The Michael Mann poll

Just got the shipment confirmation email for my Blackhat Blu-Ray.

hmm! mine hasn’t shipped but it’s estimating Monday delivery

I got the Neon box set last night with this film among them and the memory of Driver's accent in House of Gucci burned me and I can't.

Wait, what? The Ferrari movie is in the boxed set?

lol Josh, I almost posted the same thing until Zing warned me

Rewatched Thief last night. Haven't seen it since sometime in the last century and goddamn, WHAT A MOVIE. Things I never noticed before: Second City founder Del Close as one of the mechanics at the car lot. Willie Dixon as the fisherman out by the lake. Frank trying to light a cigarette before the conversation with Jessie at the diner before giving up and agressively/nervously playing with it.

Ms. T's comment: "did he just hire real criminals as the supporting cast? I feel like I'm watching the real thing." Yes, indeed.

Blackhat Blu-Ray arrived in today's mail; I just re-watched the director's cut and yeah, it's top five Mann for me.

1) Thief
2) Miami Vice director's cut
3) Heat
4) Blackhat director's cut
5) Manhunter

6) The Insider
7) Collateral
999) Public Enemies

I still haven't seen The Last of the Mohicans, Ali or The Keep.

Still don't get what y'all seeing in Blackhat

It’s a Borges story

Wait, what? The Ferrari movie is in the boxed set?

― Josh in Chicago,

yes

Yeah, I hated Blackhat when I saw it in the theaters. Tried the director's cut some months back, but I didn't make it very far, because 95% of the movie is the same and I just wasn't feeling it.

Actually, wait, I'm still confused. There's a Neon boxed set that contains Mann's "Ferrari," even though it hasn't been released yet?

I think it's a For Your Consideration box sent out to movie critics.

Oh, well, that makes sense. I thought it was some official Neon boxed set, not a box of year-end screeners.

people like the Miami Vice director’s cut better? I thought it didn’t really add much. Blackhat one is better for the plot, although I see why they reconfigured it for pacing reasons. the order of the hacks/crimes in the theatrical release is muddled

I prefer the theatrical "Miami Vice," which has one of the best cold opens of all time.

I have some fan-assembled mock DC of "The Keep" I'm been meaning to watch.

The DCs of "Ali" and "Mohicans" are both good, but I honestly can't remember the theatrical versions or what's different.

Haven't seen the Blackhat director's cut but Miami Vice's theatrical version feels superior to the director's version

miami vice dc has more 360 degree shots of boats so i prefer it. cold open of the theatrical is classic tho

The big thing with the revised Blackhat is that the sound was so much better. Saw the original in the theater two or three times, and the dialogue was so buried in the mix.

That's true; you can hear what people are saying in this version. And as always with Mann, in both cuts, when guns start going off you better hope your TV is bolted down.

Seriously, though, there's a car bomb scene in Blackhat that's one of the best edits I've ever seen.

great, career-spanning interview which I don't think was posted

https://www.vulture.com/article/michael-mann-in-conversation.html

Great interview, Mann is so smart and perceptive. I interviewed him a couple of times, years ago, and he just exuded intellectual curiosity. He wants to know how everything works: a car, a gun, a street light, a criminal, a city. Just really focused on the how and why of it all.

Miami Vice director’s cut is an abomination

O to be in L.A.:

https://x.com/katiewalshstx/status/1742284331618328860?s=20

rewatched the theatrical cut of Blackhat on blu-ray the other day and I have to give some credit to the foley artists for the stabbing noises in the climactic fight scene

Stories out there today about Heat 2 filming this year, with Adam Driver in one of the leads.

Also:

michael mann fans be like HOLY FUCKKK pic.twitter.com/2Pf6tpqGa6

— bee (@beepupkin) January 5, 2024

idgi

https://www.cinemamoderne.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/heat-still1.jpg

?

Yep, and Manhunter too.

The Mann-approved Criterion issue of Thief seems to have been dipped in blue tint compared with the old Anchor Bay DVD, too. He took the whole "Blu"-Ray thing very literally.

There are a myriad of reasons new releases have different color grading, but I think the overall trend (barring WKW and others making editorial choices) is to try to attempt to get closer to the theatrical grading/light presentation on blu-ray, especially with HDR

I was watching the interviews on the recent Blackhat release and the DP, Stuart Dryburgh, briefly touched on the fact that typically a director gives notes and the editor handles everything before final handoff, but Mann would take charge of the final lighting/grading himself when the editors had finished cutting. His opinion was that Mann had a light touch on the couple of recent things where they'd collaborated, but the anecdote definitely speaks to his concerns

I found a quote of his from 2017, I think, talking about changing the color grading of "Heat:"

EW: When it came to remastering the film for the Blu-ray, were there specific sequences you focused on?

Yeah, the whole film! When you go into Blu-ray, and you go to 4K, you're in a different color space. Meaning that what was magenta doesn't translate exactly. There's no logarithm you could use to make "magenta" still stay magenta, with that exact color. So you have to imagine everything, from contrast, to how black blacks are, to what the color palette is. The ambition here was: If I was shooting the film two or three years ago, what would it look like? That was really it. So we went into every shot.

EW: Your style in your more recent films has evolved from when you made Heat. Did that affect how you looked at this film?

Let me put this rather precisely. When you see an emotion on a human's face, how much of the face do you see? What constitutes fear? What constitutes apprehension? What constitutes suspicion?

Yes, I evolved, but also, audience perception evolves, and media evolves, year to year. If I shot this film two or three years ago, this particular film would be less chromatic. And the sense of tension would become more pronounced with greater contrast and kind of a more blue-black palette, than the film as I wanted it to be when I shot it in '94-'95.

EW: Are there any moments in particular that bring up what you're talking about, that as you're working with the 4K, any sequence in the film that you think is seen anew on this definitive edition?

The one that comes to mind is when Hanna is chasing Neil McCauley at the end of the film past the airport. All that is a lot darker. Primary reds are stripped out. The reflections in the metal—everything is substantially darker, if I showed you the before and after. They're big steps, they're not subtleties.

there's a second season of tokyo vice coming to max next week?
i generally enjoyed s1 despite the elgort factor but i did not think there was much demand for more of it from anyone