Gangster Weel

I finished The Public Enemy* and then got a consignment from Amazon via UPS consisting of New Jack City. That wasn’t as odd a change over as I thought it might be, since New Jack City actually fights in perfectly with old Cagney movies. It’s about the same length as those old movies (101 minutes) which means it mercifully avoids the Gangster Epic syndrome that struck crime movies after the 70s. Go ahead, look up some gangster movies made after The Godfather. Most of them are slightly longer than the whole of The Lord of the Rings… read aloud. Yeah, not the movies, the books, with the appendixes, and the songs… those endless and tortuous songs.

Anyway!

New Jack City actually is just like one of those gangster movies of the 30s, with its short hand version of everything. There are a few examples of the scope of their crimes early on, but they are rarely explained in any great details and mostly dropped in order to just throw the viewer into the story, much like its elder brother. The best friend being left behind, the lover of the lead baddie being left behind, even the eventual punishment of Nino being gunned down are all familiar to old gangster film lovers. It even borrows a motif from those old gangster films, having the disclaimer that while the criminals in the movie may be fictitious their crimes are real enough as we the public must do something about them.

I think I’ll watch White Heat next. I believe that is the movie that ends with “Top of the world ma!”

*As a quick side note, there is a one night stand in The Public Enemy. Yah Pre-Code movies!

Or, it could be Electric Boogaloo

It often occurs to me that calling the current war The Iraq War is a bit off. It’s a continuation of Desert Storm really, a sequel if you will. What we are dealing with is Desert Storm 2: The Quickening.

While that title is wholly appropriate, I fear only Highlander fans will fully understand.