6. Thief (1981)
Director Michael Mann, probably best known for his work on the 1980’s police series Miami Vice and the 1995 bank robbery film Heat made his name much earlier with the now beloved James Caan vehicle Thief.
Frank, an ex-con who lost his twenties to a stint in prison emerges with a mind set on making up for lost time as a used car salesman by day and thief by night, chasing an American dream all his own for a house, a wife, and child. A product of inhuman institutions, from the impersonal rearing of an orphanage to the kill or be killed world of prison, Frank is an antisocial man in a world reduced to the barest rules of survival and animal competition. He is a thief because there is nothing else left for him – he has no personality outside work and there is no work fit for him but taking.
When Hurricane Gloria hit the Island in September 1985, it was the first major storm to affect Long Island directly since Hurricane Donna in 1960. Overall, the storm caused extensive damage along the East Coast of the United States, amounting to $900 million and was responsible for eight fatalities. LILCo’s lackluster and much criticized response to Hurricane Gloria helped to convince people that the power company could not effectively handle a disaster and helped hasten the demise of the Shoreham nuclear power plant. Built and tested on Long Island, the coolest fighterjet in the world is the F-14 Tomcat. The beloved plane took its star turn in the smash hit Top Gun in 1986. In real life, F-14s would intercept Soviet bombers that got too close to a US carrier group and escort them away from our forces. During the first Gulf of Sidra incident in 1981 F-14 Tomcats of VF-41 Black Aces aboard USS Nimitz shot down two Libyan Su-22 aircraft. In 1989, during th