[makes same philosophical face he makes during screaming crossfade from facade of hollywood mansion]
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:26 (one year ago) link
The other one being Tattaglia combing what's left of his hair
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:27 (one year ago) link
Fredo's not dumb, not like everyone says. He's smart, and he wants respect.
― clemenza, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:28 (one year ago) link
i guess what i'm getting at is (a) yes, when mike's at the hospital and it's gangster-action time he realises he can do it and he into it (bcz it's war stuff and he already knows war stuff) but (b) there's still gnna be a psychic cost if even he has superb skills hiding it (inc.from himself)
less pomo godfather more ptsd godfather
― mark s, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:28 (one year ago) link
― difficult listening hour
lol this is one of my favorite moments. Twenty years later the arc of his perf in The Freshman is Brando making that whaddya-gonna-do face for 104 minutes.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:29 (one year ago) link
He's not an animal, despite what that undertaker says
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:31 (one year ago) link
and yah vito wants to insulate michael so that he can be a kind of jfk. the culmination of an immigrant project. "that's my family, kay-- it's not me" isn't a rebellion (whether michael thinks it is or not)-- to be him, and not his family, is precisely the role prepared for him. that's why the "where's michael?" moment, waking up in the hospital bed, is tragic. (later, michael will-- in some weird third-order-removed entirely allusive and metaphorical way!-- kill jfk.)
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:32 (one year ago) link
tomato tomahto!
Yes, the look on his face where he finds out Michael killed Sollozzo and is now firmly "in it" is heartbreaking, him dismissing everyone.
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:34 (one year ago) link
what if it was 1977 and Michael was engaged to Annie Halll
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, November 6, 2022 10:44 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Damn you all, now I want to rewatch these movies
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:34 (one year ago) link
Looking at the script - it's interesting how the term 'pezzonovante' ('big shot') gets used by Michael and Vito, mostly as a term of disparagement for the 'legitimate' big shots, but Michael also comes close to owning it at one point.
FABRIZIO(in Italian) Somebody told us you were a real important...how do you say...a pezzonovante. A big shot.MICHAEL(in Italian) I'm the son of a pezzonovante.
MICHAEL(in Italian) I'm the son of a pezzonovante.
― jmm, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:35 (one year ago) link
refs of various kinds by other chars to michael's wartime exp (including churchillian clemenza helping to psych him up for the solozzo hit by invoking munich) run all thru the movie and mark s otm re: irony of this being both key symbol of michael's "legitimacy" and part of what has trained him to be the only capable leader of the family's illegitimacy. (same note's hit in the irishman, every time someone says "you know, it's like in the war" to him.)
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:47 (one year ago) link
(then michael turns his family into a national-security state within a national-security state)
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:52 (one year ago) link
while Donald Sutherland in a trenchcoat watches them from a park bench.
"Very, very few people know about this, okay?"
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:53 (one year ago) link
mike, it would be like trying to kill the president!
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 17:54 (one year ago) link
I don’t doubt their involvement Al but at a lowah level
― omar little, Sunday, 6 November 2022 18:09 (one year ago) link
had never noticed pezzonovante motif! because i never knew what they were saying. gambling is a harmless vice forbidden by the mumblemumble of the church. but yeah michael's response to "senator corleone... governor corleone..." is "another pezzonovante!" i wonder if he thinks vito is being naive.
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 18:29 (one year ago) link
he lights a cigarette for Enzo and realizes that he's stayed steady and calm through the whole thing
he does this again in cuba, for fredo, after watching the latter fumble for a match while pretending to try and remember whether he's met johnny ola
speaking of which--
I really believe he had no inclination Fredo was involved. His reaction when Fredo lets Johnny Ola's name slip strikes me as genuine shock and dismay.
unsure when he begins to suspect fredo but it's no later than the banana daquiri scene, where fredo actually begins to confess but is interrupted by a waiter. when johnny ola shows up michael makes a point of introducing them and asking again if they've met. certainly true that he's heavily affected when all doubt is removed tho! as we watch him react to fredo's self-incrimination we hear sen. geary (offscreen) saying (of superman's dick) "i've seen it and i still don't believe it!"
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 November 2022 23:50 (one year ago) link
Interesting--I've seen it so many times, and I'd never really considered that. Watched the scene again, and the way Michael's smile drops at 2:57 suggests you're right. But he still shows a lot of affection for Fredo two or three times during their conversation, affection that might be hard to fake if he'd made up his mind. So...definitely suspecting, but not yet sure?
― clemenza, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:13 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfpXRgQNDEA
i think he just really hopes it isn't true. breaks his heart iirc!
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:17 (one year ago) link
lmao btw @ cazale's lil jerry lewis routine w the $2mil suitcase at the beginning of that vid
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:18 (one year ago) link
do I have to watch this tonight
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 November 2022 00:19 (one year ago) link
90 miles away, alfred. partnership with a friendly government.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:23 (one year ago) link
Lots of people in the comment section of that clip claiming that the line is: "It's not easy to be his son."
I slowed it down and it still sounds like "a son" to me, unless Michael is really running the consonants together.
― jmm, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:24 (one year ago) link
I think he says "to be a son"--"to be his son" wouldn't make sense.
Something I wrote on GFII 25 years ago. Haven't seen either in a decade--had to just swear off them at a certain point.
― clemenza, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:26 (one year ago) link
Cazale's stiff posture and expression as Michael is saying that Roth is the one tried to have him killed... perfect.
― jmm, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:27 (one year ago) link
What does the way Fredo says "Oh--that's great" at the one-minute mark mean? That he wants to change the subject?
― clemenza, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:28 (one year ago) link
It's great how the sirens start up at that moment.
― jmm, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:50 (one year ago) link
Nobody will ever be cooler than Willie Cicci getting a shave and a haircut before whacking Cuneo
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Monday, 7 November 2022 01:16 (one year ago) link
Cuneos last words: "Who's your barb-"
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Monday, 7 November 2022 01:19 (one year ago) link
Tattaglia was Deaths Very Much in Character
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Monday, 7 November 2022 01:20 (one year ago) link
The demands on me were impossible. I had settled on a price and everybody else’s was settled upon mine. Coppola had me losing weight to play Clemenza as a young man. I was down to 194 pounds. When I received the script five minutes later, it had me rolling in at 300 pounds.’’
Pretty fucked. Pentangeli was definitely a risk because now all you had left from the old 'family' besides Corleones was Hagen, Cicci Al Neri, and Rocco, and you had to entrust a huge amount of the story to someone the audience was just meeting, but it worked out fine.
I agree with Castellano that Clemenza wouldn't have flipped, also
― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Monday, 7 November 2022 01:27 (one year ago) link
gazzo gave a thoroughly excellent performance fortunately, the right mix of pride and pathos and clearly a good character in how he would be an easy mark for the con pulled on him. I wonder if clemenza falling for it would have been as believable. HOWEVER we can also see it implied that Michael made a tactical error in telling Roth it was Pentangeli who tried to kill him, which led to Roth giving the go ahead on the hit, which led to the betrayal. Lots of layers there.
― omar little, Monday, 7 November 2022 02:59 (one year ago) link
lol @ clem’s blog invoking meet the stupids, a movie i found extremely hilarious at the time
clip upthread reveals i was wrong sry re “interrupted by a waiter”— he loses his nerve and summons one himself. tragicer, obv.
scene where michael visits pentangeli on set of i believe in america scene (now lit, but still w the blank white paper outside the blinds) is richer for its not being clemenza— they are both standing in the place of ghosts.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 7 November 2022 04:15 (one year ago) link
"I want you to show them a good time in Havana."
"My specialty, right?"
What's great is, he's not wrong. Fredo can be funny and easygoing in ways Michael can't. He gets people like Senator Geary to drop their guard (and yeah, the Jerry Lewis bit... Fredo's a natural comedian). He actually could be smart, but he's in the wrong family entirely.
― jmm, Monday, 7 November 2022 12:21 (one year ago) link
Two episodes into The Offer. Some of it seems right, some of it wrong. Judging by the prominence of Al Ruddy's name in the credits, it does seem like a work of self-glorification. (One of the wrongs, I'd say, is Giovanni Ribisi's hamminess.)
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:20 (one year ago) link
That's the way Pop wanted it.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 14:54 (one year ago) link
The show is both terrible and reasonably watchable
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 15:05 (one year ago) link
At least up until the last episode and its utterly damp squib of a depiction of Oscar night, which I guess is because they had to dance around what a disappointment of a night it was for GODFATHER, compared to CABARET.
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 15:07 (one year ago) link
Pretty much exactly how I'd describe what I've seen so far.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 15:26 (one year ago) link
yeah Eric otm that is a perfect description it’s def Ruddy-aggrandizing & a lot of the time it is borderline like watching a stupid Lifetime movie … but the Coppola and Pacino of it is kinda worth it imo plus i find Godfather lore just kinda addictive yknow? … and Ribbisi is unintentional comic relief for his ott nonsense
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 15:38 (one year ago) link
The guy they had playing Pacino was kinda cute too, fwiw
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:12 (one year ago) link
My favourite performances so far--maybe I should recognize some of them; I don't--are Evans, Ruddy's wife, and Ruddy's secretary. I also like the guy from Gulf & Western who's the money man--not Bluhdorn, his underling. I recognized him but had to check; same guy who played Father Gill in Mad Men. (Bluhdorn was prominent in the whole Heaven's Gate debacle, I seem to recall...but that was a different studio, so maybe I'm misremembering.)
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:17 (one year ago) link
I also like the guy from Gulf & Western who's the money man--not Bluhdorn, his underling. I recognized him but had to check; same guy who played Father Gill in Mad Men.
That'd be Tom Hanks's not-embarrassing son
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:31 (one year ago) link
But, yes, Matthew Goode the clear MVP in this cast
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:32 (one year ago) link
Ha--had no idea he was Hanks' son. And that should be Ruddy's girlfriend, not wife. (Posting while working...or working while posting, maybe.)
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:44 (one year ago) link
One of the weirder things (obviously intentional) was when Ruddy goes to the New York politician in E2 and tries to secure permission to film in New York. The way he gets turned down is almost a paraphrase of something Vito says to the other family heads in their big meeting about Sollozzo.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 16:49 (one year ago) link
i liked Burn Gohrman as Bluhdorn - it is very ott but anecdotally i get the impression Bluhdorn was even more ott IRL & that this is him toned down lolMatthew Goode for sure the mvp as Evans, he’s great start fo finish, no notes as the kids say And yeah, Pacino actor is super handsome! i hadn’t seen him before this. He does an ok job w the voice toothough re the voices w this show it’s hard not to seem like everyone’s doing a tight five of celebrity impressions at the Chuckle Hut, and it can very easily take you out of the storyi think Juno Temple’s Bettye character is great - there’s not a lot else for the women characters to do so in this bc it’s such a sausage fest & she really does a lot with her part to make herself indispensable & grab some of the spotlight when she can
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 22 February 2023 18:56 (one year ago) link
There was a really good scene between Bettye and Francoise in E2, where Francoise is trying to figure things out but--supremely self-assured--knows that there's nothing sexual going on between Ruddy and Bettye, admires that Bettye doesn't betray Ruddy, and a mutual respect is established.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 February 2023 19:16 (one year ago) link