'The Godfather' celebrates 40th anniversary

One of the great American movies, "The Godfather" hasn't stopped influencing popular culture since the day it was released. Martin Scorsese owes much of his career to it, "The Sopranos" wouldn't have made sense without it, and VH1's reality show "Mob Wives" is a winking travesty of it.

The film's alluring portrait of the mob as Old World charmers with ice-cold hearts appears again and again in crime films, comedies, video games, comic books, hip-hop videos -- the list goes on. In fact, nearly anything that focuses on organized crime, corporate gamesmanship or the glories of patriarchy -- from HBO's "The Wire" to AMC's "Mad Men" -- seems unable to escape the long, broad-shouldered shadow of "The Godfather."

But for all its heavy themes (immigration, politics, business, the American dream), "The Godfather" is also vastly entertaining. It's a grand, macho soap opera full of unfettered ids, violently settled scores and men wearing enviable suits. And talk about a bromance: Have you ever seen so many guys hugging and kissing in a Hollywood movie?

On the 40th anniversary weekend of the film's release, here are five reasons to love "The Godfather."

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