https://x.com/therewatchables/status/1786189894152544728?s=46&t=MZ6hDo7KHLKIDL2qeG0oqg
Welp. Along Came Polly sucks. I saw it in the theater, will just rely on whatever faint knowledge I retained and listen to the ep when it drops. Glad they’ve started to get some consistency about announcing these with time to spare though.
Wtf at this selection lol. I’ve never seen it. I will listen to the episode and cross my fingers their POV opens me up to watching and appreciating the movie.
Hoffman is kinda funny, he’s the best part, it’s still not near enough to rescue this. The central Stiller/Aniston romcom plot is worthless. He’s a germophobe or something and he learns how to be less of one and that’s the plot.
I watched this clip as my cliffs to refresh myself before tonight’s Rewatchables drops. It’s not that funny, but I think it probably covers the best parts.
I’m gonna post one of these about The Godfather this coming weekend. Just calling my shot in case anyone wants to rewatch in the meantime and join in the fun.
Idk if I’ll watch this again, but that’s because it wasn’t that long ago that I finally watched these for the first time. Looking forward to your list.
I’ve seen this one too many times as it is, I’ll be turning off the targeting computer and not doing a rewatch.
Yeah I’m doing it cold too, it won’t require a rewatch on my end. It’s as committed to my memory as a movie could be.
“It’s almost a classic!” “Almost” has never done such strenuous heavy lifting before.
Yeah this episode is a bit tough unless you like this movie. Lots of “remember when this unfunny thing was hilarious?”
https://twitter.com/billsimmons/status/1788416577693720956
This is more like it. Sean and Van weren’t on the last time they covered this movie.
big fan of the podcast, but have felt for a while now that they’re desperately missing a women’s perspective (for lack of a better phrase) when discussing many, if not most, of these movies. really noticed it with the Boogie Nights rewatch and more recently with Silver Linings Playbook.
That’s fantastic. This is one of my favorite movies of all time.
I don’t believe I can get it into my top 100. But it’s easily my favorite Cameron Crowe movie.
It’s almost neck and neck with Almost Famous for me, but it comes out slightly ahead. I’m a fan of his other movies, even We Bought A Zoo, but nothing else he made comes close to Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous.
Surely you’re not a fan of Elizabethtown. That shit is atrocious.
No you’re right about that one. I was stunned by how bad it was. But I am generally a fan of his work. Even if the famous stereo above his head scene from Say Anything plays more like a stalker these days. Dude, she said no. You have to respect her bad decision.
The music in Almost Famous is so good.
The Blank Check guys did a whole Cameron Crowe series. Would be as good an entry point as any if you haven’t listened to their podcast. I hadn’t watched Elizabethtown since it was new, but that episode was hilarious to me just given how one of them is absolutely frothing at the mouth with hate for it. The Almost Famous episode is also hilarious just because they are absolutely ruthless in going after Marc Maron the whole time. I like Maron and listen intermittently to his podcast, but he’s enough of a prick that hearing him take a series of digs also really tickled me.
Most of the time they go chronologically through a director’s filmography. Unlike the Rewatchables, where obviously selecting a show means the hosts are going to like it (unless it’s specifically Inception), the format of Blank Check makes it a mystery what they’re going to think about each one. And they tend to be non-consensus enough that you really can’t know most of the time.
I subscribed. I looked through the rest of their backlist and they’ve got a ton of great titles.
• Most Rewatchable Scene
Well, all of it obviously, but I think my choice might be slightly outside of what others would choose: I go with the scene in the study that starts with Tom and Sonny arguing as Tom tries to plead with Sonny for diplomacy…
…and ends with Michael unexpectedly interjecting to make his case for why they should simply kill Sollozzo and McCluskey. The slow close-up on the thus-far innocent Michael as he makes the cold and calculating case for a murder that even others in the crime family deemed to be unthinkable is epic.
Obviously there would also be a good argument for the restaurant scene with Michael/Sollozzo/McCluskey, but for me the above tends to edge it out as the very most rewatchable segment of the movie.
Honorable mention to the scene where Tom breaks while telling Vito the bad news about what happened to Sonny. Just top-tier acting from Duvall and Brando.
• The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie
“You said you would never be a man like your father.”
“My father’s no different than any other powerful man, any man with a power, like a President or a Senator.”
“Do you know how naïve you sound?”
“Why?”
“Presidents and Senators don’t have men killed!”
“Oh. Who’s being naïve, Kay?”
• What’s Aged the Best?
The score is one of the GOATs. The acting is off the charts. The fact of it being a period piece gives it a more timeless feel than if something is set contemporarily in the 1970s.
But probably the single thing that aged the very best about it is the launching pad it provided Al Pacino. Francis Ford Coppola goes out on a limb and uses all of his capital to get the studio to approve the casting of this unknown kid, and it pays off with elite performances throughout this trilogy and then gives us decades upon decades of greatness. Maybe he would have broken through anyway even without this specific break, but that’s no guarantee, and in any case you have to expect that the trajectory of his career would have been inalterably changed in some way or another if he doesn’t get the Michael Corleone role. So while everyone else who starred in this was well-established, we do have this movie to thank for pretty much every great thing we’ve seen from Pacino since.
• What’s Aged the Worst?
The Captain McCluskey performance by Sterling Hayden sucks; thankfully it’s mercifully brief.
The cutting of a confrontation between Vito and Michael early in the movie where Michael continues to shun the family business does feel like it blunts a little bit of the impact as the plot unfolds.
As much as I’ve learned to be amused by it, Sonny’s blatantly missed punch that Carlo sells as if he was hit is an eyesore.
On one hand, the Brando performance could be said to age the best because it’s irreducibly legendary. On another hand, it could be said to age the worst because of the many, many, many bad impressions it has inspired.
• The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance
I run into problems here where all of my favorite performances get too much runtime to really qualify. So, to pick one that assuredly does count: Alex Rocco explodes onto the screen as Moe Greene and really gets his money’s worth out of his one scene in the movie as Michael tries to buy out his casino.
• The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award
I mean I’d love to say Abe Vigoda, but everyone knows his name. Maybe Joe Spinnell? He shows up in a bunch of great movies in the 70s and early 80s, and I’m guessing he still didn’t become a household name at any point. Hell, before I just typed it, I went to verify my incorrect belief that his name was “Spinnelli.”
• The “Ruffalo/Hanna/Rubinek/Partridge” Overacting Award
If I’m really going to pick on “overacting,” it’s Sterling Hayden as mentioned above in the McCluskey role. If I’m applying the silly Simmons interpretation, I would have to go James Caan as Sonny, though Carlo is really going over the top during the domestic incident scene where he’s stalking Connie and at some point seems to call her a “son of a…” as he’s threatening her with a belt.
• Casting What Ifs
There were lots of potential musical chairs here. The studio wanted to give Michael to James Caan. If he’d gotten it then it seems likely that De Niro would have gotten Sonny, as he auditioned for. The studio didn’t want to deal with the headache of Marlon Brando, but obviously ultimately relented.
I’m quite glad we got the exact casting we did.
• Half-Assed Internet Research
The word “mafia” doesn’t show up in the movie because the mafia leaned on them to leave it out.
• Probably Unanswerable Questions
Were the kids in Kay’s class okay when she wandered off and abandoned them to get in a mafia don’s car?
What the hell was going on with the random wrecked car off to the side when Kay tries to visit, asks about the car, and Tom responds with a shit-eating grin and, “well that was an accident, but nobody was hurt”? (Just a casualty from the ongoing mob war, I gather. I just enjoy the random inclusion with zero explanation.)
• Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All Black Remake
Rumor has it they made a sequel of this one. Which included a prequel. So yeah there’s nothing else to do here.
• Apex Mountain
Brando yes, Caan yes, Nino Rota (for his composition of the score) yes.
Godfather Part II keeps me from giving it to a number of other people. And then I think Pacino and Duvall both had their apex at some point post-1980, as great as they are in this.
• Who Won the Movie?
It’s a huge win for Coppola, who had a lot of financial risk in this and got paid off beautifully. It’s him or Pacino for the reasons already mentioned above.
• Picking Nits
Vito explicitly says he thought Santino was a bad don. And also says about Tattaglia, “there’s no way he coulda outfought Santino.” That’s not 100% contradictory I guess, but it’s always struck me as an inconsistency.
• The “Den of Thieves Benihana” Award for Scene Stealing Location
This is an easy one: it’s Sicily. The on-location stuff in Sicily is absolutely gorgeous.
• The “Great Shot Gordo” Award for Most Cinematic Shot
• The Vincent Chase Award: Are We Sure This Character Is Actually Good at Their Job?
Moe Greene was actually slapping a Corleone around in public? Seems like a bad decision on many levels.
Luca Brasi is represented as an extremely scary guy, but we only see him unable to properly communicate, and then we see him get owned and ultimately killed in his one physical confrontation.
I’m guessing based on the above-mentioned abandonment that Kay wasn’t the best school teacher for little kids.
• The “Big Kahuna Burger” Award for Best Use of Food and Drink
Clemenza giving the spaghetti-making lesson probably has to get the win here.
• The “Butch’s Girlfriend” Award for the Weakest Link in the Film
McCluskey again.
• The “Ron Burgundy Flute” Award for the Best Time for a Pee Break
I mean there isn’t one, but I guess the little montage where Michael courts and ultimately marries Appollonia is more disposable than anything else I can think of.
• Is There a Better Title for this Movie?
Hell no.
• The Steven A. Smith Hottest Take Award
“Leave the gun, take the cannoli” is a throwaway. It’s fine, but c’mon with this ongoing bit where people think it’s hilarious.
• The Teddy KGB Award for the Actor in a Completely Different Movie
Do I keep picking on Sterling Hayden here? Yes.
• Just One Oscar
I have to say Best Picture. If it didn’t also acting awards then that would be a tragedy, but giving Best Picture to anything else would be the greatest of them all.
• Best Double Feature
I like chasing it with Dog Day Afternoon to show Pacino and Cazale’s immediate follow-up in pretty different roles (and in another amazing film).
• Best Race Horse Name from this Movie
I mean I’m definitely just going with Khartoum. I would hope someone actually has named their race horse this.
• What Piece of Memorabilia Would You Want From This Movie?
I’ll take the hat Michael was wearing during the Sicily segment.
• The “Andy and Red – Zihuatanejo” Award for What Happens the Next Day?
The very next day? Maybe that’s the usually unused part where Diane Keaton goes to light candles in the church and pray for the husband who she knows has now fully crossed over. That scene has been used sometimes to bridge part I to part II when they do AMC marathons.
Otherwise, we pretty much get filled in on where things are headed next since we got a sequel.
• The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson
Keep your friends, but keep your enemies closer.
• The “Slow Ride” / “Kid Cudi – Pursuit of Happiness” Award for Best Needle Drop
I love a good needle-drop, but the mere thought of The Godfather having one just made me break out in hive
