The Goat Pen

she sleeps with a shotgun, how can you not like her?

I have always found Patricia Arquette to be very attractive, but that shotgun scene was sexy as hell, even if she has let herself go in the weight department. Then again, she has about fifty pounds until she hits my preferred weight...

She was heavenly in Lost Highway (the movie from which I snagged my user pic)...

I can always watch Good Fellas when its on, and it was on Cinemax tonight.

So I decide to start reading up on Tommy DeVito, Joe Pesci's character to see if he really shot "Spider" the kid in the bar. That leads me to a Howard Stern interview where Spider's sister calls up Henry Hill who is on the phone with Howard and berates him for not knowing where they moved the body. James Burke , played by DeNiro in the movie, owned the club they played poker at, and they buried the kid in the basement of the place.

So that gets me reading some more - the bar was called Robert's Lounge and what Henry Hill doesn't really mention in the movie version at least is that Burke buried several bodies there.

Which leads to another issue in the movie - Burke gets paranoid about the Lufthansa heist and starts killing off the crew he put together (including one of John Gotti's guy who went along solely to make sure Gotti's crew, who owned the airport area got their cut) and a couple of them get buried around or underneath the bar. The movie has you believe that Tommy DeVito, who in real life is Tommy DeSimone, is whacked for taking out Billy Bats, a made man but its much more complicated than that. Burke took over Bats loan sharking business which was very lucrative and he had more reason to kill Bats than Tommy did for making fun of him shining shoes, and Tommy and Paul Vario - their made boss of the Luchesse crime family shared a mistress name Ferrara who was also in the heist and subsequently killed. Bats was a close friend of Gotti's and was in Gotti's crew.

In 2004 , the feds search a empty lot and find the remains of DeSimone , the guy that accidentally ran over Gotti's kid and 4 other people.

They could have made a sequel to Good Fellas and just extended it over to the point of view of John Gotti.

I've only seen a few clips from that movie (it seemed like every one I saw was Joe Pesci becoming more and more enraged and beating people more and more brutally, so I thought that's what the whole movie was about, so I never watched the whole thing), but I think I will now...

I'm surprised you haven't sat thru the whole movie, clearly Henry Hill is full of shit, but he's such a compelling story teller the movie is awesome.

But the movie , as any movie, skips over some nuances that help you understand some of the actions of the characters. The guys had a sweet life until they got into selling drugs - and that is why most of them ended up flipping, because drugs had mandatory sentencing - and that is why most of the mafia heads banned drug selling - it wasn't some morality code against drug use, but a self preservation issue.

I wish I had thought of that...

I guess I should caveat "sweet life" with the occasional having to shoot someone in the head

I always wonder about the mindset of the guys that participated in the heist, as they started getting knocked off. They kept showing up at the usual bars, restaurants and meetings as if nothing was happening. Did the last three really think that Burke was going to stop killing off the loose ends after he bumped off the first two?

Evidently the term "wiseguy" is a misnomer...

the scene with Liotta whacked on blow and trying to set up a deal, make spaghetti and keep up with the feds spying on him from helicopters would resonate well with Hedge. he's pretty much lived it.

There's also a lot more to Casino, re: Pesci's character, than the movie

Cant believe hedge hasn't seen it. Its a classic.

Actually, I have seen the scene where Liotta is freaking out over the helicopters and Stu is correct, it hit a little too close to home. In fact, that may be the reason I never watched the whole movie...

An evening spent watching Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed is a damn fine evening of mob violence.

Throw in GF I &II.

That makes it a weekend.

OK. I'm a Neilson family this week.

Any special show you guys want to keep?

I think I'm getting confused b/w Goodfella and Casino. Aren't alot of the same people in both?

Both are worthwhile.

Would you say one is appreciably better than the other to warrant a 1-2 ranking, or would you say more of a 1a and 1b?