 Michael Corleone, Role Model Every year, in the doldrums between Christmas and the new year, I need to look at The Godfather again. It is not just that it is one of my favorite films or that I rate it among the best ever made in America. The appeal is more primitive. For at that time of year when momentum and deadlines falter, I turn to The Godfather for reassurance and the unalloyed bliss of having fantasies restocked. As a matter of fact, I would rather watch it alone—after the family has gone to sleep—so that I may more expansively dig in and take on the listless but lethal authority with which the central character rises to his destined place in the family and the world. I want to be like Michael.
I love every foot and frame of the film; I cherish the repetition in seeing it again. I value the lesson Clemenza gives in Italian cooking as much as Jack Woltz's tirade against Johnny Fontane, who ruined one of the most valuable properties he ever owned (a girl who was also, Woltz admits, the greatest piece of ass he ever had). Knowing the film by heart doesn't take away from the pinnacled marvel of Apollonia's breasts; the hangdog gloom in Tessio's falling face when he knows he's a dead man; the way Sonny kicks the damp shit out of Carlo in hydrant spray on a hot day in the city; the yelping glee of Connie when Johnny Fontane comes to the wedding; the quiet of Louis's restaurant in the Bronx (try the veal); the brilliance of Diane Keaton in all her broken moments; Brando's intellectual but digestive sigh when he learns how Woltz was handled; the blood that leaks out of Moe Greene's shattered eye; and the polite, apologetic way Al Neri closes the inner door on Kay at the end. So guys can talk in private.
Were so many things ever so well-timed and well-judged? Is there a movie that celebrates efficiency with more hushed, righteous gravity? Did Francis Ford Coppola make this picture? Of course he did, and he was something even superior at time to such "trashy" material. On March 11, 1997, this monstrous show will be twenty-five years old. In all likelihood, a lot of its family will gather again for celebrations and feasts, chuckling together, taking a little of the wine Francis makes now, and remembering how all their lives were changed. That film made so many of them, it hardly matters how far some have fallen in the years since. After all, in business you move ahead or you go to the wall; there is no resting. But nothing will take away from the magnificent team spirit, the family solidarity with which crime, murder, and betrayal all paid off in the name of order. Forget the routine talk about how The Godfather is the classic gangster film and an epic portrait of the immigrant's America. It is a movie about happiness and feeling good. And guys get it. Always have. Especially the guys whose dark task it is to make motion pictures.   This Boy's (Working) Life From the time I was old enough to beat Super Mario Bros. 2, I shadowed my dad and hung around our family's Thai restaurant every chance I got. It was like theater to be on the sidelines of a working kitchen. Long before the Food Network romanticized cooks and kitchens, I knew there was something special here. Listening to the hiss of noodles as they hit the surface of a fiery wok, followed by the gentle clank clank clank of a metal spoon incorporating the ingredients of a pad thai; breathing in the smell of curries simmering on the stove; watching cleavers chop through an order of gai yang, grilled chicken marinated in lemongrass, fish sauce, coriander, and ginger. This was my favorite dish as a kid, and I loved to sneak tastes of it.
 What's With All These Shirtless Celebs in Suits? At an early December premiere of Don't Look Up, Jonah Hill stepped onto the red carpet in a seafoam blue single-breasted suit. Amongst a clique that included Leonardo DiCaprio, Tyler Perry, and other tall, beautiful men decked in traditional navy, gray, or black two-pieces, Hill stood out—and marvelously at that. The look was by Gucci, the Italian label beloved by magpies and fervent fans of The Royal Tenenbaums, and the color was just the beginning: three pronounced brooches, a shimmering cyan necklace, and aquamarine jacquard mules by Manolo Blahnik finished it off. Hill also matched almost completely with his girlfriend, surfing instructor Sarah Brady. As if all that doesn't sound peculiar already, intentionally missing was a shirt. Chalk it up to the warm-ish December night or Hill's knack for dressing outside the proverbial box, his shirtless suit was on the money either way.  The Clown Whisperer Joe List stood before the bathroom mirror in a filthy condominium in Tampa, checking his gumline for proof his teeth were about to fall out of his head. Unable to find any dental rot, he enlisted fellow comedian Greg Stone, his roommate for the weekend, to conduct an amateur exam. Stone said List's teeth looked fine, but List was unconvinced; he demanded to speak to Stone's dentist friend on the phone, who inspected his mouth over FaceTime and found nothing. It did little to soothe List. He wondered if he was suffering from brain cancer and rifled through his contacts, calling every medical professional he knew, asking them to corroborate his self-diagnosis. None did. So List turned to a last resort. All of his comedian friends—Sam Morril, Gary Gulman, Robert Kelly—talked up one man constantly, making him out to be something of a quasi-mystical miracle worker for struggling comedians. Apparently, this man had helped everyone from open-micers to superstars, Seinfeld writers to Comedy Cellar regulars. Rumor had it that he was impossible to get time with after Pete Davidson was cast in Saturday Night Live at the tender age of 20, leaving other comics wracked with jealousy. Richard Lewis, the original neurotic comic, had started seeing him back in the '70s, people said. Desperate, List called Morril, who gave him the phone number. Then, List called Alan Lefkowitz, therapist to seemingly all of New York's most successful stand-ups.
 The Fortunes Won—and Lost—in the Mind-Boggling Rise of r/WallStreetBets James never paid much attention to the stock market. The 41-year-old has worked for 20 years at the same aerospace company in Cincinnati, coating jet-engine parts with a protective layer of aluminide. He lives in Cheviot, a working-class Ohio suburb just minutes from his childhood home. He's not particularly emotive, and his goals in life are modest—his greatest ambition is to own a house of his own, maybe a new car. He is a thoroughly ordinary guy. But when lockdown orders were issued last spring and the economy cratered, James, a longtime Reddit user enamored with the swashbuckling environment of r/WallStreetBets, a subreddit for high-risk retail investors, saw an opportunity to turn a quick buck in the stock market. Less than a year later, his account in the mobile stock-trading app Robinhood had grown to $80,000.  Have Sperm, Will Travel Ari Nagel, forty-six, was tall, with blue eyes, a wide smile, and soft, graying curls. Over the past decade, he'd had more than fifty donor children and was something of a celebrity in the world of sperm donation. He didn't offer his services in the groups because he didn't have to; women sought him out. Dozens of mothers vouched for him online. On Instagram, his handle was CuteProfessor, and on Facebook, it was NicePerson. Almost all the photos featured his donor children—so many beaming, beautiful babies. He donated in New Jersey, Connecticut, even once in Illinois. When his friends asked why, his answer was simple: he liked to "help women," and they "kept asking."
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Sunday, December 26, 2021
Michael Corleone, Role Model
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