Two weeks ago, my wife made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She suggested I watch The Godfather.
For most of you that wouldn’t be worthy of a blog post. But I’m 43 years old and I had never seen The Godfather. And it’s not just that movie. Most of the biggest movies ever have eluded me.
When I worked with Jeffrey Zeldman, he would quote some famous line like “We’ll always have Paris” and I would reply “That’s from a movie, right?” It drove him nuts. We are talking about movies like Casablanca, Raging Bull, Citizen Kane, Psycho, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs and The Maltese Falcon.
Of course I know plenty of lines from those movies. I’ve just never gotten around to watching them.
I recently told Niki that I wanted to start crossing these off of my list, so one evening while she was getting the kids to bed she suggested I watch that one.
I checked Netflix. No luck. So much for having a deep catalog. Hulu? Not a chance. I ended up renting it from iTunes on my Apple TV.
Here is what I learned:
- The Godfather is three hours long.
- Abe Vigoda’s career didn’t start and end with Barney Miller and Fish.
- Talia Shire has played at least one more character than Rocky’s wife Adrian.
- Although The Sopranos was pitched as having all the mafia action of The Godfather plus a bunch of family drama, The Godfather has plenty of family drama.
Most importantly, I am no longer a guy who has seen James Caan in Elf six times — unaware that he was in The Godfather.
It’s just one movie, but it’s a pretty good start.
And it’s all about momentum, right?
Brian Alvey 