Brian's Thoughts on Movies

Spoilers for all three Godfather films below: Recently I expressed a strong love for Godfather Part II when I watched it at a Fathom Events screening.   The viewing caused me to have another look at its sequel.   Interestingly my first instinct after re-watching Part II was a curiosity as to why it was even made as Part II ties up the story.   The Corleone Family wins the war with Hyman Roth but largely at the expense of Michael Corleone’s family, and his soul, for committing fratricide.   The final shot of Michael all alone and looking empty is fitting.   Where could the story go from there? After re-watching the film I put it on with director Francis Ford Coppola’s commentary and had it on in snippets in the background over the course of a couple of days while doing other things.   Coppola is fascinating when providing his insights.   Two of them really stuck out at me. 1)       Coppola now considers the series to be two films and an epilogue. 2)       He was deep in debt

           The quarantine has given me the opportunity to show the Star Trek movies to my kids.  Although I had seen most of the movies, it’s been over 20 years since I’ve seen anything but the most recent series.  Once you start watching Star Trek you become aware of how much content is out there with all the different series.  Of the shows, I have seen two or three episodes of the original series.  I have seen perhaps a dozen episodes of The Next Generation, including the Best of Both Worlds, which sets up Star Trek First Contact.  I have seen two episodes of Deep Space Nine and one or two of Voyager.    Spoilers below: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) I had not seen this film and due to its dull reputation when starting the series with my kids I did not want to start with it since I knew they might not stay engaged. Therefore I started with Space Seed of the original series and then went straight to Star Trek II.  However after finishing VI they were interested s