Ice Cold

While defending his occasional jabs at Michael Mann, Ross Douthat writes:

I like Mann, really I do, but I would like him a lot more if his movies were just narrative and atmosphere. But alas, Mann does have an idea, and that idea is the celebration of masculine cool - and, by extension, men who take their own coolness way, way too seriously. Mann worships the cool people; he can barely be bothered with everyone else.

Okay—no argument there, and no secret either: I wasn’t the only critic that felt it necessary to drop a “too cool for school” into my review of Miami Vice. But, pardon me for being dense when I ask: how is Douthat's comment a criticism? Mann’s deification of manly cool is precisely what makes him such a directorial badass. Where so many directors are content to half heartedly throw some cool-associated clichés on screen—shades indoors, a cadre of hot girls, fast cars and rippling biceps—Mann’s films exude cool. They eat, sleep, breathe, walk, talk and live the stuff—they’re cool incarnate. Miami Vice is probably his most focused study on abstract cool yet, and that’s exactly its appeal. Don't the movies deserve a director who doesn't just show us cool, but makes us feel it as well?

But forget this line of argument. What I want to know is how Douthat can knock Mann while defending Shamalamadingdong. To paraphrase Jamie Foxx: There's argument for blogosphere's sake, and then there's which way is up.