"My life has totally changed since the purchase of this shirt. My cousin/wife always told me that all we needed in life was a Lexus SUV, some hair gel, a gold chain, and designer clothes. However, she's only 9 so what does she know. I being a bit of hellion decided to break from my Irish Traveler roots. Once I put this shirt on I felt the raw power of the wolf travel through my veins.
I've gained a new found confidence that has allowed me to defraud over 200 elderly couples in the past 6 months alone. I even get free biscuits at Red Lobster when I where this baby. Wolf shirts FTMFW IYAM!"
"I went to my local casino two days ago to have a drink with a friend. I had an amazing experience I had to share with you.
First of all, I never gamble. I don't like the odds. But, we decided anyway to gamble away $20 dollars.
We looked around trying to decide where to blow the money. We looked at the card tables, the roulette wheel, and finally, the slot machines.
And then I saw it. A slot machine with a big wolf's head on it.
I instantly remembered the power of the wolf t-shirt and confidently walked over to the machine.
We put in our $20 dollars. It was a very complicated machine (to us) and we asked the grizzled woman at the next chair how to bet. She guided us expertly (like a wise elder) and we proceeded to double our money in the first two spins.
She recommended we cash out $20 to bank our winnings. We obediently complied (as if in a trance of wolf spirit and earth mother). We spun a couple of more times, won again, and realized that our glorious moment was complete.
We cashed out, more than doubling our money, and walked out of the casino feeling high. This is my first post on amazon in my entire life. If you can't buy this shirt, do as I did, and let it guide you throughout your life."
So I traveled to the beach at Neponsit for some noon sun and got a whole lotta deep burn. Still could not get away from those Bushwick hipsters, who somehow found us and decided to give their limited but loudly projected thoughts on the Middle East and cellulite. After they commented on my Midtown shirt.
Eric Godard thinks he's hurting Colton Orr from a Pittsburgh Penguins/New York Rangers hockey game this past season. What Orr realizes is once his hand starts to get numb, it becomes quite the club!
Michael Mann's Public Enemies is an honest depiction of a life that could only be true in film. John Dillinger is played by Johnny Depp, another public figure whose inner life is ostensibly unknowable, and his foil, the budding G-man Melvin Purvis, is played by Christian Bale. As Depp plays him, he is a romantic, disciplined figure of the public's mythic conscience; Robin Hood in a three-piece suit with a Tommy gun at his side. Above him, around him and to him, Mann emphasizes not only the birth of organized, capitalist-driven crime but the sheer thrill of being romanced by such a public figure.
At a drab Midwest prison circa 1933, Mann begins with a breathless prison break orchestrated by Dillinger and compatriot John "Red" Hamilton (Jason Clarke) to release the bulk of their Chicago gang, which included mentor Harry Pierpont (David Wenham) and Homer Van Peter (Stephen Dorff). His return to Chicago is marked by a robbery and a meeting with his counterpart Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi) but is sent into overdrive by the appearance of sassy coat-check girl Billie Frechette, played by the excellent Marion Cotillard. They fall madly in love and stay together even as he is sent to prison again and narrowly escapes capture until his infamous death in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago in June 1934.
Public Enemies is set during the depression but nothing on the screen suggests the depleted environs, save for the public's love for the concept of simply taking the government's money whenever they please. Mann's film is not a chronicle of American history as much as it is a chronicle of a pivotal point in America's love for crime and their need to know that a life of crime is always possible and that it does indeed pay. A recent New York Times article recounted the production of Public Enemies, which began as a film about Jewish mastermind Karpis, as a hope of chronicling the half-decade or so when Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and Baby Face Nelson were celebrities of high prestige, hidden in plain sight.
In Mann's film, Nelson is played by the great British character actor Stephen Graham, a force to be reckoned with in Shane Meadows' This is England. He is, along with Karpis and Dillinger, the reason that J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup in fine form) is seeking to turn his Bureau of Investigation into a Federal body, with Purvis as his lead G-man. As fatalistic as the man he chases, Purvis is introduced as he guns down Pretty Boy Floyd (a brief Channing Tatum) in an orchard and exits as the smallest cog in Dillinger's death. Betrayed by father figure Hoover when he is asked to "take off the white gloves," Purvis is, as the film consistently points out, just as disillusioned with the embryonic FBI as Dillinger is with the initial steps of the Chicago mafia's clandestine agreements with law enforcement to cut the chord with Dillinger and his lot.
As with his last film, the nocturnal free-flow Miami Vice, Public Enemies at once works to concrete Mann's immense talents while further pointing out his minor but telling weaknesses. Soundtracked mainly by Mort Dixon's "Bye Bye Blackbird" and other depression-era lullabies, there is still that indulgence in steely electric guitars to emphasize action and pace, less prominent and much preferred over the swells of Audioslave that dogged both Miami Vice and Collateral.
Like The Dark Knight, Enemies is an unlikely summer entry; one that must accept certain conventions to ensure its box office yet consistently upends and reevaluates the very parts of its DNA that make it a hopeful box office titan. Paced smartly and fitted with solid ensemble performers, which also includes the stage actor Stephen Lang and Rory Cochrane as Purvis' partners, Public Enemies enlists digital cinematography in the most provocative commercial form to date, adding looseness and clarity to a genre usually noted for its tight framing. Wielded by Mann's staple lenser, the crafty and deft Dante Spinotti, Mann's camera peers into the film's nighttime siege of Nelson and Dillinger's woodland hideout with an uncanny ease and thrilling precision; the film's aesthetic feels as if it's on the lam along with its central figure.
Depp's performance, calibrated and deployed with a leopard-like charm, doesn't outshine Bale nor does it work to tower above prominent screen partner Cotillard. Mann has always been an expert at harmonious acting: You may remember the scene between Pacino and DeNiro in Heat but it is not the film's most memorable scene. The film, written by Irish scribe Ronan Bennett along with Mann and Southland creator Ann Biderman, is based on Bryan Burrough's astute study of the crime waves prominent in the early 1930s and the subsequent birth of Hoover's FBI; the film's relation to movement and the chase rather than the national reflection speaks to the gone-tomorrow mentality of the era more than the vision of a thousand breadlines. Like its two lead characters, Public Enemies has certain nostalgia for the flash of early crime, the simplicity of it; it has an open distaste for procedure and concentrates on the swiftness and cunning of these jailhouse playboys. Obviously relating to Dillinger and Purvis, Mann chooses innovation over security, a Tommy gun over a ledger.
Chris Cabin is our very own resident film critic. You can find other reviews at AMC's Filmcritic.com. His opinions are not necessarily those of The KCB.
The KCB: Here is a featurette on the crew and staging of a bank robbery in the film; it echoes all of Michael Mann's crime film work, he loves the idea of a crew:
Get your chlorine on starting Saturday if you can't make it to the beach, Brooklyn Paper reports that BK's public pools are open for the tinkle-and-paddle-away. It was always hilarious that the kiddie pool was about ten times warmer than the deeper, grown-up pool. Granted, shallower pools with good sun exposure and just a penchant for warmer water can contribute, but I always imagined a couple bad apples just letting loose. Talk about hard water!
The Sunset Park pool is laid out quite nicely but nothing really beats the construction of that behemoth in Astoria Park from our sister to the north.
However, if you're not up for the beach, there's few things more unique in the summer than the public pool. The concrete against your bare feet, stubbed toes, hot sun, cool towels you wish you had, running in water, checking out babes underwater when you were like 10. Awkward bathing suit moments. Fear of the deep end. Your skin feeling funny tingly after all that cleanliness in the H2O. Snack stand. Smelly, damp bathrooms. The locals.
Having glasses, getting into the water was always a nuisance...
For a full list of pools (the season hasn't ended as the site says, it just hasn't been updated for this year) click on the Brooklyn tab at this link: Brooklyn Public Pools.
Not doing anything this weekend? Initially I was just going to go to BAM's Cinematek party extravaganza/movie marathon, but since the sad news today of the white-gloved one's death, in honor I'm focusing on the fact that one of the movies during the marathon is The Wiz, which features Diana Ross and a young, wonderful MJ at his most nubile as the Scarecrow in a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. Scroll down for a link to the story. More people are probably going to catch it now. Here's the trailer:
I'm probably not going to do up the Marathon 4 because it's just depressing. However, a chance to catch Pineapple Express AND Friday back to back while partying at the cafe? Absolutely. I am kind of peeved that they chose Look Who's Talking Too, versus the first one which was pleasant. Bruce Willis doesn't always mean better people. But Top Gun is always good for a laugh. I'll be there for the Chyka birth anniversary! Although with the amount of noise, I'll want one of those hearing packs. All night party and movies included for 15 bucks.
"Join us for four movie marathons that are sure to satisfy the popcorn flick lover in everyone (don't worry, there's one screen for arthouse lovers, too!). And if you need help keeping your energy up between film screenings, we'll also be running an all-night dance party in BAMcafé. Tickets are $15 and include access to all screens and dance party.
Marathon 1: Diana Ross Coming Out
Music, glamour, and 70s schmaltz collide in this pair of films featuring superstar Diana Ross. This double feature will have you in rapture from the moment the words "gowns designed by Diana Ross" hit the screen.
The Wiz 12am (1978) 134 min Director: Sidney Lumet. With Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor. We're definitely nowhere near Kansas in this urban re-telling of the classic tale.
Mahogany 2:30am (1975) 109 min Director: Berry Gordy. With Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Perkins. Ross, in glamorous 70s couture, is paired with Williams—the paramour to her rising fashion model—while Perkins is the disturbed photographer who tries to split them up.
Marathon 2: Before They Were Scientologists
BAMcinemaFEST presents three of your favorite stars as you'd like to remember them...before the couch jumping, Jenny Craig commercials, and, er, Battlefield Earth.
Top Gun 11:15pm (1986) 110 min Director: Tony Scott. With Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer. Tom Cruise stars as Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a hot-shot young aviator with a "need for speed" in this VHS classic featuring a killer 80s soundtrack.
Look Who's Talking Too 1:30am (1990) 81 min Director: Amy Heckerling. With John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Bruce Willis, Roseanne Barr. This sequel to Look Who's Talking finds toddler Mikey learning he's got to "fight for his right to potty."
Staying Alive 3am (1983) 93 min Director: Sylvester Stallone. With John Travolta. Travolta's crotch practically co-stars in this awesomely cheesy follow-up to Saturday Night Fever. Don't miss the climactic, psychedelic S&M-themed dance sequence.
Marathon 3: All Night Bong
Whether you're in the mood to see really good, funny movies, or feeling unusually relaxed, hungry, and/or paranoid, this screen is for you.
Smiley Face 11:15pm (2007) 88 min Director: Gregg Araki. With Anna Faris, John Krasinski. When Jane eats her roommate's pot-filled cupcakes, she stumbles through LA to find replacements. With subtle social commentary throughout, some of this is actually kind of deep, dude.
Pineapple Express 1am (2008) 111 min Director: David Gordon Green. With Seth Rogen, James Franco. Green revitalizes the classic pot plot in this 80s-action-flick-inspired comedy. "The Casablanca of pot comedies" (Cinematical).
Friday 3am (1995) 91 min Director: F. Gary Gray. With Ice Cube, Chris Tucker. Craig and Smokey share a joint and chillax in South Central when Smokey's dealer threatens to kill them if they don't pay their debt by the end of the night. Boyz in the Hood with bongs.
Marathon 4: BAMcinématek Favorites
Among the many films BAMcinématek has shown over the past ten years, these three hold a special place in our hearts.
In the Mood for Love 11:15pm (2000) 98 min Director: Wong Kar-wai. With Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung. Leung and Cheung star in this lushly photographed tale of unconsummated love.
Millennium Mambo 1:15am (2001) 119 min Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien. With Shu Qi, Jack Kao. A young girl drifts through endless parties and hookups in neon-soaked Taipei.
demonlover 3:15am (2002) 115 min Director: Olivier Assayas. With Gina Gershon, Chloë Sevigny, Charles Berling. A thriller about corporate greed, porn, and video games, set to a score by Sonic Youth."
So the friends at Food2 are doing a casting call this summer (episodes will probably film in the East Village where the first three episodes take place) right here in New York City promising more blowtorches and irons, you basic tools of the trade to make a meal on the street with 12 bucks and 2 hours to spare. They'll be filming all during August, a mouthful of episodes so I would suggest going here to sign up: 12 Dollar Challenge Casting Call
Did I mention cast members will get 100 clams? That's right, I read the fine details. With a 50/50 chance of winning on each episode, chances are if you're charming enough your date will actually go out with you after the filming/eating is done. You can also use that Benjamin to go to Flash Dancers. Or get really wrecked.
The episodes so far have progressed into fun 5 minute low budget treats, not much romance but plenty of fun. Blowtorches are really key, check out the second vid for that:
From John Sherlock:
