Goodfellas

Send us Fan MailWe start to hear a thumping. The guys ask each other what’s going on, what’s the sound? They pull off the roadway and, by the car lights, open the trunk from where the pounding is coming. There, a bloody man wrapped in a sheet starts pleading with them, “No, no…” One of the three stabs the man repeatedly with a butcher knife, and then another of the guys shoots the body four times. The driver is just out of picture, reaching for the trunk lid, then slams it down, we zoom in on him in closeup as we hear his voiceover: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” He’s lit in the eerie red of the car taillights. On the soundtrack, Tony Bennett swings into a song, not “I Left My Heart,” but “Rags To Riches.” That’s the protagonist of the film closing the trunk, that was Ray Liotta playing Henry Hill. That’s the first two minutes of Goodfellas. Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.comBluesky: @wonderfulpeople.bsky.social