"That's the way it crumbles ... cookiewise."

This movie was No. 1 on my best of the year list. Even though it's since become clear that "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country For Old Men" were the year's defining films, "Gangster" rates as a seriously great movie - a full-throttle gangster epic and a completely true story.

It was an "A" in the Tribune the day it was released. If the extra footage had been included, it would have been a "B." What's funny is that another Ridley Scott film fresh out on DVD - "Blade Runner" - showed that sometimes including unseen footage can make the movie better. In the case of "Gangster," it only hurts.

"Nowadays I would never say I know everything. I know nothing. All I know is that I don't know. This is Socrates.

"That's what I know."

"In the beginning these were heroic objectives, things we thought were proper, clean and achievable. And as time went on we got stuck in an intellectual mud, where, in may ways, we were worse than those we accused. We had a saying: The farther away the revolution, the better it looks."

One of the passages acted out by puppets:

"No man on earth is truly free. All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform."

"A pocketful of uncooked rice
and six little birds
put into a cooking wok
When they are cooked
the birds will sing
They must be tasty
for they are for the king
The king is in the house
doing his accounts
while the queen is in the kitchen
eating bread and sugar
The maidens are by the pond
drying the flour in the sun
A little black bird comes
and pecks her little nose."

"Never create anything. It will be misinterpreted. It will chain you and follow you for the rest of
your life. And it will never change."

"The past is part of my future; the present is now well out of hand."

That was a mistake. Given the option to redo my list (thank you, Internet) I would have put "Blood" as No. 1, "No Country" No. 2 and "Gangster" No. 3. The change in 'tude comes after watching "No Country" again without being so obtuse.

They didn't get it ALL wrong, but I've got some issues...

"The Wire" on HBO is like that for me. "Catcher in the Rye" is like that.

"Blood" is like that.

Hopefully you know this already, but the movie's a sci-fi masterpiece. It's got the gritty noir thing happening; it's themes concern what makes a human being a human being and why God made us. It has nasty, creepy notions on the future - pollution, overpopulation. It's got great action, romance, a classic bad guy and all sorts of wild subtext.

I love it, and the final cut is gorgeous.

Something about this movie has always bothered me, though, and fans of the film should chime in here. Is Deckard a human or a replicant?

"You can't imagine how happy it makes a man to see a woman like you."

Morton: How does it feel to sit behind that desk, Frank?

Frank: It's almost like holding a gun -- only much more powerful.