Luck: HBO series: David Milch, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Mann

to the extent that you can lay incoherent cross-cut action sequences at peckinpah's feet or clumsy use of forced perspective at wells' I mean.

mann didnt popularize 'paying attention to colors'

Don't even think Mann's pallet has been particularly teal and orange, really, unless you count the orange street lights in Collateral.

Mann is all about blue.

http://www.popcornreel.com/jpgimg/Blue2.jpg

don't think we should go over the teal and orange thing again but I mostly blame Ridley Scott and Gladiator for it.

i mostly blame people for having hearts and eyes and the ability to feel

although

http://www.deep-focus.com/dfweblog/images/2006_t10/miami_vice.jpg

I blame Tony Scott.

back to Luck, the biggest loss is weekly John Ortiz.

you should blame tony scott! ridley's always used color intelligently eg. the blue and gold contrasting in the lift scene in blade runner

john ortiz is a great actor. mann loves him, so i'm sure he'll turn up in whatever he does next

I wouldn't blame anyone but HBO for the opening credits, given Boardwalk Empire et al.

on the flipside, GoT

to the extent that you can lay incoherent cross-cut action sequences at peckinpah's feet or clumsy use of forced perspective at wells' I mean.

― s.clover, Friday, March 16, 2012 5:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so like... not at all. gotcha.

insider is actually one of the earlier examples of the teal-and-orange trend. watch it again. it's 75% blue.

i think mann's lost it. public enemies was just so uninspired and sloppy. miami vice was extraordinarily visually beautiful much of the time, but i didn't buy the drama for a second. but i still think it's his best film since heat, maybe.

i could live without any mann films existing except for heat. i don't think there's much in the other films that he doesn't do better in that one.

i dont wanna live without manhunter. or the insider. or miami vice. even public enemies had some great ideas, if it was a bit... misbegotten.

manhunter is for the true heads

what did you like about public enemas, slocki?

I have a lot of love for Public Enemies.

Napoleon once lost 200,000 horses. Hoffman should be allowed 3.

yeah even mann will tell you public enemies was a failure - kind of an ali-esque failure in my eyes

ive said this before but i think all he does now are 'interesting failures' - and i adjusted my outlook a while back so thats all i expect from him. and i still find some value in that, maybe im being a bit of an apologist but hey.

i'll always rep for mohicans. thats just a really sick movie with some interesting shit happening in the margins

yeah

some really embarrassing moments in it that you just have to look past

one really embarrassing moment in heat = when diane venora intones the words "you sift through the detritus"

actually that whole scene is bleh

dead tech post-modernistic bullshit house

some really embarrassing moments in it that you just have to look past

in mohicans?

IIRC yes. last time i watched it all was probably 5 years ago. remember some really torrid scenes with unvarnished acting, also some awkward battle scenes.

ddl gives a spectacular physical performance but some of his line readings are kinda deadly. its always been hard for me to tell if that's just the role, though. i think those qualities mostly work in the movies favor just because its trying to be an unironic, stirring period epic - stuff like the 'i will find you' scene really works, and i think the material is one of the best possible matches for mann's humor-free sensibility. and i think he does a better job of communicating his themes in it than in a lot of his other pictures, and of getting us into his characters' heads.

I once saw the silent version of Last of the Mohicans and thought it was pretty cool that Mann copied almost exactly a bunch of shots from it.

Even Public Enemies, which is a clear example of Mann falling short of potential, has one of my favorite shots of all time, this running board cam of one of Depp's buddies dying as they escape from the prison. You just see him hanging on for dear life even as the life fades from his eyes, and they he drops off and disappears. Mann's also been really into this intimate, over the shoulder POV since he went digital and cameras got smaller.

he's been into that since Heat - he uses those shots really well to put you 'in the moment' & i think hes better at that than any director around

Anyone else notice that nearly every one of his films has been released in a director's cut or tweak of some sort save Thief and Insider? Alternate versions of Manhunter, Mohicans, Miami Vice, Ali and even Heat exist. Only Ali may be better than the original, though.

xpost, Yeah, the over the shoulder stuff during the street shoot out in Heat is pretty incredible.

Even Public Enemies, which is a clear example of Mann falling short of potential, has one of my favorite shots of all time, this running board cam of one of Depp's buddies dying as they escape from the prison. You just see him hanging on for dear life even as the life fades from his eyes, and they he drops off and disappears. Mann's also been really into this intimate, over the shoulder POV since he went digital and cameras got smaller.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:13 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ya I remember this super well

So many problems with Ali but the opening 30 mins or wtv are incredible

he uses those shots really well to put you 'in the moment' & i think hes better at that than any director around

― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:15 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yah well said there's something abt the way he uses digital that evokes this vibe really intensely, feel like he understands the medium better than anyone

Public Enemies was an uninteresting failure.

ur an uninteresting failure

o damn

lots of great moments in Public Enemies, especially the death (shot on Celluloid!) and the forest shoot-out (just well done) but no, it doesn't hang together quite how it should. Looks great though. Miami Vice might be his masterpiece though.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/michael-mann-david-milch-interview-luck-horses-cancellation.html

^^^^^ just came to post that. great read.

high level milching:

I would just say that you’re coming up against certain deep, fundamental biological truths: that any living thing is subject to the laws of mortality, and that there was nothing that was done with any of these horses that was unnatural, nothing that was other than what they had evolved to do. [In claiming otherwise], there’s a kind of moral and emotional fastidiousness that is entailed, which at a certain point becomes absurd. Organic matter depends upon the appropriation and consumption of other organic matter. There are just truths that obtain whether we find them pleasant or not. The kind of flinching from any form of art or experience that PETA seems to advocate is ultimately life-hating.

Interesting. I like listening to these guys talk.

I could have sworn way back when that Deadwood was not cancelled, per se, but that Milch walked away. But recently it's been increasingly coming up as cancelled. What went down, exactly?

http://blog.jopinionated.com/2007/08/22/exclusive-deadwoodjohn-from-cincinnati-actor-jim-beaver-responds.aspx

hbo canceled it, then reacted to the fan/media backlash by offering milch two two hour episodes to wrap things up but at that point the actors had been released from their contracts milch was working on john from cincinnati wkrp and it never happened

iirc

ive said this before but i think all he does now are 'interesting failures' -

Mentioned upthread re Mann, but hard to see Milch doing anything but as well, unless he makes his Moby Dick.

hbo cancelling deadwood was just incredibly stupid on their part.

it was a tragic is what it was!

booo! booing u hbo, damn