In my Wednesday Taki's column, I compare "Public Enemies" with Johnnie Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis to a recent, better-executed cops and robbers movie.
Read it there and comment upon it here.
Read it there and comment upon it here.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
OK, I read the review.
ReplyDeleteHow the f*ck can you stand Hollywood movies, Steve? Why not just jam a f*cking USB cable into your brain and mainline whatever the $PLC and ADL are on about today? Whitey is bad. Men are boobs. Satan is your pal. Ugh, I don't get it.
Track and field post, please. How 'bout MMA? You can download all the fights from a torrent site, it's kind of neat discovering a new sport with a history. Lotsa racey angles to write about, amenable to statistics. I defy you to find a more compelling athlete than Fedor Emilianenko - and why do black guys suck so bad at MMA when they have such natural advantages?
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou lost me with your There Will Be Blood reference. That movie got continually worse, as a function of how "hammy" Daniel Lewis became.
It was preposterous that a successful oilman would be so mentally ill. To successfully plan and execute simultaneous, successful oil exploration and production projects and outsmart Standard Oil would require a mind like a Swiss watch.
It was typical Hollywood Marxism, denigrating entrepreneurship - especially white entrepreneurship.
When Denzel Washington plays a black drug entrepreneur in American Gangster, he is portrayed as cool, smart, and in control.
This:
ReplyDelete"In contrast, Mann and his co-writers violate willy-nilly most rules of form and function. For instance, Public Enemies’s plot is neither historically accurate nor fictitiously streamlined enough to make sense"
is a great observation, and my most constant complaint about this historic-dramas. Either get both feet on shore or on land, but you can't stradle the two. This movie had promise, but all the reviews pretty much say the same thing: looks good, feels boring. That sucks.
"Public Enemies’s"
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Public Enemies’
Sorry.
CP is right that There Will Be Blood was a ponderous Marxist-lite fable. The only bit that really sticks in my mind is the "I drink your milkshake" scene. Did others feel the smarmy little evangelist creep got what he had coming to him, or was that just me?
ReplyDeleteYou lost me with your There Will Be Blood reference. That movie got continually worse, as a function of how "hammy" Daniel Lewis became.
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, 'Gangs Of New York' gave Day-Lewis similar rein and finally ended up in the same ditch.
I wasn't a 'Miami Vice' fan but Michael Mann won me over with this: after the show was cancelled did Torello catch Luca before the Beatles appeared on Sullivan and ruined the world as we knew it? The world was a better place when men like Torello worked in it.
ReplyDeleteYour negative review of Public Enemies (which I've not seen) reminds me of my reaction to Mulholland Falls: nice period details but without a 'Crime Story'-like main ongoing storyline it didn't grab me.
Oh yes Crime Story was amazing. Also Thief, Band of the Hand, Private Eye (TV), Robbery Homicide (TV), Collateral, Heat, the Insider, Manhunter, and Last of the Mohicans (as either producer or director).
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty impressive. MOST of Mann's films have had the same themes: tough guys alienated from family life, acting as protectors to people who don't understand them and leaders of disparate people.
Mann's stuff has been over the decades better than most, the Kingdom was probably interfered with, and saddled with Jamie Foxx, who can't act much.
Agreed on Paul Blart Mall Cop. Maybe not a classic but for what it was, well done.
Whiskey.
Excellent, Young Fogey. Crime Story WAS brilliant.
ReplyDeleteSo was (speaking of Daniel Day-Lewis) Mann's rendition of Last Of The Mohicans.
My mom and I used to watch Miami Vice, back when I was 22 and she was 42. Amazing how time gives you the perspective of what a throw-back show it actually was.
Michael Mann, who used to compete in combat pistol matches, is seriously into guns and choreographs a gunfight better than anyone else--or, at least, anyone else since Peckinpaugh died. What I remember from Thief, Heat, and Collateral are the gunfights; the trouble is, everything between them was mediocre. Mann just can't seem to direct actors in such a way that you buy them as real people. It's as if real people don't interest him much, he prefers cool archetypes who strike poses. The Jamie Foxx-Tom Cruise storyline in Collateral was utter drek, but the gunfights were fantastic!
ReplyDeleteYes, it's revealing how mediocre all the cast members in the original Miami Vice other than Don Johnson and Edward James Olmos were. Mann should stay away from biopics.
ReplyDeleteMy mom and I used to watch Miami Vice, back when I was 22 and she was 42. Amazing how time gives you the perspective of what a throw-back show it actually was.
ReplyDeleteI loved that show. Awesome stuff. Not really a low-key "undercover" cop if you drive around in a Ferrari, wear white sports jackets, espadrilles and carry a Bren 10, but who cares? Shit, G. Gordon Liddy himself (one of my personal hero) had 2 guest appearances! Phil Collins only got 1. Great stuff, man I miss those days.
"My mom and I used to watch Miami Vice, back when I was 22 and she was 42."
ReplyDeleteI bet your mom was a MILF! I bet it was like, "Hey Reactionary, can we, uh, come over and watch TV with your mom?"
I bet your mom was a MILF! I bet it was like, "Hey Reactionary, can we, uh, come over and watch TV with your mom?"
ReplyDeleteShe was and is an attractive woman. There are some distinct advantages accruing to women who have their kids when they're young.
Saw it. I agree: not Mann's best work because the leads were weak and I missed the moral centre of 'Crime Story'. Good attention to period detail though and Marion Cotillard is smokin' on the big screen.
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