Miami Vice

[myrrh]

I was reading the new Vibe, and was surprised to find out Micheal Mann is making a Miami Vice movie!

A quick search found a pic here. (http://www.thegreenhead.com/entertainment/2005/02/first-look-miami-vice-colin-farrell-as.php)


Because Mann is doing it, it could be one of the best TV shows to movies ever!!!! I wonder if they'll have the same theme music?

[Animal Boything]

I haven't seen that show since it was on in the 80's, and I remember very little about it. Can anyone who's seen it recently tell me how well it holds up today?

[big screen satellite]

I haven't seen that show since it was on in the 80's, and I remember very little about it. Can anyone who's seen it recently tell me how well it holds up today?

not good, its purely nostalgic really

its too phoney / glitzy in a world of CSI type shows...

still the movie might well be quite good...i think that they are making it, so that its set in the 80's??

[grady]

AWESOME!

But I am a huge fan of Michael Mann's work, and he is perhaps one of my favorite directors working today. Regardless, this project is gonna be cool for me as I used to watch Miami Vice on occasion and I'm curious to see how Michael Mann is approaching shooting the film and creating the look of it.

More than likely, he's probably using the Viper digital cameras that he used on Collateral. On futher research and inspection of this topic I found this link (http://rumler.com/miami/vice/) and pictures of Mann, Foxx, and Farrell.

Ah...a new Michael Mann film to look forward to.

another link to check out, a slideshow from a TV station.

Go here (http://www.nbc6.net/slideshow/4659649/detail.html?qs=;s=1;w=320)

Another of the director of the project. (http://www.nbc6.net/slideshow/4659649/detail.html?qs=;s=12;w=320)

[GforGroove]

:D :D

i think is going to be awsome too!!!!
Not that i was fan of Miami Vice but i can't forget don jonson's white pants!

Is going to look stylish as hell.. beach, cars, guns, michael mann

sounds good def!

[b.miller]

i couldn't really say much about actually remembering any of the TV show, but i do know it's credited for changing the way TV shows were made back in the day, introducing that highly stylized action-movie-y feel to what was up till then largely just talking heads and muted colors. Like most of everything in the 80s i can see it not holding up today, but historically speaking it was pretty special (for better or worse).

[maus]

my friend and i just finished watching the entire first season of MV on DVD. it's dated, a little cheesy, but has definite Mann stamps on it. a lot of the origins of what we saw in later films like Heat and Collateral can be seen there. Mann didn't direct the early episodes, of course, but his influence as Exec. Producer is well felt.

farrell sucks, but this might be ok.

c

[djeddy]

crockett is played by colin farrell while jamie foxx is tubbs.

they shot a scene a block away from my office here. they also shut down the 395 here for a couple of days because they were shooting a scene as well.

originally i thought it was gonna be another BAD micheal bay-like piece of shit, but since micheal mann is involved, it can actually have some depth and soul. mann can make a really good movie 'the insider' but he can also make a piece of shit like 'band of the hand' which believe it or not, was the movie that inspired mann's miami vice.

[grady]

crockett is played by colin farrell while jamie foxx is tubbs.

they shot a scene a block away from my office here. they also shut down the 395 here for a couple of days because they were shooting a scene as well.

originally i thought it was gonna be another BAD micheal bay-like piece of shit, but since micheal mann is involved, it can actually have some depth and soul. mann can make a really good movie 'the insider' but he can also make a piece of shit like 'band of the hand' which believe it or not, was the movie that inspired mann's miami vice.

But he didn't necessarily direct Band of the Hand but rather he was a executive producer on it. Not quite the same thing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090693/fullcredits

[djeddy]

But he didn't necessarily direct Band of the Hand but rather he was a executive producer on it. Not quite the same thing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090693/fullcredits

bah my bad...you're right..starsky directed that film.. brain fart..

anyway i DO know it was the movie that inspired miami vice. the whole violent gang warfare in miami, with a hip 80s soundtrack to boot. thats miami vice yo.

[bored]

For UK dirties, MV can still be seen in it original glory on SKY - Men and Motors,.

I think there is a few episodes aired each week...surprisingly, as bad as the acting and storylines are, you still find yourself hypnotised by the fashion, the cars, the guns, and the lingo...

For gamers, GTA:Vice City did an unreal job of recreating Miami back in its day, and it shows when watching an old episode of MV.

[grady]

The resurfacing of an old thread!

Hurrah!

Here (http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2006/07/real_nice_vice.php) is a first peak at Miami Vice from a journalist whose opinions I seem to run concurrent with.

I can't fucking wait now and only wish I could slide my way into an exhibitor screening here in Portland this week.

At least it will be a good post-day-after-my-birthday present from Mr. Mann.

[BeautifulBurnout]

This was sooo one of my favourite series in its day that I am going to have to see this movie no matter what. Although I am sure I will come away disappointed.

I remember the pilot episode very clearly, and the excitement it generated at the time. We'll see.... :)

[grady]

This was sooo one of my favourite series in its day that I am going to have to see this movie no matter what. Although I am sure I will come away disappointed.

I remember the pilot episode very clearly, and the excitement it generated at the time. We'll see.... :)

If you saw Collateral visually that is a jumping off point for where Miami Vice is going to be going. Shot digitally with the new Viper cameras or something to that effect.

Mann is a visually stylist so at the very least, the film is going to be visual and aural crack. (to borrow Mr. Scott Warner's description of 'moaner' on the old dirty site track by track breakdown of Beaucoup Fish in 1999) His films are always wonderful pieces of music and sound.

I'm itching for the soundtrack now, but just have to hold off until after I see the film with the images moving in motion to the music and sound.

(I need to stop gushing about this film, I'm just too damn excited.)

[adam]

Heat is one of my favorites, but Collateral had nothing going for it except its style. It wasn't enough.

[grady]

Heat is one of my favorites, but Collateral had nothing going for it except its style. It wasn't enough.

Ah, I'd disagree, but thats just me. Heat is what is, but Collateral is a different beast, a different kind of LA. A even with whacky Tom Cruise in the lead, when under the right handler, like Michael Mann or Paul Thomas Anderson, good things can come from him.

[adam]

Oh, I wasn't opposed to Tom Cruise at that point; I just thought the whole thing was kind of pointless. It was pretty.

[grady]

Oh, I wasn't opposed to Tom Cruise at that point; I just thought the whole thing was kind of pointless. It was pretty.

hmm....I can see that, it's kind of similar to the reaction my father had. He just kind of shrugged and said, "meh." It seems to be one of those Michael Mann films that is hit and miss with people. Some loathe it, others love it, a few run the ground in between.

[b.miller]

I hate it in Collateral when they're in the cab and there's that Groove Armada song on the radio and Jada Pinket Smith says something like "oh, you're into the classics huh?" yeah, classics like 2004... BITCH.

but seriously, a guy I kinda know saw it last night and I more often than not agree with his taste and this was his answer to how it was: Fucking Awesome.

Miami Vice i'm talking about there...

so yay!

[adam]

That would be nice. I'd like to have my faith in Mann restored. It'd give me hope for Ridley Scott.

[grady]

adam, I'd say don't hold your breath on old Ridley. Of course, that is just me though.

Brian, I too have always hated that fucking line in Collateral, and me being the Mann apologist/defender rationalizes it that he originally had something more 'classic' in there but then was unable to secure rights to whatever that may have been, but then was able to get a snippet of Miles Davis from Bitches Brew.

Huh? What doesn't make sense here? Why wasn't her dialog redubbed or fixed in post?

To quote the Chewbacca defense from that one episdoe South Park, "THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!??!??!??!"

So now we can confirm two people saying Miami Vice=FUCKING AWESOME.

Now what we need is Manhola Darghis to write a love letter/make love to Mann with words, carassing him and the film in Friday's NY Times on the day of the films US release. Then follow that up with a nice verbose review from David Denby in the New Yorker where he references his own review of Collateral from 2004 and expounds on it further for MV as Vice being an extension of the filmmaking techniques Mann was beginning and exploring in Collateral both within his own asethetic approach to filmmaking and the use of digital technology.

Of course the above is all conjecture, but if it turns out to be half true, the audience may not get it and rather, will wait and see something else again, thinking the film Miami Vice is nothing more than what the film version of Starsky and Hutch or The Dukes of Hazard were.

[stimpee]

Looks like its coming to Holland quite soon. This (http://www.dirty.org/~steve/miamivice.jpg) was in the cinema magazine Preview...

[grady]

Looks like its coming to Holland quite soon. This (http://www.dirty.org/~steve/miamivice.jpg) was in the cinema magazine Preview...

Nice. I was wondering how different some of the international artwork would be, doesn't appear to be much change.

[grady]

Here is an interesting piece (http://www.slate.com/id/2145622) from Slate.com (http://www.slate.com) about the trials and tribulations of shooting Miami Vice and the ego of Jamie Foxx, now an Oscar winner conflicting with the controlling, demanding, and precise director Michael Mann.

There are no real big spoilers in the piece, but rather a discussion of two sides of the story of creating a film and dealing with a strong, dominant, and controlling director and actor whose ego grows exponentially from an award being bestoyed upon him.

Reading Mann's comments in the piece they seem very measured and somewhat terse. He's not going to bullshit about it, but he's not going to tell all and create a dramatic fued, instead, just maintain a bit of prefessionalism.

[GforGroove]

Grady.. so???!!! how was it?
Im going tonight. run run

[grady]

An odd film, a strange episodic film that is like an episode exploded for the confines of a cinema. I saw it last night with a audience full frat boys/high school football players. It was not the ideal viewing audience. I saw it again later today and found myself not wincing as hard as before, and just getting soaked up in all the digital grainy look which is quite a stark contrast to Collateral.

I really enjoy the film in the way it just starts and stops. You're literally thrown into the scene. Just in the way you're dropped into the film, you're pulled out as well. It just ends.

Obviously my affinity to Michael Mann's films and asethetic make it harder for me to discern sometimes the bad from the good. I wanted to like it more and I wanted it to be better. But already I find more to look at and enjoy in the film than say Ali, which was a difficult film to like, despite it's many good and bad points.

Another point of discussion in the film:Sex and sex scenes. Sex feels very odd in Miami Vice and at times uncomfortable. I can't find a better adjective at the moment, maybe wierd or strange as well. When we're introduced to Vincent Hanna in Heat he's making love to his wife in the morning. The scene is shot with very tight shots and perspectives and cut together in such a way to create that sense of passion and the heat of the moment spontanaity. It works. In Miami Vice Jamie Foxx has a humorous bit when he and his girlfriend begin to become intimate post showering. Colin Farrell has to follow Foxx's lead by being in the shower and then having Gong-Li join him. So you've got sex and showers going on.

The look of the film is really peculiar too as I mentioned above in being a stark contrast from Collateral. The DV is not clean in some places and is down right dirty and and raw with splatters of blood on the lens and shaky shaky shaky handheld running around from person to person. I was expecting things to be cleaner as the film was being set in Miami and you think of the city as being slick and glossy. But this isn't a TV show, this is the film. They're different entities, hence the different approach.

If you've seen just two or three Michael Mann films, you know what to expect. Strong male lead characters with a dedication to work that superceeds the term workaholic by leaps and bounds. Everything else in the character's life takes a back seat to the first priority at hand, the job/the score/the truth/etc. Colin Farrell is that character this time around. He has his contemplative moment staring at the ocean, ruminating on God knows what. (It just looked better in Heat with Deniro in that empty Malibu home staring at the sea and Russel Crowe looking out at the Gulf in The Insider before going to give a court deposition in Mississippi.)

Now that I've seen it twice I'm gonna let it sit for a while. Think about it some more, read some essays(one (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/mann.html).two (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/mann.html).three (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/19/ali.html).four (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/33/collateral.html).) that have been nagging at me for a review about Mann and his style. Maybe try and put some thoughts down on paper about Mann as an exercise. In school a couple years back a wrote a lengthy piece for a professor on Mann and his films. Perhaps it's time to return, if only to keep the mind limber and able.

I'll leave it on this note. A quote I came across in this (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060724/ap_en_mo/film_michael_mann_1) AP wire piece from yahoo Mann in regards to making a film out of the series.

"The whole idea was to do `Miami Vice' for real and to do it now, and it would take place now. And if you're going to do it for real, then the first question you have to ask yourself is: Do I have those points of connection to the show?" Mann told The Associated Press. "It's nostalgia, and I find that passive and not interesting. ... If you're going to do `Miami Vice' for real, you're not going to get into the cartoon stuff, and you're not going to try to trigger recall of the show."

Did you see it yet Jerry? Brian?

[b.miller]

I saw it today.

(minor spoilers but not really)

I think there's more good than bad in it, but I couldn't help but wish for more... I actually really liked the grainy DV look of Miami at night but really wanted some shot-on-film vividness to the day stuff... I was really hoping this movie would be the melding of Collateral's night/very close-up shooting and Heat/Insider's stunningly beautiful exterior stuff... but the day shots ended up being kind of dull and video-y to me... I much preferred the night stuff.

Certain parts I liked very much... there just weren't enough of them.

The story... is what it is I guess. I had some problems with it... but I guess that's up to everyone. Kind of like how it bugs some people in Collateral that of course the last target on Cruise's list is Pinkett Smith because there was that random cab ride in the beginning ("you like the classics too?"). So here, of course certain things are going to happen I guess... most of them are in the trailer too ("there's deep undercover and then there's which-way-is-up") and part of me hoped all that would get chopped like the "do you know what forboding means?" bit (or is it verboten? neither word makes a whole lot of sense in an undercover vice cop movie)... but certain standards to the genre are still here.

So I don't know why but I was somehow hoping for something special, and ended up with more of a by-the-numbers approach. Except Crockett and Tubs are both painfully cool... Foxx's goatee man... I wanted it to get caught in a garbage disposal or something... except both of these guys are WAY to cool to ever wash dishes, so that scene was out.

And yeah, the sex stuff in here is just plain weird. Close-ups of Foxx's back... huh?

I was also happy to see that one guy get work. I really liked him on that old Denis Leary TV show called The Job.

so yeah, I'd say I liked it. I'd put it between Thief and Ali as far as my favorite Mann movies go (Heat's at the top, followed by Insider then Collateral, Manhunter, Thief, this, Ali, Mohicans... haven't seen The Keep).

oh well.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

yaaaaaawn.

[cured]

It was better than I thought it would be. You get dropped right in a hectic scene (perhaps the most tense of the entire movie) and you aren't slapped over the head with where the story is supposed to go. You piece it together as it goes along, which does give it that feeling of being a misplaced "24" episode but that helps the replay value vastly.

The sex scenes? Eh they're for the girls, too, y'know ;)

The end fighting sequences were fun but it did seem to take a big page out of an average paintball tournament. Some deaths did have a nice degree of humor in them, kind of a hard line to walk with this kind of movie but they did it really well.


Good movie, I'd buy the DVD :)

[GforGroove]

yup i saw it but not friday because it was freaking sold out in whole NYC..
i tried 3 cinemas and nop nop... I think was a booomboxoffice.. besides not being a fabolous movie but nice one. Well i saw 'Road to Guantamo" instead on friday that is pretty damn good. and i saw yesterday Miami Vice..

OK. for not remember anything about miami vice series and being a zero action movies fan but a completely fan of Mann (not as you grant!) It was
really entertaining and good for the eye.. Is just that Mann makes everything look good. But it didn't make me crazy.. i like that satire mood when they kill people but i didn't believe Foxx for a second to be a tough dude.

It was ok though. I prefer Collateral much more.

[koisk]

I thought this sucked! The dialog was hard to understand and lame, the 2 sex scenes awkard and unnecessary, and the middle hour of the movie a pointless exercise in trying to develop Colin's character, which by the end of the movie I still didn't care about. Also, scenes with Fox and Colin I found difficult to watch - all they did was stare off into different directions at different times in an effort to look cool. By the time we get to the end (which I did really like), I felt more like "thank god we finally made it" then anything.

That said, I enjoyed the visual aspect of the whole thing - the grainy film, vibriant colors, contrasting day and night scenes, and that boat scene with the chick and Colin I thought was awesome. The execution of the final gun fight was great.

However, the chick that blew the brains out of the white supremist seemed to me a whole lot more badass then Colin. Foxx was badass too but I don't think he got enough screen time.

Ok, I'm done.

[grady]

So in the past couple days I've been thinking a bit more about the film, probably more thought and energy being put into it than necessary, but hear me out here, anyone who is still reading this thread.

After coming out of the film at 2:55am last friday, the 28th of July, my friend Danielle, who didn't really care for the film at all made an interesting comment. Her basic observation was that the film would've been better had it had really no expository dialog and for the most part a plot that is discernable only through the visuals and being able to identify who is good and who is bad and then going from there through the motions.

Basically you'd end up with a silent film, or rather a film with no dialog, or dialog that has been mixed down into the mix so that the sound and music has a more dominant play in the mix.

Taking all that into consideration, it makes for a different film. You're now relying on the visual style and flourishes that Michael Mann is known for, but also just the power of those images and sound combined.

It might make for an interesting experiment once the DVD comes out to mute channels of the film and just focus on the visual and sound effects and music.

A friend told me earlier today to just give up and let it go, but I can't at the moment. It's especially difficult after skimming the new issue of American Cinematographer with an interview with the director of photography on the film, Dion Beebe. But at the end of the day, what it all comes down is just thinking out loud about the film and throwing those thoughts out into a place where people might be interested.

So my thoughts end up here at dirty, awaiting reading eyes and churning minds for their takes on this notion above.

[Strangelet]

i thought it was satisfying. After a while I just assumed that the dialog was not meant to be followed closely, all of the unexplained parlance and jargon, half uttered ideas mumbled into the lapels of expensive suits, I figured Mann was trying to suggest an experience where you felt like it wasn't being performed, nor was your presence even all that welcome, which kind of added a bizarre kind of authenticity to something that is ultimately a farce acted out in hightened intensity.

I agree with everyone's opinion that Mann is king shit when it comes to visual candy. I also think he's brilliant at crescendo, building and peeking. and I'm a type of movie goer where I could be thrilled with just that.

[Caprice]

I thought this sucked! The dialog was hard to understand and lame, the 2 sex scenes awkard and unnecessary, and the middle hour of the movie a pointless exercise in trying to develop Colin's character, which by the end of the movie I still didn't care about. Also, scenes with Fox and Colin I found difficult to watch - all they did was stare off into different directions at different times in an effort to look cool. By the time we get to the end (which I did really like), I felt more like "thank god we finally made it" then anything.

That said, I enjoyed the visual aspect of the whole thing - the grainy film, vibriant colors, contrasting day and night scenes, and that boat scene with the chick and Colin I thought was awesome. The execution of the final gun fight was great.

However, the chick that blew the brains out of the white supremist seemed to me a whole lot more badass then Colin. Foxx was badass too but I don't think he got enough screen time.

Ok, I'm done.


yes, i agree totally