The Michael Mann poll

fwiw the first 10 or 15 minutes of collateral are so good, establishing the characters and the milieu. could just live in that

Bummed to hear on his Maron episode that the Hue 1968 (based on the Mark Bowden book) project is dead. Michael Mann doing an 8 hour Vietnam series, slam that right in my veins.

he was putting a garage worth of notebooks
also the home invasion episode from Miami Vice, probably manhunter for the same material, and blackhat for the computer stuff.

I also watched Heat for the first time a few days ago. It slapped.

i enjoyed heat 2 a lot. i was put off a bit at first by how stylized the language is, in an over-the-top way, but either they pulled back on that through the book or i just got used to it. the fake al pacino dialogue is funny, i have to wonder if hanna's lines were written that way in the initial script, or if it was pacino improvising and now mann has to write hanna dialogue in the pacino voice.

"Heat" is amazing, but I sort of feel that its reputation has dipped ever so slightly while that of "Collateral" has risen.

I think the "great ass" line was improvised, not sure about anything else.

I like the look and feel of “Collateral” more than I like the movie itself.

Saw “The Insider” for the first time last year and wanted to enjoy it more than I did.

I like the look and feel of “Collateral” more than I like the movie itself.

Some aspects are pretty good (I really do like the way the nighttime driving scenes are shot, and Cruise and Foxx have a good dynamic) but Mark Ruffalo is horrible, the jazz club scene (with Barry Shabaka Henley miming to a piece from Bitches Brew without a single electric instrument visible onstage) is a goddamn crime against art, and the ending sucks. I've said many times that I really think it should have ended with Jamie Foxx flipping the cab. Cab flips, smash cut to black, roll credits. Instant existentialist dude-movie masterpiece.

Ending is pretty pro forma, Ruffalo seems tacked on to pad things out (hence iirc his unsentimental demise), but it still all works out for me.

i love collateral, a lot of it is the digital cinematography and foxx's performance, but it's also a lot cleaner plotwise than heat or miami vice or blackhat. the convoluted plots of those movies are fun in their own way but there's something to be said for a relatively simple story and fewer characters. i'd put it in the top tier of mann movies.

i haven't seen ali (which i should) or the keep (which it sounds like i can skip), and it's been a very long time since i saw the insider

I'm almost halfway through the book, liking it quite a bit. Definitely some purple prose, as noted above, but it moves along quickly and feels like a pretty natural extension of the movie.

"Insider" is perfect. "The Keep" is a mess, but there are glimmers of good stuff in it. "Ali," I recall the director's cut being pretty good. I think it was his first movie to experiment with digital cameras.

Something consistent with Heat 2 and Mann’s films is that the “set pieces” are truly dazzling while ego-less in their own way as well. They are the culmination of characters’ personalities and their skills, and even with multiple things happening quickly and at once are clear to the viewer/reader.

The opening of Ali is fantastic, haven’t been able to make it through the rest since seeing it in the theater.

The Insider is my favorite, even though I go back to Miami Vice and Collateral far more often. They’re like coffee-table books I open up at least once a year.

(Speaking of, I highly recommend the Michael Mann coffee table book!)

the guy who reads the audiobook of heat 2 does a great al pacino impression! highly recommended just for that! (he generally does a good job.)

I think the "great ass" line was improvised, not sure about anything else.

Kinda sorta?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2G_8sizrAk

Finished Heat]. The ending was really great, the violent showdown, LAX tarmac location, sense of closure, final image, music, fadeout - all of it

Yeah, excellent use of peak Moby.

Ali is not that great in retrosoect

really? i thought it was kinda great

It's on my rewatch list. I'm gonna get to it before I see Last of the Mohicans for the first time, I can tell you that.

Ali is well made, great performances but it hews so closely I'd rather just watch footage of Ali and When We Were Kings.

that's p much any biopic about a sports star, singer, rapper, or actor for me

keep biopics to the eras where we didn't have literal film of them doing the things they were doing

Yeah I've still never seen Ali partly because I didn't feel like anything could match When We Were Kings.

I don't remember if I voted in this poll, but today I might go Collateral. I rewatched it not long ago and it was even better than I remembered. It and Miami Vice are two where I feel like he just went for it and made exactly the movies he wanted.

Those two put me in mind of Seijun Suzuki. Not as over the top as him, but some of the same prioritizing of aesthetics over coherence.

still can’t get past colin ferrell’s ratty little face in MV

Same

imo it's perfect for a redneck-in-the-big-city cop like that

It's perfect for a fiend for mojitos.

I like Ferrell in lots of stuff. Ratty face, expressive eyebrows.

I didn’t get this guy’s name, but I am in awe of his shirt pic.twitter.com/fBJKAz3uZj

— Katie Rife (@RifewithKatie) September 23, 2022

New faux Miami Vice film crew gear:

Mojito Pack has landed — ! @andafterthatnet https://t.co/sHV6X69Xpu

— Blackbird Spyplane (@BLKBRD_Spyplane) September 22, 2022

What’s everyone’s preferred cut of MV?

Here’s the Director’s Cut intro which is missing from the Theatrical cut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIUfABBCoaM

Nay nay to the director's cut, the theatrical cold open is perfect in every way.

the cold open is better but i prefer the director’s cut as a total experience

i 100% copped the MV shirt the second that email hit my inbox

directors cut all the way, i prefer the meditative open

I own the director's cut Blu-Ray. It's amazing. If they had included the theatrical cut as a bonus feature I might have watched it, too, but the director's cut is the cut IMO.

fuck, $52 with shipping for the crew shirt, can't do it

Finally saw Thief for this first time this weekend, astonished it has zero votes. Incredible movie, Caan is amazing.

i think thief had less cred when this poll was run, and/or was maybe less accessible. i feel like its reputation has grown in recent years.

"Thief" really sets in place pretty much all the themes he repeatedly returns to. We are what we do, honor among thieves, the sacrifices it takes to be "the best," etc.

I think Thief would score well in a re-poll. I think the Blu-Ray release brought it some new fans.

BTW, The Keep is on Criterion Channel this month.

Watched Miami Vice for the first time last night. Enjoyed the hell out of it. The whole thing was like an empty labyrinth (with lightning as the only guide), and that brilliant cold open a signal that Mann isn't going to value exposition. I liked Farrell - he functions like an avatar of the film's essential emptiness (the ending with Trudy notwithstanding). Also, good use of Mogwai!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN0uQLPAtm0

finished it last night. great book. does of course read like a screenplay. one completely uninteresting subplot, but otherwise fantastic. seems unfilmably long.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 30 August 2022 06:32 (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I wondered what subplot you found uninteresting? I'm about 30 pages from the end and I've got no interest in the Chris & Ana story, also I don't believe it. It can't be that easy to do what they're doing, surely?

I'm really liking the rest of it though, Hanna vs Wardell is great and so was the flashback storyline.

yeah i think it was that one! i've actually been thinking about rereading it. the the big climax on the 105? or was it 610? freeway is incredible.

The set pieces are amazing, so well done. The first home invasion was brilliant.