a strange choice for best movie (but sure beats LOTR)

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2004)

Hollywood has some strange politics. Note how Civil War movies tend to favor the Confederacy over the Union, and crime movies almost always favor crooks over cops. Yet in real life, even if cops annoy us from time to time, I think we prefer them to murderers and thieves. And even though the Confederacy has a romantic air attached to it, we're all glad that the Union won (the sane ones amongst us, anyhow). Somehow, movies don't quite reflect what we actually think, and we often end up rooting for protagonists that we would hate in real life.
All this build-up leads me to the doubtless controversial statement that I can't really warm to "The Godfather" because it's about a bunch of scuzzballs. I can admire this movie, but I can't love it or relate to it in any way, except maybe as an allegory about the corrupting influence of power. I can't relate to LOTR either, by the way, and I don't think either film deserves the title of "bestest picture ever."
I actually think "The Godfather: Part II" is much better, as it's more concerned with family relationships (the "human" element) than the boring gangster-vs-gangster conflicts that predominate here. And I have a theory that people confuse the first two Godfather films in their minds, combining the best elements of both into some kind of uber-picture that doesn't actually exist (people do the same thing with "Star Wars," mistakenly remembering Yoda and "Luke, I am your father" as elements from the "classic" first film). Most of the famous Godfather scenes are not here, but in the sequel. Here, we get Brando mumbling incoherently - the performance everyone makes fun of.
I prefer "Donnie Brasco" because the character development is richer, and even "A Bronx Tale" because it has a powerful anti-gangster message, and because it meticulously recreates a specific time and neighborhood (as opposed to this film, which creates a gangster fantasy world). But generally speaking, I'll take a straight drama - about people who aren't hit men - any day.