DeNiro.

Pacino.

Mann.

The only question one can ask about Heat is where it lies in the Top 5 best movies of all time list. Number 1? I would argue that it’s held back from the number one spot by its shitty cinematography. Maybe that’s not the right word. The transfer to video…it looks like crap. Even the Special Edition, All Singing All Dancing DVD looks like shit. Why is this?

Anyone?

In an effort to guage Mann’s true genius I have embarked upon a Mann film festival this evening featuring Miami Vice, Collateral and Man Hunter.

If you are a loyal watcher of The Daily Show you might have caught the following trailer airing midway through on Monday. I was completely fucking blown away. Now I know these Marvel superhero movies have really sucked for the most part but I’m holding out hope here. This is probably one of the greatest movie trailers I have ever seen. Do check it out:

Iron Man HD trailer.

“No gang signs…no, I’m kidding throw it up.”

Last night I stood in an absurd line to check out the new film 300 in the biggest, loudest theatre in the state. My review?

Go see this f-ing movie. NOW. Not tomorrow, now!

That’s all. Also, disregard all these snooty douchebag reviewers who handed out negative reviews. If you feel the need, click over to Movies.com and check out a couple of the weirdly mixed reviews, but you really shouldn’t bother. Not one of them captures the essence of the film in any way. One thing to recall is that a majority of movie reviewers are merely reporters who got assigned to the film beat. They aren’t film FANS and the ones that might be…well take a look at some of their past reviews to see what they have to say. For example Rolling Stone gave 300 a crap review. A little bit of research reveals that their critic is this fellow named Peter Travers. Who, incidentally used to be the film critic for the hard hitting journal People Magazine …heh.

A quick Google search reveals his past top ten lists from each year and it basically reads like the top ten lists of the Jump on the Bandwagon Film Squad. Plus every year whatever homo movie came out seems to be in the number 2 spot. Some classics? He lists Titanic as the best movie of 1997, and whatever Woody Allen craps out ALWAYS makes the top ten.

1999 is the key year I would use call his taste worthless — he ignored Fight Club but put American Beauty at the top of his list. Anybody who liked American Beauty was too much of a pussy to have seen Happiness the year before. American Beauty was just a shiny, happy rip-off version of Happiness. This is a guy who didn’t even rate David Fincher’s best movies like Se7en and Fight Club but called Zodiac (his WORST film) his best.

So fuck the critics and go see 300. If you really don’t like it, you are probably a Brokeback Mountain loving fag BUT send me your ticket stub and I’ll take care of it for you. Now what critic ever makes THAT offer??

Has anybody heard of this movie, The Protector? It’s a Thai kung-fu movie, kinda like a low rent Jackie Chan. Well low-ER rent. First go check out the HD trailer on Apple.com. Okay, what did you think? Yeah, me too. Totally! So I went to see it tonite, and I found it to be exactly what I want when I go see a kung-fu movie — lots of kung fu. Well technically in this case muay thai. The star is some guy I’d never heard of until recently, Tony Jaa he’s some kind of Thai hybrid between Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. The movie was basically non-stop fighting for 90 minutes. Frankly I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s like renting a porn movie and complaining that there”s too much sex. Actually a kung-fu movie is a lot like a porn movie. In a kung-fu movie there is some cursory backstory, for example the main character’s father is killed and he must avenge his death. In a porn movie there is some cursory backstory, for example a pizza delivery guy arrives at an all girl sleep over. In a kung fu movie there are various fight sequences as the hero makes his way through the underlings to the boss. In a porn movie there are various sex sequences as the star makes his way through the underthings to the boobs. At the end of a kung fu movie there’s a huge battle royale where the star takes on 20 guys. In a porn movie we call this an orgy. You know what would be an AWESOME movie? 50% porn and 50% kung fu!!! Oh man, I’m gonna hop on this.

So before this movie came out I had zero intention of seeing it. However, I noticed that Michael Mann directed it. This is the guy who did Heat and Collateral – two of the best movies ever. So if his next movie were called Fat Lady Reads Telephone Book, well I’d be going no matter what.

Also the fact that he was a producer on the original Miami Vice gave me the feeling that he’d essentially be true to the genre. He was, great flick, go see it now.

Read some reviews here.

The OFFICIAL site is here.

If you don’t like Miami Vice you aren’t a real movie fan, you’re just a person who watches movies. (Which is fine.)