MY MOVIE SHELF: The Godfather Part III

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 250 Days to go: 254

Movie #127: The Godfather Part III

The Godfather Part III is completely off the rails. Literally everyone has given up at this point. It might as well be a TV movie followup to the first two films, for all the awkward, bizarre laughable melodrama.

Al Pacino has completely lost all the layered nuance of his previous performances of Michael Corleone, instead going full Hoo-ah (two years before Scent of a Woman, when it would apparently merit an Oscar — go figure) and sporting uber-’90s hair.

Nothing, in fact, is even remotely reminiscent of 1979, when the film is supposed to be taking place, save the cars. The fashion and hair of virtually everyone, in fact, is pure 1989 (around when it was filmed). There are no bellbottoms, no wide-legged pants of any kind, and an overabundance of ’80s power shoulder pads. Where are the wide lapels? The thick, striped ties? The shawl collars? Where are the feathered bangs and the bowl cuts and the ill-advised man-perms? (Okay, Diane Keaton is sporting an ill-advised man-perm. Points for that.) Where are the plaid pants? The short shorts? The bold colors? The bare shoulders and tube tops? There’s none of that here. Michael’s daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) wears almost nothing but little black mini-dresses with black tights and flats — an outfit I’m pretty sure I wore to a junior high dance. And the military button jacket with Blossom hat she wears to visit Vincent’s (Andy Garcia) club is pure Rhythm Nation 1814.

Someone also needs to explain to me why so many people are apparently okay with Vincent screwing his barely legal first cousin, because it strikes me as incredibly creepy that everyone’s so okay and open about it. Mary doesn’t even try to hide it, but I’m pretty sure having a sexual relationship with your uncle’s son is frowned upon, even in close Italian families. Especially in close Italian families.

The whole movie is just weird, and the denouement that mirrors similar final scenes in the two previous films, is far more silly than tense — particularly the deaths of Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee the Murder Twins. The fate of Mary is also poorly handled, as the puppet show in Sicily foreshadows it with no more subtlety than Coppola’s awkward “seduction” acting. Add in fake Pope plot details and it just adds up to a mess. How this thing got nominated for seven Oscars is beyond me. Thank God it didn’t win any.

I wouldn’t say the Godfather trilogy is my cup of tea, necessarily, but I can clearly see the artistry and sophistication of the first two films. They are great pieces of cinema, undeniably. The Godfather Part III, however, is a useless piece of crap. They should’ve quit while they were ahead.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Godfather Part II

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 251 Days to go: 254

Movie #126: The Godfather Part II

It’s long been posited (and upheld) in film circles that The Godfather Part II is at least as good as, if not better than, The Godfather. It’s easy to see why. Though twenty-five minutes longer than the original, The Godfather Part II moves faster and is paced better than the first. And in telling two parallel stories — that of Vito’s (Robert De Niro) past in Italy and rise to power in New York, and of Michael’s (Al Pacino) expansion of and further entrenchment within his crime syndicate even as he hopes to legitimize the family — it has a more balanced structure than The Godfather, which was extremely front-heavy and somewhat sloppy and haphazard for the final third. The Godfather Part II is compelling on all fronts, making it deserving of the first ever Best Picture Oscar win for a sequel, though it’s hard to tell what kind of acclaim it would’ve gotten had The Godfather never existed and this film stood on its own. Would it have felt incomplete? Perhaps. There’s a lot of world-building happening in the first that the second relies on, but for the most part it stands apart as its own film fairly well.

Robert De Niro, it must be said, is by far the most fascinating character of the film. His performance is riveting and flawless. Somehow he manages to embody Vito Corleone almost better than Marlon Brando did. He comes off as calmer, stronger, more centered and even more devoted to his family than Brando did in the original film. And with the addition of Bruno Kirby as young Clemenza and John Aprea as Young Tessio (played by Richard Castellano and Abe Vigoda in the later years), the early life of Vito Corleone is a two-hour film in itself that I would happily watch. It is the strongest and most consistently gripping part of this movie.

Michael’s struggles in 1958, however, are compelling in their own right. Instead of the outside rivalries facing them in The Godfather, the family is roaring with internal conflict in the sequel. Kay (Diane Keaton) has become frustrated and weary with Michael’s continued illegal activities, despite his promise years earlier to legitimize the family business. Connie (Talia Shire) still hasn’t forgiven her brother for Carlo’s (Gianni Russo) murder, and has been depressed and moody and defiant ever since. And Fredo’s (John Cazale) feelings of being slighted and disrespected by everyone have only festered over the years he’s spent in Nevada. Only Tom (Robert Duvall) remains loyal to Michael, though he even voices strong disagreement with him at times. The familial dynamics and politics are much more intriguing than the roundabout dealings and betrayals concerning Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), Johnny Ola (Dominic Chianese) and Frankie Pentangeli (Michael Gazzo), or anything that happens with the Senate committee or the FBI, possibly because sibling rivalries and power struggles are far more universal and relatable than the government pursuit of the mafia. Michael’s confrontation and conflict with Fredo is powerful, heartbreaking and iconic. And his split with Kay (particularly her revelation about her abortion) is even more so.

The one quibble I have is that the interweaving tales of Vito and Michael aren’t evenly spaced. Some segments are too long, while others are too short, giving the impression that the movie has spent too much or too little time with a particular half of the tale before moving back to the other. It’s once again an editing/structure issue of Coppola’s, but in this case it’s a far less cumbersome one, making The Godfather Part II, in my opinion a superior film than its predecessor.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Godfather

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 252 Days to go: 254

Movie #125: The Godfather

What Francis Ford Coppola really needs is an editor.

The Godfather is an amazing film — beautifully shot, powerfully acted, and epic in both scale and theme. Simply gorgeous, and I mean that. But it is unconscionably long. The movie could’ve been cut down by an hour, easily.

Take, for instance, the entire foray into Sicily and Michael’s (Al Pacino) courtship of Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli). Why is this here? Yes, it’s a beautiful and fascinating segment, illustrating Michael’s embracing of the traditional family and his place therein, but that could be conveyed simply from his murder of Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) and McCluskey (Sterling Hayden). The time-lapse could be handled via exposition when Michael meets back up with Kay (Diane Keaton), the same way it’s already used to let the audience know he’s been back for a year. Maybe establish a shot of him in Sicily, and maybe another for when he gets the news of Sonny’s (James Caan) death, but the rest is completely unnecessary. I mean, he winds back up with Kay anyway. He doesn’t indicate he married anyone else in Sicily or that he’s a widower. It never comes up, so why does it need to happen at all?

Another problem — whether it has anything to do with the Sicily segment is up for debate, but it doesn’t crop up until after that point — is the pacing is all off. From the opening of the movie at Connie (Talia Shire) and Carlo’s (Gianni Russo) wedding, The Godfather is meticulously paced, spending a lot of time at the wedding and building the universe of the Corleone family. We are introduced to all the main players: Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) holds court for guests needing favors or paying respect. Consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) is a trusted advisor and treated like a son by Vito and brother by Sonny and Michael. Vito’s other son Fredo (John Cazale), however, doesn’t seem to have as much pull or garner as much respect from anyone there. As the movie progresses and business is carried out, the Sollozzo business deal comes up and the focus shifts to that particular deal and everything that comes from it. Vito is shot, and hotheaded Sonny wants to go to war after Michael barely keeps Vito from being ambushed at the hospital. But that wouldn’t be wise, so he, Michael and Tom plan Sollozzo’s murder. Everything that happens in this whole first act, all the way up to Michael dropping the gun as he hurries out the door of the restaurant, is very deliberate. One thing happens, then another, then another. There are no big gaps in time or events that have been glossed over. After this point, however, the movie is full of them. Michael spends something like a year in Sicily, and when he meets Kay again he’s been back another whole year working for his father. He asks her to marry him and before you know it they have a toddler and Michael’s been the head of the family for some time. It’s almost as if everything that happens after the Sollozzo/McCluskey incident is epilogue — epilogue after epilogue after epilogue. There are significant turns of events in these scenes — Sonny’s murder, Vito’s death, Michael’s trip to Vegas, the baptism juxtaposed with the hits on the heads of the other families — but they feel tacked on, like afterthoughts. It’s almost as if they should be in a sequel of their own.

I’ve attempted to watch The Godfather many, many times, but this is actually the first time I’ve ever seen the whole thing in a single block. Usually I fall asleep and have to pick it up again later. That almost certainly destroys any cinephile cred I might ever have hoped to have had, but it also doesn’t necessarily reflect too well on a film that is largely regarded as a masterpiece. The thing is, though, it is a masterpiece. Of that I have no doubt. It’s an amazing, incredible film. But it’s still too freaking long.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Father of the Bride Part II

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 270  Days to go: 264

Movie #107: Father of the Bride Part II

I once had a heated argument with someone over the timeline of this movie. He thought Steve Martin’s line (as patriarch George Banks) about things starting “nine months ago” was a flub, since the movie actually ends two months after the birth of the babies (19-year-old spoiler: There is more than one baby.). He was wrong, of course. When George says “nine months ago,” he’s referring to the day Annie (Kimberly Williams, still pre-Paisley) and Bryan (George Newbern) come over to announce their pregnancy. And even if your parents are the first ones you tell (which, sure), and you let them know the very same day you find out (possibly, but not always), you don’t find out you’re pregnant the very day that it happens. I’d say 8 or so weeks along is well within reason. (I mean, technically a woman is already about 4 weeks along the first moment she could possibly realize her cycle is late, so.) Therefore the movie takes place during the nine months stemming from two months after Annie’s conception to two months after the births. I’m not even sure he would still argue with me about this, but I’m right, dammit, and I will defend my position to the death. Never let it be said I’m not passionate about stupid, meaningless things.

Nina (Diane Keaton) is still the calming, reasonable center, though I confess I don’t like her hair nearly as much in this one. And Franck (Martin Short) is still around, throwing baby showers and constructing a baby suite, and — best of all — leading some low impact aerobic sessions with a couple of very pregnant ladies. Even Matty (Kieran Culkin) is still around, providing wry yet kid-like observations to the proceedings. But my favorite character in Father of the Bride Part II is new to this universe. It’s Dr. Megan Eisenberg (Jane Adams).

Dr. Megan is perfect. She’s composed, competent and completely self-assured. She is sensitive and caring with the entire Banks family as they are about to welcome two new bundles of joy, but at the same time she is a controlled and experienced doctor. She knows exactly what she’s doing and her bedside manner is such that you have absolute faith in her. It’s kind of meant to be a joke, how George is all sorts of freaking out and how Dr. Megan centers him before he plays it off to everyone else like he’s been the rational one all along. But in actuality, Dr. Megan is just a really great character and a positive role model for women. There’s none of the foolishness of, say, Robin Williams in Nine Months and none of the stereotypical delivery room hijinks with women screaming “GIVE ME THE DRUGS,” or “YOU DID THIS TO ME.” It’s a tense moment and a serious milestone in this family’s life, and Dr. Megan gives it the gravity, as well as the joy, that it deserves. The fact that she becomes the namesake of new baby Banks is just the cherry on top of a delightfully perfect sundae.

The other stuff with the hair and the selling of the house is little more than a bunch of silliness, but I forgive it because the characters as a whole feel a lot more settled and comfortable in their roles here. It’s almost as if they really are all a family that has grown together into this life since the wedding four years ago. (Four years between release dates, but maybe only three in movie time.) Annie and Bryan are older and more like a married couple than a couple of kids getting hitched. Nina is embracing middle-age. Matty is maturing in his own right. And George has a bit of a mid-life crisis. It’s like they never gave up the characters at all and have been living their lives (the characters’ lives) in between films. It’s one of the few sequels that really pulls that off well, and I find myself drawn to the comfortability of that portrayal. In a way, it’s like coming home for me as well.

Now if I could only get my hands on some Vatsnik, I might actually sleep as well as Franck.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Father of the Bride

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 271  Days to go: 264

Movie #106: Father of the Bride

I love this movie, always have, but it really screwed me up. Father of the Bride is a very sweet, funny story about a man named George Banks (Steve Martin) whose baby girl Annie (Kimberly Williams, pre-Paisley) is all grown up and getting married. He’s terrified and resistant and can’t believe what a huge ordeal a wedding is — not that he’s all that sure his daughter should be getting married at 22, no matter if he and his wife got married at 21. And I thought this was how it should be. I kind of joke pretty often about how everything I know I learned from movies, only it’s not really that much of a joke. I was pretty isolated as a kid, not very close to my parents and always feeling like a terrible outsider everywhere I went — whether I was at school or at home, with friends or family or whomever. I didn’t fit in this world, didn’t understand it, didn’t know how things worked. So I took my cues from movies (and books and TV shows and anything else I consumed). Father of the Bride didn’t inform all my assumptions about life, but it definitely had a lot to do with my assumptions about weddings.

For one, I thought college was where I would meet the man I was going to marry, that six months together would be plenty of time to decide he was the one, and that 22 was a perfectly good age for all this to happen. Now, of course, some people do meet their future spouses in college, and some people do decide to get married after six months together, and some people do get married at 22, but they don’t do it because that’s the timeline they’re supposed to do it on. They do it because that’s when it feels right to them. Not that it didn’t feel right to me, too, but looking back on it I’m fairly certain I went on the path that I did because I expected it to go that way.

I remember being 21 and going through a terrible breakup and feeling, more than anything else, what a huge waste of my time that relationship had been. I’d spent so much time with this guy, and for what? Nothing. He just stole all the time away from me that I could’ve been meeting the Actual One. (Don’t think I don’t cringe at the memory, but I’m trying to be brutally honest here.) Now, I actually didn’t marry my first husband until I was 24, but I met him at 22. Met him and moved in with him and got engaged to him all before I turned 23. Because that’s what couples did, right?

Not only that, but I had this whole idea that the wedding itself should be a grand affair. Maybe I didn’t need wedding coordinators like Franck and Howard (Martin Short and B.D. Wong), but an elegant cake and gorgeous flowers and an elaborately laced gown with a long flowing train and veil were musts, obviously. And the guest list should include everyone I’d ever known, and the catering should be exquisite, and it should be the most beautiful, sophisticated, elegant affair anyone had ever attended. Just like in this movie. Save for the insanely beaded and laced flouncy dress I wore, it was nothing like that.

Obviously, that marriage did not go well. (Shocking, I know.) It’s not that I hadn’t loved him or been happy with him for a time, but I barely knew myself at that age and I sure as hell didn’t realize how fundamentally different he and I were. A few years in, and I was feeling trapped. But I’ll get to that in a later post.

It’s over fifteen years later now and I know so much more about who I am and what I want. I spent quite a lot of time discovering my true feelings on all sorts of aspects of my life. When I met the man who would become my current husband, we got to know each other for months before we started dating, and then we dated for several months before he moved in (more for convenience than commitment this time). We were perfectly content to just be together, and while marriage was discussed, it was never a pressing matter. It was just before our four-year anniversary when he proposed. And when we planned our wedding it was on our terms, in a location we wanted with the look and feel we were looking for. It was perfect, and in a lot of ways I felt like I had finally grown into my own person.

Now, when I watch Father of the Bride, I just enjoy the movie for what it is — a movie. (I also laugh at my former self a bit.) And I think of how my views have changed so much from when this came out in 1991. Now I find myself firmly in Nina’s corner. Played by Diane Keaton, Nina Banks is the counterpoint to George’s frustrating and demoralizing attitude. She doesn’t want to hear his groaning or see him rolling his eyes. They are well-to-do enough (another thing I didn’t understand — not every wedding guest is going to send a $200 place setting as a gift. Actually, most don’t.) that they can afford this much extravagance and they do it because it’s important to their daughter. I no longer feel any sort of sympathy, George, for a man who dreads his daughter’s wedding day because he wants to keep her infantile and dependent on him for eternity; a father should be proud of his daughter as she grows into a woman, and he should acknowledge and encourage this transition rather than try to snuff it out.

I also think Annie and her betrothed, Bryan MacKenzie (George Newbern), are super adorable and have a great, easy chemistry. Hallmark thought this too, because they cast them as a married couple doing greeting card ads for years afterward. Their characters are both young and fresh-faced, still testing the waters of adulthood but forging ahead into this new territory, and the actors walk that line of conviction and anxiety quiet nicely.

Also, Steve Martin is completely charming, as always, even when his character is overbearing and wrongheaded, and I still get to think of him as an undeniably great dad. Even with all his blustering, he loves his daughter, and his wife, and his son Matty (played by baby Kieran Culkin). He adores his family and, when push comes to shove, he does absolutely everything he can for them. That’s a worthwhile fantasy dad if I ever saw one.

Now “drive safe, and don’t forget to fasten your condom.”