Henry Hill Double Feature: Goodfellas & My Blue Heaven (with Pop Culture Five!)

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information. Remember, write on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut. Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Goodfellas, the true story of three decades of life in the Mafia. Rated R. Starts Friday, September 21st.

[00:00:28] The FBI is hiding ex-gangster Vinnie Antonelli in the suburbs. I'm a new man. This is not the old me. This is the new me. And the suburbs will never ever be the same. The FBI is hiding in the suburbs. Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, My Blue Heaven, rated PG-13. Starts Friday, August 17th at a theatre near you.

[00:01:00] We missed. We loaded it. We edited it. Sometimes we get so deep into conversation that we have separate segments worthy of their own place in the sun. Here is a reshuffled mini-episode. And it's like, it's funny how things shift over time. Yes.

[00:01:31] I guess a new, I guess, man, maybe that's the Soprano effect, because the Goodfellas is so, you know, all over the Sopranos. But people loved Goodfellas when I was growing up, and I remember watching it. I was far too young, but I still was watching it with my older brother. But it's just like, people loved it, but that was never like the number one Scorsese movie, where now, in recent times, that's always number one. Goodfellas. Yes. Funny how times change. Yeah, it just shifts.

[00:01:57] I think what I adore about his 90s crime movies is he would often do an intro for them when they premiered on ABC, and the TV edits, I think he also did it with The Departed, he would actually do the edits himself. Oh. So, like, you know, all the violence modification, digitally altering, language redubs, he would supervise. Yeah.

[00:02:22] I don't even know, like watching, to sit down and watch an edited, like, casino or something like that, like, that doesn't even appeal to me. I don't know about casino, because I have seen the clips on Bravo, and it's like, yeah, that's kind of like Boys in the Hood, you might as well just let it go to silent while they're talking.

[00:02:41] But Goodfellas, I felt it. Like, I felt every bullet, even though he cuts away, Joe Pesci's come up and set the very end. He's still, you know, you feel all the, you know, freaky stuff, you know, the true crime element. I mean, just the fact that it's a heist, and everyone involved in that heist is being dispatched, including Stackhouse, played by a young Sam Jackson.

[00:03:32] But, yeah. Heist it. The fact that Henry Hill is just self-aware, and yet using dark comedy to off-play his self-awareness of this unethical lifestyle, I think that's what draws people into it, versus the whole, I mean, and what Sopranos took the most was the whole, they're being nice guys at a dinner, and then the next minute they've just killed someone, you know, and you're just like, what?

[00:04:00] And it's second nature to them. They don't think about it for a minute. The fact that you want to talk being drawn into their world. It's like, even though Henry Hill is not a narc, he definitely feels like, much like a narc, he feels like an outsider. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:44] Obviously, I know, I think, and I don't want to assume, but I'm pretty sure the three of us and the people listening know, like, that lifestyle's not the way to go. So, so that's not good. But you got to admit, when he takes Karen to the Copa, and the way Marty, he goes through the back way, and the whole kitchen staff knows him, and he's just a baller, and they set up the table right in front for him.

[00:05:06] Like, that's such a great, and it's like, I know, like, this is bad, but there's a little part of me that's like, you know, that's bad. I would love to not everything else in the movie. I don't want to be a part of, but to like walk through, like, you know, I'm just imagining like, even as a sports fan, like, I can go like Madison Square Garden, and I, everyone's like, Hey, Mr. Dove, how you doing? How you doing? And it's like, I'm right up front next to Spike Lee watching the Knicks, and it's like, Hey, and I have a date, and she's like, Who are you? And I'm like, Yeah, that's right.

[00:05:36] Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's right. Yeah, it does seem pretty. Yeah, you're right, Jeremy. Jeremy, you kind of alluded to like the beginning narration. I think that's one of my little nitpicks about Goodfellas. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I don't mind that so much. But then like the continued narration is like one of my nitpicks about Goodfellas. I'm more of a show me, don't tell me.

[00:05:59] So I don't need to hear that like, they're all named Mary or the they're all this guy has this tick when he speaks like, okay, I know you don't have to tell me I know this. So the narration aspect, I don't quite love one of the only people I've heard express it for me, like how I think Amy Nicholson, like the great I think she works for the LA Times now.

[00:06:22] She has the unspooled podcast with Paul Scheer, but she Amy Nicholson, that's a great same way. And she's she yeah, she's expressed it so well. But so if I had to like, that's one of the things where I watch Goodfellas. And I'm like, man, I wish there wasn't all this narration, though.

[00:06:36] So like, oh, no, it's not uncommon, like script writing classes, they frown on it. I think this is it. Like, it was one of the most popular ones, but kind of like Alien and Star Wars. It's been so ripped off so many times that all we see is the negative aspect of it, because he somehow got away with it.

[00:06:55] Because I think yeah, because I think Thomas, I'm usually in agreement with you on it, like that narration. But in Goodfellas, I think it just works. Because it's like, like, when he first sees Robert De Niro, Jimmy Conway, it's like, okay, the way he saw Jimmy and the way Jimmy was moving.

[00:07:13] And it was like, it kept like what he saw as a young kid and Jimmy, and why you know, Jimmy's going to be a big part of his life for good and for bad, you know, and just him kind of getting introduced to all these different characters with the two ticks and all. Because I think it is playing on like, he's half Italian. So he kind of knows that, but he's not fully in it. So it's like, I kind of like when he's just like,

[00:07:38] because he wasn't there at some of the crimes, but he's narrating what he knew after the fact. But I'll weigh in on what you're saying is like, there are other times where he might say it and it's like, yeah, no, he doesn't need to. And so I guess I think it's more of a one thing that might date the movie a bit. And I'm not trying to demean it. It's just because now we've seen everybody do a narration.

[00:07:59] And often it's just to cover up their lack of a budget or they've just done it so bad that now what might have been good initially is now viewed as bad because we're a flaw. It's I mean, like the Blade Runner one is bad because it gives away the whole movie. So yeah, yeah, yeah. And it wasn't meant to be that way. But they did it just because they think audiences are dumb versus. Yeah, I don't think there's a lot of movie that I couldn't connect with Blade Runner, but it's all good, dude.

[00:08:28] My co-host John doesn't like it. We did a whole section on it, but we were talking about Philip K. Dick in general, how it inspired Total Recall, all those other even shows like Altered Carbon. But Noir is just interesting how it escapes into all these different kinds of movies and Scorsese was kind of the main one who wanted to tap into that because like he knows how he wants everyone lit.

[00:08:54] He knows how he wants to create a mood. He knows the difference between that and a tone, you know, and it but you mentioned Goodfellas and I have to say my blue heaven is a fun double feature with that. Man, I will. I know my blue heaven people people like to crap on that movie.

[00:09:17] I have a soft spot for it. I watched it a lot as a kid. I have I have a real soft spot for my blue heaven. You're right. It is a great double feature with this. It was like the unofficial Henry Hill inspired movie. It's somehow came out at the same time, but it is just so wild how Steve Martin reunited with his pennies from heaven director Herbert Ross,

[00:09:36] who's done some other sleeper comedies and dramas and he's playing off Rick Moranis, but it and people are like, why is the PG-13 is like, well, because if you're not. Dialed in you Steve Martin lets out in one extended scene to have bomb. Yeah, he told that joke. What's the difference between a light bulb and a pregnant lady? I can unscrew a light bulb that probably got the PG-13. Yeah, that definitely helped.

[00:10:04] We've never we've never talked about my blue heaven probably for I mean, obviously, it just hasn't come up. So you like that one, Jeremy? I do. I do actually do. I'm with you on that. I think it talked about enough, but it's for whatever reason. It's just even though Steve Martin has done so much and you guys have talked about him before. I I just find it interesting how is this like it's it's kind of one of those it was a video store hit. But man, critics attacking it. It was not funny. I'm like, I don't know what you saw.

[00:10:33] I mean, I don't I don't need to be laughing every scene. I just need someone to want to make use of their comedic thing is like. Right. And I just find it. I just think find it funnier in hindsight because now you wouldn't really have that. You know, you'd have either a serious movie with some comedic elements, kind of like what Adam McKay does with stuff like the big short or you'd see a parody a little down the road as one of those spoof movie maestros.

[00:11:00] But rarely would you see one where it's like, let's take the same source material. But guess what? It's a comedy. And the guy is in witness protection and the other guy is being driven insane, just trying to protect his crooked ass. Rick Moranis is having a ball with it because he's like, you're kidding. You're under house arrest. You can't do this. Yeah. But those those who I've come across who like it, man, they really like it.

[00:11:26] And others who hate it, like they're either of those rarities, like they only like certain kinds of Steve Martin movies or. Or it's nostalgia for me. Big time. Nostalgia, baby. Nostalgia, yeah. We'll return after these messages. Hey, it's Brent Pope, the host of Brentfist with Brent Pope. You've seen me on some of your favorite TV shows saying things like, give it up, Jimmy. You got to sink this put to win.

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