Goodfellas (1990)

I love the movie Goodfellas (and pretty much every other Scorsese movie I’ve seen)! The very first time I saw Goodfellas it was on tv and I was flipping channels and got sucked in. I think Scorsese did a great job with Goodfellas and making you feel like an actual part of the movie. You get so engrossed in this world of Henry’s, the gangster life; with the great use of freeze frames, voiceovers, and camera shots fallowing the characters you feel involved somehow like you’re a part of it, walking around with them in the movie.

We’ve seen a couple different kinds of gangster movies, and I have to say my favorite style of it are movies like Goodfellas. It doesn’t seem romanticized or over the top, it’s gritty bloody dirty and it feels real and not the stereotypical hollywoodized movie and sometimes that’s a bit refreshing.

I also like the characters in this movie, I think they did a great job of depicting each one in a way were you understood why they were involved with crime and had justification for what they did. It was great that everybody in this film had motivation, compared to Bonnie and Clyde where there was hardly any motivation given. You understand why they want to be gangster, they were treated like stars and they got respect. You understood why Karen stayed with Henry even though he beat up a guy, handed her a gun, and cheated on her she was attracted to and seduced by the lifestyle .. the classic bad boy sydnrome. And when Jimmy starts killing everyone who did the heist and even tried to kill Henry and Karen, you understood he was nervous and scared and that’s how he knows how to solve problems. Even Tommy, the one who seemed to need the least amount of justification for his actions, you still understood that was who he was, he was the wild card you didn’t know what was going to do and which seemed largely due to the fact the fact that he had an easily bruised ego, but you still get why he did stuff without thinking.

I also love the irony at the end, when he ends up ratting on everyone and being stuck in the suburbs… specially because at the beginning of the movie that seemed to be the very last thing he would do; with him not going to school, wanted to be a gangster, and not ratting the first time he got caught. On a side note – it also cracks me up that the real Henry supposedly being in protective services gave interviews, still wanting to be known and respected.

Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

I liked Bonnie and Clyde but it was definitely not my favorite movie but I did enjoy watching it. When I think about it, the fact that it doesn’t fallow historical facts to well, really bugs me. I completely understand when movies take artistic liberties to make it more exciting or have a faster pace, but in class when we were going over it not much seemed to be right; and I completely agree within the first five minutes it was established that it was doing its own thing for the movie. And although that irritates me a bit when I think about it now, when I was watching the movie I don’t think I cared that much at all. It seems to me all modern references of Bonnie and Clyde are references towards the movie, not the real Bonnie and Clyde, so when we think of Bonnie and Clyde we think of this movie and I can appreciate that iconic status of the movie and not get hung up on the fact that they really didn’t really fallow the historical events at all. I enjoyed this movie but the more I look into the real events, I feel like a remake could be made fallowing the historical facts more closing and be just as good and maybe even more entertaining to watch.

Moving on, I was a bit shocked when Clyde shot that guy in the face when they were driving. I think that had more to do with watching code influenced movies lately, so when he just shot through the window I wasn’t expecting them to actually show it. But I thought it was a great way to introduce Clyde’s cold-bloodedness because until that point I don’t think we see anything that “heartless”. However I wasn’t shocked at all at the ending probably because of being desensitized ( and used to the movie showing deaths/shots by then) and it gives signals with CW’s dad jumping under the car and the birds flying away- those signs have become extremely recognizable that something , their deaths, were going to happen. So I wasn’t shocked at all about that but I definitely could see how an earlier audience would be completely taken aback, not used to that kind of violence, and even I was a bit surprised that the movie came to a sudden end after they died, it’s like they’re shot at for 5 minutes – black – then the end. So I totally get how the ending was a big deal, when your not used to that kind of violence it’s a bit hard to swallow when its so blunt and in your face at the end.

OH and I wanted to add this picture of Clyde (end scene) in my Report, but there was concern it would give away the ending. So here it is, notice the squibs : ] yay for special effects!