If all you remember of Patrick Swayze, who died yesterday of cancer at age 57, is his dance moves, you may be forgetting what an iconic tough guy he was. Sure, he started out specializing in arguably unmanly ventures like ballet and gymnastics, and many of his most memorable scenes show him as a limber romantic with thick, luxurious hair. But he was really best when he portrayed macho, domineering and otherwise badass dudes.

We grew up thinking of him first as a big brother type, thanks to movies like Red Dawn and The Outsiders. And even when he went on to sappier fare like Dirty Dancing and Ghost we accepted him as a man in control of every situation he was in. Later in his career, he would play more desperate and vulnerable characters, such as in Donnie Darko and the underrated 11:14. Still, we never got over believing that Swayze was the boss.

Below we spotlight ten favorite movie quotes that display the power commanded by his characters.
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We’re bringing back The Media Diet, our long-dormant series of interviews with filmmakers and indie industry people about the movies, music and assorted pop cultural detritus that they like to consume. This week we’re talking to Harmony Korine, whose incredible Mister Lonely (see our review from SXSW) comes out in NY and on IFC On Demand tomorrow. After the jump, Harmony talks about his favorite YouTube videos, his (questionably sincere) love for Patrick Swayze and Triple Six Mafia, and explains why he refused to watch Marilyn Monroe movies in the run up to making a movie about a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.

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• The Tribeca Film Festival continues its mission to wow us with quantity over discovery by booking a full sidebar of festival leftovers like Savage Grace (which will have been on the festival circuit for about 50 weeks by the time it hits lower Manhattan courtesy of Robert DeNiro and American Express) and The Wackness (which will make its multiplex debut via Sony Classics a month or two after its Tribeca screening). But, as always, the festival’s Restored and Rediscovered program offers hope, including screenings of new prints of Fellini’s Toby Dammit, and Curtis Harrington’s Cat People–inspired, young-Dennis Hopper-starring Night Tide.
• While we’re on the topic of festival exports: Nanette Burstein’s American Teen will open the 2008 edition of Sundance at BAM on May 29.
• Would it even be news that a new Patrick Swayze movie is having its world premiere in Austria, if Swayze’s battle with cancer wasn’t currently grade-A tabloid grist, and if his health didn’t preclude his attendance? Yes––but only because Uwe Boll is distributing the movie.

• I got a press release about this yesterday, but in the pre-SXSW rush, I didn’t have time to post it. Baby Mama, a comedy starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, will open the Tribeca Film Festival. Is this a bad sign for Tina Fey’s highly-anticipated (by Karina, at least) movie star debut, considering that the last comedy to open the festival was Raising Helen in 2004? Maybe let’s just hope that Baby Mama is the United 93 of “career gal bickering with her white trash maternity surrogate” movies, and leave it at that.
• Dana Harris has a guide to where to eat whilst in Austin for SXSW. She’s totally right about the place at the Driskill, and totally wrong about Iron Works.
• Jason Reitman is gonna direct Jim Carrey in Pierre Pierre, described as “a politically incorrect story” about “a self-indulgent French nihilist.”
• Patrick Swayze’s rep has confirmed tabloid stories that the actor is suffering from pancreatic cancer, but says reports of his imminent demise are “absolutely untrue.”