A Great Distraction

Tough weekend, friends. My Mets were swept again by the Miami Marlins, the President can't seem to dig himself out of the quasi-constitutional mess around him, and people on both sides were fighting about things seemingly out of control.

But, of course, there were bright spots, too. I went to my friend's aunt's 103rd birthday party, was the bartender, and as such, spoke with countless nice people there about all sorts of interesting things. One of the things we talked about were movies.

The conversation came up about best movies based on a book, whether a true story or fiction. My vote was for, you guessed it, The Godfather.

Why, you might ask. Well, I will tell you.

This book gave us three Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, of which one and two won. It was a breakout film for many of today's stars including Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale (more on him in a minute), James Caan, Talia Shire and in my view, America's greatest living actor today, Robert Deniro. I know there are others, but these are the cream.

It is the only movie nominated and winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, where its sequel also won. GF1 won for Best Actor, Marlon Brando, GF2 won for Best Supporting Actor, Robert Deniro, and the only time the same character had a nomination for it and won, Vito Corleone.

Now, to John Cazale. He was only in six movies in his life and all six were nominated for Best Picture. They were GF1, GF2 and GF3, Dog Day Afternoon (also with Pacino), The Conversation with Gene Hackman and The Deer Hunter with Jon Voight and Deniro. He died at the age of 42 while making The Deer Hunter.

There is so much more trivia associated with The Godfather, that if you know it then add the above information to it. This is why it is to me the best book ever to be made into a movie.

So, knowing this information now doesn't make our problems go away. But it was a great distraction, right?