Is 'Heat' the Manliest movie of all time?

Short answer? Yes.

Is there shooting? Yes. Is there a bank robbery/robbery of some sort? Yes. Is there at least one scene where Robert De Niro gives a thousand mile death stare? Yes. Does Al Pacino yell? Yes.


Absolute Key Scenes (Spoilers Ahead):

-The entire cat and mouse game between the two 'crews.' A cops vs. robbers theme where each team is professional and not to be messed with. Key scenes include the moment when Pacino realizes he and his LAPD team have been duped and are now actually being monitored by De Niro's crew and the first failed heist that De Niro's crew bails on.

-Obviously the diner scene with Pacino and De Niro

-Danny Trejo's character is unable to shake an LAPD tail and is unable to meet up for the bank heist scene. De Niro sees that the cook at the diner they are eating at is a former friend/inmate played by Dennis Haysbert. De Niro point blank asks him if he is "cool" and if he can be driver for the heist. A simple in or out moment that is in the paragon of cool and decisive.

-Obviously the downtown shootout. GUNS AND STUFF! The audio in that sequence is stellar.

-De Niro ignoring the conventional wisdom of abandoning revenge and escaping in to the night instead goes in to a heavily police monitored hotel to kill the guy who not is the reason why Danny Trejo's character dies, but for screwing up the downtown LA robbery.

-On the LAX tarmac Pacino pursues De Niro as airplanes roar overhead. A final showdown of screen giants occurs as the lights for the runways flash on and off. As lights turn up Pacino sees De Niro's shadow and quickly turns and fires. De Niro falls back and slumps over. With De Niro's dying breaths he tells Pacino (recalling the earlier scene in which the two shared coffee) that, "I told you I'm never going back (to prison)." De Niro extends his hand upwards and Pacino embraces it. Two warriors on both sides of the law realizing that in their failed marriages and relationships that they are in fact as close to one another as anyone else could be. You can see in Pacino's eyes the mutual respect and the solemn sadness that maybe in another life these two would be friends and not enemies.

Michael Mann doesn't give much screen time to the women and I think its clear that throughout his career he doesn't really know how to write for/handle women on screen. The common ethos of most of his characters are that they are above all else there is an overarching moral center that one can divert from. There exists various codes but honor is obviously a huge one. Take a look at Collateral for more obvious evidence. Tom Cruise plays an assassin who takes a liking to Jamie Foxx's character and in numerous times goes out of his way to defend/protect him even as Foxx tries to undermine Cruise. Fascinating stuff folks.

Text "Vikings" to 90999

What a terrible weekend. I can say without hyperbole that my mental state following the Vikings game was something akin to the scene in Carrie where the aforementioned Carrie gets the pigs blood dumped on her in the gym. The moments before she goes in to a telekinetic rage where she sees the entire gym laughing at her (INCLUDING THE TEACHERS!!) is probably how I felt as the field goal went through the uprights to end the Vikings quest for a Superbowl. Before anyone goes on to say that sports don't matter, they do. I've invested an ungodly amount of time in to them. This was terrible.

Homesick

Duluth Live - watch more funny videos

Giggler

Purple Reign

The Vikings have won today. This makes me happy. Prince was in attendance though so you knew things were going well anyways. Nothing funny or clever is going to be said. I'd just like to be in the luxury box with him.

I Don't Want Kids to Read

Nothing bothers me more (NOTHING!!! Except wet socks and when the homeless person asks you for money and you just gave a dollar to the homeless guy ten feet before this current homeless guy and you now feel like explaining that your charity has been used up for the day but instead you lie and just say "Sorry man" without making eye contact and then speed walking to Barnes and Noble so you can read magazines you won't buy) than when I feel out of the loop culturally. I'm of course talking about both Twilight and Harry Potter.

I don't know any names of any characters in Twilight and I don't really even know what its about besides vampire teen angst. This isn't really a problem except I like playing trivia. Even if its a real basic trivia question about Twilight I just won't know anything. Twilight and Harry Potter have now become cultural institutions within a broader pop culture landscape and I can't escape that. When I'm supposed to know who Snivelous Snognarimous Shiancoe is and what secret magic spell he casts on some flying dragon creature in the 4th book all I can do is look directly in to the camera and say, "WHY I AUGHT-AHHH!!!!" while shaking my fist rapidly in the air.

I just do not give a shit about either franchise and it is a gigantic black hole of knowledge for which I doubt I will ever fill. This isn't a hatefest (not affiliated with Lilith Fair) directed at those who read the books. I am not going to read them because I'm not interested in them. With Harry Potter at least these books are from what I've heard pretty well written and entertaining enough for its targeted demographic. On the other hand I hear Twilight is poorly written and just not that compelling.


The following was a tiny rant by a bitter old man. Get off my lawn.

Picnic

I know what everyone is thinking about right now. No not Haiti. You all are thinking, "why can't someone make a Yogi Bear film starring the voices of Dan Aykroyd as Yogi and Justin Timberlake as a Boo-boo?!" (IMDB LINK)

Well you got your wish. 2010 continues to be the year that everyone hoped and dreamed about. Further fun news is that the Spider-Man franchise run by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst is done for...and is being rebooted. Rebooting a successful franchise is kind of weird but from the early description they're going for a "darker and grittier" look. Think Spider-Man Begins or the Dark Spider or something with a dash of Twilight. Expect a younger stupider cast and much worse movies. Oh BOY!

So Stupid A Caveman Can Do It (And the NY Times Can Report It)

I like you New York Times. I really do. I like reading you and you often have in depth coverage on interesting things. But knock it off with this shit. Article: CLICK HERE

Long story short, "new cavemen" will only eat and exercise like cavemen while simultaneously living in the least cavemanish city in the world; New York City.

The caveman lifestyle, in Mr. Durant’s interpretation, involves eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture. Mr. Durant believes the human body evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and his goal is to wean himself off what he sees as many millenniums of bad habits.
....
Instead of eating three square meals a day, many of New York’s cavemen fast intermittently, up to 36 hours at a stretch. Fasting is a topic of banter at the Union Square West apartment where Matthew Sanocki and his brother, Andrew, live and run design-related e-commerce Web sites.
....
Andrew Sanocki, 38, a former Navy officer, explained that he preferred working out on an empty stomach near the end of a fast, and then following up with a large meal. This is a common caveman schedule, intended to reflect the exertion that ancient humans put into finding food. It is as if, Mr. Sanocki explained, “we’ve gone out and killed something, and now we have to eat it.”
.....
Upon visiting Mr. Durant’s apartment for the first time, in August, Mr. Averbukh scowled at a tomato plant on his host’s roof deck.
“Cavemen don’t eat nightshades,” Mr. Averbukh, 29, said. He explained that tomatoes are part of the nightshade family, arguing that they are native to the New World and could not have been part of humanity’s earliest diet. Mr. Durant shrugged. (Mr. Durant said later that there was nothing uncavemannish about eating tomatoes.)

If you just read through those blurbs I just copied and pasted you realize how stupid this sounds. What the article also pointed out at least though is that 12000 years ago if you were a caveman you probably died a violent and terrible death before you were 30. Plus if you don't eat bread you're fucking missing out. Bread is one of the staples of human life for thousands of years...sure cavemen didn't eat bread but you know what else cavemen didn't do? Drive a car or use the internet.

The dudes are trying to reverse evolution and they think they can do this by eating raw meat and fasting once in a while...except you know, they still live in New York and acknowledge they don't plan on giving up any of the creature comforts of the modern age.

The quote though that takes the cake on this article is this:

“I didn’t want to do some faddish diet that my sister would do,” Mr. Durant said.

So I'll be the first to admit this blog had very little of my own input and just copied and pasted a lot but I can't apologize for that. Now to go forage for meat in the Hollywood Hills. To add a few more comments here, one guy exercises by "leaping between boulders, playing catch with stones" which he feels are "primal, essential skills that everyone should have." Uh huh...I know I'm screwed when I go hiking in the back country and I can't properly play catch with boulders.

Link Fixed!

SCORE ONE FOR THE GOOD GUYS (ME)

I found a coupon on the ground today that entitles me to a free dozen Original Glazed doughnuts. The truth is its a postcard from Krispy Kreme wishing someone named Paul a happy birthday. I am not Paul but I plan on redeeming this doughnut coupon tomorrow.

HYPOCRISY OF THE STATE

I'm a few months behind here but I just want to say that Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech for Best Female Video was completely overblown. Let me lay down some evidence.

1. I was a bit perplexed at the outrage and indignation over the interruption of the award reception. Besides the fact that MTV has been rather culturally irrelevant for the better part of the last 10 years (Except Jersey Shore) MTV has always advertised the Video Music Awards and Movie Awards have prided themselves on being more fun and less stuffy than the traditional awards. The idea that Kanye somehow shattered the sanctity and dignity of the awards is therefore fundamentally flawed. Kanye was the best thing that happened to MTV in the past few years and they should be applauding his behavior.

2. In 1994 one Adam Yauch (MCA) in 'Nathaniel Hornblower' disguise interrupted Michael Stipe as he accepted his own MTV award. His protest was the fact that Sabotage was shut out from winning any video awards. (It was nominated for three. Best Video, Best Director, Best Breakthrough Video) I'm a fan of MCA and The Beastie Boys and if I recall correctly the "incident" was taken in stride/as a joke and its looked back on as a funny moment in MTV history. If I recall, Presidents and former presidents, dozens of commentators from all spectrums of media and other artists failed to condemn MCA for his stunt.

3. 2009 Mtv Video Music Awards...there was an award category titled "Best Video (That Should Have Won a Moonman)." Sabotage won that. Coincidence?? I think not. My conclusion...conspiracy. MTV orchestrated this whole thing and the CIA brainwashed Kanye in to doing this.

Television Should Be More Like This

The Mayans Warned Us

I'm in Benji's car and we're heading down to Rochester. 89.3 The Current playing on the radio. Sun going down on a desolate stretch of Highway 52, snow swept landscape, sun going down in the west burning amber orange. The DJ decides to throw on 'New Year's Day' by U2. I won't bore you with a painfully long attempt and articulating why music is awesome and sometimes a certain song comes on and it in a funny but also very serious way makes a moment awesome but....it was pretty awesome.

-I'm still waiting for Dr. Dre's (alleged last album) Detox.

-It's currently -9 degrees and feels like -22 degrees according to Weather.com. I'll just point out that now I legitimately wish I was back in California

-A lot of people/places placed The Strokes - Is This It in the top 5 albums of the decade. I'm likely to agree with most of those people if the assertion that they helped usher in the garage rock revival that in turn brought balance to the music world in which over produced/nu metal rap music of the late 90's dominated.

Keeping that in mind it is always disconcerting when creating lists of decades when something that is arguably "THE BEST" is at the beginning of the decade. For film, two that come immediately to mind are Goodfellas and Raging Bull. Both Scorsese pictures and both were released at the beginning of a decade yet they would both go down as one of the best of the decade...if not THE BEST. I say disconcerting because it certainly makes someone reevaluate the list because right away the author is saying "the best thing came out right away and it was down hill from there." While maybe not literally saying that, I've always been concerned about that when coming up with lists.

The truth though is that Raging Bull has a definite claim at being pegged as 'BEST OF DECADE'. What we should be angry about is why Scorcese had the audacity to release Raging Bull in 1980...he should have released it in 1987 thus alleviating me of any GUILT!!! Damn him.

-Law & Order: SVU marathon the other day on USA and I think even last night. Nice.

-If I make a montage of video clips and stuff that happened over the past 10 years I'd set it to 'Disarm' by Smashing Pumpkins