Mi®®o®

        Mi®®o®

 

                'That wasn't a painting' - Marge Simpson tells husband Homer better, before during and after being told that what Homer remembers of the hotel room they stayed in the last night had 'that painting of the lady and / the monster' - 'that was / a mirror.'  So it goes with this  Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and mi®®o®, between the booze and the blow and the cincussions and the horror and the (s) / (m) / (b) and just plain / adventures, and we weren’t that bright to begin with, innit DD, up on out on up on out on up on out on up on this Dog and Bony Show, what Cin mostly remembers is the picture of the lady and / the monster.

                'He went to a lot of movies' director Michael Mann says it better of John Dillinger, the bank-robber and titular leader of his film Public Enemies, apropos how Dillinger learnt to talk to the ladies after he was let loose on an unsuspecting 1930s public, after a decade-long stint in the stripey hole, going to a lot of movies is all / we gots.

                Sound familiar, it's another TGIFFriday film review edition of this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and mi®®o®, innit G, and the movie is Mann's Public Enemies.  Dialogue of the film is nothing to write home about, and so director Michael Mann has been cinvited into the cindominium to share his views with this reviewer, and with you dear reader(s).  These directors during the 'Extras' bits of the DVDs are surprisingly enough as a rule more than willing to talk over whatever dialogue they may have written / interpreted during the making of their films, and like to go on and on and on during the showing of their films, chattiness which Cin doesn't normally care for. 

It's okay though, (y)our (wo)men the directors are enthusiastic as they go on and on and on, and enthusiasm is all / we gots, 'the only true bankruptcy' someone wrote one of Cin's favorite slogans better, 'is the bankruptcy / of enthusiasm.'    

                'When I'm not doing this' Stephen Dorff's fellow bank-robber character says it better in the film, to one of the Dillinger gang's comely kidnapping victims, 'I'm a scout / for the movies.'  It's one of the few humorous lines in a movie that might otherwise have had quite a few humorous lines / cindeed, but the humour is lost apparently on director Michael Mann -  who sort of wrote it as far as Cin can see from the cinvoluted (convolted / to ©in –id.) credits at the end - continues to go on and on and on in the director's narrative of the 'extras' bit about all of the research that went into the film, without missing a / beat.   

 

                'He looks like', Dillinger - played by Johnny Depp in the film and played / well - says it better of his first impression upon videeing a local crime boss, 'a barber'.  It's a good movie, one of many whose Cin's appreciation and impression of the quality and value of which has gone up and down over the years, depending on the state of mind of this reviewer at the time that he videed it, then, now and in / the future.  He recalls videeing Public Enemies of a TGIFFriday evening at the time of its release (2009, innit G) - solo that four-lettered word - at the now-departed movie theatre downtown, this after a pint / or six after work at his TGIFFriday bar, followed of course by the better part of the six-pack which he brought into the cinema as always as / cinsurance.

 

                Good times, he was livid after that first time, drunk as a lord, disappointed that the movie wasn't up to his expectations, though funnily enough back in those hal©yon pre-horroregime zero days, Cin was less likely to GTFO of the theatre mid-way through a bad film, whereas now he will leave without hesitation be©ause ®egime ze®o, must have been the cinsurance of the imported six-back back then, the beer that four-lettered wo®d keeping everyone in the transaction honest, whereas now without liquid cinsurance, he just doesn't care,  'modern life is often a mechanical oppression' Hemingway wrote it better, 'and liquor the only ®elief', or words to that / extent.

Besides, 'what are you gonna do' the line from this movie or a similar one has it better, a line used by bamboozlers, criminals and scoff-laws alike, innit Cash, a rhetorical question whose answer is cinvariably 'yes', to those whose sensitivites have been offended yet again -'thin-skinned' Cin wrote it better of the most prevalent qualities of the vast majority of the cast of this Dog and Pony Show – hu(wo)manity- 'humorlous / and vindictive' - 'arrest  me ?'.

 

                Course any movie with Marion Cotillard involved is a movie worth / videeing, and the same goes for director Michael Mann, directing.  Ditto Johnny Depp, 'every night we were filming' director Mann says it better during the voice-over, 'there were 7000 screaming teen-age girls looking / for Johnny', this falls into the You're Either Johnny Depp or You're Not / the Category, as hard as a person tries, as hard as Cin has been after hulk-smashing away at this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and mi®®o®,  no eleven-teen fans are after screaming after him / nightly, there is no getting away from this hard cold, fact / of life.

 

                Cotillard plays Dillinger's love interest, a hard-bitten cocktail waitress who sets up Depp's Dillinger for lines along the lines of the one about Dillinger's past, 'my mother died when I was three,' this monologue starts off, ‘and my father beat me 'cause it was the only way he knew / how to raise me.  I like fast cars' it ends, 'pretty women / and whiskey.'  'You type like you live - fast ' one of Cin's ©uci©ombs colleagues at wo®k that four-lettered wo®d said it better recently to another in jest, busting / her chops 'and full / of mistakes', typing and living fast and full / of mistakes is all / we gots.

Course wo®k that four-lettered wo®d  has its moments with ©in and his ©ubi©ombs ©olleagues - and never a dull that four-lettered wo®df / moment - 'time to go back' Homer Simpson as always says it better of having to go back to his Monday to TGIFFFriday gig after another in a long line (twenty-five years / and counting of The Simpsons -id.) of series of (b) / (m) / (s) and just plain / adventures, 'to my boring job as a nuclear power plant safety / inspector'.

 

                'Die the way you lived' of course is the best slogan of the movie - this line borrowed from an earlier movie in a meta moment in this movie whereby the Dillinger in the movie played by Depp is videeing a 1930s movie with Clark Gable as Dillinger, 'Manhattan melodrama', in a movie house in this movie (that's meta / enough -id.) and videes the same line being uttered on-screen, and appreciates it even as this reviewer appreciates it / now - 'all / of a sudden.  Dragging it out doesn't mean / a thing', dying as you lived, all of / a sudden is all / we gots. 

 

                'Who wants to party ?' the Baby Face Nelson character akses it better in the bar-room of the Dillinger gang's safe house / hotel, after yet another bank robbery.  'We have to work' Nelson's fellow bar-flies - 'drunks' the criminal character Snake, who cinfamously wears a 'Middlebury' t-shirt in one The Simpsons episode, says it better in another, after robbing / the same, 'are so / boring' -  beg off Nelson, who to be fair appears to be and apparently was in real life a hair-trigger lunatic, 'in the morning'.  'Work' Nelson replies better, and a truer slogan was never / uttered, 'is / for mugs.'                                 

 

                Still and all, Cin played the 'To Thine Own Self Be True' card and videed a great Italian film from 1945 this after - 'Rome' it was translated as better, 'Open City' - by Rossillini (?).  What it was is that certain Italians, whom Cin he has to admit sort of suspected as being with the Germans in the first place in World War Two, were in fact in the resistance against the same.  This movie was made, i.e. filmed, literally in the immediate aftermath of the end of the war itself and that immediacy infuses the whole thing.  Two thumbs / up.                               

 

                Thank you for reading this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and mi®®o®.                       

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9S1F3Iz3Mo&list=RDddngCA33B9k&index=26&spfreload=1