michael mann Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Every few years, it seems necessary in the course of critiquing home video releases to clarify and designate the difference between all of those terms that distributors and producers come up with to describe films that arrive in stores in a version other than their theatrical iteration. For example, "unrated" no longer simply means that a film is too bawdy or offensive to garner a proper MPAA rating; rather, in many cases it means that the studio re-inserted footage, and didn't bother to screen it for the ratings board at all. "Director's cuts," meanwhile, sometimes really reflect the original vision of a filmmaker for his movie, and sometimes just qualify as an alternate version that was supervised or approved by the director. And most importantly, none of these changes are an automatic indication that the film will be superior to the one that you saw in theaters, even if there's a little more gore or nudity or (God forbid) character development.

Ironically, the new Blu-ray for Heat carries no such designation – to anyone buying it, this is the same film they saw in theaters and on standard-definition DVD. However, at the top of the list of the disc's special features, the topline attraction is "new content changes supervised by director Michael Mann." Even for someone who's seen more than his share of extended, alternate, unrated and director's cuts, this was particularly intriguing, which is why Heat is the subject of this week's "Making The (Up) Grade."

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a little post about Movies That Nobody Seems To Like But You, and it was an awful lot of fun for you (over 100 comments) and me -- so today I thought we could flip it around because I happen to know for a fact that there are movies that everyone seems to love but you ... because for me, that movie is Heat.

Released in 1995, Michael Mann's crime drama was an unofficial remake of his made-for-TV film, L.A. Takedown, and is still considered one of the greatest crime films of all time. The story centered on an LAPD homicide detective and a career criminal (played by 'Method heavies' Al Pacino and Robert De Niro) in a battle of wits with Mann's trademark themes of masculine identity and how our work can define us as people. But, no matter how many times I have tried to give this movie just one more chance, I still walk away wondering what I'm missing. In fact, it's a great example of how it doesn't matter how good a movie may be, it will always come down to your personal tastes.

After the jump: it's not a 'guy thing' and what's the big deal with that diner scene?...

Michael Mann is once again heading into the halls of history, but this time around it's about those who document the violence rather than those who deliver it. Variety reports that Mann and Columbia Pictures are joining forces to tell the story of war photographer Robert Capa and his romance with fellow photographer Gerda Taro.

The good news: This isn't simply another story where an artist's achievements are reduced to their time between the sheets. To be adapted from Susan Fortes' Waiting for Robert Capa (by scribe Jez Butterworth), the film will kick off when Capa (a refugee from fascist Hungary whose professional name was inspired by Frank Capra) meets a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany -- Gerda Taro (a name partly inspired by Greta Garbo). She becomes his assistant, learns photography, and the two fall in love. A year later, the Spanish Civil War begins, setting Capa up as "the most renowned war photographer ever"* while Taro becomes the first front-line female war photographer. The romance and success for Taro, however, was short-lived. She was killed only a year later during the Battle of Brunete.

This is a big passion project of Mann's, and he "intends to make a gritty, low-budget film" out of the story. So thankfully, this won't be a perfectly shot, epic romance of thundering scores and picturesque scenes of couples kissing. And it might be premature, but I've got to say -- Capa looks a whole lot like actor Saleh Bakri.

*Including swimming to the shores of Omaha Beach with the troops on D-Day.

Michael Mann's latest crime opus has already hit theaters, and like most of his devoted fans, I was there opening day. Granted, my desire to be first in line for Public Enemies mainly had to do with my preoccupation with pretty boys in nice suits, but trust me, there were some loftier ideals at work. One of the reasons I love Mann's films is that he finds new ways to tell relatively traditional stories...which brings me to Miami Vice. Vice definitely wasn't one of Mann's most popular films, but I always defend this flick, and here's why: growing up, I watched Miami Vice, and I might have loved it, but even at the tender age of 10 I knew it was kind of silly. I had always wondered what the series would have looked like if the show had a little less cheap humor about Crockett and his alligator and a little more 'dignity' -- fast forward to 2006, and that's exactly what Mann did.

Gone were the over the top white suits and wise cracks (I mean, thank god I didn't have to watch Colin Farrell yucking it up with 'Elvis'), and instead, Mann replaced them with a darker, meaner, and (dare I say it?) more realistic Miami Vice. But just because Mann brought Vice into the present, didn't mean that those traditional touches were gone, and the teaser was proof. That first trailer had it all -- the music perfectly timed with every shotgun pump, speedboats, helicopters, guns and hot girls...and you can't get more Miami Vice than that.

After the jump; the teaser and a reminder of Vice on the small screen..

Essentially there are two kinds of gangster movies: those made during the time when men wore hats in real life and those made during the time when men wore hats that came from wardrobe. The first type are usually in black-and-white, punchy, nervy and full of wisecracks. The second type are usually longer and more violent, but slower-paced and nobler of purpose, as if the hats suddenly carried an extra weight, an extra sadness. What Michael Mann has achieved with the new Public Enemies is an often fascinating, striking combination of the two.

I walked into the new film, convinced that it could never top lean, mean B-movie classics like Max Nosseck's Dillinger (1945) or Don Siegel's Baby Face Nelson (1957) in which these gangsters were initially immortalized. But it equals them, capturing some of their raw energy and allure and clocking in as a longer, but equally fast-moving and adrenaline-pumping example. Somehow Mann only manages to use the extra time for flash and spectacle, and hardly any for depth or detail, but that only helps to speed things along. Happily, he also avoids the typical origin story, and plunges right in.

Are you psyched to see Captain Jack Sparrow as a real-life gangster? Johnny Depp plays an infamous criminal in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, which opens tomorrow. But in a world where giant robots draw huge crowds, "do audiences want to see Depp as a fairly realistic, non-fantasy version of Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger?"

That's the question asked by Anne Thompson, a veteran industry analyst. She describes the movie as only "fitfully engaging ... often flat as a pancake." She says that Michael Mann's "biggest misstep here is the same as the Wachowskis with Speed Racer. His pursuit of what interests him formally may leave audiences behind." Like David Fincher's Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Mann's own Collateral and Miami Vice, Public Enemies was shot on high-definition video. Thompson claims: "When moviegoers watch a period film, no matter how authentically recreated, they aren't expecting it to look like this. There's something jarring about the way Public Enemies shoves us into the past."

I don't know about you, but I could use a good shove now and again. I've enjoyed Mann's last two films, and the trailers for Public Enemies have done a good job of whetting my appetite. The cast, including Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, and Billy Crudup, looks solid. I don't have any preconception about how period films should look -- I want a good, well-told story with interesting characters. How about you? Do you have certain expectations about how films set in the past should look? Do you want to see Johnny Depp as a "fairly-realistic, non-fantasy" bank robber?

Not many movie-going summers have had the good sense or fortune to formally kick themselves off with the likes of Hugh Jackman and his razor-sharp jazz hands, but as these are the times in which we live in, it's a clear indication that we're in for about eighteen weeks of spectacular spectaculars worth gulping down popcorn and guzzling down pop* with.

Eugene's already shone the spotlight on a fair amount of smaller titles worth your while, so our staff tried to keep the focus on that which we haven't seen, those spectacles for which we're most excited and least likely to text during. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: sit down and shut up, because these are the seven movies that we're fairly f**kin' pumped for.

(*Okay, I pretty much never call soda that, but you get the idea.)

In lieu of last night's hush-hush premiere of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot in Austin, to a crowd fully expecting to see mere clips and then The Wrath of Khan instead, we checked our Inbox of the Future (patent pending) to see what other shenanigans the Alamo Drafthouse might have in store for these coming months...

April 15th -- An admitted sneak screening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was preceded by the director's cut of Australia, with Hugh Jackman himself collecting money at the door as "a favor to Baz." However, many stayed to take advantage of the opportunity to literally stone Roger Friedman in the parking lot. Several Austinites returned their bongs to their cars when they realized that this didn't mean whatever they thought it meant, while others were commissioned to restrain Hitfix's Drew McWeeny when he took to chucking nearby scooters towards the tied-up Friedman -- a sight which left AICN's Massawyrm in equal awe and fear for his property.

May 5th -- What was alleged to be a screening of Piranha II: The Spawning turned out to be the informal premiere of McG's Terminator: Salvation, to the disappointment of many fanboys who had their fingers crossed for Avatar, but would settle for this instead. Compounding the frustrations was the appearance of Linda Hamilton, who proceeded to narrate the film live in person to an annoyed crowd. Tangents included all those weeds she pulled in the garden last week and that couch Jim took in the divorce.

The first official poster (remember the unofficial, fan-made one?) for Public Enemies has arrived over at MSN (along with a host of new images), and the first thing I thought of was how similar it was to one of The Dark Knight's Joker posters (see above), minus a crazed look from Enemies star, Johnny Depp. Perhaps Universal is looking to borrow some awesomeness from last summer's biggest movie in the hopes that Public Enemies becomes this summer's most talked-about piece of coolness.

Directed by Michael Mann (Heat), Public Enemies tells the real-life story of gangster John Dillinger (Depp), and how, due to his (and his pal's) multi-state crime spree during the 1930s, the US government had no choice but to create the FBI -- whose top agent, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), was the one assigned to finally track down Dillinger and bring him to justice. The film also stars Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Billy Crudup and more. This is a very cool story, and for those who do not know it, might I suggest locating the History Channel program in your channel guide that talks all about the formation of the FBI and the chase to nab Dillinger -- it's called 18 Months of Mayhem; find more info on it here.

Check out a larger image of the poster and a couple images below, then head over to MSN to see the rest. Public Enemies hits theaters on July 1.



Updated: Check out the ET promo for the Public Enemies trailer debut below ...