The Godfather, the Game

 Oh the things one finds in the local toy shop. As many people into crime fiction, whether they are books or films, I am a fan of The Godfather. Well, it turns out that there is a board game (at least I think it can count as a board game, I mean it was in the board games section) called The Godfather: Last Family Standing. I own already too many board games, we have too little time to play them, we don't really invite enough people often enough to have party games anyway, but I must confess, I am curious. Anyone played this game? Is it worth 20 quid?

The Godfather's Anniversary

The recent events should not make us forget something that one needs to commemorate and celebrate. And today is one day of celebration: it is the 45th anniversary of the release (in the USA) of The Godfather. Maybe the greatest film ever made and one of my favourite. More than a mafia movie, The Godfather is truly a Greek tragedy that mixes Hitchcockian suspense with the finest piece of acting Hollywood ever gave us. There are so many great scenes, but as an homage here on Vraie Fiction, I will give you the first one.

Twelve years of 9/11

It is the 11th of September again. This year, I barely noticed it. Ironic, as the day was fittingly commemorative: cold and gloomy. I wrote my most important posts about it in 2008 and in 2009 already. I will commemorate it briefly tonight, by uploading first this drawing from webcomic Atheist Eve by Tracie Harris. I hope she doesn't mind. I deeply admire her work, this specific strip especially, how intelligent and compassionate it is. How eloquent too. Then I have decided to upload The End by The Doors. It was not meant to be a song about the end of times, but one cannot help feeling this association, especially with its use in Apocalypse Now, fittingly re-released back in 2001. Of course, 9/11 was not the end of times. There is no such thing, not by human standards anyway. Nevertheless, this reminds me of that day, of a certain state of mind that the world is in since that day. So here it is.

Dramatic rain

We had some heavy showers today, but sadly no storm. I enjoy rain sometimes, especially big showers, as long as I can stay inside and dry. Rainy afternoons are lovely when you want to read and rainy nights are soothing when you want to sleep. Rain is great to set the atmosphere in a pulp fiction story and you might as well have the real thing outside to enhances the experience. Heavy rain is brilliant because it is so dramatic. Francis Ford Coppola said something about it in the commentaries on The Godfather: bad weather is free special effects. I agree with this.

At work, part of the roof is a glass window, which makes it quite sensitive to weather. Our flat in the attic has the same quality: it makes you closer to wild weather. I could have stayed in the stairs watching and listening to the rain when it started, but it would have looked silly. I will have to wait for the weekend to enjoy it here.

The Godfather (and, in this case, the godmother)

We spent the weekend in Swindon, where my wife became the godmother of her very little cousin (she's a few months old). The ceremony was slightly different from the Catholic one, but not much, I could follow easily. There were loads of children, and more friends than family. I think that was the most important difference: in Québec, baptism is more family-centered than community-centered.

Anyway, it was a lovely day. It was a good occasion for me to wear a suit, even though it got quite hot in the afternoon, so I got rid of the jacket and tie. It is also not practical when you have to amuse nearly a dozen children and play the hungry monster running after them. Remember that scene in The Godfather when Don Vito Corleone dies playing the ogre with his grandson? Well, that's what I did yesterday. If I hadn't eaten so much, I think I would have lost a couple of pounds, just by running around growling. Anyway, the whole day reminded me of The Godfather: we had a big family/community reunion, lots of children, a baptism (or Christening as they call it here), some wine, lots of food and a man in a suit running around playing the ogre.

And as it is "de circonstances", here is The Godfather main theme: