Why "caesar"? Well, probably not for the reasons you'd expect. It takes a unique freak to be a real pop culture junkie. On today's 'net, any jerko can slavishly track the progress of the latest Tarantino flick on $movie_portal_website or debate the merits of the $elves_and_orcs_ahoy trilogy in exhaustive, mind-numbing, spec-wallowing detail on some fanboy forum somewhere. This is all well and good, and there are definitely hipster silent bob type wannabes who would leech off of the realtime adulation of their fans and who are secretly checking the boards for anything the reviews didn't say. And yeah, that works for some, but not for everybody. I was looking for something.....I dunno....purer. See, I got bored with what modern film had to offer a little while ago. So I decided to go back through the years, a decade at a time, and see what came BEFORE everyone started spending all their time focussing on the cash cow of Hollywood and what cinematographer did what - basically, when people just went to the movies to see a story, and to be entertained. And what I found, instead of this constant parade of meta-archetypes that are full of irony and self-consciousness, were several generations of real, genuine, natural badasses. Celluloid men for whom self-confidence came naturally because they KNEW that the world would be out there staring at them, not because their publicists and agents TOLD them so to pump up their ego. In the 1970's, I found Fred Williamson. The Godfather of Harlem. Pure swagger. In the 1950's, an embarrassment of riches. Sure, no one remembers Harold Tasker or Louis Calhern today, but look at their supporting casts! Icons all: Brando. Gielgud. Jimmy Mason. Heston (although I got SOMETHING I'd like to pry outta his cold dead fingers....) In the 1930's, the mother lode: Edward G. Robinson. This guy resonated with me so hard it hurt. Little guy, pissed on by society, won't roll over but decides he's gonna play tough anyway. Just squirrelly little Emanuel Goldenberg, up there against the rest of the world. "Mother of mercy...is this the end of Rico?" The gangster is the perfect blueprint for today's 'net cowboy. They don't make 'em like Robinson anymore. Name me one modern actor that has that blend of thuggish panache and pure stubbornness. Well, maybe Pantoliano. Which, now that I think of it, he was a Caesar too, once, wasn't he?