There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have seen The Godfather, and those who have built an entire personality around not having seen it (a group that, until this week, proudly included our own Mandy Kaplan — a grown woman fully comfortable assigning Rotten Tomatoes scores to a film she had never once watched). Enter Seth Vargas of the Movie Friends podcast, back in the nerd chair to commit the bold act of sitting a self-described mainstream mom down in front of the most quoted movie in American history and asking her to actually have feelings about it.She does. Boy, she does. What comes out of it is a conversation about violence and family and loneliness and whether the most beloved father figure in all of cinema is secretly the devil — the kind of talk that sneaks up and turns profound while you’re still laughing at the pasta jokes. If you’ve been quietly running your own decades-long Godfather standoff, consider this your way out. Press play.GUEST SPOTLIGHTSeth Vargas is one half of Movie Friends, the weekly film podcast he co-hosts with Michelle Rubinstein on a beautifully simple premise: Seth has seen it, Michelle hasn’t, and together they take a curious, friends-first tour through movie history one title at a time. This is Seth’s second visit to Make Me a Nerd — he and Michelle previously walked Mandy through the strange legacy of Ed Wood. Find Movie Friends on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and on Instagram at @moviefriendspodcast.LINKS & REFERENCESThe Films

The Filmmakers & Cast

People & History

Frank Sinatra — the rumored real-life inspiration behind Johnny Fontane
Joe Colombo — the mob boss behind the real protest campaign Seth describes
Italian-American Civil Rights League — the organization that rallied against the film’s production
The Hays Code (Motion Picture Production Code)

Watch & Listen

Previously on Make Me a Nerd

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