have you guys heard of the godfather?
The Godfather (1972)
Guys, The Godfather is actually GOOD. Does anyone know this?
(The issue with watching and liking The Godfather is that now I feel insufferably cool…. what are we all gonna do about that?)
mansplaining the plot of the godfather to you all
There is something called the mafia (for the record, for all my mobster readers— I think it is VERY cool. Never change!) and it is located in the American northeast exclusively, it appears.
The Corleone family is a mob family— again, very cool!— led by Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando… more on him later). You would THINK that this would be a laidback family enterprise but actually there is drama. They get in a dispute with another mob family over a business deal and then it breaks out into an all out mob war, during which Vito’s youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino to my girlies), changes from being very anti the family business/“I’m different”, to rising to the leadership role in a time of crisis.
When all is said and done, Vito has passed away and Michael is the godfather of the Corleone family business and married to Diane Keaton’s Kay, a non Italian gal who is not well-versed in the mafia of it all. And scene!
some thoughts!
the 1960s were about musicals, and the 1970s are about movies about crime and not including any meaningful female characters in a movie ever
the most iconic, quotable moments of The Godfather all happen within the first 30 minutes. Starting to think everyone who looOOooOves this movie just saw the first 1/4 and was like “<3 I think I get the gist.”
I thought the titular godfather was, like, an idea… not what they actually call the main guy throughout. This really made me laugh the first time they kept calling Marlon Brando’s character Vito Corleone “godfather.” You guys, play it cool! You sound lame calling him that to his face!
Diane Keaton…. have we ever seen anyone look more out of place than Diane Keaton in The Godfather. How did she get there? Why did she get there?
there is a video game based off of this movie. This begs the question: WHERE IS MY BROOKLYN (2015) VIDEO GAME??
it seems like the only time hollywood cares about authentic casting is with italians
And I love my fellow countrymen (I’m a quarter Italian - ask me anything!), but it is truly wild to me that way back in ye olden days of 1972, Paramount was intentional about having an Italian director and a predominantly Italian cast (except for James Caan… and it shows) but now production companies are like: “wait…… y’all want us to cast trans people in trans roles and indigenous people in indigenous roles and so on and so forth et cetera et cetera??” Yes, girlies! It made sense to you when casting for The Godfather, so what’s-a not-a making-a sense-a now-a! (ha ha ha boy do i make myself chuckle)
(after writing this I learned that Marlon Brando is not even Italian so the entire preceding argument does fall apart, which is unfortunate. Sending love and light to myself as I heal from this!)
wikipedia deep dive
Al Pacino and the afore-mentioned out of place Diane Keaton, who play a couple in The Godfather, dated in real life for years (love that). Not only did they date, but lucky for us they talked about it!
Keaton said of Pacino, "Al was simply the most entertaining man... To me, that's, that is the most beautiful face. I think Warren [Beatty] was gorgeous, very pretty, but Al's face is like whoa. Killer, killer face."
She’s…. calling him unattractive, no? Either way, please join me in prayer:
Lord, please cure my celebrity brethren from the illness of saying any thought that comes into their mind. Amen.
Arrivederci, y’all! Next, we’ll be talking about The Sting. This is a movie about, you guessed it, men and crime. Not sure what part of this dynamic is left to be explored in film but I’m hopeful The Sting will find something new to say about it all. Taking bets now on how many women will be in it! I’m going to sayyyyy… two: one madonna and one whore.
P.S. I found a note where I was keeping track of opinions to shoehorn into this newsletter. Putting it in here for transparency <3
I am, sadly, conditioned to enjoy movies that don’t pass the Bechtel test. Godfather has my ❤️.