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Entries in The Godfather (21)

Saturday
Aug272016

Tweetweek: Braindead Marquees and Out-of-the-Box Casting

I don't know if I like the sound of this double feature...

After the jump funny tweet games, supportive boyfriends, The Night Of casting, a dissolve from The Godfather, a proposed franchise for Hugh Jackman, FYC Ellen Burstyn, and a little webslinging... 

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Tuesday
Mar242015

Q&A Part 2: Guilty Pleasures, Boytoys, and Best Animated Feature

Yesterday I  answered reader questions about film sets worth living in and all time favorite actors and I hope that conversation keeps going because I haven't heard from too many of you what your choices are. There were so many good question this week let's keep the party going for an extra day. Here's the next six questions featuring Guilty Pleasures, Oscar's Best Animated Feature and Unseen Classics. One question will be answered in a forthcoming theme week that's already been planned and one final question is getting its own post. 

You can't say we've been slacking here at TFE.

LADY EDITH: Do you have a favorite Altman? 

I do. And it's no contest. I just shout Nashville (1975) as enthusiastically and loudly as I can when asked. Which is not to dismiss the rest of Robert Altman's always at least interesting filmography. My other two favorites are Three Women (1977) for its psychosexual actressing and Gosford Park (2001) for the sheer pleasure of it but I love his movies... well, maybe not Dr T and the Women but I love quite a few of his movies.

JEFF: What's your biggest guilty pleasure movie? Or a movie that most of the readers would be surprised that you happen to love.

After so many years writing online about movies I fear I have no secrets left. I love the usual guilty pleasures and probably talk about them too much (Xanadu and Showgirls chief among them). I suppose in terms of things I rarely write about the #1 guilty pleasure would be that I do kind of have a (small) thing for B grade action movies and affection for the sometimes limited actors that star in them like Jean Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham, and Schwarzenegger of course. This is not a blanket genre appreciation; I never was interested if the movie starred Steven Seagal or Sylvester Stallone. I've seen Highlander (1986) with Christopher Lambert several times because my brother and his friends loved it. I loved Universal Soldier (1992) for some reason. One truly terrible movie that I used to enjoy with an old friend was Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) starring Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee. This actually happens in it...

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Tuesday
Aug122014

Curio: Jason Bryant's Skater Film Stills

Alexa here with your weekly art appreciation.  Like many, movies were a way for Jason Bryant to escape the difficulties of childhood. Growing up in rural North Carolina, he loved to draw; as he got older, painting became his passion.  He often painted while listening to the soundtracks of his favorite films, and the images and emotions evoked made their way to his canvases. His work has evolved into photo-realistic paintings of classic film stills combined with skateboard graphics and pixelation. He often paints on skateboards themselves. He explores the facades of living, the act of "us[ing] smoke and mirrors to convey a polished life but sometimes it’s broken."  

For Sake of Family

Jason's take on Gilda, North by Northwest and more after the jump...


Nothing Left To Give

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Monday
May192014

RIP: Gordon Willis, cinematography of "The Godfather", "Manhattan", "All the President's Men"...

Here's one of my personal favorite critics, Tim Brayton, with a gracious crossposting of his lovely obituary for one of the greatest cinematographers who ever lived. - Nathaniel


It’s not tragic when an 82-year-old man, who had been happily retired for 17 years, following an incredibly strong and well-regarded career, dies. Any of us would be lucky and blessed to have that kind of live and that kind of death. But the loss of Gordon Willis on May 18 is heartbreaking anyway: it’s always heartbreaking when a true genius, visionary, and leader of his field passes away.

Willis was the most important cinematographer of the last 50 years of cinema. I don't know of any clearer or more concise way of putting it. If he'd only shot The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II, a pair of films that fundamentally altered the way people used lighting and focus and the peculiar film stock of '70s American filmmaking, he would be one of the great masters of his field, and his passing a day of mourning for all cinephiles.

A beauty break featuring some of his greatest achievements after the jump...

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Thursday
Apr042013

Burning Questions: Can a Bad Sequel Diminish a Classic?

Michael C here. When you tune in to the movie chatter frequency one of unavoidable refrains you hear is that such and such sequel has spoiled a classic film. You know the drill. Part III forever tarnished The Godfather, turning a perfect two-part saga into a disappointing, lopsided trilogy. Oliver Stone ruined Gordon Gekko by dragging him out for a belated encore.  “Blah blah Jim Carrey blah blah The Grinch blah blah blah MY CHILDHOOD!”  

And so on.

This chorus was most recently heard lamenting the way Oz the Great and Powerful helped itself to a box office bonanza by trampling the sterling legacy of the Judy Garland classic. Next it will be Evil Dead’s turn to besmirch the memory of a cult classic. Amid all outraged accusations of violence towards film history shouldn’t we stop to consider if the basic idea has merit? Can an inferior sequel actually diminish the standing of a classic? 

Let me state right up front my answer is a firm “No, it can’t.” Except when it can. Let me back up...

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