Mammal ancestors laid eggs, and this 250-million-year-old fossil finally proves it
Apparently, they’re still laying eggs:
Fewer Than 40,000 People Watched Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Both snippets courtesy of Insty.
Category: Entertainment
Wrong 10
Yeah I know, it’s another piece of A.I. garbage, masquerading as thoughtful critique, but this take on the 10 greatest heist movies gets it wrong.
To save you the time of watching the video, with its fake voice and faker conviction, here’s its list:
10 – Oceans 11 (no argument; the first and best of the Oceans franchise, and far better than the original Rat Pack version)
9 – The Italian Job (with Michael Caine; also no argument)
8 – Inception (nope; it’s not a heist movie, but sci-fi)
7 – Rififi (no argument)
6 – Inside Man (no argument)
5 – The Sting (nope, it’s not a heist movie; it’s a sting, just as the title suggests)
4 – Reservoir Dogs (nope, it’s not a heist, just as the “narrator” suggests)
3 – Heat (no argument)
2 – The Town (haven’t seen it yet, so no comment)
1 – Goodfellas (nope; it’s not even remotely a heist movie)
You see, there’s a framing problem, here. The definition of a “heist” movie is that it’s about criminals stealing stuff from an institution, not from people. It has to be about the actual robbery, in other words, and not about the aftermath (Reservoir Dogs) or just an aside to the plot (Goodfellas), or about robbing an individual (The Sting, Inception). That’s not to say that the above are not good movies — they’re all absolutely brilliant — but they’re not about heists, according to my definition.
So if we delete the unqualified, it leaves four spots open on the list. Here are my modest suggestions for inclusion, in chronological order:
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951, Alec Guinness)
Charley Varrick (1973, Walter Matthau)
Thief (1981, James Caan)
The Score (2001, Robert De Niro, Ed Norton)
Heist (2001, Gene Hackman)
…and we could add either or both of the Thomas Crown Affair movies, with absolutely no argument from me. Even Snatch could conceivably be included, as it begins with arguably the funniest robbery ever filmed.
To be frank, though, heist (or “caper”) movies are not my favorite genre, so there may be others that are worthy but that I haven’t seen, so feel free to add your own suggestions in Comments.
Afterthought: I suspect that not many have seen Jules Dassin’s Rififi, but I would earnestly recommend that you do so. When the entire spectacular heist is filmed without dialogue or music, you have to know… so that poxy A.I. list got at least one thing right.
Talent, Gone
I see with immense sadness that writer Len Deighton has died. Granted, the man had a long and fruitful life and career, but that doesn’t stop it from sucking.
While Deighton was best known for his espionage novels like The Ipcress Files and Funeral In Berlin (both made into memorable movies starring Michael Caine), my personal favorite was actually a WWII novel, Bomber, which if you haven’t read before, you should. Be warned: it is an absolutely heartrending story.
R.I.P.
Quote Of The Day
Via Insty:
“[Kathleen Kennedy] gambled some of the biggest franchises in Hollywood history on the modern audience. And wow, did she lose big. To paraphrase Chris Gore, she took boy brands that everyone could enjoy and turned them into girl brands that nobody enjoyed. Men felt excluded and disrespected, and women felt patronized and pandered to. The modern audience had failed to show up, and the existing audience was abandoning ship. Kennedy’s greatest gamble had failed, and inevitably it all finally caught up with her.”
Can I be frank here for a moment? I grant you that the destruction of these comic-book “franchises” leaves me totally unmoved because I have never been in the target audience for these infantile fantasies. So to Star Wars, Star Trek, all those ur-Nordic fairy tales, Justice League and all the nochschleppers… good bye, fuck off and good riddance. Ditto to the directors and producers, and indeed likewise to the actors and actresses, all of whom have made billions of dollars from filming this silly, inconsequential oeuvre of fluff and nonsense.
A pox on all their houses.
Let me add to that the opinion that I will be really, really glad if none of these fantasies see the light of day for a generation or two so that maybe, just maybe some of those bloated production budgets might instead make their way into the production of decent movies with grownup storylines, good acting and productions that don’t rely on the deafening of their audiences.
But I risk being as naïve as the franchises’ audiences if I truly believe that any of this will ever happen.
Thank goodness for my DVD collection, which grows monthly.
Happy Whatever
Hope it was worth it…
