The Godfather

Well, Citizen Kane has a thread, Casablanca has a thread, so why the hell not one for another movie that is so critically acclaimed?

I watched the first two volume and dear lord, those were amazing! I was actually surprised that the titular Godfather in the first movie didn't make much appearance.

But The Godfather is a position, not one character, isn't it?

Actually, there's no position called The Godfather. It is Vito Corleone's nickname, and the position you are thinking of is The Don.

edited 24th Sep '11 12:50:12 AM by dRoy

robert de niro's godfather character is way cooler than marlon brando's
jack nicholson was supposed to be old vito corleone but gave it up because
he thinks about the poor italian actors

I prefer the second movie, but that's a very common opinion.

I actually kinda liked the third one. But then again the third one had Eli Wallach and that man is made of awesome.

Tuco is always great. I was surprised to see him in that crappy Wall Street sequel.

I really loved the last few minutes of the movie where Michael baptizes his son in a church and swear pledges on how he shall denounce acts and evil and such...while murdering each and every other crime family members who are responsible for his father's assassination attempt. Then there's the last line of the movie...

First one was great, second one the best. Third sucked.

I prefer the first part. Kay kinda drags the second part down for me. The "it was an abortion, Michael" part was made of narm in an otherwise narmfree film. De Niro is awesome, of course. The best parts of the trilogy are probably in part two, like the dialogue between Tom Hagen and Franky Pentangelli, but there are also some small things I don't like about it. The first part literally doesn't have any scenes I don't like.

I actually kind of like the third film. Sure, Sophia Coppola can't act her way out of a broom closet, and the absense of Tom Hagen is a bit jarring, but I love the cold, calculating menace that is Connie. Her poisoning the canoli is awesome. And all the subtext about corruption in 1980's Italy tickles my history soft spot.

Parts 1 and 2 make up my "top 2 movies I've ever seen" list.

I love the scene in Part 2 between Michael and Senator Geary. "We're both part of the same hypocrisy, Senator, but never think it applies to my family". I agree with the above about the historical subtext, too, but for me the best example is the slicing of the Cuba-shaped cake.

Its a damn shame we didn't get a Tom Hagen/Michael showdown in Godfather 3, because honestly I wonder how they would have ended it. There are so many interesting dynamics there that it would have made for a remarkable story just involving what goes down between them.

I liked the first two films, but what is with all the hate on Coppola's daughter being in the 3rd film?

Maybe she was just a horrible actress?

I didn't find anything too terrible about her performance, but I hated her whole subplot. The way it was handled was really cheesy, I don't think there was a scene with her and Vincent together that I didn't facepalm out of embarrassment. I think it would have been passable if it wasn't, you know, The Godfather.

The problem with Sofia Coppola? She has one tone of voice: whiny. Within that tone of voice she has no melodic range. Every sentence she speaks, the pitch stays contant except for the last stressed syllable, which is a half note higher. If she's speaking with emphasis, both the second to last and last syllable are a half note higher.

Any dialogue she's involved in doesn't flow at all, because she has a tendencey to attempt a dramatic pause before anything she says.

She played her part in The Godfather part one perfectly, and I really liked Lost in Translation, but Sofia Coppola should not have gotten a speaking part in The Godfather part three.

What part in Godfather part 1? She was only in the third.

She was the baby in the baptism scene, IIRC.

For me, they're rather overrated films. But De Niro in Part II was pretty awesome.

So on a discussion about Michael's transformation on the IMDB board, I added this and figured I'd share just because.

edited 25th Jul '13 12:45:30 PM by TheBatPencil

My dad borrowed the boxset of all three films and we watched them over a course of three weeks.

I loved them all. Pretty much everything about them I enjoyed.

As for the third, I liked it on the same level as the first two. Sofia Coppola's acting isn't that horrible. She didn't even sound whiny to me, she jusr delievered some lines really flat but her subplot with Vincent was so weirdly off-putting (as it should be) that I didn't mind it.

But damn I felt really down after the the ending of Part III, that was depressing on so many levels. Michael tried so hard for redemption but could never truly achieve it and by the end he dies alone.

I've already asked this in the headscratchers, but I'll ask here. Who's in charge of the book canon now that Mario Puzo is dead? I mean, are Mark Winegardner's books and The Family Corleone canon by the Puzo Estate?

Is he the one who wrote the sequel where Fredo was a homosexual who had a violent episode every time it came up? I hope that isn't canon to anyone.

Fredo was the best character for me because he is so completely out-of-place. Of all the Corleones, he is the one you can look at and say he's probably an okay human being but he was born into the wrong damn family. I do slightly prefer Part 1 and the scene where he tries to help Vito during the first assassination attempt and fails, resulting in him just siting down and crying at how helpless he is really sets the tone for his entire character.

If there is one thing Part III did right, it's showing that Michael is completely tormented by what he did to his brother.

edited 31st Jan '14 12:47:55 PM by Nikkolas

Honestly I think I Kay the best,easily the sanest character who unfortunately was duped.

As for Coppola,she had the misfortune of preceding Hayden Christensen at the Dull Surprise-but-somehow-whiny contest. The worst part being where her character gets killed off.

Good heavens it's been awhile since I saw those films.

Fredo sold out his brother and tried to get his father killed. A plain simple bullet to the back of the head is probably a lot kinder kind of death than he deserved.

... I liked Godfather 3 as much as I liked the other two, though to be brutally honest if you are going to force me to pick a mafia film at gunpoint it would either be Goodfellas or Casino rather than any of Coppola's movies. Both are the Mafia as they are/were, whereas the Godfather trilogy are the Mafia as they would like to be thought of.