The highest praise.

I got an email from tooth_fairy yesterday which said that she'd tried to post a comment on my LJ but failed and instead had found that I was blocked from her computer by her work firewall with the message: "davywavy.livejournal.com is categorized as Tasteless & Offensive"

I've never been prouder.

Miami Vice

Twenty years ago, I wanted to be an undercover cop in Miami. It seemed the height of cool to live in a world where you got fast cars and boats, the sharpest clothes, gorgeous women (or Sheena Easton, anyway), and you could get a pretty good idea of whether someone would live or die by how fashionable their haircut and facial hair were.

All of a sudden, thanks to the new film, I do again.
Miami Vice probably isn't the most entertaining film I've seen this year - that accolade will probably go to Thank you for Smoking or maybe Dead Man's Chest - but it is the film I'm likely to watch again most often a few years down the line, just because Michael Mann has the ability to make doing just about anything look like the coolest, most exciting, downright best thing that you could be doing with your time.
There's a definite connection between exciting movies and neural stimulation, and the last time I walked out of a cinema with this much of a confident bounce in my step and 'up' mood was when I went to see the original Matrix in 1999.
Despite being set in 2006 rather than 1984 with only the names and context remaining consistent, the themes of the film and the TV series are consistent with one another - the effortless cool of the characters in the face of what are actually truly awful circumstances. Sonny Crockett is still a smooth southerner who can't keep it in his trousers. Ricardo Tubbs is still a straight talking New Yorker on transfer who is the voice of reason to Crockett's passion. And Crockett's haircut and wardrobe are still risible but still, somehow, the single coolest thing you'll see on screen this year.
Some people might say that heroism is rising to great challenges and overcoming them. In the light of this film, I disagree: heroism is maintaining an immaculate razor-cut after three days at sea aboard a leaky tramp steamer shipping guns into the everglades.
What I liked most about the film is the way it manages to be both completely OTT Hollywoodish and outrageous and also grippingly convincing in the same package; fancy taking a high-powered speedboat to Havana for a quick Mojito? Well, as a Miami Cop you can do just that - and even better it's all on expenses and you've got a beautiful woman on your arm.
Obviously, it's not a perfect film (few films which don't have Cary Elwes as the Dread Pirate Roberts are). It's not even as good as Heat. I thought the ending was unconvincing considering what had happened before and the characters, but that's really by-the-by. As a combination of grit, entertainment, drama and fun, you probably aren't going to get a better sharp-as-a-knife, slam-bang police procedural in the forseeable future.

Anyway, in the light of all this, I've bought myself some cool new sunglasses which make me look like a drug dealer. Miami here I come.