Our next episode is on Goodfellas - what should we talk about?

Guys when I pressed play on this episode it’s somehow turned out to be a preview of top gun Maverick instead?

I'd love to hear your views on Scorsese's use of popular music in the film, to set the mood and the era. I always thought it was one of the strongest parts of the film :)

How the movie adheres to a story structure but disguises that structure so well that you don’t even notice it, you are just along for the ride

Rocky

I really like the movie, but my daughter (in her 20s) made me turn it off before we even got the Lufthansa heist - she hated Henry and immediately despised Karen for liking him. For her, the characters were “bad people” and framing them as the protagonists - even though it never showed them as “good people” was completely unacceptable. What do you think of movies making objectively awful people the protagonists? I understand this is just storytelling, but Is there a certain generation or type of person that is turned off by them? It seems that it is rarer and rarer to have *new* objectively bad characters be protagonists, at least in mainstream movies - they are redeemed or reframed for consumption.

John willis

It’d be cool to hear you all talk about the needle drops and how they act like a score.

The importance of food scenes.

Jazz Jackrabbit

Analyzing what Pileggi brings to the movie (I don't know a lot about this myself but I'd be curious to see if there's a case to be made for how/if he made this different from other Scorcese movies)

JB

Knowing what we know now 30 years later about Henry Hill, does the movie seem overly sympathetic to his character? Does it romanticize him, and was Ray Liotta too nice an actor to play him?

andrew

Oh thank god, an easy question

Tricia Aurand

I think the restraint the movie has in not showing the Lufthansa Heist provides a really interesting teachable moment. A lot of movies would latch on to that but Scorsese and co. recognised it wasn't necessary for the story they were telling and focused elsewhere.

Ctolm

What films influenced its structure and style? How did it break conventional boundaries at the time? Critical response? On its portrayal of a morally corrupt lifestyle/philosophy/culture: Glorification? Damnification? Both? What about the overbearing influence it has had on the genre? The way various cultures have adopted and glorified some of its most vile aspects? In other words, what can we learn from it, not just as a stellar piece of filmmaking, but as a statement about who we are? How has it changed us?

I’d like to hear about how it compares to other movies in the “guy-gets-in-too-deep-and-spirals-out-of-control” genre.

When I first saw The Wolf of Wall Street, I was thinking to myself, "why is this a movie? Why should I care about any of this? Who writes this and why did Scorsese make it?" I learned later it was based on a true story, and then it made sense. But therein exists a question about whether or not these dramatized biopics would work if they were pure fiction, and not based on someone's life. For Wolf of Wall Street, I personally don't think it works. But for Goodfellas, another movie that I later learned was based on a true story, I think it works regardless of the real world truth that inspired it.

Outlaw

One thing I'd love to hear you guys discuss is how to compare Goodfellas with the likes of Casino and other Mafia movies. I enjoy most of the classic Mafia movies, but I often find it hard to determine which ones are better than others

I second this

Outlaw

The use of narration.

How it compares to Casino!

Oners!

Alexandre Moreira

How the movie has a an intoxicating pace. Really moves at a pace that really sucks you in.