Skip to main content

The Film List #1: The Godfather: Parts I & II

Welcome to the first official Film List post!

This past week, I knocked out two movies on the list: The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. I'm pretty surprised that it's taken me this long to watch these films, especially considering how often they're referenced in pop culture. I mean, these movies are everywhere. When I was in high school, they sold t-shirts with the poster on them that had our principal's face in place of Marlon Brando's. Now that I think about it, I wish I had bought one.

I think two things kept me from watching The Godfather earlier. First off, it's a mob movie (well, the mob movie), a genre I've never really been interested in exploring. I always assumed that mob movies were hours of mindless violence, with quick scenes of someone eating spaghetti mixed in. Some of them are. Clearly, though, these movies are different.

The other thing that turned me off was the length. The Godfather is 175 minutes long, and its sequel spans 202 minutes. I can barely wait the two minutes it takes for my coffee to brew, let alone sit through that long of a movie.

Instead of sitting through each all at once, I watched about an hour a day, letting myself soak up what I had just seen. I also had to study.

The movies blew me away. I was never bored like I usually am while watching a long movie, and I was completely invested in these characters. I think a lot of that has to do with the actors cast in each role, some of whom are my favorites (Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Diane Keaton to name a few). The stories really make these characters into people, instead of the typical soulless crime machine that we often see in these types of films. That's why these movies are the standard.

I have to confess that I had never seen Al Pacino in anything other than Angels in America up until now. I was only aware of his legend, and now I see why. I'm going to have to watch some more of his work soon.

There was something else completely separate from the movie itself that I was paying attention to. These movies are 42 and 40 years old, respectively, which means all the actors, many of whom are still working consistently, have aged a little bit since then. For someone like me, who is used to seeing an older Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, seeing them in their 30s is a bizarre experience.

That's the cool thing about movies, though. They're frozen in the time they were made. They're moving history. I think that's something I'm really going to enjoy as I go through this project.

I'll leave you with the theme song to the movie. Maybe you should eat a cannoli in a dimly lit room as you listen.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to Myself in the Mirror

I think it's a pretty safe bet that a lot of aspiring actors/writers/directors/filmy people practice their future Oscar speech in the mirror as kids. I did. Who am I kidding? I still do. It comes with the territory. My mirror talks go, ahem, went (who am I kidding? go) further. Sometimes, I do my makeup while talking to Barbara Walters. Other days, brushing my hair turns into a podcast interview. Most of the time, though, I rehearse what I'm going to say to my heroes. These hypothetical moments are incredibly important, and I can't afford to say anything stupid, so car rides, showers, and mornings getting ready are devoted to preparation. This probably makes me sound crazy. The word "narcissist" may also come to mind. I think one of my heroes would have appreciated both the crazy and the narcissism in this bit of oversharing, though, but we lost her this morning. One of my first posts on this blog was a tribute to Carrie Fisher. I read it over this afternoo

Cameron Crowe Ruined My Life

Believe me when I say that it pained me to type out the title to this post. Cameron Crowe is one of my very favorite filmmakers. To me, a guy who can write teenagers who are real people, really capture the full spectrum of human emotion, and incorporate a great soundtrack into his work is a real genius. Though it initially made me feel warm, fuzzy, and hopeful, a recent late night viewing of 2005's Elizabethtown  ended up making me a little nervous. I realized that Crowe was just like everybody else. Now, this probably doesn't make sense to those of you who admire his work. As a writer and filmmaker, Crowe definitely has a unique voice and vision that helps his work connect with all kinds of audiences. That's precisely the problem. Last week I wrote a post about how movies are only a reflection of life and not actually true to life itself. In the post, I mentioned that filmmakers are just one person with one perspective, and that is absolutely true of Crowe. In Crow

The Film List Project #2: MASH

Did you know MASH was a movie before it was a TV show? I didn't. Maybe that's a well-known fact. Maybe I'm very out of the loop. Anyway, I watched MASH this week. I'm just discovering Robert Altman, the director of the film. He made a movie in 1975 called Nashville , which I sort of felt obligated to watch since that's my hometown. I loved the film, especially because it had so many interesting characters mashed together. MASH  charmed me for the same reason. I've never been one for war films (this is set during the Korean War), but I was fascinated by the band of arrogant, witty surgeons in the film. It really didn't feel like a war film, to be honest. It felt like the Korean War was just where they happened to be. That feeling makes sense when you realize that these men and women are just trying to feel that way themselves. I don't have any personal experience with war, but I have read a few books about the subject, fiction and nonfiction, and