What a great challenge to give to someone who has never seen Tarantula, has in this very thread claimed not to like The Godfather all that much and has up to this point had to reiterate on every single ****ing page that you can't objectively prove any one movie is better than another.


And on top off all this, you now want me to do this in under 50 words.


I dont know, how about: Tarantula ****ed yo' momma.

I'd be OK with 100 words really.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

Volunteering to watch Tarantula and write the 50 words or less before this thread gets locked.

So your response to what I wrote is to allow me more words to explain to you that I havent seen Tarantula, I don't think Godfather is the greatest movie of all time, and that there isn't actually any clear objective metric for making any kind of claim like this in the first place?


Or is this all just a ruse to hear more about that steamy Mom/Tarantula action I've so teasingly alluded to above.


If so, sorry bud, a hundred words is still nowhere near enough.

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

The greatest film (from a list of greatest films) is the one that has become an evergreen.
Citizen Kane and Gone With The Wind still have an audience, but for many people it's become "old crap", as it were.
The Godfather wins. Simple and logical. (ha, logic, seems I was right all along).

Re: Is The Godfather the greatest American film ever made?
 

I suppose there's a good moral to the Godfather story, though I don't think I've seen enough films to declare it the best. The fact that violence is so central to the Godfather's plot makes me wonder how much it actually resonates with the lives of its audience, since violence isn't actually a commonality in day-to-day life, despite what the media would have you believe.

The Godfather has a lot of violence, but far less than a lot of movies these days. And it doesn't feel to me like violence is central to the plot, but a device that shows the extent to which they're willing to go to achieve their aims. To me the theme that stands out most is commitment the family leader (Vito first, then Michael) has in preserving his "family" ... not just blood relatives for the loyal members in their orbit.

Fair enough. I'm just not sure how much gangster movies and TV shows really symbolize "America", since they definitely don't represent the life of the average person. They also don't coincide with more humanistic ideals, such as the principles of the US Constitution.

Or the principles of Starfleet:p

Being friends with Steven Spielberg.

Does it have to be popular and highly regarded and well done and admired in the right circles? I didn't even like Godfather because I hated the characters so I'd never say it's "The Greatest American Film Ever" but that's based on my standards. The general consensus is it's an amazing film. Does that make it "Greatest"? Having a consensus as to it being "the best film I've ever seen"?

It is impossible for everyone to agree that one specific movie is perfect. It just doesn't happen. That's what makes this so hard. Le Boy doesn't like Blade Runner, which is a popular film. Is it still a widely-regarded sci-fi? Sure. It just has its detractors.

Movies being popular in critical circles can obviously reinforce someone's opinion on what the greatest movies are.


But know what is more likely than reinforcing that belief? Causing a backlash against the film, not only amongst those who treat any kind of critical darling with disdain because they reflexively believe critics are the enemy...but it even affects those well meaning viewers who end up placing expectations too high for the film, making it so it can't help but underwhelm once it's called the greatest thing since sliced bread


Biases affect things both ways, people. That's why it is important to actually see what people have to say about things before taking their opinion seriously.


The reality is you can love The Godfather and have terrible taste. You can also hate it and have great taste.


Pay attention to what they say about the movie, not their conclusions. Conclusions don't mean shit.

Violence is the whole point of the plot, even though it's low compared to today's movies. Gangsters don't get their way with the people they coerce by using rational persuasion. The Corleone family gets their way specifically by cloaking their persuasion with the ever present threat of violence and that's why "we" like the movie. The movie does a great job of portraying that paternalistic, violent family, especially when they wear nice suits and sit at the conference table.

Again, that's the point of the plot; you don't have to be committed, just obedient. That's how Vito gets to be the "Godfather", cloaking himself in paternalistic authority, having a nearly ceremonious obedience and using the prefix "God" in that context. Since the first GF movie, movies in general have amped up the violence, but GF was pretty violent in its day, especially compared to other top-drawer productions that were not westerns or war movies.

It's all just feudalism with electric lights and modern weapons....turf, influence, power and money, enforced by extra-legal violence. In the real feudal world there was not much in the way of law and enforcement. The GF movies seem to be a throwback to the time and place guys like them make and enforce their own "laws".

In that respect, that's where I thought that GF went wrong; it's an opera basically. All that civilized pretension. In my real life, work context, I've sat in the room with guys who arrest and prosecute guys like Vito and Michael. Their comment that I heard many times was that it ain't like that at all. They portrayed guys like that as well dressed street thugs who kill because it's what they do. They said that the movie version was "lite entertainment". They used it as a metaphor for untruth about gangsters.

I would hope when these greatest movie list are made by prestigious organizations that they would not be influenced by other movie list or by movie popularity or critic's approval. But apparently they are influenced by those factors. It's evident as basically the same movies end up at top of the greatest movie list with just some reshuffling. If these greatest movie list were made by individuals who were only choosing greatest movies by their own personal opinions, then those list would be as diversified as us MoFo's own personal greatest movie list are.

I don't follow your objection. Are you saying you think the film is portraying them as civilized? Because that's not my read (or the general read of critics) at all. It's clearly showing us the divide between how they rationalize their violence and its cold reality, which is what pretty much all the best gangster movies do.

Here's a fun thought experiment: compare and contrast the violence in the "dawn of humanity" segment of 2001: Space Odyssey with the violence in The Godfather.

The problem is a list is simply the conclusion. That's one reason a site like this can be popular; it brings out what people have to say about the movie. We've spent countless hours, days, weeks, and months discussing films because we want to get answers to why people like them, or dislike them. That's what makes reviews commonplace and popular; they explain the thoughts behind the conclusion.

I like reviews for that; they explain the movie, or whatever, way better than a simple number. Anything can have any number. The reason behind the number is the important, and interesting, part.

See I think that's the problem. The list is either too individualized or too generic.

What I like to do is have my own list, and then see other lists and compare them. I make no bones about it; my taste is eclectic, so my list will be unusual. However no one has ever told me my tastes have to align with the general populace's.

I enjoy weird and obscure shit, some of which hardly anyone has seen. It doesn't really change anything about general consensus, nor should general consensus dictate what I think. I don't know if there's one right answer or not honestly. Who knows.

As far as American films go I would have to agree The Godfather is the GOAT. My all-time favorite film is 2001 Space Odyssey but I believe that was filmed in Britain and was based on the writings of a British author.