Casino [Original Soundtrack] - Original Soundtrack | Songs

They'll kill you five times before you hit the ground."
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is what I will be requesting today. It is currently on lunar sale at a 30% discount.
So, why do you like the game and the series? And why do you want the game?:
Here are some of my previous notes summarised why I love the series in general, and in extension, why I would really love Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I am already very invested in the series and it would mean a lot to be able to play this title.
For those uninitiated to the series, Yakuza is like a scorsese gangster movie. Stunning, stylish, suave and filled with fun filled moments.
Ok, so, let’s talk about the series. The Yakuza franchise is an action-adventure game, mostly about Kiryu Kazuma. Over the series, you also follow Goro Majima, Haruka, and many more. As of Like a Dragon, the main protagonist has since changed to Ichiban. Kiryu Kazuma is a former Yakuza, trying his hardest to live a quiet and honest life since becoming a civillian. However, the dark and murky world of the Yakuza keeps calling out to him, and throws him various challenges to overcome. The franchise timeline starts in 1988, and prior to Yakuza 7, concludes in 2016 (Yakuza 6).
"All the bad luck in the world shouldn’t make your dream less worth pursuing”
The storyline is extremely well written, with no visible plot holes or retcons, and consistently follows all the characters from young to old. The writers did a stunning job at fleshing out each character and also raising the stakes for the trials and tribulations each character has to go through, and they have come up with super creative ways of playing out different scenarios. I personally believe that the series has the best crime drama plot there is to gaming at this point in time. There's witty dialogue, dialogue and cutscenes that makes you laugh, cry, have you contemplating what in the ever bloody hell did you get yourself into... and honestly, its a fantastic series all in all.
That's not to mention that there's also an amazing soundtrack paired to this, something that I already have playlisted on youtube, and listen to in my spare time. Then, there's all the activities you can do in the game. With Yakuza 0 alone you have access to mini games such as: Running a cabaret club, real estate, Playing UFO Crane Catching, Arcade Games, Gambling Games, Pool, Casino Games, Darts, Batting Cages, Bowling, Catfight Bets, Pocket Circuit, Participating in Shogi, Mahjong, Card Collecting, Telephone Club, Karaoke, Disco, Fishing, sneaking challenges, training sessions.)
Ever since playing Yakuza 0, I have been in love with the series, and it has helped me stay calm in times of stress, anxiety and beyond.
What really makes me excited about Yakuza 7 is all of the above, and...:
The fact that its got RPG mechanics and a brand new protagonist and narrative to follow. From what I hear, he's also a more approachable, unprofessional, and flawed character than Kiryu. This excites me as Kiryu is one of my all time favorite characters. I love characters that are flawed, and more than 2 dimensional personality wise... they feel more human to me. I can already imagine this game having a lot of drama and heart like previous titles before it.
From what I've read, Ichiban is pretty nerdy! He builds his heroic impulses around a lifelong love of Dragon Quest, to the point where every time he enters street combat, he imagines that he’s fighting monsters and evil creatures. It's a fun thought to consider, and it makes me wonder if it's only him that sees the world and fights in this way. It also shows in the now "turn-based" JRPG combat, a genre I absolutely adore.
"Life is like a trampoline. The lower you fall, the higher you go."
Like a Dragon seems to have several brand new features that look extremely exciting. You can summon various people and creatures using your telephone, kind of like a stand or a persona. There's also a mechanic called Life Experience that Ichiban needs to nurture throughout the gameplay, as it would boost his stats as he battles across various dungeons and through real life situations. You can romance different team members (and it can turn out terribly for you like in persona if you decide to date, say, many members of your team). Also, you can go-kart, and play a traditional movie theatre minigame too, where you have to fight to stay awake! Also, this cutscene. Pure gold.
TLDR; In this particular title, you play as unemployed former yakuza with chuunibyou syndrome. You will be facing off against Omi Alliance men , among many other interesting folk.
Why am I having trouble affording it? Why can’t I just "buy it"?
I work on an assistant teacher's salary in Japan, which isn't very much. To be honest , I do everything a regular teacher does and I am recognised in the staff office as a fully fledged teacher, and there's been a reduction in staff, meaning we have even more responsibilities than before. There's no protection for us out here, and no social distancing neither. We have to go to teach 40+ kids in person on a day to day basis, where not many people follow social distancing or other pandemic safety protocol. I can only do so much with enforcing it in my classes, but outside this I have been so stressed with how little people seem to care about staying safe amid pandemic.
'Life will always have ups and downs. And if we don't have the bad parts, we'll never appreciate the good ones.'
While I'm lucky to have a job as it is at the moment, the salary is mostly going towards paying off student debts, rent, gas/electric bills. The little that me and my partner are saving up in terms of cash is going towards a place to live together once our work program is over, when our work visa abroad expires. The savings are also going towards documents to finalize our marriage at the registry office, and towards our visa after our work program concludes, since we are both from 2 different countries (US and UK). If we do not save up and proceed with this, we cannot live together as husband and wife in the same country. We are working to get an extension of our visa for one extra year, but as it stands, my partner and I's visa expires in just under 2 months.
I know in previous posts I went a bit too off topic in explaining why its difficult to afford this title so far, so I'll leave it there for now.
その他 (Other):
Here's my Steam ID if you want to take a look at my profile. You're always welcome to message me here, on discord, or on steam.
“If you wanna look down from the top ... it’s the endgame that matters. Ruling the world don’t mean shit if you lose it the next day” - Shimano
Thanks to everyone for being so welcoming and kind since I joined this subreddit!
Take care all, stay safe and gucci!
Chickenarla / Carliewarliee

The reason why I watched clips of Martin Scorsese's 1995 Las Vegas crime drama epic is me scrolling down the Bowdlerise Film page on TV Tropes, which had a section about the hilarious censorship of the movie, and I watched clips of it on YouTube. I only watch this mob movie because it has Joe Pesci, one of my favorite actors growing up when I saw him in Home Alone. As for my honest opinion on this film, while it doesn't break new ground in cinema, it's still fairly serviceable in terms of acting, cinematography, soundtrack, and the Las Vegas setting, which are pretty good. Not as good as, say, Goodfellas, but still fine on its merits.
The movie's best parts are when Ace Rothstein throws out a cowboy who put his feet on the table at the Tangiers Casino, Nicky Santoro putting Tony Doggs' head in a vise, Ginger McGee going berserk, and the meeting in the desert. The one thing I would complain about is the excessive profanity. Look, I know mobsters don't always have the cleanest mouths out there, but jeez, do they have to use nearly every swear word in the book to convey to us that it's a gritty mob drama? Others like it don't always rely on this gimmick 100% of the time, and we still get what they're trying to tell us. I'm not again swearing in movies. In fact, I tolerate most swear words with the exceptions of the F-word, the C-word, the C-sucker word, and the T-word, the former three of which are uttered in Casino sometimes gratuitously. I do find Pesci's usage of the F-word to be funny at times in specific scenes. Overall, I would rate a 6-7 out of 10 or 3 and a half stars.

I've never been a big soundtrack buyer, but I find that just about every Tarantino movie has a soundtrack that introduces me to a bunch of interesting tracks I'd never really given a chance before. It seems like an approach that would've been much imitated by now, but I can't think of anyone else who's successfully done so. Anyone?

Best Picture
1. Toy Story
2. Seven
3. Before Sunrise
4. Apollo 13
5. The Usual Suspects
6. Braveheart
6. Heat
8. Casino
9. Babe
10. 12 Monkeys
Best Director

1. David Fincher for Seven
2. Ron Howard for Apollo 13
3. Mel Gibson for Braveheart
4. Michael Mann for Heat
5. Richard Linklater for Before Sunrise

Best Lead Actor

1. Nicolas Cage as Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas
2. Ethan Hawke as Jesse in Before Sunrise
3. Morgan Freeman as William Somerset in Seven
4. Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell in Apollo 13
5. Sean Penn as Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking

Best Lead Actress
1. Julie Delpy as Céline in Before Sunrise
2. Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna in Casino
3. Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking
4. Nicole Kidman as Suzanne Stone-Maretto in To Die For
4. Elisabeth Shue as Sera in Leaving Las Vegas
6. Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility
Best Supporting Actor

1. Kevin Spacey as Roger "Verbal" Kint/Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects
2. Brad Pitt as Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys
3. Ed Harris as Gene Kranz in Apollo 13
4. James Cromwell as Arthur Hoggett in Babe
5. Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro in Casino

Best Supporting Actress

1. Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility
2. Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy Mills in Seven
3. Mira Sorvino as Linda Ash in Mighty Aphrodite
4. Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Gerlach Lovell in Apollo 13
5. Joan Allen as Pat Nixon in Nixon

Best Original Screenplay

1. Toy Story
2. Seven
3. Before Sunrise
4. The Usual Suspects
5. La Haine

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. 12 Monkeys
2. Casino
3. Apollo 13
4. Babe
4. Sense and Sensibility
6. Leaving Las Vegas
Best Animated Film
1. Toy Story
2. Ghost in the Shell
3. Pocahontas
3. Whisper of the Heart
5. A Goofy Movie
Best Non-English Language Film

1. La Haine
2. Ghost in the Shell
3. Il Postino: The Postman
4. Whisper of the Heart
5. Underground

Best Documentary Film

1. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
2. The Battle Over Citizen Kane
3. Anne Frank Remembered
4. Frank and Ollie
5. Unzipped

Best Original Score

1. Toy Story
2. Braveheart
3. Apollo 13
4. Seven
5. Sense and Sensibility

Best Original Song

1. "You’ve Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story
2. "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas
3. "Gangsta’s Paradise" from Dangerous Minds
4. "GoldenEye" from GoldenEye
5. "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" from Batman Forever

Best Sound

1. Apollo 13
2. Heat
3. Toy Story
4. Braveheart
5. Seven

Best Production Design

1. Braveheart
2. Apollo 13
3. Seven
4. 12 Monkeys
5. Sense and Sensibility

Best Cinematography

1. Seven
2. Braveheart
3. Apollo 13
4. Heat
5. Casino

Best Makeup/Hairstyling
1. Braveheart
2. Batman Forever
2. Seven
4. Clueless
5. 12 Monkeys
Best Costume Design

1. Braveheart
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. Clueless
4. Casino
5. 12 Monkeys

Best Editing

1. Seven
2. Apollo 13
3. Heat
4. Casino
5. Braveheart

Best Visual Effects

1. Apollo 13
2. Toy Story
3. Babe
4. Jumanji
5. Batman Forever

Best Voice Acting Performance

1. Tom Hanks as Woody in Toy Story
2. Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story
3. Christine Cavanaugh as Babe in Babe
4. Bill Farmer as Goofy in A Goofy Movie
5. Irene Bedard and Judy Kuhn as Pocahontas in Pocahontas

Best Directorial Debut

1. John Lasseter for Toy Story
2. Noah Baumbach for Kicking and Screaming
3. F. Gary Gray for Friday
4. Michael Bay for Bad Boys
5. Larry Clark for Kids

Best Ensemble Cast

1. The Usual Suspects
2. Seven
3. Apollo 13
4. Heat
5. Casino

Best Choreography, Stunts or Dance

1. Braveheart
2. Heat
3. GoldenEye
4. Rumble in the Bronx
5. Apollo 13

Best Soundtrack

1. Toy Story
2. Pocahontas
3. Casino
4. Clueless
5. Batman Forever

Best Non-English Language Performance

1. Vincent Cassel as Vinz in La Haine
2. Massimo Troisi as Mario Ruoppolo in Il Postino: The Postman
3. Gong Li as Xiao Jinbao in Shanghai Triad
4. Isabelle Huppert as Jeanne in La Ceremonie
5. Miki Manojlović as Marko Dren in Underground

Preferential ballot for this year
Full charts for all the categories

Best Picture
1. Toy Story
2. Seven
3. Before Sunrise
4. Apollo 13
5. The Usual Suspects
6. Braveheart
6. Heat
8. Casino
9. Babe
10. 12 Monkeys
Best Director

1. David Fincher for Seven
2. Ron Howard for Apollo 13
3. Mel Gibson for Braveheart
4. Michael Mann for Heat
5. Richard Linklater for Before Sunrise

Best Lead Actor

1. Nicolas Cage as Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas
2. Ethan Hawke as Jesse in Before Sunrise
3. Morgan Freeman as William Somerset in Seven
4. Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell in Apollo 13
5. Sean Penn as Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking

Best Lead Actress
1. Julie Delpy as Céline in Before Sunrise
2. Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna in Casino
3. Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking
4. Nicole Kidman as Suzanne Stone-Maretto in To Die For
4. Elisabeth Shue as Sera in Leaving Las Vegas
6. Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility
Best Supporting Actor

1. Kevin Spacey as Roger "Verbal" Kint/Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects
2. Brad Pitt as Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys
3. Ed Harris as Gene Kranz in Apollo 13
4. James Cromwell as Arthur Hoggett in Babe
5. Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro in Casino

Best Supporting Actress

1. Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility
2. Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy Mills in Seven
3. Mira Sorvino as Linda Ash in Mighty Aphrodite
4. Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Gerlach Lovell in Apollo 13
5. Joan Allen as Pat Nixon in Nixon

Best Original Screenplay

1. Toy Story
2. Seven
3. Before Sunrise
4. The Usual Suspects
5. La Haine

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. 12 Monkeys
2. Casino
3. Apollo 13
4. Babe
4. Sense and Sensibility
6. Leaving Las Vegas
Best Animated Film
1. Toy Story
2. Ghost in the Shell
3. Pocahontas
3. Whisper of the Heart
5. A Goofy Movie
Best Non-English Language Film

1. La Haine
2. Ghost in the Shell
3. Il Postino: The Postman
4. Whisper of the Heart
5. Underground

Best Documentary Film

1. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
2. The Battle Over Citizen Kane
3. Anne Frank Remembered
4. Frank and Ollie
5. Unzipped

Best Original Score

1. Toy Story
2. Braveheart
3. Apollo 13
4. Seven
5. Sense and Sensibility

Best Original Song

1. "You’ve Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story
2. "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas
3. "Gangsta’s Paradise" from Dangerous Minds
4. "GoldenEye" from GoldenEye
5. "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" from Batman Forever

Best Sound

1. Apollo 13
2. Heat
3. Toy Story
4. Braveheart
5. Seven

Best Production Design

1. Braveheart
2. Apollo 13
3. Seven
4. 12 Monkeys
5. Sense and Sensibility

Best Cinematography

1. Seven
2. Braveheart
3. Apollo 13
4. Heat
5. Casino

Best Makeup/Hairstyling
1. Braveheart
2. Batman Forever
2. Seven
4. Clueless
5. 12 Monkeys
Best Costume Design

1. Braveheart
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. Clueless
4. Casino
5. 12 Monkeys

Best Editing

1. Seven
2. Apollo 13
3. Heat
4. Casino
5. Braveheart

Best Visual Effects

1. Apollo 13
2. Toy Story
3. Babe
4. Jumanji
5. Batman Forever

Best Voice Acting Performance

1. Tom Hanks as Woody in Toy Story
2. Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story
3. Christine Cavanaugh as Babe in Babe
4. Bill Farmer as Goofy in A Goofy Movie
5. Irene Bedard and Judy Kuhn as Pocahontas in Pocahontas

Best Directorial Debut

1. John Lasseter for Toy Story
2. Noah Baumbach for Kicking and Screaming
3. F. Gary Gray for Friday
4. Michael Bay for Bad Boys
5. Larry Clark for Kids

Best Ensemble Cast

1. The Usual Suspects
2. Seven
3. Apollo 13
4. Heat
5. Casino

Best Choreography, Stunts or Dance

1. Braveheart
2. Heat
3. GoldenEye
4. Rumble in the Bronx
5. Apollo 13

Best Soundtrack

1. Toy Story
2. Pocahontas
3. Casino
4. Clueless
5. Batman Forever

Best Non-English Language Performance

1. Vincent Cassel as Vinz in La Haine
2. Massimo Troisi as Mario Ruoppolo in Il Postino: The Postman
3. Gong Li as Xiao Jinbao in Shanghai Triad
4. Isabelle Huppert as Jeanne in La Ceremonie
5. Miki Manojlović as Marko Dren in Underground

Preferential ballot for this year
Full charts for all the categories

Date started (challenge): 3/29/20 Date started (movie): 11/15/20 Date watched: 11/15/20
Synopsis: A pool shark’s greed gets him into trouble when his loses start to outnumber his wins
Rating: 7/10
This is not your typical Scorsese movie. I knew that going into this. Not that that’s a bad thing, I just think it’s worth mentioning, in case you assume it’s going to be Taxi Driver or Casino.
And no, it’s not on the level of those movies. But it’s pretty good. It’s still feels like a Scorsese movie too. Themes of greed, a killer soundtrack and great direction. The direction was probably the highlight of this movie, particularly during some of the pool scenes.
I liked the story too, as well as the relationship built between Newman’s character and Cruise’s characters.
Speaking of Newman and Cruise, besides that relationship they build with each other, I can’t say it’s a standout performance from either of them. I really like both of them and their performances weren’t bad, it’s just not in the upper echelon.
Other than all of that, I don’t think I have much to say about this movie. It’s just pretty good.
Overall: A good movie with particularly great direction and characters. Other highlights include the story and the soundtrack. It’s not a standout Scorsese movie and unlike nearly all of his other work (he’s one of my favorite directors), I don’t feel the desire to watch it over and over again. That being said, I’d watch it every now and then. Worth checking out.

Best Picture
1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. Pan’s Labyrinth
4. The Prestige
5. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Babel
6. The Live of Others
8. Casino Royale
9. Borat
10. Letters from Iwo Jima
Best Director

1. Alfonso Cuarón for Children of Men
2. Guillermo del Toro for Pan’s Labyrinth
3. Martin Scorsese for The Departed
4. Christopher Nolan for The Prestige
5. Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel

Best Lead Actor

1. Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev in Borat
2. Leonardo DiCaprio as William "Billy" Costigan in The Departed
3. Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland
4. Christian Bale as Alfred Borden in The Prestige
5. Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier in The Prestige

Best Lead Actress

1. Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada
2. Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen
3. Penélope Cruz as Raimunda in Volver
4. Ivana Baquero as Ofelia/Princess Moanna in Pan’s Labyrinth
5. Toni Collette as Sheryl Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine

Best Supporting Actor

1. Jack Nicholson as Francis "Frank" Costello in The Departed
2. Eddie Murphy as James "Thunder" Early in Dreamgirls
3. Djimon Hounsou as Solomon Vandy in Blood Diamond
4. Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan in The Departed
5. Mark Wahlberg as Sgt. Sean Dignam in The Departed
6. Alan Arkin as Edwin Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine

Best Supporting Actress

1. Jennifer Hudson as Effie White in Dreamgirls
2. Abigail Breslin as Olive Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine
3. Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko Wataya in Babel
4. Adriana Barraza as Amelia Hernández in Babel
5. Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe in The Prestige

Best Original Screenplay

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Babel
4. The Lives of Others
5. Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. The Prestige
4. Borat
5. Casino Royale

Best Animated Film

1. Paprika
2. Cars
3. Happy Feet
4. Monster House
5. Over the Hedge

Best Non-English Language Film

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. The Lives of Others
3. The Host
4. Volver
5. Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Documentary Film

1. An Inconvenient Truth
2. Jesus Camp
3. This Film Is Not Yet Rated
4. Iraq in Fragments
5. Deliver Us from Evil

Best Original Score

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Babel
3. The Fountain
4. The Departed
5. The Prestige

Best Original Song

1. "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale
2. "Listen" from Dreamgirls
3. "Our Town" from Cars
4. "Love You I Do" from Dreamgirls
5. "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth

Best Sound

1. Children of Men
2. Casino Royale
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
4. The Prestige
5. Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Production Design

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Children of Men
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
4. Marie Antoinette
5. The Prestige

Best Cinematography

1. Children of Men
2. Pan’s Labyrinth
3. The Prestige
4. Babel
5. The Departed

Best Makeup/Hairstyling

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
3. Marie Antoinette
4. The Prestige
5. Apocalypto

Best Costume Design

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. The Devil Wears Prada
3. Marie Antoinette
4. The Prestige
5. Dreamgirls

Best Editing

1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. The Prestige
4. Pan’s Labyrinth
5. Babel

Best Visual Effects

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
2. Pan’s Labyrinth
3. Casino Royale
4. The Host
5. Superman Returns

Best Voice Acting/Motion Capture Performance

1. Doug Jones as the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Bill Nighy as Davey Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
3. Paul Newman as Doc Hudson in Cars
4. Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen in Cars
5. Nick Nolte as Vincent in Over the Hedge

Best Directorial Debut

1. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine
2. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for The Lives of Others
3. Jason Reitman for Thank You for Smoking
4. J.J. Abrams for Mission: Impossible III
5. James Gunn for Slither

Best Ensemble Cast

1. The Departed
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Babel
4. The Prestige
5. Children of Men

Best Choreography, Stunts or Dance

1. Casino Royale
2. Children of Men
3. Mission: Impossible III
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
5. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Best Soundtrack

1. Dreamgirls
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Cars
4. Children of Men
5. Marie Antoinette

Best Non-English Language Performance

1. Penélope Cruz as Raimunda in Volver
2. Song Kang-ho as Park Gang-du in The Host
3. Ivana Baquero as Ofelia/Princess Moanna in Pan’s Labyrinth
4. Ulrich Mühe as Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in The Lives of Others
5. Sergi López as Captain Vidal in Pan’s Labyrinth

The full charts for all the categories

Best Picture
1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. Pan’s Labyrinth
4. The Prestige
5. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Babel
6. The Live of Others
8. Casino Royale
9. Borat
10. Letters from Iwo Jima
Best Director

1. Alfonso Cuarón for Children of Men
2. Guillermo del Toro for Pan’s Labyrinth
3. Martin Scorsese for The Departed
4. Christopher Nolan for The Prestige
5. Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel

Best Lead Actor

1. Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev in Borat
2. Leonardo DiCaprio as William "Billy" Costigan in The Departed
3. Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland
4. Christian Bale as Alfred Borden in The Prestige
5. Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier in The Prestige

Best Lead Actress

1. Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada
2. Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen
3. Penélope Cruz as Raimunda in Volver
4. Ivana Baquero as Ofelia/Princess Moanna in Pan’s Labyrinth
5. Toni Collette as Sheryl Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine

Best Supporting Actor

1. Jack Nicholson as Francis "Frank" Costello in The Departed
2. Eddie Murphy as James "Thunder" Early in Dreamgirls
3. Djimon Hounsou as Solomon Vandy in Blood Diamond
4. Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan in The Departed
5. Mark Wahlberg as Sgt. Sean Dignam in The Departed
6. Alan Arkin as Edwin Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine

Best Supporting Actress

1. Jennifer Hudson as Effie White in Dreamgirls
2. Abigail Breslin as Olive Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine
3. Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko Wataya in Babel
4. Adriana Barraza as Amelia Hernández in Babel
5. Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe in The Prestige

Best Original Screenplay

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Babel
4. The Lives of Others
5. Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. The Prestige
4. Borat
5. Casino Royale

Best Animated Film

1. Paprika
2. Cars
3. Happy Feet
4. Monster House
5. Over the Hedge

Best Non-English Language Film

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. The Lives of Others
3. The Host
4. Volver
5. Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Documentary Film

1. An Inconvenient Truth
2. Jesus Camp
3. This Film Is Not Yet Rated
4. Iraq in Fragments
5. Deliver Us from Evil

Best Original Score

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Babel
3. The Fountain
4. The Departed
5. The Prestige

Best Original Song

1. "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale
2. "Listen" from Dreamgirls
3. "Our Town" from Cars
4. "Love You I Do" from Dreamgirls
5. "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth

Best Sound

1. Children of Men
2. Casino Royale
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
4. The Prestige
5. Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Production Design

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Children of Men
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
4. Marie Antoinette
5. The Prestige

Best Cinematography

1. Children of Men
2. Pan’s Labyrinth
3. The Prestige
4. Babel
5. The Departed

Best Makeup/Hairstyling

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
3. Marie Antoinette
4. The Prestige
5. Apocalypto

Best Costume Design

1. Pan’s Labyrinth
2. The Devil Wears Prada
3. Marie Antoinette
4. The Prestige
5. Dreamgirls

Best Editing

1. The Departed
2. Children of Men
3. The Prestige
4. Pan’s Labyrinth
5. Babel

Best Visual Effects

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
2. Pan’s Labyrinth
3. Casino Royale
4. The Host
5. Superman Returns

Best Voice Acting/Motion Capture Performance

1. Doug Jones as the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth
2. Bill Nighy as Davey Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
3. Paul Newman as Doc Hudson in Cars
4. Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen in Cars
5. Nick Nolte as Vincent in Over the Hedge

Best Directorial Debut

1. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine
2. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for The Lives of Others
3. Jason Reitman for Thank You for Smoking
4. J.J. Abrams for Mission: Impossible III
5. James Gunn for Slither

Best Ensemble Cast

1. The Departed
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Babel
4. The Prestige
5. Children of Men

Best Choreography, Stunts or Dance

1. Casino Royale
2. Children of Men
3. Mission: Impossible III
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
5. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Best Soundtrack

1. Dreamgirls
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Cars
4. Children of Men
5. Marie Antoinette

Best Non-English Language Performance

1. Penélope Cruz as Raimunda in Volver
2. Song Kang-ho as Park Gang-du in The Host
3. Ivana Baquero as Ofelia/Princess Moanna in Pan’s Labyrinth
4. Ulrich Mühe as Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in The Lives of Others
5. Sergi López as Captain Vidal in Pan’s Labyrinth

The full charts for all the categories

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Most people would say that the greatest gangster movie ever made is The Godfather, but a strong argument could be made instead for Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. It is certainly the more entertaining of the two, with its impeccable soundtrack, fast cuts, sense of humor, voiceover narration, and all-over-the-place narrative structure.
RELATED: Goodfellas: 10 Most Iconic Moments, Ranked
Also, it’s based on a true story. The life of Henry Hill actually happened. The Corleone family is entirely fictional. Goodfellas_’ adaptation of true events adds a whole new layer to both the comedy and tragedy of the story. With that in mind, here are the 10 Most Memorable Quotes From _Goodfellas.

Updated on May 28th, 2020 by Ben Sherlock:_Even with the critical acclaim met by The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas remains one of his most popular films. A number of critics compared The Irishman to Goodfellas, but called it a more mature film. It has a slower pace, a more nihilistic tone, and a heavier focus on the immense guilt rattling around the heads of mobsters. With its rapid pacing, pitch-black humor, and Jules and Jim-inspired all-over-the-place editing, Goodfellas is endlessly rewatchable, so we’ve updated this list with a few more entries._15 I Like Going This Way…

“I like going this way. It’s better than waiting in line.”
The long tracking shot through the Copacabana found in _Goodfellas_ is one of the most iconic shots in the history of cinema. Henry skips the line, takes Karen into the club through the kitchen, and has a table brought out for them right in front of the stage. It’s easy to see why Karen was seduced by Henry’s lavish lifestyle.

14 You Wasted Eight F****** Aprons On This Guy

When a man with a gunshot wound collapses on the doorstep of Tuddy’s restaurant, Henry springs into action and starts plugging up the wound with aprons until the man makes it safely into the back of an ambulance.

For all intents and purposes, this makes him a hero. But Tuddy doesn’t see it that way; he just sees all the missing aprons. He says, _“You’re a real jerk. You wasted eight f*ckin’ aprons on this guy. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you. I gotta toughen this kid up.”_13 To Me, It Meant Being Somebody In A Neighborhood Full Of Nobodies

What makes Goodfellasarguably the best mob movie ever made is that it doesn’t just depict hitmen killing people for mafiosos and gangsters stealing cigarettes out of trucks. It also shows the seductive nature of the mafia lifestyle.
We understand exactly why Henry Hill wanted to be a gangster, and why that lifestyle seemed so appealing. When he was growing up, being a gangster seemed like “_being somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies._”

12 F*** You, Pay Me

In voiceover, Henry explains what it’s like to have Paulie as a business partner: _“Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with a bill, he can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now, the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fck you, pay me.”_11 You’d Be Late For Your Own F***** Funeral

Long before Pulp Fiction_would make him an icon, Samuel L. Jackson played a small role as Stacks Edwards in _Goodfellas. Instead of ditching the truck that they used in the Lufthansa heist like he was supposed to, Stacks got stoned.
So, Tommy goes over to his apartment and tells him to get dressed. But while he’s getting dressed, Tommy says, “_You’d be late for your own f*ckin’ funeral,_” and shoots him in the back of the head.

10 They even shot Tommy in the face…

They even shot Tommy in the face, so his mother couldn’t give him an open coffin at the funeral.

Perhaps the most awful moment in the whole of Goodfellas_is when Tommy heads to what he thinks is the ceremony in which he’ll be made and gets killed. As Henry explains the whole thing, we get a haunting look and how strictly the mafia stick to their rules: _“It was revenge for Billy Batts, _and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. Batts was a made man, and Tommy wasn’t. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians. It was real greaseball s**t. They even shot Tommy in the face, so his mother couldn’t give him an open coffin at the funeral.”_9 I got to admit the truth…

I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.

One of the smartest moves Martin Scorsese made with the writing and directing of _Goodfellas_was following Karen’s storyline as well as Henry’s. Not only does the movie explore the mentality of someone who ends up being a career criminal; it explores the mentality of someone who gets romantically involved with one. And Lorraine Bracco plays the character with so much gravitas and humanity. Our first glimpse into her psyche is a fascinating one: _“I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn’t. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on.”_8 I’m an average nobody…

I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.
At the end of Goodfellas, it might seem as though Henry gets off easy by selling out all his friends to the FBI and going into the Witness Protection Program. But as his final voiceover monologue points out, he’s left completely unfulfilled. He had everything he ever wanted and then lost it. Now, he has to live a mundane life in the suburbs like everybody else. Henry might have avoided jail by ratting out all of his friends – something he was told since his childhood never to do – but he feels just as trapped in his new life as if he had gone to jail.

7 I’m gonna go get the papers…

I’m gonna go get the papers, get the papers.

A commonality among the best crime stories is that they explore how criminals get their nicknames, and it’s usually something pretty trivial. For example, in the very first scene of the very first episode of The Wire, Jimmy McNulty launches into a monologue about how a kid was given a beautiful name by his mother and then one day, just because he forgot to grab a sweater on his way out and he ended up with a runny nose, he ended up with the lifelong nickname Snot. This was pioneered in Goodfellas, in which Henry Hill says, _“There was Jimmy Two Times, who got that nickname because he said everything twice.”_6 Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls…

Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I’d tell you to go home and get your shine box.
Joe Pesci’s character Tommy DeVito has a contentious relationship with pretty much everybody, but none more than Billy Batts. Billy knows that Tommy is a hothead and he likes to push his buttons. Tommy asks him politely, _“Just don’t go bustin’ my balls, Billy, okay?”_RELATED: Goodfellas: Every Major Performance, Ranked
And then Billy says, _“Hey, Tommy, if I was gonna break your balls, I’d tell you to go home and get your shine box. Now, this kid, this kid was great. They used to call him Spitshine Tommy. I swear to God! Now, he’d make your shoes look like f**kin’ mirrors. ‘Scuse my language.”_It’s a tense scene, since we’re just waiting for Tommy to erupt – and he does.

5 If we wanted something, we just took it

Part of what makes _Goodfellas_the quintessential mob movie is its exploration of the mob lifestyle and what leads people into organized crime in the first place. As Henry Hill explains in voiceover: _“For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked sh**ty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day and worried about their bills were dead. I mean, they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice, they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.”_4 Oh, I like this one…

Oh, I like this one. One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way.

One of Martin Scorsese’s directorial trademarks is putting his mother, Catherine Scorsese, in his movies. But she usually has a cameo role. Her biggest role is in Goodfellas, when she plays Tommy Devito’s mother. Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry go to visit her and have a bite to eat. It’s a long scene, at least in relation to this fast-paced movie, and the tension comes from the fact that there’s a guy bleeding out in the trunk of their car. The whole time, he’s in the back of our minds, while Tommy nonchalantly analyzes his mother’s new painting: _“Oh, I like this one. One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way, and this guy’s sayin’, ‘Whadda ya want from me?’”_3 Never rat on your friends…

Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.
Martin Scorsese wasn’t able to secure the funding for _Goodfellas_until Robert De Niro agreed to play the mobster Jimmy Conway in the film. He’s not the star of the movie, but he is an important figure in Henry Hill’s life. As a kid, Henry is arrested and doesn’t tell the cops anything, which makes the other mobsters proud.
RELATED: “As Far Back As I Can Remember…” 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Goodfellas
Jimmy says, _“I’m not mad, I’m proud of you. You took your first pinch like a man and you learn two great things in your life. Look at me. Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.”_On repeat viewings, this scene acts as harrowing foreshadowing for the big finale.

2 What do you mean I’m funny?

Joe Pesci could’ve won his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on the basis of this scene alone. It’s one of the first scenes in the movie and establishes his dangerously unstable jokester character early one. Henry says, “You’re really funny!”_and his smile drops. “_What do you mean I’m funny?… _You mean the way I talk?”_Henry says, _“It’s just, you know, you’re just funny. It’s funny, the way you tell the story and everything.”_Pesci’s character Tommy DeVito says, _“Funny how? I mean, what’s funny about it?”_Eventually, it devolves and he’s shouting: _“I mean, funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to f**kin’ amuse you?”_And then it turns out he was messing with him the whole time.

1 As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster

This line from near the beginning of the movie is not just the best quote in Goodfellas; it might just be the single greatest quote in film history. Not only is it memorable and an exciting way to start the movie; its placement in the story speaks volumes. We’ve just seen these three guys sitting in silence, driving through the countryside, and then they open the trunk of the car to reveal a bloodied man. They stab him, shoot him, and bury him. Then Scorsese closes on Ray Liotta and, in voiceover as Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches” comes on the soundtrack, he says, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” You really wanted this life? It opens the discussion of the mobster lifestyle that the whole film explores.
NEXT: 5 Reasons Martin Scorsese’s Casino Is Underrated (And 5 Why It’s Just A Goodfellas Rip-off)
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Hi everyone
The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done?
My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives.
I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ
I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms.
If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here:
It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much.
In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie.
The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away.
The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out.
Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place.
Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup.
The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then?
Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up?
Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked.
Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore.
This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast.
It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.

Hi everyone
The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done?
My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives.
I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ
I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms.
If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here:
It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much.
In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie.
The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away.
The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out.
Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place.
Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup.
The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then?
Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up?
Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked.
Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore.
This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast.
It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.

Hi everyone
The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done?
My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives.
I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ
I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms.
If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here:
It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much.
In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie.
The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away.
The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out.
Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place.
Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup.
The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then?
Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up?
Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked.
Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore.
This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast.
It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.

Hi everyone
A while back I made a post where I looked at the relationship between the upcoming The Irishman and Martin Scorsese's other gangster films - Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino - and how things will potentially develop. Unfortunately the thread was kind of ruined because I titled my post something like "Is another Scorsese crime flick really necessary?", the idea being I would argue in my post as to why it was. Because of the title, I don't think many people actually read the post and instead instantly replied with things like "Don't watch it if you don't want to" which was unrelated to what I was discussing. So I've decided to give it another go with a more sensible title.
The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done?
My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives.
I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ
I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms.
If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here:
It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much.
In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie.
The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away.
The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out.
Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place.
Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup.
The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then?
Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up?
Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked.
Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore.
This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast.
It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.

To see a video version of this essay, see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ
It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much.
In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie.
The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days.
Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away.
The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out.
Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place.
Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup.
The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then?
Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up?
Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore.
This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast.
It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle.
We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.
My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men.

Out of all the films I used to feel ambivalent about but which I have since positively reappraised due to my wife’s having watched them over and over in front of me, none has risen more dramatically in my estimation than Martin Scorsese’s Casino. I first saw it during its original theatrical run in 1995 when I was 20-years-old. I left the theater feeling disappointed — mainly because it failed to live up to Goodfellas, the prior Scorsese movie that it seemed to most closely resemble. They both, after all, featured Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci as mobsters, there were shocking bursts of violence, epic tracking shots, copious amounts of voice-over narration, healthy doses of black humor, eclectic soundtracks on which the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” prominently featured, and so on. Comparisons were always going to be unavoidable. But what really rankled was the way Casino seemed to me like a gaudier, more Hollywood-ized version of Goodfellas — as if Scorsese and co-writer Nicholas Pileggi had taken some of the elements of their successful earlier film and re-shuffled them with the added commercial elements of a Las Vegas setting, a bigger budget and the star power of Sharon Stone (then one of Hollywood’s hottest commodities). While I did admire Casino for its impressive and undeniable cinematic value (it was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Scorsese and his now-longtime cinematographer Robert Richardson), I largely felt indifferent about it on the whole.
Almost 20 years later, after revisiting the film many times on television and Blu-ray, all of my previous complaints have been swept aside and I now consider it one of Scorsese’s finest works. When I first saw it, one thing I didn’t quite understand was what Scorsese was up to in regards to the Las Vegas setting. I remember feeling back then that the quintessential “New York filmmaker” seemed out of his element “out west” and that, in spite of a few faux-documentary interludes, he didn’t seem to have much of an affinity for the gambling scene. (This is born out by the fact that, to this day, serious gamblers appear to prefer the 1998 poker film Rounders as their Vegas movie of choice.) I realize now that it was wrong of me to have expected the same kind of lovingly detailed views of Las Vegas as those of New York City that can be seen in Scorsese’s other films. For Scorsese, Las Vegas is primarily a metaphor: it’s a “paradise lost” to his gangster characters from “back East.” The notion that Sam “Ace” Rothstein and Nicky Santoro (the characters played by DeNiro and Pesci, respectively) had it all and then blew it is one of the ways in which the film poignantly shows the influence of one of Scorsese’s favorite movies, Raoul Walsh’s Prohibition-set masterpiece The Roaring Twenties. Both Scorsese and Walsh seem to be saying that no matter how violent, immoral and unconscionable the behavior of their characters might be, they were inextricably part of a colorful and exciting era that has since been replaced by something duller and more sanitized. The tone of each movie is therefore elegiac and bittersweet.
As far as the “gaudiness” is concerned, I now believe this is actually Casino‘s strongest stylistic virtue: there is much more voice-over than in Goodfellas, the music is nearly wall-to-wall and the song choices are wackier (e.g., Devo’s cover of “Satisfaction”!), while the clothes, the decor, and the use of color are all deliriously over-the-top. In 1995, what I somehow missed was the way Scorsese and his production team’s deliberately outrageous sense of style was taking its cues directly from the Vegas setting, and I was more apt to criticize the film then for what it wasn’t (i.e., another Goodfellas) rather than what it was (the tragedy of a man who was given the keys to the kingdom of a modern-day Babylon and then willingly let them slip through his fingers). In contrast to the eternal coolness of the 1950s and 1960s New York-milieu of Goodfellas — with its great cars, clothes and music — nearly everything about Casino, in terms of content and form, is rooted in the tackiness of the Las Vegas fashions of the 1970s and early 1980s. And what I didn’t see at the time but what has since become abundantly clear in hindsight is how much this tackiness also provides the film with some of its most inspired and humorous touches. This is nowhere more evident than in the amazing poster recently created by a Boston-based artist that depicts every suit worn by Ace Rothstein in the movie.

The only rule is that it has to be one of the director's favorite films and it has to be a film that would be considered unorthodox for that director to like. With your permission (and name credit), I would also like to add this to a poll I am building. Your synopsis doesn't have to be serious - the idea is for the list to be humorous. .
Here are a couple I have already done.
Zoolander
Director: Terrence Malick
Alternate Title: Man by the Tree
Plot: We open with a 10 minute continuous shot of a man's silhouette leaning against an oak tree, with the sunrise as the backdrop. The gentle wind playfully moves its way through the long, uncut grass. Naturally the unshaven grass represent's Man's limited time on Earth, and the breeze (representing the elements), calm in it's transparent appearance and yet deceitful in its nature, threatens to snip the grass just as nature often chooses to part a man's soul from his body at any given time.
Because of this, we are gifted with a close up of the naive and unsuspecting grass. By this time, half an hour of the movie's run-time has gone by.
Meanwhile, the man by the tree ponders. He thinks. He contemplates on his existence. He dwells on his legacy. What legacy(?), he asks himself. Does a man truly have a legacy? How can a man be sure of his legacy?
That's when it hits him. As the music swells, the sunrise strips the shadow of its power and the man is revealed to be Derek Zoolander. There is only one way to achieve a legacy, he realizes...
...to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia
Psycho II
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Alternate Title: The Hateful Bates
Plot: Imprisoned in a mental institution for 20 years, Norman Bates has spent his time watching B movie exploitation flicks from the 60's and 70's, which fuel his thirst for revenge. He eventually makes his escape by striking fear in the guards hearts through an Ezekiel speech. On the run from the authorities, Bates tasks himself with tracking down those who wronged him in the first movie. Shot in 70mm, expect bloody showdowns, Ennio Morricone soundtracks, and homages galore.
(Tarantino cameos as Bates' mother in a flashback scene)
The Exorcist II
Director: Martin Scorsese
Alternate Title: Exorcisms of New York
Plot: In New York city, a mob boss (played by Joe Pesci) hires a Vietnam-war-veteran-turned-former-gangster-turned-priest (played by Robert De Niro) to investigate the bizarre spasms and fits that his daughter (played by Margot Robbie) constantly suffers from.
Little does Pesci know that De Niro only accepts the offer to get close to him and settle a score, as Pesci was previously responsible for a number of deaths of people that were close to De Niro, including legendary union figure Jimmy Hoofa, crime boss Frank Costello and Robert's own father.
De Niro hires Jordan Belford (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) to swindle Pesci out of his cash before the priest chooses to kill the mob boss. Meanwhile, he ends up falling for Pesci's daughter, whose fits were revealed to be a side effect of a drug called Quaalude which she bought from a Casino in Las Vegas whilst in a relationship with a violent boxer.
After murdering Pesci with a baseball bat in the middle of a desert, De Niro runs off with his daughter. Together, they become aviators and travel the world as a musical duo naming themselves 'New York, New York'.
Unfortunately however, in a twist ending, it is revealed that the entire film is a role play set up by a mental asylum doctor (played by Harvey Keitel) and Margot Robbie is in fact a patient on Shutter Island. She eventually turns to her faith for comfort, and spends the rest of her life in silence.
Men in Black III
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Alternate Title: There will be Men in Black
Plot: Despite being partners for some considerable time, Tommy Lee Jones has become even more grouchy and unkind to Will Smith in his old age, being consumed by greed and hate for aliens and humans alike. Despite his desperate for Jones' affection, Smith's attempts hit a brick wall as Tommy's younger brother (played by Josh Brolin) arrives.
However, has Smith just stumbled on evidence that Brolin may not be who he says he is? All we know is, there will be men in black...
Here is the original list:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls067503216/

Hi everyone
A while back I made a post where I looked at the relationship between the upcoming The Irishman and Martin Scorsese's other gangster films - Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino - and how things will potentially develop. Unfortunately the thread was kind of ruined because I titled my post something like "Is another Scorsese crime flick really necessary?", the idea being I would argue in my post as to why it was. Because of the title, I don't think many people actually read the post and instead instantly replied with things like "Don't watch it if you don't want to" which was unrelated to what I was discussing. So I've decided to give it another go with a more sensible title.
The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done?
My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives.
I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ
I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms.
If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here:
It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much.
In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie.
The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away.
The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out.
Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place.
Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup.
The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then?
Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up?
Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked.
Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore.
This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast.
It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.

It's always nice to have a new mixtape. I've discovered a bunch of great music through soundtracks. Some of my favorite(s) are:
*Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino)
*Snatch and Rocknrolla (Ritchie)
*Layer Cake (Vaughn)  
*Batman Forever (Schumacher)  
*The Departed, Goodfellas, Casino (Scorsese)  
*Annie Hall, Midnight in Paris (Allen)  
*Blue Velvet (Lynch)  
*Fight Club (Fincher)  
*most anything by Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola  
So like I said, I am very open to film soundtrack recommendations! Thanks in advance  
Edit: I want to remember The Todd Haynes OSTs for Velvet Goldmine and I'm Not There

Today is June 1, 2018
Started on May 31, 2018
Absolutely fantastic mobster movie. Really, that's all you need to know about Casino. It was stylish, acting from everyone was top-notch, and the story was engaging from beginning to end. Soundtrack was great, dialogue was great, and even though it was a bit lengthy, you don't really feel the running time. It's one of my favorite mobster movies and my personal favorite Martin Scorsese movie (keep in mind, I haven't seen Goodfellas or Taxi Driver yet. I'll get to them someday).
Speaking of performances, I want to highlight Sharon Stone for acting her ass off. I mean, she absolutely stole the movie for me. She really made you believe that she was this trainwreck ruining De Niro and Pesci's lives throughout the whole movie and the crazier she got, the better her performance was. Sure, Joe Pesci's Nicky is the actual main antagonist and he was phenomenal as well, but I absolutely loathed Stone's Ginger, which is a good sign for your villain.
Now, to balance the praise, I do have one minor nitpick. I love the voice-over narration but there were parts where I felt the narration took me out of the movie. When the voice-overs were used to convey an emotion or to illustrate a character's mindset, they elevate the movie. But sometimes, they just explain what's happening onscreen. You're already showing us what's happening, no need to tell all the time.
So overall...4.5 out of 5 stars. Loses half a star for the "show, don't tell" nitpick but still, it's an outstanding movie. Highly recommend! Imdb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

I want to start off by saying I love Martin Scorsese's work ever since I first saw the opening sequence to Goodfellas when I was 15, I remember lying to the guy who served me saying I was 18 and I couldn't believe he let me buy it. But anyway, I just wanted to see what Reddit thinks about "Casino". I've watched it quite a few times and to me it's one of his best, right up there with the big three of Scorsese's work (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas). I'll always love De Niro and Pesci's on screen Chemistry, I think they are one of the best hollywood pairings of the second half of the last century. And like Goodfellas and so many of Scorsese's other films it has a great soundtrack that fits the time and mood of the film brilliantly. However, I have heard people say its too long and that it kinda rips of Goodfellas and the back and forth between Ace and Ginger can get quite tiresome. But hey, wanna get other peoples opinions! What do you think of it? Thank You