THE (MAD) MEN AT AMC ARE WILLING TO TAKE THE GOOD (FELLAS) WITH THE (BREAKING) BAD

I was waiting for this article so I could say how fucking excited I am about this.  Pathetically, I have already started fantasy casting in my head.  (Emile Hirsch as a young Henry, Scott Caan as young Jimmy, etc...)

Heck yes, get Scott Caan in this, Bailey. But isn't he tied up with that Hawaii 5-O series?

I want to be excited with this. I hope they don't try to just retread the movie's style and tropes. There was so much of Goodfellas that only worked because of Scorsese and Schoonmaker. And it will be a tightrope to walk without retreading Sopranos or the film.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_Cellophane 

Heck yes, get Scott Caan in this, Bailey. But isn't he tied up with that Hawaii 5-O series?

 

I want to be excited with this. I hope they don't try to just retread the movie's style and tropes. There was so much of Goodfellas that only worked because of Scorsese and Schoonmaker. And it will be a tightrope to walk without retreading Sopranos or the film.

 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.  To all of it.  But I am just drunk on the possibility.  It's like if someone had asked me if I wanted a Star Wars TV series in 1995, I would have said damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm manning the torpedoes on this series. I'm full-steam ahead with my anticipation.

Holy shit I love Breaking Bad.

Anyway, why can't they say fuck in this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_Cellophane 

And it will be a tightrope to walk without retreading Sopranos or the film.

 

This right here.  Although a period mobster show, set in the golden days of the early parts of GoodFellas, that would get me to watch.

Here's what I'd like to see: the stuff that was left out of Goodfellas. 

First, everybody, go out and read the book. It's amazing and Pileggi can write a little. But what's fascinating about the book is that it spends a lot of time inside Henry's psyche, and one of the things that the film acknowledges, but doesn't spend a lot of time on, is how the neighborhood affected Henry. There's this incredible story he tells about how the guys in the neighborhood threw a guy off a roof because they saw him stalking a girl on her way home. So take a risk and make the series about that. Make it about the community, and how the community, in both its tight-knit nature and its shocking propensity for violence, affects Henry as he's growing up. Make it the flip-side of Breaking Bad: Show how a child grows up and turns to a life of crime, and how the community of "goodfellas" plays a part in that.

Can't argue with that. I would find that interesting dramatically. And entertaining.

And to parrot Leonard: Read the book.

I always thought there was a series in the lives of the non-mobsters in those neighborhoods.  Like the crossing guard who buys the cigarettes in GoodFellas, or Artie Bucho on The Sopranos.  Maybe not as tied in as Artie, but the people who generally only ever see the benevolent, Robin Hood-ish side of the whole enterprise.  "Hey, he brings my ma nice dresses and gets me cigarettes for cheap.  I don't mess with him, he don't mess with me, how is he a bad guy?"

I was going to mention that, but yeah, one of the ways you can differentiate this from Sopranos and the original movie is to focus on the same characters, but in different ways. That would be one of them. I was reading Renn's article and I immediately flashed on Bunk and Omar in The Wire: "Motherfucker, we had us a community." If Mad Men's journey through the 60s is about the death of "tradtional" masculinity (a stretch), you could parallel Henry's journey from charming neighborhood hood to coked-out drug dealer with the decline of a neighborhood where everybody knows one another and looks out for one another.

Shit, AMC should hire me and Richard to write this. (kidding, obviously).

And in case you were wondering: Ezra Miller as young Tommy.