7 Movies That Are Better Than The Godfather

7 Movies That Are Better Than The Godfather

Everyone knows that The Godfather is the most overrated film of all time. I don't even think that half of the people who talk about it have ever even seen it. Seriously, who has actually taken the time to get through this thing? It's like 5 1/2 hours and it's completely in Italian with no subtitles! I'm not planning on taking a language class just to watch some movie about a bunch of old men and their Catholic ceremonies.

Peter Griffin sums it all up here in this kinetic typographic display of genius.

So, here's seven movies that I'd suggest renting instead of The Godfather. I promise that all of the languages are English and that none of these movies insist upon themselves. Enjoy.

1. Jane Austen's Mafia!

If you want a movie about the mafia, save yourself the time and buy a copy of this Mafia! I could make a Top Ten list just covering the different ways Jim Abrahams' masterpiece is a better film than The Godfather. First off, the acting is superb. If any of you happened to catch The Godfather, maybe on late-night cable somewhere, congratulations. It was hard for me too.

If you happened to make it more than five minutes in, I'm sure you realized that Al Pacino's character, Michael Corleone, was a complete rip-off of Jay Mohr's Tony Cortino. It's disgusting. I'm sure lawsuits were filed. Acting legend, Lloyd Bridges outshines Marlon Brando (The Island of Dr. Moreau), like a bucket of shoe polish at a Bostonian/Clarks outlet store.

I know there'll always be copycats, but I just wish they'd leave the classics alone. Don't waste your time with the knock-offs, do yourself the favor of watching Mafia!, the only mob movie with an exclamation point in it's title (until Coppola decides to rip that off as well).

2. The Happening

*SPOILER ALERT*
The Godfather blows compared to The Happening.
*SPOILER ALERT*

3. House Arrest

The kids in House Arrest wrote the book on how to be successful criminals. Sure, racketeering and murder are nice, but these kids locked their parents in the basement! In the basement! That's below the house!

When Ned and Janet Beindorf tell their children that they'll be divorcing, these little sociopaths decide that they've had enough. Stacey and Grover get their angry friends together and start taking over, house by house. Sound familiar? The mafia might take over an entire borough, but these sicko will come in your home!

Plus, all those Godfather fogies are old! I'm sure it's easy to get away with crimes when you have 60+ years of experience and driver's licenses. I'd like to see Don Vito pull off a successful double kidnapping when he was in middle school. I truly, truly doubt he would have had the foresight to call in sick to his dad's office using his "deep voice" in order to avoid suspicion. I truly doubt it.

4. Must Love Dogs

John Cusack. Diane Lane. Need I say more? No, I need not.

5. Kids

If my last post didn't prove this point already then allow me to explain once more. The best movies don't have plots. Ignore what those purist, hipster bastards from Cahiers du Cinéma keep trying to tell you. They do not know what they're talking about.

Coppola tries over and over again to keep a cohesive story going. If he knew anything about filmmaking, he would have just hired his friends to just sit around and have sex with underage teens. It worked for Roman Polanski.

6. Carpool

Another masterful piece of cinema featuring brilliant criminals and their intricate schemes. Unlike House Arrest, the criminal's age is a little older, his weight a little higher, his relation to Rosanne Barr a little closer. All that aside, Carpool is the modern day Rafifi.

A struggling carnival owner (Tom Arnold) decides to rob a gourmet grocery store to make some extra carny cash. When two other holdup men interrupt his robbery, Franklin Laszlo, is forced to take a hostage. Unfortunately for him, the hostage he chooses is in charge of his SON'S CARPOOL! The minivan filled with preteen rambunctiousness isn't heading to school today. It's actually heading on an action-packed afternoon which finds them being chased by an irate meter maid through a shopping mall.

Sounds better than some movie about an "aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfering control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son," doesn't it? Well, it is. Lots better. Also, did I mention that the irate meter maid is played by Rhea Perlman?

I thought that might do it for you.

7. The Godfather: Part III

Coppola finally gets it right! It took the archaic filmmaker almost thirty years to make a decent mafia movie. The characters are believable, the action is unforgettable, and the art direction is like looking into God's eyes and having him tell you that you are a good person.

Where the first two movies fail (can you believe they made three of these???) the third succeeds. We're just lucky they didn't decide to let a sleeping dog lie. After the second one, I was pretty sure that sleeping dog was dead. I just wish that someone would get off their keister and make a third Chinatown movie. The movie world's aching for it. How could it not be fantastic.

Al Pacino and Diane Keaton dish out the performances of their lifetimes. Forget what you saw from them earlier, I'm telling you, everything falls into place in The Godfather: Part III. This is the Godfather movie everyone's going to be talking about! It's a lot like the third Ninja Turtles movie where they go back in time and help out a Japanese village. Or the third Back to the Future movie where they go back in time and help out a Western town. It's a lot like these movies, except that no one goes back in time and no one helps anyone out.

Don't go check out the other blog-a-thon entries at Lazy Eye Theatre.