TS: Godfather vs Godfather II

the deniro bits are straightforward enough. childlike, really.

but can anyone come out here and explain the rest of it?

there are two brothers michael is trying to shake down in vegas? and hyman roth is in cahoots with them, possibly? but hyman claims to be on michael's side?

they try to kill michael, and try to pin it on the old guy back from new york.

and then they try to kill that old guy, and tell him it's on michael's orders (this is confusing, because maybe it is michael!).

er, and at some undisclosed point the feds investigate the corleone family and they have to go to court.

i think i would have liked a godfather 1.5, in which vito and mo green (=bugsy siegel?) and hyman roth build up their empire of crime. i guess roth is coming out of chicago?

Brando's performance is mostly hammy crap. And if you ever see I in a theater, Diane Keaton's assorted hairstyles draw gales of laughter.

Not compared to III!

does "ham" mean "jew"?

kidding.

I loved Strasberg in 2, the scene where he's talking about Moe Green (Siegel), not getting a plaque and all that...

right, but don corleone isn't a funny, warm, or human kinda guy.

Coppola himself says he could've done a smarter, more polished job on the first one (much of which he shot under rumor of being imminently fired).

Also, his performance in the film is overrated anyway! Oh noes, DeNiro learnt Eyetalian!!! Oh noes! FILM OF TEH YEAR! etc. If he learnt Eyetalian, got fat, and shaved a mohawk into his head, now you'd be talking.

"completely and utterly," eh?

No, it wasn't "necessary," but Coppola's triumph (and Mario Puzo's too, i guess) is that they deepen this pulp with a flashback that's no hazy romanticization of the Corleone family, but a clearheaded explanation of how this family sunk their meathooks into the New World.

No scene moves me more in GFII than the one in which young Vito, alone in a dank Ellis Island room, sings a half-remembered tune in this angelic voice, his back to the camera. Unnecessary, yes, but haunting.

Alfred, if you want to respond to the entirety of what I wrote, which is that one or the other part of the movie was unnecessary and that having BOTH is what constitutes train wreck status, that would be nice. I'd prefer it if they left out almost all of the "modern day" crap!

gabb, you mean Gordon Willis not Parks yes? II is one of the great 'underlit' American films. Gimme gimme gimme my dark, well-upholstered interiors.

The second one I kept waiting for the cops to show up and violently bust everyone. Kung-fu cops. I couldn't figure out what the fuckin' point of that shit was at all.

It's not a BAD film -- Pacino is just about as good (and Joe Mantegna offed too soon), but almost everything else is two to ten notches below the standard.

i am amused that dom kind of repped for 'you've got mail', upthread.

The bum lines are worse in II, and the pattern repetition thing is overdone, and I still can't figure out exactly what Fredo did (give the location of Michael's bedroom? Kill the shooters himself?). I do think the De Niro stuff romanticizes the Don, and that his turn to crime is a little too elegant. But it's still a great family drama.

III sucked mainly because he stopped being Michael and started doing "Al."

er, yes. I'm not a fan of dark, "well-upholstered" interiors per se. I love Willis' dark moody semi-exteriors in ATPM, but perhaps only because they're balanced by the warm light of the newsroom (never has fluorescence looked so good) and the, er, harsh light of day when Woodward walks through that Justice Department (?) courtyard.

A rather perverse claim, since at the time of On the Waterfront I don't believe Brando was getting his lines through an earpiece or from cue cards scattered around the set and taped to his fellow actors' foreheads.

(masked and very very distanced of course)

It's gotten old. That was all decided last year.

CLEMENZA

Anyway watching this tonight was a blessing.

always a good call <3

Part II at Regal cinemas in the US for $5 this week

WAHT

Part II at Regal cinemas in the US for $5 this week.

lol

my offer is this:

nothing.

I had the odd experience of watching II before I watched I. Anyway, I prefer the second, particularly the denouement. And the Fredo/Michael dynamic. Cazale is just devastating.