MovieChat Forums > El padrino (2005) Discussion > An 'El Padrino' tale...

An 'El Padrino' tale...


I used to work as a clerk in a video store. One Monday we were putting out the new releases for the next day, and I put a single copy of El Padrino: The Latin Godfather on the shelf. I remembered Damian Chapa as the SERIOUSLY bad actor from Blood In, Blood Out. OK, the scenes where he had to, quote, unquote, "pretend" he was gay were VERY realistically done.

ANYWAY... I had also heard rumblings that the character's mind set in Blood In... - you know, that he's "brown inside, but everybody only sees his white skin color" - was Damian Chapa's real life thought pattern(!). Anyway, jump forward a few years, and El Padrino is on my store's new release wall. Wanting to know just how bad this movie had to be, I took it home.

If you've seen it already, no comment. If not, I'm not getting started (lol)... Anyway, I said to my co-worker that "I'll bet you that NOBODY else, not ONE PERSON, rents this film." He laughed, but every few months I'd be putting DVDs back on the shelf, see El Padrino sitting there, getting dusty, and I'd (re)tell whoever was working, "Check it out - still here!"

Long story short, I wound up leaving the store a few years later. (The BIG GIGANTIC ALL ENCOMPASSING company that owned us decided we were going to rent less movies, and dedicate more space to cell phones and video games.) We had spent a month preparing for this by taking DVDs that we either had multiple copies of, or that didn't rent very well, and moved them to a "Used - For Sale" bin. Guess what was the in the first batch of movies taken out of the rental section, and guess how many times this movie had been rented before we decided to sell it? And when I left the store 9 months later, it was still up for sale.

Now, just like everywhere else, all of the DVD rental outlets are shutting down here in Edmonton. I went to one of the stores last week, and all that it had left for sale were foreign, documentary, and "original" DVDs. ("Originals" = the Italian Job with Michael Caine instead of Mark Wahlberg; The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer instead of, uh, whoever's in the remake; etc.) So *I* liked the movie's remaining in the store, and bought a sh!tload at 3/$10.

Yep, dozens of foreign, documentary, and "original" DVDs... and El Padrino: The Latin Godfather.

I'm just saying...


"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys

-AK

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