Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Studios aim for every movie to appeal to every schmuck with $8 in his pocket. 

That's if you can even find a ticket for $8 anymore, seems like every theater charges like $15 a ticket these days. 

When you try to make something that you think will appeal to everyone- often times you just wind up making something that is appealing to no one.

Great story. 

Yeah, even more to that story as well. Head of Paramount at the time- Robert Evans- even hated Nino Rota's scores and tried to get Coppola to change the music in the movie. Coppola threatened to quit so Evans dropped that issue. Evans also wanted Burt Reynolds to play Sonny, but Marlon Brando threatened to quit if Burt Reynolds was cast- as he thought Burt Reynolds was a second rate, horrible actor and didn't want to act with him. 

After the first one came out and won all those awards and became the highest grossing film ever (at the time)- studio obviously desperately wanted to make a sequel. Coppola initially turned them down after having such a miserable time making the first- and he offered to produce a sequel for them on the condition that- wait for it....Martin Scorsese direct it. The studio turned that idea down and basically told Coppola whatever you want- we'll give it to you, please make it. Coppola demanded the studio would agree to make a script he had written- The Conversation- and let him produce and direct it, that he also be allowed to write the screenplay for their upcoming Great Gatsby movie, and that they help him produce and direct a production for the San Francisco Opera- all before production on GFII started- and oh yeah- that Robert Evans be barred completely from GFII and that Coppola could produce the movie himself and have creative control. They agreed to all his demands, hence the second one was made.

Forgot two sleepers I liked:

Sling blade

The Book of Eli. 

Some others I really like

Sideways
About Schmidt
The Wrestler
The Weatherman

Some others I really like

Sideways
About Schmidt
The Wrestler
The Weatherman

GREAT movie. And really was Mickey Rourke's comeback. He was a big star and maybe the best of all the actors in his age/peer group and then he fell off the rails, decided to quit acting to become an amatuer boxer, got his face punched off and his brains bashed in- then had a ton of plastic surgery which disfigured his once leading man looks- then floated around in obscurity, had bit parts here in there- until he really just put an amazing performance in an great movie like The Wrestler. He should've won the academy award for that. Got jobbed if you ask me.