Are they still funny?

You may well have never heard of Nicholas Pileggi, but you should have heard of his arguably most famous creation; Goodfellas.

I love Goodfellas, it's one of the best movies ever made in my opinion, and Pileggi wrote the book as well as the screenplay. What you may not know is that he researched the book together with his wife, Nora Ephron who used the materiel to write a movie of her own; My Blue Heaven (1990).

When I discovered that fact, a storm of memories invaded my brain and I just had to re-watch My Blue Heaven (MBH for short).

I first saw MBH some twenty - twenty five years ago and I loved it. In a nutshell the story is this;

A mobster, Vincent Antonelli (Steve Martin) is placed in the witness protection program and put under the supervision of Agent Barney Coopersmith of the FBI (Rick Moranis). But life in small town America is not exactly what a man like Vinnie is used to, and he has some... difficulties settling in. Particularly when running across local assistant DA Hannah Stubbs (Joan Cusack).

What may not be immediately apparent is that MBH is essentially a comedic take on what happens after Goodfellas, that ends when Henry is testifying, since in case you haven't figured it out, Henry and Vinnie are the same person.

Most of the comedy comes from the culture clash between Vinnie and the local town, the day and night personalities of Vinnie and Barney and the wonderful dialog.

To my surprise however, I didn't like it as much as I remembered. It is a great comedy, to be sure, but time must have gilded my memories a bit too much. I still recommend it wholeheartedly though. Go watch it.

With my reaction to My Blue Heaven being what it was, I decided to test another old favorite. Funnily enough it also has a tie with Goodfellas, but through an actor this time. I'm talking about;

My Cousin Vinnie (1992).

Starring Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio and a host of faces familiar from all kinds of movies and TV-shows.

Here we have two young guys from New York who get arrested for murder in Alabama. Now they didn't do it, you the viewer know this, but they fit the bill, and the locals want to fry them in the chair. Enter cousin Vinnie, smart mouth lawyer, and the boys only hope.

The comedy here is built on clashing cultures and warring personalities. The Alabama judge Haller is not amused by the leather wearing, swearing attitude of the Yankee Vinnie, who in turn detests the entire area, especially after a few night of no sleep. Any one who has had to go to work after 3-4 nights of no/bad sleep will sympathize with the frustrated bleary eyed Vinnie. Vinnies relationship with his fiancee Mona Lisa Vito (Tomei) is equally explosive. Their idea of flirting is pretty similar to arguing. At least I couldn't tell the difference at first.

An interesting aside is that multiple lawyers have applauded this film for it's accuracy when it comes to practicing law and the entire court room setting. In fact, a glance at IMDB's trivia section yields this:

The American Bar Association's publication, the ABA Journal, ranked the film #3 on its list of the "25 Greatest Legal Movies”.

End quote. This comes from the fact that director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree, and wanted the meat and bones of the movie to be realistic.

I can absolutely say that My Cousin Vinnie holds up 100%. This film is still as funny as it was when I saw it the first time. It's an absolutely must watch movie.

And that's that. Until next time, have a great week!