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| Sales Rank: | 180020 (lower is better) |
| Shipping: | Free Shipping on most orders over $25* |
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| Director: | Martin Scorsese |
| Binding: | DVD |
| ASIN: | B0002W12K8 |
| Category: | DVD |
Actors and Actresses
Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions
Amazon.com essential video
Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece GoodFellas immortalizes the hilarious, horrifying life of actual gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his teen years on the streets of New York to his anonymous exile under the Witness Protection Program. The director's kinetic style is perfect for recounting Hill's ruthless rise to power in the 1950s as well as his drugged-out fall in the late 1970s; in fact, no one has ever rendered the mental dislocation of cocaine better than Scorsese. Scorsese uses period music perfectly, not just to summon a particular time but to set a precise mood. GoodFellas is at least as good as The Godfather without being in the least derivative of it. Joe Pesci's psycho improvisation of Mobster Tommy DeVito ignited Pesci as a star, Lorraine Bracco scores the performance of her life as Hill's love interest, and every supporting role, from Paul Sorvino to Robert De Niro, is a miracle.
Amazon.com
Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece GoodFellas immortalizes the hilarious, horrifying life of actual gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his teen years on the streets of New York to his anonymous exile under the Witness Protection Program. The director's kinetic style is perfect for recounting Hill's ruthless rise to power in the 1950s as well as his drugged-out fall in the late 1970s; in fact, no one has ever rendered the mental dislocation of cocaine better than Scorsese. Scorsese uses period music perfectly, not just to summon a particular time but to set a precise mood. GoodFellas is at least as good as The Godfather without being in the least derivative of it. Joe Pesci's psycho improvisation of Mobster Tommy DeVito ignited Pesci as a star, Lorraine Bracco scores the performance of her life as the love of Hill's life, and every supporting role, from Paul Sorvino to Robert De Niro, is a miracle.
Customer Reviews
NEEDS REMASTERING. FILM: Wonderful. Transfer: Not so much... - Reviewed on 2008-12-02
The transfer of this film appears to be the same MPEG transfer as the one used for the DVD version. It DOES NOT appear to be a new 1080p 4k re-mastering of the film. This is not to say that it doesn't look much better in Blu-Ray than it does on DVD. But it is not, evidently, a brand new 1080p 4k transfer made expressly for Blu-Ray release. This can cause some problems, depending on your display system and settings. You may have to select a different input palette or profile on your display, or adjust your settings.
If your system is setup to show Blu-Ray films using the "Cinema" and "Movie" profile of your display, which assumes a low contrast, subdued display of a wide range source that takes full advantage of the display's capabilities, then this film may look washed out, have milky blacks and generally be displeasing. You may have to select a "Standard" profile, with a narrower contrast band, higher gamma and so forth, to bring the film back into the range for which it was originally transferred. Doing so with this film yields remarkable results, it suddenly "snaps to" and produces the sort of effect you were after with a Blu-Ray disc.
As happened in past generations of video standards, VHS to LaserDisc, LaserDisc to DVD, standard definition 480i to "high def" 1080i, and now 480p progressive scan DVD to 1080p Blu-Ray, the studios are cutting corners and, with some titles, re-issuing transfers that were "pretty good" for the prior standard on newer media without re-mastering them for the full potential of the newer media.
Many, if not most, of the Blu-Ray discs I have seen have been remastered at the highest levels with all the capability of Blu-Ray in mind. If you have a 1080p display, and have properly adjusted and configured it, then you are probably in video and film heaven.
Sadly, some major film titles are being "shoved out there" with just their old 1080 MPEG transfers, re-issued on the new Blu-Ray format. This appears to be one of them. If you adjust your display properly, for what's on the disc, you will get very good results. But don't expect it to look great with the settings you would use for a properly made, new 4k transfer for Blu-Ray.
The Best Mob Movie Made - Ever! - Reviewed on 2008-08-10
2 customers found this review helpful.
The quintessential New York City mob film, in a class by itself, my only five-star review to date (and I'd give it more if I could). Based on the book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese's brilliant masterpiece introduces us to Henry Hill, as enacted by Ray Liotta, a disarming, likeable sort who can never be initiated into the Mafia because he's only half Italian (his father is Irish). Nevertheless, the "boys" who hang out at the neighborhood cabstand have taken a liking to him and use him to run various errands. As he grows older, Henry forms a close association with Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and the violent, trigger-happy Tommy De Vito (played to the hilt by a terrifying Joe Pesci). This film has the audience in its grip beginning with the opening sequence and doesn't let go until it ends almost three hours later. Frank Vincent has a brief but memorable role as the ill-fated Billy Batts, and all of the supporting characters come across quite credibly. In my opinion, the only weak point in this film (if you can even call it that) was the casting of Paul Sorvino as the local mob boss. I felt he brought very little to his role. A much better choice (again, in my opinion) would have been someone like Robert Loggia. De Niro's performance is flawless, as usual, and Pesci dominates every scene he's in (he won a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor). "GoodFellas" was released in December, 1990, nearly eighteen years ago, and, as far as I'm concerned, there isn't a single movie produced before or since which even begins to approach its cinematic perfection.
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