Yeah I watched GF I a couple weeks ago, then listened to the Rewatchables on it, which was probably a mistake since they spoiled a lot of big stuff about GF II that I wouldn’t have known was coming (the abortion, Fredo’s death).
My first impressions are I liked GF I a lot more. In GF I, I was rooting pretty hard for Vito and Michael. By the end of GF II, I really hated Michael. WAS IT A SON? You already have one son who seems fine. But I guess that’s the point. Everything with Kay and the kids was so depressing.
I loved all the DeNiro stuff. But unlike GF I with Clemenza and Tessio, I didn’t really get much entertainment from any of Michael’s right-hand men in GF II, except Hagan of course. The rest seemed anonymous and interchangeable (maybe that’s the point, but not super entertaining). The Pentangeli character was entertaining.
I did dream about GF II, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, which is a good sign. But it may be a while before I feel like spending 3.5 hours watching it again.
Things I don’t understand:
This is in GF I, but why was everyone in Vegas dressed like the late 60s/early 70s with big wide collars? Was Vegas that far ahead of its time in the mid-50s?
How could Hyman Roth have lasted that long in his business being that easy to kill - with just his wife to protect him?
I guess Vito’s mom didn’t actually die when she was shot by Don whatever in Sicily? That was her at the table when DeNiro went back, right?
I loved Bohemian Rhapsody and I wasn’t expecting much at all. I didn’t know anything about Freddie Mercury’s story, and was pretty moved by it. I guess it helps when you grow up with the music. I found myself thinking about the movie for weeks.
I think my biggest takeaway was about what it means to be a born entertainer, and how some people just have it in them to be front and center on stage. That for them it’s not just ego and narcissism and wanting to be rich and famous. They get real joy out of entertaining people. Which duh, sounds completely obvious. But for some reason that movie made that idea click for me in a different light than I’d ever thought about it before.
I just wanted to acknowledge I saw this post, but am too busy to answer it right now. They say the best editing is editing you don’t notice. All of my best editing for stuff like commentaries is because you wouldn’t even know I was in there while being in there a ton. When you pay attention to the edit it’s a problem, kind of like camera work with little zooms and s***. Succession, Brooklyn 99, and many other TV shows do this zoom/refocus thing that’s really irritating to me but in shows that do that right, it becomes unnoticeable over time. When it’s done wrong, it’s all you see.
FWIW my reaction to my first watch of II (after multiple watches of I) was that I much preferred part I also. I remember telling my friend directly after first viewing that I was dissatisfied with II. With time, I do basically agree with those who say that II is better, with my primary objection being that II owes a lot to I and can’t stand alone in the same way, which makes something feel wrong about calling it the better film. But I do think there’s more meat on the bone with II than I.
There’s no real question that I is the breezier watch. In some ways I think this helps the argument for II, because it feels like a more honest depiction of just how fucking bleak that life would be.
Speaking of Pentangeli: that was supposed to be Clemenza continuing his story. But then the actor made the bizarre contractual demand that his girlfriend get to write all of his lines. They responded with “LOL no,” created Pentangeli, and then just quickly waved away Clemenza as dead in the first convo between Pentangeli, Cicci, and Fredo.
Yeah I picked that up from Rewatchables, which just made me wish it was Clemenza more. I think they also said that Clemenza didn’t think his character would ever betray Michael, so he didn’t want to be a part of that. Which I also agree with. But I guess the idea that there’s no such thing as a loyal friend is part of the message of the movie.
I loved the moment when Bruno Kirby realized DeNiro was actually running the gang now. That was really well done.
I know it wouldn’t be anything like I wistfully imagine, but an Italian neighborhood in early 1900s NYC looks so awesome. Vito was basically my great-grandfather Benjamino, who came over as an essentially orphaned 5-year-old in 1905, and eventually settled in Queens.
GF has a lot going for it, but one of the best parts is the christening sequence. A high water mark for montage on the same level as Battleship Potemkin
I agree that it’s probably a better story with Clemenza continuing, even though I think Pentangeli filled in admirably.
This I feel less sure of. Clemenza was unfailingly loyal to Vito, but late in Part I he and Tessio feel like they’re getting jerked around by Michael when they want to split off into their own family and Michael is causing them a delay that they think they really can’t afford in their situation. And Hagen even states his surprise late in Part I that Clemenza is NOT turning traitor against Michael, with Michael’s only rejoinder being that Clemenza wasn’t making the smart move. Neither seem to be under the impression that Clemenza was loyal beyond question.
Are the Corleone’s based on some real Mafia family that moved a big chunk of operations to Vegas and had a compound in Tahoe? The Tahoe compound seems like a weird detail to just make up. I guess I’ll find out when I listen to the Rewatchables.
I don’t know of a real-life counterpart to the Corleones. Johnny Fontaine being an apparent Sinatra adaptation (which Puzo always denied) is the only real life connection I really know. They portray a public confrontation between Puzo and Sinatra in The Offer that both men have confirmed as having really happened.
2001 established from the very beginning that the monoliths were rule-breaking things that propelled humanity forward. Interstellar didn’t really establish any premise for its eventual rule breaking. It kinda sorta pretended it was adhering to physics until that went straight to hell. I’m fine with movies that have fantastic premises, but a story has to establish and then stick to its own rules. I don’t feel that Interstellar did.
I need more time to digest but this is for sure the best movie metaphor for America’s genocidal history with indigenous people ever made. It’s also maybe a masterpiece as a movie.
Grade:A+
It’s going to be a fight between this and Past Lives as the best movie of the year.
I wouldnt say its a metaphor. Its a movie that lays everything on the table. Nothing about the evils in the movie are subtle. With that said, I did like how DeNiro is the same the entire movie. No matter his actions, he is the same. We arent dressing evil up in tights and a costume, or giving our villains some big monologues.
The central relationship is entirely a stand in for the history of white and indiginious people. Also strongly disagree it’s not subtle. The central tension is a guy who loves a woman while killing her whole family.
I dont really agree there. He loves her money, and barely tolerates her as a means to get it. He spends half the film poisoning her! He cant bring himself to admit this to her either, when she knows hes been doing it
