“Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

They don’t make ’em like that anymore. The really good cops and robbers movies are pretty few and far between these days.

Heat is almost 30 years old. How is this even possible? I first saw it with my two best buddies, Sean and Yeti, back home in Burlington, VT. We were probably super high because that’s what we did back then. Smoke a ton of weed and then go see a cool flick. Shit man, the last time I smoked weed I woke up the next day and felt super groggy like I had done something more serious than taking a few meagre hits of the old wacky tabaccy. When you get older you can’t do anything. Eating is the only hedonistic pursuit left and even that comes with horrible repercussions. A paltry two drinks while not on vacation causes a hangover of monstrous proportions, shame notwithstanding. Any disruption of sleep creates a two or three day fugue where I walk around hating myself for my poor choices which weren’t even that poor a few years ago.

I gave Heat yet another watch (number 50 or 60 and I’m not exaggerating) last night while drinking an after dinner strawberry Negroni with my mother in law. It just gets better, although this time there were a few things about it that pissed me off. Mostly the fact that Neal turns around to go back to kill Waingro. For a criminal, Neal is a pretty good guy. There’s a formula for movies like this by the way. It’s how they get you to root for the bad guys. I guess I could call it “The Michael Corleone Anti-Hero Theory.” No revelations here. The main character is a bad dude who we root for because his supporting cast is worse than he is. We want to see Neal go back and kill Waingro because Waingro is a serial killer but it pains me everytime I watch this damn movie. I mean, there’s Neal, getting away Scott free after killing cops and doing all sorts of nefarious things and I’m rooting for him. Go Neal go! Get away from this crummy life with your girl, Eady!

Ah but the hunger for revenge is too strong. There’s a great line by John Voight’s character, Nate (based loosely on Edward Bunker) earlier in the movie where he says, “You can’t afford to miss even once.” So true.

The end is so tough to watch. Neal exacts his revenge and then has to walk away from Eady, leaving her in the car, the prophetic words ringing true, and then dies for his trouble. Yeah, he was a bad guy, a real bad guy actually, and he deserved to go down, especially after we watch Pacino’s character, Vincent, destroy his own life doing all he knows how to do, catch and execute the bad guys.

Heat was a revelation back in the day and still is because we’ve got a lot going on. We’ve got the dual protagonists (never an easy thing to pull off) along with a lot of behind the scenes personal stuff with the two characters which is something you never really get in this sort of depth in this genre. Not to this degree anyway. The two leads are in complete juxtaposition of one another. Pacino because he has to destroy his home life and become less human in order to catch the villain, and DeNiro because he destroys who he is by becoming more human and embracing the thought of falling in love and having a personal life. Good shit. If you haven’t seen it, what the hell are you waiting for?

I made this stellar chicken dish last night. Two whole chickens, breasts, legs, wings, and thighs divided up. Doused with most of the dried spices in our cabinet. Paprika, thyme, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, a touch of cayenne, and a good amount of salt. Tossed in a bowl with olive oil and lemon juice. Allowed to sit and soak for a couple minutes, then fried up skin down in oil and butter. The four breasts ended skin side up in one pan and the boney parts felt the same fate in another, larger pan. I added a shitload of chopped shallots and garlic to the chicken frying skillet and softened them, splashed a good amount of white wine in there, reduced the booze, then added it to the bone pan. All of this went into the oven at 375 for a half hour.

The missus accompanied this with an infamous Erewhon kale salad full of wholesome things like pepitos, hemp seeds, avocado, and sunflower seeds. We’re supposed to be eating healthy because I’m becoming rotund, but I had to add a small amount of rice to this to soak up the sauce which was fucking magical. Eat your heart out, Versailles, I’ve figured out your little tricks. Chicken doesn’t always need to be crispy to be good, sometimes it can be wet with a sauce that’ll blow your socks off.