Paramount Pictures announced yesterday the 3D Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray, and DVD of Martin Scorsese's latest film "Hugo", which will be released February 28th. The film received 11 Academy Award Nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. Special Features on the 3D Blu-ray and Blu-Ray include Shoot the Moon (The Making of Hugo), The Cinemagician, Georges Melies, The Mechanical Man at the Heart of Hugo, Big Effects, Small Scale, Sacha Baron Cohen: Role of a Lifetime.

Press Release:

Renowned director Martin Scorsese's groundbreaking and original adventure HUGO makes its highly-anticipated debut on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD, all with UltraViolet™, On Demand and for Digital Download on February 28, 2012 from Paramount Home Media Distribution. Recipient of more Academy Award nominations than any other film, HUGO was honored with 11 total—including Best Picture and Best Director—and has already won Martin Scorsese the Golden Globe for Best Director, was named the best film of 2011 by the National Board of Review, and was cited by more than 150 critics as one of the top 10 films of the year including writers for Associated Press, New York Times, Rolling Stone, Time, Entertainment Weekly, New Yorker, New York Daily News and The Hollywood Reporter, among others. Called "magical and enchanting" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times) and "one of the wonders of the world you need to see" (David Edelstein, New York Magazine), HUGO is bursting with dynamic action, sumptuous imagery and a heartwarming and magical story that audiences of all ages can enjoy.


HUGO will be available in a three-disc Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, as well as a two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, each of which boast nearly an hour of behind-the-scenes special features including an illuminating making-of featurette, a retrospective on the extraordinary genius of filmmaker Georges Melies, a look at the mechanical man at the heart of HUGO, plus interviews with the cast and crew and more. The film will also be available as a single-disc DVD. All Blu-ray and DVD releases available for purchase will be enabled with UltraViolet, a new way to collect, access and enjoy movies. With UltraViolet, consumers can add movies to their digital collection in the cloud, and then stream or download them – reliably and securely – to a variety of devices.

HUGO Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack
The HUGO Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The DVD in the combo pack is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French 5.1 Surround, Spanish 5.1 Surround and English Audio Description and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The combo pack includes access to a digital copy of the film as well as the following:

Blu-ray

Feature film in high definition
Shoot the Moon (The Making of Hugo)
The Cinemagician, Georges Melies
The Mechanical Man at the Heart of Hugo
Big Effects, Small Scale
Sacha Baron Cohen: Role of a Lifetime

DVD
Feature film in standard definition

HUGO Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack
The HUGO Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD combo pack includes all of the above, plus a Blu-ray 3D presented in 1080p high definition with English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The Blu-ray 3D includes the feature film presented in high definition and 3D.

HUGO Single-Disc DVD
The single-disc DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French 5.1 Surround, Spanish 5.1 Surround and English Audio Description and English, French and Spanish subtitles. The disc includes the feature film in standard definition and Shoot The Moon (The Making of Hugo).

HUGO Synopsis
Welcome to a magical world of spectacular adventure! When wily and resourceful Hugo discovers a secret left by his father, he unlocks a mystery and embarks on a quest that will transform those around him and lead to a safe and loving place he can call home. Academy Award-winning** filmmaker Martin Scorsese invites you to experience a thrilling journey that critics are calling "the stuff dreams are made of." (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)

Paramount Pictures and GK Films present a GK Films/Infinitum Nihil Production of A Martin Scorsese Picture: "Hugo," directed by Martin Scorsese, with a screenplay by John Logan, based upon the book entitled The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. It is produced by Graham King, Tim Headington, Scorsese and Johnny Depp. The executive producers are Emma Tillinger Koskoff, David Crockett, Georgia Kacandes and Christi Dembrowski. The music supervisor is Randall Poster; casting is by Ellen Lewis.

Maybe it was Martin Scorsese’s desire to utilize the 3D format that kept me from seeing “Hugo” on the first day of its release. 2011 saw 3D get a public beating as audiences became convinced it existed as an excuse for movie studios to jack up ticket prices. But to watch “Hugo” is to be reminded of how amazing 3D can be when using the right tools and not just throwing cheap gimmicks at the audience. But moreover, it is backed up by a great story and remarkable performances as Scorsese shares his love of all things cinema with us.

Seriously, the first five minutes of “Hugo” will blow you away as you feel like you’re traveling over 1930s Paris. The snow looks like it is literally blowing in your eyes, and it reminded me of when kids were grasping at the snowflakes coming from the screen at the beginning of “The Polar Express.” Scorsese was lucky enough to use the same Fusion Camera System James Cameron used to superb effect with “Avatar.” The images stretch out from the screen, and that extra dimension gives the visuals a depth that at times feels frighteningly real.

Based on the novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick, Asa Butterfield stars as Hugo, a young boy who lives alone in a Paris railway station while maintaining the clocks and stealing whatever he needs to survive. One major obstacle he has to deal with is Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen) who patrols around the station with his vicious looking dog. Gustav shows no hesitation in picking up orphans and sending straight to the orphanage which in the kids’ eyes seems like an unforgiving house of terrors.

Two people come to play an important role in Hugo’s life: the toy shop owner Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), and his spirited goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). As Hugo continues to work on fixing an automaton he and his father (Jude Law) were putting back together in working order when he was tragically killed in a museum fire. It’s this same automaton that will draw these three together in ways they could not have imagined.

By taking us back to a time where movies were more or less in their infancy, effects we now see as cheesy and simple to create feel as magical as they did when first shown. Scorsese is brilliant in putting us into these characters’ shoes as we watch audiences react strongly to a film with train which looks like it’s coming straight at them, and at Buster Keaton hanging on for dear life from a clock outside a tall building. Looking at the awe which is so vivid in the children’s faces reminds us of how movies can magically draw us in to another world, and that’s a feeling most movies don’t give us today. In this day and age, we take the power of motion pictures for granted.

I’m not familiar with Butterfield’s work as an actor (he’s best known for “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”), but his performance here is remarkable. Showing the pain and resourcefulness of a young boy who’s lost his parents and has to fend for himself is no easy task, and he ends up giving one of 2011’s most underrated performances. Butterfield inhabits the character of Hugo so deeply that after a while it doesn’t feel like we are watching a performance at all.

Kudos also goes to Moretz, the star of “Kick Ass” and “Let Me In,” for adding yet another superb role to her already splendid resume. As the adventurous Isabelle, she even gives off a flawless English accent which is worth noting as we have gotten so used to actors screwing them up. The warmth of her smile onscreen is utterly genuine, and she lights up “Hugo” whenever it gets a little too dark.

There are other great performances to be found in “Hugo” as well; Ben Kingsley is fantastic as usual as Georges Méliès, and Christopher Lee has some wonderful moments as bookshop owner Monsieur Labisse. One of the big standouts in the supporting cast though is Sacha Baron Cohen who takes a break here from his “Borat” and “Bruno” mockumentaries as Inspector Gustav. He’s a hoot throughout, and his interactions with infinitely lovely Emily Mortimer (“Lars and the Real Girl”) are hilariously sweet.

Scorsese has put together a truly beautiful motion picture which deserves a bigger audience than it has received thus far. The fact that more people went to see “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” than this is depressing. A lot of moviegoers truly hate 3D right now, so that didn’t do this movie any favors. But after watching it you will find yourself believing it might be worth it to keep that extra dimension around for a little while longer.

* * * * out of * * * *

Good friends of mine keep telling me that they get all annoyed about movies with twist endings, where the rug is pulled out from under you. For a while now, a lot of people keep getting sick of filmmakers messing with their heads, and one guy told me that he thought that this tactic was “really cheap” and HATES it. I have never been bothered by it too much, and I pride myself on being open-minded and keeping my expectations in check. Some twists can be quite profound if it ties the story together perfectly, and it can make you want to see certain movies more than twice. As long as the ending doesn’t end up giving me a massive headache like the one in “Saw,” I think I’ll be fine. Or will I?

After seeing “Shutter Island,” I feel like I am starting to get my fill of twist endings as it seems like I have seen far too many. Right now, the television ads for it have been bragging about the movie’s ending, and it has now become its chief selling point. I’m not gonna compare this to other movies with tricky endings because I don’t want to give anything away if I can help it. But with this one, I felt like I knew how things were going to end, and it took away from my enjoyment of this movie a bit.

How you take in “Shutter Island” may depend on how you take in its ending and of how many of its kind you have witnessed whether by choice or not. Once you get past that part of it though, it is still a very well made movie that is never boring. Martin Scorsese directed this adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel, and his work has made for some truly great movies like “Mystic River” and “Gone Baby Gone.” It also reteams Scorsese with his Robert DeNiro of the past decade, Leonardo DiCaprio. You can’t help but expect the best from these guys.

Leo plays Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshal assigned to investigate the escape of a patient, not a prisoner (as Ben Kingsley’s character constantly reminds him), from Ashecliff Hospital. This hospital houses the most dangerous of mentally ill patients, and it is housed on Shutter Island which is presented to us here as one of the most isolated places on Earth. Try to think of it as Alcatraz for the horrendously insane. Teddy is partnered up with Chuck Aule (the always dependable Mark Ruffalo) to investigate, and they speak with everyone from Deputy Warden McPherson (John Carroll Lynch) to chief psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley), and it soon becomes clear that nothing is as it seems…Well, nothing ever is in life.

The one thing I’m really enjoying about writing this review is that I don’t have to spend all that much time talking about the plot. The less I talk about it, the better the experience will be for you. So in the meantime I can write all about all the other elements involved that went into “Shutter Island.”

Leonardo DiCaprio may be headlining this, but Martin Scorsese is always the real star of his movies. It deals with many themes that are predominant in the majority of his movies: guilt, losing your soul to something you cannot control, acceptance of what you did, finding redemption, having to go through your own personal hell, etc. This material is more than suited to Marty’s seemingly endless Catholic guilt, and he has quite the production to go along with this one. Ever since he won the Best Director Oscar for “The Departed,” it seems as if he suddenly has access to even bigger budgets than ever before.

The look of “Shutter Island” is great, and the hurricane that ends up thrashing the hospital and its unlucky inhabitants (sane and insane) is a less than subtle metaphor for secrets that are meant to be uncovered in the worst way possible. Whether it’s one of the stronger or weaker films in his long volume of work, you can be sure that Scorsese never half asses anything he does, ever. Every little detail from the forest surrounding the island to the inside of the dreaded C Block where the worst of the worst are held have been endlessly scrutinized by the director to where you believe that nothing is missing. Plus, he continues working with cinematographer Robert Richardson who did brilliant work on Marty’s Rolling Stones IMAX concert film “Shine a Light.” Robert gives the island a beauty that is forever clouded over by hidden secrets which will bring out the darkness that Teddy is trying to hide or run away from.

Then of course, you have the performances, and there is not a weak one to be found here. Leonardo DiCaprio marks his fourth collaboration with Scorsese with another in a long line of great performances. There should be no doubt by now that he is one of the best film actors of his generation, and his work here is very exhausting to sit through as he gets deeper and deeper into the all consuming madness of this island. Leo doesn’t even have to put anything in words to describe how his character can no longer trust anyone.

As for the rest of the cast, they are on their game throughout be it in the big or small roles they were cast in. It remains all too true; there are no small roles, only small actors. Ben Kingsley never strikes me as ever being capable of giving a bad performance, and that’s even when he is stuck in some of the worst movies ever. I don’t care what anyone says, not even Ewe Boll can make him look bad. As Dr. Cawley, Kingsley presents a kind demeanor that hides secrets he calmly keeps to himself, refusing to bring them out into the open, even if it means finding the escaped patient (not prisoner mind you). Kingsley’s eyes only let you so far into his soul, and his character remains an enigma until the very end. Even after it’s over, he still leaves you with some suspense over whether or not he is dealing with reality.

Max Von Sydow is also on board here, and he is still alive and kicking thespian ass long after making his breakthrough in Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal.” Exactly how many movies has he been in anyway? He’s amazing! As Dr. Jeremiah Naehring, Von Sydow has the appearance in his face of a physician who deals in various methods of treatments far too hideous for him to describe. Of course, he probably has nothing on Jigsaw from that endless “Saw” franchise. In his best acting roles, Von Sydow effectively creates a menacing presence without even trying to be menacing. Of course, it helps when the story and direction do much of the work for him before we first see the particular doctor.

Michelle Williams remains one of the few actors who survived those years of teen soap operas (“Dawson’s Creek” to be more specific), and who has since managed to maintain an acting career as an adult. She is more then deserving of being taken seriously as an actress long after her Oscar nominated performance in “Brokeback Mountain.” As Teddy’s deceased wife, Dolores Chanal, Michelle gives a deeply felt and heartbreaking performance which will have you empathizing with her character regardless of her shocking actions.

There are also some choice cameos to be found throughout “Shutter Island,” and they come from some of the best actors around (whether or not they are big name stars is another story). Patricia Clarkson, whose work in movies ranges from “The Untouchables” to 2007’s “Lars and the Real Girl,” more than excels in the 5 to 10 minutes she has onscreen as the one character who may very well hold the key to what is really going on at Ashecliff Hospital. Ted Levine is a quiet threat here as the warden of the hospital, and his 3 to 5 minutes of screen time are enough to scare his Buffalo Bill character from “The Silence of the Lambs” silly. And then you have the great Jackie Earle Haley as a patient who is really does look like he belongs in the worst part of the island, and his intensity during the scene he has with DiCaprio never lets up. This gives us a good idea of what we can possibly expect from him when he takes on the role of Freddy Krueger in the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” remake (like it or not, it’ll be here soon).

But having said all that, the ending almost undid all of this strong work for me. For the last ten or so years, these twist endings have kept piling up to where each one feels incredibly stupid or depressingly predict from one film to the next. Seriously, I felt like I saw this specific coming almost right from the start. Its not that the ending is bad or doesn’t completely work (it is a bit of a head scratcher), and I’m not going to say how it should have ended either. I get so freakin’ sick of people complaining how this movie or that one should not have ended that way. How is a movie supposed to end anyway? How about this one?

I guess what bothers me is that Scorsese doesn’t succeed in bringing anything new to this kind of ending. After all these years, he remains one of the best American filmmakers, and he generates tension the way few others can. But while his personal touches can be found here and there, “Shutter Island” threatens to feel more like an average mystery, and we have come to expect so much more from him.

Still, “Shutter Island” is undeniably well made and is never ever boring. Despite feeling a bit letdown, this film held my attention throughout. Spending a couple of hours watching this one will certainly be more preferable than to sit through “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” again. My frustration with the climax probably has more to do with the number of movies I have seen overall, and those not familiar with these twists will probably still get a big kick out of it. I wish I liked it more than I did, but between this and “Legion,” what are you really gonna watch?

*** out of ****

It was a damp gray day in the East Bay of Northern California on a weekend in October 1990 when I went to see “GoodFellas” at Crow Canyon Cinemas (a movie theater I would later work at). I was 15 at the time, and family friend Joe drove me out to the theater and even paid for the tickets. To see an R-rated movie at a movie theater at that point in my life made me feel like a rebel. My parents were not there to stop me from seeing it, but by then, I found ways to sneak into them on my own. At that age, it started to feel like R-rated movies were the only ones worth seeing.

I wasn’t actually all that excited about seeing “GoodFellas” when it first came out. Back then, my idea of a good time was seeing Steven Seagal snap a bad guy’s arm in half in “Marked For Death.” It was fake of course, but Seagal was brilliant at making it look fairly real. It was either that or watching Bruce Willis fight terrorists in “Die Hard 2: Die Harder.” That was one of the most exhausting action movies ever made, thrilling to the very end. So the idea of going to see “GoodFellas,” even though it was an R-rated movie, was not the first thing that I wanted to do. It struck me as one of those “critically acclaimed” movies that were more for our parents than us kids. After seeing this movie, none of that mattered to me ever again.

“GoodFellas” was my grand introduction to the brilliant director that is Martin Scorsese, and I immediately became a fan. I still vividly remember seeing this movie for the first time almost 20 years ago, one day after it came out. We were sitting in one of the biggest theaters at Crow Canyon Cinemas, and it was half filled with many people who probably had no idea what they were in store for. It wasn’t just a movie, it was an experience unlike any other. Marty directs many of the scenes that make us feel like we are in the room with the characters or traveling along with them as they make their way to the best seats at the Copacabana. This movie grew on me so much after I first saw it, and when it was first released on video, I went out and rented it right away. Seeing this movie once was not enough, and it was something I wanted to experience over and over again.

For me, “GoodFellas” was everything a movie could be. It was exciting, at times very funny, at other times it was truly terrifying, and nothing else I seen at that point was as intense. It still holds up perfectly to this very day, and it has lost none of its power to enthrall the audience who dares to watch it. For all these reasons, “GoodFellas” remains my favorite movie of all time. It will take A LOT for another movie to top it.

“GoodFellas” was based on the nonfiction bestseller “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi which was about Henry Hill, a member of a mob family who recounts his story of how he started and where he ended up from there. Yes, it is another movie that is “based on a true story.” But unlike other Hollywood versions of true stories, this one feels truly authentic in what it presents. Even if liberties were taken with the material, everything in this movie feels very grounded in reality. Plus, this movie was made back in 1990, and that was when the term “based on a true story” actually meant something. Today, the phrase is utterly meaningless.

The movie opens with three guys in a car driving on a lonely highway. The passengers in the car are Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmie Conway (Robert De Niro), and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), and they end up pulling off the road when they hear a noise that sounds like a flat tire. It turns out that there is a man in the trunk of the car that they thought was dead, but he is still clinging on to whatever bloody life he has left. Seeing Tommy viciously stabbing the guy brought an audible response from the audience I saw it with. This was not going to be another one of those movies with your usual cartoonish movie violence, this was going to be the real deal.

Once the opening credits have whisked by the screen, we are introduced to Henry Hill when he was a kid, and he is played here by Christopher Serrone. Scorsese shoots the movie as if we are seeing everything through this kid’s eyes. Each of the mob characters in the movie are given memorable introductions, most especially that of Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino in one of his best performances). From there, we the audience feel just like Henry Hill as we come to find the Mob life very alluring. Seeing Henry skip out of school on a daily basis made his life seem all the more appealing, and that remained the case even after his father practically whipped him to death his belt for skipping school.

That’s the great thing about “GoodFellas,” it shows how incredibly seductive the mob life is. This is no mere invention of a writer indulging in some illegal substances; the mob is a real thing even to this very day. Scorsese doesn’t try to sweeten their reality or treat this subject matter solely as a morality tale. Watching this movie, I have to admit that being a part of the mob became very appealing to me. To live extravagantly and have all the things you want, something about that is utterly irresistible. But therein lays the trap of it all. Nothing this good comes easy. There is a huge price to be paid, and it is much steeper than you would ever expect it to be.

One of the greatest moments in “GoodFellas” captures the seductive nature of the Mob life perfectly. It is shown in the now famous scene of when Henry Hill takes his girlfriend Karen (the fantastic Lorraine Bracco) to the Copacabana. But instead of waiting in line like everyone else, Henry and Karen end up going into the club through the back way, and we follow them every single step of the way in one shot. This may very well have been the first time I had ever seen a steadicam shot, the kind that lasts for several minutes and doesn’t have a single cut in it. It’s an amazing sequence that has me wondering how they managed to put it all together. But with that shot, you are basically along for the ride. You are a participant as Henry and Karen make their way through the kitchen to the front of the audience, and you feel like they do as the manager welcomes them, and you are just as appreciative as they are when some guests at a table across from them give them a bottle of wine as a gift. Like these two, you are given a front seat to all that the mob life has to offer. The separation between you and what’s on the screen completely evaporates, and you are along for the ride even after that amazing shot ends with Henny Youngman doing his famous one-liners.

But even as we delight in the extravagant lifestyle than most others will never experience, there is a dark side to this life that even we as audience members cannot hide from. Early in the film, we see young Henry Hill come to the aid of a man who has just been shot and is bleeding bad. Henry wraps the man’s hands in aprons and towels, and all the while is berated by the boss of the pizza joint he works at for wasting all those towels on the guy. This is the moment that haunts Henry throughout the rest of the movie, and if he thought that was bad, it was nothing compared to the violence that he comes to witness next.

That’s the thing about the violence in “GoodFellas,” it is very visceral. I hadn’t seen violence this harsh since I saw Brian DePalma’s “The Untouchables” at the wrong time in my life (just before I turned 13 I believe). Whereas you could get a huge kick out of watching Steven Seagal dare a man to take a shot at him by throwing his weapon away and sitting Indian style and daring him to take a shot, hence giving him the easiest target a person could have even while we know Steven knows exactly what he is doing, the violence in Scorsese’s movie is much more real. The fights in a Scorsese movie are never fully choreographed, and they are really more an unleashing of anger that has been bottled up for way too long. While we may laugh and get a huge kick out of Seagal taking apart a bad guy with a simple calculated movement, we are left utterly shocked and devastated by the violence in this movie. It was raw and frightening, and it served as a fact that moviegoers are not completely desensitized to movie violence.

To this day, I still remember the shocked responses of the audience members (mostly adults in their 40s or 50s) who were taking this all in. Clearly, this was nothing like they expected it to be. Pesci’s character beating Billy Batts was a moment of unbridled fury as he kept punching away at him even as Billy’s blood was spilling over him. The moment where Stacks Edwards (Samuel L. Jackson, in one of his pre “Pulp Fiction” performances) is assassinated right out of the blue, seeing the blood just fly over his bed and the wall left us all in a state of shock. The specter of death, as it soon became clear, hung over the heads of all the characters. Whether they realized it or not, they could end up dead at any second. No one in “GoodFellas” could ever make themselves believe that their life was never in any danger.

Ray Liotta is always going to be best remembered for his performance as Henry Hill in this movie no matter what happens. This is not to take away from other great work he has done in movies like “Unlawful Entry” and “Copland” to name a few, but his role in this movie remains his best work to date. I can’t think of any actor who could have brought Henry Hill to the screen other than the real Henry Hill himself, but he was probably too old to do that by the time they started to make this movie. Ray brings the perfect blend of reckless energy to this part, and there is no doubt of how fully invested he became in this character. We watch him go from the exhilarated heights of stealing from people, to bottoming out in a world of drugs and inescapable danger.

In retrospect, I feel like I took Robert DeNiro’s performance as Jimmy “The Gent” Conway for granted. Seeing him in this movie was one of the first chances I had at seeing what an amazing actor he can be. It’s like DeNiro is not even trying to act when you watch him. You get the feeling that this is all coming to him naturally, and not the result of intense and focused research of the character he is playing. From watching him in this movie and every role he took thereafter, DeNiro became one of my role models of what an actor should be. There may be many other actors who commit to their part passionately, but none will come to mind as quickly as DeNiro.

There are many other performances worthy of mention in this movie. Lorraine Bracco is a powerhouse as Henry Hill’s wife, Karen. Seeing her and Henry go from a horrible first date to being in love could have seemed unbelievable, but the two of them make it seem real even during the bad times that will eventually visit them both. Seeing her scream through the intercom at the woman her husband is having an affair with shows that this is no woman to be taken lightly. She loves her man in spite of all the things he does. Even after Henry brutally pistol whips the boy across the street who takes advantage of her, she is ultimately turned on by him and won’t look in any other direction even if she knows she should.

For Paul Sorvino, his role as Paulie Cicero became was of his very best performances. It’s almost impossible to believe that Paul thought that he wouldn’t be able to pull this role off. As Paulie, there are several moments where he shows that he doesn’t have to say a single word in order to show who is truly in charge of the mob. His presence is a towering one throughout the movie, and his presence is felt throughout even when he is not onscreen. When he slaps another person in the face, you know that this is a person to be taken seriously. The only thing more memorable about Paul Sorvino than his performance in this movie is when he burst into tears after his daughter Mira won Best Supporting Actress for “Mighty Aphrodite.”

But the very best performance to come out of this Scorsese classic is from Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito. To say that he absolutely deserved his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor would be to overstate the obvious. As Tommy, Pesci creates one of the most entertaining as well as one of the scariest mobsters ever brought to the big screen. The scene between him and Ray Liotta still stands as one of the most intense scenes that I have seen in any film. The audience I saw it with was held in utter silence when Joe asked Ray while he said he was so funny. Watching that scene, you could hear a pin drop or a plastic cup of coke descend to the ground, and you would still be riveted to what was going on in the silver screen. This is a scene where one person could have died for saying or doing the wrong thing.

Remember the scene where Spider (Michael Imperioli, years before “The Sopranos”) tells Tommy to go fuck himself? That remains one of the scariest moments I have ever had in a movie theater, and it reaches an intensity on a par with Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” You know at that exact moment that Spider is going to die. The question is, how is Tommy going to kill him? The tension in that scene becomes so thick that, yes, you could cut it with a knife. I know that previous sentence is an annoying cliché, but it is the perfect way to describe that ominous moment. I was curling up in my chair in the theater (soon to be my future place of employment) waiting for the explosion that eventually occurred onscreen. It remains one of the most viscerally implosive moments in cinema that rarely gets matched in other movies.

But make no mistake, the real star of “GoodFellas” is Martin Scorsese himself. Scorsese has a style all his own, like all the great directors do, and this movie is one of the very best examples of that. His use of songs in the movie in each individual scene is unsurpassed by any director, including Quentin Tarantino. What makes his style of directing so incredibly effective is that it is so personal. Scorsese grew up with kids like Henry Hill and Jimmie Conway. It could easily be him looking through the window at the cab stand across the street like Henry Hill did. I was immediately hooked, and I soon went on to watch various other Scorsese features like “Mean Streets,” “After Hours,” and “Taxi Driver” (my second favorite movie of all time) among others. There is such an intense energy to his movies that not many other directors can achieve, and this is the case with the movie that finally won him the Best Directing Oscar, “The Departed.”

“GoodFellas” never tries to moralize its tale of crime and murder, and it doesn’t need to. The lessons to pick up from this movie we can figure out for ourselves. In fact, the movie has a no holds barred honesty to it that makes it all the more effective. In the end, when Henry Hill goes into the witness protection program, he is not upset about what he did. Henry is more upset that he cannot go on stealing some more. That is his biggest regret, that and the fact that he has to now spend the rest of his life as an “average nobody.” The sound effects of jail cell doors closing in as he closes the front door emphasize this point perfectly.

This movie remains my all time favorite for all those reasons. Can any movie possibly top this one for me? I’m not sure about that. If any movie were to surpass it for me, it would probably be another Scorsese movie. This movie changed the way I saw movies forever, and I will always love it for that.

**** out of ****