Goodfellas v Godfathers

choose wisely, ilx

ayo stacking the deck there much? shoulda been goodfellas, 1 and 2 separately imo

Bah, that would split the Coppola vote unfairly and stack the deck the other way. This is fairly reasonable, but maybe it should be Mean Streets and Goodfellas vs. Godfather I and II

that wouldve just spilt the godfathers vote xp

voted goodfellas btw - obv great movies but cant quite get w/the mafia hagiography of the godfathers

I don't think it'll affect people's choices much tbh.

I think Goodfellas is the best movie of the three but it isn't my favourite.

i think splitting the godfathers vote is the only way goodfellas has a chance... and they are two separate movies with their own things going on

wont anybody think of the goodfellas

this isnt so much abt movies as it is cultural artifacts - thats why its ok to combine the godfathers

Coppola's re-edit of the first two Godfathers as a TV mini-series is probably the best way to watch them, as a soapy pot-boiler with really awesome actors in it.

> cant quite get w/the mafia hagiography of the godfathers

Yeah, I don't buy this at all. Michael is a totally disgusting creep and that's the whole point.

The point is he doesn't start out as a disgusting creep.

probably goodfellas. i'm more of a scorsese fan, also, the choice of music is just awesome.

its hagiography from the pov of their power cunning and sophistication not niceness or whatever

Well, setting aside that hagiography is about Saints for the moment, I can't find it in my heart to envy their lifestyle and influence when they seem to me anyway so obviously miserable about having sold their souls.

The whole arc of the Godfather 1 and 2 works like a commentary on Robert Nozick's Anarchy State and Utopia where Vito's mob starts off as a benevolent community self-defence league and winds up as an evil murder bureaucracy which has long ago lost its purpose.

saints w/in the mafia culture - plz no pretend density on this important thread xp

godfathers are a crazy idealized version of this shit really downplaying the stupid thuggish aspect of the culture while spraying a camelot sheen all over everything - its not at all that i demand reality but that whole angle has always kinda been kinda O RLY to me

where as in goodfellas henry hill is is obv lying his ass off but thats more on a unreliable narrator level

I get a little worn from those clever plot devices like "Oh, anytime you see an orange it means someone's going to die". Think about the oh-so excellent "foreshadowing" that could've occurred had Tommy DeVito been repeatedly shown eating fish, going "Oh they MADE this FISH so WELL DONE tonight!"

Godfather, well both of 'em, are really magnificent looking films. I do see something new each time. But in the end, I'm always going to vote for the wiseguys.

Goodfellas is probably my favorite movie ever, while the Godfather I&II are my wife's - not that I don't love the Godfather too, I just love Goodfellas more.

I love the beginning and ending aspect of Goodfellas, how Henry had no real historical family ties to the mob and just wanted to join up to be a badass, has his run, and then it all goes to shit and falls apart. Michael in the Godfather has all the family history to deal with this burden to bear for being the smart, stable kid and ends up getting everything he wants at the expense of turning into a huge dick and isolating or killing everyone in his life.

I like the Karen vs. Kay stuff too - one totally getting off on the gangster stuff and going along with it all and the other hating it.

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Coppola's re-edit of the first two Godfathers as a TV mini-series is probably the best way to watch them, as a soapy pot-boiler with really awesome actors in it.

― Otto von Biz Markie (Noodle Vague), Saturday, February 14, 2009 4:41 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

this is insanity

yeah, i had that argument with someone else a couple weeks ago. so rong

"this is insanity"

Nope, it's truth.

Hoos seriously I'm serious. As individual films they're nicely structured and they work really well but as a mini-series you get exactly what Mario Puzo is about - Harold Robbins/Jackie Susann glam soap opera, with the opera aspect turned way up. This doesn't diminish it, it's the heart of it. Epic saga of American high society with the baddies as goodies and no goodies at all. The flashbacking of the Young Vito storyline in Part 2 is really a thing of convenience to disguise what somebody pointed out elsewhere, the fact that Michael has already completed his fall from grace by the end of the first movie so his arc in the second is just extra wallowing in villainousness until it's Fredo-whacking time.

^^^ ding ding ding

(I think the airport novel and its TV serialisation is a majorly under-rated art-form btw.)

And with the best will in the world it's hard to not see Godfather II in particular as episodic.

I have read that argument before and I still think it's craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy.

My biggest problem with the two movies split is that the format of the Godfather Part II only highlights how (comparatively) weak the Pacino sequence is, whereas the Epic does a good job of obscuring that fact.