IMDB's Top 100 Films - #1 The Godfather

By Anthony Chatfield

I started writing a short history for each of the Top 100 films on the American Film Institutes list, and then I realized that the AFI list is problematic for a few different reasons. It only represents the opinions of film critics, it stays within the boundaries of Hollywood and American born films, and it tends to pander towards the classics with films that were extremely important but don’t necessarily represent the opinions of those that watch them, the movie going public.

So, I present the exact same project with the Top 100 movies from The Internet Movie Database’s Top 250 list. The IMDB list is a much greater tool, and one I’ve used in the past because it’s dynamic. Over the course of the years it has changed substantially adding new films, removing old films and generally reflecting the opinions of those that watch the films.

Number one on that list is the greatest book to film adaptation ever made, Mario Puzo’s classic saga of the Corleone family in The Godfather. At any time, it’s possible this venerable classic could slip below The Shawshank Redemption as the two have been neck and neck for years, but by far it will never be below second place (and I’ve never seen it in second place).

Released in 1972 by Francis Ford Coppola, the film tells the story of Don Corleone’s handover of the family to his reluctant son over a nine years stretch from 1945 to 1954. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton, and Robert Duvall, one of the greatest ensembles on screen. The film was the first real breakout success fro Coppola, but it took a hardheadedness on his part to make it happen.

He was the third choice to direct, and the studio was dead set against either Brando or Pacino in their roles. On repeated occasions he was almost fired and the studio was unsure of how it would be received so the budget was slashed. Fortunately for all, Coppola stuck strong to his ideals and made the film in his vision, into the Gangster opus we have now.

To summarize the film would take away from its majesty, plus it’s an amazingly long complex plot (one in which you’ll be more than caught up). The beginning of the film takes place at the wedding of Don Vito’s daughter. Here we meet each of the major players, Michael, Sonny, the Don. Soon after we learn of the method by which Don Corleone makes his offers, we learn of the new rival in town and the burgeoning drug trade. The Don isn’t comfortable with getting involved in the drug trade, unsure that his pocketed politicians would be willing to help smuggle heroin and so a violent war between factions takes off.

The kidnaps, offings, and epic intergang rivalries between Sollozzo and the Corleones crafts one of the greatest crime films, nay the greatest films of all time. The film won best picture and Marlon Brando won best actor (which he famously refused in protest of American Indian treatment at Wounded Knee) and has been consistently rated among the greatest films ever made on every list ever compiled. At the time, it became the highest grossing film of all time, crushing studio expectations and spawned an immediate sequel, The Godfather II considered also among the top movies ever made. Many even consider it to be better than the original. The infamous lines of Don Vito, “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” was named the second most famous movie quote of all time, and the film essentially created the subculture of the Italian Mob in film and literature. Television Crime Dramas as well as shows like The Sopranos all pay homage to Coppola’s masterpiece as nearly every scene from his film has infiltrated the deepest pores of American Pop culture.

I'm a self avowed unemployed writer, working on semi-constant basis to try and overcome the need to go and work a real job. I've written more than 200 articles and reviews and am constantly scouring the internet for any and all excuses and methods to make myself less dependent on corporate pay days. Visit my website at TheChatfield.com

Movies – Why Must Movies Have an "Ending"?

By Ugur Akinci

Once in a great while I come across a great article that penetrates to the heart and soul of something that I'm intimately involved with but could not articulate equally well. The Washington Post staff writer Philip Kennicott's great article " The Surprise Ending? It's the Absence of One" published on July 9, 2006 is one such seminal essay that ignited an a-ha! moment as I was reading it.

The premise of the article is simple enough – that, almost all films made today still stick to the over-two-thousand years old Aristotelian paradigm of 3-Act Structure. Thanks to the Aristotle's "Poetics," we still reward those stories with a "beginning, middle and an end." We refer to movies that do not have a well defined beginning, middle and an end as "art movies," or sometimes as "European movies," both phrases used in a disparaging way.

As Kennicott points out with great precision, this complicates the job of professional movie critic because the ending carries such a high cash value that you are supposed to talk about a movie without talking about its most important element – its ending. It's almost a "mission impossible" but we are all extremely disappointed when a critic gives away the ending of a brand new thriller, aren’t we?

All this is because a movie is as much about collective therapy as art. We want these stories to be told in moving pictures because we want to see the order, beauty and justice that we cannot readily observe in our daily lives. We would like to see that the principles we live by, the founding tenets of our civilization, still count for something.

Without a discernible ending, we feel lost. We think it is unfair for the director leave us "twisting in the wind" with the number of unresolved threads and possibilities. That's why we pay our good cash to see a good movie. We want the screenwriter, director and the actors do the heavylifting on our behalf, order the "chaos out there" for us and not dump that mental load on our shoulders.

We do not feel that a film is supposed to be a "reflection" of "real life," do we? Who needs that? We all are already familiar (to say the least) with our own "real lives" and mostly it is a routine between home and work. Who wants to watch one's own daily routine blown up on a gigantic screen although it is "the perfect story with no ending"?

Like hunters too close to the trees, we still want to be assured that the forest exists in all its majesty, complexity and beauty. And we expect movies to deliver us that "forest" by depicting all the other trees, their branches, and their leaves, with all the fauna and flora that we are not even aware of yet. We want a film to show us (without preaching if possible) the ecological harmony that keeps the "universal forest" alive.

That takes structure, intentionality and design. That takes scenes, acts and plot points. That's not a "natural object' in itself, existing independent of human desires and volition. And that's what "culture" is all about anyways.

The 3-Act Structure is not here by accident. It's a precious human invention created to protect our values, beliefs and sanity against the "chaos out there." That's why I think as long as the world exists, the neat linear ordering of "the beginning, the middle and the end" will be with us to stay.

I raise my glass to all the good endings in movies and life.

Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases, movie reviews and hi-tech documentation.

He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 companies for the last 7 years.

In addition to being an Ezine Articles Expert Author, he is also a Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and a Member of American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI).

He is dispensing million-dollar plot ideas on a daily basis at his screenwriting blog SCRIPT BOILER (http://scriptboiler.blogspot.com).

You are most welcomed to visit his official web site http://www.writer111.com for more information on his multidisciplinary background, writing career, and client testimonials.

While at it, you might also want to check the latest book he has edited, PRIVATE TUTOR FOR SAT MATH SUCCESS 2006:

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