My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 4 - Goodfellas (1990)

Goodfellas (1990; Warner Bros.)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Writer: Nicholas Peleggi

Starring: Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro

Scorsese returns for his final film on my list.  Goodfellas is the astoundingly-told odyssee of a man’s rise through the ranks of a local crime family, and his ultimate fall.  Henry Hill (Liotta) grew up admiring the local gangs.  The mob guys were the ones with the fancy clothes, nice cars and most of all, the respect.  As he grew up, his ties to a local heavy-hitter named Jim Conway (De Niro) and his association with the violent and unpredictable Tommy (Pesci), drove him to climb the ranks in the Family, at his peak becoming a successful and respected leader.  All seems well, but as a shaky marriage crumbles, and addiction consumes his life, Hill’s legacy becomes a faded memory barely filling an otherwise hollow shell.

As I said in my article on Casino, Scorsese knows how to tell an epic character study that spans many years.  Goodfellas’ narrative is told from the perspective of a man who always loved what he had become, until finally we see what he becomes by the end of the story.  It seems like it may have even been glorifying the life of a gangster, until we see what happens to those who are deep inside.  It’s a hard-edge look at the lives of a few powerful guys and how everything can all so easily fall apart.

Liotta gives a career-defining performance here.  I’ve always liked him as an actor, but I have yet seen him recreate the excellence he showed here.  Scorsese can often bring the best out of his performers and Liotta seems like he was just right for this role.  Good looking, smart, fast, a strong commanding voice… everything he needed was there and he didn’t just take it and run, he owned it.  Every scene he is in is highlighted by a subtle acting style that reflects mood and tone so well that you feel sucked in.  Joe Pesci gives his most famous (and Oscar-winning) role here, notably in the classic “Am I funny to you?!” scene.  Lastly, De Niro gives one of his more understated performances here, never going too far into the extreme, rather finding a nice soft balance.  His emotional scenes are so good, and he has just enough presence to not be overshadowed while never feeling like he’s trying to steal the show, as De Niro is occasionally want to do.  

Goodfellas has gone down as one of the greatest films of all time, and like many movies that share this title, it was heavily snubbed by the tone-deaf Academy.  It received a number of nominations, but Liotta was snubbed his nomination shot, and the film lost the Best Picture nod to the absolutely dull Dances With Wolves, a film that only has a legacy of being the movie Avatar rips off.  1991’s awards have somewhat become notorious, and deservingly-so.  Have YOU heard of most of those movies?  Probably not.  Dances with Wolves, sure.  Awakenings was a good movie, yes.  However, Goodfellas’ Oscar-snub is just another mark on an already messy and unreliable record for The Academy Awards, with most of the more winning films going down as forgotten or mediocre pieces, while the movies that got the finger tend to be highly praised… I’m talking to YOU How Green Was My Valley?! (If you don’t know, look it up)

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 5- Reservior Dogs (1992)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Writer: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Chris Penn

Reservior Dogs (1992;  Miramax Pictures)

The heist film is a classic genre with a long proud tradition of quality films.  Going all the way back to the silent era, the crime caper has been seminal in the action/thriller genres.  In 1992, Quentin Tarantino brought us Reservoir Dogs, a heist movie where the heist is only part of the story.  The core of the movie involves the interactions between a group of thieves hired to work a job for a local boss.  In an empty warehouse, the tough crew awaits their chance to meet up with their contractor, and finally split to leave this botch-job behind them, but nothing is that simple.  The entire job is a mess from the start, and while all of the hired men claim to be professionals, these guys do not work well together for the most part.  It all culminates in a series of disasters, betrayals and surprises that just make this a fun sit.  

The quality of this film comes down to a few key points.  First off, you have Tarantino’s trademark fast, witty banter and it is top-notch here.  The often funny dialogue and perfectly distinct personalities of the characters makes this film flow smoothly.  For a flick that takes place almost entirely in a mostly-empty warehouse with only a few interactions at a time, Dogs really never feels slow or flat.  It comes down to the dialogue and execution.  Second is the way violence is used in the movie.  While all of Tarantino's films are violent, unlike Kill Bill, which revels in it's 70's exploitation ways, Reservior Dogs' bloodier scenes are disturbing and really nail home the personalities of the characters involved.

There are a few notably memorable scenes, too, arguably the most famous of which involves Madsen, duct tape, a straight razor and Stealer’s Wheel.  If you know the scene you know this movie.  If you haven’t seen this famous movie moment, do not just go watch the one scene.  Instead, seek out Reservior Dogs in full and watch it through.  It isn’t a long movie, but it is a fun quotable, delightfully-exploitative and gritty picture full of everything Tarantino does best, all presented with a snappy screenplay and a spot-on cast of great actors in their prime.

My 40 Faovirte Films of the 90's - 12 - The Usual Suspects (1995)

The Usual Suspects; 1995,
Polygram Filmed Entertainment

Director: Bryan Singer

Writer: Christopher McQuarrie

Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Spacey

I’m not usually a huge fan of ensemble films.  They are often pretty bad.  To me they always harken back to the likes of North or the Ocean’s Eleven sequels (the first one wasn’t really all that bad).  The movies are selling themselves on their cast alone, with little effort in the actual script or direction.  There are always exceptions to this rule, however as we will see in a few entries.  That brings us to the Usual Suspects.  For audiences today, this is a major cast, but in the mid-90’s… Well, many of these guys were known but were not huge stars.  The biggest gets in this movie by far were Gabriel Byrne and Chazz Palminteri, who were already well-regarded and praised actors at the time and they sort of held the unofficial position of being the main draw for audiences.  This was also only the second feature directed by soon-to-be X-Men director, Bryan Singer.

The Usual Suspects just may be the best heist movie of all time.  If it isn’t THE best, it’s up there.  This movie has a great cast of characters you believe were career criminals.  They knew the drill and it showed.  They were cynical, untrusting and just aggressive as Hell to everyone, especially each other.  They were brought together to pull a major job as commissioned by the enigmatic Kaiser Sousse, a shadowy figure that is often the subject of thieves’ lore.  The entire movie is told in flashback as a mentally challenged man named Verbal (Spacey) conveys the tale of a heist gone really, really bad to the impatient Det. Kujan (Palminteri).  He tells the story of the characters, who they were, how they were brought together by the mysterious Sousse and how the job became a total disaster.  

This is a damn-smart movie.  The film scored an Oscar for McQuarrie’s clever, fast and naturalistic screenplay and he deserved it.  He was a regular collaborator with Bryan Singer in the 90’s but sort of fell off the earth for nearly a decade.  He’s made a comeback in recent years, though.  He wrote/co-wrote a few would-be Hollywood epics like the box-office bomb Valkyrie and another Tom Cruise-headed flop The Edge of Tomorrow.  This is sad because, judging by The Usual Suspects, he is a damn-good writer.  The foul-mouthed, quippy and aggressive screenplay to Suspects really highlights the ideas of the 90’s, which were influenced heavily by Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, and drew from the grim attitude and gritty action of police films of the 70’s and 80’s like The French Connection and Prince of the City.  These influences in the 90’s led to a pretty solid series of b-grade actioners and high-quality independent films like this one.  If you like action, heists and a brilliant script, you will like The Usual Suspects.