#14 Goodfellas

This review took me so long because I don’t really like this movie. I’ve seen it before a couple times and I was never really impressed. It’s a well made, well acted, well scored gangster movie that helped define what made a gangster movie, but I guess it just wasn’t for me. I can’t really give a good reason why. Maybe it’s how heavy it is. I mean there is some seriously depressing shit in this movie. Such horribleness. Everyone is mean to each other, people are killed for nothing, and everyone snorts cocaine. Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco fight constantly. How messed up are their kids going to be?

But aside from that, I can’t really think of anything. Maybe I just don’t really vibe on gangster movies. As I try to think about it, I don’t think I can name one I like all that much. Except the Godfather series, but that’s the Cadillac. Everyone likes the Cadillac.
Anyway, I put this one off for too long. But that shouldn’t happen again as I the next one has been eluding me for almost 2 years.
Also, I don’t like Ray Liotta.

#247 Casino Royale (2006)

A James Bond movie - I really enjoy the James Bond movie series. Sure the plots tend to be from the same mold each time, but I watch movies to be entertained and this delivers entertainment.

I believe this one focuses so heavily on the high stakes poker game to draw on the peak of poker's public popularity. The poker game is No Limit Texas Hold 'Em - the same poker variety that was sweeping through poker tournaments and casinos and getting shown on ESPN in 2006. I'm sure that facet's inclusion was not a coincidence.

The plot involves your typical Bond-going-rogue in his quest to complete his mission his own way. There are double crosses with twists and more double crossings. Bond gets his girl as usual. If you like James Bond movies then you'll like this one. If you don't you won't. It's that simple.

Some things that caught my eye this time through (I have seen it before as well):

1. MI6 knows the bad guys locations, their crimes, and cohorts. Bond looks through the main enemy's dossier midway through - complete with known associates and a rap sheet. Why go through the risk, hassle, and un-needed event that was the high stakes poker tournament? Just arrest the criminals and be done with it. (Of course, then there would be no movie - but a movie with things like this in it...? Find a way to make it a necessary plot element?)

2. It seems Bond recovered from his ball smashing torture rather quickly and ably - boning up the Bond girl not much after (the time-line is somewhat vague there, but the description given of the torture didn't leave much room for 'parts being usable afterward'...)

3. At the 2hr 3m 18s point in the movie, the Bond girl (yes she had a name in the movie, but I prefer to use this reference) was on a boat with Bond when the scene focuses on her facial expression. In the background is a storefront type building with "I R" on it in big letters. As I watched this scene I noticed something I had never caught before - the letters seem to float in mid air. That is, as the buildings flow by in the background (they are traveling down the river) the letters do not move in a manner consistent with the building movement. Go ahead and check it out, let me know what you think.

#13 Casablanca

I just watched Casablanca for the first time. Kind of a strange thing for a self proclaimed movie buff to say. I realize my introduction to Bogey is overdue; it’s just that I was raised in a different time. My movie classics came from John Landis or were related to the world not being real. I have to say though; the best are the best for a reason. This movie is spectacular. It is truly moving. I won’t try to compete with the near infinite reviews and interpretations that already exist for this movie in the world. But I will relate how it touched me. I’m at a point in my life where I needed to see a man like Ricky. I think most 21^st century American men do as well. This guy is the coolest guy since Sean Connery. I think I’ve found a new personal hero. Rude, indifferent, emotionally unreachable, smokes like a chimney, drinks like a sailor, and is a true sentimentalist underneath it all. We are pansies. I have a lot of respect for a man who gets his heart broken, drowns his sorrows, and picks himself up all collected and calm again the very next day. No wallowing or weak pining and lamenting. Just a bottle of bourbon and a single night to shed it all away. I just haven’t met anyone in this day and age who is like that. Tough like that. And then to give up his chance at the end in order to do what is truly right, we definitely don’t think like that anymore. And he does it remorselessly. That’s conviction that I admire. Even kills a guy. Although that jerk had it coming.
One thing that was really cool was to see all the great lines that I had heard my entire life delivered in context. This movie has 5 or 6 of the greatest lines in movie history. The way with words that the characters have is very proper and old timey, but in an amazing way, rather than boring. Just more to the point than I’m accustomed to. I really felt connected to the characters because the dialogue they used was so descriptive. They really knew how to express themselves with words. I ramble, but this is truly a great movie that had me yelling at the TV and feeling right along with them. I think I will now go find more Bogart movies.