Vote Now: An Offer You Can't Refuse...
The Smackdown. By now it's all become a part of our collective cultural memory -- the horse's head showing up in the bed, making an "offer he can't refuse" and that haunting score by Nino Rota. Imagine being in the theaters though, almost four decades ago when the original "The Godfather" was in release back in 1972. 
For years new viewers of the Godfather Trilogy were exposed to either increasingly degraded theatrical prints or VHS or DVD copies that were, in many cases, even worse. For the past two years, though, Francis Ford Coppola and a small army of digital restoration experts have been at work reclaiming the golden glory for high-definition Blu-ray, standard DVD and even a few more theatrical prints out in some major cities. It's not the purpose of this Smackdown to lay out that process but if you want to know more about "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration," there have been some excellent articles including The New York Times and Slate Magazine.
What is most astonishing about "The Godfather" which won the 1972 Oscar
for "Best Picture" is that two years later "The Godfather, Part II"
also won the Oscar for "Best Picture." This pretty much qualifies the
second film as the unquestioned best sequel of all-time (although there are supporters now for "The Dark Knight"). And, of
course, it triggers a Smackdown to find out which of these two
extraordinary films is the best. We'll give the competition our usual treatment
with an added bonus. Five of our critics weigh in at the end with their individual essays. Joe Rassulo, Scott Baradell, Sherry Coben, Mark Sanchez and Jay Amicarella all come at the material with damned unique POVs, and it's a fun read. Finally, at the end of this review, you can put in your
own two cents by voting in our Smack-Poll.
The Defending Champion. If you think about it now, the "Godfather" films are the modern world's version of those Shakespeare plays about kings and princes. This is the film where Vito Corleone, the aging Don of a powerful Mafia family hands off the power, reluctantly, to his youngest son Michael, delivering one of the saddest lines in cinema, "Michael, I never wanted this for you." Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is one of the greatest acting performances on screen ever and his transformation from shy son to ruthless criminal makes you forgive any of the actor's excesses over the years. The film opens on a wedding where Michael has returned from World War II just in time to see his sister Connie get married. All of the men in Michael's family are involved with the Mafia and it's assumed that the older brothers will handle the criminal duties while Michael lives a legit and decent life. It's truly the story of the family but the engine that drives the action is about a drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo who wants Don Corleone (Marlon Brandon) to go into the drug trade with him. Corleone refuses, gets shot by hit men, barely survives. This opens the door for his son to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo that changes him and his family forever. It's the story of the old ways surrendering, violently, to the new ways. You probably know all this. Beautifully photographed, scored, directed, written. Most people have it on their Top Ten lists and more than a few place it as #1.
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