Goodfellas [20th Anniversary Edition] – Blu-ray Disc Review

February 6, 2010 – 12:41 AM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: DigiBook, Frank Sivero, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Martin Scorsese, Paul Sorvino, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Warner

has an average rating of 8.8 on IMDb
1080p in VC-1 on a 25gb disc
Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps?!
DVD ports, DigiBook & a bonus DVD
–
– 1990
– 146 minutes
– Warner
–
This uses 19.2GB for the movie out of 22.8GB total.
Street Date: February 16th, 2010

Overall Verdict – A No Good Lousy “Double-Dip”

Buy it for $23.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review by: Justin Sluss & Brendan Surpless —

Clip from the film:

The Movie Itself is based on a true story. The film was Directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese (of “Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver” fame). “Goodfellas” tells the story of Henry Hill (“Narc’s” Ray Liotta), an Irish-Italian kid whose only ambition is to be a type of wise-guy kid. In one of the first scenes with Hill we learn that “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be gangster.” This line here tends to set the emotion and mood for the whole film. Hill is your typical child who defies his parents, struggles to do well in school and wants to hang out with the older looking tough guys down the street. For Hill, gangsters were his Superman type hero; they could get anything they wanted including the best seats at the show, the best cars and they actually belonged to something.

As Hill becomes immersed in the Mob world, he starts to do little jobs. It isn’t until he meets Jimmy Conway (“15 Minutes’” Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (“JFK’s” Joe Pesci) that his life starts to change. We learn that Conway and DeVito are two of the most feared hit men in the entire Organization. If someone needed something done, odds are they approached one of these two men. Conway and DeVito teach Hill the basics of the mob world included a few life lessons all while they make it so evidently clear to Hill that they have no problem killing any man and neither should Hill.

Everything is going perfect for Hill and his new buddies. Jobs get done, money flows in, girls are everywhere and nothing seems to be going wrong. Naturally though, whenever you have tons of positives, a negative is bound to sneak its way into the equation. This negative happens to occur when Hill, Conway and DeVito are burying a guy who DeVito literally kicked to death. The only problem here is that the guy they killed in a fitless rage, happens to be a man who was a “made” guy in relevance to him being a Mafioso who was suppose to be immune. Hill, obviously, starts to worry and never imagined this life would ever turn out this way. The rest of the film sees Hill try to distance himself from these two members slowly (mostly DeVito). As well as this it also follows the events that took place in Hill’s life from 1955 to 1970 and then to 1988. 1988 marked the year that Hill went into the FBI’s Witness Protection Program to get out of this mess and basically start pointing at the real villains. Over a period of four years, Hill told everything he knew to reporter Nicholas Pileggi whose book “Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family” was the basis for the film.

“Goodfellas” occasionally gets a lot of comparison to the classic film “The Godfather“. Well, both films are long and excellent, but more importantly both films give the necessary space and time to help the characters manage their issues. This allows the audience to carefully and meticulously analyze the film’s themes and sub-plots. The film takes a look at the life of a Mafia member, but in a slow enough manner so can fully understand and grasp the life and ways of a Mafia member. And all of this is brought out via brilliant direction from Scorsese.

Scorsese is a fabulous director, simply put. His legacy of films, from 1970’s “Taxi Driver” to 2004’s “Aviator” all are special and unique in their own manners. Each of Scorseses films dives deeper and deeper into the main subjects mind as the film progresses. For “Goodfellas“, Scorsese including an outstanding cast to help continue his trend, which results in the film being more about a character’s guilt for the world he has chosen more than anything else. The film is not a one, two, three type of step forward process where the character realizes what he has done wrong and tries to correct the problem. Rather, the film’s character doesn’t see the problem in murdering someone, but rather in that he betrayed the code of the Mafia gang he believed in greatly.

In closing, looking back on “Goodfellas” now 20 years later a lot of critics agree that the 1970’s best film was Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver“; 1980’s best film was Scorsese’s “Raging Bull“; For the 1990’s, “Goodfellas” may not be the best film of the decade, but is definitely in the top five. It originally took me quite some time to see the film (I finally saw it a few years back after owning it for 5-6 years on VHS and then eventually DVD, HD-DVD and now Blu-ray). Now that I have experienced the film again, “Goodfellas” is one of those film’s that gets better with age, kind of like a fine bottle of wine.

— Synopsis above written by Brendan Surpless —

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the VC-1 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. WARNING! This is the exact same disc that Warner released 3 years ago when the format (Blu-ray) had just launched. Do not buy this expecting any improvement in video quality on the previously available Blu-ray release. Now don’t get me wrong, this is a somewhat nice improvement in terms of video quality versus the original DVD release and re-release as it does hold a good amount of detail in its 35mm film to Hi-Def transfer now 3 years or older. It’s definitely a shame that for its “20th Anniversary Edition” it did not receive yet another restoration as it being only 20 years old has potential to really look much better than it does here. The black level is solid, fleshtones are accurate even though the color tone is a bit warm at times and the color palette itself is vibrant. As mentioned earlier, there is a good amount of detail present in this Hi-Def transfer and it is somewhat visually impressive but really only in comparison to the original DVD release(s) does it seem like an improvement. As said, it is no improvement over the past Blu-ray release, it retains that same somewhat above average “3.5 Star Rating” for video quality.

Here’s to hoping on its 25th anniversary “Goodfellas” gets a really nice restoration so it could be as impressive as the restoration of another Scorsese film, that being “Gangs of New York” which Disney had originally butchered (way worse than this) and now over a year later (“Gangs“) has been fixed. That screw up originally by Disney, in combination with this weak effort from Warner of just repackaging a 3-year-old disc is just further proof that studios make some dumb decisions like this and likely that lack of involvement with Martin Scorsese is the reason why things were done in all honesty, pitifully. My guess is that either so many fans complained they had to do something or Scorsese himself likely came to Disney and had the studio fix their mistake(s) on his film’s (“Gangs“) visual presentation in Hi-Def.

This (“Goodfellas“) even has its share of flaws in its visual presentation, namely the annoying bars on the primarily left and occasionally right sides of the 1.85:1 aspect filled area of the screen. This stuff should have been cropped out or something as it really does prove to be a tad bothersome. Also, when the freeze-frame scenes happen in the film you can actually see the film (picture itself frozen) wiggle (jitter) just as titles sometimes did on older films. Plus, I’d go as far as to say this has a pretty soft tone picture quality to it to only be a 1990 film, it feels like it could be a tad bit sharper given the right restoration efforts.

Audio Quality on this release is presented VERY SADLY ONLY in Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps — the very same track that was on the 2007 Blu-ray, HD-DVD and even DVD release. Speaking of which, WARNING! This is the exact same disc that Warner released 3 years ago when the format (Blu-ray) had just launched. Do not buy this expecting absolutely ANY improvement in audio quality. Just as on the DVD, previous Blu-ray and HD-DVD, this sounds decent but limited by the now ancient AC3 compression that Dolby Digital uses, it is nothing too impressive. This 5.1 mix lacks the “oomph” that we find on lossless 5.1 mixes and has a pretty limited dynamic range too. The film’s soundtrack and the original music sound alright, sound effects such as gunshots and so forth sound semi-realistic and the dialogue is delivered distinctly and shouldn’t require any volume adjustments. Still, it is just unacceptable for Warner to have just repackaged this disc which is now 3 years old and called it a new version. If you are waiting for “Goodfellas” to get a lossless 5.1 mix, I’d say don’t hold your breath. This earns a less than impressive, so-so “3 Star Rating” for overall audio quality.

Bonus materials are presented in Standard Definition video with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound @192kbps.

• A Bonus DVD of the 2008 documentary “Public Enemies: The Golden Age of Gangster Film” is included in this 2-Disc DigiBook set. The film has a runtime of 106 minutes and features director Martin Scorsese as well as other directors and such discussing the gangster film genre ever since the first silent films.
• Cast and Crew Audio Commentary
• Cop and Crook Audio Commentary
• “Getting Made” (29:36) is a retrospective featurette that takes a closer look at the making of the film.
• “Made Men: The Goodfellas Legacy” (13:33) has fellow directors like Jon Favreau, The Hughes Brothers, Richard Linklater and others discussing “the epic coolness” of this film.
• “Paper is Cheaper Than Film” (4:27) has comparisons of storyboard sketches to the actual finished work (film) on some scenes from the film.
• “The Workaday Gangster” (7:58) takes a look at the real-life gangsters that the characters in the film are representing such as “dons” and their underlings.
• Theatrical Trailer (1:28) is sadly only in Standard Definition video with stereo sound.

Overall, the bonus materials are nothing more than the original DVD/Blu-ray ports released 3 years ago with the addition of a bonus DVD of the 2008 documentary “Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film” but they are still impressive, especially with the addition of the documentary which ups the supplemental material runtime by 106 minutes. Fans will also be pleased with the “DigiBook” package’s booklet with facts on the film, still photographs, director and actor biographies and such.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•