I have thought about writing a review about perhaps the greatest movie ever made or that will ever be made for quite some time now. One of the things I thought would be the most challenging about writing a review about The Godfather is, how can anyone define why or how a movie is great? Then I thought that this is really very easy to do. When the title of a movie is mentioned, do you remember the movie, because the majority of movies are mostly forgettable? Then, after the title of the movie is mentioned, how many pictures come to your head? How many scenes do you remember? What about the dialogue, the music? Considering these basic facts about any great movie, it is easy to believe that the Godfather is the greatest movie ever made because so many great scenes immediately come to mind and then you remember the great dialogue and musical score.

When the director of the Godfather Francis Ford Coppola was directing the Godfather, there had to be some worry not only with him but with the actors and producers that for the first time Hollywood was be showing the inside world of the Mafia and some of the most dangerous people on earth. There had to be some concern about possible retribution and even some backlash from Italian Americans who thought that this movie might show all Italians in a bad light and not just the murderers and criminals that are in the Mafia. On top of the greatness of this film, even considering doing a project like this took a great deal of courage.

When I think about the Godfather, released in 1972 and Godfather 2, released in 1974, and even Godfather 3 released in 1990 many great scenes and dialogue immediately come to mind. Without a doubt, I think that the scene where Michael Corleone comes out of the bathroom with a gun and is about to shoot two deserving lowlife at close range is the most tension filled scene that has ever been shot for any movie. The camera angles, the depressing dark environment of the restaurant, the look on Corleone’s face for the minutes before he stood up and shot these two men, the close range shooting of the police officer shot in the neck and forehead and Sollozzo in his forehead and then Micheal walking almost calmly out of the restaurant, while throwing away the gun.

When people are asked about the Godfather, more than likely the first scene they think about is the horse’s head scene that was horrible and shocking, but very effective. Killing an animal must be very easy for people who can kill a person almost as if it was like brushing your teeth and this was made very clear in this scene. What I remember the most about this scene is not only the screaming of the movie producer but the nauseous sounding version of the Godfather theme that was played before he discovers the horses head in his bed.

Other scenes that stand out as some of the best ever filmed include Sonny Corleone’s assassination at the toll one of the most brutal murders ever filmed but true to the type of killings that the Mafia considered commonplace.

Throughout the Godfather trilogy, the pattern of killing for revenge provides the greatest insight into the precarious world of living within a Mafia family. If you kill indiscriminately as if you are in a war, it is inevitable that one day your time is coming.

I also remember Godfather 3, that was released in later 1990 and was never as critically acclaimed as the previous two films as having one of the greatest scenes of acting I have ever seen when Michael Corleone’s daughter was killed at the end of the movie. This has to be the most difficult scene Al Pacino ever had to film and his emotions were the most real and grief filled I have ever seen. The end of this movie and the Godfather trilogy showed that after all the bad things that Micheal Corleone did in his life, in the end, he had to pay the ultimate price with his own daughter being murdered right in front of him. In the end, all of us want to believe that if you do evil to others that one day you will have to pay a price for what you did and this one scene at the very end of the Godfather trilogy showed that better than any film ever has.

For me, the ultimate measure of the greatness of any film are the pictures that come into your mind and the dialogue and the music that you remember and no movie has as much of this as the Godfather. What is most remarkable about the first two Godfather movies is that the first one came out 45 long years ago, and to this day, no movie has come close to approaching how great these two films are. The entire cast of this movie, many who have long past, would all have to agree that the highlight of their entire acting careers was the miracle of them being cast in the Godfather.

Perhaps the reason why the screenplay for “Table 19” was greenlighted to be made into a movie had more to do with the fact that this specific idea was never attempted before: A group of strangers meet during a wedding reception, all at table 19 and through their conversations about their private lives at the table, start to bond and interact with each other and have issues with other people at the reception. While this idea is a unique one, it is definitely not compelling enough or interesting enough to hold anyone’s attention for two hours or even the 90 minutes of this movie, especially since the stories each of these people have to share are not interesting enough by themselves to hold your attention.

Anna Kendrick has been great in the first two Pitch Perfect movies and I am sure she will be great in the 3rd one. She is a good enough singer to have her own album released at some point during her career. Hopefully, she will have another movie in the near future that is up to her academy award winning performance in “Up in the Air” that was released in 2009, because this one was just average at best. The pairing of Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson as husband and wife not only didn’t work but really didn’t make any sense. This could be the worst casting for two parts I have ever seen in any movie.

I think this movie was supposed to be a comedy and a drama, or what is called a dramedy, but neither the comedy or drama parts worked for any length of time. This is another movie that you cannot believe was actually made, considering the millions of dollars wasted and the good or great movie that was not made instead with the screenplay still sitting on some producer’s shelf for many years. This film should be completely avoided and considering I was the only one in the theater I was in, probably already has been by most everybody.

There will probably always be a new King Kong movie every few years, the last King Kong came out in 2005 and was a remake of the original King Kong that came out in 1933 and the second remake that came out in 1976. The new movie Kong Skull Island is not a remake of the original story of King Kong but rather a series of events that happen on the Island that Kong inhabits and unlike the 3 previous movies, Kong is not removed from his Island to become a side show and then wind up on the top of the Empire State Building or the former World Trade Center. This movie occurs entirely on Skull Island, and it involves the special effects that are not quite as good as the 2005 version. Despite this, the special effects are impressive, but not as impressive as the 2005 version, regardless of the improvements in computer technology in the last 12 years. What stands out as better in this latest version is mostly the acting of Samuel L. Jackson and mostly the close-ups of his face, as he stares down Kong during several battles that occur not only with Kong but other creatures that Kong shares the jungle with. Some flaws in this movie include the opening helicopter scene where Kong knocks several helicopters out of the sky very easily so you would think that most of the rest of them would go out of their way to avoid this huge animal but instead, one by one, about 10 helicopters are destroyed by Kong and fall to the ground, killing the majority of the inhabitants on board.

After this, the story follows three different landing parties, one with mostly military, another with one isolated soldier and the third with civilians. For the remainder of this movie, there is not much of a story, other than the survivors being attacked and killed by huge lizard-like creatures on the island while the remaining survivors trying to find each other. One unusual twist on this Kong Skull Island idea is one of the surviving groups discover a World War 2 veteran who crashed landed on the island 28 years earlier as the time period of this movie is 1972. John C. Reilly plays the World War 2 pilot and provides some comic relief in this movie as people are being attacked and killed on a very frequent basis. Like most movies like this, it is all about the special effects and not much else. There are several big stars, Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, John C. Reilly and of course Samuel L. Jackson and they were hired to bring in more people to the theaters who might not necessarily be big fans of movies like this.

See this movie for the special effects and action scenes, but there is not much else here as far as a unique story. I give this movie only a mild recommendation.

King Kong (Extended Version)

King Kong – Ultimate Edition (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD)

King Kong (1933)