Without a doubt, Goodfellas. Now go home and get your fuckin’ shine box.
Well, uh…it’s just…you know…
Casino is a good movie. Goodfellas, however, is a perfect movie -literally every shot in the movie adds to the overall story and feel.
Directors aspire to be as good as Scorcese was with Goodfellas, I don’t think anyone aspires to be as good as he was with Casino.
That Dances With Wolves won best picture that year is a travesty that Academy voters should be ashamed of.
That never happened…never happened hear?
Do you know what befalls people round here that shoot their mouth off like that? I’ve cleaned the car trunk out you know?
While both films of course had voiceovers, am I wrong in remembering Casino’s was very intrusive, so much so that it’s all I can really remember about it? What I seem to remember is me yelling at the screen for them all to shut the fuck up so I could enjoy the movie. I could be completely wrong here.
Casino also has Joe Bob Briggs. Still gotta go with Goodfellas, though.
Such a silly question…
Goodfellas is the much better movie, without a shadow of a doubt.
Now, go get your fuckin shinebox!!
Goodfellas, like most others, gets the nod. But I’m not as sloppy in love with it as many of you are mainly because the female lead, Lorraine Brocco, was a terrible choice, and her slow, deliberate speech delivery ruined every scene she was in. She ruined the Sopranos in the same fashion, and I continue to be fascinated that she negatively impacted two iconic mob stories.
As for Casino, Stone gets no love from me. I thought she wss better in Basic Instinct. She did, however, prove to be perfectly unlikeable in Casino, so if that was her job, she did it well. She just doesn’t work for me as the woman you have to have.
Whoever said Casino didnt have one likable character hit the nail on the head. I really disliked every character in that movie, including support Chars. Like Don Rickles.
One other factoid: Pesci grew up in New Jersey, was once an aspiring singer, and was very friendly with Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons.
One of the 4 Seasons was Tommy DeVito… and Joe named his character in Goodfellas honor of his Jersey Boy pal.
The only thing I think Casino did well was the split narration.
The rest is overly long and plodding.
In the musical “Jersey Boys” they actually point that out… the night I saw it that joke was especially funny since Joe Pesci himself was in the audience.
Well, considering that Goodfellas was pretty much the best ‘gangster’/‘mob’ picture ever made*, it has to be better than Casino.
*its only competition coming from two other DeNiro mob flicks, i.e. Once Upon a Time in America and The Godfather II, and the godfather of them all, The Godfather.
Now there’s a question for a poll: Which is the best of the above lot? (Once Upon a Time in America, Godfather I, Godfather II, Goodfellas). Each is amazing, but one stands a bit taller . . .
Not sure why the Departed has even been mentioned in this thread.
I’d have to say Goodfellas. Unlike say the Godfather films, it didn’t glamorize the thugs. Instead it showed that despite all of their big scores, they were all desperate, awful people who frankly didn’t live particularly well.
Casino was a good film as well and did it’s best to show the scope of the Chicago outfit’s hold on Vegas. In terms of dollars taken, the Outfit made a fortune off of Vegas. Spilotro (Pesci’s character was based off of in Casino) was a true degenerate gangster and killed at least 20 plus people. Casino did a fairly good job of showing that too and also highlighted the corruption of the Teamsters in funding various casinos.
Two different stories, really, and the comparison only really gets any weight because it’s Scorsese, Pesci, and DeNiro again (and only 5 years after Goodfellas), and Pesci’s basically playing the same type of character. There’s no question Casino has moments of brilliance–particularly James Woods creepy voice-over during DeNiro’s wedding in the movie, but Goodfellas is seamless.
One of my favourite quotes came from the actual dealer in real life who had been on the set to see Pesci verbally abuse the movie dealer. “The real Tony said things to me that were 100x worse.”
I came here to post that exact sentiment.
Well, Dances With Wolves was the better movie. Goodfellas and Casino are just mobster glorification flicks.
And Dances With Wolves was just another " clueless white guy enlightened the noble American Indian" flick* ;). Both can be pigeon-holed into standard movie tropes, but Goodfellas and Casino did a much better job translating theirs into quality films. IMHO, of course.
- In which the Pawnee take it on the chin yet again. It’s probably not common enough to rise to the level of a cliche, but see Little Big Man for another example of this meme. The Pawnee, who frequently chose to ally with the U.S. for perfectly logical internal reasons, seem to have a tendency to be cast as the “bad indians” in primarily pro-NA films, portrayed as both slaughtering white folks and simultaneously sucking up to them. Meanwhile fierce opponents of U.S. expansion like the Cheyenne and Sioux are lionized. It’s an interesting take on the old “noble savage” idea in popular culture - former foes are looked upon with respect, former allies regarded dismissively.