Brownout! ConEd says it's decreasing voltage to some parts of Brooklyn by 8 per cent.

So Public Enemies, writer/director Michael Mann's slick new crime drama, is getting pretty decent reviews, but reading them doesn't exactly make us excited to see the damn thing. Mann is just so uneven—a technical wizard who ignores everything else.

New deal at the New York Times: buy an ad, and they'll throw in a free feature story! We kid. But seriously, those fake Amish fireplace ads will save journalism one way or another. [NYT]

There's a place and time for discussing the inanity of movie lists — usually early January, right when the radius of critics' annual Top 10 circle jerk is at its widest. But a few prime exhibits pop up throughout the year as well, such as last weekend's Los Angeles Times feature selecting the top 25 Los Angeles films of the last 25 years. While we wouldn't begrudge the contributors' right to close out the late-summer news cycle as energetically as possible (we've all seen what happens when John Horn gets bored), the tactical and intellectual errors that occurred along the way are an unfortunate example of zeal gone horribly wrong. The criteria alone defy rationality: only one film per director, lest "City of Angels specialists such as Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson" overrun the seminal work of, ahem, Michael Ritchie and F. Gary Gray. But even taking the list on its own terms, we just don't get it — Crash? Jackie Brown? Really, LAT? Find our quick, admittedly incomplete corrective after the jump.1. Jackie Brown. Come on. Let's just keep it short: Jackie Brown is not a better film than Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. No point in fighting or meritocratic debate, like the author wants. It's not debatable — there is nothing to see here but an inaccuracy. 2. Collateral owes its life to Heat. Two things: 1) Stuart Beattie's original script for Collateral was set in New York, hence the cab driving protagonist and subway. It's an LA film by convenience, which is to say, not at all. 2) Michael Mann conceived and executed Heat a "Los Angeles crime saga," and its use of locations — over 100, interwoven on-screen like the geography itself — predated and provoked Collateral's more nocturnal survey by almost 10 years. Heat's superiority here isn't really debatable either. 3. This list is in no particular order, right? Because we know nobody listed Charles Burnett's To Sleep With Anger (#21) as sort of a bottom-rung afterthought to everything from Clueless (#7) to L.A. Story (#20). And Mulholland Drive (#11) is beneath Beverly Hills Cop (#5). 4. If you have to include Fletch, you need to condense the list. Or expand it — a 30-year list would have at least featured the added benefit of Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Decline of Western Civilization and E.T. But a 20-year list would have probably been just fine — and you still would been able to keep Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 5. The least obvious omission is the most obvious. Thom Andersen's three-hour 2004 documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself remains an exhaustive, fascinating exploration of LA's history and uses as a big-screen location. As such, considering these selections, we're not surprised it's not included here. So what did we miss?

Attention media: We know it's hot. We know you are wracking your simmered brains trying to figure out new ways to talk about the heat. Or rather, you're not, because just like clockwork, heat waves result in a reflexive surplus of photos depicting kids playing in fire hydrants. No one is immune, from wire services to photobloggers to the general public. But we can put a stop to this. Just look at the photo above. It's cute. The kids are wet. Gotta love the expression of existential horror on the kid at left. But let this be an end to it. If you again feel the urge to photograph children playing in hydrant spray, just go outside and take pictures of the sun, over and over again, until it's dark. Or go sit in the van until you pass out. Together, we can end hydrant photography once and for all. Thank you.