process of adapting Wiseguy into Goodfellas, September 2015.
• Henry Hill talks to The New York Times about his life in witness protection and his cook book plans, December 2001.
• Catherine Scorsese provides her meatball recipe to Entertainment Weekly, December 1990.
• Catherine Scorsese’s pasta sauce recipe, reproduced at The New York Times, February 1997.
• Robert Silva at HBO argues for Karen Hill as the emotional hinge on which Goodfellas swings, November 2018.
• Lorraine Bracco talks to USA Today about the legacy of her work on both Goodfellas and The Sopranos, September 2020.
• Drea DeMatteo talks to Deadline about the way in which Goodfellas changed how women were portrayed in mob movies, May 2020.
• Jim Emerson at RogerEbert.com discusses the theme of morality as it plays through Scorsese’s work, November 2011.
• Darren Mooney at the m0vie blog on Henry Hill’s moral sloth in Goodfellas, September 2020.
• Martin Scorsese talks to Entertainment Weekly about having to screen Goodfellas for test audiences, October 2019.
• Séamus Sweeney discusses the use of Atlantis during that key sequence in Goodfellas at seamussweeney.net, September 2018.
• Alex Godfrey at Vice looks at the use of music in the films of Martin Scorsese, February 2016.
• Ann Hornaday at The Washington Post on how many modern movie directors let their soundtracks do the heavy lifting, May 2017.
• Jessica MacLeish at The Ringer looks at how Barracuda became the go-to needle-drop in modern films, February 2020.
• Steve Dougherty at The Wall Street Journal on the ubiquity of Gimme Shelter as a needle-drop, November 2012.
• Illeana Douglas discusses her life and career with The A.V. Club, February 2009.
• Bonnie Pipkins at Uproxx on the use of food in Goodfellas, September 2015.
• Rachel Tashjian at GQ on Joe Pesci’s pointed collars in Goodfellas, November 2019.
• Production designer Kristi Zea talks to GQ about designing for Goodfellas, September 2020.
• Alessandra Stanley reflects on the life and times of Nora Ephron for The New York Times, June 2012.
• Nicholas Pileggi talks to The Guardian about his life and career, February 2013.
• Glenn Kenny writes at Decider about the interesting relationship between Goodfellas and My Blue Heaven, September 2020.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, capitalism, Food, gangsters, goodfellas, greed, henry hill, Joe Pesci, karen hill, lorraine bracco, martin scorsese, masculinity, podcast, ray liotta, robert deniro, scorsese, The 250, violence, wealth |