Anybody ever read the Godfather book? It’s… kinda weird. Every time a new character is introduced, it’s goes into their sexual history. Like, do we really need to know Rocko is an attentive lover with a string of girlfriends that he has no trouble keeping satisfied before he goes and kills some dude?
And then there’s a part of the book that is about… How do I put this…
a woman getting a pussy tightening surgery.
It’s the bridesmaid that Sonny fucks in the closet at his sister’s wedding. She sought out Sonny, as did all the other women “with big mouths and wide hips” because he had a legendarily big cock and it was her only hope to get any pleasure, on account of her gigantic pussy and all.
After he dies, she tried to commit suicide. Not because she cared for him, she just figures she’ll always be alone because no one else in the world will have a cock that will be adequate to work with her ginormous pussy.
But much later in the book, she’s living at the family casino in Nevada, and her doctor boyfriend finally talks her into having sex and discovers her pussy is huge and convinces her that he knows a great plastic surgeon that can fix it. It walks through the consultation and surgery and everything. Not in explicit detail, but, like, it’s so weird.
And there’s weird comments like (not a quote) “Don’t worry, doll. I do great work. I’ll fix you up so nice he’ll be calling me every day to thank me.” Shit like that.
And it worked. After she has the surgery and they have sex, her doctor boyfriend immediately proposes to her.
So, anyway, yeah… I don’t know why they left the great pussy tightening subplot out of the movies.
Please, dont ever read Stephen kings IT.
Its…deeply fucked up. It includes a child group sex act that happens right before they confront IT directly, which empowers them to defeat it.
Like most his books back then, the byline should have said “Cocaine, with Stephen king.”
It is a good book that is well written. Just because you cannot handle it, don’t lie to people
Explains the island allegations
What
Pretty sure it’s after they fight It (the first time), but it’s not really important.
They fight It, end up in the sewer, realize if they lose their innocence It will lose interest in them, run the train, flashforward.
At least that’s what I remember from when I read the book without knowledge of that scene.
That reminds me there was one of his books I read for an elementary school book report just because I had heard he was a famous author and it had something about an underage girl being raped and detailing what injuries it caused or something, it’s been a long fucking time so specifics may be off. I feel like there may have been some significance in a wheat field… I do remember also recalling it again in high school when we were made to read oryx and crake, and the other students were grossed out about the narrating character’s recollections of watching csam material together withh crake, of a girl that may or may not have been oryx in the past.
I was thinking back then something like Atwood couldn’t hurt me after Stephen king scarred me but pigoons, chicky knobs, and most of all the narrators other obsession of Alex the parrot’s final video somehow really got to me and still bother me to this day.
So, anyway, yeah… I don’t know why they left the great pussy tightening subplot out of the movies.
well you know, I’m beginning to think this Coppola fellow simply didn’t know true art when he saw it, after reading all that. That could’ve been a wonderfully surreal addition to spice up the trilogy.
Time for a reboot!!
This time focusing exclusively on this character and her pussy struggles. Everything else should be mentioned in the background in passing. It should be four and a half hours, third of which is black and white for no reason.
From Here to Eternity is like that. The book is truly a great piece of literature, but the movie (made in the 1950s) excises pretty much everything worthwhile in the book. Just as one example, the book has a character who can’t get any contact with women in pre-war Hawaii so he starts getting blowjobs from gay men in parks. Eventually he builds up so much guilt from this that he shoots himself in the head in the barracks. I can’t remember whether the character was even in the movie but obviously no hint of those activities show up. There’s also the main character taking up with a prostitute who is magically not a prostitute at all in the movie.
The book has so much stuff like this in it that I can’t understand why they even tried to make a movie out of it in 1953.
Yeah it’s been a long time since I read it but I remember the giant pussy storyline. Seems weird now that you point it out.
It’s kind of weird, but I find that the higher a film is rated by film critics and websites, the less I tend to enjoy it.
A lot of film critique industry is based upon fart-sniffing snobbery.
It’s like a game of one-upsmanship on how much “meaning” you can
inventderive from dull, self-important drudgery and the more masochistic your movie-watching experience, the more “refined” you are.Source: had to study media crit and industry a lot in school.
It’s like the
modern art
money laundering
Industry…but at 25 frames per second!
(Or some arbitrary frame rate to stir further controversy)
I can’t remember the name of the film but there is one film released relatively recently that’s just a series of photographs. Set to music.
It’s literally slower than one frame per second.
Is it a Terrence Malick film?
Respectfully of course, that sounds quite literally like it’s a really long slideshow? 🤔
but what if i like the way quentin tarantinos ass fart? what therefore then?
foot
you make an adulterously valid point
That’s why I find it important to look at both critic and user reviews. If they agree, they’re probably right. If they disagree things get interesting.
If critics liked it, but audiences disliked it, it’s probably technically good but boring. If critics disliked it, but audiences liked it, it’s probably kinda bad but exciting.
Both are also affected by social media, especially user scores, so if “the Internet” hates/loves something if can be unfairly inflated/deflated.
New, but not brand new, films also usually have a more accurate score. I enjoyed The Godfather, so I would rate it positively, but if I didn’t like it I’m probably not rating it at all. I saw it X years ago and unless it was absolutely terrible or I have a vivid memory of disliking it, I’m just going to ignore it.
If critics liked it, but audiences disliked it, it’s probably technically good but boring.
Or it’s something fresh instead of the same junk that critics had seen hundreds of times (literally), whereas most of the public can’t be arsed with original but marginal concepts.
I imagine if all you do is watch films, you get tired of common stuff. You’ve seen it before. But if you only watch films sometimes, some of that is still interesting to you.
Kind of like how some video game nerds will be only “only double soj 2x blan Blah is viable” but like other builds do fine for everything except some optional mega bosses
Full time critics must be weird to talk with for any length of time. I know my own work bleeds into my perceptions and interests, and can’t help but think that critics have their judging hats on for routine, everyday affairs. Imagine your partner sitting in the passenger seat, idly commenting on the lighting of a city park as you drive past (I don’t have to imagine, lol, because my partner does amateur film work as a side gig and he loves to talk about his cameras).
Film critics are like friends: you need to choose a few that share your taste, and stick with them. For me it’s Moviebob, Redletter Media and Patrick H Willems. They appreciate whacky shit as much as I do.
That’s called being a contrarian
The inverse of Rotten Tomatoes is a good measurement of how I’d enjoy a movie.
It insists upon itself.
Precisely
The first one is… Fine. The other two are a fuckin slog.
I’d say the 1st and 3rd are blehh, and the second is okay
Does that one show a bunch of Italy? I didn’t mind that.
I feel like a lot of these films are important because they did something first. The problem is that it doesn’t mean that film did it best.
I’ve always talked about The Rolling Stones like this. I respect what they did, but I was born when rock had really gone beyond it. The Beatles too for the most part. Even a lot of '80s punk. I wanted faster, heavier, more technical. All the old stuff just felt basic to me, but I know it’s a matter of perspective.
The Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, these guys were inventing the sound of rock. I think they’re fantastic musicians. But Rush and Pink Floyd stand out more to me as timeless art.
Those artists arrived much later than the invention of rock. It was invented by Chuck Berry and other black artists in the US during the 50s.
I didn’t think my point needed a “history of music” lesson attached. The rock bands of the 60s were taking the experiments of swing and blues musicians from the decade prior and refining them into the aggressive, over-driven and distorted arrangements. Not “rock & roll”.
The Stones could write one hell of a catchy, riff, hook, and chorus tho. Their sloppy musicianship (im being generous) is part of their charm.
Im sure they invented a sound as much as any of the other groups that get credited with that nonsense.
And then there’s movies like Dr Strangelove, where I had no idea that old movies could be that entertaining still. Though it has been at least a decade since I watched it, I bet it still stands, even if it invented the iconic “ride a nuke like a cowboy” image.
Also the whole Soviets built a doomsday device but didn’t tell the world about it, which reality copied (eventually they told the world).
I mean it isn’t an automated doomsday device, just some generals in a bunker who could send the command if moscow vanishes, the same way the US president can via the Nuclear Football.
As I recall, it was a combo of automated and manual and they went public with the info because they lost knowledge of how it all worked.
I believe there’s a copypasta/good comment floating around out there from the reddit days that details everything that has been referenced about the godfather films, and so, if you watch many movies that are popular or considered good, you’ve already seen almost everything that stands out in the godfather films. Throw in the great many improvements in cameras, acting methods/filming techniques, and the ‘drift’ that means one generation prefers certain tropes/themes/scenes/actions over others, and of course an older film is going to be less entertaining for us.
It’s also written for a different time. Shakespeare is the classic example for this problem, where his plots are timeless and his plays are so Elizabethan that they famously bore teenagers forced to read them, yet simultaneously will be adapted into very popular media somewhat regularly.
Yeah, My kids/teens don’t have the patience for anything old.
We were used to watching the storyteller unfold the tablecloth, neatly set out the plates, polish all the silverware, light the candles, place the napkins, and even the chairs in anticipation, then clap while they covered the whole meal. We were thrilled to notice how that fork being slightly off snowballed into a murder scene. Nothing exciting happened in the first half of anything while they setup the story.
You have about 5-10 minutes these days to cast the first hook or they’ll be asking to watch some short form videos.
Also known as “the Seinfeld effect”.
If you don’t care for it, don’t let people make you watch it.
No one (sane) will go “Oh! you have to go to this 4 hour 17th century italian Opera with me! You will love it!” .You don’t “have to” value any kind of art. If you don’t, you don’t. That said, it might be worth trying at least once, you never know if you find something that stays with you.
“Oh! you have to go to this 4 hour 17th century italian Opera with me! You will love it!”
So you’ve never been dragged to Swan Lake?
I personally would probably enjoy it. At least the Ballet part. And i always carry ear buds, so the terrible opera style singing can be dealt with.
Oh yeah it wasn’t bad, just long as shit for someone who isn’t into ballet.
If you are a user of any mind altering substances, or have any interest in starting, it might be worth giving the movie or show another try in that state. Assuming your chosen goodies leave you coherent and able to form memories, lol.
And it’s not just to put you in a good mood, though that certainly helps. Maybe it’s just the spicy neurons in my case, but being high can qualitatively change the experience of how I relate to characters. (not extreme like empathy on / empathy off, sometimes things might just land different)
The Godfather is far from being a difficult movie to watch. It has a rich story, plenty of action, great scenes,… You want serious stuff? Try Nouvelle Vague French movies from Eric Rhomer or Jean-Luc Godard, German or Finnish movies where absolutely nothing happens and it’s just people eating soup. Try Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise. It’s great, it’s a classic, but you’re going die out of boredom if The Godfather is already too much for you.
Yeah, some of these criticisms are bad just on their face. Godfather is too slow for you? Come on. Is Rambo to slow for you as well? What about Speed?
Some of this just feels like kids who just graduated from watching Paw Patrol deciding they should veto what anyone else puts on the TV.
If you want to throw a fit because everything isn’t Marvel, I guess that’s fine for you. But don’t be shocked when you’re not invited back to College Movie Night.
But I can’t watch the Godfather and doomscroll at the same time, so it’s objectively bad.
Try Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise. It’s great, it’s a classic, but you’re going die out of boredom if The Godfather is already too much for you.
And if you survive that you can move right on to Eraserhead.
Everyone in this thread is wrong.
God damn, i’ve never seen a comment that was more fucking correct than this. Bravo.
You DON’T like suck on strangers’ balls!
So are you😃
This sentence is a lie.
Which means at least one of us is right!
Can you guess who?
Who would your brother say is right?
It insists upon itself.
I have the opposite issue. I tend to only enjoy older films. Recent films tend to have this digital colour-graded look and a style of editing (millions of 1 second cuts) that make them pretty much unwatchable for me.
I really love films that take their time, both in plot and character development, as well as in how shots develop to establish the scenes. I also have a passion for photography and for me that’s a really big part of films. I want to see beautiful photographs that took a lot of time and experience to set up (and wait for the right moment, in the case of outdoor scenes). I love practical effects that were built and painted by hand, explosions rigged with real explosives, much more than CGI.
I think there is an issue with attention spans though. The modern films that I mentioned above seem to be ideal for people with short attention spans, whereas older films tend to be boring for these folks. This makes it hard for films to appeal to both audiences!
This video makes some great points about how movies don’t feel real anymore. Digital color grading is part of it, but the very short version is that movies don’t give us the sensory information or speak to us in the visual language that we need to feel like the movie is real. Watching the video gave me a whole vocabulary for how to critique failings in modern movies.
Wow thanks for this! It’s so helpful to learn about and have a language for describing why these new movies feel so wrong to me. I’m going to watch this after work and share it with my film club!
Fully agree about the attention span stuff. I kind of think TV drove it initially, especially animation.
After a season or two The Simpsons started to pick up pace, and for its time it was kind of frenetic. South Park picked up that ball and ran with it. Then when Family Guy came along I thought this is nuts, and I wondered if there wasn’t an active effort to erode attention spans on a large scale.
There are plenty of other examples outside animation, but I picked those because they’re still well known.
I consider myself fortunate to have seen the progression first hand. And to have had an older boss way back who had an infectious love for well made art, particularly in films.
It at least seems like “the classics” were attentive to the craft. When good direction, lighting, angles, music come together I’m enthralled.
I found Sinners to be nice and slow moving for most of it, plus Pluribus the TV show is slow and but l both are cinematic. They are fewer but not gone.
You should watch 2001 A space Odyssey it is exactly like this.
It is a historical documentary set in the early days of AI and Space Travel before SpaceX and ChatGPT, it’s kinda neet to see how far we’ve came in such a short time though.
In 2006 I fell asleep watching that movie. Highly recommend falling asleep watching that movie. The background noise is artistically stunning and sleep-promoting soothing.
You know what my favorite food is? A plain pepperoni pizza. Absolutely love it.
You can take me out to dinner to the fanciest restaurant: five Michelin stars, the best trained chefs, the most expensive ingredients, the perfect ambience… and it would be utterly wasted on me. Because nothing beats a plain pepperoni pizza.
Some people are like that with movies. Even movies which are objectively some of the best ever produced in the history of cinema, will have people who don’t like them. And that’s perfectly fine.
Plain and pepperoni are two different things!
In a similar vein, I’m a sausage pie guy. Give me some ground sausage on pizza and I’ll eat that for life. Anytime I get together with people, there’s always the “what toppings” discussion, and people bring their fucking bullshit to the table, and I say get sausage, and people go mehhh mehhh mehhh, and you know what? Everyone eats the goddamn sausage, and were left with olives and mushrooms, and peppers and onions, and fucking Hawaiian.
So I appreciate it. The classics are classics for a reason.
I think they meant it like “plain ol’pepperoni pizza”
Well, it’s just pain compared to some other options :D
I love sausage on pizza though! Meatballs, minced meat as well. And I recently discovered ‘nduja, ever had that? Tastes great on pizza. It’s a spicy, spreadable pork sausage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Nduja
I do also enjoy a Hawaiian on occasion though…
You might want to actually try one of those fancy restaurants, you might be surprised.
But also maybe it’s better to not bother and be happy with what you gotOh I’ve been to some :D
One time our boss took us to a fancy restaurant that had a Michelin-starred chef owner. We did some ad work and publicity for him, so this was sort of a thank you, and a way for him to go all out and make a surprise menu to try things. Basically, we were dining for free there.
They go all out. Nine course meal. And as you’d expect, that means giant plates with tiny portions.
Now, thing is… our company is more of a steakhouse crowd.
Halfway through, they serve a perfect steak. Cooked to heavenly perfection. Best steak I’ve ever had in my entire life. And garnished with gourmet fries. They serve those in this tiny ramekin, intended to share. Basically, everyone gets a handful of fries.
One colleague sees the steak, grabs three ramekins and proceeds to load up his plate. He promptly flags the waitress and asks ‘hey, can you get some more fries?’.
Waitress comes back with some more. Colleague again: ‘hey uh, you wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of curry sauce?’ The look on her face was priceless. That was not a question this restaurant had ever had. ‘I’ll go ask… the chef’
Luckily the chef had a good sense of humor about him: out comes this wild, tattooed, giant bearded mountain of a man carrying the biggest kitchen knife I’ve ever seen. ‘WHO’S THE FUCKER WHO JUST ORDERED CURRY SAUCE IN MY RESTAURANT??’ Colleague meekly raises his hand. Chef hands him the bottle of curry sauce he was holding behind his back 😂
Not only do I love the Godfather and The Godfather Part 2, but this past weekend my wife and I watched the Godfather Epic. It’s the first two movies edited together in chronological order. It’s a bit more than 7 hours in one movie.
It would probably kill you.
Yesterday afternoon, my wife had a doctor’s appointment at the hospital. When she was in the lobby, someone was playing the Godfather theme on a piano. Then I see this post. The universe can seem weird sometimes.
I got to watch this! I didn’t know it existed!
Also, check out The Offer on Netflix. It’s about the making of the godfather. Was a fun watch.
And then, sometimes, you watch it years or decades later and it clicks. And other times you are just convinced everyone who likes it are saying so because critics like it.
I was like this with 2001: A Space Odessy. I love Kubrick, I love sci-fi, I even like art that may require a change in perspective/that is more abstract and I’m an old movie buff. Yet Space Odessy wasn’t for me for some reason. It’s long, streched-out and has some scenes you wish would already end by the second minute, yet they last for 20. I liked the surreal bits a lot but for the almost 3 hours it took to watch it I really can’t say I was entertained.
I ended up watching Interstellar later and while it’s far from Space Odessy in artistic value I ended up feeling that was more like the movie I wanted Space Odessy to be. Obviously they are not very similar but it had some concepts that without watching I hoped Kubrick already figured out for some reason.
Interstellar is a very plot driven movie, it’s leads you by the hand saying “these things are happening, in this order, and it’s interesting and engaging”, and when the movie is done you get it: the journey is at an end, and the good guys conquered the big problems, emotions were felt along the way, and you’re not really left with any lingering questions afterwards. It’s a great movie, but it’s also a rather easy movie to enjoy if you’re into space stuff.
Whereas 2001, aside from being an absolute visual feast, is more abstract and theme driven, about humanity’s place in the cosmos, and it makes you ask deeper questions, but you must actually pay attention and discover those questions and explore them in your own mind to actually engage with the movie. It’s not a passive experience, and your engagement with the movie can stay with you for days. It’s certainly a much more difficult movie to enjoy.
When I was in my 20s, I hated movies like 2001 and Bladerunner, I found them so tedious, because I wanted scifi like Aliens goddammit. Later, I learned to really enjoy these more cerebral movies that took effort to engage with, because they were so rewarding when that effort paid off.
easy ≠ bad
Quoting myself:
It’s a great movie
So: ???
The book is better anyway
I think the book and movie work best as companion pieces. Experience both, either order works but I prefer the film first for the spectacle and mystery.
