THE GODFATHER (1972)

Salute! This week we're going to the mattresses for Nakea's first viewing of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972). 

Be warned: it all starts out sensibly enough, but somewhere during the viewing of The Godfather Michael and Nakea—inspired no doubt by the film's culture of conducting business over good food and good wine—make the mistake of heavily hitting the vino. As The Unenthusiastic Critic is something of a notorious lightweight, the post-viewing discussion thus goes almost completely off the rails, as Nakea gets progressively more drunk, and Michael gets progressively more desperate to keep the conversation on track.

The result is an uninhibited, insightful, and hilarious hour with The Unenthusiastic Critic, covering the death of the American dream, the brutal poetry of a good garbage-can fight, and the possibility that Nakea might have missed her true calling as a Vegas crime lord and “big gambling whore-boss."

Program

—0:00: Prologue: from You've Got Mail (1998)
—1:01: Intro and Pre-Viewing Discussion of The Godfather
—17:40: The Godfather trailer
—19:14: The Verdict: Post-Viewing Discussion of The Godfather
—1:13:02: Outro and Next Week's Movie
—1:13:49: Outtake

Notes and Links

—Film discussed: The Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, Paramount, 1972).
—The trailer audio used in this episode is from a fan-made trailer, made, appropriately enough, by the talented folks at Fan-Made Film Trailers. (The official trailer for The Godfather has no dialogue, which makes it disappointingly inappropriate for podcasting purposes.)
—Reviews discussed: Pauline KaelThe New Yorker; Vincent CanbyNew York Times; Stanley Kaufmann, The New Republic; Robert HatchThe Nation.
—Article discussed: "The '70s: Get over it," Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times. 
—Book discussed: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywoodby Peter Biskind.
—Documentary discussed: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywooddir. by Kenneth Bowser.
—Listen to additional episodes and read The Unenthusiastic Critic in prose form at unaffiliatedcritic.comEmail us, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook. (Suggestions of movies to watch for future episodes are welcome.)
—Theme Music: "Warm Duck Shuffle" by Arne Huseby, licensed under CC BY 3.0.

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6 thoughts on “THE GODFATHER (1972)”

  1. Just FYI, my grandfather was from Sicily and I know for a fact that he never watched this movie. Because I thought they were machismo bullshit, I didn't see any of the Godfather movies until maybe the early 2000s? And I was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) at oh similar Brando's voice and mannerisms were to my gpa's. So he musta done some time with the old man Sicilians, is all I'm saying, 'cause I know Papa wasn't copying Brando. Having said all that, GII is better. #robertdeniroswaiting

  2. This is the first ep I've listened to. I suspect it may not be a representative sample.

    Vito doesn't want to pivot to video. That's excellent.

    1. More wine, perhaps, but otherwise not so different from a normal episode. (That she still makes really excellent observations while totally sloshed is one of the great mysteries of my wife.) But I'm glad you found us: let us know if you like the sober episodes as well.

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