'80s Night at the Conspiracy Ballroom

Jesse Walker | April 18, 2005

First we learned the Communists really were behind the 1981 plot to kill the pope. Now the Italian authorities are charging four people with the murder of the financier Roberto Calvi, found dead under extremely unusual circumstances in 1982. Conspiracy fans will recall that Calvi was at the heart of the Vatican banking scandal, and that he was also a member of the renegade Masonic lodge P2, name-checked briefly in one of the least comprehensible scenes of The Godfather Part III.

Comments

|4.19.05 @ 12:55AM|#

nyyyyyce.

|4.19.05 @ 7:37AM|#

If it turns out the next Pope was actually born of a jackel in a secret Masonic rite, I'm going to seriously think about getting my baptism annulled. Anybody know how I could do that?

|4.19.05 @ 8:01AM|#

There is no Godfather III. There were only two movies, and they were perfect. There was no need for a third movie. IT WAS NEVER MADE!!!!

|4.19.05 @ 10:08AM|#

Mr. Nice Guy,
And after Rocky defeated communism, there was no need to make a 5th movie.

|4.19.05 @ 10:38AM|#

Mo:

Altho I have affection towards the goofy 80's charm of Rocky III (it gave us Mr. T!), the original "Rocky" should've stood alone (and let's throw First Blood in there, too). Anything after those initial offerings was just pure cashing in.. not that there's anything wrong with that..

|4.19.05 @ 10:50AM|#

Was the original "First Blood" any good?

|4.19.05 @ 11:02AM|#

It had Brain Dennehy at his finest and it was a little bit of a social commentary as well. You can't ask any more from a Stallone movie.

|4.19.05 @ 11:27AM|#

first blood, the directors cut, is actually quite good.

then again, i think the stallone remake of get carter is quite good, so take that for what it's worth.

|4.19.05 @ 11:37AM|#

I thought First Blood was a nice, simple, gritty movie. John Rambo actually had some nuance, believe it or not.

But nothing comes close to Cobra. That was a true work of art.

|4.19.05 @ 12:26PM|#

Douglas - I don't know...I tried to find out how to get excommunitcated when I was younger, but it seemed way more trouble than it'd be worth! :)

|4.19.05 @ 1:05PM|#

MNG,
I see Rocky II-IV as the equivalent to Back to the Future II, enjoyable movies that were not as good as the original, but better than many movies and they didn't take much of the luster off the original. Rocky V, along with the Godfather Part III, belong in the same trash heap as Major League 2 and Police Academy n, where n is greater than 4 (the value of n can go down depending on taste).

Besides, without Rocky, who would've brought down the Berlin Wall. "If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change."

|4.19.05 @ 7:10PM|#

Was the original "First Blood" any good?

IIRC, there was only one "First Blood", after that it was Rambo Part X.

And yes, "First Blood" was very good, at least seeing it in the theater with my buddies when we were in our late teens.