Just watched "The Godfather" and it sucks

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DrPizza

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
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www.slatebrookfarm.com
Let's see... It won the Academy Award for best picture, best actor in a leading role, best writing, screenplay based on material from another medium. Three nominations for best supporting actor, best director, best costume design, best sound, best film editing, best music - original dramatic score. In the Golden Globes, it won Best Motion Picture - Drama, best motion picture actor - drama, best director - motion picture, best screenplay, and best original score. It was also nominated for best motion picture actor in a drama, best supporting actor, ... Not to mention the other awards it's won.

I'm not going to even go out on a limb here. I believe that I've adequately found evidence to back up the following statement: the OP's opinion about movies is pretty poor. There are a lot of movies that *I* don't like, but which are outstanding movies. In fact, there are movies that you couldn't pay me to watch again. But, I'm not stupid enough to think that because the movie doesn't match the style of movie I enjoy, that means it's a bad movie.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,695
31,043
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I don't know you, OP, but I hate you.


Oh, you think Shawshank Redemption is that good?

Now I am absolutely sure I hate you. wtf.
 
Imp

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
18,828
184
106
Last time I tried watching it, I fell asleep. To be fair, it was on at 12am and it was a Friday night.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,695
31,043
146
Doppel said:
Honestly the movie just fucking sucks. I've tried it several times. It's just flat out damned boring as hell. Furthest I ever got was half way through the second one and completely lost interest.

I'm not surprised to see people unable to tolerate criticism of a film they love assume you must be stupid to hate it, though. It's something we often see. I would probably pile wrath on a person who hated Terminator 2 (a massively better movie than Godfather).
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This is something that only stupid people say.

Are you saying that you are a stupid person?

(I love T2, of course--but it's obviously also not as good as T1, so there's that)
 
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smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
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zinfamous said:
This is something that only stupid people say.

Are you saying that you are a stupid person?

(I love T2, of course--but it's obviously also not as good as T1, so there's that)
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I am entirely convinced that after The Terminator, James Cameron sold his soul to the devil so all his movies, regardless of actual quality, be hailed as masterpieces. See Titanic and Avatar.

Don't get me wrong, Terminator 2 was good, but it wasn't near the level that The Terminator was at.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,695
31,043
146
smackababy said:
I am entirely convinced that after The Terminator, James Cameron sold his soul to the devil so all his movies, regardless of actual quality, be hailed as masterpieces. See Titanic and Avatar.

Don't get me wrong, Terminator 2 was good, but it wasn't near the level that The Terminator was at.
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Well, I think Titanic was still very good. It annoyed me for the most part, but it was a solid film for what it was.

The Abyss was also fantastic and for my money, the last great "80's style 'action flick'," was True Lies (yes, well after the 80s, but it was glorious).

His Ex Wife makes better movies now, though. ;)
 
angminas

angminas

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2006
3,331
26
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I've seen it several times over a period of about 30 years. It's okay, even very good when adjusted for its era. But it's tremendously overrated.
 
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Exophase

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2012
4,439
9
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I watch a fair amount of movies, at least a few hundred over the past several years, and I didn't really like The Godfather that much either. I'd hardly say it felt like a "bad" movie and I do feel like I at least partially understand what people find so praiseworthy in it, but I'm not going to pretend I enjoyed it more than I did. It's not just that it was boring (although it was boring), but I didn't find the storyline compelling at a fundamental level, didn't appreciate or identify with the characters or their development (Micheal's transition from alleged disinterest in the business to full mob boss mode was especially aggravating). Even some of the major themes, particularly those about family, felt trite to me. I get that the cinematography and score are excellent but that didn't do that much for me. At times it did seem to deliberately alienate its audience to stick to the integrity of its vision (not to channel Peter Griffin but the Italian scene..) - now I'm sure that was sincere and not and not an attempt to flaunt its artistic merit. Or not. I don't really care either way, it took me out of the movie.

For whatever it's worth, I don't tend to enjoy raw action movies very much either. I've liked movies with a lot of slow atmospheric sections (like 2001) or even ones that were little more than high concept bottle episodes (The Man From Earth, for example). On the other hand, it is possible that I do have some kind of a bias against mobster movies for some reason, although I haven't seen that many.

What is interesting is that you can only seem to find anything less than highly praising reviews by going back to around when the movie first showed in theaters. It's like it's become taboo to dislike the movie, because everyone knows it's wonderful. I've always felt that appreciation of movies was mostly subjective and never really cared that much for the "correct" valuation of them. This opinion is clearly in the minority. It's unfortunate, in this case if you admit you didn't like the movie people won't just call you wrong but get pretty angry about it. You could probably get away with saying a lot more negativity about Shakespeare.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
14,937
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brainhulk said:
I liked the Godfather. Some acting was good. Some was really bad. Maybe it's predictable to you now because everybody after copied it?
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Yeah - that's something that happens a lot. A lot of 'classics' don't seem as great to later generations because by that time everything it does has become commonplace and they aren't experiencing it in the same context. Its often 'you had to be there at the time'.

There's a lot of things that didn't seem that big a deal to me, but only later when reading about how it appeared at the time (or speaking to people about it) did I get some inkling of how it appeared then.

That's the weird thing for me, when you later get a glimpse of how it looked through contemporary eyes. Its a strange juxtaposition of getting some idea of how they saw it yet knowing you'll never actually be able to see it the way they did.

Watching Psycho for example, I didn't see what the big deal was at all. Only when hearing a discussion of it later did I realise things like the dissonant soundtrack being novel at the time, or Janet Leigh being a big star (I had no clue who she was) so audiences would be shocked at her being killed off so quickly [is that a spoiler?])

The Godfather seemed 'not bad' to me, but I still didn't really see it how people who saw it at the time. Probably because I saw it some time between when it came out and when the OP did so my reaction was half-way between the two.

Happens all the time in music as well.

I wonder if this is true of all big cultural artifacts or if somethings are more era-dependent than others?
 
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Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
2,544
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To be honest I don't remember that movie very well, I watched it as a kid, but that's almost all I remember from it. I don't usually enjoy old movies but there are exception like StarWars, but there are things I didn't like in those movies like very slow and uninteresting light sabers fighting scenes.
 
Meghan54

Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
11,684
5,225
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I just wonder what the op would think of movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Catch-22, or a books like Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, or something easy like The Sirens of Titan.
 
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beginner99

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2009
5,315
1,760
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Exophase said:
It's not just that it was boring (although it was boring), but I didn't find the storyline compelling at a fundamental level, didn't appreciate or identify with the characters or their development (Micheal's transition from alleged disinterest in the business to full mob boss mode was especially aggravating).
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This movie left me cold. plain and simple. And yes it isn't an action movie and about the characters and how they evolve and that is exactly were it doesn't excel either. Can anyone tell me why Michael goes from hero to double-murderer? Just because his daddy, who is a mobster boss, gets shot?

If a movies main thing are the characters and their development, don't make that far fetched or irrelevant. I'm Michaels American wife is pretty much irrelevant. You could cut her out of the film and it would be pretty much the same movie except 5-10 min shorter.
 
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B-Riz

Golden Member
Feb 15, 2011
1,595
762
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+1 to read the book.

I read the book years before I saw the movie; still liked the movie.

And look into a film 101 class...
 
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