comment #1

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

I am a big fan of Michael Mann, but wonder how he will adjust to a smaller budget. Miami Vice looks like it cost $90M, not $135M.

comment #2

prairie_oysters says ...

I wonder if the studio will have any sway over whether he shoots on a shitty looking video format again?

comment #3

Jeremy Smith says ...

Mann insists he's not done with film. But if he's going to run-and-gun on a low budget, he'll almost certainly opt for HD.

comment #4

Mike Ock says ...

I bet Jeff and Glenn Kenny are already writing rough drafts of their reviews where they pretend to love this film.

comment #5

actionman says ...

why do they need to pretend? mann makes masterpieces. all the f'ing time.

comment #6

BurmaShave says ...

If MIAMI VICE had cost 90 million, I'd still be asking where the money went. And it's a film I'm coming around to. But I love Mann, and this sounds like a sexy project. Who we thinking for the lead?

Also Mike Ock, blow me.

comment #7

mtgilchrist says ...

The problem is that Mann doesn't want to be a low-budget filmmaker - he likes spectacle, and wants to have huge set pieces. I know there's a lot of love on this site for Mann's movies, especially the last two, but they were like watching Mann agonize over how much to satisfy the audience: nah, I won't give them any character details, or any insight into their motivations or behavior, or even well-constructed set pieces that they can see. But it's gonna be a huge epic movie! I would love to see Mann raze all that machismo bullshit he's been exploring for decades without learning anything about it (at least since The Insider) and make a good, well-shot movie, rather than these self-indulgent experiments where he comes up with set pieces and interesting characters and buries them in vague, poorly-structured scripts and borderline-unwatchable cinematography.

comment #8

StoneFan1 says ...

Looks like someone just got bitched slapped by Hollywood. I'm glad too. Mann should've been put in his place a long time ago. I hope this new film is a move in the right direction for him since he's been sucking so badly post-The Insider.

comment #9

LexG says ...

Are some of you guys forgetting how tight and awesome "Collateral" is?

I agree to a SMALL degree about some of the structural flaws of "Ali," "Public Enemies," and "Miami Vice," which all share that half-overheard, joined-in-progress, misshapen New Mann style, but I can't believe the degree to which that very interesting approach, and the digital, bothers not just generic popcorn-munchers but some very smart film people.

With "Heat," he sort of reach an apex/culmination of all the Zen-loner-professional thematics of his first 15 years or so of filmmaking; Since then it's sort of an experimental regrouping of sorts. I guess from a business perspective, that seems indulgent when doing it on a studio's dime, but from artistic standpoint it's as valid as anybody else's aesthetic. Plus I just don't think these movies are inaccessible and underwritten as his detractors claim. Do you really need Crockett and Tubbs' college transcripts and psych profiles to get into a detail-oriented procedural?

comment #10

Mike Ock says ...

@ actionman - Ali, Miami Vice, and Public Enemies were all misfires. Looking back, Band of The Hand was pretty corny too.

@ Burmashave - Who we thinking for the lead? I'll give you hint: MY COCK! Dickhead...

@ mtgilchrist - Well said!

comment #11

Chase Kahn says ...

Todd -- everything you're describing is exactly why I think "Public Enemies" is a great film. I think it's almost transportative in its digital look and will admit that the film is an exhibition of mood and style rather than everything you're saying, much to this viewer's approval.

The scene at the end of the film inside the Biograph is a perfect sequence - I haven't really been stirred like that all year long.

comment #12

erniesouchak says ...

A little worried about this one, given the apparent emphasis and his track record re: female characters.

comment #13

McClaneSveUs says ...

Collateral is a like a masterclass genre piece and it belongs on Jeff's upcoming Decade's Best list....

Kind of like Die Hard and Jaws are milestones in their respective genres.

comment #14

dinovelvet says ...

I'm calling Colin Farrell for the lead

comment #15

mtgilchrist says ...

if it tells you anything about my appetite for mann, i went and paid for it despite widespread critical panning and zero interest in the subject matter. but you don't learn anything about either depp or bale's characters, cotillard was nothing but an object for depp's character, and the movie isn't even about anything- either narratively or thematically, unless again you mean mann's obsession with obsession and mutual respect between adversaries and masculine blah blah blah. the biggest problem with the movie is that it's like heat, but without any of the substance or drive that made that movie effective; it seems like mann figured he could get away with constructing two or three (being generous) great scenes and let the rest of the movie languish in ambiguity, both narratively and visually. and that cinematography is just a waste of all of that meticulous set design and period detail - what the hell is the point of bitch-slapping people and being a widely-reputed a-hole if you're not going to exploit it on screen? (and i'm not even condemning a-hole behavior.)

and collateral works until it just falls the hell apart at the end and becomes that b.s. chase movie. i was with that film all the way up until then, and i literally just switched off because mann abandoned the intelligence and mood and style of the earlier sequences and went for a crass, stupid, pointless chase movie in its final minutes.

comment #16

Carl Kolchak says ...

In the early 80's John Frankenheimer told me that he had a long-standing Capa project that he wanted to make. Never happened.

comment #17

lawnorder says ...

I used to as devoted a Mann fan as they come. But if I hear he's shooting the next one of HD, I'll wait for for the DVD (where the shitty format belongs).

comment #18

lazespud says ...

This seems really odd timing on Mann's part given all of the controversy last month about whether Capa faked his famous photo of a Republican Soldier being killed. It would seem likely that this incident would be a central component to the Mann piece, and there's certainly not enough info out there to really come up with a convincing story line about how he faked the photo, yet there's enough smoke out there that it will call Mann's movie into question if he accepts the story as is.

Here's the New York Times article about it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/arts/design/18capa.html?_r=1

comment #19

Chase Kahn says ...

"i went and paid for it despite widespread critical panning"

Really? Dude, it's at 70 on Metacritic...

"and the movie isn't even about anything- either narratively or thematically"

I think it's about a lot of things -- morality, celebrity, etc. I love how it's so minimally scoped and restrained - focusing on the here and now. It never gets bogged down in the era or history, it just takes you there, boom.

And you don't learn anything about Depp's character? In the Biograph Theater at the end of the film you pretty much learn everything about him.

comment #20

BurmaShave says ...

People who don't seem to get that Mann makes atypical genre films with unusual depths, but still genre films, really scare me. One of the best we have.

comment #21

mtgilchrist says ...

chase, respectfully, my only point was i went out of my way to see the film because i'm a fan of much of mann's work - he's a guy whose movies get me in the theater no matter what - and in this case, above and beyond the normal volume of movies i see and paying to see it (as opposed to attending a critics' screening).

in terms of "what it's about," mann seems too obsessed with his visual flourishes (which are all undermined by that godawful pixillated digital cinematography) to provide any information that's remotely compelling. but if you or other folks are down for a movie like that, fair enough; but should mann get tens (if not hundreds) of millions to make his movies when they fail to provide anything but the most minimal of emotional (much less visceral) payoffs? i don't expect him to make a g.i. joe, but the title card at the end told me more about bale's character than anything in the entire movie, which means that as a storyteller supposedly examining the relationship between these two men, he was not successful. and if he wasn't trying to examine that relationship, why devote so much screen time to bale's character?

the truth is there are any number of ways the film could have been interesting, not the least of which as a police procedural before there was procedure. but no matter how accurate some or all of the keystone cops b.s. was in terms of letting him escape over and over again, or his live fast-die young ethos drove him to act recklessly, i don't think the specificity or atmosphere of the film qualifies it as a meaningful character study, the cinematography constitutes immersion in the era, and ultimately, its portrait of celebrity or notoriety or whatever is anything other than frivolous and self-indulgent, certainly for a filmmaker who has been capable of much, much more, in much more meaningful ways. at a certain point, filmmakers either come to terms with their obsessions or they consume them, and they've consumed mann; public enemies is a parody of heat without the character development or the set pieces.

so, yeah, i "get" what mann is doing, burma, but i reserve the right not to like it. just like you good fellas are equally entitled to love it.

comment #22

Bob Hightower says ...

Howard Hawks wanted to do a buddy-buddy film
about Capa and Ernest Hemingway.

comment #23

Gogocrank says ...

I think Mann may be obsessed with visual flourishes only in the sense of show-don't- tell; HD in particular lets him hang close to his characters in a way that film may not. That said, we're so used to Hollywood's usual redundant show-*and*-tell that when Mann leaves out the latter we feel like we've been left hanging. But even his recent variations on his favorite themes are deceptively rich and more thoughtful than the usual big screen fare.

As for low budget, I don't see how Mann, of all directors, could pursue his usual love of obsessive verisilimitude on a shoestring period film. I wonder how much something like "Thief" cost, adjusted?

comment #24

Chase Kahn says ...

"I think it's about a lot of things -- morality, celebrity, etc."

That's supposed to say, "morTality"...

Anyway, I thought it was quite clear that Bale's character was an ill-equipped, ill-prepared manhunter. He's far too squeamish about death trying to catch a criminal who approaches the subject in a laissez-faire, invincible manner.

The way Bale's shoes squeak when he talks to a group of agents, the way he puts on his best impression in front of the cameras, etc.

This kind of goes back into my thoughts on the whole package - I believe it's an extremely minimal, subtle and restrained kind of film. Your average schmoes (not you, Todd) are going, "meh" because it doesn't have a lot of action and it looks "weird" and it's long.

Then the 90's Mann fans who generally know their stuff and are firmly entrenched in the film world are going, "huh?" because it's kind of an evolved take from his earlier work and his classic themes and structures but muted and ratched up in ambiguity.

That's just my two cents, I can't really explain it too well, but it's easily my favorite film of the year and I've seen it three times with each viewing enhancing my thoughts on it...

I\

comment #25

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

Well said Chase!!! I agree completely with everything you just wrote.

comment #26

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