Heat by Michael Mann – another look at this film is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/heat-written-and-directed-by-michael.html - 8 out of 10

 

Heat by Michael Mann – another look at this film is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/heat-written-and-directed-by-michael.html

8 out of 10

 

 

This note is not about the motion picture, albeit there could be some mention of it, in passing, I remember something connected with the motion picture, and that is the avenue I will be driving on, changing lanes and then ending in some alley, which brings to mind not Heat, but that heat of the moment…

 

Back in the eighties, I used to go to the British, American and French libraries, to read The Economist, watch some movies, the French have had the Elvira theater for so long, borrow books, audio tapes, sometimes even videos, get informed on what was happening in the world, for the communist regime was about propaganda

We have had that joke with the end of the world, when it will come, the Americans and the Soviets will tell their citizens to relax, they have space ships, while Ceausescu would come on television to say ‘do not worry, we are anyway one hundred years behind’, though there could have been more centuries…

 

Our greatest philosopher, Andrei Plesu, explains better https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2023/11/toleranta-si-intolerabilulcriza-unui.html he has some essays, lectures on Joy in The Est and the West, where he looks at how those who lived in affluent societies took so much for granted

Our luminary would enter a bakery in Paris to ask if ‘they have bread’, to the astonishment of those in there, who though this is a crazy question, what else could they have in a bakery, but back here, they did not have it, we had almost nothing, when the change came, Andrei Plesu knew it because a neighbor came home and said ‘they have olives at the corner, and there is no queue’, that had been eternal in the Ceausescu days

 

I took part in his overthrow and I will boast again about it, at the end of this note, with a link for you to read the article in Newsweek, where I get mentioned and quoted with maybe twenty five words, now let me see if I do have anything to say about Heat…yes, I was about to tell you about a newspaper

It was a French magazine, in which they talked about Heat as if it was the moment when the three big guys met in Yalta, and yes, kudos, all the gratitude and admiration for Robert de Niro, only for me, Al Pacino http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/05/glengarry-glen-ross-by-david-mamet.html has gone downhill for many years

We have The Godfather, Serpico, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bobby Deerfield, Justice for All to thank him for, and most sane people are thrilled by Scent of A Woman, which won him the Oscar…for yours truly, that was the start of the climb down, I found the acting exaggerated, over the top, excessive, but I am in the wrong

 

Heat plays in the same style, which is rather irritating, De Niro is outstanding, Val Kilmer and the cast, but Al Pacino is again out of the game, for this viewer, let me tell you something I have remembered from The Kid Stays in the Picture http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-kid-stays-in-picture-by-robert.html

Robert Evans is the author of this book on Hollywood, and he was an actor, producer and head of Paramount, the one behind classics like The Godfather (for a good number of critics, the best film ever), Chinatown http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/chinatown-written-by-robert-towne.html Rosemary’s Baby

 

For The Godfather, Evans has asked for an Italian director, and it would be Francis Ford Coppola, and when talking about the cast, there is this little segment on Al Pacino, who was busy with one studio, but when they asked for him, over the phone, the other would say ‘who, could you spell it for me’, at a time when Pacino was utterly unknown.

In Heat, he is already past his prime for this viewer, who had been enchanted by his earlier work, including Don Corleone of course, only to be estranged by performances similar to this one, as a detective…in the celebrated face to face with Robert De Niro, the latter is splendid, on target, but Pacino is in contrast, emphatic, flawed

 

It is an opinion that does not count, in the realm of preferences, you like this, another prefers the other, but this is just what these lines are, the expressions of a Dangerous Mind – they sit in a void, where they are as relevant as the grains of sand on a beach, but they may serve the purpose of some exercise for the mind, mine, not yours

Writing uses a different part of the mind than talking, and it is recommended as an exercise, when we have some bad experience – such as Pacino in Heat, and pretty much everything else over the past twenty or thirty years, this is a hyperbole though, or attempt to be jocular – and then by putting it down, or up on the screen, we can detach from the negative, also by finding some sense into what was missing

 

Thus, Sonja Lyubomirsky http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-myths-of-happiness-by-sonja.html suggests the count your blessings exercise should be spaced out, while Tal-Ben Shahar and others keep on with the daily routine of writing down three things, events, people you are grateful for…after a period of some weeks, it was discovered that this practice boosts the wellbeing reported level for those who participate

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

Some favorite quotes from To The Heritage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

‚parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”