#2: The Godfather

So it is the Christmas season and instead of putting on a fire and snuggling up to watch some Christmas movie we decided to watch The Godfather.  Now if you are like my families and friends you might find it weird that I have never seen this movie, if you don't think it's weird then I like you more then them. But, I do know certain things about the movie (referential pop culture things) as well as know that this is a very well liked movie so I was really looking forward to watching it, almost as excited as you are to read this review.

Like I mentioned earlier The Godfather is referenced multiple times in media, some of which I didn't even know because it was from my childhood:

Okay, okay, okay, I know Fat Tony might not be a normal "Godfather" reference but in my naive youth I thought all Italian gangsters were references to The Godfather.  This movie though next to maybe Goodfellas is probably the most referenced mafia movie in pop culture.  This film also broke new ground by being a movie told from the side of the mafia.  Most mafia or gangster movies at this time were more focused on the police trying to stop the mafia.  All sorts of movies and TV shows now take a look from the side of the mafia, one of the most recent ones being The Sopranos (though the mob dressed better back in the day then they do now).  This film won three Academy Awards for Best Writing, Best Picture, and Marlon Brando for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Now lets see what the always positive people of the internet have to say about this film:
IMDB = 9.2
Rotten Tomatoes (Critic Rating) = 100%
Rotten Tomatoes (Audience Rating) = 97%
Holy cow these are some high ratings, I guess not everyone on the internet is negative.

Now before I start my own personal review I want to talk about how weird it is for me to watch older movies and see how young some of the actors look.  I feel it is very similar to how when you see pictures of your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. as kids and teenagers and you think to yourself, "you were young once?"  Well the same thing happened to me while watching this movie:

Before I talk about the individual characters I just want to say that all the actors were great.  I really thought that this was a very well acted movie.  This movie had so many characters so there is no way I will be able to talk about them all so I will just talk about the ones I had either positive or negative opinions on.  First of the character of Clemenza was awesome.  I cannot explain why I liked him so much but I just thought he was awesome.  Not sure if you ever like characters like this, you know, the ones that aren't that important, or even in the film much, but for some reason you really like them.  That is what Clemenza is for me.  Now the family has some great characters and some not so great characters.  Fredo and Connie were both pointless and annoying.  I have no idea why these characters even exist.  They were so pointless and underused that they might have well not even been in it.  Kay played by Diane Keaton was another character that did not really add much to the overall movie.  Honestly the most i can say about her is that Diane Keaton looks better now then she did then (holy big forehead Batman).  Then we have Vito, the character we all know, played by Marlon Brando.  It is really hard to me to judge this character and this acting since, I CAN"T UNDERSTAND HIM:

So I will have to go with what other people say and just say he was great and the character is great too.  Now we will get to my three favorite characters of the movie, Tom (Robert Duvall), Sonny (James Caan), and Michael (Al Pacino).  All these characters were not only interesting but were awesome characters.  I would watch a "Sopranos" like series if it followed these three characters.  I really really liked them.

The story was very good and for a three hour movie there were not many times I was bored.  It was great to see the character development.  At times the pacing may seem slow and the movie does take some time getting to the main plot line it feels but I think it is worth it if it adds to the movie.  The characters were well developed and the feeling of the movie was established.  I really wish more movies would do this.  I don't want to ruin the main story for you because I really enjoyed it and I want you to have the same experience.  The script was fantastic.  My only question is why do they always use Mario references.  Now I also, as always, learned something from this movie.  Here are just a few things:
#1: Horse heads are not as nice to cuddle with as teddy bears
#2: My Italian stereotypes aren't really stereotypes
#3: Cops suck (seems to be a trend)
#4: Italy is boring
#5: Women are more dangerous then shotguns and have lightning powers
#6: Babies crying are REALLY annoying
#7: Al did not age well

The music was really great in this film (one of the songs in is the Now and Then video).  Though it was not something that really stood out all the time, when I did notice it I really enjoyed it.  The effects, stunts, etc. were nothing to write home about (which is weird since I live at home) but they were not distractingly horrible either.

In conclusion, I really thought this was a good movie.  It was well made and I really enjoyed watching it.  Now I don't think it will become a movie I watch over and over again, but I did like it.  Why do some great movies never become a movie that I can watch multiple times yet some lesser movie like Ocean's 11 can become a movie I watch almost every time it is on?  Whatever, my grade for this film is an A.