I'm just watching The Godfather right now; I watched The Godfather: Part II last week and I had a few thoughts I wished to record:
- Marlon Brando is amazing (and I'm only 15 minutes in); I'm really going to have to make an effort to watch some of his early material to see what that's all about -- my memories are mainly of the corpulent joke Brando, but there's a lot more going on there
- Robert De Niro is amazing too; I'm glad I watch these movies in the reverse order. He did a fantastic job of capturing Brando's character. Sadly, another actor who has lapsed into parody
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- contract to Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness playing Obi-Wan Kenobi. McGregor got the motions, but never the character.
- My wife Joanne's Italian and it's funny to note that they had a "fixer" character too in their life. When they moved to Canada, only one lady could speak English and she took charge of all things dealing with "the English". As necessary, she would be the mother, the sister, or whatever was needed for the circumstance (such as going to the doctor). [I'll update this with her name when Joanne gets home]
- Everything you know about Italians from the top-tier mob movies is true, except for the mob part. Really (or at least they're not admitting to the mob part, though I do step lightly). The first time I saw The Sopranos, it was "hey look, they have our bedspread ... and our bedroom ... and our kitchen cupboards..."
- (update) the soundtrack is totally over the top. Is this a time-ism thing, or did it suck also when the movie came out? Rick McGinnis would know...