All of my work was created as specified and is located at the top right of my widgets, enjoy.

Set in Brooklyn, we follow Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) through his induction, involvement and departure from the Italian Mafia. It all starts out in Henry’s town as a little kid and how he watches the Mafia members from his apartment. He sees all of them having fun and living a carefree life. Immediately Henry knows that he wants to be a part of this. He soon gets a job with them making deliveries and other little errands but is just the foot in the door that he needs. He now commands respect around his town and his whole family gets it too. His parents originally do not known where this new respect is coming from, but they do not seem to mind. The kids of the town carry home the mother’s groceries and the local butcher lets them cut in line. To work his new job with the mafia, Henry must miss some classes from school and they finally catch up with him. After the postman delivers a letter from the school to Henry’s house and the father beats Henry for his insubordination, the postman is contacted by the mafia and shoved in a pizza oven. That was the end of the school problem. Henry’s life is going great. He does not have a care in the world and he loves it. His grades may be declining but his life is so good at this point that he does not care.

The movie now flashes forward to Henry as an adult. He has made it through his adolescent years as a junior gangster and he is now a full fledged Mafioso. He is now partners in crime with the mobster legend, Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) and the insane Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). These three work together on everything with Tommy getting them in trouble along the way. Henry eventually gets caught committing a crime and is sentenced to jail time. Just when you think his luck has finally run out, you are wrong. It turns out that being in jail is just as good as being out. They, being all the locked up members of the mafia, live like kings. They eat gourmet meals, live in a large prison cell all together, and the guards treat them like gold. He still has the life. At this point, Scorsese decides to throw in a little twist to the perfect life.

Henry, while in jail, gets mixed up in drugs. At the time this seems to have enhanced his life even further but as the movie progresses we find that it is indeed his ultimate downfall. He is living the life once again. While in jail he has made many contacts through his drug business and his cliental list expands even more once he gets out. At this point he is rolling in the dough, buying the biggest houses with the most extravagant décor. He even goes as far to buy an apartment for his mistress, who his wife does not know about. All good things have to come to an end, much like Henry’s success. He winds up getting caught with the drugs and, to make a long story short, his whole family has to live under the aid of the governmental protection agency. Henry has now lost everything, his money, fame, respect, dignity, the trust of his wife and on top of that, which is the worst of all for Henry, he is forced to live a normal life. After all the years that he has been living an immortal life he now has to be an average Joe. This is the ultimate punishment for Henry, a mediocre life, with a mediocre family, with a mediocre salary. A life shrouded in mediocrity. Goodfellas is the foundation for all mobster movies that follow it. This movie, released in 1990, was one of Scorsese’s best works. Although this was not his first it certainly did set a precedent for the rest of his movies and the movies of other director.

Scorsese put together an instant classic when making this film. There are many mobster films out there but there is a reason this one stands out as one of the best. Content is one of the main reasons for this. He manages to capture the true life of the Italian mobster. He initially glorifies it like many other directors have, but then, as only Scorsese could do, he begins to dismember it and show the true life that lies beneath and what is always destined to come if following along this path. Every other mobster movie fails to incorporate this premise, that being a mobster is not all it is cut out to be and that there are consequences to living this illustrious life. This would be the main reason why this movie is so successful now and why it will remain an immortal classic. Scorsese also made all of the characters disbelieve that they were doing anything wrong. They were almost in a way disconnected from society, shrouded from normalcy which made what they were doing just run of the mill, average thing to do. Little did they realize that outside of them, the world was completely different. They could never have known this though because in their “click,” outside people were not accepted or let in so they, as I said, had no connections. This aspect to the film really adds something to think about towards the psychology of the mobsters.

The acting in this movie is also some of the best acting out there. The three main actors, Liotta, Pesci, and DeNiro, are genius in this film. They have the parts of the Italian mobster down to a science and they hit every tendency right on the nose making for a very convincing movie. Their chemistry together is phenomenal and the movie would not be the same without that. All three of them get so involved in their parts that it is like their characters life, their identity is their life, and not just a persona that they are playing in order to entertain the public. Granted, without Scorsese’s directing and fantastic ideas putting these characters into the scenes, this trio would not have as great of an effect. The situation that direction is able to put them in gives these three phenoms something very easily worked with and gives them opportunity to really expand on Scorsese’s ideas and show their true colors.

A more minor detail which also makes the movie what it is, is the music. Although this may be overlooked at first, the music is perfectly synced up to the movie to add extra drama and emphasis. The soundtrack is also an amazing soundtrack with some outstanding songs, but the context which they are used in is even more outstanding. In the beginning the movie opens with a song, “From Rags to Riches,” and it does a brilliant job in summing up the movie, even in the earliest of scenes. As Henry goes on saying how “being a gangster was better than being President of the United States,” this song is playing, and they work perfectly together. All throughout the movie the songs are like that and it is really interesting; if you pay close attention to it you can hear every song synchronized with the situation.

Overall Goodfellas is a brilliant movie with brilliant acting and plot. It is a must see for all people whether you want to be a gangster, hate gangsters, or are indifferent towards the whole situation. This movie has become a part of our culture and because of that it cannot be ignored. If you have not seen this movie yet, make it a point to. I guarantee it will be well worth your time.

Works Cited

“Goodfellas Poster.” Google Images. 5/7/08 <http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Goodfellas-Poster-C12886785.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/pd–12886785/sp–A/Goodfellas.htm&h=450&w=311&sz=37&hl=en&start=11&sig2=h_qf5j0FwVNHotJCKzJFuQ&um=1&tbnid=HSQVd2s9es8YoM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=88&ei=EekhSKObHIjihAKr8NGDBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgoodfellas%2Bpictures%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official>

SBGEMINI “Goodfellas Trailer.” Youtube. 5/7/08 <http://youtube.com/watch?v=twVYnfNbQGo>

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Here is my Peer Review Draft.  I hope you enjoy.

Lost is a TV show that is in its fourth season right now.  It is a show about a group of people that have crash landed on an island.  These people are a very eccentric bunch.  They include doctors, hunters, criminals, and many other trades.  They all have to function together and learn to survive.  The first season of lost explores all of the people stranded on the island.  You are informed of these people through flashbacks of their lives before the island.  The whole season continues on like this as romances are sparked, family ties broken, and enemies created.  Clicks start to form and some people step up to the leadership position to take hold of the reins.  All throughout this season you can tell that this island is no normal island.  Weird things keep happening to all of the people and the island just isn’t right.  In this show the island almost acts as its own character but it is not explored until the second season.  The second season focuses more on the island.  You find out some of the ins and outs of the island, but of course you still don’t know close to everything there is to know.  They only provide you with a very basic knowledge of this island, just enough to sort of know whats going on, but not enough to understand it.  They also begin to introduce very vaguely “the others.”  These are the original inhabitants of the island and they seem to be mad that these new people, the stranded bunch, are occupying the island.  The third season deals with this group of the others.  We begin to learn about them and find out about there pasts.  We also learn some more about the island and they fill in some really interesting gaps from the first two seasons.  The fourth season which we are in now, mainly deals with a boat that is about 80 miles off shore from the island.  These people are believed to be there to rescue the survivors, but in fact as we find out, they have much different intentions.  They are here to get the leader of the others.  It seems that they do not care about humanity at all and they are willing to kill anybody that comes in their way of the leader, Benjamin Lynos.  If you don’t watch the show i would advise that you start. All of the episodes can be found on the abc website and its completely free.  If you do watch then holy crap this season is good. enjoy.

Extra Credit Post #3 – Word Count 429

Recently released, 21 is a movie about beating the game of blackjack.  A group of young students guided by their math teacher, learn the ways to beat the game of blackjack by means of card counting.  This movie is made in the eyes of the youngest student, Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess).  He is originally a nieve student looking to get into Harvard Med.  Being interviewed by the dean giving the scholarship to the school he realizes that his life has been plagued with monotony and he needs some excitement to stir it up.  Soon after he is given the opportunity by his mathematics teacher when he is introduced to this secretive club which prospers from card counting.  At first he is turned off by this idea and he is a very clean cut kid and does not want to get involved in these kinds of affairs.  After realizing that this is his only way to afford Harvard if he does not get the scholarship, he decides to accept the invitation.  This invitation leads him to the casino every weekend and he is winning a major amount.  He is making friends with the team members and even finding love with one of them.  But as sure as his success came it left.  He got to arrogant and decided that he did not need his teacher/coach, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), which led to his downfall.  In betraying his teacher he got all of his money stolen and all of his hard work through college wasted in finding a notice on his door saying that he had an incomplete class (mathematics) and he would not be graduating.  At this point it seems all hope is gone.  With his smarts he manages to out think his professor and get back all of his money and dignity with a little help from security at the casino.

This is a fantastic movie with fantastic concepts and plot.  The acting was brilliant and convincing and made for a all around great movie.  I would highly recommend this movie for it is a great one.  Enjoy.

Extra Credit Post #2 – Word count 348

Last night me and my girlfriend Christina, were looking for something to do and decided to go to the movies.  We did not know what we should see and in the end we saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  We both thought that this movie was going to be somewhat of a downer.  The commercials and trailers almost looked too funny so we thought that those were going to be all of the funny scenes in the movie and nothing else.  We were completely wrong.  This movie turned out to be truly amazing.  Absolutely the funniest movie of the year and worth every cent of the $21 to get in.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filled with an extremely funny cast and a great plot.  This movie kept us laughing the whole way through.  There was only one unnecessary part in the beginning when they flash the guys penis 5 times in a row, but once you make it thought that you are all set to be amused.  This movie was made from the same people who brought us 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, so they have a record for solid comedies.

The premise behind the movie is that this ordinary composer guy is dating this hot Hollywood star, Sarah Marshall.  They have been going out for 5 years and then she says she has met another guy.  The main guy is completely heart broken and he is advised by his brother to go on vacation down to Hawaii.  When he goes down he sees none other than Sarah Marshall there.  She is down there with her knew boyfriend, the famous lead singer of a band.  At the same time the lead male character meets this girl behind the front desk and winds up falling for her.  The movie goes through all the trials and tribulations of the gang filled with laughs and good times.  If you are going to see a movie this is the one to see.  I highly recommend it and I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.

Extra Credit Post #1 – Word Count 338

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Sorry i was missing the progress report.  Here it is.

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Here is my discovery draft.

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For my essay i plan on doing a review of Goodfellas, the movie about the Italian mob and the hardships of it. I believe that many people misview this and it will be good to correct these views. i also believe that this is a must see movie even if you dont want to be a mobster but it is just a very interesting topic to see. I hope i will be able to do a thorough job reviewing it and that i can maybe change people’s views of it.

I wrote 4 posts this week with a total word count of 1,476.