[civilian_number_two]

You guys have no respect for the 'classics".

How dare you? I respect the "classics," which is why I call Coppola a sell-out for making sequels to his initial masterpiece. The chief plot detail of the third film, that Michael is drawn back into the crime he has allegedly been trying to escape (cough! Bullshit! cough!), was handled masterfully in the final shot of THE GODFATHER. Damn, Dianne Keaton was acting with the very hair on her neck in that scene. Everything after that final shot is wanking for dollars.

I wouldn't call the series "Greek tragedy," but if you must, you should note that the majority of the Greek tragedies are pretty lame as far as stories go. They are predictable and simplistic templates, so the comparison actually tends to bring a film down rather than to build it up. Not to say that Coppola wouldn't enjoy it; he's probably used the analogy himself. It's just the sort of pretentious aspiring-to-greatness that had him call an actress a "cunt" in front of his crew (Winona Ryder, DRACULA). Directing, you see.

I know a lot of folk like the second film, and I can forgive that since it's not terrible. But the third movie has literally no purpose. Everything that happens in it has already happened. This is where it differs from the "Greek Tragedy" you want to compare it with. What I'll say for those classics is they weren't so god-damned repetitive, and they never starred Sophia Coppola (as a substitute for the only-slightly-worse Winona Ryder (from DRACULA)).

GOODFELLAS is not what I would call a "docudrama," even though that's of course what it is. Since we're using hyperbole, I would call it an anthropological reconstruction. Scorsese was genius on that film, just like he would be later with THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (wherein the much-better-than-Coppola director drew a nuanced peformance out of Ms Ryder; watch DRACULA for the compare/contrast).

I differ from Vwing in that I also like THE GODFATHER, but I don't appreciate its portrayal of the mafia. Coppola romanticized organized crime all out of proportion. His characters come straight out of GQ, while Scorsese's look like they come out of ... well ... the mafia.

[Vwing]

No Civ, you don't differ from me. I agree with you completely, and that's one of the reasons I love Goodfellas. I'm just saying that I accepted the romanticism of the mafia in the Godfather in the beginning, since I knew that that is what it would be, and went from there, loving it as a movie and not for its portrayal of the mafia, which obviously, when one thinks about it, is ridiculous. But how that portrayal is used works in the context of the movie, and Scorse's different and more realistic approach, showing them as mean-spirited animals who don't have any loyalty for family or respect of any kind which was shown in Coppola's film works (brilliantly) in the context of his movie.

[civilian_number_two]

Oh, ok. Sorry; I had to walk the dog and wasn't reading very carefully. I guess I only disagree with you in that I'm not a fan of the second film.