The Godfather

Yesterday, I watched The Godfather for the first time.

I can't believe that I'd never seen this film before. It's absolutely brilliant: remarkable acting, amazingly well-paced for its length, and intoxicating in its characterization both of individuals and collectives.

Really, I just enjoyed myself immensely watching this film. Until things started going poorly for the Corleone family, and then I sat in nervous anticipation. And then, at the end, I was transfixed by inevitability and sorrow.

Having been subjected to Godfather impersonations since I was a wee one, thanks to the Godfather being such a pop icon, I was concerned that Marlon Brando's performance as Don Corleone would be over-the-top. Luckily, that was a function of caricature and not a manifestation of the base attributes. Brando was brilliant.

Also, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I went through the whole movie wondering about Michael, the youngest son. "What a handsome devil!" I kept thinking to myself. "I wonder who that is playing him?" And "What a familiar nose!" You can bet my face met my palm when I realized it was Al Pacino.

I don't really have time to write a deeper review, but there you have it. I'm eager to watch the next one when I have a chunk of time.

Editing: Green Dream

I did a first-pass edit on half of Green Dream tonight. It gave me a headache. There are parts which I actually feel are good and like I know what I'm doing. And then there are the parts where I can't even tell if I know what I am doing and then the whole house of cards starts to tremble.

Is this any good? Would anyone care about this story? Do I care about this story? Is this getting across what I wanted to evoke? Who uses those words? Do I usually use that word? What the hell is up with that contortion act of a sentence? Am I ever going to get this right? Does this even have a chance of being good enough for submission in a week? Are my amateur panties showing?

Then: headache.

With my relative level of self-confidence, it's probably miraculous that I manage to get anything done.

I should draw solace from that and use it to build up self-confidence. ;)

Anyway, the current plan is to finish the first-over pass (tonight? hah! tomorrow, at best). I suppose I will then mail out the first-pass edit for beta-ing while independently continuing to tinker. At my discretion.

I would put this story in a drawer for a while, to gain some distance, but I'm working under a deadline.

The current word-count is 6942, and I'm willing to edit it down to approximately 6k, which I feel is pretty solid for a short story of this type. I compared it to a few anthologies I have encompassing a similar genre and my notion was borne out. It looks like my story would end up being about 12 pages.

Now, I am going to read something for pleasure and something for school. And take some advil.