The Michael Mann poll

it's kind of a cosmic gumbo

it almost moves to the beat of jazz

thousands of malaysians being treated as background in the climax instead of doing anything when one dude stabs another dude through the head with a screwdriver right in front of them

It’s funny how Blackhat, Collateral, and Miami Vice all have scenes where limbs are being broken in a crowd (in nightclubs in the latter two) and no one really notices or cares.

Watched Miami Vice (2006) for the 10th or 15th time tonight, and it still makes more sense with each viewing, on a pure story level.

Heat is a western

watched blackhat for the first time and am mad at how bad the rating is on review aggregator sites for it.

looking forward to watching "the keep" and "the insider" to complete the Mann filmography

The Insider is perfect. The Keep ... is not. Not as bad as is reputation has it, and some intriguing stuff, but a real mess all the same. I think there is a fan edit somewhere that is supposedly better?

blackhat underrated yeah

btw I'm still a fiend for mojitos

how odd

pic.twitter.com/mgcMlPwHA0

— Michael Mann (@MichaelMann) January 19, 2022

Weird that this is a big “new development,” since Mann has been talking for a while about how the books would be stories of before and after the movie’s timeline.

I do wish they’d do some kind of chapter-by-chapter audio release. Could be as gripping as a Sunday-night HBO series.

Also, Mann’s 78 now, so it makes sense that he would construct stories this way instead of going through the multi-year studio process.

Just saw Blackhat. How was this not a hit?

The original cut didn’t work as well, and the dialogue was buried in the mix. Mann’s recut version (I’m assuming it’s what Netflix is offering) is better.

No, pretty sure Netflix has the theatrical cut.

On the other hand, after months/years of off and on searching, I did finally find a copy of the director's cut!

https://m***.nz/folder/fTpywAKR#4O0np-7qEKjR1upGA9YD5A

(Where of course m*** is mega)

Blackhat is good and maybe up in my hacking movie top five with Sneakers and Hackers

Thanks for the link JiC. I haven't seen Blackhat since it was new in the theaters - can't believe I haven't rewatched already.

Yeah, me either, not since theatres, because I didn't particularly like it and struggled to find the DC (which screened only once or twice and sometimes shows up on Deep Cable but is otherwise inexplicably hard to come by). Mann's director's cuts aren't always better, or at least are not always clear improvements, but this one seems to right a couple of glaring wrongs. Like, if you start your movie about hackers taking out a nuclear power plant, then hackers targeting the stock market or whatever seems a step down. Also, if I read correctly, there are all sorts of much more subtle dialogue tweaks (which I will surely miss because I don't remember much about the movie period, let alone the dialogue).

The other Mann movie I've only ever seen once is "Public Enemies," I wonder how that one holds up?

OK, I just watched the director's cut and I liked the theatrical version, but holy crap, the director's cut is miles better. It's ridiculous that it's just been allowed to fall into a crack in the earth. Release that version on Blu-Ray!

I get why they shuffled things around, even if it makes little sense plot-wise

The DC (I'm a half hour in, thanks Josh) is more of a slow burn, which makes the escalation of stakes/violence clear. I can see where the beginning hack wouldn't play with audiences initially -- a quick spike in commodity prices that probably stabilized fairly quickly before consumers ever noticed -- but it's exactly the sort of structural financial and logistical threat that's a more familiar concept now. I remember reading about the huge Maersk shipping hack in 2017 and rewatching the movie.

Another interesting point of information: The Chicago stock exchange (which handled a lot of agriculture futures) that is hacked in the movie, resulting in soybean prices being spiked, ceased to exist in 2019 and was rolled into the NYSE

Whoops, my bad -- I was thinking of the Chicago stock exchange. They probably hacked the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which has absorbed the Chicago Board of Trade

I watched Thief recently, my first Mann, and it was different from the expectations I had from reviews and the impression I've developed of his work. I anticipated something that was a very slick, flashy, image-obsessed thriller with existential pretensions, and while this isn't an incorrect description, the actual film came closer to a muted, downbeat late 70s demimonde character study (though it was by no means amateurish).
I didn't love it, but probably liked it more than the film I thought it would be. I guess "slick" and "flashy" both underwent exponential growth over the course of 80s filmmaking and TV; I guess I thought I would be seeing the Lexicon of Love of crime films.

aside from his involvement in the miami vice tv show i would describe no mann project as slick or flashy

Colin Farrell's hair is very slick in Miami Vice

his shirts are flashy

omigod @ "the Lexicon of Love of crime films -- what a phrase and aspiration!

What about Diva?

>> the Lexicon of Love of crime films

The Thomas Crown Affair (original)

I prefer the '99 remake.

I would too (I'm a McQueen agnostic-at-best) if it weren't for Denis Leary.

aw yeah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3oWrNQo_Ng

i’m a fiend for sake

looks like a TV show. visually a little dull?

it is a tv show?

Yeah. And Mann is exec producer.

right, but luck didn't look like a tv show. maybe it's just the trailer.

Mann directed the first episode of this, too.

He's also in pre-production on an Enzo Ferrari biopic starring Adam Driver. The Jez Butterworth screenplay that become Ford v. Ferrari was originally a Mann project.

He's getting up there in age. I hope we'll see another good movie from him.

Don't give a poop about a Ferrari movie - leave that shit to Ridley Scott - but I saw something about a Michael Mann sci-fi project ...

Ford v Ferrari was a good movie, though!

I read the book Tokyo Vice is based on - looking forward to this

ugh ansel elgort. i'll watch this but still ugh.

First episode is really good so far. Very Mann. Totally cold open. Looks beautiful.

Yeah, loved the opening, loved the setting and also how dialogue could seem credibly "stilted" given the cultural and language barriers between the characters.

echoing the sentiment of THE THIEF being underrated i this poll, a glorious mess of a marxist parable

I watched Hacker (or Blackhat) yesterday and...it was pretty bad.
I LOVE Miami Vice (and mojitos) and this one had some Mann touches that were great (the glorious shots over HK or in the port at night for instance) but the whole thing is kind of a mess and doesn't gel or make sense imo (for instance the silly final fight).
and most of the actors didn't help (particularly bad acting/lack of charism for the heroine).
It all felt like an inferior, botched variation on MV.
It's surprising following the raving comments here but it just didn't work for me.

Pop's been watching the tv Miami Vice for two weeks, so I'm treating him now to the movie.

as shitty as life has been lately, this is the good stuff!

watched the MV movie for the first time a few months ago and v much enjoyed its unabashed dad movie swag, Neanderthal i'm jealous that you are watching it with an actual dad. also the wife and i had great fun for weeks afterward spontaneously announcing to each other that we were fiends for mojitos.

search ilx posts for "fiend for mojitos" and revel in the glory

I tried watching Blackhat but scene where the (white) protagonist has the big idea of overlaying the routes of some couriers to the amazement of the Chinese cops was incredibly RMDE.

i'm a disco guy

mh it all makes sense now

i'm a disco guy