Episode 007 | The Godfather

Ciao, regazzi! Thinking about skipping this episode? Fugeddaboudit. What are you, a jamoke?

This episode is like a nice giambott’. It’s got a little bit of everything. The Godfather, The Sopranos, maybe a little White Lotus. And we’re talking about it all with Mr. Bada Bing himself: Our Dad. You’re gonna be mangia-ing this episode through your ears, youknowwhatImean?

We mispronounce Francis Ford Coppola a few-two-tree times, debate whether or not gangster films are disparaging to Italian Americans, and spend a little time discussing the 95th Academy Awards.

So leave the gun, take the cannoli and subscribe to the podcast, capish?⁠⁠

Haunted Basement⁠⁠ is a full-service, boutique production company that creates professional content to promote your business or brand. Visit ⁠⁠hauntedbasement.video⁠⁠ or contact hello@hauntedbasement.video for more. 

Episode 007 Transcript

Ashleigh: Hello.

Bubba: Hey, ciao, how you doing?

A.J.: Episode 7.

Ashleigh: Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette.

A.J.: Very nice.

Bubba: Yes. Welcome back to the basement. Episode seven. Today we are recording a very special episode with a very special guest about some Italian stuff. So we're recording an episode about The Godfather.

Ashleigh: Yes. Happy St Patrick's Day.

Bubba: As you’re drinking your Guinness maybe put a meatball as a floater.

Ashleigh: Get rid of that St Patrick's Day hangover. Get your vino. Get ready for The Godfather.

Bubba: Get a nice chicken parm sub. Soak up all that whiskey. But we are a sibling run production company. Obviously.

A.J.: It’s obvious.

Bubba: Well we say it every time. This is a sibling-run production company.

Ashleigh: Can’t you see the resemblance over your headphones?

A.J.: We’re a family, we make videos. What do you want us to tell you?

Bubba: You can literally hear the resemblance. We come from an Italian-American family. One of our grandfathers was an immigrant from Sicily. The other side is from Naples. So we are very, very Italian. And I think it is important to talk about the pop culture, the movies, the television shows that influence how we think about our family now. And that's what we're going to be doing today.

Ashleigh: It's always in the back of our minds.

Bubba: It’s in the back of our minds and a nice slice of pizza is in the front of our mouths, you know what I mean?

Ashleigh: Oh, I love my focaccia.

Bubba: But before we talk about all that, we need to briefly discuss the Oscars.

A.J.: The Oscars. the 95th Academy Awards.

Bubba: I'll have you know that two people here had a very great selection for their favorite film of 2022. In episode two, Ash and I both said Everything Everywhere.

Ashleigh: Once one of us even wrote a blog post about it. You can see that on the website.

A.J.: Hauntedbasement.video. Check out the blog. But Bub, you were saying that only two of us had good picks for best picture of the year.

Bubba: Well, I’m just saying that two of us picked it correctly.

Ashleigh: Actually…

Bubba: I don't know if I said that it would actually win an Oscar. 

Ashleigh: There's a man taking a woman's credit again.

Bubba: No, no, no. I just said that we had selected it as our favorite film and a potential Oscar winner.

Ashleigh: And I'm just saying, I wrote a blog post with the subtext Why Ashleigh from Haunted Basement Wants Everything Everywhere All At Once to Win Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards.

A.J.: And I'm just saying that I do think in 20 to 30 years from now, people are going to remember Tár and they're going to remember Top Gun: Maverick. 

Bubba: Wow. Fighting words right there.

Ashleigh: I finally watched Tár. And in a way, I agree with you, A.J. And I think the reason I didn't like it is because it was too topical. It was just like reading something from the headlines right now.

A.J.: It was like reading a New Yorker article.

Ashleigh: That was so funny at the Oscars when Jimmy Kimmel said that. But anyway, it felt too real.

A.J.: It's hyper present and hyper topical.

Ashleigh: I was just like, I don't want to watch this right now.

Bubba: Just because it's uncomfortable?

Ashleigh: No, because I can see it in the news. It felt like if I turned on the news and there was a story about Lydia Tár on, and I would be like, okay, that's happening now.

A.J.: It's about cancel culture in a way that I don't even know if we're ready to process. But it still does such an incredible job of capturing the present moment. It's too long, I think, by 30 minutes. But it is a very, very good movie.

Ashleigh: So in the beginning they mention the pandemic, they mention gender inequality and Brett Kavanaugh.

Bubba: Oh, so it’s an escapist movie.

Ashleigh: I want to escape from all this right now. I said this in the podcast and I'm going to say it again. That's why I loved Everything Everywhere All At Once because it took me out of that. It gave me a little bit of seeing myself in it, but took me to the crazy world of the multiverse.

Bubba: Hot dog fingers. Yeah. 

A.J.: My argument is that people would not have seen Everything Everywhere All At Once, especially not in theaters, if they had not already gone back to theaters to see Top Gun: Maverick.

Ashleigh: I'm not going to argue with you there. I love Top Gun. I do

Bubba: Oh, but?

Ashleigh: I'm not going to argue with you. I'm just telling you.

Bubba: There is something more timeless about Everything Everywhere All At Once. 

Ashleigh: And original too, helllooooo.

Bubba: And I think awarding the actors that they did and the representation that that film offers is a much needed and a super, incredibly well-deserved achievement.

Ashleigh: Did it make you mad when that guy won the Academy Award for Best Editor? And he's like, this is my second movie!

A.J.: Oh yeah, it did make me mad. And I was also very inspired by it because of his story. He started in public television in Alabama. He met the Daniels at a party in Los Angeles a decade ago, and they liked him and they asked him to edit the music video for Turn Down for What which went on to get a billion views on YouTube. It's just proof that it is sort of a mixture of talent and being in the right place at the right time. Was I upset when this man who was around my age and saying that is the second movie he has ever edited won an Oscar? Yes. Congratulations, Paul Rogers.

Ashleigh: Come on the show.

Bubba: Come on the podcast. We're jealous of you.

Ashleigh: But jealousy is just a form of flattery and respect beneath all those layers.

Bubba: He's probably hoping that he could go back and edit his speech so it doesn't end with so….yeah.

Ashleigh: He was probably so stunned that he had just won for his second film. 

A.J.: Anyway, you know who else won an Oscar?

Ashleigh: Who?

A.J.: Francis Ford Coppola for Best Original Screenplay for The Godfather.

Ashleigh: Oh, we’re not there yet.

A.J.: How long is this intro?!

Ashleigh: We have to talk about those ads. At the Oscars, the weird commercials for Disney and WB. While it was going on,A.J. and I were texting each other. 

Bubba: Money plays.

A.J.: Money plays and it is very depressing.

Ashleigh: Very depressing to see a trailer for The Little Mermaid at the 95th Oscars.

A.J.: We don't need to see any trailers for any movies at the Oscars. Thank you very much.

Ashleigh: I did not like that.

A.J.: We are watching the Oscars because we love the movies. We don't need to be sold on seeing the next Disney live action movie, which the visual effects in The Little Mermaid, when you compare them with Avatar: The Way of Water, you're like, yucky.

Ashleigh: Oh yeah, why would I want to see The Little Mermaid? And then the Warner Brothers thing, it was so strange. I was like, Oh, Morgan Freeman and Margot Robbie need to get away from each other. That was a creepy vibe.

A.J.: The Academy was like, all right we heard what you said, we're going to put in all the categories, we’ll make this ceremony long, but we're also going to add a bunch of branded content that nobody actually wants to watch to make it even longer.

Ashleigh: Also, if you're going to do an ad for WB, put in the Singing Frog.

A.J.: Or if you're going to do an ad for WB, hire Haunted Basement to make it. 

Bubba: Now we're talking.

Ashleigh: Now do you know who else won an Oscar? Francis Ford Coppola.

A.J.: How do you pronounce Coppola?

Ashleigh: You know, I just like to call him Franny.

Bubba: Franny Ford. All right, let's andiamo into the episode.

A.J.: Hello, and welcome back to Haunted Basement: The Podcast. I'm A.J. 

Bubba: I'm Bubba.

Ashleigh: And I’m Ashleigh.

A.J.: We're siblings who run a production company called Haunted Basement, and this is our podcast where we talk about the movies, music, and pop culture that inspires and influences our video work. On today's episode, we're tackling a big subject. We're talking about the movie The Godfather, and we decided that this subject required a very important guest, somebody with Sicilian roots and big bushy eyebrows like us, somebody who used to pick us up from soccer practice in a black car, which prompted some of our teammates to ask, Is your dad in the Mafia? Somebody who has a name that rhymes with Tony Soprano, somebody who is…our dad. Tony Soprano, a.k.a. Dad. Welcome to the basement.

Tony: Thanks for having me in the basement, gang. What an introduction. I think I'm going to leave now.

Bubba: I don't remember soccer practice. It probably happened, but I do remember freshman year of football practice. Nobody wanted to carpool when you picked me out. They're all like, Nah, we're good. We’ll walk.

Tony: Well, there's two things. Number one: that's good because you creepy kids never showered anyway and you always wanted to get in my car. And number two: who has a black car now?

Ashleigh: Me.

Bubba: We only have black cars, you know what I mean?

Tony: Genetics.

Ashleigh: I don't have the last name anymore. So I got to do something.

A.J.: All right. Well, we gathered here today to talk about The Godfather and, after doing a little bit of research on The Godfather, trying to place the time that it came out in 1972, you were about ten years old when this movie came out. Did you see it in theaters when it was released?

Tony: No, we never went to the theater when I was a kid. I can't recall the first time I saw it, as a matter of fact. But obviously, I have seen it several times and there's always something new that I garner from it. I don't watch movies like you folks do. I don't study them. I kind of just view. However, in this one, there were certain things that I could relate to.

A.J.: Was it something that was talked about in your family? Wow, this is a movie about Sicilian Americans?

Tony: No, it wasn't really a conversation around the family. I didn't even realize that there were Sicilian roots to it, frankly. 

Ashleigh: What do you mean? 

Tony: Well, until later years, I figured it out. I didn't figure it out when it came out in 72. I was ten years old. Probably didn't even see it then. But obviously things evolve and you get a different appreciation. As a teenager when I probably first saw it, I never put all the parts and pieces together.

A.J.: Yeah, it's just a fun gangster movie when you're younger.

Tony: That's exactly what it was. Now you look at it, you go, Hey, wait a minute. We traveled in that part of Sicily, probably, right? Then you go, Wait a minute, my grandfather did the same entertainment piece at weddings like the old timer did at the Don’s daughter’s wedding.

Ashleigh: You know what the opening line of The Godfather is?

Tony: Wasn't it at the wedding, when somebody comes in and asks for the favor?

Ashleigh: The movie starts, and this is the way the book starts, too, “I believe in America.” When I watch it now, I'm like, Oh, this is a fantasy movie for people who want some sort of justice and don't want to wait through all the red tape of the American criminal justice system. Because the guy in there saying that I believe in America, his daughter was beat up by these two kids. And in the book, it goes into more detail about why she was beat up and what happened to her. In the movie it doesn't go into that much detail, but like anyone reading, that would be like, oh my God, this guy wants revenge. But ultimately he never showed any kind of respect to– what's his name? Vito Corleone. You know, you never showed any kind of respect to Vito in the past. He's like, what are you just going to come out of the blue now?

A.J.: Now that you need me.

Ashleigh: Like, are you kidding me here?

Tony: You’re asking me to do murder. But to your point, though, they come to America and this particular individual whose daughter has a terrible, horrific experience. He puts his trust in the legal system. And the legal system failed him. So he said, okay, I'll take care of myself, but doesn’t that still happen today?

A.J.: Well, that's why we're still watching this movie today.

Ashleigh: It's everyone's fantasy.

Tony: Is it fantasy or is it reality? Remember that issue about vengeance? What about the politicians? Is that fantasy or in reality are they paid off?

Bubba: Oh boy, we're getting real deep, real quick here.

A.J.: I think the reason why this movie is still being watched today is because people can watch and be like, this does happen today or they see this family, this very close knit Italian American family who realizes we can only trust in ourselves. We can't trust in the government or anyone else. That's why you have in the opening scene, Michael Corleone, who is Vito's son. He wants nothing to do with his family to the point that he joins the American military. He shows up to his sister's wedding with a WASP girlfriend wearing a marine uniform. And he's like, that's my family, that's not me. And then we see him over the course of two and a half hours, become the head of the family, and I’m wondering, is it because of circumstances? Is it because Vito is on his deathbed or does Michael realize, you know what, I can only trust my family. I can't trust anyone else but my family?

Tony: Or is it because his brother, Sonny, was too big of a hothead to lead the organization?

Bubba: Or is it because the gravitational pull of an Italian-American family is to too intense to ever launch out of?

Tony: How about the summit of the intensity? You were saying they can only trust their family. What happens when you can no longer trust your family.

A.J.: You get a scene like when Michael orders a hit on his brother in law.

Tony: So Ash, did you read the book?

Ashleigh: Devoured it. Everyone said, like, even when I bought it, the lady was like, the movie's so much better, but they're both really good.

A.J.: The book's set in the seventies, right? 

Ashleigh: No, forties. 

Bubba: Coppola fought to keep it set in the same time period as the book. The studios wanted it to be contemporary so it would be less expensive to make.

Ashleigh: The author also wrote the screenplay with Francis Ford Coppola. So obviously the integrity is still there from him. But do you know why he wrote The Godfather? That's my favorite thing.

A.J.: Tell us.

Ashleigh: Mario Puzo. So in the beginning of the book, there's a forward for the 50th anniversary from his son. And he was saying, my father really wanted to write a bestseller. You know, he's written all these novels. He’s gotten all these acclaims and accolades. But he has never written a bestseller. So he just, like, sat down and wrote The Godfather. 

A.J.: Oh, no big deal.

Tony: And wait a minute, what was his connection or his ethnicity?

Ashleigh: He's Italian. And he said, like he just knew what's right. And then all these people eventually would come to him and ask, were you in the Mafia? Because you got it right. Like all these people who were in the Mafia would tell him that. And then,my favorite thing is, he wrote the screenplay, won an Academy Award for the screenplay. Then after he bought a book on how to write a screenplay, because he was like, I need to learn how to do this. And in the beginning of the book, it said the best screenplay ever written was The Godfather. And then he threw it out. He wanted to learn and they were talking about him.

Tony: I came across an interesting tidbit. You guys may be able to confirm. Francis Ford Coppola. I guess they had to coax him into directing. Does that sound right?

A.J.: It does sound right because he just wanted to make experimental movies. He didn't want to make this big studio film for Paramount.

Ashleigh: But why would they have a 29 year old do this?

A.J.: He was this wunderkind. Paramount had made an Italian gangster film maybe a year before The Godfather came out, and it was not directed by an Italian American. And Robert Evans, who was head of Paramount at the time, was like, If we're going to make this, we need to hire Coppola for this. We need to hire someone who is authentically Italian. But Dad, tell us what your tidbit is.

Tony: Along with that, while he's directing the movie, they suggested he get training.

Ashleigh: What kind of training?

Tony: He wasn’t thinking violently enough. To put more violence into the film.

Ashleigh: I usually dislike violence but the cinematography was so beautiful I didn’t mind it as much.

A.J.: Gordon Willis, the cinematographer, is nicknamed The Prince of Darkness.

Ashleigh: He really is. I wrote that in my notes. It was beautiful in darkness. It's more suspenseful than violent, which I appreciate. There'll be a scene where, you know, they murder someone, and then the guy asks for a cannoli.

A.J.: Leave the gun, take the cannoli. Dad, did your dad have any opinions about The Godfather?

Tony: You know, that's what I was going to share with you. You hear a lot about the movie being disparaging to Italians.

Ashleigh: Really?

Tony: I don't find it disparaging. 

A.J.: I think people can watch this and be like, well, this depicts Italian Americans as ultra violent.

Tony: Criminal element.

Ashleigh: But also very family friendly.

Tony: In my family or extended family. Never, never heard that commentary.

Bubba: There are a lot of rumors about how the mob responded to the making of The Godfather and what conditions they wanted set and agreed upon before it was shot. And one of the things that I read is that some mafia members sat down with the script and asked for certain words to be omitted so there wasn't any connection. And then on the flip side, you know, it's just regular Italian Americans living in New York that were trying to get by. They were upset because they didn't want that kind of connection being brought on them. And I think, I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that back when this movie came out in the seventies, this is what you're responding to. If you want to learn about Italian-Americans, you don't have too many other sources of media that are kind of helping you, you know, learn about it.

Ashleigh: Also Italian Americans are very concentrated on the East Coast, like probably New Jersey up to us. Like when I went to college, not a lot of Italians out there in the Midwest. And so it's interesting that it's all we know. We think there are Italians everywhere because we know so many Italians, but you go anywhere else in the country and you're like, oh, I don't see any people who look like me. Where my eyebrows at? And Italian food is so popular and there's little Italian restaurants anywhere you go in the US but they're not good, but at least they're there. There's some representation of culture there.

Bubba: We come from a place, like you said, kind of Italian-American. And Italian culture is not prevalent where I am now on the West Coast. For example, like there is a small plates Italian place that just opened up in town and the server comes around and says, We do things differently here. We have Italian family sharing style in this restaurant. All small plates, you know, like a deli. That’s not Italian family style. Italian family style is…You need your uncle twice removed sweating over a pot of meatballs wearing his wife beater and serving a family of 18 around a table. Random people are walking in and out. That's Italian family sharing style right there. 

A.J.: We now interrupt this conversation with our dad to talk to someone who married into the family. Please welcome Bubba's wife, Ellen. Hi Ellen.

Ellen: Hello. Wow. Hi, A.J. in New York. And Bubba in the other room. I am thrilled to be joining in on some Sopranos chat. Love a Sopranos chat.

A.J.: I want to know moments where you were watching it with Bubba and you saw something on screen and turned to Bubba and you're like, you do this.

Ellen: We watched all six seasons of The Sopranos in a span of three months in I think early 2021. So this was, I guess you could say, mid-pandemic. We had just moved out of the city. We were ready to just throw ourselves into a very dark, violent shoot. It was enjoyable to some very innocent parallels between both. Emphasis on innocent. Between The Sopranos and The Serranos. And I think a lot of it was just like, I don't know, even communication styles, the food, the Sunday dinners, Andrea Bocelli playing. Yeah, but I would say the big one was your dad's expression, which now you do as well, Bubba. They're like, exclamatory, if someone does something that surprises you.

A.J.: Oh yeah, yeah.

Bubba: Obviously we knew the main character's name is Tony Soprano. Really close to Tony Soprano, but his son is Anthony Jr. A.J. Soprano.

Ellen: I would say for both of us, we found it darkly comforting. And maybe some of that is tied to like the Italian American-ness of the show. For Bubba, for sure. For me, too. My mom grew up in Jersey and she grew up in an Italian American family. And as a family, we would drive down to New Jersey at least once or twice a year. And I still remember the striking moment of watching the opening sequence for the first time with Tony in the car. He's on the Jersey Turnpike. And I was immediately reminded of those road trips down to New Jersey to see my Italian family.

A.J.: There's also something about the New Jersey Italian accent that is unlike any other Italian American accent. It's almost like they swallow the vowels at the end of the words, all the Gs.

Bubba: Yeah.

A.J.: How did you feel about Tony's mom?

Ellen: Oh, she's amazing. An icon. Gone too soon.

A.J.: That is an Italian grandmother right there.

Ellen: She had a death grip on Tony.

Bubba: Literally. She puts a hit on him at one point. She puts the hit on her son. 

A.J.: All right. Okay. Well, Ellen, thank you for joining us, talking about Sopranos, talking about Italian Americans.

Ellen: Thank you. Good to see you, A.J.

Bubba: Let's talk about our boy Francis here. So he's 29 when the project starts and he's in his early thirties when the movie comes out. Right. Which is insane to me because that’s my age now. He knew that he couldn't bring the authenticity of knowing about the mob, knowing about the mafia. Actually, Mario Puzo had to do a ton of research to actually write the book, which I think is really interesting, that people thought like, Oh my God, you know so much about it. You must have deep ties or whatever. But Francis Ford Coppola decides that what he can bring to the project and what he was interested to bring to the movie was the sense of authenticity of coming from an Italian American family and knowing that he could bring his familiarity of having sat down to those big Italian family meals, the huge wedding, like the little details, how they used to serve sandwiches, wrap sandwiches at weddings, which I had no idea was an Italian thing.

Tony: I didn’t see that. That was in the movie?

Bubba: Yeah, they're tossing sandwiches at the wedding and that's the stuff that he was interested to bring and kind of inject into this movie. I found a blog post entitled 20 Facts about The Godfather That Will Bada-Boom Your Mind. 

Ashleigh: Oh my god.

Bubba: One of those facts was that Francis Ford Coppola had the cast sit down to family meals most nights when they were shooting and eat the meals in character so that they could develop that relationship and that dynamic as an Italian family. 

Tony: Well, that was actually one of the better scenes when they're around the dining room table eating spaghetti and waiting for the father to come home.

Ashleigh: Yeah I always do love those scenes in The Sopranos, too. They’re around the table eating. 

Tony: It’s a little over the top. 

A.J.: One thing that Coppola does not get right in this movie is: where is Mama Corleone? She sings at the wedding, and that's all we hear from her. And I do not think that is an accurate portrayal of a matriarch of an Italian family.

Ashleigh: And it's not the portrayal in the book. She has a major role in the book. So I was shocked when they didn't really acknowledge her at all in the movie. But I get it. It's Hollywood.

Tony: You need Sonny.

Ashleigh: We need Al Pacino. We don't need her. You know what I mean?

Bubba: Well, the studio didn't even want Al Pacino.

Ashleigh: What do you mean?

A.J.: They called him a runt. The studio did not want him because he was a runt and he had not really been in any movies. And Coppola, I just want to read this quote from Coppola about his experience with this movie. I don't take a lot of pleasure in anything to do with The Godfather. I love the cast, and I think the film definitely brought out something, but it was a terrible period in my life. I had two little kids and a third on the way. I was living in this borrowed apartment, and at one point my editor told me that nothing in the film was any good. It was a total collapse of self-confidence on my part. It was just an awful experience. I'm nauseated to think about it. I was being told I was going to be fired up until the end of the third week of production. That was his experience making this movie. And it turned out to be one of the greatest movies in Hollywood history.

Tony: Is that just typical Hollywood?

Bubba: No, I believe that. He was at the risk of getting fired up until the end of the production because he did things like he wanted Marlon Brando to play Don Corleone and the studio said absolutely not. He can't star in this film. Everything that he's done recently has been a flop, and he's also too unpredictable and he doesn't memorize lines.

A.J.: He was also in his early fifties. So he wasn't old enough to be Vito's age.

Ashleigh: Is that why he put the cotton balls in his mouth?

A.J.: The cotton balls were just for the screen test, but in the actual movie they made a mold to put in his mouth to wear.

Bubba: Steel dentures. 

Tony: Is it only until after the success of the movie that they say it was an all star cast?

A.J.: Yeah. Pretty much.

Tony: So at the time it was considered a second rate cast?

Bubba: Good callback.

Tony: So how about this one?

Bubba: Oh boy.

Tony: So Francis Ford Coppola goes and he films in Sicily. Is that like a badass move to go to Sicily and do a movie about the Mafia?

Ashleigh: Did he have an army for protection? If he's doing that in Catania, there's no way they didn’t pay somebody off.

Bubba: Okay, so first of all, so there was all this kind of mafia resistance to the production. And Joe Colombo, I guess, was the big mob boss in New York that was leading the resistance to the movie. They had a bunch of agreements, like they hired a bunch of Mafioso for extras. I guess that was probably part of the agreement. We’ll pay your guys. They can be extras. We’ll give you a bunch of money as payment. So that's probably what was happening in Sicily, I'm guessing. But the other thing is the word mafia does not pop up in the screenplay. So they agreed: You do not say mafia and we'll let you do it. So The Godfather comes out and a lot of criminal organizations start choosing roles for themselves based on The Godfather. Like they start asking each other, who wants to be Don? You know, and Don, by the way, wasn't a word that was used in common parlance. It was something that Mario Puzo made up for the book. 

Tony: Are you serious?

Bubba: I think that's the power of The Godfather and the power of popular culture back in the day. The association with the head of a mafia, the don, that was a new kind of association. So The Godfather comes out and like all these Mafia members are like, who wants to be Don? And they're like role playing The Godfather. I think they liked seeing their representation on screen. They were excited by it. So I imagine that the next time for part two, when they went around shooting that, I'm sure a lot of people were like, absolutely make another great film that we can enjoy.

Tony: So along those same lines, I thought I saw some wise guys from the eighties and nineties. The story goes that they thought the movie was a great representation of the organization and how the families work as well as, to your point, they were changing their patterns of speech in the words to mimic characters of The Godfather among their own conversations.

Bubba: Yeah, it did even influence the mob. And I think that is a great micro example of something that happens on a macro scale, which is movies informing life, life informing movies. And you know, that cycle repeats. I feel like that's one of the big things that I remember from my film theory days back in college was dual mediation between life and culture. You know, that Hollywood wants to put out movies that sell, so they want to see what people are interested in and they kind of represent that back to you. And then people take that and they go, Oh, that looks cool. I want to be like that character. And then the more they do that, the more Hollywood pumps it out. It's this spiraling effect of life informing art, art informing life. And you can't really tell where it ends and where it begins. And I think that's what's really interesting about The Godfather and The Sopranos for me is I watch these movies and I go, Oh, my God, I see something that feels familiar from my own family, not in a criminal sense at all. At all. Disclaimer. We are going to run this whole episode by our lawyers. It's more just like sitting down to a Sunday dinner and having people literally walk in and out of the dining room unannounced and and just the expressions of love and hard love and tough love and all that and the -isms of people and the characteristics and the uncle who isn’t really your uncle that is part of the family. It feels so familiar to me. And I wonder, is that because we watch these movies and we go, Oh, that's how you perform being Italian American happened first in the movies represented back to us.

Ashleigh: Is it the chicken or the egg?

Tony: Or did Francis Coppola do such a great job in representing Italian American? It's still applicable, enjoyable, and as relevant today as it was in the seventies. It's still very entertaining. 

Bubba: I agree. I think there are two timeless aspects. One is the timelessness of how these Italian family units interact and how that is still with us today. And I think the other thing is just the story itself is about this king that's trying to decide on a son to succeed him. They've made Succession before Succession in the form of the Mafia. It is a timeless story of structure. A king who is trying to find his successor. 

Tony: But isn't there also a love story?

Ashleigh: Which love story?

A.J.: What do you mean by that?

Tony: Well, there is Michael and Kay.

A.J.: What’s the other?

Ashleigh: There’s Michael and his father. Obviously the Sicilian girl.

A.J.: Apollonia. She was only there for 5 minutes

Tony: What about the sibling rivalry? When Sonny gives Michael a smack on the head, what are you going to be, a college boy?

Ashleigh: As a female, when I'm watching this movie, I'm like, Oh, this is rough. There are no female strong figures in this movie, so I propose we make a Godfather IV and add more powerful female characters because like I said in the book, that mother, you know how they say in one of my favorite lines in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the mom's talking about how the dad runs the family, but she goes, He's the head, but I'm the neck that turns the head.

Bubba: We all know that the moms are the head of the family. And I feel like if you need any proof of that, you just look at Grammy Serrano and her wooden spoon and you realize that.

Ashleigh: In the book that comes across a lot more. The mom is the one who's really controlling a lot of things. When Vito gets hurt, she's very much involved. She has to talk to Sonny a few times. She calls Kay and they talk every day. And she's the one who tells Kay to basically come back. So she has a much bigger role in the book. And I really wish that came across in the movie. But that's not going to happen in a 1970s movie.

Tony: Plus hothead Sonny was going to sell.

A.J.: I really disliked Kay.

Tony: She was a round peg in a square hole. She didn’t fit in.

Ashleigh: Which is good because we're talking about how not a lot of Italians live in the majority of America. So she is everyone else watching this movie.

A.J.: I find her such a weak character though. She takes Michael back after he's gone for a year.

Ashleigh: I know, it doesn't make sense without the mother.

Tony: Why do you think? Come on.

Ashleigh: She wants that money, hunny.

Bubba: I wish you would watch The Sopranos, A.J., because you would be so frustrated by Carmela who is basically, she knows better, but she's so invested at the same time.

Tony: I want no part of this work. Where's my bag of cash, though? 

A.J.: One very quick thing.

Ashleigh: A thousand more things.

A.J.: Connie is Francis's sister. So the actress who plays Connie, Talia Shire. That's Francis Ford Coppola's sister.

Tony: The one who gets beat up by her husband? How about that street fight with Sonny? The hydrant?

A.J.: I mean, there are a lot of punches that obviously don't connect. You see that they visually don't connect. But it's an aggressive fight.

Bubba: So you have The Godfather. Classic film that no one thought was going to be classic until they watched it. And it was decidedly so. I think the next biggest kind of mafia thing in pop culture is The Sopranos. 

Ashleigh: Goodfellas.

A.J.: Goodfellas feels like a nineties update of The Godfather. I feel like The Sopranos is very different in that you have a main character who is in therapy. So vulnerable about his feelings. Whereas with Michael Corleone, we have no idea what's going through his head.

Tony: Plus you get a lot of family interaction in this. Storylines, families, friends.

Ashleigh: The mafia part is a very little. Well, it's a lot. But it's more about his family life and outside of it. That's why it starts in therapy. 

Tony: Well, he runs a business, but he still has a family to tend to. And while he's running the business, there is a price now. Educational tv is what I call it.

Bubba: I think The Godfather, I think of the wedding scenes open, like all those people running around dancing, singing. It's just chaos, but it's like eating lasagna, throwing sandwiches at each other. It's so human and it just feels so real. And then when I think of The Sopranos, I think of Tony. I don't even know if this actually happened in the show, but I just feel like he's in his bathrobe, like cooking sausages over his barbecue. And there are kids running around and having a pool party. And those two things offer more of the human side or a glimpse into the family life, like Dad was saying. Of course, A.J. mentions Tony goes to therapy and he is the Don of this organization. And that is where Gandolfini and Marlon Brando totally differ in their characters. It's like one is, you know, it can do no wrong. And it is just kind of like totally with it. And the other one is having an emotional breakdown and watching ducks migrate in and out of his pool. It seems like such a subtle pivot. It's not that big of a thing to just introduce like, oh, I want a Don with some emotions.

Tony: Isn't that because of the generational difference? The Don was the immigrant.

Ashleigh: Oh, for sure.

Bubba: He didn't see what was ahead of him. Where Tony Soprano sees it now, he goes, Well, I could have a normal life outside the business.

Ashleigh: Absolutely. Also, we go from Puzo and Coppola to Chase. Who knows, maybe David Chase is Italian.

Bubba: So obviously, The Sopranos are dealing with a post-9-11 world and that's informing the show a lot. But the generational difference is so striking because in one of the episodes in the first season or two of The Sopranos, Tony, and a few of his guys go over to Naples and they're all about going back to the motherland and how they're going to be kind of welcomed back with open arms. And they get there and they're just flailing around in Naples the whole time. They totally stand out. They're totally the Americans, the Italian-Americans at best, but they don't know Italian words, they don't know Italian culture. And they return back to New Jersey being like, thank God I'm home. I'm back home. Like Italy is not the home that I thought it was. Can I just get some macaroni and gravy? We have another great example of this in the second season of The White Lotus. So here's the scene. There are three generations of Italian American men, right? There's a grandfather, father, and the son, and they're on this pilgrimage back to their homeland in Sicily. Right. This is the whole reason why they're traveling to Sicily. They want to go back and they want to go to the village that their forefathers came from. The whole conceit here is that this is a thing that Italian Italian Americans do. We just assume that we know everyone. If you're Italian, you’re a cousin, like we're related somehow. It happened at your 60th birthday party, Dad. Remember that guy up in Maine? He goes, oh you’re Italian? We’re cousins! And he started speaking Italian to me assuming that I knew it. And I'm not saying that's just an Italian American thing, but it's definitely a thing, especially New England. Anyway, so this family is going back there. They found the village where their name comes from, their origins. They find a house with the last name that is the same as theirs. They just drive up to the house unannounced, presuming that they can just visit. And basically they introduce themselves. They can't speak Italian. And the grandmother, the Nonna of that family walks out and just starts cursing at them. Get the hell out of here. I don't know you. You get out here throwing things at them, they scramble away. It's just this amazing anticlimax.

Tony: So the storyline meaning that we as Americans, we go over there, we think we can ingratiate ourselves and it's not going to happen?

Bubba: They’re going to accept us and bring us in for some pasta and some wine around the table and we will just all kiss and hug. But I guess a lot of these assumptions come from the fact that in the movies that we watch and the shows that we love, minus The Sopranos and White Lotus, they're offering this counterpoint to Goodfellas, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, etc., like we've only seen that warm embrace. We've seen, oh, yeah, you come down, you sit at my table, we're family. Some people see the power of a film like The Godfather as something that has seeped into our collective consciousness and it informs a lot about our culture and how we see each other and act. And The Godfather might be the reason why A.J. and Ashleigh and I will slip into an Italian mobster Robert De Niro voice every once in a while. It's the reason why even as a kid, when we were like six years old, we would put grapes in our mouths and our lips and try to do a Godfather voice. Even though we had never seen the movie we just knew that you could do that and say, leave the gun, take the cannolis. Somehow we just knew, right? That is proof of the power of this movie.

Ashleigh: I'll make him an offer he can’t refuse. You know what I mean?

Tony: Hey, so by you still reciting it, you don't find it to be a stigma then, right? As 30-something Italian Americans?

Ashleigh: A hundred percent, I think it is a stigma.

Tony: Well, do you feel soiled by it?

A.J.: It took me until college to want to watch this movie because growing up, you just don't want to be associated with violent behavior and you don't want to be pigeonholed as, oh, you're Italian, so you must like The Godfather. And then it took me until, I think, sophomore year of college. I watched it and thought, actually this is a good movie. I wish I watched it sooner. It's an accurate representation of what it's like to be an Italian American. Even if you're not in the Mafia.

Tony: So you don't find anything wrong with it? You don't find that it's disparaging?

Ashleigh: It just makes people, other non-Italian people, think that every Italian is in the Mafia, which gets old when everyone says it. But they don't know anything else. They haven't seen other representations.

Tony: I personally don't find anything disparaging about it.

Ashleigh: When I studied abroad in Florence, they're selling The Godfather shirts everywhere. I guess we're all just going to take advantage of it and drink our wine and say hey, salut! I have a quick comment. I have an apology to David Chase. He is Italian American. His paternal grandmother changed the family name from DeCesare to Chase. I apologize. David, you are Italian. Congratulations. Okay. What is everyone's favorite current Italian American or Italian TV show or movie?

A.J.: Probably Suspiria. It's an Italian filmmaker, but it's set in Germany. So I guess I don't know if that counts, but I do love Italian horror. Suspiria. The original one, 1977.

Bubba: I would say Call Me By Your Name.

Tony: I like Stanley Tucci’s show.

Ashleigh: It got canceled. Sorry.

Tony: And the other movie was Under the Tuscan Sun. It’s a silly love story with a bunch of creepy Italian guys. 

A.J.: Did you say it's a love story but what a bunch of creepy Italian guys?

Tony: It’s a love story and there are a bunch of creepy guys who work around the house and just kind of haunt the homeowner who has moved there. 

Ashleigh: Sounds great…Mine is Le Pupille. It's the cutest short film. It’s really funny. I think you can watch it on Hulu. It is just like joy and cuteness.

A.J.: Set in a Catholic boarding school in World War II-era Italy.

Ashleigh: Highly recommended. I think it's 28 minutes. And then if I'm having a bad day or something I love watching episode one of season two of Master of None with Aziz Ansari, and it takes place in Italy and it's black and white and it's all in Italian. Aziz apparently loves Italy, so his character in the show's name is Dev, and he's learning how to make pasta at this little Italian restaurant. And there’s a Nonna there who watches her grandson. He's a chubby little Italian kid. And it's so cute and just lovely. So I recommend that as well.

Tony: I was a chubby little Italian kid.

A.J.: We’ve got a surprise guest here. Mom, welcome to the show.

Mom: What show? 

A.J.: What's your current favorite Italian movie or show?

Mom: Vinny. My Cousin Vinny. 

Bubba: It’s so good. Marissa Tomei.

A.J.: All right, do we have any more quick hits before we sign off here? 

Bubba: Oh, I got a quick hit just about The Godfather. The horse head that they put in that guy's bed as a threat? That was real, baby. They got it from a dog factory.

Tony: A dog factory?

Bubba: (Laughing) A dog food factory.

A.J.: Why is there a horse head in a dog food factory?

Ashleigh: Oh you don’t wanna know, A.J. You don’t even wanna know.

A.J.: Don’t you think the producer would have woken up when someone's shoving a bloody horse head under his sheets?

Bubba: Another example of life imitating art: after the movie came out, there was at least one case reported of Mafia members sending a threat to somebody by putting a horse head in their trunk. So…

Ashleigh: Gross.

Tony: At least it wasn't in their bed.

A.J.: Well, all right. That was a gross quick hit.

Ashleigh: I know. Can we end on something else?

Bubba: Yeah, I just read As I Lay Dying. William Faulkner. I loved it.

Ashleigh: Something else?

Mom: I'm reading Lessons in Chemistry. 

Ashleigh: I like that book. It's being made into a limited series with Brie Larson. Going to be great. Fall. Wow, quick hits.

A.J.: That’s our podcast. Thank you for joining us in the basement today, Dad. Mom, thanks for stopping by. We love seeing you. Our most popular guest so far: Mom. Thank you for listening to Haunted Basement: The Podcast. We'll talk to you later.