TGME Round 1: Back to the Future Vs. Goodfellas

[GregMcduck]

How it works: Each poll will be open for two weeks, giving all of you time to watch each film. New polls added every Sunday and Wednesday.

Back to the Future (1985) vs. Goodfellas (1990)



Back to the Future is an Academy Award-winning science fiction–comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg. It stars Michael J. Fox as teenager Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as scientist Dr. Emmett L. Brown. The film's basic storyline involves the premise of time travel being used to breach the generation gap. In a De Lorean time machine invented by Dr. Brown, Marty accidentally travels back to the year 1955 when his parents were teenagers. Having interfered with their first meeting, Marty must ensure that his young parents fall in love so that he will be born. Furthermore, the Dr. Brown of 1955 must find a way to return Marty to 1985 without the plutonium necessary to fuel the journey.

The series was very popular in the 1980s, even making fans out of celebrities like Huey Lewis and the News (Lewis appeared in the first film) and ZZ Top (who appeared in the third film) and President Ronald Reagan, who referred to the movie in his 1986 State of the Union address when he said, "Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement. As they said in the film Back to the Future, 'Where we're going, we don't need roads.'" In fact, when he first saw the joke about him being president, i.e. "Ronald Reagan? The actor? Ha! Then who's Vice President, Jerry Lewis?", he made the projectionist of the theater stop the reel, roll it back, and run it again. He also considered accepting a role in the third film as the 1885 mayor of Hill Valley but eventually declined.



Goodfellas is an Academy Award winning crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, the true story of mob informer Henry Hill. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) admits, "As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster," idolizing the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn in 1955. Henry is taken under the wing of the local mob captain, Paul "Paulie" Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and Cicero's close Irish associate Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) who help to cultivate Henry's criminal career through different phases. Henry and his friends soon become successful, daring and dangerous. Conway loves hijacking trucks, and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci in his acclaimed Academy Award-winning performance based on Thomas DeSimone) is an aggressive psychopath with a hair-trigger temper.

GoodFellas is #94 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Years, 100 Movies and #92 on its updated version from 2007. In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Roger Ebert, a friend and supporter of Scorsese, named GoodFellas the "best mob movie ever" and placed it among the best films of the nineties. Premiere magazine listed Joe Pesci as #96 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time, calling him "perhaps the single most irredeemable character ever put on film". Channel 4 placed Goodfellas at #10 in their 2002 poll The 100 Greatest Films. In 2005, Total Film, named GoodFellas as the greatest film of all time.

Please take the time to watch or re-watch these two films before voting. You can use this thread to post reviews after having watched them, campaign for your preferred movie, or just discuss the movies in general.

[mrbasehart]

Huh.  And I thought this might get easier...!

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Goodfellas, easily. Not to slight Back to the Future, though.

[anais.jude]

Back to the Future is my mom's favorite movie of all time. and it's mother's day, so i had to vote for it. (made the choice a little easier i'll admit)

plus Ray Liotta smells like apples

[bettertomorrowamy]

Goodfellas hands down.  Back to the Future is good though too.

[RoninFox]

Never been a fan of mob movies that weren't comedies, though Goodfellas kept my interest better than most.  Still though, Back to the Future all the way.

[doggans]

Goodfellas is an excellent, well-made film, but Back to the Future is the first third of the greatest movie ever made, buttheads.

[Tripe]

You know,

Goodfellas, easily. Not to slight Back to the Future, though.

Goodfellas is an excellent, well-made film, but Back to the Future is the first third of the greatest movie ever made, buttheads.

I agree with both of you to a certain extent. Personally speaking I love BTTF and it's on of my personal greatest movies of all time, but I'm going to have to go with Goodfellas because, to me, it has the greater staying power and artistic quality. BTTF is a subjective classic while Goodfellas is an objective one*

I really wish they'd not faced one another.

*though obviously that's a subjective opinion ultimately.

[ScottotD]

Goodfellas, easy.

[mrbasehart]

You know,

Goodfellas, easily. Not to slight Back to the Future, though.

Goodfellas is an excellent, well-made film, but Back to the Future is the first third of the greatest movie ever made, buttheads.

I agree with both of you to a certain extent. Personally speaking I love BTTF and it's on of my personal greatest movies of all time, but I'm going to have to go with Goodfellas because, to me, it has the greater staying power and artistic quality. BTTF is a subjective classic while Goodfellas is an objective one*

I really wish they'd not faced one another.

*though obviously that's a subjective opinion ultimately.

So you're letting what other people think of Goodfellas sway you?

[Tripe]

Nope I'm basing it on what I think; I think that Goodfellas has greater artistic merit.

[mrbasehart]

Ehn.  Artistic merit isn't something I'll be basing my choice on.  It'll be whether I enjoyed the movie more. 

Though I must say, I haven't seen Goodfellas in a long time.  I have it on DVD, so I'll rewatch it when I get some time free.

[Tripe]

Ah I like both of them, but ultimately in as situation like this I have to break the deadlock in my decision based on something other than wether I enjoy them.

[mrbasehart]

Ah.  Well, I usually just turn to the hotness of the leading lady in that case.  The hotter/nakeder she is determines which way I'll vote.   

[ScottotD]

I never get why people base how good a movie is on how 'worthy' it is instead of what they got out of watching it.