GoodFellas (1990)

Steve picked Goodfellas (1990) to kick off the '90s leg of 2 Dads 2 Decades, and the dads immediately acknowledged the absurdity of trying to review a movie that is, by any reasonable measure, perfect. Both discovered Scorsese around the same time — sophomore year of high school, mid-'90s, right in the post-Pulp Fiction window where you suddenly cared about what a good movie was and started hunting down the classics you were too young for the first time around. Steve's wife loves it so much she once built a Spotify playlist by adding every song as it came on, which, given the density of the soundtrack, is basically an entire decade of doo-wop and Motown in one sitting.

The conversation moves through the film chronologically, but the dads keep circling back to the mechanics — the way Henry Hill's narration and Karen's narration create entirely different textures, the efficiency of Scorsese using voiceover to compress what would take ten minutes of screen time into one, and the moral dissonance of hearing Henry explain mob protection as a neighborhood service while he's on screen pouring gasoline over a parking lot full of cars. Nic is fascinated by the bust-out of the Bamboo Lounge and the matter-of-fact cruelty of "fuck you, pay me," a phrase both dads recognize has outlived the movie entirely.

Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito dominates the episode. The "funny how" scene — largely improvised, Nic notes — gets the reverence it deserves, but it's the smaller Tommy moments that really get the dads going: shooting Spider in the foot and then yelling at him not to make a big deal out of it, the christening joke after smashing a champagne bottle over a guy's head, and the gut-punch of his almost-making ceremony, where Pesci's quiet "oh no" in the empty room earns comparisons to the best practical effect in the film. Nic awards the ice pick murder of Maury a perfect 10 from the Lithuanian judge for its no-splash precision.

Both dads marvel at the Copacabana tracking shot, the Billy Batts scene and the midnight visit to Tommy's mom for a shovel and a knife, and the way Scorsese's mother plays the old nonna so perfectly you almost forget there's a body in the trunk. Nic calls out De Niro's ketchup bottle technique — rolling it sideways in his palm — as something he and his friends adopted permanently. The May 11th, 1980 sequence gets flagged as one of the tensest stretches in the film, with Henry juggling guns, drugs, dinner sauce, a helicopter, and a woman who won't fly without her lucky Paddington hat.

Lorraine Bracco's Karen gets the spotlight she deserves, and both dads are baffled she didn't win the Supporting Actress Oscar. The silent choking sob after Henry takes the gun from her, the scene at Janice's buzzer with two kids and a pacifier, and the voiceover about not letting someone else win — Steve calls it heartbreaking, and Nic doesn't argue.

Steve says there's no fat on the bone even at two and a half hours. Nic says nothing about it will ever look off. The only quibble is the final shot of Tommy firing at the camera and the Sid Vicious version of "My Way," which Steve would've swapped for Frank Sinatra or, ideally, just Henny Youngman telling jokes over the credits. A small complaint for a flawless film — and one that, as both dads note, makes everything else in the genre better just for existing.