The Rewatchables - ‘The Godfather’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan to make you an offer you can’t refuse as they honor one of the greatest films in American cinema history, ‘The Godfather,’ starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Bill Simmons. Before we get started, I want to let you know that you were listening to one of six classic episodes of the rewatchables, a podcast that's been around for the last few years. And if you're listening on any platform other than Spotify, you can only hear the last 60 days of new rewatchables episodes, plus these six classics, the Godfather, heat, the social network, old school, jaws, and the town. But for the entire archive, go to Spotify, where you can listen to every episode, 440. I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall this podcast, I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, like Craig the producer. And that I will not forgive the godfather. It's coming up right now. I never wanted this for you. I work my own life. I don't apologize to take care of my family. And I refuse to be a fool. dancing on the string held by all those

big shows it's not personal it's strictly business all right Sean Fantasy is here Chris Ryan is here it is the 2019 2019 season of the rewatchables we're going to do an episode every week

all the way through I'm ready we have it planned out ready to go we've been circling this forever I haven't planned out I just dole out the information to you what movies are doing

yeah I'm glad we know about this one had a time Will you share with the audience movies ahead of time? Yeah, next week we're doing old school. So watch that one now. Get ready for that. Perfect. We should be teasing this at the top of the show.

Yeah, one week. What a digestee for the Godfather. So we're all worried about this because we have no idea how long this is going to go. In my opinion, this is my favorite movie of all time. It's the greatest movie of all time. I don't know if that is a set position. So let's start there. Is this the greatest movie of all time?

Well, I'm not worried about this. I was never worried about this. I'm excited about it. I don't know if I have the stamina for it. This is, I think, not my favorite movie of all time, but the most important popular entertainment of the last 50 years across any medium.

More than Star Wars. I think it is the most... Music, television, anything. Anything. It is the most influential. It is the most artistically accomplished. It is the most incredibly satisfying. The way it exists today is still perfect.

In fact, it may be better. So I think it is the most... important thing that happened in commercial popular culture over the last half century. Yeah, and I think that what you're saying is important to note commercial popular culture because it's a product of art and commerce coming together. It's a product of a bestseller, of a movie studio that was being bought by a conglomerate and all these different executives getting involved. You've got an otor who becomes, you know, an American genius, an American master in this moment. So there's all these different tensions there that,

that make it so fascinating to talk about aside from obviously it's become part of the American lexicon. You refer to things using the language of Godfather to describe situations. Yeah, it certainly seems like out of all the movies that have passed through my life, this one seems to have the most life lessons, quotable moments, moments where you could compare something that's happening in your life to the movie and all of those things. I also feel like it's the first great modern movie. And what I mean is it came out in 1970.

which is now 46 years ago. I wasn't even three years old at that point. And I feel like it still holds up and it's still kind of perfect. I mean, there's some things we'll get through. There's some nitpicks and things like that. But when I watch Booch Cassie and the Sundance Kid, that feels like an old movie.

Yeah, it's dated. And that was a relatively modern movie. This movie, 1972, still feels like somebody who's 12 years old. I was watching with my son, Ben, who had never seen it, who had no intention watching. It was just kind of sitting next to me. He was looking at stuff on his phone.

He kept looking up. And then he was like, what is this? And then just kind of got into it. And then there's violence every once in a while. And he watched the last hour and a half with me. And I was like, this is insane. He didn't even really know what I was doing or what I was watching this. I just feel like this movie lives on forever.

It's a little like what we did with Jaws. Yeah. I've been thinking about Jaws a lot this week. There's maybe eight, nine movies that are just going to live forever. And I think this is one of the eight. I think the only other movie that I throw in that in that pot with you about the modern movie is Chinatown, because it just feels like a new American take on an American classic. So this feels like method actors and a torus director taking on this classical American

material, and it has almost these Shakespearean overtones and the same thing with Chinatown, where it's this detective story. But Jack Nicholson is like unlike those guys. You know, he has like a different kind of persona and feel. And that's the thing that I think makes this movie still so watchable today is that you've got these people who, you know, At once, you're like, yes, this is pretty much like exactly how I now see the 1940s in my head. But at the same time, Robert Duval is Robert Duval no matter what time period is. And he has this sort of manner that's like completely, it's recognizable to our eyes. It's recognizable in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s.

Yeah, both of those movies are the product of kind of pulp material and they're elevated to high art. But they're not pretentious. They're both fun to watch. You know, they're both serious, but they're really entertaining. and quotable and rewatchable. You know, like all of those things that we prize so much they do while also being esteemed, which is, you know, that's a really rare thing. Chinatown was two years after.

Yeah. Yeah. So even if you look at the other movies that came out in 1972, they'll feel like they came out in 1972. You know, in this one, there's a reason AMC showed it for an entire day last week, the week before we're taping this, because they know they can, and they know they're going to get seven generations. people. It's a really unique

piece of a piece of as Sean said pop culture entertainment but also like I don't know I've this movie's been in my life my whole life and I feel like the characters are my friends which is a really weird thing

Can you even conceive of what a middle brother is without thinking of Fredo? Do you know what I mean like do you I don't even was there even like that concept before Fredo? I mean is there a Shakespearean thing that they got updated but to me it's like I've just always always lived with the idea of, oh, and this is this Michael Corleone move that he just pulled, or, you know,

he's settling family business. Actually, the three brothers. But the three brothers is like that where you have those three brothers, you could apply to anybody you know in your life, right? You either have the hot head goes plowing ahead and doesn't think about the consequences and you have the black sheep and then you have the guy who sits back who's kind of playing chess. So, like simultaneously events those things, but also is a commentary on Shakespeare, on Greek tragedy on all of these like old, old, old forms. And that's, that is what Coppola brings to it.

Coppola clearly when he read the book and thought about the idea and took a lot out of the book and decided that he wanted to make something that really aspired to serious commentary using old-fashioned ideas about story structure and characters and really focused on making the characters seem as authentic, but also as sort of culturally meaningful as possible. So like, you feel like it invented something, but at the same time, like there's this great story that Trey Parker tells about doing a godfather homage in South Park. And it's a bit on the freighto on the boat scene in part two. And they do the, you know, they're in the writer's room and they're talking about it. And they're writing the scene. And he's like, yeah,

is it, is the boat on the east side of the lake or the west side of the lake? I can't remember. And most of the people in the room are like, oh, I don't know. I've never seen it. Yeah. But they know that Fredo gets shot on a boat in a lake. But they hadn't even seen the movie because there's so much stitched into the fabric of our life that you just know these little things about it. It's the same thing with Fredo and Offrey can't refuse and all that stuff. I think also one of the reasons why this movie

still resonates outside of our obvious obsession with the criminal underworld and the mafia and this time period in American history, a lot of it, and I was thinking about this so much when I was watching it again last night, it seems like a real family. I can't get over like, these guys, these actors all knew each other in New York anyway.

You know what I mean? And they were all kind of, emerging at the same time. But part of it is because Copel populated the backgrounds and the margins with actual family members. But when you're watching the wedding scene, you're like, this is real. Like there's an element to it. These people grew up with each other.

These people have these grievances with each other over decades. They all feel authentic to this place and to this situation. And the sibling rivalries between the guys, even the way that they treat Tom is, it seems so significant that their relationships are real to you, you know, in that situation. I don't want to touch Godfather 2 in this one because we want to end the season with that at the end of this year. But I will say it's so effective when they use the deleted scene from Godfather 1 at the end of Godfather 2 and pull you back and be like, oh yeah, remember when these dudes were all family and they're all pulling for each other? Not a deleted scene. They reconvened to shoot.

Oh, did they really? Yeah, yeah. Because there's a whole story. I mean, we could talk about it one year from now. James Collins' participation was complicated. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's an interesting thing we can tease for December.

We'll tease that one. A couple of things going on here. First of all, I'm always struck when we study these movies how much luck you need. And I think this one had probably the most luck and the most things going in its favor of anyone. All these different factors that collided that made it the greatest movie ever. Start out with Brando, one of the greatest actors of all time. is catching him at literally the perfect moment of his career. Low.

You're buying low on him. He's the right age. He's still playing a little older than he actually is in real life. If you're catching him four years later, he's gone too crazy and he can't be Brando anymore. I mean, you can't be Corleone anymore. So you're getting him at the right time. You're dipping into this whole well of these actors that are going to go on and do all these incredible things.

And I think, like, we're going to talk about how De Niro was almost in this movie. but this is basically like dipping into the 1984 NBA draft and just pulling out basketball players. We're like, oh, we got Jordan and we got Barclay. So that was lucky. And then Coppola. And the fact that just that they didn't fire him or that they picked him in the first place,

you have all those things. Plus, this was a monster book. Yeah. So this book came out in 1969. It's been 67 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. And we talked about this when we did the firm podcast. Usually when you make the movie based on the book, people just read the book, it's hard to surprise people. It's a pretty big obstacle.

And then you have the mafia coming at them. They're concerned about this movie. There's so many reasons this should have gone wrong. It's amazing it didn't. There's an enormous amount of Hollywood history that sets this up to. Like where Paramount was when they made this movie, Robert Evans is the head of the studio. He's a former actor who has no experience running a studio. Paramount has just recently been bought by Gulf and Western, which is a company that doesn't know how to make movies.

Charles Bluthorne, who runs the studio, is this vivacious, charismatic, interesting guy, but doesn't really know what he's doing. He's relying on Robert Evans. Robert Evans fights for Copeland to make it because nobody else wanted to make it. Copeland made three movies at this point, none of which were all that highly regarded.

And his last one kind of bombed, right? Yeah, his movies didn't really do that well. They said 12 directors were looked at. And some pretty significant names. And Casagoras and Arthur Penn and all these famous filmmakers who said no. But to me, the key, key, key part of this. And Evans goes to great lengths.

to talk about this, and Copel talks about this too. Almost every gangster movie that had happened in the history of Hollywood didn't star Italian Americans and wasn't made by Italian Americans. And they made a point to not only strategically make it that way, but to market it that way. What was the one with Kirk Douglas that came out a couple years earlier? It's called Brotherhood. And that flap because Kirk Douglas was playing in Italian.

And who directed, was it, Otto Preminger? Yeah, and it's all of those movies to start Jews. That was what Evans talks about. It's like all of these gangster movies, and there obviously have been many Jewish gangsters, but the mafia is Italian. It's from Italy. And finding Coppola and then Coppola pushing really hard for Pacino,

I just feel like it's kind of lock and key with this whole story. If you don't get, the Brando stuff is vital, but Brando is not Italian. Pacino. But Brando has a vowel ending his last name, so it's deceiving. James Con was Jewish. Yes. But I found that out research in this. I just assumed he was Italian for the last 45 years.

I know the movie makes you believe that, right? Yeah. He's a great Italian. It's true. So I feel like all of those things falling in a place along with everything that you just said makes this like one of the luckiest things that could have ever happened. Also, the one other thing, too, about the book point is love story was the movie that Paramount had put out right before this and was a huge hit and was a huge book.

Good Boston scenes and love story. And that's why Evans wanted to do The Godfather. He thought that adapting books was the best way to get hits. But it's not even, even though he was obviously the sort of rabbi looking over this project, if he had gotten his way on a couple of things would have been a completely different movie. If he had gotten Ryan O'Neill, I mean, we'll get into the casting what if this is going to take forever on this one. Ali McGraw had a set of legs. I wouldn't quit. Bob Evans, we should do the kid that stays the

picture, season eight, stays in the picture season eight. I love that. You also have to just think about, like, how outrageous it is, that something that was so successful and that so many companies that had so much riding on it was, was shot by Gordon Willis in the way that it was, and it looks the way that it does. When you think about what the mass... Didn't he almost get fired, too? I mean, he's a guy who basically plays, I think that the documentary that they made about his cinematography is like skating on emotion or emotional rescue, but emulsion,

the emotional rescue. Yeah, and it's like this idea that he is basically playing on the last edge of the cliff before darkness and that like, you know, he is the only one who can kind of keep it together, but it gives the film this incredibly yellowed antiquity to it that makes it feel all the more authentic. It feels very fortunate.

ish. So Paramount bought the rights for 800K. There's a whole backstory with Puzzo sold the rights. He developed it with Evans. He had a gambling problem. He sold it well before he should have. He would have made so much more money on it. Evans could not find a director.

Paramount pushed to sell the rights to the book for $1 million to Bert Lancaster who wanted to play Don Corleone. So right there, the movie's a disaster. It would have been a mess. And I love Bert Lancaster, but come on. So Evans had to act fast or lose the project to settle for Copa. Paramount

almost fired Copa. He was screen test after screen test. We'll go into all the casting with us later. He wanted to film in Italy. He wanted to film in New York. That was super expensive. Imagine if they had not filmed in Italy or New York in this movie. They wanted to set it in Kansas City, right? Yeah.

They wanted to set it during the 1970s. They wanted to make a contemporary instead of a movie set in the 40s, which is where the book is set, to save money. It's a miracle. And then Brando, they almost brought in, how do you say his name, Ilya, Ilya Kazan, and

Brando threatened to quit. So there's a lot of people like threatening to quit if this person got fired. For most of the production, Coppola was convinced that there were two or three people working around him that were basically working against him. The film's editor, the person who was hired to be the editor of the film at the time brought to Evans and

Peter Bart, who was working at the studio, I think after like 10 days of shooting and said, everything that Francis is shooting is beautiful, these scenes look incredible, it doesn't cut together. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's a complete mess. And he took that information with Al Ruddy, the producer of the movie, to the studio.

Studio looked at it. This is all according to Evans. Evans then takes his version of the cut, sits down with an editor of his own, cuts the movie together. He realizes it cuts together great. And that this guy is just trying to sabotage Coppola to get him fired because this editor felt like he would be next in line to step into the project. And then that guy gets canned. And then they start resumed production. The production of this movie is very complicated.

It's really like a hornet nest. And then also that gets the buzz that it's a huge bust. It's going to be a bomb. Same thing that's happened at Titanic and Jaws and some of the greatest movies we've ever had. And the first two acts though, I mean, and correct me, it has a certain vignette feel. There are these sort of, there's the 30-minute wedding scene.

There's the L.A. scene. There's like, it goes, especially the first two acts are broken up into these almost chapters. It's episodic, yeah. So I wonder whether or not that was always, Coppola's vision or whether that was just how it was shot together. I know he cut a lot of stuff from Godfather, especially James Conn stuff, that he felt like didn't push the story forward.

Yeah, that hurts. Pacino almost got fired too, we should mention. And they sped up the famous scene where he shoots Salazzo on McCluskey because they felt like they had to get a scene where Pacino was awesome in a scene. Right. And they moved that one up. That scene works. And he gets to stay.

They didn't want to cast him in the first place. It's crazy. Why didn't they now want to cast him? Too short. Yep. and they were aware they were going to have to cast all these other short guys to stay on his level pretty much. So there's always been a rumor that not only did he wore lifts, but that he actually wore women's high heels in some scenes to really give himself the extra three, four inches.

I don't know. I never heard of that. I don't know if that's true. But it's funny that Al Pacino, who turned out to be one of the great actors in the history of mankind, the rap on him early was he was too small. It was like Isaiah Thomas on the Celtics type thing. He's 5'9. He's too small.

I don't think of... Can you build a team around him. He's not like a Napoleon in this movie, but I do feel like his height is helpful because he has to be underestimated. That sort of makes this... And that's not in the book. You know, in the book,

he's tall, blonde, and a war hero. And he's not that way in the movie, obviously, and that was an amazing choice by Coppola. Like, that was all Coppola. And, you know, I don't want to talk about two, too much. I think the performance in two two is the best screen performance ever. But in one, he's playing like three different characters.

I mean the Oscar. Yeah. It's insane. It's the all-time travesty. that's ever happened. It's funny too that you say that they felt like they needed to give him a W at some point

they needed to get him a whim in the shooting because I think when you go back and I'm sure that it's I can't separate one and two so you always think about the arc of the character and stuff like that.

It's funny, I can totally separate one and two. I feel like they're too running together for a movies. Some of the work that he does when he's just back with K and when he's just wearing his college suit and he's just like this guy back from the war

I think it's some of the most subtle stuff he ever did. It's some of the most beautiful. Like, just the way he says, he tells the Luca Brasi story to Kay, and he's just like, it's a true story.

God damn it. That's my fucking incredible line reading. Yeah. He's not really making eye contact with her, and he's like, listen to the song. It's the same thing when they're coming out of the bells of St. Mary. He's walking in New York City, and he's, you know,

the Angry Bergman line. Yeah. So good. Yeah. So one other thing I was thinking was, this is, I think, the only piece of pop culture that has spawned completely different pieces of pop culture

that are somehow the cousins slash sons slash daughters of the initial thing like Goodfellas definitely the sopranos unequivocally and acknowledged it the whole time he's like this is post godfather they fucking name the bar

Bada Bing it's supposed to be the first the first story that is about the generation of gangsters who grew up watching the godfather and obviously so much of the sopranos is literally just them quoting it. Silvio quotes it like in every episode. I mean, my stepfather was 100% Italian. My mom's Italian.

But this was his favorite movie. I have a lot of Italians in my life, like you with the Irish. Certainly. But this was the movie. And this was the one you quoted and you talked about and you just threw it and random phrases,

just in everyday conversation, not even quoting the godfather. It's just you assume the dialogue as part of your own dialogue. And it's interesting to me that I don't feel like that's really happened with the Irish. I don't know why the Italians won this one, where the Italians got this.

And maybe part of it has to do with the mafia is sexier than whatever the Irish underworld was. You're saying that they're not quoting Michael Collins left and right? No. No, but it's just kind of weird that it was the Italians. Because if you think about it, like in the 20s, 30s and 40s, there were just as many Irish as Italians, but somehow the Italians became the pop culture.

Yeah, I mean, I think. characters, I guess, for the movie. I think that it had, I think the idea of the family, and I think that the idea of the Cozonosra and the... But the Irish have family, if anything... Too much family. You stay with your family to the bitter end. At least the Italians will end up killing each other if you cross it, and the Irish will, like, figure it out. I just think that the... Well, two things. One, I think that the Irish have also just adopted

the godfather, like growing up in an Irish Catholic household, so many of the same kind of guilt and anxiety and sense of duty and a kind of romanticism, but also withholding, all of those same feelings are about being Irish. Then the other thing is just like, I could probably talk about Tom Hagen for like an hour. Like, that is just one of my favorite characters in the history of movies.

He's obviously an Irish guy. My wife is German Irish. He is German Irish. Let me tell you something, my Kraut McFriend. I mean, I would quote that as a kid, you know, that whole exchange with Jack Waltz. I used to quote that, and then finally my grandfather was like,

you're going to want to, like, dial that back and give it out of public. I mean, I ruined it when I was 12. You don't realize. But he's just a, he's an interesting avatar in the center of this. Like, he kind of breaks up that family feeling and gives you a little bit of a different look at what another kind of person is like. So I think that the Irish took it on too. I think Miller's Crossing and Departed are the Irish Godfather movies.

Irish Godfather, Michael never kills Fredo and Godfather too. He just silently steams about it. And then they get really mad at each other during the Christmas Yankee swath. And Frater just walks around places going, you think you're better to me! He just stops for Spragherstores. responding to his text messages, you know. It's just a lot of guilt, and then finally it comes out as one of them's dying. Yeah.

Highest grossing film in 1972, $81 million. I have no idea what that is in 2018, but it's a lot, or 2019, but that's a lot of money. For a while, it was the highest grossing movie of all time. It was ranked the second greatest film ever by AFI. Rotten Tomatoes 98%. Seems low. Seventh all time. Maybe bump that one up, Ron.

Who's the dick who is like? I'm going to take this down a notch. This is like the guy who doesn't want to vote for like... Does this predate Ebert? Are we going to get an Ebert review here? I'll tell you who the dick was. It was Roger Ebert. After an incredible string on the rewatch was of nine straight movies,

that he was good. What did he say? It fell apart here. He liked the movie. He criticized Brando's performance, calling it, quote, Weezy and saying, quote, it lacked precision. Come on, Roger. It's an interesting choice.

He no doubt revised that opinion and wrote another review that was a four-star review, right? He did not like two. He gave two a three out of four, I think. That's one of the worst. No, he did revise that one. Did he? Yeah, there's... Can you imagine taking that L? being like, I just walked out of the godfather and I was like, there's okay. I go the opposite way. And I know all the story. We'll get into how Brando is reading from cue cards and lines of dialogue on Robert Duvall's chest and all this stuff. I think Brando is absolutely amazing in this movie. It is a one-of-a-kind. There's just nothing like it. I don't

know who else could have done this. All the little touches he put in. I love the Don. I get sad when he dies every time. I love the scene with him and Michael in the garden near the end. I never wanted this for you. The Robert Town special right there. Robert Town.

Hired gun. I agree. I mean, you know, are we going to talk about Brando? We can. I think that it's an example of quality overacting. Like he's making a lot of choices and it's obvious when you're watching the that he's made choices, even if you didn't see a streetcar named Desire, or didn't see on the waterfront,

or didn't see any of the other movies that he made in the 50s and 60s, it's obvious that he's got something in his mouth. It's obvious that he's changing his voice. There's obviously that he's got his hair. It's obvious he's looking at cue cards. Oh, yeah. He's got this weird manner, but it doesn't matter because he's created a character.

He created a character. Like that is him, Coppola choosing him and him saying, I've got 100 ideas about this guy makes it worth it. Now, sometimes when, like, Nicholas Cage does that in 2018, you're like, tone it down a notch. But it also works within the context of the story because he, at the point of the godfather taking place, he's getting soft. Or at least he's perceived to be getting soft by the Tataglias and Bartzani's and Solotzo's of the world. They're like, 10 years ago, I never would have gotten to him. Yeah.

But, you know, so his eccentricities and his delay reactions maybe are supposed to be, all these other guys are sitting around a table being like, why am I kissing this guy's ring, you know? but then when he turns it on I'm going to blame some of the people in this room and you're like oh that's why you're the godfather he's menacing I uh there's one thing to think about with the Brando performance because it's been so many years it's just become part of who he is as an actor and we know Vito and all that

but I think if in 1972 him as the godfather was its own kind of experience it was like holy shit Brando yeah weird what is this you know it was just completely off the path of anything he'd done, he became this different person. I don't even know what actor we have now who could even do that or would have the chops to do that.

And, you know, you would say somebody like Leo or whoever. But it's just, you can't compare it. Brando was like this comet. And he was considered the greatest actor, but he was also an enigma. Nobody really understood it. People thought he might be washed up and then this happened. And there's really no way to compare it to anything. And there's such an interesting bridge between an acting style that he popularized that those guys in the movie grew up watching him.

You know what I mean? Yes. Pacino, con, Duval. Well, what, what, what was he said on my podcast? It wasn't just they grew up watching him. They fucking all-time idolized him. No, it would be, I can't even think of. It was like Michael Jordan.

Yeah, it would be, I can't even think of the writing equivalent of, you know, if we got to work with William Goldman. You know what I mean? Like, or just somebody that we grew up just being absolutely obsessed with who, who introduced the idea of what we should do with our lives and how we should do it, and then you're on a movie set with him, and he's playing your father. It's okay. You can admit it's Bill Simmons, Chris. I'm right here, Chris. Yeah, I mean, the other thing, too, is just like, Brando hadn't really been in a good movie for 10 years.

Yeah. I mean, it had been 10 years since Mutiny on the Bounty. And he made some interesting stuff, the chase and reflections in a golden eye is interesting. But, like, I mean, he was just off the radar as a... And I think Olivier had taken his spot. Olivier was up for this movie. Yeah, that would have been interesting and different. I mean, you mean just in terms of the best living actor, that title?

He had his spot. It's kind of how James Hardin's taking LeBron's spot right now. Wow. Wow. Yeah. You're not going to do six or stuff on this podcast too. Okay. For the Oscars, one best picture, beat Cabaret and Deliverance.

Best actor, Brando. One best screen play. Coppola lost to Bob Fossi for Cabaret. Are we okay with that shot? No. I want to talk about these Oscars. I'm glad you brought this up. And then, oh my God, Pacino, James Conn, and Robert DeVall all lost to Joel Gray and Cabaret.

I can only guess they split the vote. Vote split, no doubt. And then I'll step on half-fast internet research. Pacino was so upset that he wasn't nominated for Best Actor that he boycotted the Oscars. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Did not go. And I think that might be one of the reasons he lost for Godfather, too, because he didn't even go to the Oscars for Godfather 1.

As always, it's a campaign. to kiss the babies. Brando famously boycotted sending, who was it, Sean? Saseen Littlefeather. Yeah. To accept the award on his behalf. And everybody got really mad. And it was the 19...

Or decline the award, actually. Decline the award. It was the 1970s equivalent of the James Cameron on the King of the World speech where everybody kind of left and was like, fuck that guy? I think it's more like when Michael Moore won for Best Doc and was like, this is an unjust war and our president should be impeached. And he was booed in the room.

That is much... It was hostile. Like when James Cameron won, people were like, this guy's... arrogant, when Brando declined that Oscar, people were like, fuck him. And, you know, Puccino, you think Puccino was right to be mad that he was a nominated for best

actor, or he would have lost to Brando? Pacino was nominated for Best Actor. Right. But if he was nominated for Best Actor? Would you have rather been Best Supporting Actor I have a chance to win, or Best Actor, but you're going to get steamrolled by Brando. I think if you're in Best Actor, you kind of have to tip your cap to Peter O'Toole and Lawrence Olivier.

Like, that's like, that's being on that that's like the mount rush more of the last hundred years of acting right yeah i don't know i mean this is such a weird Oscars in general i i think it would have been completely reasonable for Pacino to have lost in supporting because if you do minute to minute screen time it's pretty close with Pacino brando duval and con they all get a lot of time in the movie so there's a little bit of category fraud going on here this is just such a weird best picture race i've been trying to, I have a personal project of re-watching every movie ever nominated for Best Picture or watching it for the first time and there's literally like 150 I haven't seen.

This is for his podcast called I Don't Have Kids Yet. And so the Godfather and Cabaret. What if we found out that you actually had two children? But they're just like sitting there while he's watching Cabaret. No, I have three. Sonny, Frato and Michael. And so the Godfather and Cabaret are obviously legendary movies. Deliverance is legendary movie.

We just lost Bert Reynolds. And then the other two are the emigrants and Sounder. Yeah. The Paul Winfield movie, right? Yeah. It's weird. I mean, people say that 40 years from now, shape of water. Totally.

Like, shape of water. What the fuck was that? Always happens. Always happens. I was shocked that Bert Reynolds didn't even get nominated for deliverance. No. That was such a great, like, leading main action acting role. But look at this category.

I mean, it's Brando, Michael Cain, Lawrence, Olivier, Peter O'Toole, and Paul Winfield. That's a pretty stacked category. I don't know. I mean, this did win best screenplay. Yeah. Best score did not win because they found out that the guy had already used Best Score for some movie like 10, 12 years.

Oh, Nina Road ahead. Yeah. Anything else you guys want to hit for the categories? We get a lot to get into here. Hmm. No, I'm ready to go. Let's go do categories. All right, we'll do the categories. First, let's do a plug for Sean's movie podcast,

The Big Picture. Yeah. Doing an Oscar show every week with Amanda Dobbins. Every Tuesday, me and Amanda. On Tuesdays. Interviewing, you've interviewed almost all the best directors. Not quite, but some of them. Maybe we'll get more of them.

Get some more of this. Got some white whales out there. Yeah. We had some good ones. Yeah, yeah, we're doing well. It's been fun so far. Check it out if you're interested. Doing some quick movie reviews.

Yeah, subscribe to that. It used to be on Channel 33 and we blew that out. And now it's on there. An independent feed. Sometimes you'll hear Chris Ryan, who's the showrunner of the big picture on the show, just sharing his takes. I'm excited for after Oscar season when I get to be on the podcast to talk about, like John Wick 3 and things like that. I have the whole plan. Yeah, that would be great.

Anyway, check that out, the big picture. Subscribe now. All right, the categories. I just want to say before we start, this is tough because the Godfather is the most rewatchable movie of all time. So breaking it down in a category of rewatchability is like impossible. But we're going to try. Most rewatchable scene.

These are the most candidates I've ever had for this category. I think I have eight. First one. Salazzo meeting the Corleons to pitch his deal. Yeah. At Genco. And Sonny getting hot for it. Yeah.

You mean to tell me to tag Leone's? Yeah, so there's one. Comenza making meatballs. Yeah. Good one. Giving Michael Corleone shit. Why don't you tell that girl you loved her, Mike? I love you so much. You got to fry the meat first at the bottom of the pan.

Breaking out exactly how to do the meatballs. That's real shit. You can follow that recipe. I have a whole deep dive on that later. And then James Kahn comes in, pissed off. Hey, what happened with Polly? So, oh, Pauly, won't be seeing him. more, which became a running joke with me, my stepdad for the entire time I've known him,

whenever somebody dies, we call each other attacks and be like, oh, this guy died, you won't be seeing him no more. But poor Polly. Polly betrayed the old man. We weren't convinced he betrayed the old man, right? Pauline is a hacking cough. Called him sick that day? What if Polly was just sick?

I don't know. Just coincidence? It's one of the great unanswerable questions. We have 20 people sick. at the ringer right now. It happens. I think Carlo like seals the deal that the Bardsini's and the Talians were trying to make inroads.

Next rewatchable scene, Michael, after getting his jaw broken, deciding that he's going to kill Salazzo and McCluskey, doing the whole speech. Now that's a great story. Leading to James Kahn.

Hey, what are you going to do? Nice college boy, eh? They want to get mixed up in a family business? Now you want gun down a police captain one because he slapped you in the face a little bit. What do you think? This is the army where you shoot him a mile away? You got to get him close like this. Bada Bing, you blow their brains all over your nice cyber league suit.

Finishing with, you're taking this very personal. Tom, this is business and this man is taking it very personal. It's not personal, sonny. It's strictly business. That also has the Bada Bing in it, which became the famous Bada Bing. That whole scene is outrageous. And the camera coming in on Michael is for the first time. Across the room.

Oh, Michael's going to. Turn on us here. And Deval's just there in the background. It's so good. It's so good. Next one. Michael at the At Louis restaurant serving Salatson McCleskey, the bullets of parmesan. Gave it to them.

It's a little cheese and sauce on it. Sunny at the Tollbooth. I watch it every time trying to break down. I don't think this is a rewatchable stage. Oh, it is for me. 100%. I'm giving this a little bit of thought. No.

I don't think it's not something I like watching. I don't actually think it's very well staged. Well, I think that's why I like rewatching it, though, because I have some flaws with how he was able to get so far ahead of the bodyguards and then all the people, I guess we could save that for... Like how they knew where he was going to be to stop the house. Yeah, I just don't really get this part. And then the guy in the toll booth who's like,

this is made out of teakwood, but I'm just going to duck and hope that these hail of bullets don't kill me. Counter argument. Sunny gets shot like 138 times. That's pretty fun. Yeah, and then the guy... Ah! Ha!

It's like the Quinn can eat. the shark. And then the guy kicks him at the end. It's brutal. Well, because he kicked Carlo. Do you think at one point,

for a bonus material for this podcast, should you do Sunny getting killed and I'll do Waltz screaming at the same time? And Craig can't hand him to left it, right? Some great screaming in this movie.

Two more rewatchable scene. Three more. Vito with the five families. Yeah. I forgo the vengeance of my son. That whole scene is outrageous and leading to the standing up.

But I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accidents should befall him, if he should get shot on the head by a police officer. Or if he should hang himself in his jail cell. Or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning. Then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. And then I do not forgive. That's all-timer.

Michael and Vito on the benches written by Robert Town. There just wasn't enough time. Incredible, beautiful scene. I never wanted this for you. And then finally the big christening scene. So what is the most re-watchable scene in this movie, Chris Ryan? It's the christening. For me.

There's what, there's, we're like missing a lot of scenes here. I mean, there's tons of, I mean, like he said, every re-season. Here, I'll tell you, the honorable mention that I have is, I'm not a dictator. Is meeting Mo Green. Is this scene? Yeah, of course. It's meeting Mo Green in Vegas.

You don't talk to a guy like Mo Green like that. Do you know who I am? I'm Mo Greene. I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders. That whole... Just Freedo clearing all the girls out of here. Like, scram! All right, fine, I'll add that.

That one, you have to put, I believe, in America, like opening the movie like that in that whole introduction with The Undertaker and how that perfectly sets up the Godfather and Brando. What is, I mean, you could put in the whole fucking movie. Well, I mean, you could put in the whole fucking movie, but you have to... The first scene is, like, one of the ten most important scenes in movie

history. Like, it completely sets the table for the people that we're about to meet. And it's so beautifully done, even though the dialogue is dubbed, and it doesn't even matter. You can tell that the Italian actor isn't actually speaking in the scene, and it doesn't, it still works really well. So that's why I didn't include it. Okay.

I have a problem with the actor in that scene. Maybe get a better actor for, he's in two of the biggest parts of the entire movie. But some of his line readings, he's like, they beat her like an animal. Like the line readings are so good. So what's the most rewatchable scene, Chris Ryan? I mean, it's the most rewatchable scene for me is the baptism. That's the one that they teach in film schools. That's montage and its finest.

I just think that the thematic cohesion of that scene is... I have no idea. Do you think that's like the first great montage? No, I mean, like there's been tons of montage. Yeah, come on. Yeah, seriously. What was that? Sergei Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin.

Bill? Let's go, Bill. Let's hear some film history. No, nothing. Blankin? It's just... No. For the modern movies? No, it's not a modern movies.

It's made in 1928. Yeah, I'm saying for modern movies, is that... That's a good question. The montage was basically made out. It's Kubrick in 2001. There's a lot of famous ones. I would almost say that there's a distinction in this movie between scenes and moments.

So like the moment Clemens is making the pasta is a moment. But then there's like scenes that are like more like those indelible scenes that you just always remember, you know? What's your pick fantasy? Can I also nominate Sunny beating the shit out of Carlo? That sequence where he learns what happened and he goes over to Connie. I know that you think

this is a little bit of an overacting thing. A little bit. But I like Jimmy Khan just going for it the whole movie. And then when he beats the shit out of him, it's kind of awesome. The shot of the sidewalk and like the sprinklers going off.

I don't know how this is true, but apparently they shot that scene for four days. That's epic. How the hell can you do that? And somehow they shot it for four days and he still missed a punch five foot and a half. that guy's knuckles like 700 times.

My son went nuts for that scene. He was like, what is going on? He's biting the guy's sand. My vote would be for Michael and Don, you know, having that conversation in the garden there. And when Michael's like another peasant ovante, you know, and that what he wanted for him and then what he becomes. Like, I think that's the most, some of the best dialogue like ever written in a movie. So which one is, which one are you going with? That's my pick, the most rewatchable.

The garden scene. Yeah. That is also my pick. Okay. I think that's one of like my four favorite scenes of all time. I drink wine more than I used to. Everything about it is so great. Brando looking at the cue cards like twice near the end because he's so old.

You would be the one to hold the strings. You can see him like looking away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just everything about it. But I also like, so he says, I knew Santino was going to have to go through all this. Enfredo. Eh. Yeah.

It's just completely. And then another point in the movie, he throws Santino under the bus. He's like, I never thought you were a bad conciliary. Yeah, at the top. Yeah, he's like, Santino, he was a bad Don. Yeah. Yeah, he got a boss of soul. Yeah, yeah.

But it's a counter to the, you know, he never could outfought Santino when he's talking about Tatalia was a pimp, you know? Like, he's kind of up and down on his sons. Yeah. It's like, uh... That's how I am with my children. Yeah, it's like Dan Tony with his bench, you know. Dale House.

I think that scene is incredible. And I think it's really incredible that I never knew until a week ago that Robert Town wrote it. I think I knew he did stuff on this movie, but I didn't know like they said to him, here's this scene. Can you make this happen? I would love to see a complete list of all of the scenes he's done that foreign movie history.

I would venture to guess it's 50 of the most interesting movie scenes ever written because he gets called all the time to do it. It's also, you know, Vito is obviously the guy in this scene, but it's a really great Pacino scene. Just the way he's looking. It just feels like it's his dad. So can I just say, because since

we're talking about screenwriting, I was just marveling last night at the elegance, and you touched on this with the Undertaker speech, the elegance of the screenwriting in the wedding scene. And just how every single line of dialogue functions as exposition and character building. And then they just like all sort of start to piece together. And that by the end of this half hour, you feel like you've known this family for like 20 years. Do you know what I mean? Oh, completely. And the fact that like everything from, even the way that the people are separated physically, like the way Michael and Kay are off to the side and the way Sonny's running away from his wife. And Tom's sort of like in the shadows here with these guys. Frado's terrible date.

But yeah, it's just like every single line in that opening is just, it just builds and builds and builds and you learn about Sicilians can never refuse a request for a meeting on their wedding days and all this stuff. It's just unreal. It does this great myth making where they give you like one or two lines of dialogue and all it does is make you want to learn more about the rest of the characters. You know, that's the whole Luke Abrasi segment is him just telling a very small story about characters we know we're going to spend time with going forward in the movie. It's like an old movie trick, but it's done perfectly in this movie.

And it completely changes because, like, you know, when you first see Don Gleone, he's got the cat in his lap, and he's just kind of like parlaying these, he's just like parrying these requests. He's like, give this to a senator, give this to a cop or whatever, give this to, and then when Michael tells the story to Kay, and it's like your brains or your signature are going to be on this piece of paper, it's like, oh, this guy's a fucking monster. Like, this guy's also like a heavy, you know? Yeah.

Did we not nominate Jack Waltz and Tom Hagan going back and forth? And then Johnny Fontaine comes along with his olive oil voice and getting charm. And she runs off. She throw it all away just to make me look ridiculous. And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous. Now you get the hell out of here. You don't understand. Johnny Fontaine never gets that movie.

You fucking are Jack Waltz? Jack Waltz. You should just talk like Jack Waltz for like a week and a half. You should just like, when I want to catch you in your office and I walk in, you're just going, Khartoum. Cartoon. I'm going to send him out to stud. It'll make him a big star! I'm not going to race him.

I'm going to put him out to stud. Now you get the hell out of here! You know, fantasy has that theory about any movie that starts with like a wedding or a funeral or something. it's always a good move. This is the all-time example. Yes. The wedding does allow you to get everybody's character in and learn the most about it.

The wedding scenes in particular, too, are basically shot like a documentary. It looks like you're at somebody's wedding. It's a very nice wedding, but it just looks like a real wedding. Because if you look on the edges of the frame, you see real people just doing real shit. The extras are not really acting correctly.

They're kind of like hanging out and doing stuff. And when you think about depth of field, usually it's like it would be one person sitting close to the lens and another person sort of like far off and they usually clear out the frame otherwise to say like, look how far away these people or we're focusing on these two people. Depth of feeling this,

it feels like they just push the depth of the screen back so far because it's just this sea of people enjoying the wedding and they all seem authentic to that, to that moment. They try to shoehorn into the wedding scene, Santino's wife talking about how huge is cock is. I kind of enjoy that scene. She just puts her hands out and then goes wide because in the book for the people who don't know this,

like Santino's giant cock is a big character. He's the big dick, Nick of the Corley and he's with the mistress and there's a whole reason

why she particularly needs him that we don't need to go into but in the movie in the movie

they couldn't really go into no shit I think we should say it on the podcast 1972 it's a real show

and not tell moment what's age the best ironically the wedding I really enjoy the

wedding it's just a great way to get the characters in Jack Waltz's house Oh, yeah. It's great.

I'm going to step on half-ass internet research for you guys. Do you know what other movie that house was in? I have no idea. Chris Ryan's going to lose his mind. Is it in Chinatown? You're going to lose your fucking mind. Do it. Miami Vice?

It was the Stan McHouse and Fletch. Oh, get the fuck out of here. Absolutely. Wow. Are you serious? Yes. Are you serious? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, someone pointed out to me. Is Alan Stanmick's House and Fletch? Dana Wheeler Nicholson is on Twitter. Have you followed up on that? Yeah, I mean, like, I'm not going to be like, hey, at Dean, Dana Will & Nicholson, I was the only person defending you on this like aborted Fletch podcast that Bill then puts to some fake vote and we lost. Wow, that was rough. That was tough sidebar.

Me and Rissillo have both now taken you to task for like letting the people dominate you. You used to tell the people what to think. Well, I never said we weren't doing the Fletch podcast. Ten years ago, I never could have gotten to you. That's right. Ten years ago, you wouldn't ask permission to a Fletch podcast? We're doing it anyway. Fuck everybody.

What's age the best? Also, we mentioned this earlier, but I think it has to be mentioned. Just the family thing. This is like one of the all-time best family movies. You think of family movies are like steel magnolias and shit like that, but this to me is like the ultimate family movie. The term conciliary. Yeah.

Yeah. This is great. Went right into the lexicon. Yep. Yeah. Great one. Luca Bratsy sleeps with the fishes, the fucking newspaper with the fish in it. So I haven't fired anybody by doing that, but don't rule it out over the next 10 years.

Just mail in the newspaper with the fish in it. This is really obvious. And I just never realized that until I rewatch it this week. But I didn't realize it was rolled up in the bulletproof vest. I didn't realize it was in his vest. Every time I watched it, I was like, oh, it's a weird thing that they put the fish in. It was a little weird that they recognized his bulletproof vest immediately. Yeah.

So I got this Luke Bratzi's not like it's his Nike jersey. This is a very subtle one that's aged the best for me, but it's a very Italian thing. and I just love it. When Carlo, they're all at dinner, and Connie says something, and Carl's like, shut up, Connie. He's like, don't you ever tell her to shut up? And James Conn comes in and goes,

don't you ever tell her to shut up? Mama Corleone's back is to the camera. And she goes, don't interfere. It's like a classic old school Italian thing. Like when a couple's fighting, you're not allowed to get involved. It's really subtle. I think you could probably just put straight

through the eating seeds. Because when they're waiting for the call To find out where the Salozo meeting is going to be And they're eating, I think they're eating Chinese food at that point Because they have Chinese food boxes The making the food, the Clemenza making the food for 20 guys All is just like them eating lasagna at the wedding It's just so...

This is a big thing with the Italian zone This is why my favorite good fellow scene is when they show up With the Billy Bats and his trunk And the mom wakes up, it's like, hold on, I'm gonna go And she's cooking for them at four in the morning These three guys, one of whom's covered in blood and he's like, make you some pasta? Another one that's aged the best for me.

The Michael Corleone, I'm about to shoot Salazzo face where his face is frozen, his eyes are, it almost looks like he's having a stroke. Which is classic. I don't know whether how much of that was intentional or whether that was overacting or what's going on there, but it's just really good. It's effective.

It's like indelible. You can't see it. The fact that they gave him whatever the prosthetic or they patted his cheek to make the, for the facial contusion that he had from Kluski, it just changes. The physical transformation he goes through is really important. Also, I have way more stuff that's aged the best. My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house.

I think the area of mine. I think you should tell you done what everyone seems to know. It's so good. And he's like, you needed a drink before you could tell me. Every time I watch that, I'm like, oh, fuck, Sunny's really dead. I keep thinking there's going to be a time when I watch this when Sunny lives somehow. Do you remember the first? I don't think because I think when I saw it the first time, I already knew Sunny died.

I mean, like, I don't remember. I didn't know. The first time I was like, oh, my God, he's, that's it? Yeah. It's hard to even remember all the stuff I knew about the movie before I saw it. I've now seen it so many times. Another thing that's aged the best. Don Corleone's prediction of drugs in America.

Good call. Good call by the Don. Saw it coming. It's going to be bad. It's going to be the death of us. Yeah, but I would argue that weirdly Tom Hagan is the one with the most foresight, because he knows that if they get into the racket early, they can kind of run things. But there's this, the most interesting thing about this movie to me, the more that I think about it,

is that the whole series is about moral complexity. It's about there is no good guy, there is no bad guy, everybody's bad. It's a very cynical movie, and it's just shades of bad. and Tom Hagan is like, if we get in now, we're going to just run shit. I'm looking 10 years in the future. And Vito has this sense of kind of like duty and what is right and what is a dirty business versus what is not a dirty business. Like to him, running prostitutes is not a dirty business. It's gambling and hookers.

Yeah. It's things that the church doesn't allow. Right. Right. And that is so fascinating. Obviously, shit has changed a lot in the last 45 years. But there's something so fascinating to me about the way that they make those choices and how that drives the whole story of the movie. But there's also, I mean, it's allegorical.

It's allegorical about what decisions, businesses make at our expense. But it's also so fascinating to see this post-World War II America, where people are still relying on these almost anachronistic mechanisms for governance in their life, like a mafia, where you have to go ask someone to help you with things that the government isn't set up to do. So you're like, this guy, he was a war hero, and now my daughter's in love with him, and I want me to be able to stay here. You have to go to somebody else to get that done. You can't go to like the passport office or to the embassy or something to have that done.

So much better now in the Trump era. But people didn't understand or trust the government. True. Or not that they do now. We might be going back. Yeah. The mafia might be making a big comeback. More that's aged the best.

Clemenza and Hitler. That's all right. These things got to happen every five or so 10 years. Helps get rid of the bad blood. Been 10 years since the last one. You got to stop them at the beginning. Like, they should have stopped Hitler at Munich. It's so weird.

They never should have let him get away with that. They was just asking for trouble. He's right. Great job by Comenza. That and then later in two, when Pentangeli is revealed at the end that he's a history buff and that he was like, you were telling me about Hitler in 1933. That's what Hagan says to him at the end of the movie.

It's like, why are both Clemenza and Frank Pentangeli, like really sophisticated historians? Can I, I mean, I don't want to, that he's supposed to be Clemenz. Yeah. Pantaniel is supposed to be Clemenza. Yeah. But Richard Castellano...

I think they forgot to change that part. He would only do two if he could write his own dialogue and they said no. I'm going to rebuff that later on. Okay. Yeah, I think I did some deep dive on this. That it's not supposed to be... Panangeli's not supposed to be... No, you're right.

That was supposed to be Clemenza. We're going to get to why it wasn't. Which makes so much sense then when you think about it. I never put it together that they're basically just like mimicking the character. Yeah, because it's weird and... Two, where they're just like, I'm like, why is this guy seemingly so important to this family? And he's never mentioned him one. And so many people are mentioned him one.

Even like Rocco shows up at the end of one for the last like 30 minutes. And he's the bodyguard. Yeah. Yeah. Another one that's aged the best. We did it before the Johnny Fontaine will never get that movie. I don't care how many day go get any wab, grease ball, gumbas come out of the woodwork. I'm German Irish.

Well, let me tell you something, my crout, Mick, friend. It's incredible. That part's incredible. It'll make him a big star! Another thing that's aged the best, subtle. Michael's performance in Godfather 1, knowing where Godfather 2 is going two years later. There are gestures that he does in one,

like the first time he crosses his legs in the chair, is just like what you think of when you think of Michael Corleone. You mentioned this earlier about people murdering each other and degrees of complexity. In the wedding scene, And Kay says, Kay is horrified by the Luca Bratsu story.

And Michael says, you know, my father's no different than any powerful man and any man with power like a president or senator. She says, you know how naive you sound. Why? Senators and presidents don't have men killed. And he says, oh. Who's being naive, Kay? That's age well. Great line.

Yeah, great one. He's right, palmy. Every single Fredo scene has aged spectacularly. We'll talk about John Cazelle a little later. Fredo's Vegas outfit. The yellow outfit? Sure. Iconic.

You would wear that for Halloween one year. I would wear it to the office on a Wednesday. You're out, Tom. Classic. Love that part. Comenz's recipe for tomato sauce. Because you never know when you might have to cook for 20 guys someday, Chris.

Don't ever forget the sugar. Here's the recipe. You start out a little bit of oil. You fry some garlic, throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste. You fry it. You make sure. it doesn't stick. That's key. I've heard my mother

say this. You get it to a boil, you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. People forget that part too. Add a little bit of wine. Wine is the hidden ingredient to tomato sauce. You get the sugar, you get little... I didn't know that. Yeah. And then you add a little sugar after, but you get sugar from the wine too. That's his trick. Titalia is a pimp. He never could have fought out of Santino. Just a classic burn on to Talia.

It's crazy that you can do so many of these of what's age the best and not step on best quote. Yeah. like it means like we might tie you back and then at the end what's aged the best Ave Vagoda has Tessio

tell Michael was only business I always liked him Incredible A Vagoda performance How about you get me off the hook town For all time sake Can't do it Sally

But I was like That they kept the business personal thing To the bitter end with that I would also nominate The Don's death As a scene That's still just like

Really holds up well The oranges Yeah the oranges And the playing with Anthony in the garden. Kid got scared in real life during the scene before he died. Oh, because they cut away and they show the kid playing. He's having a good time in the scene.

But yeah, it's just such an awesome scene. So it works so well. Let's take a break and then we're going to get into what's age the worst. Let's take a break to talk about voodoo. It's a streaming service. You can watch on all your favorite devices. Stream over 6,000 titles for free or choose from over 150,000 titles to rent or buy in up to 4K quality.

from the latest Hollywood blockbusters to independent cinema. We have a little ringer tag up there where they asked me to pick, I don't know, 12 movies that are available on the Voodoo Service. I just want to say I really like the Voodoo Service. I do as well.

I just used it. Yeah, I used it over the holidays. They have a crap load of movies, including a bunch that we've either already talked about on the rewatchables or we're about to talk about. And they also have this bundle thing where if you wanted you could buy a whole bunch of movies.

I stepped in. I bought all of the Fast and Furious. Wow. It was a 50% off holiday sale. I'm like, you know what? I need these digitally. I just never know when I'm going to watch any of these. You may or may not be preparing for a future rewatchables.

Yeah, a couple weeks from now. There might be a Fast and Furious movie coming. I highly recommend Voodoo. You can get it on the Apple app, but you can also, it's on a lot of the smart TVs as well. And it's really good. Check it out. Voodoo.com slash rewatchables. Sign up and start watching today.

V-U-D-U-U-D-U. com slash rewatchables. It would be fun to get something going where when we had these movies, you could just go on there and pop it, but we'll see. Anyway, check that out. And since we're here, let's talk about the black tucks.com. If you notice in The Godfather, all the characters in the wedding, all the male characters are wearing tuxes from the black tux.

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All right. Back to the categories. All right, here is what's age the worst. Let's just have the conversation now. Kate Corleone. I'm on Kate Corleone Island. There may be a dual residency. You're out on Diane Keaton.

She's horrible in the movie. She's fucking awesome in this movie. You don't like Dylan. I think, no, I'm not saying she's horrible. I'm saying the character, I just can't stand. I can't stand the character of K. Adams. Go ahead. You need this character.

This movie does not work without this character. She is the WASP outside. That's all fine. She's the avatar for the audience who doesn't understand this family. Michael leaves. He goes to Italy for years. He goes to Italy and then comes back to America for a year. He marries a Sicilian bride.

There's no way she doesn't hear about that somehow. Great driver. Maybe. Some more time passes. Car gets blown up. Michael comes all the way back. He's been back for a year. Shows up, she's working.

She's with kids. She's like a teacher. Interrupts her day. And it's like, hey, let's get it back. And he shows up looking like Al Capone. Like with a bowler hat on or whatever. He's turned into a full-fledged mobster. And within four minutes, she's hopping in the car.

I have so many questions. What were you doing for the five years? you weren't dating. This is the 1940s woman felt like they had to get married by like, you know, the time they were 30 or it wasn't going to happen. She was holding a candle. Ludicrous. She's holding the candle. In the book, does she, do we know if Kay's had romances in between?

I don't know. I don't remember that part. But I'll tell you this. I know women. I've dated a few of them and I've been married to one for 20 years. I know women. Dash, Bill Simmons. I know women.

No woman forgives this. From the author of, no woman. Now I can die in Pete. I know women. The Bill Simmons Book of Women. No woman is forgiving this. Oh, Jesus. I didn't even hear Liz.

Oh, Liz Kelly's here. Liz, if you were dating somebody and they disappeared for five years and married somebody else that got blown up, then returned to the United States for a year and then showed up at your job and we're like, I'm ready to get back together. What would you do?

I'd get back together. There you go. All right. There goes by pulling. K is redeemed. K is redeemed. Holding a candle, man. This happens.

This happens. This guy was on my corner. I mean, this guy was a war hero. He's handsome. He's a member of a wealthy, successful family. He's wearing women's high heels. He's taller. So in that scene where he goes and meets her in New Hampshire and they're walking along the leafy suburbs street.

Are we under the impression that he was like, and then I got married in Sicily and my wife blew up and now I'm back? I don't think she knows any of that. And I don't think he reveals any of that. I don't think he ever tells. I don't think you ever tell us. I mean, how would anyone know any of that? Really? I mean, there's only three people that knew it was going on.

So where were you? I was in Italy. What was going on there? Ah, nothing. He was like, I was a farmer. Just walking around. I was a shepherd. These two guys who had guns.

That was it. We've talked very little about Sicily so far. Oh, Sicily should have been on what's age the best. I should have thrown that in there. Not a huge fan. No, the footage. You don't like the Sicily section? I think it kind of makes the movie in some ways.

You mean for the actual movie or the scene or? I'm just so into the family. I just didn't want to be taken away from the family. You know, it's like a complicated thing. I feel similarly about Part 2, even when I'm watching it now, as much as I love De Niro. When I leave the family, I feel less happy.

I feel less excited about the movie. It's a fair point. I like seeing the Cisley stuff. We're never going to agree on C. Corleone. I think all of her scenes are awful. I just want to make a distinction between Diane Keaton and C. Or C. Adams. They're Kay Adams.

So you have a problem with the character? I have a problem with the character. I should have been more clear. I don't feel like Diane and Caten really had a lot of, to do in that, like, what is she going to do with that character? She's amazing in part too. She's amazing in part too.

I've been one of it would have been more palatable is if he's not, if he comes back to New York and he runs into her somehow, but the problem is, is at that point he's not doing anything where he would run into K. You know what I mean? Like, if they just run into each other years later and realize they had

unfinished business and they had both gone their separate ways for a few years, but then they'd get back together. But he's obviously like constructing a new identity for himself and he feels the need to either make amends, but also have her back in his life. What about the humiliation of she goes to the Corleone mansion to drop the letters off? Oh, they're in her red dress, yeah. And then doesn't even know if she lost her cab.

Tom has to walk her in. I mean, all he's done is humiliate her for five years. I don't like it. The other thing, speaking of Corleone love interest that is not age well, Apollonia, played by Suminetta Stefanelli. What's wrong with Apollonia? Well, she was born in November

1954, Chris. They filmed the movie from March to July 1971. She was 16 in this movie. Sheesh. I did not know that. Yeah. That qualifies for what's age the worst, I think. Remember when I was like, I'm not into the Sicily stuff? It's because I'm not a petter-ass.

I think, yeah. I think she was 16. I had no idea until I did the research. To go for that? You got a concerned look on your face right now. Horrified. I didn't know that.

I'm going to bring this around, though. I'm going to bring this to a happy place. Are we? Her daughter is Valenti Placito, Valenta Placito, the hot Italian from the American with George Clooney. Yes. She knows right?

I didn't know that. Yeah. Was she also 16 when she made the American? She was not. She was like 39. Thank God. Thank God. Another thing that's aged

the worst, the five families planning to keep drugs from the ghetto. Don Zalucci with some tough comments about what they do. Keeping the traffic

with their animals anyway. There's some tough lines from Don Zulci. Fortunately, he gets murdered. Sonny has a little bit later. He does. Yeah, it wasn't good.

The mispunch and the Sunny Carlo ass kicking is really rough. I mean, that's fair. With CGI at this point, I feel like we could move his fist

and like if you got George Lucas in there. Yeah, I get George Lucas in there for five minutes. Move his fist like a foot forward. Get Peter Jackson involved. And then my number one worst, even worse than Appaloney being 16.

Al Martino is Johnny Fontaine. He is fucking terrible. He is so bad in this movie. So that's supposed to be Sinatra and from here to eternity, right? Yes. And I think it was supposed to be a bigger part. And he was such a train wreck that they had to. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. And there was always rumors. There was some mafia connections for, that he might have played to get the part, that guy's a bad actor. And the Johnny Fontaine scenes, he's bad in them. So my reading of the movie whenever I would watch it

is that he's just a really insincere guy and that he has that kind of slick, transparently, phony aspect. He's too old. He's 12 years too old. Yeah, but I at at least bought it. He's a heartthroat. The guy's like 50.

I don't know. Take a look at Frank Sinatra and like Von Ryan's Express. He doesn't look like Chris Hemsom. He's definitely in his first. 40s. Yeah. During that time.

Here's the difference. Frank Sinatra was a fucking handsome, cool guy. And this guy was supposed to be like the most handsome? You need to chill out. You're talking about knowing women and then how beautiful Frank Sinatra is as important. I know how fucking handsome Frank Sinatra was. No, he was like, he was the best.

Okay. He was great. Great. Go look at old Frank Sinatra. The guy was like, there's nobody cooler than Frank Sinatra. Bill. JFK wanted to hang out with Frank Sinatra. Johnny Fontaine needed to be cooler.

He needed to be younger. He needed to be more handsome. They've said 10,000 years old right now. Thank God we saved Frank Sinatra. You know, what would he have done? You would the Sinatra's estate have done without you. The internet will judge your reaction to my Frank Sinatra comments. I'm pretty sure you and I both love Frank Sinatra.

Yeah. Frank Sinatra's cooler than Frank Sinatra. Johnny Fontaine is the Frank Sinatra movie version? Come on. It's fair. I think that he's supposed to be a lesser version. How much is that color your opinion of his performance? The fact that he's not as cool as Frank Sinatra or that he sucks in the movie? He sucks in the movie.

He's not cool. Okay. This is supposed to be like, Johnny Fontaine, oh my God, he showed up at our wedding. This is the most amazing thing ever. And the guy's like,

fucking hack. I just don't. He should be at a holiday inn. Jesus Christ. There's terrible. So many versions of Frank Sinatra, and this is post-40s heartthrob Sinatra, or post-30s, heartthrob Sinatra

when his career is in a rut. It's not 50s and 60s rat pack. But he was not... Sinatra was always cool, my friend. It's a different kind of fame. He was more of a teen idol than he was... True or false. Johnny Fontaine and,

this movie could have realistically played at the holiday inn and fucking hoboken. Yeah, he may be there right now. Al Martino, is he alive? He's bad. Well, history will judge me correctly because Al Martino never worked again. He'll be judged you as you lost your mind to be like Frank Sinatra is the coolest man ever. He was the coolest. Okay, whatever you say. I love Frank Sinatra. This is

a weird take, though. You could be like Al-Martino is bad. He was bad. That is credible. But if he's supposed to be the Sinatra character, it's even worse. that he was disband. But it's like you're mad at us because you think we don't understand how cool Frank Sinatra is. Well,

but this was the Frank Sinatra character. I know. They botched it. I'm moving on. But he has to be a loser. He has to be a guy who's like whining and complaining and then he's like,

you can be a man! That's why Sinatra got so mad about this movie. I'm sure he did. He looks like a total beta who needs like this guy to get him a part of a movie. And he was being played by Al Martino. He was like,

what the fuck? Really? Al Martino, this is what you gave me. Casting what ifs, we have a bunch. 12 directors passed, as we mentioned. The casting what ifs is like you basically turn into Charlie Day and it's always sunny with the cork board, like smoking 30 cigarettes.

Yeah, I'm going to try to zoom through it. Copla got 125K and 6% of the gross rentals after being the 13th trist. That sounds like he probably made a lot of money, considering it's still on AMC and Netflix and on the stuff. The thing about Francis Ford Coppola is then he immediately blew that money. He did. That guy is like so declared did bankruptcy him so many times.

So he did a really interesting thing right a few years before this movie. He and George Lucas and Walter Merch start this company called American Zotrope. It's a production company. They started in San Francisco, not in Hollywood. They're trying to make movies on their own terms. Francis Ford Coppola famously a really bad businessman. The worst. And went into immediate debt.

And the only reason he took this movie, which he didn't want to do because he thought the book was Pop Boiler Trash, was George Lucas encouraged him because he thought, Zotra really needed the money to get out of debt. Because he was $400,000 in debt, which is quite a bit of money back then. It seemed like as a businessman, it would almost be like if my son, my 11-year-old son was like trying to run a business, it seems like every single thing he did fell way, way behind. He's like, we need four days to shoot this fight scene. But everyone always says whenever Francis is under the gun, his movies are great.

That's the story with the conversation. That's the story with part one, with part two. Apocalypse. Apocalypse. Now, all of his best films are nightmares. and his worst films are like Jack, where he's like rich and fat, and he's in the 90s, and he's doing great.

Mia Farrow auditioned for the Part of Kay. The studio execs for Don Coalione after Bert Lancaster, Olivier passed. Yeah. Ernest Borgnein? George C. Scott, and then it came down to... Borgne and Brando, right?

Yeah, and Puzzo won and Brando. Brando did his famous screen test for it. People know all that stuff. George C. Scott is an interesting what-if. George C. Scott is obviously not Italian, but he has that tortured, dark, can get loud at a moment's notice kind of affectation. I would have wanted to see that movie. I don't think he would have made it better. He was at a good point in his career.

Definitely. Passed on Michael, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson. Beatty said in an interview that he passed on it when Danny Thomas was the leading contender to play Donvedo Corleone. Interesting. And then he was the reason that Robert Town or Coppola or one of them ended up getting it. Robert Evans wanted Ryan O'Neill. From Love Story, yeah. And Redford, too.

And Redford fits the description from the book, this. Dustin Hoff and Martin Sheen also auditioned. James Con tested for Michael and Tom. And then there's this great what-if that if we ever did a podcast called Almost Famous or something like that, this would definitely be one of the first three episodes. Carmine Carritti was supposed to be sunny. Yeah. And was 6.5.

And at the last second, Pacino got Michael. And they moved James Con too sunny because poor Carmine Carritti was a foot taller than Al Pacino. So I consider him, you guys know who Ralph Cox is? No. He was the last cut of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Didn't get to go. And then they won without him. He's the Ralph Cox of this movie.

Where's Carmine Carrity now? He's with Ralph Cox. He's watching fucking Johnny Martino. I thought I knew a lot of stuff about The Godfather who did not know these two things. I didn't know De Niro was supposed to be Polly. Yeah. Oh, Polly, we'll be seeing him.

That has such an incredible chain reaction afterwards. He can't be Michael. Right. Holy shit. He can't be Vito. I mean, Vito, yeah, yeah. So he quit to do the gang that couldn't shoot straight because an opening opened because Pachino left.

So unbelievable. We go back to the luck thing. Yep. And then a young Sly Stallone auditioned for the roles of Polly and Carlo, but was not cast for either. There's this alternate universe where... He would have been a good Polly. Slice Stallone as Carlo.

I like him as Carlos. I like him as Carlo. Like kind of a loser? I would have been a great shit back. I agree. He would have been good. I'm a little out on Carlo. With Slystalone then been like I wrote the godfather? Probably.

I want to do... a new category just for this called the 10 Godfather Lessons for Life. This is like a Bill Simmons column come to life. Let's do it. Number one is always remember that it's not personal, it's only business. Number two, never left. I can tell you that you broke that lesson when you started screaming at us about Frank Sinatra. I was not very business-like of you. You clearly took that personally.

I didn't scream at you. It was business. Is this a sunny Michael Fredo triumvirate here in this room right now? No. And Hagan on the ones and twos? You're all Michael. We're all Michael, okay. Number two is never let anyone outside your family know what you're thinking.

These are two really good lessons for life, right? It's not personal, it's only business. Never let anyone outside the family know what you're thinking. I'd like to think we practice this at the ring or a little bit. I think we definitely do the latter here, except on Twitter. We don't practice this one. Lesson number three. In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.

That was for Britsio's words. Number four, never take sides against. your family in public. We practice this one at the ringer as well. True. It's a good lesson. Unless Chris has a bad take about the Eagles, and then he's going down. Lesson number five, if your biggest rival sets up a meeting with you through somebody you absolutely

trust, odds are you'll be assassinated. This is a lesson for life? It's a good lesson. So how many times do you think you averted assassination? I don't know. If a big rival tries to set up a meeting with me, I'd be worried I'm going to get assassinated. So you've almost been killed many times. Yeah, probably.

And lesson number six, no Sicilian can refuse any request on his daughter's wedding day. Didn't know this until I saw the movie. Is that even true? Who knows? One of the great... It says it's true. One of the, not to interrupt you, but one of the great little tidbits that Copeland notes about Puzzo's book, in his book, the Godfather notebook, is that Puzzo didn't really know anything about the mafia? Right.

He was like talking out of his ass. He got a lot of stuff wrong. And the fact that they call him, you know, Don Corleone is not how the mafia would do it. They would call him Don Vito, or they would call him by his first. first name, not by his last name. And that's like a huge mistake. Yeah, that seems like a mistake. Is your Italian heritage Sicilian?

No. I can't, my mom knows this whole thing. That's a bummer, because I was going to try and come up with some absurd request to make of you on your daughter's wedding day. You have to rewatch the Patriots Eagles Super Bowl with me. I'll tell you, I hope somebody cooler than Johnny Fontaine sings at the fucking wedding. Wow.

Lesson number seven, when you shoot somebody in public, drop the gun and walk briskly, but don't run and don't make eye contact with anyone. Good one to remember. This is pre-ballistics and forensic evidence, so I'm going to go ahead and say that that rule has changed. But Clemenza does say, like, you're not going to leave any prints. I have a special tape. What the fuck is that? Yeah.

That's made up. I don't know. Clemenza has a special tape. When he's not reading about Hitler, he's discovering new technology in 1946. Yeah. Lesson number eight has not aged well, but I'm not going to judge it. Don Corleon says women and children can be care. list, but not men. It's a lesson from the godfather. I'm not saying I agree with it. Number nine,

that's a lesson for like proud boys. Make your meatballs and sausages first, then put them in the tomato sauce and make sure you add some wine. And then lesson number 10. Very important. A man who doesn't spend time with this family can never be a real man. I would say like seven of those lessons of age well, the godfather. Dionne Waiter's a word. Oh my God. I narrowed it to three. There really could have been 12. I mean, I just could take it an hour to whatever. Okay.

I'm sorry, I narrowed it down. I actually, I actually don't think that this is as hard, this category. Clemenza, Salazzo, Mo Green, and Jack Welts. That's my Mount Rushmore for Deion winners. I think it's Mo Grady. I think it's Jack Waltz. Every word that Jack Walt says is a heat check. He is trying to dunk on everybody.

around him. The scream with the horse's head is the biggest heat check in the history of movies. It's so crazy that they have to do four different cuts to show you how loud he's screaming going further and further and further back. So I'm going to step on half-ass internet research, but Coppola got Khartoum's head from a dog food company? It's a real head. It says a lot about dog food in 1970s, honestly. And according to John Marley, who played Jack Waltz, his scream horror was real as he was not informed a real head was going to be used. So when they pulled the bed back, it was an actual horse's head. And that's why he screamed like he did. So your nominees were Clemenza, Salazzo, McCluskey, and Jack Waltz? No, no. Clemenza Salato, Mo Green, and Jack

Waltz. I feel like Salasso is a little too, has too much time to beat Dion personally. So that's, that's where I landed as well, because he's almost in the movie too much. And I also think the answer is Jack Waltz because he's in two scenes. He basically plays eight minutes and he puts up 12 points and 15 rebounds. See, I'm giving it to Mo Green because it would be like,

plays eight minutes, scores 15 points, tears Achilles. Like he goes out so amazing where he's like puts the glasses on and gets shot right through the eye. That is true. We don't get a death scene

with Jack Waltz, but we do get a horse head. I don't know. What do you think, Sean? I don't know. I'm kind of revisiting Salazzo now that I think about it. Because Aletieri has this crazy career where he doesn't do

anything for years. Yeah. And then he gets the godfather and then he's in the getaway and the Don is Dead which is a really good gangster movie. McHugh, Mr. Majestic. And then he dies. Yeah. He's not not talked about the same way Cazel is. But like he had a pretty short career. He's awesome as Salazzo and he owns the scene every time he's in the movie. I missed my chance. I am now the hunted one. I also think we're discounting Sterling Hayden who is in like a Dion Wader's Hall of Famer.

Every movie he's in from 1965 on, he's like trying to eat everyone around him. My vote is for Jack Walts because I'd love to scream. It'll make him a big star! But also, Luca Bronte's on the list. He is, but it's not a heat check. He's just fun.

Is that guy a good actor or just dumb? So in the internet research I did, they actually used the takes of his practice sing in the actual movie. That's funny. He was so nervous to be with Brando that he was outside reciting his line and they videotaped it

and just decided to put him in the movie. Okay. And then in the actual movie, he kept fucking up the scene with Brando and they left that too because they made it seem like he was nervous. Okay, my vote is for Jack Waltz. Chris, you're going with Mo Green.

Yeah. Who do you go with, Bill? I think for the definition of the award, it's Jack Waltz. Okay. Because he's in basically three scenes. He's fucking dialed up to 100 in all of them.

He invites Tom Hayden to his house to eat with him and then gets really mad and tells him the story and Tom Hayden's just eating as the guy's getting madder and madder and walking over to him and screaming and he's just like fucking cutting his chicken. And a man in my position can't be made

to look ridiculous. I want to do a Colmenza thing though because he's my favorite character in the movie. Yeah. So came out of nowhere nominated for an Oscar in 1970 for some movie called lovers and other strangers that I didn't think Sean seen. I haven't seen it.

Made Godfather 1. Didn't work for eight more years. Had like two more parts and then he died. And that was it for... It has, like, five of the most... Richard Castellano. And has like four or five of like the most famous lines in movie history. Died of a heart attack at age 55.

Yeah. So here's... Looks like he's 70 in Godfather 1. So he didn't have a part in that... Somebody from the New York Post interviewed him. and he said that he did not have a part in the sequel because he didn't believe that the character of Clemenza would ever become a traitor.

Because as Chris said earlier, Clemendo was supposed to be the one that was the traitor. Richard Castellano was like, I don't think Clemence would ever do that, had some disagreements with Coppola, who also, this is what Castellano said, he wanted him to lose a bunch of weight for the role and he didn't want to.

Because he would have been very drawn because he's like in custody. Right, because he's in custody. Coppola's version of the story was that he wanted to have his own lines. Right, he wanted to write his own dialect. But the widow after Castellano died was like, that's not true. He never did that. He wanted to be in this movie.

Pentangeli is an honorable character, though. I don't think it would have made Clemenza look bad. His arc is one of the most interesting arcs in this whole series. So it was rewritten for Frankie Pentangeli, played by Michael Gatso. And it's funny because we always talk about like the worst career moves of all time. and it's like Shelly Long leaving chairs and radar leaving mash and it's like

SNL even did a skit once in the early night is it was always one of like the go-to jokes of oh my God I can't believe they didn't realize how good they had it Colmenza never gets brought up Colmenza could have been like one of the key guys and Godfather too and his whole career would have been different day

I mean this happens again in three when Duval doesn't return for three which is unforgivable. Agree well he just wanted money for three he wanted five million bucks I know but he's fucking Tom Hagan and he's still alive and they just kill him off quietly.

But they should have paid him $5 million. Of course they should have. It's one of the biggest reasons why three doesn't work. Like you need the counterweight. He is the counterweight to Michael. He's so important to Michael in two. And they bring in George Hamilton instead. So much worse.

So I guess we could save this for Godfather too, whether Colmenza is whether the movie is better with Comenza. I actually like Frankie Five Fingers, but Comenza in there. Angels. Five Angels. It's to the second part's credit that you come off of one. and you still come up with Hyman Roth and Frank Pentangeli to introduce into this universe that you have so many indelible iconic characters

and you're able to come up with two more. Oh, it's amazing. Those two are great. I can't wait for two. The Joey Pants Award, I mean, look, this movie came out 46 years ago. There's a bunch of that guys that anyone who's 35 or under would remember. I'm just going to mention one. Alex Rocco, who plays Mo Green. I mean, Rocco and who plays Tesio again. Vigoda.

But A Vagoda became A Vagoda. Alex Rocco, I don't feel like anybody knows his name. He was, for me, he was always, he was in the godfather. And then he was Joe Polanichek's dad and Facts of Life, which was a relatively iconic late 70s, early 80s to come. And more importantly, it was in every crime drama ever for 10 years, which I made a list up for you guys. Starting in 1974.

These are all the one-episode things. Rocko is in. The Rookies. Cojack, Cannon, the Blue Knight, Police Story, the Rockford Files, Barnaby Jones, Barretta, Starsky and Hutch, Del Vecchio, Chips, Matt Houston, Hard Castle, McCormick, Simon,

T.J. Hooker and Hunter. Hard Castle and McCormick. It's a 14-year run for Alex Rocco. What's Delvecchio? Was a show? Delvecchio is like a detective. That's great. Yeah. He's also one of the thieves and Friends of Eddie Coyle.

Oh, yeah. like a year later. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he's definitely that guy. I'm low green. Halfass internet research. Sophia Coppola played

Michael the baby and the christening. Did not know that. She later went on to ruin godfather. She's in more godfather movies than Richard Castellano. Wow.

Sinatra was so mad about the apparent similarities to Johnny Fontaine. He berated Mario Putso a night. And Bill Simmons was so mad about because Ryan and Sean Fennesse's reaction. He berated. him at a New York hot spot at a Los Angeles hotspot about the character.

I bet it was more like the way Waltz berates guys. That was no Frank Sinatra. Let me tell you something my crap, Mick friend. I can't be made to look ridiculous. Al Pacino really did have his jaw-wired shot for the first part of that shoot. Fucking, of course. Fucking great actor.

There was a great deal of mooning on the set. Started by James Con and Robert de Wall. In an effort to break tension. and then James Kahn said at one point my best moon was on Second Avenue Bob Duval and I were in one car and Brando was in another we drove up beside him

I pulled down my pants and stuck my ass out the window Brando fell down in the car with laughter the 70s are really something What a bunch of jerkoffs just laughing at each other's asses while making the most important movie

of all time so Brando was crowned best prankster designated by a heavyweight style leather belt with the title Moon Champion It's actually happened. Jesus Christ.

Do you imagine Marlon Brando's? Oh, yeah. James Kahn really angry that his scenes got cut. Confronted Robert Evans at the premiere after he saw it. You know that you cut my whole fucking part out. I was furious. I don't blame him. Jimmy Kahn's got an interesting career.

I could have used a couple more sunny Corleone scenes. I can't lie. I mean, he's not even yet a star at this point. No. You know? I mean, he's still got Roller Ball and Funny Lady and all that is still to come. dumb. Here's another internet research.

The smack that Vito gives Johnny Fontaine, you can act like a man. Not in the script. Marlon Brando improvised it. Al Martinez confused reaction was real, although I think all of his reactions were confused. Can we play that clip? Godfather, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to. You can act like a man.

What's the matter with you? Is this how you turned out of Hollywood Pinocchio that cries like a woman? What can I do? What can I do? What is that? The make of the car Apollonia was driving. Any guesses? It's an Italian car?

It was a 1946 Alpha Romeo. I hope they didn't really blow that up because that's a great fucking car. That bothers me more than the horse's head. You feel worse for the car than cartoon? Yeah. Cartoon. I'm not going to race them.

He's dog food. Fabrizio's murder, cut out of Godfather 1. Refilmed for Godfather 2. Cut out of that as well. Oh, really? Yeah. He died two different times. Yeah.

He was supposed to be in the christening scene, and they decided it didn't work. And then they filmed this all thing, which I think one of them is online for Godfather 2, where they get him. Oh, you know what? I think there's a chronological version of it where they show on AMC sometimes

where it starts with DeNier. stuff and goes chronologically. What do they call that? Is the Godfather legacy? The Godfather, yeah, I think so. That's like makes my brain break when I watch that. It's just weird. I don't like to watch it that way.

Mo Green modeled after Bugsy Segal? Yeah. Both were assassinated with a shot through the eye. Also, you know, Mo Green's this big baller, but like that's a real like, that's a real working man's massage he's getting. It's a rub down. It's really more of a rub down.

Mo Green. Appuccino made just $35,000 for starring in the film, the same as James Conn and Diane Keaton, a thousand less than Robert Duvall. But Godfather 2, you got 600K and a 10% cut of the adjusted gross income. Not bad, ma'am. And then I did the Jack Waltz thing.

I really thought you were going to leave the room when I took the Alan Stanvick's mention of Jack Watt. It's outrageous. It's the all-time... It's also just confirms that we need to do Fletch. Yeah, you're right. Should we just start right now with Fletch? Apex Mountain.

Jesus. You could make a case nobody out of all the big guns except for maybe James Con. I don't think it is for James Con. I mean, in three years, James Con is going to be

one of the five biggest movie stars in the world. Right. Because of Roller Ball and Funny Lady. Okay. Yeah. I don't think it is for him either.

It's not for Coppola. Roller Ball's amazing. It's not for Coppola. It's not for Pacino. Brando, no. What about Richard Castellano? No, then you get into the subgrads. I don't think it's an apex amount.

It's not for Talia Shire. Gordon Willis? It is for Al Martino. I mean, I think, too, is Gordon Willis. Gordon Willis is like, like, nobody can tell me shit on, too. I'm going to shoot these guys in a dark room. Robert Evans. Robert Evans.

Yeah, yeah. Still with Ali McGraw. She hasn't left him yet for Steve McQueen. Would this movie have been better at Danny Trejo, Steve Buschemy, or Michael K. Williams? Bushmi would have been kind of amazing. Yeah. I feel like he could have been Frato in an alternate universe

not as great as Frato but he he's completely modeled after his career is modeled after John Gazette's career this is going to be tough to Saul Rubenek they knew a word it's I have so should I throw mine out there because you could add

I think that it's Talia Shire confronting Michael at the end Michael! So that's a nominee I think there's another Talia Shire nominee, which is when she... Bafunguio. Yes, when she confronts Carlo.

And she starts smashing plates. Yeah. Why don't you call your whore? That is like simultaneously a really harrowing scene and pretty dark, and it looks like Carla's really hitting her, but also she's like way overdoing it. I'm just, it's ridiculous. She's not a great actress. With that said, was great in Rocky 3.

Really good in that movie. Carlo Carlo crying at the end when Al Pacino is giving one of the greatest performances of all time and Carlo is like a third rate

off Broadway actor like that's tough he's like the ref who has to like bounce the ball to the guy you know what I mean like it's like you just can't look like

anything other than a complete schmuck I was thinking Pacino's just listing off all the people he's just at killing so is Philip Tatalia Mo Green Strachey Cuneo

today I settled all family business so don't tell me that you're innocent admit what you did, and Carlos, like, got one tier. It's not good. This is an insult to Brian Russell, but it did feel like MJ and Brian Russell. Brian Russell is in the greatest moment of MJ's career. He's like, he's Craig Elo.

He's just like, he's like falling on the ground. McCluskey, I think he's in the Saul Rubenick. They knew with the, I had disagreed with you on Dan Waiters. I actually think Sterling Hayden's kind of bad in this movie. He's just in the Louis restaurant, just fucking eating. I love it. He's a dumb Irish cop. Do they have good food here?

What the fuck are you talking about? Charlie. It's the best in the city. I like it. I first him, he's clean. I first the thousand young punks. Does he please have good Yelp reviews? And then

a dark course nominee. Jack Walts is in here too. He just has to be mentioned. But I think that's why he wins the young winners. Dark course nominee for Saul Rubinick they knew. Pacino in the reconciliation scene with Kay Adams coming back. That's a terrible scene.

He's not over. He's not, there's bad acting, and then there was overacting. It's not good. Because overacting is when Jimmy Khan goes to Talia Shire's house, and he bites his fist when she shows him. And she's like, no, Sonny, no! I saw a documentary about this movie, and I think it was Joe Montania, is describing that scene. Actually, no, is the director Kimberly Pierce, who made Boys Don't Cry, and she's half Italian like you. And she's like, when Jimmy Khan bit his knuckle, I was like, that's exactly what people in my family.

used to do. And I felt like that was authentic. And I thought of you, Chris, saying, like, this is overacting, because there are people in the world who were like, this showed me the knuckle biting. You just don't know enough Italians. I didn't feel like that was overacting at all. Okay. It felt like a totally Italian moment. Jimmy Khan's whole acting style is overacting.

You know, even in Thief, which is like one of the subtlest movies ever. He's still kind of overdoing it like five or six times. So it's kind of hard to put him here. I forgot to mention this in the internet research. He modeled the whole Sunny Corleone character after who. Do you know? I don't know. Do you know, Chris?

Don Rickles. He spent a bunch of time with Don Rickles because he felt like Santino should have this delivery of his lines. I could see that. And if you watch about a Bing line, you can feel the Don Rickles element in there. New category. How about that?

Great. New category for the rewatchables right now. The Johnny Fontaine Award for the most glaringly bad actor in the movie. Oh, man. The nominees are Al Martino and the guy who played Carlo. I'm giving it to Al-Martino since I named the award after, but you could also talk me to Carlo. Both of them are horrible.

Let me ask you this. Is Al-Miri a good actor? Al-N-N-Reyri is like the most important character in this movie that doesn't talk. So he, for people who don't know who that is listening, he's the policeman who shoots Barzini at the end of Godfather 1. And then he's the body of Godfather 2. becomes like the key henchman. Yeah.

And barely speaks. Does he have one line in this whole movie? Incredible knowing look when in Godfather 2 and Frato and Michael seemed to make up. And Michael kind of catches Al's eye. It's like, oh man, man, this isn't going to end well for my man, Fredo. So you're saying that Al Martino wins the first annual Al Martino Award? It's the Johnny Fontaine Award, but we could call it the Al Martino Award if you want. It's like the Antonio Brown locker room chemistry award.

He goes to Antonio Brown. Congratulations to Al Martino Picking Nets When Michael returned from the war Why didn't he get a job? What did he do all day? What was he doing? It's a great question

What would you do every day? They had no internet back then. This was an awesome take. Holy shit. He's for five months. What was he doing? What's he doing? What's he doing?

Yeah, he just fucking freed the world. How about that? He just found the fucking fascism. I just want to know what he was doing. I'm not parading. I'm not judging him. I just want to know what he did all day. What did he do?

His family. Thursday of the third month he was back. What was he up to? What was he up to? He didn't want to be part of the family business. So what's he doing? What floated his boat? Did you see how many Christmas gifts they were buying there?

They had like a lot of stuff going on. So that's his gym just hanging out with Kay Adams. That was going to be his life. What was his next move? You're such a workaholic. He just freed the fucking Western world. He was home for a year. What's he?

Get a job at the selling? oranges. I would love to see you on VE Day. I'd love to see you walk it around Times Square being like, you're going to get a job? No. That's on the question. That's not my question. Stop making out with that nurse. You're going to get a job and contribute? That's not my question. I'm not judging

him for not having a job. I'm asking what he did all day. What did he do all day? I don't know. Apparently studied Sun Zoo. He stayed away from the family, right? He's arms like with the family. So what was he doing? He was spending time with his girlfriend, enjoying his life. His boring girlfriend.

friend Kay Adams? How much time do they spend together? Did he have like a Trey I Bill? They're shopping in Times Square. But so you're telling me that, but now I'm supposed to buy within three years this guy is going to become the most ruthless criminal in mankind. Like, Bill Jammerchus. Would there be seeds when he came back? Like, I'm a little itchy. I miss the action. Did you, I think the ruthless near murder of his father is kind of what activates that feeling inside of him. And getting punched in the face by a cop and realizing that all the

things that he believes in about America are not true. So three months in, when do you think he was up to like Tuesday, 10 o'clock in the morning? He's in the newspaper? Yeah. He's having a Danish game on the radio. Does he a sports fad to think? There's really no. Did he get more to the Yankees that year?

That's right. He was calling up the original version of WFAN to be like, let me tell you something about this Mickey Mantle, Mike. That's 46, right? I'm all in an Al-Larmatio. First Nick season? He said, hey, dad. It pops.

I was just saying this thing called basketball last night. It's great. We should invest in the Knickerbockers. I just want to know what he was up to. Have you ever taken a day off? I'm just, I'm asking what he did every day. He came home? What did he do?

Next one. I just don't think guys got back from World War II and we're like, I'm bored. I think they needed some time to decompress. That's fine. I'm granting that, but I just want to know what he was up to. I just, you're really, you're sullying the greatest generation is what you're doing on this podcast. I'm not selling anything. You guys are twisting my words around.

It's basically the highlight of him coming back was that wedding. And then the wedding's over and then it's like, so what do you do on Monday? We know from part two that Hyman Roth was estimated to be worth $300 million. So it's reasonable to estimate that Vito is worth $100 million. And they're going to buy Mo Green out. And even if they muscle him out, they would still be making a sizable. Let's play this out though. Don Vito doesn't get shot.

Vito has plans for Pacino. Yeah, they're going to send him in law school. So he's supposed to become a senator. Yeah, this is my questions. Yeah. But he's like, I don't have to do that now. But the wedding happens in this summer, right? So law school eventually is going to be his move.

I think that that's what they would have done. Law school like a year from now. So how long is he back from the war? It's 46. Has he been back for a year? It's an interesting part of the movie because they don't clearly explain what year we're in. I don't understand how long he's been back. Has Tom's seen him since before the war?

because Tom's like, I haven't seen you're back, you know, you haven't seen you, and he's still wearing his uniform at the wedding, right? I think it's his first time he sees him since the war. I think so, yeah. I think you guys need to apologize to me. I think you need to apologize to all the veterans in this country. This was not a question about the veterans.

My question was, this guy was on this path to do something great when all the guys got back from World War II and started loafing around and going to too much theater and calling in, the rewatchable. It doesn't always understand the Pentagon, but we respect the troops. I totally respect the troops. But if you're going to be Senator Corleone, what was the next move when he got back?

And what was he doing every day? Law school. And then probably become the city councilor. How about this? Go to law school. Don Corleone could see everything that might happen had no idea of Salazzo might try to kill him. Just walk around with his black sheep brother as his bodyguard buying oranges. That's a flaw.

Getting soft. It's a flaw. They show that he's losing a step, though. that his mind is strong, but he doesn't always act on his premonitions. You know, Michael is the same way throughout the series. Michael has this incredible foresight, and he still makes big mistakes. I'm just going to mention this the second time. Michael disappeared.

Yeah, and the Kay married a Sicilian bride, came back for another year, and then Kay took him back in four. Child bride. Four and a nine minutes. McCluskey, they get to Louis Restaurant, try the bill, it's the best in the city. McCluskey's eating like a half a second later as they're talking. I always assume, okay.

So I assume that that was bread, but I agree with you that that is weird. Chowling down. They're having wine. And he's just, he's got a bib in. And he's just like, you guys talk Italian for as long as you want. I'm just going to eat this, whatever he's eating. You know why they didn't use captions for that scene? Why they talked in Sassiz.

Tell me. Because Salazzo was like, you've been back for a year. What the fuck are you doing? Why are you in law school? You take the Lsats or what? You failed the bar? What happened? Also, you heard about this demise?

guy? Maybe that's what Michael was doing. He's going to Yankee games. Joe D, man. He's never been better. Ted Williams at 4-06. I just still can't get over McCluskey and like is the food at this restaurant good. It's like you're the shut the fuck up.

It doesn't matter. That's a classic, I mean, that's just a classic dumb Irish guy trying to talk to Italian people about their culture and not know what he's doing. I can relate to that. I feel like this movie shit's on the average. But he has one job. 25% of his own. For Salato not to get assassinated. And he's just like, what's important is that I get my view.

reveal cutlet. Well, that this gets to another picky knits, the frisk of Michael in the car, where Michael, like, climbs over the car.

That part is weird. Croski just grabs his legs and his dick, and he's like, he's good. It's like, I'm pretty sure he could have hit a gun.

Well, mine is sort of the sister to this, which is that it's pretty obvious when he's like, I need to go to the bathroom that he's, like, really tense.

With a terrified look on his face. Yeah. I would not be like, go ahead. I'd be like, he's either going with you or you can piss in this cup over here. No,

They frisk him before he goes in the bathroom. No, but then they frisk him again. When he gets back? Salazzo does, yeah. Does? No, he doesn't. He stands up. He's like, can I go to the bathroom?

And Salasso kind of looks at him. But when he comes back from the bathroom. But Sterling Hayden says he's clean. I frisked him after he taps him down. Another nitpick. If you're hiding in Italy, is it a good idea to get married and invite the entire village? I'm going to say no. I just still don't.

There's too many of the mechanics that I don't understand about the hiding. It's like, we know that there are Italian gangsters living in Sicily. And they're all connected to all of the five families. And Solicso has his factories in Sicily. My name is Michael Corleone. There's a lot of people that have paid a lot of money for that information. He's just telling random dudes that work for a store. Yeah.

I'm hiding in Italy. I'm Michael Corleone. Go hide in Paris. You know, go hide in Switzerland. Bad move. Why didn't they kill Carlo right away? I think that there's a lot of we're not sure yet going on here. And you see the way that Michael's strategy.

where he holds things back for long periods of time to be 100% sure. Same reason Fredo lasts as long as he does. Same reason that Tom is in and then he's out and then he's out again and then he's out again. He's always like he's using people like chess pieces. Isn't that also Vito tells Michael to monitor the phones? It isn't when they walk in on Carlo, he's on the phone. So I think it's supposed to be the implication is that he's calling Bartini or he's trying to get in touch with these guys to let them know what's happening.

My bigger nitpick is that they have an informant. I guess it's in McCluskey's precinct, but I was going to say that they have an informant who tells them where the meat's going to be with Solitzel and McCluskey, which restaurant, but they don't have an informant who can be like, you may not want to go shop for fruit by yourself or with your dipshit's middle sun

because they're going to try and hit you. Yeah. So you're saying Michael was super patient. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and I think they got... Same reason why he was just going to those Knicks games for three years. He was patient. He was biting his time.

Trying to get a good look at DiMaggio's streak. They do 16 bounce passes, and then they go inside to the post and George Mike and Ralph Bauer was three for four today. Another new category. Create a second category for 2019. This goes for everything too.

In 2019, could this be a Netflix show? It's now its own category. It essentially, the first hour of it is broken up as television episodes. So the caveat for this question, first of all, nobody should ever touch the Godfather. It's a sacred document. but if they said we're touching the godfather and we're turning this into an episodic series and it's

going to last 50 episodes and we're basically redoing this how violently upset would you be about it i mean it's it's probably the most unnecessary thing ever do you feel like there would be a riot it wouldn't be i mean i don't know how we would organize our riot perhaps we would claim that frank sancho was not cool and all unite together um that's your worst take of all time uh it's not even my take. It just can't happen. You know how the internet can mobilize like when the Game of Thrones guys

that show got announced, the Confederacy and the internet killed it within a day? Some tells me this isn't the same. No, but I don't think you can equate this too. I'm not equating the content. I'm saying in 24 hours the internet handled it and it was gone.

You're right. I feel like the godfather. If that gets announced, the internet kills it in 24 hours. So when I was watching it, Because, you know, the wedding would have been, you could have extended the wedding. That's an hour episode, right? And that could have been the two-hour premiere.

Yeah. I would have watched. A lot more scenes about Santino's cock, maybe really go into that. And the sort of better call Saul thing, the idea of like taking this tertiary character and making them the main character. Tom Hagan and L.A. would have been like a great show. Yeah, that's funny. I mean, it's just a bag man, though. That's like, that's a Michael Clayton show.

You're missing the killer would have been Fredo in Vegas. Oh, I mean, of course. and Mo Green and getting more involved. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in a show. That essentially is casino, right? Yes, that isolates the character. That dives into all the stuff we love about the movie and completely blows it out.

I'm interested in that. I'm not interested in trying to remake this anyway. I think if you do it, it's like we're doing 50 episodes of The Godfather. It'd be interesting. Best quote, I'm going to make him an offer you can't refuse. Leave the gun, take the canoli. I don't like Violence Tom. I'm a businessman.

Blood is a big expense. to tell he's a pimp he never could have outfought Santino. Let me tell you something my crap Mick friend in Sicily women are more dangerous than shotguns. Do you know who I am? I'm Mo Green. I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders. He was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time! What do you think? This is like the army?

We shoot them in my way. You got to get up coast like this. Butterbean! You blow your brains right all over your Ivy League suit. and yeah that's it what do you think I think also you got to do on the day of your daughter's wedding you know Luca this is a masculine child that's the masculine child that's kind into the lexicon

I think leave the gun take the canoes is my personal favorite I don't know whether he says canoli or canolees you're supposed to say canoli there's no S with canoli but it feels like he says canoles leave the gun take the canoli I think he just says canoli.

That's how I've always tried. I replayed it back and was trying to get it. I couldn't tell. What about I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them as you can see? They talk when they should listen. It's great. That's a great line. Pretty good one.

Also great when Sonny interrupts it with the, and he's obviously hot for the deal. Are you telling me you can guarantee? And the Don just turns around and fucking stingsize him. And then they cut to all the different guys in the room. Like, oh man, that's Sunny. Yeah. And Tatalia is soaking it in. Is I believe in America the best first line of a movie?

Talk to there. I think I'm going to make an offer he can't refuse. Hollywood Big Shot is going to give you what you want. Too late. They start shooting in a week. I'm going to make them an offer. He can't refuse. Obviously the most famous line.

That's a historic one, yeah. But I personally love Leave the Gun, Take the Canolli is fucking amazing. There's one other one that is good too. Take the Canola could have been what we named the Ringer. Absolutely not. I don't want my brother would come out of that toilet was just his dick in his hand

That's another one That's a pretty good one We should have named The ringer Cartoon Poor Cartoon If we did winners and losers I think he's a loser Cartoon

Headed Head Head Head Head Hard and answer Real questions I have three Where did the Corleones live

New Jersey right When you were talking about Kay and Michael and their kind of reunion after he comes back from Sicily and they're walking on those leafy streets. Where is that? Is that like West? It's New Hampshire?

Because she's like, I'm going to go back to New Hampshire and I'll send word for you. So I assume she's just still lived in New Hampshire. So he went to go visit her in New Hampshire? That's what I assumed. Okay. That makes sense. Because I was like, is that Westchester or what is that?

But so like when where's the compound, when they know that he's going to take the ride down the toll booth, how do they know that? So do they live in New Jersey? I feel like they live somewhere like in the New York kind of close. to Connecticut area. Yeah, I thought it was like

like Bronx town, like up downtown and stuff. I don't know. If anyone knows this answer, hit us up. At the millback. Copland's biting his knuckle like James Con right now. He's so mad we're doing this. I mean, it's a really

a New York family specifically and McCluskey is NYPD and all of it is New York. And they name all the territories at the five families meetings like this person from this side. So it's got to be relatively close to New York but not.

I don't know. If you know the answer of emails at the mailbag. And they run Harlem. They say something about Harlem for a second. Second one, has there ever been a better assassination plan ever than Sunny getting gunned down at the toll booth?

I mean, that thing was orchestrated like the fucking Philly special. What's the setup? Remind me of how they get him out of the house. The toll booth special. Carlo having another domestic violence incident with young Connie. Yeah. And then Sonny getting mad. storming out of the compound

he leaves without the security which was a mistake because they had all gone to the matches at that point we left out we never talked about how going to the matches has become another classic just that whole montage

also of the newspapers the way that they unfold the McCluskey story where it's like cop hunter cop killer so supposedly George Lucas helped out with that right? Did he? Is that true?

Yeah. So they knew he was going to leave they go to the towbooth where he has to go through to get to their house and they put 20 gangsters around there somehow. I don't know. It's just really well-planned.

Yeah, I like it. It feels like not as well-planned as Michael's kind of return, though. You know, Michael killing. The christening. Yeah. That feels like the most expertly planned. But that one's just like we're killing these five people at the same time. This is like, all right, Carlo's going to beat up Connie.

Then he'll call. And then we'll get the guys. And it's a little far-fetched. I guess is my point. I guess it's supposed to be like, we got to get Sonny out of that house. And whenever he's out of the house, we'll get him eventually.

But they certainly get very lucky with Sonny taking off like a bat out of hell. But maybe they just... Also, what does Carlo gain about from going against the family? Never totally got that one either. Well, you got the sense that he was blocked from ever getting access to the inside.

And so obviously... So he's just going to go to Barzini? I think so. I think that's the understanding. Because, yeah, Nvito says don't give him anything important. Remember? Yeah, exactly.

That's what I mean. Like, he never would have. had any real responsibility inside the Corleone family. Until Michael gives him the fake conciliary job. Do you guys feel that I always thought it was Comenza, and I always thought it would be Comenza when he arranges

the meeting, and then Michael goes, no. It's the smart play. Tessio is always a smarter one, this is a smart play. Kind of a dig on Comenza. Sure. You helped him, taught him how to make meat sauce, how to shoot a gun. How to stop hit. What did Tesio do in that movie? Other than just complain about getting

squeezed by the bosses? Yeah, but that's, that's Just good storytelling, though, that we don't know enough about that character, so you don't see it coming, you know? So Godfather 1, I mean, I'm sorry, Godfather 2, they blow out the Tesio and Colmenza characters a little bit more. Which one did Bruno Kirby? Brunenza, Clemenza. Yeah.

But in that part, Tesio is the smarter one than that. So they explain that after the fact. Last unanswerable question. Is this even the greatest Godfather film? It was for me until about four days ago. I said this to both of you guys before we started doing this. I was just blown away by two

the most recent time I watched it. It's kind of staggered by it. I look forward to talking about it in a year. But I don't think it's the best, but it'll be 11 months. I'm going to go to Yankee Games and Nick Games and just buy time until that podcast. Yeah.

I mean, you know, it's... They're not to make meatballs. You're just going to walk around Times Square. Yeah, come here to start Christmas shopping earlier. That's good. Kay Adams. It's like one cartoon's bread. between one and two for me.

You know, like, there's such a vanishingly thin difference. I think one is more pleasurable and two is superior. Yeah, I buy that. It's, I do not, I think every time I see two, I'm like, I can't believe how good this is. But I'm often like, but I got to take a break. You know what I mean?

There's only like a lot of, much longer. A lot of sitting in Hyman Roth's living room watching football. You guys are so close to wrapping it up and neither of you got there. It's amazing. What do you mean? One's more rewatchable and two's better.

Yeah, you're right. I think that's just the answer. I think two is probably the greatest movie ever. I'm trying to think what's better than it. The thing that I don't want to step on the two podcasts, but the fact that De Niro fucking studied Brando and Godfather won and then modeled a performance after what would this guy be like 30 years earlier

and nails it. And fucking crushes it. And then Pacino, the scene with Kay telling him... It was an abortion, Michael. The abortion. Oh, my God. Pacino and that thing. That is the greatest five minutes of any actor ever.

I was like, I had chills watching it last night. It's terrifying. My wife's in the kitchen making dinner. And she was like, is everything okay in here? Like, it's assaulting that scene. Oh, my God. And then the kiss. Yeah.

I mean, fucking, Frato dying is still the most traumatic movie moment of all time. The thing that both of these movies do that I really love is they're totally about very big ideas about family and capitalism and crime. and duty and honor. They're also really cool snapshots of history. You know, like everything in Cuba and two is really interesting, and it doesn't feel like it's overreaching.

Vegas. You know, the history of Vegas coming together, the history of organized crime in America, immigration, you know, all these, like, really fascinating historical pieces that make America in the last hundred years are all in these movies. It's just so crazy with the dish. And also just like the, basically the conflation,

not the end of the conflation, but the collision point, between the underworld and and real mainstream American world. You know, like the idea of getting into all these legitimate businesses, which is what Michael's starting at the end of one with Vegas. And his vision,

which is supposed to be like kind of a selling point to K, but is incredibly selfish because he just has the vision to know, okay, if we're not going to stay in New York and become drug kingpins, we essentially need to find something else to do because being neighborhood Mr. Fixits is not going to work anymore.

It's good instinct to buy Mo Greens Casino. And shoot him in the eye. You're going to buy me out. I'm going to bring you out. Before we get to who won the movie, I just wanted to do a little personal tidbit. I once ate at the restaurant. I can't remember if it was Louis Restaurant

or modeled after Louis' restaurant, but I ate at there like 25 years ago and had the veal. What's it called? I can't remember. I just remember doing it. My stepfather. It takes place in a real restaurant. Yeah, I think that restaurant,

I should have probably looked this up. That restaurant either still existed or it became something else, but that location, which is, you know where it is. That's also the other great Tesio scene in the movie when he's like,

it's perfect. You know, nobody's paying attention to each other. Does anybody know that restaurant? I do. It's got a toilet in the back. And that actually, you know,

the way that crime was, especially mafia crime, was treated by the press and I guess by popular culture in general back then was that it was kind of this contained thing that was off to the side.

And they talk a lot about, like, you can't kill a cop. You know what I mean? Like, there's bloodletting that happens, and there's obviously these civil wars that happened. But you can't let it go out into these different arenas. Like, nobody's ever killed a, like, a police captain. And you can't just do that in broad daylight. And that was like, my dad used to work on, like,

the city desk in Philadelphia and the newspapers in the 70s, and he would write, like, these sensationalistic headlines for any Philadelphia mafia violence. It would be like, a guy gets shot in a restaurant, and it would be like, spaghetti. with a sight of sauce. You know, and, but that was how it was treated.

It was kind of like this, this thing, well, it's like, it's not really affecting the normal suburban person. So we can just kind of make it into this, this kind of cartoon.

So Louis closed down shortly after the movie ended. So where would I have eaten? I have no, was it, pizza, pizza room? No, it was like a same location,

same number of them. TGI Fridays? What was it? I smoked a lot of pot in the 90s. Did you imagine this? There was a fucking spaghetti warehouse in Orlando. No,

we went there. I think my stepfather might have lied. You and Abe Fugoda? It was in the Bronx. Wow, you just learned that your stepfather lied to you as a child about dining in a restaurant that he thought was in the godfather. Johnny Fontaine at a Passaic, New Jersey, all you can eat buffet.

In reality, it was Old Lunar Restaurant on White Plains Road in the Bronx. I don't know. I know I couldn't be making this up. It was super exciting. Yeah, I think you're making. it up. Not making it up. I believe you.

That could also make sense if that's Tesio's neighborhood or it's like he knows that area. So that would make sense of where, of them being a little bit north of the city that. I think they're all in the Bronx for a lot of them. And I think when Carlo gets his ass kicked around the streets in the Bronx. People listening. If it's possible that I did at the restaurant in the early 1990s that was modeled after the godfather or the location or whatever, let us know. Who won the movie, guys?

I think it's got to be Coppola because he basically sets a new course for his whole career I mean he's the person who is primarily responsible for the most important movie in American history he is instantaneously considered a master of the form he manages to weather his debt his ineptitude as a manager he literally turned like a trashy novel into the highest art form possible

so I go Coppola. He gets like an eight-year-run and Spielberg comes. Exactly. Pretty much. And he sets the table for kind of new Hollywood in a big way, even more so than stuff like Easy Rider, where Easy Rider did a great job of like creating a narrative. But this...

That was counterculture, though. The huge, the big business nature of autores getting a chance to make movies like this, like this really, really kicks it off. There is no Spielberg without this. I have to agree with him because I don't think you can do Pacino knowing what happens next. You know what I mean?

And I think it's Coppola. I was thinking Willis, but I don't want to get too cute. I think it's Coppola. I don't know. I'm torn on it because I think you could make a real case for Pacino because I can't imagine

anybody else in the part. And he transforms. Yeah. And it's such a hard role in the fact that they're also trying to fire him. And it's like, we know all the other actors

who were available in 1972. I don't think they would have taken a chance on De Niro on that role. I think he's the only one who could have pulled it off, like with the complexities of it, and then had the ability to kind of grow in Godfather, too. But I think you're right with the Coppola thing because nobody had ever made a movie like this, and he was the guy who did it. I think there might be a small Bob Evans, like, best supporting who won the act. There's a movie. There's definitely

a case. Just because, like, this was the biggest producing triumph of all time. Is it insane? No, we're not saying Brando? I think even if he never made this movie, he still has streetcar on the waterfront, and you can make the case that this didn't really like, it revived his career, but I don't think it redefined his career. But I'm saying within this, specifically within this movie. Who won the actual movie? I don't walk away from the movie thinking about Brando. I walk away thinking about Pacino.

Yeah. And how awesome James Conno. And that's, you know, the closing of the door on the movie. Yeah. Is that that the best, though, because it's like every time you watch it, you experience it for the first time again and you end where it ends. You're not like drifting around thinking about, oh, it was so great when you put the oranges in this mouth.

We didn't. I forget to mention it. Yeah. In what age the best, I forgot to mention the score, which obviously should have talked about at some point. And then the ending. The door closing, how they did that. I always wonder, like, how they thought of that idea, who thought of it?

And then them probably filming it and going, yeah, that worked. Good. Cut. You know, and then Al coming in. and so good. It's such a perfect visual representation of what the whole story is about, which is who's in and who's out,

who's up and who's down. And Kay is always going to be on the outside. She's never going to be really in the family. She's never really going to have access to what she needs access to. How long has she been back when that happens? I mean, they've got the kids at that point. Michael had had season tickets for the next for like 10 years at that point.

He was really worried about Russell. Russell of the Celtics That scene The ending's so good That it makes you forget How Bad Talia Shire is In the three minutes before It's tough

That's a nepotism moment classic Did we say Evans for Apex Mountain? Yeah, we did We did, okay Anything else? Is there anybody else who could have won the movie? I'm trying to think of anybody else has won the movie

I mean, I think Willis Because of the way it looks And I think Duval has probably My favorite performance in the movie play. Did we do enough about Duval? I mean, he also is even better in two, I think,

because he's even more, he's less confident. Why do you hurt me, Michael? It's tough when he throws the mistress thing in him. Is that in one or two? It's in two. When he throws at him that he thinks he's going to go work

for the hotel in Vegas. You go and you can bring your wife and your mistress. Yeah. No, Duval is amazing. DeVal is amazing. Why do you hurt me, Michael? He goes, and then like,

a few years later, he's the biggest fucking asshole in the history of time and network. Like, that's the most range from Tom Hagan to being this, like, shy, retiring guy. Yeah, it's just an amazing performance. He's really great. I think one of the five most upsetting movie-related things of my life

that I wish we could just do over and, like, can we get a redo on this? It's him not being a Godfather of three. Yeah. Because I really, I don't know if that movie would have been saved, but all you have to do is if, if Winona Rider, whatever the fuck happened to her, if she just could have been the daughter,

and then Duval is in it. That's probably a good movie because it's really well shot. The opera scenes are good and I actually like the end of the end of the scene. It's really dense with the stuff buying the real estate of the Vatican. The church.

It's really dense. It needed an editor. It doesn't because like the first two have such a connection to the like lives and things that most people understand and him buying like a mobieri or whatever the Vatican real estate holdings are. It's just like such fucking like bond villain stuff.

I think they had to, once Duval was out, I think they really didn't have a lot of places to go with the movie. None of the characters left. It's like, all right, let's beef up the iconocines. He said he made that for money, right? Yeah. Yeah.

That's what he says. I mean, I think there was an interesting story to tell about the church, too. That's the one thing that they really don't get into in the first two that are part of that big story about crime and immigration and all that stuff. I was talking about politics. The church is the one thing they leave out. So it could have worked. Yeah.

It definitely could have worked. I saw Godfather 3 with me. my stepfather. And it was clearly not good. And we knew it wasn't good. But when we left, he was trying to talk himself. And it's like,

it was good. Yeah, it was good, right? I mean, it was both kind of new. It has a very powerful last scene. So,

yeah. It's very similar to me to the experience that I had with Chris Ryan when he and I went to go see Miami Vice together. And he was quite certain it was good when it ended.

And I was like, that's not good movie. It's incoherent. You know, some people feel like the Miami Vice rewatchable is the best one we've ever done. Oh yeah?

Out of the 16th. Lots of people say this to me. Your army of bots? A lot of people say that to us. So you know what was good? It was that Miami Vice for you watchables. Who said that to you? A couple of people.

Name one living person. A couple of people on the internet. A couple of people on the internet. Intrigate. You really liked it. I thought we did the Colin Farrell stuff was great, apparently. All right. Last thoughts on the Godfather?

I love it. I can rewatch it again tonight. I think the Coralian family would have been way better off if Michael had just gotten back to work as soon as you got back to work. Get a job, Michael. What was he up to? Justice for Al Martino. Yeah.

Yeah. You guys ganged up a minute. I can't free bullet to be made to look ridiculous. Come back with us next week for old school. Thanks for listening to Rewatchables. All right. Thanks again to Voodoo. Don't forget to check out this special rewatchables collection on Voodoo.

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where we picked, I don't know, 12 to 14 of our favorite movies, some of which we've already done in the rewatchables. Voodoo.com slash rewatchables. Go there, sign up, start watching today. VUDU.com slash rewatchables back next week with old school.

Did you know Blue is dead? You'll always be my boy, Bill. He'll always be my boy, but he's dead. We'll see you next week.