Rowsdower

I just had the opportunity to revisit Goodfellas after a couple years. I was captivated from beginning to end, but I need to take a somewhat controversial stand on the movie. I thinks it's good, far better than most of what Hollywood churns out, but a classic for the ages? I don't think you should go that far.

Here's my main problem: This movie does not contain a single likable character. All the performances are top notch, but that's not my point. I couldn't identify with Ray Liotta. I can understand how his character was seduced my the mob lifestyle, but as an adult he's no better than anyone else around him. In the Godfather, within the encapsulated mob-world with its own set of peculiar rules, the Corleones were actually good people. They respected their wives, they only killed when necessary for business, and their loyalty never wavered. It was easy for me, the audience member, to become entranced and actually cheer them on. In Goodfellas, on the other hand, all the men are essentially a--holes. De Niro is crazy and paranoid, Pesci is insecure and sadistic, and Ray Liotta may have charm, but he has no ethical compulsions (even by mob standards) and will try to get away with whatever he can.

I bring all this up because I need to have a character I can care about. The tragic fall of Henry is only tragic if I cared about him to begin with.

Secondly, I would have liked a more tangable plot. I don't mean a cookie cutter Hollywood plot, but at least give me something in the first act that gets resolved in the third. The movie plays like a series of unconnected vignettes about mob life. Yes, it's a fascinating glimpse inside the mob, but by 1990 or 91, (whenever this came out) we've already had plenty of fascinating glimpses inside the mob. When Ray Liotta gives us some talk-over narrative like "Back then we did what we wanted and we didn't care." I'm thinking, "Yes Ray, we know. This isn't our first gangster movie."

If this is your favorite movie, fine, I have no problem with that. Better Goodfellas than this guy back at school who once told me that Mel Gibson's "Man Without a Face" was his favorite movie. But give Godfather 1 or 2 another watch, and tell me if you see what I'm saying about the likability issue.

Best Picture?? Best.... Picture?? One more time: BEST PICTURE???

If this thing wins best picture, I'm going to strip to the tunic and loincloth and protest outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and trust me, nobody wants that.

I mean, have the nominators actually seen the movie? Since when does cheesey, intelligence insulting popcorn fodder like this disappointing movie win anything better than an award given out at the separate ceremony for technical achievement? The acadmeny has let me down before, no doubt about it. But at least the academy has always rewarded "good" movies, even when you felt a better movie was robbed. Forrest Gump shouldn't have beaten Pulp Fiction, but at least Forrest Gump was good. Same with Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan, or Ordinary People beating Raging Bull. But if Gladiator wins, I think it will be the first time ever that a "bad" movie wins the top honor. I can't even recall a "bad" movie even getting nominated before.

Let's not kid ourselves. Gladiator is a bad movie. I know the special effects were great, and you paid 8 bucks to see it... I know Gladiator does the whole action/violence/sword-swinging-epic thing better than a lot of its competition. And I know you've been saying it was a good movie all this time, so to make the admission that it was bad now would be to quietly admit that you've been watching a lot of bad movies and wasting a lot of money and time. But for God's sake DO IT. Admit it. You'll feel better.

Normally I'd let this go. People watch it, they like it, what's the harm? A little mindless afternoon entertainment for a small fee. But when the industry leaders prepare to give this thing the top honors for the year, then we've got to take a stand. You need to find your nearest Academy voter, look him right in the inebriated bloodshot eye, and tell him that if he votes for this stupid movie, he deserves to be tied up and beaten with bamboo.

I won't bother defending why I think it's stupid. All the reasons should be utterly apparent to anyone who's seen it.

Students of the long-lived Police Academy series will probably note that this film marks the point where the series took a turn for the worse. The story wasn't quite ready for the prostate exam scene of part 2, it hadn't quite achieved the comic desperation of the Proctor-in-the-portapotty scene of part 4, and it wasn't at all ready for the soul crushing, life-rejecting abandonment of decency that was the slapstick romp through Moscow's Red Square in part 7, but a observant viewer of the first film might notice that underneath the tasteless racism, offensive caricatures, and tired repetitive humor, the groundwork was being laid for these later atrocities.

At the epicenter of all this is Mr. Steve Guttenberg, who may have been destined for a James Belushiesque kind of stardom if his career hadn't been scuttled in these early movies. He provides a cunning foil to G.W. Bailey, star of Mannequin and countless numbers of my own nightmares, who plays Captain Harris, the no-nonsense but kind of stupid drill instructor. Along for the ride is funny noisemaker Michael Winslow, the poignant and misunderstood Bubba Smith, who provides some necessary pathos with his "Mahoney, can you teach me how to drive?" speech, George Gaynes as Lassard, Dave Graf as Tackleberry, Leslie Easterbrook as the well endowed Callahan, and a bunch of other guys who were smart enough not to sign on for the sequel.

In a movie that really cries out for the additional talent of Bobcat Goldthwait, this team still somehow manages to pull it together. And thanks to the R rating, they were able to pull off a brand of tasteless foul humor that would be inaccessible in later Academy adventures. Like Harris's head in the horse's patoot, or the anguished screams of the bad-guy recruits when they stumble into the gay bar.

To be fair, this movie really isn't any worse than any number of mindless T&A slapstick films that came around in the 80's. It compares favorably with similar movies like "Hamburger" and "Ski School" and "My Tutor", but the problem is that while "Young Doctors in Love" didn't spawn 6 sequels and both a live action and cartoon TV series, Police Academy did. The result is that we can dismiss movies like "Teachers" as amusing, forgettable failures and move on with our lives, but we must view Police Academy as something far more sinister: a conspiracy to dull the American mind, a reflection of our troubled times, perhaps even the "Final Omen" predicted by Nostradamus or the Seventh Sign spoken of in Revelations.

If you ignore my advice and see this anyway, keep your eye out for the scene where Harris screams the n-word at Private Hooks and Bubba Smith flips the car over with his bare hands. It just goes to show that years before Spike Lee would try to capture the complexity of the black experience in America through his own films, Police Academy had already thoroughly explored that territory, leaving a profound mark on the national dialogue.