Was it 1990?

I’m sorry to make this confession, but I liked The Godfather Part III most of all. I think it’s about context so please let me explain.

In the early 90’s, before the Silver Cities and Coliseums of the world devoured the shoe-box multiplexes, the only place to see a movie – I mean, a big, BIG movie with skull-rattling sound and skyscraper dimensions – was at the Ontario Place Cinesphere. An IMAX screen, the only IMAX screen in Toronto at that time (I believe), the Cinesphere was your one-stop shopping for monstrous movie-going. And best of all, every December, January and February, the Cinesphere opened its doors for mainstream, standard Hollywood movies. As big as they could be.

I saw as much as I could in that environment: Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, Edward Scissorhands, Backdraft, Star Trek Generations. These are only a few of the movies that I remember, all second-run. But I recall very clearly coming home from University (3 hours away!) in the early-90’s specifically to see movies at this theatre. Movies played for only a couple of nights and tickets were bought in advance like a theatrical run. It was total movie-crack.

But my point is The Godfather Part III. In 1990, I was 17-years old. I had never seen The Godfather (I or II), but I was anxious to see what the buzz was about when The Godfather Part III opened on Christmas day. CITY-TV helped me out by playing both of the first two films in their entirety, completely uncut. I taped them and over the course of a Saturday and Sunday, I watched The Godfather saga unfold. On a small screen. Between commercials. Amid the everyday distractions of a teenage life.

And I remember this like I remember the bullet popping Moe Green’s eyeball: I was in a big hurry because I had to catch up with the story before the Sunday night screening of The Godfather Part III. The experience was a bit of a rush-job.

So it goes that the first two movies sort of raced past me. I remember being unbelievably shocked by the horse-in-the-bed bit (try to remember seeing that for the first time!) and moved more by the first film than the second (which was the more-rushed experience of the two – I might have dawdled watching that first film.) I definitely liked both movies a lot. They were everything I was expecting, and they were pretty violent (always something for the plus column when you’re in grade 11). The movies were little long though and there were an awful lot of names to remember. It would be another couple of years before I really started to dig into the films in university and before I watched them again and again and again. It would be another couple of years before I started to absolutely adore them.

Time is funny. Anyone familiar with the Godfather Trilogy can understand that loving the third movie most is a little like choosing Return of the Jedi over Empire. Silly business. But over that weekend, the final dramatic images of The Godfather Part III (and Andy Garcia’s spitfire performance) stuck with me more than those first 6 or 7 hours. I consumed the opera performance. I loved the cynical tone. Sophia Coppola seemed fine to me, just fine.

It’s funny what a reee-ally big screen and a little volume will do for your movie-going experience.