Rewatchables Reference

• The Joey Zasa/Vincent Mancini showdown in Michael's office – great drunk acting by Garcia, the ear-biting ('biting and drawing blood stands for fighting to the death according to Sicilian custom'), and Pacino's 'what does all this have to do with me?' Also features the line 'All bastards are liars – Shakespeare wrote poems about it.'
• The penthouse helicopter conference scene – Michael giving everybody their gifts, the helicopters come in, people getting shot, oranges rolling on the table. 'Good to have Al back.'
• Joey Zasa's assassination at the feast/parade – the guy sitting on the hood of the raffle car, Zasa's 'Italian Americans are great people, we have Meucci who invented the telephone,' and Garcia disguised as a cop on horseback.
• The shaving scene into Vincent pretending to work for Altobello – Pacino as master chess player, telling Vincent to stay away from his daughter without explicitly forbidding it. 'When they come, they come at what you love.'
• Michael makes Andy Garcia the new Don – 'From this moment on, call yourself Vincent Corleone.'
• The extended Opera murder montage – unbelievable cross-cutting, though all three hosts agree it's way too long (roughly 28 minutes of opera).

• Andy Garcia's performance and the concept of a bastard son as a movie plot – there's always something to prove, people look down on them.
• Pacino's performance – 'I command this family, right or wrong. It was not what I wanted.' Sean argues this is his last performance with real nuance and emotional intelligence.
• Al Neri still being around as Fredo's murderer and nobody ever talking about it. 'Guys, I'm right here.'
• Italy in movies – just great. The flashbacks to Apollonia.
• Joe Mantegna – plays Zasa as a John Gotti figure in real time. Goes on to 'Glengarry Glen Ross', 'Searching for Bobby Fischer', and becomes Fat Tony on The Simpsons.

• Diane Keaton's hair – 'Can you make me look like a poodle? What is going on?' Bill is fixated on this and will not let it go. Chris and Sean try to move on but Bill keeps coming back to it.
• The cousin incest plot – 'Why couldn't it have been third cousins?' Extended debate about whether cousin relationships were less taboo in 1979 (the film's setting). Chris makes the Game of Thrones comparison.
• The kitchen nookie scene between Vincent and Mary – extremely awkward.
• The 2 hour 50 minute running time.
• George Hamilton as the consigliere – 'nobody's first choice.' Bill argues his casting is actually a bigger distraction than Sofia Coppola.
• Eli Wallach as Don Altobello – miscast, not sinister enough. The movie has a bad villain problem: once Mantegna's Zasa is killed, it kind of becomes camp with senior citizens in priest robes marauding Sicily.
• The Donal Donnelly performance as Archbishop Gilday – 'He's basically doing Bill Hader playing a guy.' Never opens his mouth, 'International Immobiliare' becomes a running joke.
• Sofia Coppola's acting – 'some people shouldn't be actors.' They had to dub at least 30% of her dialogue. She couldn't say 'Corleone' properly.

• For Vincent Mancini: Alec Baldwin (seems to have truly dropped out – 'classic Irish guy passing for Italian'), Nicolas Cage (family member, kind of weird), Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Val Kilmer, Charlie Sheen, Vincent Spano, Billy Zane, Luke Perry (auditioned), and De Niro wanted to play Vincent (they would have aged Pacino up).
• For Mary Corleone: Julia Roberts (originally cast, dropped out for 'Pretty Woman' scheduling), Madonna (too old), Rebecca Schaeffer (murdered by a stalker on the day of her audition – Ground Zero of celebrity stalking cases and laws), Winona Ryder (exhaustion), Annabella Sciorra, Laura San Giacomo.
• For Don Altobello: Frank Sinatra almost took the part. Also Brando (Bill says too distracting – 18 years older and significantly heavier).
• For Joey Zasa: Mickey Rourke, John Turturro, Dennis Farina.
• Directors Paramount approached over the years: Sly Stallone (who was going to write/direct with John Travolta as Vincent during their Staying Alive collaboration), Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, Warren Beatty.
• Joe Spinelli (Willie Cicci from the first two films) was supposed to be in it but died before production.

• Rick Aviles – one of the two assassins who comes into Vincent's apartment. Also played Willy Lopez in Ghost.
• Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci from SNL) as Dominic Abbandando, the PR guy.
• John Savage as Andrew Hagen (Tom Hagen's son).
• Joe Mantegna as Joey Zasa – originated Ricky Roma in 'Glengarry Glen Ross', most famous for Fat Tony on The Simpsons. House of Games was his breakout ('87). 'He should have been in 'Goodfellas'.'
• Donal Donnelly as Archbishop Gilday – 'In today's world, the power to absolve debt is greater than the power of forgiveness.' The hosts do extended impressions of his bizarre delivery.

• Nominees: every Eli Wallach scene, Pacino's heart attack in the kitchen ('really goes for it for 40 seconds in a crazy way'), and Pacino at the end.
• Heat check (Dion Waiters award) goes to Eli Wallach – 'too old to know anything about those new people.'
• Garcia hits every line with an exclamation point but the hosts love him for it.

• Laura San Giacomo for Mary Corleone – she had the sexuality that would make the Vincent/Mary relationship credible.
• William Hurt for the George Hamilton consigliere role – rewritten as Tom Hagen's oldest son who went to Harvard. Bill's unassailable pick: 'He kind of looks like Duvall. You could say it's Duvall's oldest son.'
• Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, or Paul Newman for the Hamilton part if you just want handsome charismatic presence.
• Paul Newman as Don Altobello is the other big suggestion.
• Diane Keaton's hair (Bill won't stop).

• First draft was written in 1979 by Dean Riesner, based on a Mario Puzo story about Anthony Corleone as a naval officer working for the CIA, involving the Corleone family in a plot to assassinate a Central American dictator.
• Sofia Coppola played the infant in the baptism scene murder montage in 'The Godfather', played a small immigrant child in 'The Godfather Part II', and then Mary in Part III – one of the only people in all three films.
• The actor who played Anthony Corleone (Franc D'Ambrosio) was found after a casting call that tried out 2,000 people.
• Andy Garcia said there was a plan for a fourth Godfather starring him and Leonardo DiCaprio as young Sonny, mirroring Part II's structure.
• The 1990 Best Actor nominees: Jeremy Irons (won for Reversal of Fortune), Costner (Dances with Wolves), De Niro (Awakenings), Gerard Depardieu (Cyrano de Bergerac), Richard Harris (The Field). Pacino wasn't even nominated, but was nominated for Dick Tracy instead.

• Andy Garcia – yes. 'Internal Affairs', 'The Untouchables', Stand and Deliver, Black Rain, then the Oscar nomination for this. Career goes into a weird decline after: When a Man Loves a Woman, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, cut from 'Dangerous Minds'.
• The Vatican.
• Sofia Coppola acting jokes.
• George Hamilton.

• The cousin incest plot – Bill can't get over it and brings it up repeatedly.
• Archbishop Gilday's vetting process – 'What's the ZipRecruiter talk there? Let's put the nervous lizard guy in charge of the bank.'
• The Vatican/Immobiliare financial subplot is nearly incomprehensible even on multiple viewings.
• What happened to the $600 million Immobiliare deal? Mary dies, Michael dies, but did the deal close?
• Vincent goes from wearing a leather jacket and being a hothead to wearing Armani and becoming the Don absurdly fast.
• Bill wishes there was a scene where Michael returns to where Apollonia was blown up and comes clean to Kay about the whole first marriage.

• Yes, if they set it in the modern era – not a direct remake, but if Netflix gave Coppola $200 million for a Corleone family show. 'We have to wait for him to go bankrupt again before it happens.'
• Joke pitch: 'The Life and Times of Archbishop Gilday.'

Garcia was the only actor nominated for an Oscar, but the hosts think Pacino not getting nominated was obscene. They seem to give it to Garcia, though Sean makes a strong case for Pacino's last great nuanced performance.