Transcript

Intro Clip

You're a pisser. Really funny. Really funny. What do you mean I'm funny? It's funny, you know? It's a good story. It's funny. You're a funny guy. What do you mean? You mean the way I talk? What? It's just, you know, you're just funny. It's funny, you know, the way you tell the story and everything. Funny how? I mean, what's funny about it? Tommy, no, you got it all wrong. Oh, Anthony. He's a big boy. He knows what he said. What'd you say? Funny how? What? Just, you know, you're funny. You mean—. Let me understand this, 'cause maybe it's me. I'm a little fucked up, maybe. But I'm funny how? I mean, funny like I'm a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to fucking amuse you? What do you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny? Just—. You know how you tell a story? Well— No, no, I don't know. You said it. How do I know? You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny. Get the fuck out of here, Tommy. You motherfucker! I almost had him! I almost had him! You stuttering prick, you! Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.

Steve

It's Two Dads, One Movie. It's the podcast where two middle-aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Two Dads, One Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are moving from the 1980s into the 1990s in our Two Dads, Two Decades exploration of both decades. And for the year 1990, we have chosen the Martin Scorsese crime classic Goodfellas, starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci, and a bunch of other people. I mean, it's almost like this cast is just loaded. Absolutely ridiculous. So this was my pick for us. And, you know, I'll say I remember how old I was when I first saw this because I think it was sophomore year of high school, so it would've been right around maybe 1996. I got into a kind of a funk, not a funk, but I got into like a phase of like watching a lot of Quentin Tarantino, you know, a lot of Martin Scorsese, a lot of Francis Ford Coppola. Like that's the year that I first saw like Reservoir Dogs and I saw this, I saw The Godfather for the first time. And it was just kind of in that like era for myself of discovering these movies. And Goodfellas was like my favorite kind of mobster crime movie for a long time. It, so much in this movie is just, Absolutely classic. This is one my wife loves. She actually, we were just talking about last night, a couple years ago she decided she wanted to watch, look, listen, watch this movie. And then every time a song came on, she would add it to, she would figure out, you know, find it and add it to a Spotify playlist. So she's got this huge, 'cause there's so much music in this movie.

Nic

Oh, a ton of songs in this.

Steve

A huge playlist of all like '50s and '60s, like Motown and doo-wop and kind of that stuff that, you know, is from this movie in a single playlist, which is fantastic. But yeah, Goodfellas is just, You know, it's gonna be kind of hard, I feel, in a lot of ways to like, quote, review this movie, 'cause it's Goodfellas, for God's sake, you know? So what's your experience with Goodfellas, Nic?

Nic

Yeah, I think I got into it around the same time. And it was during that like, oh, Pulp Fiction's out, you start caring about what's a good movie, what are the classics, you know? What's the stuff that I was a little too young for when it came out? And catching up on that. But this was great. I remember watching this with my brother a bunch and watching it with my parents. I think we got a tape of it at some point. This was like, early, like mid-'90s, '90s. Yeah, probably around '96. So Blockbuster, I was starting to buy some used tapes and all that stuff.

Steve

Perfect.

Nic

Um, so quotable. There's, there's so many things about this that I think about. Like, this is one of those few movies where I think about the characters outside the context of the movie sometimes. Like, so many things just really tend to come alive with this film. And, uh, it's just, it's been a while since I've revisited it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, uh, I'm really glad I did, and I'm psyched to chat about this one today. Absolutely.

Steve

Let's jump into the facts on Goodfellas because there's a lot of good stuff in here. All right. The movie Goodfellas came out on September 19th, 1990, with an R rating, obviously, and a running time of 145 minutes, which might be the longest movie that we've covered on the pod. I'm not positive, but it's up there for sure. Directed by the incomparable Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci. Scores on Rotten Tomatoes, a 93%. Not even sure how anybody didn't give a positive review to this thing, but apparently 7% of reviewers did.

Nic

Yeah, weirdos.

Steve

On IMDb, an 8.7, which is astronomical, is the 17th highest rated movie on IMDb. Of all movies on IMDb, it is number 17, which is pretty wild. And then Siskel and Ebert with two thumbs up, which again, not a surprise. Awards. This movie, I'm not going to go into all of them, but this movie won 44 total awards. 44 awards this movie won. It won— there was at the 1991 Oscars, it won Best Supporting Actor. Joe Pesci won Best Supporting Actor for his role in this movie, but it was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Lorraine Bracco. They did not— none of them won, though. At the—.

Nic

Rough to not win Best Picture.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Looking back, like, you know, me and the boys always hanging out quoting Dances with Wolves to each other.

Steve

That's a great movie, too, though. But anyway, at the '91 BAFTA Awards, however, which we know are sort of the British Oscars, it did win for Best Film. Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Costume Design, and Best Editing. Whew. It was also nominated for a pair of Guild Awards, the DGA Award for Best Director. Scorsese was nominated there and the WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, nominated there as well. No wins. It was also nominated for 5 Golden Globes with no wins. And like a lot of the movies we cover, was added to the National Film Registry in the year 2000, which is one of the earliest, I think.

Nic

Yeah, relative to when it came out for sure.

Steve

On a budget of $25 million. It made $47 million at the box office, which is kind of a disappointment. That's just under 2 times what it cost. That is in our disappointment category. And I think interesting to note, the movie we watched last week, Roadhouse, which, you know, let's, let's face it, is not exactly a work of, of great cinema, was able to pull in a little bit better, you know, kind of like relative numbers at the box office, which kind of surprised me. But yeah, $20 and $25 million to do a movie of this scope for $25 million is impressive as hell.

Nic

And it all went into like technical things that made this look so good, you know? And wow, what a job.

Steve

I will never forget the look of Tommy DeVito's face cutting off near the end. That effect was fantastic. Okay, so this is Goodfellas. Let's jump into it. I'm going to go ahead and get us started. Boy. Okay, so this movie starts, we are driving down the highway in a Pontiac Grand Prix owned by one Mr. Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta. Next to him is Jimmy Conway, played by Robert De Niro. And in the backseat is Tommy DeVito, played by Joe Pesci. So the three of them are driving along and there is a banging racket coming from somewhere in the car. And at first they think, God, did we hit something? Is it a flat? Like, what's going on? So they pull off the side of the highway, off into the woods it almost seems. And, you know, they have to sort of like, you know, there's noise coming from the trunk. And so Tommy's got a knife and, you know, Henry's got the keys and they kind of gingerly open things up and there is a man in the trunk of this car struggling and yelling or trying to, but he's like, oh my God, almost senseless, whatever. And Tommy is like, This motherfucker won't die! And he starts stabbing him over and over again, at which point we get a little bit of like a freeze frame, and Ray Liotta's voice, Henry Hill's, goes, as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. And it might not be literally the first thing said in the movie because they talk a little, you know, in the car, but for like a real opening line of a movie, one of the best ever.

Nic

And then going right into the music, and like, it's beautiful, and it drags you right into it. So now we're in a flashback into like the '50s. This said it was 1970. Yes, right now we're going back to like 50, 55, or something like that.

Steve

And, and the first hour of this hour— of this 2.5-hour-long movie is in flashback. We don't get back to that moment on the highway for a full hour. So for the next hour, we are getting backstory that leads us up to this. It's almost in a way like the longest cold open in the history, but not quite because we do get the title card and stuff.

Nic

But yeah, yeah, uh, so we get a flashback and we get young Henry, uh, great casting by the way. Like a lot of play, uh, places in this film, the young version The young Pesci is perfection. Beautiful.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Yeah. So the young Henry is great. And, uh, you know, kind of talking about where he's growing up and stuff, and, you know, they're in a poor area in New York, and they're Italian family. His dad's Irish, his mom's from Sicily.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And there's like some Italian kind of mob type guys across the street. Uh, Tootie Cicero has like a cab stand or something, and so there's always some activity around That's right.

Steve

And one of the first we see Henry sort of watching out the window, he's learning about these guys. He says he always wanted to be with them. Yeah, they were clearly like, they ran the neighborhood. Nobody messed with them. They could double park in front of a hydrant. Nobody would bother them. They'll get no tickets, whatever. So he always starts from an early age just idolizing this group of men down at the cab stand, one of whom we've seen, as we have seen many people in this movie, in the film or in the series The Sopranos. So I noticed right away the actor Tony Sirico, who played Paulie Walnuts in The Sopranos. I don't know if his name might have been Tony as well in this. I'm not 100% sure. Yeah. But the thing that I noticed that made it clear to me that who that is, is that he points with both the index and pinky finger like Paulie Wolnitz does throughout the series, The Sopranos. And this guy points the same way and it's like, oh my God, that's Tony Sirico. But there are how many— I mean, you look this up too, Nic. How many people were in this movie and at least one episode of The Sopranos?

Nic

27.

Steve

That's insane.

Nic

That's crazy.

Steve

That's wild. This— I mean, this movie is one of those movies with a ton of actors in it because there's a lot of characters and there's characters at different stages.

Nic

And during the credits, I mean, the cast is incredibly large in this movie, but This isn't just like side extras. This is people with speaking parts in this movie for the most part who had like significant roles in The Sopranos.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

So yeah, really cool to see that.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And God, I mean, the scene of the glamorizing this because where Henry lives, you know, he's in a little apartment that's very small for his family.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

His dad seems to have, you know, not that great of a job. He's taking it out on the wife and kids and everything. So he's looking for something better. He's inspired by these guys who seem to have a little class and get a little respect in the neighborhood when everyone else, including his dad, probably is shit on. As he's observing.

Steve

Yeah. Do we know what neighborhood they're in? I don't think we ever quite got— is this like Staten Island, Bronx, Brooklyn? Like, I can't actually tell. Queens? I don't know where they are.

Nic

Yeah, I don't remember off the top of my head.

Steve

I mean, it's not Manhattan. I feel like that's the only thing I feel confident about. They're not living in Manhattan, but you know, it's one of the outer boroughs. Um, but yeah, so this is, uh, so we get introduced, uh, because basically Henry starts working like a day, a job after school initially at the cab stand, making a little money. You know, he's parking guys' cars and like doing whatever. But over time, it seems like even quickly he just stops going to school. And the cab stand is like not just an after-school job. It's an everyday, all-day job because he wants in on this life. And he knows that by being good and doing what he's told, that he can get that. We get him introduced to a couple of very important characters throughout the movie. One, Jimmy Conway, who's Irish. We say, you know, we hear, right, that Henry is half Irish. His mom's Sicilian. His dad's Irish. Jimmy is just Irish. He's an Irish-American, but he's got connects and he's got ins and he's willing to do things. And so he sort of acts as an associate a soldier associated with, uh, this, this crime family here. Um, he's played by Robert De Niro, and even the young version of Jimmy is Robert De Niro. He just like, he kind of— I don't know if they use makeup, whatever, they darkened his hair, whatever, but it's like he's a younger Jimmy.

Nic

Scorsese loves pretending that De Niro is way younger than he really is.

Steve

It's true. Um, but the other person that he gets introduced to, Tommy DeVito, who as an adult will be played by Joe Pesci, but here is this, yeah, young guy. I don't know the actor, but not only do they got a guy that looks a lot like Pesci, and really you could say, yeah, that guy will grow up to look like Pesci, but he sounds like him.

Nic

He He sounds like him so much. And, and I love him. He says Hendry. He says Hendry instead of Henry. I really enjoy that. Um, so, so Henry though, like, like you said, like he was being truant from school and his mom got a letter. His dad beat him up, you know, for him not going to school. And he takes that to the mob guys and their solution is, okay, we're gonna intimidate your mailman and tell him he can't deliver another letter to your house. And, uh, you know, there's a couple lines from Henry here, like his dad's beating him up and during the voiceover he's like, yeah, the way I see it, everybody Everybody takes a beating sometimes, right? Uh, the voiceovers in this film are great to just move the story along, but when it gets to explaining kind of how these guys are making money or how it is that like the mafia is working, it's so instructive and it's so like efficient.

Steve

Yeah, throughout this movie, this is an adapted screenplay. This was based off a book that was written about a real set of events that occurred surrounding, mostly surrounding, um, this, this heist at the end of the movie called the Lufthansa Heist, which is one of the biggest airport heists in American history at the time. And so what What Scorsese obviously and Nicholas Pileggi chose to do is like, rather than trying to show us all the detail that the book contains, let's use narration. And for the most part, it's Henry Hill, Ray Liotta doing the voiceover from Henry Hill's perspective. But for a chunk of the movie, we get his eventual wife, Karen, played by Lorraine Bracco. We get her perspective on stuff and her voiceover is there. And it's so fantastic, the different feel throughout the movie of when Henry is narrating versus when Karen is narrating and the differences there. Is really impressive. And just— and again, another reason frankly why, why Bracco should have absolutely won Best Supporting Actress. Like, uh, because she plays the role and she does the narration and it's just like so good in both. And I'm shocked. I don't— you know what, I should have looked up who won in that year. I can bet— I bet it'd piss me off if I do.

Nic

Um, but yes, so, uh, so this kind of whole operation is run by Paul Cicero. That's right, Cicero. And, uh, that's Paul Sorvino.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And we see him, and some of the things about him is that, you know, Paulie, he would only talk to one person at a time and he wouldn't have a phone in his house or a TV, you know, he, he kept everything, didn't want people to hear what he was saying, you know, didn't even want other people to know who he was talking to.

Steve

Yeah, the whole thing.

Nic

Yeah, good opsec by Paulie, honestly, like knowing what we know about the FBI and the mafia and how they'd spy on it. Um, so, uh, the explanation of it is, you know, what, what Paulie does, what people don't understand about the mob, is Paulie offers protection to the people who can't go to the cops. So this is how they justified it themselves, like, well, hey, yeah, there are the cops, but there's certain people who can't go there, and that's where we step in. We're just, you know, a benevolent force in the neighborhood.

Steve

We're the cops for the people who are breaking the law. Yeah, that's what we are. We're the cops for the lawbreakers.

Nic

We're the cops who arrest the cops.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Um, uh, but he's talking about like all the things that he sees these guys getting and how he was getting these benefits. You know, I was getting to go to the front of the line at the grocery, uh, line, and people were being, you know, respectful. And somebody carried my mother's groceries all the way home.

Steve

You know why?

Nic

Just out of respect. And while he's saying all this stuff, What he's doing on screen is pouring gasoline on a whole, like, parking lot full of cars and lighting them on fire. So he's doing a James Caan thief.

Steve

That's right. And the justification of the acts and the sort of mental dissonance between the thing that's being done and the explanation for why it was necessary is one of the most interesting sort of elements of this movie, because there's so many things that are like, well, that is just— there is no moral ground for that. Yeah. Unless you believe that all is permitted, that nothing is illegal. And so the only justification is sort of revenge versus, you know, like, like, like you do to me, so I'm going to do to you. Like, then you justify it. But really, it's like they're just breaking the law constantly and they're destroying property and they're just being awful. But there's all this like, yeah, well, that's the way it goes. Like, it wouldn't, it wouldn't go that way if you didn't do that.

Nic

Like, and he is— I mean, speaking of this very matter-of-factly, yeah, we're doing a service to the neighborhood. We're just a business like anybody else. And so when he's talking about Jimmy, Robert De Niro, Jimmy's thing is that he like hijacks truckloads of stuff.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

So he'll like hijack merchandise and then go, you know, sell it real cheap.

Steve

Give a bunch of it away even.

Nic

Yeah, give a lot of it away. And they say that, you know, Jimmy, we call him Jimmy the Gent because everyone, like the way he explains the scams, it's like, yeah, we're robbing this truck, but really us and then the truck driver's in on it and then the dispatcher's in on it. And like, all these people are involved. So really, like, we're all part of the scam and insurance covers it or whatever it is, you know, like somebody is paying who we don't care about.

Steve

It's the classic sort of criminal justification for, for stealing things, especially when they belong to a company and not an individual. It's like, well, look, they're insured, they're covered. Like, what? It doesn't matter. And so we're going to pay the delivery driver, we're going to pay the security guard, we're going to pay the district. They're all going to get their beak wet. They're all going to get a piece. They're all going to be better off than they were before. And we get a shit ton. Of either money or loot or whatever. And so that's how they justify that. But well, yeah, so Jimmy steals a bunch of cartons of cigarettes and stuff, and then Henry and Tommy are selling them out the back of a car. Look like to me like a bunch of factory workers or something, you know, selling for cheap Pall Malls, Lucky Strikes, whatever. And some guys walk up, you know, cops or whatever, and they arrest Henry. And I love— he's so innocent still at this point. He's like, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay, guys, it's okay. And they're like, what are you talking about it's okay? You're selling stolen cigarette cartons. Like, it's okay. And, uh, and that's just Tommy busts off and goes tell Paulie, hey, Henry got pinched. Um, and they go to— that we see Henry's, you know, court hearing or whatever it is. Um, and I don't remember what sentencing he got or whatever.

Nic

Nothing. I think they let him off because there was kind of a scene of his lawyer who seemed like a great two mafia lawyer, kind of like grinning and winking at the judge. And then Henry was just walking out.

Steve

Exactly. And he thought he was in trouble. So Jimmy walks up to him, he's like stuffing cash in his pockets, like, you did good. He's like, I thought you'd be mad. Mad? Everybody gets pinched. But you followed the two rules. You never rat out your friends. You never take— you never say shit or something, right?

Nic

Oh, the two best things in life.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut. And it's kind of like a subset of a set, you know? The second one covers the first one. Number 2, never draw squares. And number 2, number 2, never draw rectangles. Like, the fuck out of here. Um, so, uh, so I think we have an idea now of, uh, a heist, like So we're kind of grown up now. Yeah, not like fully to the present at the beginning of the film, but like—.

Steve

But it's now Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And they're stealing trucks coming out of the airport, so they're doing Jimmy's type of work.

Steve

Yeah, exactly.

Nic

And, you know, again, this all works. Like, these guys know, they see us coming and everything, and they steal this guy's truck in front of a diner. Of course, this guy has to come in and he blames it on two Black guys, who he doesn't say it that—.

Steve

No, he doesn't.

Nic

And, uh, but I This is probably realistic. And one of the things that Henry says is that if the truck drivers complain and they try to like bring the cops into it, we also control the union so we can threaten the company with the strike. So they have all these ways to protect their rackets. It's very interesting.

Steve

Also, this reminds me the reason that they hit up the airport constantly. They say, we lived right by the airport. This is our neighborhood, this is our turf. So that means since they're talking about JFK, they live in Queens. That answers that question.

Nic

There we go.

Steve

Neighborhood. But yeah, so, so they're doing all that and we now cut to Well, we've got, you know, still more Ray Liotta sort of like narration, and we're at a restaurant called the Bamboo Lounge, and it seems like it's, you know, this is like Vesuvio in Prada, right?

Nic

I love this place, by the way. It's so cool. I want there to be one in town. I like that lighting.

Steve

It's like a tiki bar, but it looks like they sell Italian food. I mean, this looks like the most wild place, but he's introing all the characters, and this is like all the different names for people, and like, you know, Tommy Two Times, I'm gonna get the papers, get the papers. Like he said everything twice. It's just very funny introing like the whole group. And then in the back of the, uh, of the restaurant, they're bringing in stolen goods or kind of using it as like a staging area maybe, or like whatever. And there's a bunch of fur coats on a rack coming in. And of course, if you get another Sopranos reference, this is Vinnie Pastore. Big Pussy is the guy.

Nic

Very— yeah, like, don't, don't search this wrong in the transcript, but a very young Big Pussy.

Steve

That's very young. That's true.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

He looks like he's maybe 26 or something. I don't know how old he actually was at the time, but he does look young.

Nic

Um, so one of the, um, one of the guys, Frenchy, who we've seen in, uh, Dumb and Dumber— he's right, the gas man, one of the guys who's pursuing them in Dumb and Dumber. And he's telling, uh, Henry and Jimmy about this like plane with cash on it, this Air France plane.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

You know, like, hey, I'm the security guard at the airport, like, this is a piece of cake, $400 grand cash and everything, right? So he's bringing him into some scams here.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Uh, and now we end up with kind of one of our best, uh, one of our best scenes.

Steve

One of the earliest scenes that, that and almost all of this is a good reason why Joe Pesci won the Oscar for this. So many of the, like, most memorable scenes in this movie revolve around his character Tommy. And this is one of them. He's telling a story about, like, you know, I don't remember the exact details of the story, but it was just like this thing where he's like, like, you know, I kept telling the guy, like, you know, leave me alone.

Nic

He's like talking back to the cops.

Steve

Yeah. Beating them up. Boom, bang, whatever.

Nic

His onomatopoeia, man.

Steve

And he keeps— and everybody's laughing. Everybody's belly laughing, just dying laughing. And as he wraps the story up, Henry goes, God, you're funny, Tommy. You're so funny. And Tommy looks pissed at this. He goes, Funny how? What do you mean I'm funny? Funny how? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? You said it. I don't know. You said it. Yeah. What do you mean funny? Funny how? What am I, a clown? I'm here to amuse you. Funny how? And initially Henry's laughing at him, whatever. But like Tommy looks really pissed. And for a moment Henry's like, what are you talking about, Tommy? You tell a funny story. Like, what do you mean? You know, he's like getting real mousy. But then he goes, get the fuck out of here. And Tommy's like, I almost got him. And it's clear that like Tommy's the kind of guy that is dangerous enough and will fuck people up for little enough that when he screws with you, you can't be sure.

Nic

Even if you're like his best friend, right?

Steve

Number one brother in the world is still at danger of Tommy DeVito.

Nic

It is crazy. Ray Liotta's laugh is iconic. I love the way he laughs. Nobody else laughs that way. Uh, so right after this scene, Tommy is approached by the owner of the Bamboo Lounge who's telling Tommy like, hey, oh, you're gonna settle your check, you owe me, uh, 7 grand, right? Yeah, bad move. I mean, if this guy knows him, that is a terrible move. And this guy's a real— look, he's been wronged by Tommy, but he's a very unlikable character. He's very like whiny and shitty and everything. So, uh, Tommy basically breaks a bottle of champagne over that guy's head and shoves him away, and then, you know, threatens this other server, and he says, oh, you talk about funny. So everyone's still laughing at all this stuff, you know. He's like, oh, you want to, you want to know something funny? Last week this guy asked me to christen his kid, and I didn't— when I was younger, when I first saw, I didn't get the joke. I didn't understand the joke. Like, you christen a boat by breaking the champagne bottle. Like, Jesus. In the moment, man, that is a great joke. I read that a lot of his, like, funny how, that was all, uh, it was improv.

Steve

Oh really?

Nic

At least it was like loosely scripted. And stuff.

Steve

Wow.

Nic

So just knowing that so much of that was just let Pesci cook makes me appreciate it more.

Steve

So good. And of course, Henry finishes this scene by going, you know what, Tommy, you're a funny guy. And that's just like, oh, you bastard. Like, it's very— it's such good, like, bro kind of humor, you know, with each other, even though Tommy pulls a gun on him. Yeah, jokingly pulls a gun. That's always fun. Um, but basically, the owner of the Bamboo Lounge is now like— he's at his wit's end. He goes to Paulie through Henry, basically. And Henry's like, look, come talk to Paulie. Maybe he can help you And the guy's like, look, Paulie, I need some help. I need somebody. He's like, what do you want from me? What do you want me to do? It's Tommy. Like, he's wild. I can't control Tommy. It's like, oh, if you told him to stop, he'd stop. Yeah, but like, I'm not going to tell him to— like, basically Paulie's saying, like, I'm not going to babysit even my guys. Like, fuck you. Like, deal with him.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, you're an adult. Deal with him. But that's when he goes, well, what if you came in on the restaurant with me? Come in the place. It's a great place. You're in there all the time. You already know how great it is. Because this way Tommy's not going to act the same when it's Paulie's place. He's going to be a little more respectful. And that's what this guy I don't remember the character's name, but he's looking for it. There you go.

Nic

Too late. I wrote it.

Steve

This is what Sonny's looking for, is just like, get Tommy off my back. So Paulie goes in on him, and now we get the, the narration of Henry explaining like, yeah, now that Paulie's your partner, you got a problem with the cops, go to Paulie. You got a problem with Tommy, you go to Paulie. You got a problem with the distributor, you go to Paulie. He's going to take care of everything, but he's also going to take everything.

Nic

Yeah. And, and his explanation of how kind of the bust out of the business goes, where it's like, well, okay, we're going to order a bunch of booze on your credit line sell it out the back door at a discount because we're never going to pay that credit line. Pure profit, you know? And then once we're out of credit, we can't borrow anything else, like, we burn the place down, we light the place on fire.

Steve

Yeah. And this is also the famous part where it's like, you know, every single week you got to pay— you got to pay Paulie his money. Oh, oh, you had a bad week? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, your kid's in the hospital? Fuck you, pay me. Like, everything is fuck you, pay me.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Ended up living far beyond this movie as like a cultural thing. That's fuck you, pay me. Oh, for sure.

Nic

Especially in rap music and stuff. I mean, that was like big time there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So Tommy and Henry are kind of sitting outside of this restaurant that they've just like lit on fire with a bunch of like little kerosene rags and stuff. It's so detailed. They almost did like individual Christmas lights of kerosene.

Steve

I wonder if you do that because then there's no single ignition point. Like, it doesn't look like there's a single ignition point for the fire. It looks like it all kind of spread quickly or something. Maybe it looks less like arson that way. I'm not sure why they did that much. You know, why not just douse the thing in gasoline and just throw a match, you know? But that's how they did it. It was— and it looks like it really smokes before it burns, you know? Like, so interesting. There must have been a very specific reason why that was the method chosen.

Nic

Yeah. And I mean, gave them a lot to do. And, uh, and then so they have to sit outside and like make sure that it caught properly. And, uh, during their, uh, time out here, Tommy is telling Henry, he's like, hey, I want to date this lady, but she said, you know, she's not going to go with me unless I bring someone for her friend. She wants to bring a friend along. Will you come date this girl?

Steve

Yeah, because she's Jewish, but she's prejudiced against Italians. She Italian guy.

Nic

Can you believe that? A Jew brought President Prejudice against Italians. Great line in that. Um, so yeah, so this is Karen here, and Henry wants nothing to do with it.

Steve

So he's got like a job to do that night, like he's got somewhere to be, he's supposed to meet Paulie or something, and he's just preoccupied.

Nic

He's disinterested.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Um, so he gets dragged on the date, and this is kind of where we get the switchover of the voiceover.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And now we get—.

Nic

Karen is just, again, great. I don't know how many movies have done like the multiple voiceover to this point, but I really, really love this. He does it in Casino as well.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Um, but super effective.

Steve

Absolutely. And Karen, we get her perspective that like Henry was just uninterested and, and kind of, you know, it was so rude and it's like whatever. And but, but basically Tommy and Karen's friend, they convinced the two of them to double date again even after a terrible first date. And so they agree, but then Henry stands around, doesn't show up. So it's, it's just the three of them at dinner and she's super embarrassed and humiliated. So she tells— she gets Tommy that, you got to take me to wherever Henry is. He's at the cab stand because of course he is. And so she gets out and is like yelling at him, and all the guys are laughing at Henry, and he's kind of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, I thought it was next weekend, like what are you talking about? Like, you, you were bored, I thought you'd stand me up. Like he's trying to like play it back at her. And his voiceover comes in, is kind of like, she was yelling at me, she was so angry, but she was so sexy. Like, that's when he starts liking her. And that takes us to their, I guess technically, second date since he stood them up— stood her up on the, on the what should have been the second date. And it's one of the kind again, classic scenes of the movie. Yeah, one of the best single-take tracking shots in movie history. For 3 full minutes, a little over 3 minutes, we are a single shot following Henry and Karen through the back door to the Copacabana.

Nic

Yeah, uh, and, and I wonder how many individual actors there were in that scene because it's like, it's not just going through a facility, there are people everywhere, their interactions happening the entire—.

Steve

Well, there's a huge crowd out front that they're going past, right? And then he's saying hi to everybody, he's throwing $20 bills at everybody.

Nic

And this is, you know, every time you— yeah, I would just go into places and start saying that.

Steve

This is like the mid-1960s probably at this point. And he's throwing $20 a pop at people. That's a lot of money, right? And so, and there's still stuff. And like, you know, he gets in and there's people waiting to like get actually seated once they're inside the place. He and Karen come up and they're lift— they're carrying a table over to a blank spot in front for him to sit down and watch Henny Youngman for all people, which is like—.

Nic

I reference Uh, the, the carrying the table and just producing a new front row seat out of the ether. I referenced that probably monthly. I think about that all the time. It's so good. Uh, it's really good. I mean, that, that shot is so immersive, like walking through the Copa in the back of the kitchen and just how long it takes. It's just— and then it makes the arrival to the actual venue just seem so magical, you know, like, whoa, like This is the place to be. And we like took that route there.

Steve

And I love it. Karen asks him, what do you do? Yeah, what do you do? And he goes, I'm in construction.

Nic

And then she does the hand check, the check.

Steve

Oh yeah, yeah.

Nic

Oh, you have soft hands. I'm a union delegate.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Uh, so they're watching Henny Youngman, and the Henny Youngman audio is happening.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So we get Henny Youngman telling his jokes while it's showing this Air France kind of robbery. That's right. So they're going and stealing the money, $420,000 they got from Air France. Again, mid-'60s. The Henny Youngman jokes going over it. I like that, uh, I like that juxtaposition there.

Steve

Oh man. Okay, so then we get a scene where Karen has apparently brought— it looks to me like Karen has brought, uh, Henry to like her family's, uh, country club or something, tennis club, you know, something like that. Um, I don't know if they also live in Queens, it's a nicer part of Queens, or like what, you know, but they're somewhere in, in New York and, and clearly members of this country club. And there's a guy who says hi to Karen, this guy Bruce or whatever, kind kind of not hits on him, hits on him, but he's clearly like, does not consider Henry at all. Like, it's just kind of like, okay, whatever.

Nic

Hey, Karen, he looks very swimmer-ish.

Steve

Yeah, a little bit. Also a lot like a couple of the guys in the, uh, Delta Chi or whatever from Trading Places, the, the fraternity. He looks like a couple of those guys. Oh yes, together.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Um, but you know, and it's— and I literally wrote in my notes, Bruce, don't hit on Karen, this is gonna go bad for you. Um, yeah.

Nic

And Karen's voiceover here, she says about Henry, like, why she likes him, you He was, he was exciting. He was nice. People wanted to be nice to him and he knew how to handle that.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

So it's kind of interesting. Yeah. She kind of knew he wasn't fully like, she didn't believe that he was a union delegate at that point.

Steve

It's clear that she is suspicious of sort of like where all his money comes from. Why do the seas part for him wherever he goes? But she's also like totally having fun being along for the ride. And so she's not asking too many questions, at least not at this stage. And then we see Maury's Wigs, an ad for Maury's Wigs. And Maury is a new character being introduced to, who's obviously somebody that, you know, again, is sort of like involved with the crew. He's not in the mafia. He's a, he's a, what they call civilian, right? But he's obviously very involved. And he has, you know, like Jimmy owes him money and there's like stuff. I think like he was maybe involved in figuring out the Air France thing or something. Like he's involved in a lot of the heists as like an information guy, it seems like.

Nic

Like, um, and then he also seems to have a gambling problem and gambles through Jimmy.

Steve

That's a good point too. So there's, so there's all kinds of stuff there. And he, but he is like very brazen. Like Maury from the jump is like, you know, fuck Jimmy. And it's like, and Henry's like, don't say fuck Jimmy.

Nic

Fuck him in the ear. Fuck him in the other ear.

Steve

You're gonna— that's bad. Like, go tell him yourself, like, you fucker.

Nic

Like, uh, and then yeah, they end up getting in a little bit of a scuffle and Maury's, uh, wig falls off and it makes everyone start laughing. Thank God for toupees falling off. I wonder how many lives have been saved moved by just like a toupee falls off and someone's, I'm gonna laugh too hard, I can't rip your throat out now.

Steve

She's literally like strangling with a telephone cord at the time.

Nic

Uh, so now we get Henry gets a call, uh, from Karen, and he goes to pick her up, and she's very upset.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And she tells him his story when he picks her up, that Bruce the neighbor, you know, basically sexually assaulted her, tried to, you know, push it really far, and then kicked her out of the car.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and you know, Henry's just like fucking furious, takes her home. Bruce is in front of his car with his other Theta Chi dipshit buddies, like polishing a Corvette or whatever. And Henry, just no words, like, all right, are you okay? Gets out of his car and walks across the street and starts pistol-whipping him in the face. Very satisfying.

Steve

It's not even pistol-whipping. I mean, he's got— he's holding— it's like a.38 Special. It's a little pistol. He's holding it where he's just slamming the side of it into the guy's head over and over. I mean, 10, 11, 12 times. I mean, something like that. And then as the other guys, you know, they're in shock, they're not gonna, whatever. He kind of points the gun at them like, "Fuck off." Goes back over and just hands it to Karen and goes, "Hide this." And her voiceover kicks in. It's like, most women would've run the first time their boyfriend asked them to hide a bloody gun. Like, but instead we cut to the wedding.

Nic

And then it cuts right to the wedding, which at first is like showing them having like a religious, like a Jewish religious ceremony.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Like a mazel tov. Kicks off and very modest, you know, and Henry's family's there and her family's there and stuff. And then it goes to like the mafia wedding, which is just the mafia people, and it's this big ballroom and everyone's in, you know, black tie, beautiful place.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Uh, Karen's voiceover here, we're going around, we're meeting the family, and she's like, I went around and just what a whirlwind it is meeting all the people for the first time. And everyone had a son, everyone was named Petey or Paulie, and they all were married to women named Marie, and their daughters were all named It's, it's legit.

Steve

My family's not even Italian, but we're Catholic, and the number of Marys, Maryanns, Mary Ellens, Marians that are in my family, it's like ridiculous. It's a ridiculous number. But yeah, like everybody is Pete or Petey or Paul or Paulie or whatever, and Marys and all this stuff. And they named all their kids Pete and Paul. Yeah, Marie and whatever.

Nic

And they're getting envelopes full of cash as their wedding gifts. So I love the scene of them just receiving these little window envelopes where you can see Ben Franklin Joplin's face sticking out the front there.

Steve

And again, still, we're still in the '60s, so just trying to think about exactly how much money—.

Nic

Amazing—.

Steve

Is, is there. And she even says, like, what about the bag? They're dancing like their first dance. Yeah, whatever. She's like, what about the bag? The bag with all the money? He goes, nobody's stealing that here. Yeah, this is the safest place in the world for a bag full of money that belongs to you, you know? Like, yeah.

Nic

But they're still living with Karen's parents at this time.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And, uh, we get Karen and her parents sitting there, you know. Her mom's like, you know, where's Henry? You know, he's out late. A married man shouldn't be out this late. What kind of people are these? Uh, Carmella's mom in The Sopranos, who Great actress. I mean, always plays a character that I would never want to spend Thanksgiving with, but very good at it.

Steve

Absolutely. Yeah, love to hate kind of thing.

Nic

Yeah. And, uh, and Henry finally pulls up when it's like starting to get light out, and they both spring up, and immediately he gets to the door and Karen's mom is yelling at him, and he just like turns around and gets back into the car.

Steve

He starts laughing, he's laughing his ass off. Tommy's in the car, and I love because Tommy's like goaded enough to go, yeah, Henry, what kind of people are you? Henry, why are you You up all late, Henry? Come on, Henry!

Nic

Correct response from a grown man. I'm sorry, like, that's— it's unacceptable behavior for you to get screamed at when you walk in the door. Oh, they didn't have kids yet or anything.

Steve

I mean, I think— I do think they're like newlyweds though. It is pretty fucking wild. Yeah, when you're newly married. Um, but yeah, and so then we get Karen, and we're still in kind of her voiceover world. Yeah, you know, zone. And she goes to this sort of hen party with all the mafia wives. Right?

Nic

And so her descriptions here are so good.

Steve

And you got these women that, yeah, like they've got bad makeup, they got like, you know, there's one who's got like a cold sore or something on her lip. I think one or two of them's got like a black eye. Like it's just, these are these.

Nic

And then she says, and they're talking about like hitting their kids and how they're— so it's all like negativity and grossness and stuff.

Steve

Yeah. And she's talking about, she says, you know, they're, uh, they're dressed cheaply, thrown together outfits, they wear too much makeup, they got bad skin, bad hair. Like it's just, it's all kind of a nightmare. So then when it cuts back to to, uh, you know, her at home with Henry, where they got their own place now. They're not living with her parents anymore. You know, she's complaining. She's saying to him like, what, what's going on? Like, like, God forbid you go to jail. Like, this is awful. Like, what happens? He goes, nobody goes to jail unless they want to. Yeah, Mickey went to jail to get away from his wife. Like, this is not— like, don't worry about it. Like, this is not gonna happen kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Or there's never going to be a consequence. That's the best part. No one's ever gonna get caught. And she is explaining how everything we did, we did together. There were never any outsiders. So we only went to each other's houses. Every birthday, every wedding, everything. It was just us. And, you know, they're kind of showing some of the excesses they have now. They have their nice house, the closets, like crazy amount of shit in there. And, and Henry breaks off. He has this big, like, stack of hundreds. He has, he has 2 inches of money.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And he breaks, he breaks a little off for Karen, and she immediately goes down to to give him head, which is nice. I like his like, oh, oh, all right, I'll stick around for a moment.

Steve

Sure, twist my arm. Um, but yeah, then there— we do get a scene where Karen sort of shows us a little bit of the, the sort of less fun side, which is, you know, the cops show up, we got a search warrant, and she's just like, whenever they came, you know, like it would happen every once in a while, really they were looking to get bought off. They were looking for, you know, money. Uh, if they did find anything, no big deal, we've— we kept money for that. That, you know, and she said, I would always— I was always nice to him. I'd offer him coffee, bring— let him in, like, whatever. She's like, Mickey Conway, Jimmy's wife, would spit on the floor and curse at them. She would spit on her own floor. I never understood that. I'm like, this is a woman with her head on straight. Like, like, why are you going to, like, do that to your own home just to be, like, mad at the cops? Like, they're just doing their jobs too. Everybody's getting a piece.

Nic

Yeah. It's so important to the movie that we get, like, Karen's point of view on her culture shock of being a part of this.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Coming from a very different world. It just makes her character just, yeah, so much better. We kind of zoom forward into the future now.

Steve

Yes, we do.

Nic

So we're in 1970 Queens, and we're at— we're not at the Bamboo Lounge, we're just at a different one of the other bars that somebody owns. I don't know if we see this.

Steve

Henry owns this bar. I can't remember the name. It's like the Sweet Spot or something like that. It's something like that, but it's Henry's bar.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

And there's a little party going on for a guy named Billy Batts, played by— I can't remember— Frank Vincent.

Nic

Frank Vincent. Yeah, there you go.

Steve

Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos. And this is another one of the kind of most memorable classic scenes from the movie. He's there celebrating he got out of prison. He was in prison for 6 years. He's out. He's ready to, you know, get back on the street, do what he's gonna do. He's drinking, you know, Henry's saying hi, Jimmy's there, like, whatever. They're all kind of having a good time. And Tommy walks in with a date, and when Billy sees Tommy, he's like, Tommy, get over here, I'm back, whatever. And Tommy, right off the bat, it's like, oh, this fucking guy. Like, it's like he never— it's like Billy always gave him shit when he was younger.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And now he's like not looking forward to seeing him. Him. And he goes, oh, we used to call this guy Spit, you know, Spit Shine Tommy. He'd make your shoes look like mirrors. He was so good with his shine box, whatever. And he goes, hey, I don't know if they told you, Billy, you've been away for a long time. I don't shine shoes anymore. You don't use them anymore. You gotta stop breaking my balls. And he goes, well, if I was gonna break your balls, I'd tell you to go get your fucking shine box. And it's just—.

Nic

He's really pushing buttons hard. And I get that. I mean, obviously Tommy's an overreactor, but is that— sometimes you have that situation where if you have a friend who you were friends with in middle school and they had a sibling that was a few years older, they see you as like, oh, my little brother's friend, even if you're in your 20s.

Steve

Yeah, right.

Nic

Like, fuck yeah, I'm not getting my shine box anymore.

Steve

I'm sorry, you're literally a year and a half older than me, dude.

Nic

Like, yeah, uh, yeah. So Tommy, Tommy leaves. He's like, keep him here, keep him here.

Steve

Takes his date home. Yeah.

Nic

And, and when they're talking about it, uh, he's like, I didn't insult anybody. And, uh, De Niro's saying, you insulted him a little bit.

Steve

A little bit.

Nic

Insulted him a little bit. Drinks on us. So they Hey, treat him drinks on the house. What a bad party for coming home from jail after 6 years. Hey, I'm gonna just hang out at a bar with the same henchmen I got arrested with.

Steve

Yeah, right. Yeah, there's like nobody there. Like, here's the thing, I don't think Billy's part of Paulie's crew because there, there's a scene later where Paulie's talking to Henry and it's sort of like clear that he's not one of his guys. Other guys are, because I think, uh, Paulie and all them, they're part of the Lucchese family. I think, uh, they say Billy's with the Gambinos, so it's like a different one of the Five Families.

Nic

Why would they be at Henry's bar?

Steve

I think it's maybe because it's in the neighborhood. Like, I mean, I guess there's probably at least some crossover where people actually live or grew up or whatever. I don't know for sure, but yeah, apparently that's where Billy is.

Nic

And Billy knew Tommy when Tommy was younger, so there's obviously some crossover, you know, some mix-up.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

But Tommy comes out to be a bad idea.

Steve

Yeah, Tommy comes back, uh, and basically, uh, there's nobody in the bar now except for Henry and Billy and Jimmy. And Tommy just goes in on him and starts beating him with the— with a gun, I think, right? Like kind of the way, uh, Henry came at Bruce.

Nic

Does he start stabbing him?

Steve

Yeah, no, because he gets the knife later.

Nic

Oh, that's right. Yeah, so they're beating him up, they're kicking him while he's on the ground. This scene of Jimmy De Niro's— his face as he's kicking, it doesn't show him doing the kicks, but it just shows his face looking down. I love that so much.

Steve

He— it feels like Jimmy wanted to beat Billy's ass for Tommy more than Tommy wanted to beat his ass. Like, that's the thing.

Nic

Yeah. So, so Billy, you know, obviously this guy is done for, so they're wrapping him up in aprons, and Tommy is like still in psycho mode.

Steve

He's just like—.

Nic

And you know, Henry, I didn't want to get blood on the floor. Yeah.

Steve

He's like so concerned for his buddy's bar, you know. He's like, so sorry, it's your floor, man, there's blood on it, I'm so sorry, you know, kind of thing.

Nic

But yeah, so the plan is to go, we're gonna, we're gonna take the body, we're gonna bury him. I gotta shovel at Tommy's— Tommy has a shovel at his mom's.

Steve

Exactly. So they're gonna go to his mom's house and get the shovel, and they go there, and they're— it's middle of the night, they figure she'll be asleep. He's even saying, oh, let's be quiet, we go in, whatever. But of course she's up because she heard them drive up or whatever, and you know, she hasn't seen Tommy in a while. And of course this is— this actress is Martin Scorsese's mother. And so she does a great job sort of just being the old nonna and like talking to them, whatever. "Gotta feed 'em." "What happened?

Nic

What happened? How you doin'?

Steve

What happened?" "You got blood on you. Where'd this come from? What's going on?" "Oh, Jimmy will tell you." And they go, "Jimmy—" "Oh, don't worry about it. It's okay." And they eventually tell her that, okay, they're eating some food and it's really good. And they tell her, "Oh, we hit a deer. That's where the blood came from. So I'm gonna borrow this knife 'cause I gotta hack it up. The, what do you call it? The paw, whatever, the foot, like gotta think." And they go, "The hoof, the hoof. Yeah, the hoof got stuck in the grill. I gotta hack it off." Oh, sorry, Mom, it's a sin. I can't leave it there.

Nic

Like, you know? Yeah. Jimmy, the way— this always killed me— the way he puts ketchup on his plate where he's like rolling the ketchup bottle sideways in his hand. I've never seen anyone do that. And we would say Goodfellas style to put your ketchup on that way. One of the things that Mom shows him, she's like, oh boy. And it's just, it's such a great scene of visiting a parent that feels like they don't see you enough because they're busting out everything. I got to tell you about everything. Anything. Did I ever show you my painting? And she shows them the painting. Tommy says, I love this one. Uh, it's a guy on a boat with two dogs. One dog goes this way, one dog goes the other way, and this guy's looking at me like, hey, uh, what do you want from me? For me?

Steve

And then Jimmy goes, he kind of looks like somebody we know, doesn't he? Go, oh my God, you're right! You take off the beard, it's a spitting image! It's him!

Nic

Because they're saying he looks like Billy Batts. Yeah. Uh, so, so Henry's explaining as they're kind of taken out Billy Batts is that, you know, he was a made guy and what the concept of that means, right?

Steve

Now it's dangerous for them. The idea about being made is that you're in the books, you're officially a member of the family, and therefore you're—.

Nic

No one can act against you except for somebody who's at your level.

Steve

Exactly. And there you basically have to get cleared. Any made— any, anytime you're killing a guy, you gotta get a boss to clear that, like really high, probably even higher than Paulie, it feels like, right? Really high up person's got to okay the take— the killing of a made guy. And made guys can kill anybody who's not made, and that is all good. Nobody gives a shit. They can do whatever they want. So this is bad. Like Tommy— no, none of that. First of all, We learn a little bit more details later, but I'll say it here. Jimmy can never be made because he's Irish. Henry can never be made because he's half Irish, even though his mom's Sicilian from the same part of Sicily that Paulie and his family came from.

Nic

You got to be—.

Steve

It doesn't matter. Got to be 100% Italian. That's the only way. Now Tommy is 100% Italian, but he's never been made. So the three of them are not in the category of person within this world that Billy is. So the fact that they killed him is a big problem. Yeah. Uh, and, and the problem they need to sort of, you know, keep on the wraps or whatever. Um, but yeah, so he was a maid guy. We get that whole explanation. And the next scene is, uh, you know, uh, Henry says, you know, Saturday night was for the wives, Friday night at the Copa was for the girlfriends. And so it's all of them hanging out, you know, Jimmy— because Tommy's not married, but Jimmy and Henry are. Yeah, these women are not— it's not Karen and it's not Mickey. These are not their wives.

Nic

And I like that they can do that every Friday and it's the same group of girlfriends who know, oh, I know this is like your Friday night girl. Yeah, right. You know, but you also have a wife who I, you know, I'm not supposed to know, but, uh, I think the girlfriends all know about the wives.

Steve

The wives just don't know about the girlfriends, right? But I mean, they don't like know them in real life.

Nic

They know that there is one. Uh, but yeah, I mean, seems like a hell of a time, I gotta say. I mean, uh, morally, uh, not great, but geez, seems like a heck of a time. And Tommy is really upset that his lady, uh, is complimentary towards Sammy Davis Jr. So it does show like these guys are deeply— I mean, it's racist enough to say we have this club that you have to be 100% Italian to be a part of. So it's not really surprising that they're racist against Black people.

Steve

They're into the whole pureblood thing. Yeah, yeah, nasty.

Nic

But yeah, um, so, uh, Paulie, uh, they're at Paulie's house now. So after we're at the Copa for a bit, we have this conversation, and Paulie pulls Henry aside and he's like, hey, you know, I don't know if he asked directly about him, but he's hinting at who it is, asking about Billy Batts. Like, did you know what happened to this guy?

Steve

Like, a friend from the other side of town, you know? Yeah, what happened to him?

Nic

And Henry's like, uh, he came into the bar and then left, and that was it.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, just like, don't have anything. There's over— you hear from— you hear something, you're gonna tell me, right? So, yeah, yeah, Paulie, of course I'll hear something, you know. And so there's that. And so then, uh, Henry and Jimmy are then talking, uh, you know, in a different scene when Jimmy says, we gotta— we gotta— you know that thing we did? We gotta go deal with it. We gotta go move it. We gotta go. What do you mean move it? I mean, it's like they're sold the land that it's sold, and they're gonna build like condominiums. Like, we gotta move it. Uh, dude, it's been 6 months. Oh my God, in, in no kind of preservation to the body, in the ground for 6 months.

Nic

Crazy. Oh, that's foul. Yeah, so they have to go dig him back up. The lighting of this scene is so good. It is just like hell. Yes, you know, it's all red from the headlights from the car, basically. Like, oh, it's, it's really good. And they're throwing up and they, you know, and then it does show like a consequence to the family because Henry now, he's got kids and everything, and Karen and the kids are walking by as he's hosing out the trunk of the car, like covering his mouth, like She's like, oh, what is that? You know, I hit a skunk. I hit a skunk, Karen. Get out of here. Uh, there, there are several scenes in this movie where it shows like some really bad act that he's committing as a member of the, the organized crime, and then it'll show kind of an effect on his family. Yeah. Um, so yeah, the kids have to smell the, the disgusting 6-month-old decayed body. Yeah. Um, so, so he's gotten an apartment for his girlfriend Janice.

Steve

That's right, he's got an apartment, uh, downtown, I think he says, or a little bit further away, not, not near the house, but he's there a lot. And there's like a party going on there, and you've got Janice is showing her girlfriends around, you know. And one of those girlfriends is Debbie Mazar, who's in Entourage and a bunch of other stuff, uh, whose name's Sandy. She comes back later, but basically like they're all kind of looking around. And there's a point where, uh, you know, Henry sort of tackles Janice playfully on the bed, like, oh, whatever. But like as they're leaving the room, he and, he and Sandy have a little moment, and there's clearly like a mutual interest there. So maybe he's gonna have have, you know, the side piece of the girlfriend while he's got a wife. Like, he's got to have multiple girls in play here, but it doesn't quite happen yet.

Nic

But yeah, he's shopping for the replacement girlfriend at the housewarming party for his current girlfriend.

Steve

Or maybe it's shopping for the girlfriend that he'll get when he leaves Karen to marry Janice. Maybe that's his plan. It's like, you know, stacking them up or something.

Nic

Uh, and they were talking about how, you know, now Janice is kind of protected by him, and, uh, her boss complained that wasn't, you know, doing enough at work. And then it cuts to, oh, so we had to straighten up her boss. And then it's the guys just beating the shit out of this guy, like, from now on Janice can do whatever she wants.

Steve

You gotta keep her on staff and pay her, but don't expect her to do anything. Yeah.

Nic

Um, and now we're at another cool little, uh, card game in the basement.

Steve

Yep, exactly. And we've got, uh, you know, all the kind of all the, the crowd. We've got, uh, a couple people that we've seen before. This guy Carboni who's got like the big afro head, and he's going— Tommy's there, Henry's there, Jimmy's there. It looks like maybe it's the back room at Henry's bar, I'm guessing. Maybe, but kind of manning this little back bar or whatever is also another one of our Sopranos folks, Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltisanti, is here as the character Spider, who's sort of like— he feels very much like who Henry was when Henry was like 16.

Nic

It's kind of what it feels like. Yeah, kind of like the—.

Steve

Yeah, he's the gopher, whatever. But Tommy asked for a drink, and I don't think Spider hears him, or he says like, oh, I thought you said I was okay, or whatever. He brings a drink for Jimmy, but Tommy's like, where's my drink. And he really lays into Spider about just like, what the fuck? Are you— you got me on a no pain, no mind list, kid? Like, what are you— like, why didn't you bring me my drink?

Nic

And Spider's like— there's— he's either like a little slow, or he's just so intimidated by Tommy that he's stammering, or both. But he's not like getting— you know, there's a way to just be like right away, I'll get you your drink. But he like kind of gets stuck on this conversation with Tommy.

Steve

I think he's I think he is too much like Tommy. If this were somebody his age saying this to him, he would have already thrown hands. Spider, like, I feel like it's a thing where it's like he knows he's not gonna— he can't attack Tommy. Tommy could fucking kill him, right? Like, whatever. But he's pissed that he's being, you know, sort of questioned in this way. Like, he legit didn't hear him. It's like, like, quit breaking my balls. I legit didn't hear. But he can't say that to a guy, right, of Tommy's stature, right? So it's like he's stuck in this— in between his own sort of like machismo and like the reality of the situation. But basically Tommy decides to make Spider dance. Uh, he talks about—.

Nic

He's talking about some old western. Oh, was that that movie Bogart did where he shot the guy's foot and made him dance and everything?

Steve

Well, he didn't shoot his feet, and then he shoots at his feet and the guy dances, and he never actually shoots him. But like, but they— yeah, but that's what Tommy tries to do, except he actually shoots Spider in the foot. The poor kid knocks him down. Henry runs over to help him. And like, the, the worst part about— they're like, the most kind of brazenly sociopathic part of all this is that Tommy Tommy is then yelling at Spider as they are carrying him out to take him to the doctor up the street who can fix him up without going to a real hospital, yelling at him not to make a big deal. Don't, don't bust my balls over this. This is no big deal. Don't act like this is a big deal. Yeah, this is on you, you fucking mutt, or whatever he says. You know, he calls everybody a mutt.

Nic

That's a big— he was mad that Spider was like, my bones are all shattered, and he's like, shut the fuck up, you're making too big a deal out of it.

Steve

Like, it's just happened.

Nic

Shout out, Tommy. Sociopath. Crazy. Yeah. Um, yeah, and so far, like, Henry's been, been kind of normal, but yeah, I mean normal as far as like violence towards— in his relationship, he's not popping off on people. But him and Karen are now at home fighting. Yes. And I think Karen knows what's going on. She's like, you know, you're going somewhere. Yeah. She doesn't know exactly about Janice, but she knows there's somebody— that something like that is happening. Yeah. And, you know, they're fucking throwing lamps and shit. So it gets the domestic arguments that they have and the fights that him and Karen have are really, really intense and they ramp up fast.

Steve

Yeah. Like you really feel those.

Nic

Yeah. And again, as they're having this big fight and I think she tries to throw his car keys out the window, he's like, I'm still gonna go out. What are you doing?

Steve

Pick up the car keys.

Nic

But it does, the camera then goes down the hall to their little daughter standing in the doorway of her bedroom.

Steve

Fighting. So Karen's shouting, I hate you, I wish you'd fucking die. Yeah, we cut back to the same little backroom, card room, whatever. And now Spider's got his foot all bandaged up, but he's back working and all this stuff. And they're basically like Jimmy and whatever, they're kind of giving Tommy a hard time a little bit. And Spider is feeling a little empowered. And so, you know, Tommy's like, oh, look, see, he's back, he's faking it. Like, it's not even that big a deal, whatever. And Spider, not even under his breath, like full-throated, is like, why don't you go fuck yourself, Tommy? Everybody goes silent. And then Jimmy, I think, makes the situation 1,000 times worse by just laying into Tommy. Oh, you're gonna let him talk to you like that?

Nic

Look at the balls on Spider. Like, totally joking, but you could see Tommy, like, he's like, even if there's a 2% chance that this does hurt my rep by not doing something right now, I gotta do it. And like, what a fucking psycho. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, he basically— he pops up and blasts Spider.

Steve

3 shots to the chest, kid's dead. Yeah, like wild, wild stuff. And Jimmy's pissed. He's like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, I was breaking your balls. Like, are you kidding? Like, why are you doing— killing the kid?

Nic

Like, Jesus Christ. So— and he's not like, poor Spider. He's like, well, you dig the hole. I'm not digging the hole.

Steve

Like, I can dig a hole. First hole I ever dug. It's the first hole I ever dug.

Nic

I can dig a hole. Oh man. Um, so Karen and the kids have now found Janet Janice's apartment. So they're at, uh, the buzzer for Janice's apartment. She's trying to buzz in. These two poor little kids, one with like a pacifier. I mean, just, it's just heartbreaking. And I mean, for Karen too, and she's just smashing the buzzer, just talking to everybody in there. You have a whore living in apartment 21, Janice Rossi. Like, really going, uh, going nuts. Rightfully so, you know. Henry has really been— because Karen, from the very beginning of their relationship, prone to like impulsive behavior. Yeah, say, yeah, like she's not a perfectly calm like, you know, Mormon fucking, uh, prairie wife type character. Like she made, uh, Henry— or she made Tommy drive him to go yell at Henry at the very beginning after their failed date. So like she has this fucking fire in there too.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, and we see that right after that scene as the next thing is we get a gun in our face as the audience as Henry is waking up. Karen is lit— he He's, you know, obviously was just like taking a nap. He's like dressed, but he's like on the bed and she is straddling him and is pointing a.38 right in his face. I mean, the gun is cocked. This is not good trigger discipline. Her finger is on the trigger. It's not on the trigger guard. Like a slight squeeze and brains everywhere. I mean, it really is that thing. And, and, and, and Henry's very calmly like, Karen, put the gun down. I only love you. 'Cause she's like, tell me, you know, tell me like, what do you love her? Like what's going on? I know all about her. I know all about Janice. Like, all that stuff. And he's like, she's just a girl, like, I only love you, put the gun down, let's talk about this. He's trying to be very calm. And he's trying to be a cooler. That's true, he is. Um, but as soon as she sort of lets her guard down slightly, he smacks the hell out of her and is like throwing her to the ground and putting the gun in her face. How do you like it? Like all this stuff. It's really fucking scary. And, and the, the craziest part of the scene, and again, like, I cannot believe Bracco didn't win the Supporting Actress Award, but, but she is doing that silent choking sob where you can't hear anything, but it's like very visceral. And he gets up to leave, and as she leaves— as he leaves, she lets the sob out and is screaming, "I'm sorry." Yeah, so she's apologizing to him, which is just like, oh, amazing.

Nic

In her voiceover too, is really like heartbreaking for her character. She says, um, you know, no matter how bad I felt, no matter what he did to me, um, I was still attracted to him, and I wasn't gonna gonna like end this with him and let somebody else have it. Yeah, like I wasn't gonna let somebody else win. It's just like, fuck, dude.

Steve

Wild.

Nic

Yeah, uh, yeah, really just amazing, amazing Lorraine Bracco there. Um, so now Henry's like out of the house for a little bit, you know, living at Janice's. He's living with Janice, her insanely decorated apartment. Once again, we've had so many films in a row, I think, with like really wild decor, and I think it's part of it is the years we're existing in. But also, even for that time, like, get out of here.

Steve

When you compare like the Beetlejuice, the, the Deetz's house after it was decorated, to like, you know, Ben Gazzara's house in Roadhouse, and then now this, and we're not even to the final one in Wall Street. That's true. Oh my God. And then we're not even to the sec— the most ridiculous house in this movie hasn't even shown up yet. We haven't even gotten to Karen and Henry's next place. So that's wild.

Nic

Really crazy decorations. Like, um, so, so Paulie and Jimmy show up to Janice's place to tell Henry, like, yeah, it doesn't work for you to be separated from your wife. You gotta go home. Part of the mafia thing is, is that's your family and that's just how it is. And it's keeping up appearances. Yeah. Also, like, this is a disruption waiting to happen. Like, this is gonna fuck with our business. Like, yeah, figure it out. Go home. First, why don't you go to Tampa, uh, with Tommy and, uh, Jimmy and, and, yeah, and then, uh, and then come on back up, you know. So it, it immediately cuts to him in Tampa. Yeah. And they're like smashing this guy's face against the dashboard of a car.

Steve

Really crazy. And they're about to feed him to the alligators. They're at like the Tampa Zoo, or the Lions. That's right, the Lions. Yeah, the Tampa Zoo. They're gonna feed them to the Lions. And the guy cracks and then calls in like, whatever, yeah, they're serious, they do need the money, whatever. Problem is, it's like that guy's sister or something, right? Works for like—.

Nic

She's like a typist for the FBI, they said.

Steve

Fucking desk jockey, kind of, you know, not an enforcement officer but works for the FBI. So she spills everything she knows about, you know, about his stuff and about what happened and about who Jimmy and Henry are. And they get pinched and they each get 10 years for, um, it's all sorts of— I'm assuming aggravated assault and like all the kind of different stuff, battery, whatever. But yeah, they get 10 years each. Um, and so then we cut to another kind of the main kind of famous moments in this movie, which is Paulie's garlic. We learn that Henry is in jail and Paulie is in jail too. And it's like Paulie had a special way of doing the garlic and he would use a razor blade and cut it cut it so thin you could see through it. It would melt into the sauce. So good. I've never had the patience to do it that way. I know, I can't.

Nic

I slice it thin sometimes and I'm like, oh, I'm kind of like Paulie slicing this garlic. But yeah, I gotta try the real razor blades.

Steve

I'm too— I'm way too metagon for that. Like, I absolutely put it into the crusher and just like squeeze it through the little holes.

Nic

Like, you know. So, so Henry is a little far gone at this point too, right before he goes to jail. I mean, off of this fight with his wife that had. So he's going directly. He hasn't been home. There's been no reconciliation. And now she has to support him and his kids while he's in jail not earning any money. Uh, and it shows how rough things are going for him because he takes a bunch of pills without water. That's right. That's how you know.

Steve

That's always how you know.

Nic

But yeah, okay, the scene of the prison is just beautiful. And, you know, from reading about it, it's like, yeah, this is possible. Like, if you think about, well, Well, in Mexico, would you imagine that the cartel bosses have a favorable thing? It's like, yeah, they probably do. So why the fuck wouldn't we here? Yes, there are ways to bribe your way into better situations.

Steve

If you've got enough money and the people that are in control of things are willing to take bribes, then that's what happens, right? I mean, that's just how it works.

Nic

And they're eating like absolute kings, right? Lobster. They get lobsters delivered. They got all these different kinds of meats and salamis and fresh bread and booze. And wine and all this shit. Oh, they're talking about the sauce.

Steve

It's got veal and beef and pork. Oh, you got the pork for the flavor. Like, it's like, it's as if they— nothing changed. They just gotta— they're just sleeping on twin, you know, twin-sized cots instead of their big king beds, you know.

Nic

Like, and this is what, what Henry says about jail. He says, uh, it wasn't that bad except that I missed Jimmy.

Steve

Because he was— that's right, Jimmy was in some other—.

Nic

His kids—.

Steve

Doesn't miss his wife, doesn't miss his girlfriend.

Nic

Yeah, just missed Jimmy. Um, so then Karen comes in with the kids to visit, right? And, uh, she looks at the, the sign-in list for the visitors and notices, oh, somebody else visited Henry. Who was it? And sees Janice Rossi's name on there.

Steve

She freaks out. She blows up his spot. She's obviously been smuggling stuff in for him because she's got like baguettes and like, you know, all this kind of food and booze and stuff. And she's like, and I don't know why it doesn't get taken from him. I mean, even with a couple of the guards on the take, it can't be all just to make it look good.

Nic

Yeah, they should take something.

Steve

Yeah, but they— but she kind of tries to blow his spot up and basically is just like, don't ever let her visit again. He's like, I'm in here. Like, what? How am I supposed to control who comes visit me or not? Like What are you talking about?

Nic

But she's like, let her sneak this in. Like, like, I'm doing this, like, nobody's helping me, everyone's ignoring me and stuff. Yeah, I told you that was how it was going to be. But I'm trying to get us set up. So she's, uh, one of the things she's bringing is some pills for him to sell, and he's got some drug dealing happening. And he's talking about, well, I have this connection in Pittsburgh who's going to help me when we get out.

Steve

Exactly. And then we cut to 4 years later. Uh, we're now— I don't know exactly what year we're in now, but it's getting to the mid-'70s, late '70s. I think it's point. Um, Henry gets out, so he got out maybe after about 5 years, it looks like, altogether. And, uh, he gets out and they go to Paulie's for dinner, and it's like a whole big thing, and they're, you know, everybody's super happy, and it's like Henry's back and they're chitchatting, whatever. But Paulie has to go take Henry aside and have a chat with him, like, in the backyard. And he's basically saying— he doesn't use the word drugs or whatever, but he calls it garbage, and he's like, you stay off of that stuff. I don't want any of that stuff near me. And he names this other sort of boss. He's like, he's, he's going to die in prison. He's 7 years old, he's going to die in prison because he got 20 years just because he talked to somebody that sold drugs. I can't have that. Like, you can't be like that. You gotta, you gotta stay out of it or else I'm in it. Yeah. It's basically saying like, there is no way for you to do this and it doesn't blow back on me, so you can't do this shit. I don't want anything. And this is so funny because, you know, The Godfather had a very similar kind of plotline, right? Where Don Corleone didn't want to get involved in the drug dealing and stuff.

Nic

Funny fucking mythology that is completely fake. Yeah. That the mafia draws the line at drugs.

Steve

Get the fuck out of here. They did it though. The idea behind it is that there were elements who were high enough up that they didn't need to make more money. Exactly. They're the ones saying, what we've got is going so good for us that if you guys bring drugs into the picture, it just raises the risk on us. Yeah, you know, and then— because I think in The Godfather— maybe it was in The Godfather and Casino, one of the movies— they mentioned how, uh, when drugs came in, everybody started getting worse sentences. So it wasn't like you were racketeering, you were running numbers, you were maybe beating guys up, you get 3 years, you get 5 years. That's— you can do that time. Yeah, but you go 20, 30 years. Yeah, what the fuck are you gonna do in jail for 20, 30 years? You're out of the game, like, completely. Your life's ways. And that's the thing. But all the like street-level guys are like, fuck that, we're trying to make more money. So they were no problem bringing drugs into the picture. But I do think the bosses, maybe even like the kind of captain-level guys, you know, they did not want to bring drugs in just because it raised— it changed the risk profile. Yeah. And for them, they were getting enough money off all the shit going. They got their fingers in everything. They got everything going on. So they don't want the extra risk. But everybody below them is like, yeah, but I fucking want more. Yeah.

Nic

And this is the fastest, easiest way, guys.

Steve

This is the fastest, easiest way to do it. And if you don't want to know about about it, that means I'm not paying a tribute on it. So the guys doing the drug running lower in the system are not kicking money up because they can't let the bosses know they're doing it at all. Right.

Nic

So, so that's a violation on its own.

Steve

It is a violation on its own.

Nic

Kicking up on earnings.

Steve

But it also means that they're keeping more. Yeah. You know, so it's just, it's all, it's all kind of, it really fucks up the whole, you know, what do they call it? There's, I can't remember, there's a term. It's like La Cosa Nostra, but it's like, you know, it fucks up the deal. You know, the pact gets all fucked up by drugs being involved. Is it omerta? That's the word.

Nic

There we go. Good job. Um, yeah, and the other thing Paulie says to Henry is like, watch out for Jimmy and Tommy. Like, Jimmy takes too many risks and Tommy's temperature, it can't be controlled. It's like, oh, thank you, Paulie, for introducing me to these two concepts. Uh, but you know, Henry's fine. He's set up. He has his drug plan. He's got his new girlfriend Sandy, who we saw earlier, and, uh, she's helping him cook up coke and, uh, it's kind of like Yeah, what a fun time going to Sandy's apartment. That looks like a hell of a visit there. Oh God. Oh Jesus. Um, but now that he has money coming in, they're not— because when he first got out and he looked around the place, the place that Karen and the kids were in looked like maybe it was a studio or one, but because there were just bunk beds loose, like the bed and everything there. So, and he takes one look around, he's like, pack this shit up, we're moving out of here.

Steve

Because they had to sell that. She had to sell the house they were in when he went away because they weren't getting help from Paulie anymore. Anymore. So she moves them into an apartment, her and the girls, just that's what they could afford or whatever, right? And he's just like, no, none of this, this is not going to work. But now he's selling drugs through this Pittsburgh connect that he's got, and so he's bringing in money, you know, left, right, center, whatever. And this is when we get yet another kind of, yeah, wildly decorated home, you know. And it's Karen taking Mickey Conway around showing her like all the different stuff, like, oh, this table came from Italy in two pieces that had to be put together here, like whatever. Like it's just all this crazy stuff. They've got like a moving bookcase, she's got the most ridiculous remote control that opens up. It's the most ridiculous remote control she's holding. It's a huge thing. It looks like something Data would have had in The Goonies. And it's like she flips a switch, a big old, you know, it's like arm the bombs. Like it's that level of a switch, right?

Nic

Detonator looking thing.

Steve

And then she opens it and it's like the hi-fi with the record player with the TV that's like maybe 19 inches, right? Which at the time, yeah, it was fantastic. Like 1975, this is incredible, you know. But yeah, so it's a lot of Japanese stuff like that.

Nic

The way that you would kind of picture Steven Seagal's house would look, there's lots of that stuff. Um, really good, really good. Uh, so Maury, uh, the wig shop guy, yeah, he's got some info now. So he's got some tips and he's talking to Jimmy and, uh, he's talking about the job that ends up being the Lufthansa heist, which is another airplane cash theft. But this is way bigger in scope. This is more than 10 times bigger than the previous one. Exactly. Um, so this is the crew for the Lufthansa heist. We got Jimmy, we got Maury, we got Tommy, we got Carbone, the kind of afro-looking guy, we got Frenchie, the guy from Dumb and Dumber, we got Joe Buddha, who it doesn't really show much of. We've got Johnny Roastbeef, who I love, and then Stax Edwards, who is Samuel L. Jackson.

Steve

I completely forgot he was in this movie. Yeah, completely forgot he played Stax. Like, because he's like young for some reason. And I know this isn't like the early— we saw him in Trading Places. I just think Trading Places was like 8 years before this movie, and he looked more like Samuel Jackson to me than in this movie. He's something about him looks different. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, so he's in it, and Stax is, you know, involved as well. And so yeah, there's the whole Lufthansa heist that goes down. And it's like the kind of thing where Henry's really only involved, I think, to like help get the crew together. He's not part of the heist, right? He's not—.

Nic

He doesn't get like a proper cut.

Steve

Yeah, he's not getting a full cut because he's not actually involved. But he hears on the radio— he's like taking a shower and he hears on the radio about how there's this like, you know, the largest like heist from an airport in American history has taken place. And like, you know, like NYPD says $2 million is missing, the Port Authority says it's $4 million, and he's just like, I love him slapping the wall of the shower to celebrate.

Nic

I— it's such a great— soapy, like, oh, and he's so exciting. And, and yeah, so he's very excited for them. And the thing that he's doing is his coke smuggling to Pittsburgh thing involves their old babysitter, who's kind of like bringing a baby back and forth on plane flights and like putting the coke in the diaper bag and all that kind of shit.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, Lois.

Nic

So we have a Christmas party. Is Goodfellas a Christmas movie? I don't know. We got a little bit of Christmas here, uh, more than Rocky IV.

Steve

Great soundtrack selections here.

Nic

I think we have the Bells of St. Mary's from the Phil Spector A Christmas Gift to You album, which is just fantastic. And so the Christmas party's happening at the bar, and Johnny Roastbeef, who is one of the Lufthansa crew, shows up and he's showing Jimmy this new car that he just bought.

Steve

He's like, Cadillac, what the fuck?

Nic

I told you not to buy it. And his new wife, which looks like he just bought, you know, because they were like, who the hell is this? He's like, oh, we just got married and I bought her the car.

Steve

Like, this thing is a gift, right? It's a wedding gift. And he keeps saying, it's in my mother's name. It's not mine. It's in my mother's name. And Jimmy's like, I don't give a fuck whose name is it. Yeah, you're driving around a brand new car. Like, what? How do you think this looks? Like, what are you doing? What'd I tell you? What did I tell you?

Nic

Yeah, so don't buy anything. So Jimmy's, you know, and then Carbone walks in with his wife and she has this big mink coat on and they refer to it as a $20,000 mink.

Steve

Now, I don't know if that's an exaggeration or accurate, but that is fucking wild. That's true.

Nic

And so he takes that. My one thing about that though is that earlier they're just lifting trucks of fur coats. So wouldn't you think that's a good gift to like kick one down to your wife, it wouldn't raise as many, uh, red flags.

Steve

It's a white mink. None of the ones on the thing were white before. Maybe that's more rare, more expensive, and it's going to draw more attention. Um, but yeah, so then we get, uh, we get this whole scene and Mori is pissing off Jimmy. Mori keeps asking, where's my cut? Where's my cut? Because Mori, again, not a full share probably because he wasn't like in the job, but he did bring the idea to them. Yeah, he gets like a finder's fee. It'd be more like a, you know, a smaller percentage cut, but like, you know, thing.

Nic

A couple hundred thousand dollars, right? Yeah, they end up selling big time money.

Steve

They do end up saying it was $6 million in cash was stolen. So crazy, the number of people involved. If it was an even split, there— if all the people involved are probably getting $700,000, $800,000, $900,000, something in that ballpark. And then what's left over for guys like Henry and Maury, who were like sort of involved, hundred grand, right? It's definitely a lot of money. And we know Maury's got gambling debts, like probably some of them to Jimmy, but probably to other people as well. So he really needs money. He's like pressing. He's like, I need the money, the money. And Jimmy is fucking close to the edge with Maury. Like, he is not cool. He doesn't do anything yet, but he is really fucking close to the edge.

Nic

But Maury again does not act like a guy who's ever been around these guys in his life. The way that he's act— it's like, I know you want your money, but you have to know your approach is terrible here, Maury.

Steve

I can't imagine being a civilian associated with these people. Not even really a soldier, but like somebody that's on the outside and just associated with with them and acting like that towards people like this. Like, it does not make any sense to me. Like, you know, that's the thing. If I bring you this and you steal these things and you kick me down anything, that's good. Cause that means I'm in your good graces, right? If you didn't kick anything down to me after a heist like that, I'm going to just, I'm probably gonna leave town. Cause now I feel like you probably want to clean up some loose ends. That's why you're not kicking money down to me. That would be my first instinct. It's like, this is not going to go well for me if I stick around.

Nic

You've seen this happen how many times before? And you feel like you're the exception. I don't understand that. Yeah. And for Henry's part, he said, you know, he just got a little taste. I love referring to a little bonus as just a taste. And what he did is I just bought my family the most expensive Christmas tree they had, right? Which is this real shitty looking artificial white tree. It's real bad.

Steve

It's not even flocked. It's just white. It's really terrible. But now we get back to Stacks briefly because Tommy, you know, he wakes Stacks up, uh, knock at his door, and Tommy and Carbone are there. And he's like, oh, you want some coffee? He's like, no, no, yeah, sure, put some coffee on. Carbone, whatever. And, and, you know, they're basically talking about how they got to get going somewhere. And so Stacks starts putting his shoes on, and Tommy's just behind him with a gun with like a suppressor on it and just blows his brains all over his apartment. We hear from the, from the narration voiceover from Henry is basically, instead of putting the truck where Stacks was supposed to put the truck, it was like a really important part of this deal, he ends up like driving it to his girlfriend's house and getting high. Yeah. And like leaving there and forgetting about it.

Nic

So the cops, like, they, they hadn't found Stacks yet, but they were like on the general trail of this, like it was gonna lead to him. Exactly. So yeah, so they had to take him out. And again, during this whole time, uh, this playing— this Bells of Saint Mary's song is playing in the background, which is really effective. Um, so we find out that, uh, that Tommy's gonna get made. Huge deal. That's big news. Huge deal. So they're extra happy because, uh, because Henry goes and he sees Jimmy and Tommy at this place and they're just a little extra hop in everyone's step. Because for them, you know, because they can't— like you said before, this is as close as they're ever going to be to being in it. It's like the closest guy to us is in it. Exactly.

Steve

And if— and the idea would be, right, if Tommy's made and Tommy's a made man and he makes it clear to everybody, hey, like, Jimmy and Henry are my guys, it's not the same as being made themselves, and it doesn't give them carte blanche to do what they want, but it probably gets heat off of them in a lot of ways. Like, there's probably elements where where it's like, eh, I might have beef with Jimmy Conway or Henry Hill, but Tommy's a made guy and he says that they're his guys. Oh, I don't want to fuck with Tommy, so I'm not going to fuck with those two. Like, I'm sure there's a lot of like extra protection that just comes from being that close to a made guy. Um, so they're super excited. Jimmy especially, because he's— he's 100— he's the Irishman. He's 100% Irish. This is something that's nothing like whatever he's going to get, but he's also been instrumental as an associate of the Lucchese family. Like, he is a hugely important member.

Nic

Family, but there's— good earner, as they say. And there's—.

Steve

Oh, that's always hanging over his head though, that like he's not one of them, and that's an issue. So having Tommy be made is such a big deal, uh, such a big deal for— for—.

Nic

Because he is like a father figure to both of these guys. Absolutely. He's a little bit older. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, so we get an appearance of Sunshine of Your Love again, which I think is just interesting because we saw it in Breakfast Club with Bender like singing the riff, and then we saw it in True Lies with a cover version. So it's just funny that song's like sneaking around on us. Uh, so Jimmy lets Henry know So like, Maury's too fucking annoying. I'm gonna take him out. I'm done with this guy. And, uh, and there's a great kind of voiceover as they're going through like having this hang and poker game, and Maury's there, and Tommy and Henry and Jimmy, and like all the dudes are there. And Henry's kind of saying like, well, I was hoping that I could get, uh, Jimmy to stop thinking about it by hanging around, you know, get on his good graces and everything. Yeah, yeah. And at a certain point, Jimmy looks over to Henry, is just like, yeah, that thing, uh, it's not gonna happen.

Steve

Forget about tonight.

Nic

It's okay. So good for Henry. And again, they, you know, maybe Henry's too innocent, or maybe the guy who wrote the story never talks about how he participated in murders. I don't know. I don't know which one it would be. It's true.

Steve

It does seem like Henry is only adjacent to like most of these killings for the most part. Like, yeah, but they go— you would get a scene where walking down the alley that same night is Jimmy and Tommy and Carbone and, and Mori. And Mori's fucking getting at Jimmy again. He's like, I need my money, Jimmy. Like, where's my money? He's like, all right, look, look, fine, fine, I'll bring it to you. Let's go, let's go get it right now. Come on, get in in the car. And this is the classic where, you know, the, the classic mistake that, that Maury makes is getting in the front seat. Never get in the front. Don't ever get in the front seat. You sit in the back or you don't get in the car. Yeah. And so he gets in the front seat, Tommy gets in behind him, Carbone gets in to drive, and before they even start the car, Tommy's putting an ice pick into this brain stem of Maury. He's done. And it's like one of the cleanest kills. Such a good shot.

Nic

Like zero sound at all. I mean, it was like a no-splash dive of an ice pick murder. 10 out of Absolutely perfect. 10 out of 10 from the Lithuanian judge. Yeah. And you know, and then Maury's wife comes like super upset to Henry and Karen's house, like, where's Maury? Like, we've been married for 27 years, he's never not come home, something might have happened. And of course Henry, ah, he got drunk and he felt— because Henry doesn't know, but he's starting to put pieces together.

Steve

He doesn't know it happened, so he— it's a surprise to him. But upon hearing Mickey say— or not Mickey, that's, uh, Jimmy's wife— whatever, you know, Maury's wife say say that, you know, she— he didn't come home, he knows right away why. Jimmy told me he wasn't gonna do it, but he went through with it anyway, and Maury's fucking dead. Like, nobody's gonna find him. Yeah, at that point. So, God.

Nic

And, and so, uh, Henry's talking about how, you know, during— after this big heist, like, yeah, Jimmy, Jimmy doesn't like giving money to people. So even though the deal was we're gonna split it up these ways because we all have vital roles in this operation, Jimmy doesn't like giving money to people, so he just killed him. And Henry's so matter of fact the way he's talking about this. This scene is amazing, and it's happening— this montage happening with the piano part from Layla, yeah, uh, playing over it, which is just so good and so much better than the rest of that song. Yeah, it's like the saxophone part from Baker Street. There you go. Yeah, listen to the rest of the song, you're like, this isn't up to par. No. Yeah. Um, but the Layla thing— so we're seeing like Johnny Roastbeef and his wife are both dead in the car, in the big Cadillac. Yep. And, uh, with some bodies in the garbage truck.

Steve

Yeah, that's Frenchy and, uh, what do you have— remember the other guy? But oh, that's where French and Buddha are there. Carbone is hanging in a meat truck, and he was in there so long that they had to thaw him out for 3 days before they do the autopsy.

Nic

Him frozen in that with like his air— his fro like frozen is just such a cool, uh, look.

Steve

And then we get another— I think maybe again one of the more famous scenes for me at least, and one of the ones I think about a lot— is, uh, we get Tommy going to be made. So he's at his mom's house and she's like looking at his suit, oh, you look so nice, you know, be careful. Wild collar, like whatever shirt he's wearing. All these— there's so many times the collar so tight and like together, it's so weird looking. But it is very mobstery. Like, to me it's very similar to like, oh, my tie is lighter colored than my dress shirt. That's a very mobster look. Yeah. And I feel like that kind of collar is always a mobster look. But basically he gets picked up by Tootie and this old guy. I don't know who the old guy was, but these two— but Tootie, uh, uh, uh, uh, what's his last name? Sister? Yeah, sister. Yeah, Paulie's little brother ran the cab stand. He picks up Tommy and the old guy. They pick him up, they drive to like— I don't know who whose house this is, by the way, where they go. Yeah, pull into the garage and they're going through, and Tommy's kind of chatting. He's like, oh hey, how long ago did you get made? Oh, 30 years ago. I bet this brings back memories. And the guy's like, yeah, kind of, whatever. And they go in and it's an empty room, and it's so good the way Joe Pesci goes, oh no. Yeah. And it's just this, this moment of resignation. And then he's got the gun in the back of his head, and I mean, they really— it is a visceral look. It's probably the best, like, special effect in the is his— Joe Pesci's head exploding out the front of his face.

Nic

Yeah, and Joe, like, that gruesome of a thing is something that the effect often looks really bad. Yes, right. And yeah, it was just— it was so perfect. I would have loved if they just had him slip on a bunch of Micro Machines when he walked in there, but that's also a good way to injure Joe Pesci.

Steve

Paint can to the face. Yeah.

Nic

And then the thing about this, you know, the whole maid guy thing is it gets around to— so Jimmy, they're waiting for the call to confirm. Yeah, no, this is like them waiting for— to find out that their kid is born. Like, it's so exciting to them. And Jimmy's at the payphone, he gets the call, and it's just like, uh, yeah, it, uh, didn't work out.

Steve

Yeah, we had a problem, we had a problem, fix it.

Nic

That's it, there's nothing we can do about it. And Jimmy's scene, uh, De Niro's— this is like the greatest De Niro scene, breaking down in the payphone. I love a phone with a receiver because you can slam it against the phone when you're upset. With the cell phone, you can't. You got to slam it against something else. You got to be able to slam it against itself.

Steve

Yeah, there was almost a moment here where I thought Henry— and this is, again, this is a great acting scene for both De Niro and Liotta— and I really felt like there's a moment here where Henry was debating whether he should hug, like embrace Jimmy, right? There's this moment of like, he looks like he might kind of reach for him, but like, I feel like that would have— good call not to. I feel like Jimmy would have reacted very badly to any kind of like sensitivity at that moment. But he is breaking down over this. Because here's the thing, not only does it mean one of his best friends is dead and his ticket in is gone, it means they're in trouble now too. Like, not right away necessarily, and maybe not him, sure, whatever.

Nic

They're never going to be trusted by these guys because they don't even have a full Italian to speak for them. That's right. But then also they were associated with this guy that double-crossed them and went against the rules, and they're implicated even if, you know, it's not like Tommy ratted them out, but they have to know like who would have been with them, right?

Steve

Who's most likely to know about Tommy, or at least known about it. Exactly. And they make a, you know, And they make it clear in, uh, Henry's voiceover that this was a— this was in revenge for Billy Batts. Yes, this was because he killed Frank Vincent's character. So this is why, you know, he said— and it's really— it's like, I guess he did do the killing, but like, it's pretty wild for Jimmy especially to not take some blame. And maybe he does. I mean, that's why he's so freaked out that like, you know, his boot marks are all over Billy Batts's face too, you know.

Nic

Yeah, we did some forensics. I think we could find some fault for Jimmy there, right?

Steve

Yeah, Henry was more involved in the cleanup more than the actual killing.

Nic

Yeah, but yeah, and he owned the facility, you know, he provided the venue for it. Yeah, so the end of this is just Henry saying, and that's that. Yeah, exactly. And then we go to 5/11/1980, May 11th, 1980, 6:55 AM.

Steve

Oh my God, this whole sequence of this day is amazing.

Nic

It's so tense and it's so— and it's different from the way that the rest of the movie has been, you know, where a lot of it is like, hey, let's kind of hang out in mafia world and show you what it's like and let you feel what it's like. And this is just like, and here are the consequences.

Steve

Day in the life of, and it's, and it's this important day. And, uh, so it starts off where he, the whole day, he's got a few things to do. He says he's got like a whole bunch of you. He's got to go pick his brother Mikey up from the hospital, uh, and take him home. He's got to go, uh, bring some guns to Jimmy that Jimmy wanted because he bought some like silencers or whatever and he wants to fit them to him. He's got to meet up with his Pittsburgh guys to get the shipment that then has to go out to Miami. It's got to go down to Florida. He's good. So then he's got to get that set up and ready to go and give it to Lois and get her to the airport so that she can take her flight. So there's all this stuff going on, and he's making—.

Nic

He's making the dinner. And I love him referencing back, you know, talking about these big, you know, well, I gotta deliver the drugs to this thing and I gotta get back to stir the sauce.

Steve

And he's telling—.

Nic

Everything's on like a level playing field.

Steve

He's telling his brother Michael to keep stirring the sauce, don't let it burn, don't let it stick to the pot, like all this stuff. He goes to the hospital to pick his brother up, and the doctor there like, you look like shit, dude, like you need help, whatever. He apparently gives him some Valium and sends him on his way because apparently, you know, the 1980s were wild. Just amazing.

Nic

That doctor, did you recognize who that was? He looked familiar. Who was that? I forget the actor's name. He just passed away. He was on The Wire as State Senator Clay Davis. He was—.

Steve

That's right, yes, I knew that was somebody. Good to see him.

Nic

Yeah, so again, we've got the family dinner intertwined with like all the crime stuff happening. And Henry, as he's driving around, he's seeing this chopper overhead.

Steve

Oh yeah, keeps looking at the helicopter and looking up.

Nic

And he brings, he brings Karen in to the car with him. They have to go run an errand. And like, yeah, you see this helicopter. It's funny, the type of people who they became by this point in the movie would have been seeing helicopters like twice a week. Yeah, exactly. So it's crazy that this is—.

Steve

Was real helicopters. Yeah. And Karen's clearly all in on the drug stuff. I mean, she's doing coke with him, like she's completely bought into the whole system. They go and pick up— they go to a motel and pick up drugs from there, connect or whatever whatever. And we've seen this guy too. The guy who's the connect from Pittsburgh was in The Sopranos as well. He was the guy that got crippled, that Tony hit with the car. Yeah, Beansy. Yeah, Beansy is the one that's hooking up the pickup from Pittsburgh. And so Karen needs a hit, like all this kind of stuff. They end up getting back to the house, uh, and well, before they get back to the house, he calls and he talks to Lois and he says, before you make the call, you go to an outside line. I think she's got to give the flight information to the people in Miami that she's flying down to. She's got to make sure they know what flight she's coming in on or something like that. So you leave the house and you make that call from an outside line. Do not make that call from home, right? You know, whatever. And sure enough, she hangs up with them, whatever, and she says fuck it, and she makes the call from the house, right? So that's bad. So he comes home with Karen, they're doing dinner, they're doing whatever, and Lois— he's got to get— oh, he's got to go to Sandy's and like cut the drugs. So he goes and does that, comes back and is like, all right, Lois, like, let's get you— we gotta, we gotta tape this stuff to your legs so that you can like get through security, you know, pre-TSA obviously. And, uh, and you know, like, this is time, it's time. But she says I'm not going. I'm not going to go on the flight. I need my hat.

Nic

Yeah, I'm not gonna fly without my hat. Lucky hat. And she lives in— it's like a Paddington hat that she wears. That's true.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she lives like in Rockaway, which is like pretty far away, I think, from Queens, which is I think where they still are. But like, yeah, so he's like, fuck, fine, all right, I gotta go. And he stashes the drugs in like the kitchen cabinet and is like, Karen, I gotta go take Lois home. She's like, for a hat? Like, what? But he's like, she's not gonna fly. He's gotta have her fly. So there they go. They get into the car and immediately— here's the Funny thing I noticed, and it looks like Henry doesn't, but there are red and blue lights flashing off of the street of the house across the street. The second they come out of their house, you can see a faint flash of blue and red.

Nic

Oh, funny.

Steve

Off on the distance. But as soon as he gets in the car, cops come up to, you know, hey, you know, like, stop, like, freeze, or whatever, and all this shit. And he says in the voiceover, as soon as they said freeze, I knew it was cops. Yeah, if it were a wise guy, I would be dead already. Wouldn't have heard anything. It wouldn't have heard anything. Yeah, it's very cool.

Nic

Oh my God. Yeah, so he's, uh He finds out, and Karen, you know, is freaking out, and she's flushing all the coke and stuff, which smart move, because it's not like it was hidden in the walls of the house. It was like in the cabinet, you know, behind your DVDs, in like a fanny pack.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, so Henry's in jail, and he ends up getting out on bail. Yeah, like Karen's mom put her house up basically for Henry's bail, and Henry's plan is like, all right, well, I still get these drugs I can flip that, I can turn that into something to get us, yeah, you know, out of here.

Steve

Because Paulie's going to be insanely pissed now because now Paulie knows I'm in drugs. Drugs is a problem. Yeah. So he's like, I gotta make it right with Paulie, I gotta do this. So he goes home and that's when Karen— you know, he's looking around for the drugs. He goes, Karen, where's the drugs? And she goes, well, I flushed them down the toilet. And he's like, why would you do that, Karen? And this scene is probably Ray Liotta's best acting. So intense, the meltdown of it.

Nic

Like, you can feel his agony so much and and it's like more than anything that's ever happened. Like, if one of his kids was killed, he wouldn't have reacted that deeply.

Steve

And, and the way— the number of different ways you can say, 'Why would you do that, Karen?' And he says that line like 8 or 9 times, and every one of them hits a little different. Yeah, it's the range that Liotta's got in the scene is amazing. And it's all this different depth of just, yeah, like despair and whatever. And he finally crumples into a corner, right, of the room, and it's just freaking— he's like, 'I got nothing now. There's no way to like like, fix this. Yeah. Which is just, you know, so yeah, so then Karen goes— oh no, so then I think he goes—.

Nic

He goes to Paul. Yeah. And, and I don't know if this is like for a last resort. I mean, it might be for a last resort bailout. Yeah. Um, but yeah, he goes to see Paulie, and Paulie said, here you go, like, I'll give you the, the money in my pocket, inch and a half of cash that's in my pocket, and that's it. After this, I have to turn my back on you. That's right. So he's like, there it is, an entire life for $2,200 or whatever. Exactly, not much. Oof. Oh, $3,200 for a lifetime. Not even enough to pay for the coffin. That's right.

Steve

Which I was curious about— whose coffin? Like, I'm not sure what he's referencing.

Nic

He's probably feeling at that point in the story.

Steve

But yeah, it is funny. But yeah, so then, then Karen goes to see Jimmy and is just kind of like chatting with him, whatever. And like, you know, he's like, oh, everything's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be all right, we're gonna figure this out, whatever. And they go to leave and he goes, you know, I got some new dresses, some Dior. There's, you know, if you want them, you should just take some. Like, they're gonna fit you, they're gonna look great, you should just take them. Oh no, no, they're not up here, they're down around the corner here. Where'd you go? And so Jimmy goes out and they're out on the street and she— and he's like looking and going, yeah, go down to the corner, go in the corner. She goes down and he keeps pushing, but he's not walking that direction at all. And she looks in at one point and I can't even tell what's going on. It looks like a couple guys working on, on a place, like, like doing construction or something, remodeling or whatever. But she's got all the fucking bad vibes. And luckily for her, where she was walking to was towards her car. And so she gets all the bad vibes over and goes, uh, I gotta go, Jimmy. No, no, never mind. I'll go. And she goes and he goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, go in there, go in there. And she knows, like, she was about to get whacked. Like, that was it.

Nic

Crazy, crazy creepy. And the way that Jimmy approaches, just, you know, kind of very like Silvio and the Sopranos, just like, hey, I'm still your friend. Like, right until you're never gonna see this, uh, never gonna see this coming. Yeah. Um, yeah, so, uh, they go and they end up talking to— oh, so Henry goes to meet Jimmy. Yeah, so that's kind of the last— yeah, the last tempt for one of his crime guys to maybe help him, or just to see what's going on. Because Jimmy's also been asking questions like, what are they talking about? What's happening? When Karen was meeting him, he's like, oh, what are they asking Henry about? Um, and they have this meeting at the diner where Henry's explaining. He's like, you know, we're supposed to meet at this time. I got there 15 minutes early. Jimmy was already there. Like, he seemed nervous, he seemed different, and all this shit. So he knew, like, Jimmy was gonna kill me.

Steve

Well, and this is when then Jimmy says, um, hey, I want you to go down, down to Tampa or whatever, down to Florida and whack this guy. You're gonna go with— I don't remember who he says— with another guy. The two of you are gonna go down there, you're gonna whack this guy for me. And he goes, Jimmy never asked me to whack a guy ever. And we've seen, right, Henry's never been the one to pull the trigger on anybody. Yeah, he's not a mafia hitman in any way, shape, or form. So he's like, that's when I knew I was never going to come back from Florida. Like, he was going to go down there with this other guy, that guy was going to kill him, out of town. Like, that was the whole plan. Um, and so instead Instead, they go to the FBI and they turn state's evidence. The witness protection—.

Nic

I love that guy. Yeah, the guy who's talking to them, explaining how it works. It's very matter of fact and everything. Oh, if you're legitimately bronchial, we'll see what we can do. Like his stuff that he says. Um, and again, this does an excellent job of explaining what— how the witness protection program works, you know, where it's like, yeah, you're not— you have no contact with these people. Yeah, you're not going to see your parents, you're not going to go visit or any of that. Stuff and having to make that decision very quickly. Yeah, yeah, uh, really, really intense. And I like the way—.

Steve

Because Karen asks, well, but they, they want you— they— she says, you want Henry, not me. And he goes, yeah, that's right, we, we just want Henry. We don't care if you come or not. I actually would prefer you didn't unless it makes him a better witness to have you there. But yeah, we don't care. But just so you know, when he's in witness protection and you're not, they may not really actually want you, but you're going to be the only way they have to get to to him, you're going to be in danger. Like, yeah, you will get killed if you don't go into the program when he does, and we need him to, right? Yeah.

Nic

Uh, so, you know, really tough decision. But then, you know, we're— what are you left with? You're left with nothing else. Yeah, exactly. Uh, so now we're in the courtroom. So Jimmy and Paulie have been arrested, so they're in the courtroom, and Henry is being asked to, you know, could you identify this man? Points to Paulie, points to Jimmy, and all that stuff. Yeah. And the other, uh, lawyer is asking him something. It's like, you know, do you know what the concept of a rat is? You know, it's like, say, I don't know anything about being any rat. And then we get kind of a weird, like, fantastical, like, fourth wall break. Yeah. Where he gets up from his witness seat, so it just goes to him delivering to the screen. Yeah. And saying, you know, after— and talking about his life after this all happened. And it was—.

Steve

It's like the continuation of the narration has now been put into the scene. And yeah, nobody else is paying attention to him as he walks. It's not like they're frozen, it's not like that, but they're just not looking at him as he walks by. Yeah. And kind of giving us the wrap-up, essentially. Yeah.

Nic

Of what his life is like now. Uh, it's really good, um, when he's talking about his recapping, you know, oh, I used to walk into a place and this would, you know, talking about the grandiosity of his life in the mafia versus now, you know, I asked for spaghetti and marinara sauce, I got egg noodles and ketchup. To which my wife, when we were watching this, she was like, you were just in jail for 5 years with a guy who was an expert at making pasta sauce. You can't fucking make your own. Phone. Like, that sounds like a you issue. That's fair. So he's an average nobody, and then for some reason— this is the end of the movie— and then it just— we get a quick flash of Tommy shooting his gun directly at the screen like 5 times, and then it goes to the shitty version of My Way by Sid Vicious or whatever, right?

Steve

It was a weird little—.

Nic

He was like, how badly can I land this for the rest of it being so amazing? I want the last like 10 seconds of this movie to be really confusing. And it didn't make sense.

Steve

Tommy's dressed in a way we've never seen him. He's got a hat on we've never seen him wear like sunglasses or something. It's very strange. Yeah, I don't— I think it's— I think the idea maybe is that we're— Tommy, or excuse me, Henry is going to be haunted for the rest of his life by Tommy. Yes, like in that life, something like that. Anyway, it really does open us up very nicely to the sequel that I'm sure we'll do at some point, uh, My Blue Heaven, which is clearly the sequel to this movie. Um, we'll get to that at some point. So, okay, that, that is Goodfellas. That is right. And God, it's, it's a lot to talk about, but I mean, the movie's got so much, it's dense and packed so full. So this was my pick for us. I'm gonna give my, my, you know, version of my review, I guess, which just feels dumb. Like, I honestly— this is one of the movies we did— I feel— I felt this way about The Silence of the Lambs too, where it's like, what the fuck am I supposed to say about this movie? Yeah, Goodfellas. Like, do you know the movie Goodfellas? If you don't know the movie Goodfellas, you should go see it because it's fantastic. There's— there is nothing I can ask for from a movie that has set out to be me a story about real crime in America that this movie does not give me. There is nothing I can ask for this movie. There is not fat on the bone here, even at 2 and a half hours. No, this is— it's solid. There's no piece of it where you're like, well, we didn't really need that. They cut so— so much happens. You cut from this scene to the next so quickly with those narrations. You know, there are elements or segments rather of this movie where either Henry or Karen is giving us significant amounts of information in the narration while we're watching a relatively quick scene. Scene happen, but we just got as much info as would have taken a true show-me-only movie would have taken like 10 minutes to show us over the course of one instead. Yeah, this movie's fantastic. The acting is amazing. The script is incredible. They're, you know, Scorsese at his absolute peak. You know, the fact that he didn't win Best Director for this is like wild. But, you know, it's— or did he? No, no, that's right. Pesci's the only one that won out of this one. Yeah. For an Oscar. Yeah. It's 5 out of 5. I don't have any notes to give to Goodfellas, and I would feel like a schmuck for pretending I do. This is a 5 out of 5 movie for me. And hopefully I didn't just call you a schmuck. That's not what I meant to do. Ah, son of a bitch.

Nic

Let me get to my notes. No, like I said, I really think my only note is that Pesci shooting at the screen at the very end is stupid. And then that last song, the My Way, Johnny Rotten sucks ass. I think the tone, I mean, you're going for a certain feeling at the end, so I get that, but I would've liked it to end on like a smooth, like, you know, hey, you're nobody till somebody loves you.

Steve

Or give us Frank's version of My Way or something, right? Or give us like just Henny Youngman.

Nic

Just saying jokes. Um, but Jesus Christ, this movie is so enjoyable, so well cast. Like, everything looks great. Uh, there's no effects that they couldn't do that they tried to do. There's— so this movie is going to stand the test of time. I don't know what's, what's gonna look, uh, off about this movie. And of course, you know, there's language things, there's, there's ways that the characters are, but that's the characters. That's not a reflection of the filmmaker's ideas at the time and stuff like that. Um, a couple things here. One thing is that I think this movie, uh, with its explanations of the mechanics of organized crime enhances your enjoyment of other organized crime material. So like, if you've watched this, you're gonna like The Sopranos more. You're gonna like even The Godfather, like Donnie Brasco, all that stuff more. Um, and the other thing that I, I didn't bring up, uh, Joe Pesci put out an album. He did a music album in the late '90s. And one of the songs that he did was called Wise Guy, and he's rapping. It's a rap thing. Oh my God, dude. I think actually that should be the closing music for this episode if we're able to do that. Joe Pesci says, I'm a wise guy. I don't drive by. I just stopped by with a couple of guys. So it's really worth checking out. So I'm glad that that exists here. Yeah. This movie is really perfect to me. I mean, I don't see how it would be any better. Goodfellas is an absolute 5 out of 5 for me. I love it.

Steve

Should be the, the, the least amount of shock ever, uh, from our podcast, but a 10 out of 10 from the two dads on Goodfellas. Such a surprise. But that brings us to 1991. And Nic, your pick to, to, to bring us further into the '90s in 1991. What are we going to watch next week?

Nic

Yeah, so I had a few different picks for 1991 and went back and forth, but one thing I realized is now coming up on our 58th episode, I think, uh, and one of the bigger stars of the '80s and '90s who I remember just being kind of everywhere and always talked about and stuff, we haven't seen yet. And I thought, let's check this movie out. Uh, Julia Roberts is, uh, is escaping some creepy dudes and dating some creepy dudes, and it's, it's a really great fun thriller from the early '90s, kind of a, you know, in the Cape Fear vein, hopefully. Hopefully more in the Cape Fear vein than in the Pacific Heights vein. But I want to check out 1991's Sleeping with the Enemy.

Steve

Nice. Okay. I have never seen it, so this will be good. The only thing I know about Sleeping with the Enemy, we talked about it when we did Home Alone. It was the movie that knocked Home Alone off the number one box office spot after like 16 weeks or whatever. This was the movie that was the first number one domestic box office movie after Home Alone came out that wasn't Home Alone was Sleeping with the Enemy. So I'm definitely interested in seeing if it will serve as a family fun holiday classic too. Well, I think, I think by the time that happened it was like February or something, but like, yeah. Um, so yeah, very cool. I love Julia Roberts. Yeah, surprising, right, that we haven't seen her yet in anything that we've done. Uh, she's such a cornerstone of the decades, but yeah, yeah, this will be great.

Nic

I, and I saw this one the first time a few years ago and I feel like it's too good to not be better known. Okay, so hopefully we'll enjoy chatting about it.

Steve

Sounds good. That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. We'd also love it if you followed us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @twodads1movie. Once again, this has been Goodfellas, another episode of Two Dads, One Movie.

Nic

I'm Steve. And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone. Run.