Top Ten Movies of All Time

6) Star Wars Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back: The best of an already awesome series of movies. This is the second installment of the series, released in 1980. People were stunned by the release of "Episode IV," and they didn't know what to expect, whether this one could live up to its name or if it would be sup bar, there is no question about it. With the best technological achievements for any movie at the time, it was a HIT in the box office and instantly critics were adding this movie to their list of classics. For those who get confused on the Star Wars episodes, this is the one where Darth Vader says his famous, pivotal quote, "No, I am your father." Often misquoted, but nevertheless this movie is a gripping tale filled with lots of emotions, heroes, villains, everything you could ask for.


5) Fight Club: If "cool" could manifest itself in the form of a movie, this is what it would look like. This movie tells the tale of an exasperated desk jockey insomniac who can't figure out what's wrong with his life and a mysterious soap salesman whom he meets on a plane's adventures in using different types of male "therapy." They start underground fight clubs where people get together and just beat the hell out of each other in order to ease some of the tension in their lives. This movie really messes with your mind. I highly recommend seeing this movie twice, because the second time, you will notice things a lot differently. This movie really messes with your mind, the first half of the movie and the second half are so totally different, you start wondering if you accidentally switched to a different movie, but all in a really cool way. Easily in my top five collection.


4) Goodfellas: There are a lot of gangster movies. Quite possibly one of the most overdone genres of all time, its really hard to make a gangster movie that doesn't feel like an EXACT COPY of another, previously released movie. With quite possibly the best actor selection any movie has ever seen, its hard to believe that this movie was based on a true story, and not the other way around. Maybe I'm just a gangster movie fanatic, but even those who aren't serious fans of the genre can tell you that this movie is a definite keeper. It stays with you for a while, as any good movie should. You find yourself enjoying really good, genuine laughs at some of the dialogue and events that take place, than you find yourself really tense and full of adrenaline, just as the characters in the movie seemed to feel.

Top Ten Movies of All Time

3) The Godfather Part II: As we enter the "top 3" category, it becomes extremely crucial that I choose movies that stand out, movies that are better than good, or great, but movies that are never forgotten. This movie happens to be the greatest sequel of all time to the greatest movie of all time, why not? "The Saga Continues." Seriously, another flawless work by Francis Ford Coppola that tops the charts for the best sequels ever. Using the superb acting skills of DeNiro to portray Vito Corleone in his younger years was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in American cinema. Michael Corleone, taking the throne after his father's death, is faced with many hardships including, a rebellious sister, a brother who maybe the downfall of his family, and the crude realization that he has become a ruthless mob boss, something that he had hoped and tried so long to stay far away from. There has never, EVER been a story as good as this one in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others. Another classic soundtrack, more flawless editing and screenplay, and a continuation of a story that was left at one of the strongest cliff- hanger endings of all time. Its no wonder that "The Internet Movie Database" (IMDb) agrees with me that this is the third best movie of all time.


2) The Shawshank Redemption: Possibly one of the most underrated, under appreciated movies of all time. A thrilling story which only someone like Stephen King can make, it explains the tale of two inmates in an imaginary high security prison somewhere in Maine, the Shawshank penitentiary. A different style of movie than most, it leaves you thinking about many, many things after its over. Sometimes I find myself going back and watching it and feeling the same way I did the first time I saw it. An original story, if you haven't seen it than you're really missing out, very few movies are able to make a prison drama stand out so well.


1) The Godfather Part I: Absolutely. No debate here, none whatsoever. Has there ever been a movie so finely crafted, with so much attention to detail and story, that for a little over three hours you are hooked, and find the ending to be a big slap in the face just because you didn't want to movie to finish so soon? Never has a movie suffused the viewers in its events better than this one, the hardest decision ever made with regards to this movie is figuring which quote is the best. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," versus, "Take the Cannoli." An epic tale set in the late 1940s of the Italian crime families of the United States, Francis Ford Coppola dropped this atom bomb on the United States cinema in 1972 and to this day, its radiation plagues the movie industry.

Top Ten Rap/ Hip Hop Albums (7-10)

10) All Eyez on Me : When deciding on a top ten, its always hard to select the #1 spot. But it's also really hard to decide on the #10 slot as well. Most people think that the #10 slot isn't really that good, which is a very obscene misconception. Tupac's All Eyez on Me is in my opinion, the most awaited and criticized album of all time. Most critics consider it one of the, if not the best, album of the 1990s. Released right after Tupac was bailed out of jail, there was a lot of media hype behind this album. It remains one of the top selling rap albums of all time, going NINE TIMES platinum, that's crazy.


9) Straight Outta Compton: The Godfather of all of gangsta rap albums. NWA showed just exactly what they were made of when this mind- blowing, controversy sparking, media attracting piece of art was dropped. With classic Hip Hop tracks like "Straight Outta Compton", "%*$@ the Police", and "Gangsta Gangsta", they basically took a sledgehammer to the brittle glass window that was separating the negative stereotypes thugs from Hip Hop artists. And they loved it. Every rapper gives thanks to God every night before they sleep that this album was released. Only a few artists could have the balls to do what NWA did on this album, and their work has produced one of the most respected, often replayed albums of all time.


8) The Chronic: Dr. Dre's debut album, its hard not to place this album much, MUCH higher than what I have it. Dr. Dre is easily one of the most respected men in the entire game as a producer, but many people don't realize the outstanding rap performance on this artifact of the golden age of Hip Hop. With funky, "G- Funk" beats and a really tough gangsta style tone, Dr. Dre shoved aside the hodgepodge that was known as East Coast rap and elevated the West Coast to a peak it would never reach again. "Ain't Nothing But a G Thang", a single featuring Snoop Dogg was easily the most important, pivotal song in this album, making its mark in history and still remains one of the best music videos ever produced.


7) The Diary: Scarface, King of the South. This album was released right in the midst of the rise of Nas, Biggie, Tupac, Dre, all of them. Underrated as it was, The Diary is nothing short of a masterpiece. With stunning, eye opening tracks like "Hand of the Dead Body" which really articulated the prejudice and racism in this country, Scarface was someone who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty so to speak on this album. Everything that he saw in the United States that he didn't like, he explictly stated that in this album. Recognized as a classic, it recieved top ratings from both The Source and XXL magazines. Very, very few albums achieve either one of these awards, let alone both. Its most famous for the featuring of its song "No Tears" in the hit movie, Office Space.

Top Ten Rap/ Hip Hop Albums (4-6)

6) Get Rich or Die Tryin': 50 Cent's debut album, no doubt a top five choice. 50 Cent is reminiscent of Tupac when he first came out; with a BANG. His famous single "In Da Club" topped charts and easily showed what kind of potential this man had. Other hit singles including "Many Men" showed how diverse he was on the mic, and his extremely thuggish, gangster style of life. He was a no fooling around person, and he made sure that was clear on this album. Other singles like "If I Can't" and "P.I.M.P." showed how light- hearted he actually could be any his extremely humorous personality. The second best selling rap album of the decade following The Marshall Mathers LP, its no doubt that this album is a classic.


5) Reasonable Doubt: This is one of the hardest decisions when it came to deciding between two of one artist's albums. I did not know whether to choose this one, his debut, or The Blueprint, a work he did a bit later, both are considered top ten material, I just don't have room, and one had to stay. I chose Reasonable Doubt because it had contained the ingredients for a classic. One of the first people to take the "mafioso" approach to gangsta rap, Jay Z showed he had a lot of balls by releasing his DEBUT album, the one where first impressions are made and where many, many artists' careers end, by rapping about a seldom discussed concept. It's amazing how he managed to feature Biggie, and get most of his songs produced by DJ Premier, a true icon on the DJ scene. Most of the work Premier has done is now considered a classic, by working with Jay, he brought so much more anticipation and close scrutiny on the album, which jay Z handled very professionally. Always known for his style, this album had lots of slow, funky beats and simple choruses, which is exactly what rap was turning its head away from by 1996, which is when this was released. Its like he was the last person to jump onto the moving train before it took off past the platform, barely able to sneak in a true old- school classic.


4) The Marshall Mathers LP: Eminem's second studio album, The Marshall Mathers LP holds the record for the fastest selling rap album of all time. It sold 1.7 MILLION copies in its FIRST WEEK. Almost TWO MILLION copies were sold over a seven day period, its no wonder as to why this happened, with the outstanding lyricism found on his debut, what else could you expect? A much darker- themed album than most, this album showed us a side of Slim Shady that not many people knew. He really expressed the rawness that he contained, and crafted it into an exquisite album.

Top Ten Rap/ Hip Hop Albums (3-1)

3) Ready to Die: Biggie's debut album, no doubt this HAD to be on my top ten. Time magazine included it in its list of top 100 albums of all time, and its the highest ranking rap album on the top 500 list. No rap album that came after this one wasn't influenced by it. That simple. This album contained my radio friendly singles like "Big Poppa", "Juicy", and "Warning", plus it included some more explicit, hardcore rap hits such as "Ready to Die", and "Who Shot Ya?" Cold lyrics, funky beats and a light- hearted tone much different than that of this latter album, this one was a very, very big commercial success, dwarfing all other rap albums in the 1990s buy A LOT.


2) Illmatic: The most influential album of all time, really. It may not have been quite good enough to land itself the number one slot, but it helped rewrite modern day rap. It wasn't expected to be that great, even with promotions that the producers made for the album. But when it dropped, it was pretty evident that Nas was going to be a really big name in Hip Hop. It contained easily the best beats of any rap album, ever. His lyricism was unmatched, clever word play and hilarious anecdotes and subliminal messages made his songs very interesting, and still remain so. Like so many other classics though, it was only until much after its release did people realize its true value; it was dubbed a platinum record in 2001.


1) Life After Death: I didn't even need to think about this one, its automatic, the best rap album of all time. Its common practice to regard Ready to Die as Biggie's best album, but I disagree. While it was his debut album, and had quite an impact, as a rap album, Life After Death was better. Good artist, like Biggie, tend to get better as time goes on, which is exactly what happened. In the time between both albums, he gained LOTS of skill as a rapper. If you weren't too fond of the deeper, mafia- like style he adopted, then you had to give in to the lyrics. He blew up with the release of Ready to Die, but he perfected himself as a rapper in Life After Death. All of the minor mistakes that were found in his first album were gone: his beat varieties increased, his delivery became a lot better, and he had a much bigger variety of genre within the album. Comedy, dance, gangsta, stories, everything. No Comparison IMO...

Honorable Mentions (Rap Artists)

I meant to write this right after I posted my top ten list, but with the release of Notorious, all had to wait. But now that that's aside, I would like to just give a shout out to all of those people who I couldn't fit into the Top Ten Artists list, but people who truly need to be recognized.

Dr. Dre: The most often seen icon in the game. Dr. Dre, savior of the west coast, he's seen it all. A key member of NWA, he was one of the pioneers of gangsta rap. He brought in some of the biggest names in Hip Hop: Eminem, 50 Cent, and The Game. All that, whilst releasing, The Chronic, rated one of the Top Ten Rap Albums of All Time. He's worked with all of the legends, Snoop, Tupac, Cube, Easy E, its hard to have a discussion about rap without bringing up Dre.

Big Pun: Its hard to tell what's more intimidating, his rhymes, or his size. Ferocious, all he had to say was one word, something as simple as "yo" at the beginning of any song, and you knew it was him. He was funny, intelligent, and his rap didn't revolve around how much money, women and cars he owned; he rapped about bigger issues. In my honest opinion, he's the gangsta version of "Fat Joe". Who knows what he could have become had he lived longer.

Big L: If you find yourself asking, Who? Then immediately go to Youtube and search ANYTHING by this guy and be amazed. Its odd how many people don't even know who this guy is, yet claim they like rap. In my opinion, if he wasn't the best freestyler ever, then he was second only to Eminem. Much like all other young artists who had all of the potential in the world, Big L's life was cut short from an unsolved murder. This guy could really "spit fire" as they say.

Rakim: One of the ancestors of rap, he and his duet partner "Eric B." released an album that is without any doubt, the greatest rap album of all time, "Paid in Full." If I could only squeeze him into my top ten, but he was just before my time. He's been raping since before LL Cool J, he's HARDCORE.

G- Unit Crew: When I initially made my top ten, instead of 50 Cent taking my #10 slot, I had G- unit as a whole crew taking up the fifth slot, and everyone below them was moved down one notch. Then I decided that I was only talking about solo artists, so I had to choose one of them. As a group they are unstoppable. From 2000 until whenever they stop rapping, hopefully no time soon, they have dominated the charts with singles, videos and amazing mixtapes. A very skilled crowd, they've had their ups and downs, but if my list wasn't devoted to solo artists, they would have earned themselves a nice spot, no doubt.

Notorious

For those who don't know, Notorious, is the newly released biopic to the greatest rapper of all time, The Notorious B.I.G. it was released in theaters on January 16th, 2009, this last Friday. The movie itself received mostly favorable reviews from the critics and generally good to great reviews from common viewers. The movie runs just under two hours long, a definite choice for fans, haters, and people who don't even know who Biggie even was.

I personally feel the movie really captured the important events in Biggie's life. His albums release, his feud with Tupac Shakur, and his relationships with various women. His life was quite short; but in the mere 24 years that he lived, he rose from the lowly bottoms of Brooklyn to the Gucci wearing, champagne sipping tycoon that he was just before his death. Notorious does an outstanding job of making its viewers feel the emotions that Biggie was going through at various times in his life. The man who starred as Biggie himself, Jamal Woolard, was very well chosen. More than once, I found myself thinking that I was looking at the REAL Biggie Smalls, not an entirely different person. Woolard is extremely skilled at capturing certain qualities and characteristics that Biggie was known for, such as his deep, husky voice, his elitist, "I'm the king of the world" look that defined Biggie in his later years, everything, this was my biggest concern going into this movie, and I was very pleasantly surprised.

Even all of the supporting actors did excellent jobs in capturing the identities of the characters they portrayed. Anthony Mackie (Tupac Shakur) definitely takes the cake for this one though. When I first heard that it was going to be Mackie that took the role of Tupac, I was quite disappointed, I thought the director was going to scrutinize the entire country until he found some unknown, underground Tupac lookalike that was just waiting for a role like this. I honestly couldn't find ANY connections between the real Shakur, and the actor. But, when I first saw Mackie on the big screen, for a second, I thought that they were actually just playing a video of a real event, with the real Tupac, much like how many parts of the funeral were real, taped events. But after much, much, extraneous scrutiny, I realized that I was actually looking at Anthony Mackie. He was also able to portray that "I don't give a &^$#" personality that Tupac had really, really well.

The actual movie had very few flaws in it, all of the events were accurate, there wasn't any added fluff or anything, these events are all pretty much exactly how they took place. While I wasn't exactly ever there for any of these events, I am quite knowledgeable on what happened through various sources including interviews with the actual people. I didn't think that they portrayed anyone unfairly, unlike what Lil' Kim had to say. In an interview, she stated that she felt that she was being unfairly and inaccurately portrayed in this film. The claims that she wasn't quite as... dirty as she looked in the movie. I can understand that she might be holding on to some bitter memories of her with Biggie, but he portrayal was far from "inaccurate."

I would personally recommend this movie to anyone and everyone, so long as they are over the age of seventeen. There are some scenes in this film that many parents would consider inappropriate for their kids to watch, so consider this fair warning. But with that aside, like I've stated before, fans of Biggie Smalls, haters of Biggie, and people who have never even heard of him are all encouraged to watch this movie. It really clears up a lot of fog that used to surround Biggie's life, a lot of people think he's just another rapper, same as anyone else, but they are overlooking a lot of events that made this man into what he was, inside and outside of the studio.

Top Ten Rap/ Hip Hop Artists (10-6)

Everyone and their mother likes to make one of these lists, and act as if their decisions are fact. I understand that mine aren't, although my list has been viewed by many, many unofficial experts, and they have found very little disagreements between my Top Ten list and theirs. So without further ado, lets get this started.


10) 50 Cent: Don't deny it. At one point in your life, you have to have liked 50 Cent. His name comes up more than anyone else these days when talking about rap, he's the reason Lil' Wayne can't sleep at night. He's released classic singles, albums, arguably the best beats in Hip Hop, he captures the "gangsta" persona much better than anyone else today does. An apprentice of two major icons in rap: Dr. Dre, and Eminem.
"In my hood we was taught not to say who shot ya,
see the flash, hear the shot, you feel it burnin, I got ya"
- 50 Shot Ya, Guess Who's Back?


9) LL Cool J: You know who he is, your parents know who he is, their parents even know who he is. Cool J has been in the game for a little over two decades, a feat very, very few have accomplished, since the 1980s, he's been dropping classics like, "Mama Said Knock You Out." He's rapped with all of the big names in Hip Hop, been featured by all of them, and held his own during the turbulent years of the late ninety's.
"That's real, what's up with that I shot ya deal?
Light s***, n****z slip, now how the bullet feel?"
- I Shot Ya, Mr. Smith


8) Snoop Dogg: The true Father of Hip Hop, his laid back style that gives you the impression that he's constantly intoxicated, has been a big icon in Hip Hop since the early 1990s. A legend, his pimp- like swagger and entertaining lyrics caused his debut album Doggystyle to be arguably the most anticipated album of all time.
"I wouldn't be the n***a that I am
if I didn't pop n****z in their mouth, God DAMN!"
- Vato, Tha Blue Carpet Treatment


7) Ice Cube: One of the kings of Gangsta rap. He co- founded it actually, he was one of the members of NWA, the first people to bring gangsta rap into the mainstream world. He's not someone that you mess with, he's ended many a rappers' career for trying to mess with him. Ferocious, powerful sounding, and deep, his songs light the radio on fire, a definite top choice for anyone, casual or hardcore.
"I'm raw as a dirty needle, choke an eagle, just to feed all my people.
Lyrically, I'm so lethal, plant thoughts in your mind just to defeat you."
- Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It, Raw Footage


6) Nas: His unrefined, classic, pure east coast style of rapping has had people listening to his debut album, Illmatic , years and years after its release. One of the best lyricists in the game, a poet, discussing inner- city life with a gritty, New York swagger that very few can capture like he does. Took the title, "King of New York" after Biggie's departure.
"You couldn't catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer,
that's like Malcolm X catching the Jungle Fever."
- Halftime, Illmatic

Top Ten Rap/ Hip Hop artists (5-1)

5) Scarface: The King of the South. Coined the term "the Dirty South" before people like Rick Ross and T. I. learned to go potty by themselves. Deep, deep lyrics, he touched on many social aspects in America, the mistreatment of blacks, gender discrimination, racial stereotypes, etc. He made a lot of people really, really uncomfortable with the way he rapped. Questioned society's perception on the typical black man living in the ghetto, asking them if they really knew what life was like. This man was an intellectual, a deep thinker, and he expressed his thoughts with such an aggressive tone and delivery, it sends shivers down people's spines.
"I've got this killer up inside of me,
I can't talk to my mother so I talk to my diary,
I'm going off in the deep end,
I find myself face to face with myself when I'm sleepin'"
- No Tears, The Diary


4) Eminem: Maybe the most underrated mainstream rapper there ever was. He has done in his small career what many have failed to do in their lives. He remains the holder of the top selling album: The Marshal Mathers LP, his flow rivaled that of Biggie's. His freestyle skill was unmatched, he was so good, at one point he was losing respect from critics because they thought that he had rehearsed all of his freestyles. He never once sugar coated his rhymes, never once did he try and make subtle remarks because he was too scared to say something, if he felt it, he rapped it.
"Sure I got a few screws up in my head loose,
but no different from whats going on in your parents' bedrooms."
- My Name is, The Slim Shady LP


3) Tupac: Biggie's counterpart. This man contained the very short list of items that Biggie did not: themes and messages of lyrics. He was truly a deep man, way ahead of his time. You could tell he rapped from the heart, his songs often horribly true instances of past life experiences that he raps with unbelievable delivery. The West Coast King, shared Hip Hop in the ninety's with Biggie Smalls.
"I see no changes wake up in the morning and ask myself,
is life worth living or should I just blast myself?
I'm tired of being poor and even worse, I'm black,
my stomach hurts so I'm looking for a purse to snatch."
- Changes, Greatest Hits


2) Jay- Z: Many people don't understand who this guy really is. He's been around for a VERY long time, his debut album being released back in '96. Many, many critics have dubbed him the Greatest of all time because of what he has done to Hip Hop. His style is unique, his intelligence allows him to craft lyrics and put verses together that blend together seamlessly. He has swagger, style, he owns the rap market, in the literal sense and in the theoretical sense.
"I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in Hell,
I am a hustler baby, I sell water to a well."
- You Don't Know, The Blueprint


1) The Notorious B.I.G.: Biggie Smalls, the King of New York, I've mentioned the plethora of names he has before, there is no need to delve into that again. But seriously, what he has done for the game is beyond words. Two albums was all it took to earn himself the "most quoted MC" award. He could make your hair stand up with his cold, ferocious flows, make your eyes water from his deep story telling ability, cause you to lose your voice from laughing so hard at some of the punchlines he throws into his rhymes, all in one verse.
"Silly Cat, wore suede in the rain, swear he put the "G" in game,
had the Gucci frame before Dana Dane, thought he ran with Kane,
I can't recall his name,
you mean that kid that nearly lost half his brain over two bricks of cocaine?"
- You're Nobody Till Somebody Kills You, Life After Death

More on why Lil' Wayne Sucks

I said I would get back to the discussion on why Lil' Wayne sucks, I thought it would be even better if I told you how much he sucked, by comparing him to 50 Cent. This is quite a controversial issue, one that I have a very strong opinion on, and I won't hesitate to show blind Lil' Wayne fanboys raw facts that prove my point without question. This won't be a little kiddie comparison, I'll try and delve into very deep issues, if you Lil Wayne fans ever find yourself a little too overwhelmed by the issues being discussed, its okay, that's well expected. But enough with the chitter chat okay, lets get started with why we're all here.

Its quite well known that 50 Cent loves to start feuds with people that he thinks are beneath him, he stated that "he has nothing better to do." "Why not break his [Wayne's] neck?" Lil Wayne seemed to be a little scared when replying to this, stating that he didn't any problems, he just likes writing music for a wide population of people. So what does that mean? I don't understand how this is at all replying to 50 Cent's comment...

Lil Wayne just seems like an interesting fellow at times. He makes all of these wild claims in his songs, stating that he would go as far as to stand in the very balcony that MLK Jr. was assassinated and he would remain unscathed, this really pissed off a lot of people. He was so happy because his POS album "Tha Carter 3" or whatever was one of the top selling albums of the year. Well guess what, "Get Rich or Die Tryin" was the number one album of its year as well. Lil Wayne's single, "A Millie" is somewhat reminiscent to 50 Cent's single, "In Da Club." Not in the musical sense, but in the hype sense. "In Da Club" was the number one song in the United States for a very long time, actually a lot longer than "A Mille," or any other single that was featured on Lil Weezy's album.

Another thing about Lil' Wayne that really pisses off a lot of people, something that most people don't even realise is his lack of creativity. lets start with his album covers, if one more person thinks that the cover of "The Carter 3" is original, or creative, I may start killing little kittens just out of sheer frustration.


Lil Wayne's The Carter III


Nas's Illmatic


Biggie Smalls' Ready to Die

Look familiar? The latter two were released in 1994, Lil Wayne's album was released in 2008. Creativity? Please....

Goodfellas

I meant to talk about this movie a long time ago, but I kinda got carried away from discussing movies and started talking about other things. But I feel that I haven't done this movie justice by not talking about it; its second only to The Godfather, IMO, and to a lot of other people. Provided here is a short, but detailed summary of the movie, if you haven't seen it, beware, it contains a lot of spoilers.

Goodfellas is a Martin Scorsese directed movie starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, and Paul Sorvino. This movie is also based on a true story, so this combination set a very high scale for this movie, there was a lot of expectation set on this movie, and it utterly destroyed everything in its path when it came out.

The movie is narrated by Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) who starts out as a little kid and explains his early days as a poor, Irish- Italian American mix who used to aspire to be a gangster like all of the tough guys that lived across the street from him. He would stare out of the window all day and watch as they would flaunt their fancy suits, puffing on thick cigars getting whatever they wanted by merely sending someone for it. Their leader, or Don, was Paul "Paulie" Cicero (Paul Sorvino). He was a big, slow man, rarely moved or spoke, but that was because he really didn't need to. Just one glance would be enough to make the toughest gangsters jump into their cars and race off. He ran the show in the whole city, and everyone knew it. After begging his parents to work for the gangsters after school to earn some money, he got entranced by their way of life and eventually dropped out of school and worked full time, earning reputation on the streets for his association with the "wise guys" as they were called.

He then met his would- be lifelong partner, Jimmy Conway (De Niro), who was a ruthless gangster who would tip the bartender hundreds of dollars for "keeping the ice cubes cold"; he was rich as hell. He was a beast, no one messed with him, the stereotypical gangster. Jimmy introduced Henry to Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), who was of similar age, only much more boisterous and eager to do anything it took to get a few dollars, he was also a shoe- shiner.

Below this post, is a more detailed description of the movie, walking you through the entire thing, although I urge you to watch it if you haven't already.

Goodfellas Cont....

The movie then moves about ten years later, where Henry, Jimmy, and Tommy are three infamous gangsters who rob and steal at their will, never work, yet live really rich comfortable lives. If they got short on money, they would simply rob an airport, or steal a semi- truck and sell it for big bucks. They really enjoyed the lifestyle they were leading; it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. Henry met a nice woman, settled down, and introduced her to his shenanigans. Eventually though, she realized that he was having many affairs with multiple women, and she attempted to kill him. He coaxed her into putting the gun down gently, then proceeded to threaten to hill HER. Telling her that he dealt with enough in the streets, and that he didn't want to come home to death threats from his wife. He storms out of the house and lives with one of his... mistresses for a while, until Paulie and Jimmy try and talk some sense into him, saying this isn't how a true man lives (even though these men were heartless "me myself and I" people, they still had some decency left in them). Paulie tells Henry he needs to take a few days off and he should head down to Florida with Jimmy to take care of small business for him.

He goes to Florida with Jimmy, but ends up getting caught, or "pinched" for his actions and he and Jimmy are sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary, and Paulie is also sentenced to one year. But jail life for wise guys is something else, they had their own suite, ate whatever they wanted, and had no supervision whatsoever. This is also where Henry got into the drug dealing scene. While in jail, the only way he could make money was through selling pills to other inmates, but he was able to make enough to get by.

After he was released from jail, he is warned by a wary and wise Paulie that dealing drugs is a dirty business and he is likely to get caught, and take Paulie down with him. He makes Henry swear that he will have nothing to do with drugs at all, a promise which Henry is quick to break. Rising to the top of the cocaine dealing scene, Henry brings in Jimmy and Tommy to help him in his work; hiring many people to do various jobs for them, escorting the drugs back and forth, actually making the cocaine itself, without paying attention to who these people might be or how reliable they were.

The next big issue that happened was the notorious Lufthansa Heist, the biggest robbery ever committed on US soil. After lots of staging and planning, they went through and stole around six million dollars in cash from the John F. Kennedy airport. After this extravagant act, they were forced to lie low for a while, unable to spend any money because of how tight investigations were on various mobsters. But eventually things started to cool down, and little by little they were starting to enjoy all of their new found wealth. A little while later, Tommy was given the news that he was going to be "made," or that he was going to be allowed to join one of the five mafia families of the United States, little did he know that it was just a setup in order to get revenge on a previous murder he had committed, and he was shot through the head and killed.

After Tommy was gone, Jimmy and Henry got a lot closer together, and started to get a lot more paranoid, but little did either of them know that Henry was under some serious surveillance by "narcs" or narcotics police. As they were attempting to ship off their final stash of crack, Henry was caught and put under arrest.

Henry would later turn states evidence, and give the FBI information regarding Paulie and Jimmy, and he was put under the witness protection program, given a new name and moved to a new location far from his old one, along with his wife and kids. Paulie and Jimmy were both sentenced long terms in prison, where they both would die. The movie ends with Henry explaining how its all over, how his life as a Wise Guy had come to an end, how he had to live now like the average Joe, waiting in lines, having a low end job, etc. The movie ends with Henry walking out of his front door and picking up a newspaper off of his doorstep, looking up, and waving at the camera.


From left to right: Henry, Jimmy, Paulie, Tommy.