In my opinion, it perfectly captures the incredible breadth — and importance — of American storytelling: family, the immigrant experience, power, politics, devotion, revenge, heartbreak.

And its themes are just beautiful blueprint tragedy, especially the son never being too far from the father. Coppola didn’t want to do the film, money got him there, and his execution is just spot-on perfect.

For those that are interested: I’ve been an online film reviewer for years, and I have a couple of items worth sharing: A “Top Five” list of Al Pacino films to celebrate his recent AFI award, and tomorrow, a “Top Ten” that will pertain to the AFI 100 (not yet announcing the connection though…) Check meetinthelobby.com, if you’d like.

-Norm Schrager