Yup! Funnily enough PF is character driven, but the characters are far more likeable and warmer and personable than the Corleones. Any feelings/thoughts on The Wire, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad? And Mad Men, even?

I think so too! I mean, what do you think of Pulp Fiction or The Departed or The Town? Or No Country for Old Men or Fargo? Since I think those are much more plot driven movies.

Intereeeeeeeeesting, since Kubrick is actually often seen as the slow and ponderous and boring director! Though the three Kubrick films you mentioned are much more "pop entertainment", if you will, than stuff like 2001 or Barry Lyndon.

Ari Aster is excellent though! And a huge Kubrick fan! Eggers is too, I believe.

But yeah, The Godfather is paced a lot more like War and Peace or Crime and Punishment or something like that. It's not a crime film like pop culture makes it out to be. Godfather is quite far away from the modern crime dramas on TV that it helped inspire.

How does Part III compare to the other 2 for you? Really happy to see people really enjoying Part III! Versus pretending it doesn't exist, which even Obama and Vince Gilligan have said that yeah, they pretend Part III never happened.

I really love Part III myself, so.

What are some of your own favorite films? I very much understand how the pace of Godfather is deeply slow, and I felt the same on my first watch as well.

Interesting that you don't like Part 2 as much! Since I think yeah, I guess you respond to the aspect of Godfather that is a pure family epic, rather than a political epic/tragedy. As in, bizarrely enough, it's closer to Forrest Gump than Oliver Stone's Nixon.

What did you think of it!

I actually think the best way to see Godfather (which is also my vote for greatest American film, over Kane, 2001, and Vertigo) is historical chronicle. If you want a similar movie/film, you could tell the story of the Syrian Civil War from the perspective of a single (preferably rich and powerful) family, or the story of the first 10 years of Vietnam after America left the country.

Even a biopic of like, someone like Lenin or Mao would replicate the feel and scale of The Godfather.

Idk though! Part of the reason the film is so legendary is how much it sums up 20th century American history.

The replacement of family values with soulless capitalism WAS a thing that actually happened, like the Underground Railroad.

I think to separate the history from the film is to not understand why it’s so often held up as The Great American Film.

Hmmm! What do you mean exactly?

What about it makes it a crime drama rather than a historical drama? Only Becuase the films feel soooooooo much more interested in the culture of wealthy Italian Americans in the mid-20th century, than it does the criminal antics of its main cast.

Very cool! Any other recs? Interesting that all three are like, shows to transport you to other worlds!

I like pretty much everything! And am able to watch more or less anything!

Which shows have you been watching that you could recommend I look into?

As television and popular film merge into this bizarre, unnatural monster called "content", this is indeed what will happen!

To be less negative, film and television are basically the same now. Television used to be always airing, and had these massive 26 episode seasons, most of which were episodic. Now, television is going after being 10-50 hour movies, it seems like.

Yup! My understanding is that for a lot of faith based people, they feel the only real way to bring that faith into the world is through politics. To them, the separation of church and state is a non-sequitur.

The Islamist philosopher Sayyid Qutab (who influenced a half century now of radical Islamism) felt that that idea of separation of the material and spiritual worlds agreed on in Ancient Greece is the central mistake of the Western world, that has caused all of its suffering. The way around that suffering IS making church and state one and the same.

I feel like a lot the modern radical Christian movement in America has arrived at that same thought, albeit usually less well-articulated, and aided by good old, Roman Empire style imperialism and racism.

Unfortunately, I do think the rest of the 21st century will be about a return to faith for many people, given the grim predictions for the century. Simply put, it's hard for humans to survive not believing in anything. It seems there's a need to have faith in something you can't prove. Empiricism seems to have its limits. Which is something the mullahs of Iran do understand, unfortunately.

Have spent the last year and a half working on an epic play about the Revolution! And what motivated/is behind both the 1979 Revolution, and the current world's falling back to religion.

I do think the Iranian mullahs, and most religious people even, do have a case for a faith-based life, rather than a purely empirical evidence based on.