The Michael Mann poll

Mohicans is like if Barry Lyndon Kubrick directed a Hollywood action movie.

xpost The Insider is ace, and far from self-indulgent. Sometimes it's my favorite of his.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPlUxN3y4dw

Lots of good rants in that one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNKmmA6_oTQ

so labored....

You say labored, I say well-crafted.

i'm not inclined to invest much in a fantasy about "TV news ethics" from the get-go.

as much a fantasy as The Last of the Mohicans and as watchable.

http://deadline.com/2016/03/michael-mann-heat-prequel-novel-michael-mann-books-publishing-imprint-1201721330/

Blackhat doesn't really get massively stupid until the second hour, esp the last 30 minutes.

That's for sure. It never seemed terrible to me until I realized it was not only not getting better, but quickly getting worse.

I like the idea of where Blackhat ends up -- as with Miami Vice, you have characters who are truly alone, having lost their citizenship, their honest relationship to their employer, their family. But then there's the reality of Hemsworth on a hilltop rattling off the top industries of Indonesia...

that was better than "We'll mourn later."

So Blackhat on HBO feels like a pretty different cut — different editing and pace.

And Mann screened a whole other different cut, opening with the soybean trading and building up to the reactor, instead of starting with it:
http://www.indiewire.com/2016/02/breaking-down-michael-manns-sharper-directors-cut-of-blackhat-272478/

I think at this point Mann has revised more films post-release (Blackhat, Ali, Manhunter, Miami Vice, Mohicans, Thief, even Heat) than not (Insider, Collateral, Public Enemies).

Any opinion on if it's better or just different?

The theatrical cut of Miami Vice, with the cold open, was definitely better imo

New cut of Ali out today:

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/michael-mann-why-i-recut-ali-into-a-political-thriller-w462021

http://deadline.com/2017/01/ali-movie-directors-cut-michael-mann-will-smith-muhammad-ali-1201887992/

Is "The Insider" his only film that he has not recut?

I don't think he recut Public Enemies, though it could use one.

The recut of Blackhat definitely improves it.

Heat was never recut iirc?

Has the recut of Blackhat been released commercially? I've never seen that movie in any form but would be interested to see it.

Matt Zoller Seitz, Molly Haskell: M Mann films are Nancy Meyers movies for dudes

MZS: I had a conversation with a friend of mine years ago about the films of Michael Mann, and he said, “I think they’re marvelous films, and here we are talking about them as if they’re very deep and serious works of art, but on another level, aren’t they just Nancy Meyers films for dudes?” Like, “Look at this beautiful house and kitchen, now let’s walk along the beach,” but instead of talking about whether they’re going to go out on a date with that cute dentist, they’re brooding and looking out at the waves and thinking about robbing a bank.

MH: Your friend is absolutely right, and the fact that we don’t look at them as in any way similar is the sexist heart of it all, really. Because one is treated as trivial, the other is auteurist and imaginative and visually beautiful, all of that, which is a higher order of art than the Nancy Meyers films.
I mean, that one with De Niro, "The Intern," is just very funny and loving!

MZS: A double feature of “Heat” and “The Intern” would be interesting.

MH: And you should introduce it and discuss why you paired them! I’ll come with you and we’ll talk about that!

http://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/molly-haskell-on-feminism-censorship-screwball-comedy-and-life-after-andrew-sarris

xpost The version of Blackhat HBO shows is the recut - still in the library on HBO Now The pacing, the sound, the storytelling - all improved.

Heat was tweaked but has the same running time on Blu-ray. I don't think he ever changed Collateral.

http://screenrant.com/hue-1968-michael-mann-vietnam-war-tv-miniseries/

The theatrical cut of Miami Vice is on Hulu. I've never seen it, so I guess I'll check it out.

Finally saw Thief today the way I have always wanted to (35mm), and tho I haven't watched Mohicans or Manhunter in ages, I think it's likely the best of the 8 films of his I've seen. Caan possibly career-best, and Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky and the wet streets of Chicago are all good too. While the phony heroics at the end are "exciting" I didn't especially like em.

Heat is basically Thief amplified in several directions. But Thief still gets its major themes and beats across with a fraction of Heat's cast and noise (however much I love Heat).

Manhunter ... it's been a while, but it to my memory is better moment by moment than as a film en total. Great soundtrack, though! Mohicans, that and Ali may be the only Mann director's cuts that fix/improve on the theatrical, but it's been a while with both.

Thief is wild, ott, beautiful

i have a pretty intense dislike of mann but thief is undeniably great - if he'd stopped there i would have been okay with it, honestly, although i'd miss manhunter a bit

wiki sez The film was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Musical Score, which is fuckin insane

rockism

otm

watched manhunter last night after having seen silence within the last two months. except for the gross shit, silence had me chuckling. so stupide. no chuckling in manhunter. no sir. fantastic if imperfect. gorgeous colors. mann just showin off his ability to frame anything he looks at perfectly. made me want to take screenshots every two minutes. it just eats silence alive.

also, the scene in the grocery store, where he and the kid stroll slowly past all the discontinued 1986 cereals. i went and looked a couple up and OF COURSE there's a cereal blog where half the comments are "hey i came here because i'm watching manhunter in 2014 and there's some bran muffin crunch and body buddies on the shelf." lol

rewatched Miami Vice over the weekend, was reminded of it by a moment on the new Pusha T album

the mixed use of format is really striking. there's a hospital scene right before the last act that's bright and clear, a complete departure from the texture of much of the low light digitally shot footage, that reads as a sobering moment

having the other cops outside of core present but relatively dialogue-free really streamlines the flow. Justin Theroux just kind of lingering in the background, saying virtually nothing, even getting shot and recovered without it really being a bump in the narrative

Ah funny I thought Pusha’s « Hard Piano » would have been perfect on Miami Vice’s soundtrack !

watched manhunter last night after having seen silence within the last two months. except for the gross shit, silence had me chuckling. so stupide. no chuckling in manhunter. no sir. fantastic if imperfect. gorgeous colors. mann just showin off his ability to frame anything he looks at perfectly. made me want to take screenshots every two minutes. it just eats silence alive.

xp yuuuuup

I can't what to see what middle-aged hunk actor he puts in a gray wig next. ACTING!

― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, August 29, 2007 12:34 PM (ten years ago)

Read this as Pacino in Heat

New complete soundtrack to Manhunter is out:

https://waxworkrecords.com/collections/vinyl/products/manhunter

'last of the mohicans' is awesome. rewatched for the first time since i was a kid and its aged pretty well

first directors cut was a step down from theatrical, more recent directors cut is prob the best version

I have finally watched Heat recently and found it quite bad.
Especially because of the reasons it's supposed to be good : Pacino and de Niro !
I don't think their ways of acting work in a Mann Movie. Or maybe it's just their personalities but something doesn't fit in.

As for Miami Vice, it's become one of my favourite movies which is weird because I had watched it when it was released and it didn't particularly leave an impression on me.
But watching it again a few months ago, somehow it clicked and I fell in love with it !
It's visually striking and I like the romanticism and dark atmosphere.

The whole sequence of the speed boat trip to Havana is marvelous.

This guy used the blu-ray and the TV-only director's cut of Blackhat to edit an ad-break-free best-quality version together (11.4 gb Mega download)

yeah anthony hopkins’ lecter is such a hammy pantomime dame performance next to brian cox’s lecktor, who is genuinely terrifying imo
― CARL MARKS PRINCIPAL INVESTING AND ADVISORY SERVICES (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, June 13, 2018 11:49 AM bookmarkflaglink

also Noonan's Tooth Fairy is way more unsettling than hulking leading man Fiennes in Red Dragon

I forgot about tom Noonan in this holy shit

Just watched "The Insider" again, what a great movie. It's telling that afaik (and there may be other reasons behind it) it's the only Michael Mann film that Mann hasn't messed with post-release.

I didn't know he did that. Heat? Collateral?

I just watched the Insider for the first time this week! Very good movie, though I wouldn't mind it being a bit shorter (don't know what I'd cut). Mann's style works really well with this story

Hmm, was curious so looked into it:

"Thief:" Michael Mann did a new director's cut in 1995.
"The Keep": Obviously this one is problematic for so many reasons, so I'll just move on, though Mann's original cut was 210 minutes, which the studio trimmed to 120.
"Manhunter:" Mann oversaw a "restored director's cut"
"Last of the Mohicans:" Mann oversaw both a "Director's Expanded Edition" and a "Director's Definitive Cut."
"Heat": There's a "Director's Definitive Edition" with a few changes.
"The Insider:" No alternate versions
"Ali": Two subsequent cuts, a new director's cut and a *second* director's cut he called the Commemorative Edition.
"Collateral": No alternate versions
"Miami Vice:" Director's cut (which fucks up the awesome cold start!)
"Public Enemies": No changes, afaict
"Blackhat": Re-edited by Mann

Further curious, it appears that Mann's director's cut of "Blackhat" aired on FX, or some FX adjacent service, but has since vanished from circulation ...

Yeah, if the re-edit of Blackhat was made available anywhere, I'd check it out (I've never seen the existing version).