You think you’re funny, Kyle Smith? Like a clown?
The Internet is not amused.
Smith, the New York Post film critic, declared in a column Wednesday that “women don’t get ‘GoodFellas.’ ”
“It’s not really a crime drama, like ‘The Godfather,’ ” he wrote. “It’s more of a male fantasy picture — ‘Entourage’ with guns instead of swimming pools, the Rat Pack minus tuxedos.”
Really? For fans — female and male — who think of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob masterpiece as more of a study of one mobster’s cocaine-fueled breakdown, or perhaps the dark side of criminal life (despite the silky Steadicam shots and sleek wardrobe), Smith was completely half-cocked.
“What’s this I hear about women not ‘getting’ Goodfellas? Do I have to trade in my 2nd X chromosome if I think it’s the last great Scorsese?” tweeted Slate film critic Dana Stevens.
“That NY Post GOODFELLAS article akin to having someone explain to you that BREAKING BAD was all about how Walter White is the man,” BuzzFeed’s Alison Willmore added.
Smith’s column was met with so much vituperation that you could probably give it a beat and cut it to “Layla” — after a nice pasta dinner cooked by Scorsese’s mother, of course.
Certainly, Hollywood expects certain movies won’t hit what it calls “all four quadrants”: men, women, young and old.
Some films, like “Sex and the City,” “Pretty Woman” or works based on the novels of Nicholas Sparks, are dismissed (fairly or unfairly) as “chick flicks.” Others — such as hardcore action movies — are aimed squarely at young men.
But “GoodFellas,” which was nominated for six Oscars, won one (for Joe Pesci) and is considered one of Scorsese’s best films, was a prestige movie that did well at the box office, considering its violence and R rating.
Smith has seemed mostly proud at what he has wrought, retweeting some of the attacks and mixing it up with some posters.
Of course, the Internet being the Internet, you’re going to find some wiseguys.
Well, murderers always come with smiles.