Michael Mann

[diamonds]

CBS Sunday Morning profile

The profile on Mann in the New York Times Magazine from the other week is also a long and very good read.

[hearthesilence]

CBS Sunday Morning profile

That is kind of funny considering The Insider. There's a great interview with Wallace about it somewhere online - he actually went to see the movie and took solace in the fact that it didn't get much of an audience in theaters.

[flyonthewall2983]

I think it was on Larry King. They played the clip of Christopher Plummer as Wallace snapping at CBS management, and he didn’t look too pleased to be talking about it.

[oh yeah]

I rewatched most of Mann's filmography recently and this time around, besides Miami Vice and Heat being as powerful as ever, I found Thief and The Insider to be even more impressive than ever before. Thief may be Mann's best film on a pure character level, just because Frank is such a well-drawn, fascinating guy who we spend the whole film with. It's the most intimate of Mann's crime dramas, and the film's paradoxical combination of this stripped-down 70s realism with that great early 80s futurism is brilliant. I love the way the ending references the end of Zabriskie Point, another Marxist film (Mann has been insistent on Thief being designed under a Marxist lens, and he's not wrong). And then The Insider is just an amazing directorial achievement considering what Mann gets out of a script that could have been incredibly ordinary in some hack's hands. Crowe has never been better than his devastating role in this film, and Pacino gives one of his most underrated and likeable performances. But the film is shot with such an evocative, impressionist, sensitive style that it's like a moving painting at times (literally) more than the straightforward docudrama one might expect. In that sense, it definitely bridges the way to Mann's subsequent, and increasingly abstract and impressionistic films. (Like Blackhat, which I still find to be a somewhat flawed masterpiece - the second half in particular has a terrific sense of momentum).

[flyonthewall2983]

The Keep is on the Criterion Channel next month

[flyonthewall2983]

I’m not sure if this figured into the research at all between Mann and Tom Cruise, but I think Vincent in Collateral is definitely on the autism spectrum as it were. Specifically Asperger’s, which I was identified as having when I was 4 years old and tested again when I was 18. So much more of this is out in the open and identifiable now but in the 80’s it was just dawning on people about the sets of problems I had.

Why this performance brought me to such a personal conclusion is the reality of his situation I can relate to, having a volatile father to later living in a single parent situation, which for me was with my mom while he was in prison. The otherwise easy trope of the dead mother hits me hard when I consider, for example, the fractious relationship between my mother and my sister. Naturally that brings me to the one mother figure of this, between Max and his mother at the hospital. It was kind of weird seeing it play out again with Jamie Foxx’s character in a Pixar movie a few years ago.

[flyonthewall2983]

Finished the first season of Tokyo Vice. Gets less gripping and more cliche towards the end but has some impressive elements which a 2nd season could potentially improve on.

[jazzo]

You pretty much described my feelings towards Heat; equal parts gripping and overwhelmingly silly/cliched. Maybe weighted even more towards the latter, but the parts that work (and those parts have more to do with his craft as a director, not a a a writer) simply sing like a choir and almost make up for the ridiculous everything else.

And despite all of its flaws, of which I clearly think there are many, I can’t stop watching it if it’s on.

[ford]

This guy, who usually does in fact have accurate insider info, claims a 4k "restoration" of Manhunter is being prepared by Mann himself.

However I was under the impression that the cut scenes only existed in the horrible VHS quality we saw in his last "director's cut" attempt? Wonder if good elements have been found...or if we're about to see what artificial intelligence can do with regard to "cleaning up" low quality footage into some simulation of 35mm?

Or perhaps Mann is about to dump the same VHS quality scenes into 4k footage? (Didn't stop him with the blu-ray.)

[yoloswegmaster]

This guy, who usually does in fact have accurate insider info, claims a 4k "restoration" of Manhunter is being prepared by Mann himself.

This is absolutely not true. Can we stop trying to make this guy the next big insider? He's already been proven wrong on so many occasions.

[ford]

This guy, who usually does in fact have accurate insider info, claims a 4k "restoration" of Manhunter is being prepared by Mann himself.

This is absolutely not true. Can we stop trying to make this guy the next big insider? He's already been proven wrong on so many occasions.

Yeah I was skeptical of him but then he called a few things right if I recall so I figured he did have sources at Kino, SC etc.

It could be as simple as SC is waiting on Mann to approve something slightly new about an upcoming cut and that becomes, via telephone, “working on a restoration.”

I mean, I visited Criterion’s HQ once and just looking around saw a dozen cover art mock-ups, movies being digitally touched up, none of which had been announced. Any employee there could have mentioned any of those titles to any goober with a twitter account and it would in fact be “insider info.” Said goober could also release bullshit in addition to a few nuggets of truth.

[yoloswegmaster]

This muppet only has an inside source for some of the major U.S. companies (IIRC WB and Lionsgate). The problem is that he just steals info from other forums without giving any credit to the original source, and has announced so many titles that still haven't come to fruition. I'm still waiting for the Criterion releases of Mank and Da 5 Bloods that he claimed was going to be coming in 2021, or the 4K UHD of Fast Times at Ridgemont Times that was coming last year from Universal. The other problem with this goober is that he's a certified piece of shit who harasses people.

In the case of Manhunter, he's not saying anything that isn't already public knowledge. it's already a foregone conclusion that a 4K master is being worked on, as it appeared in the video from StudioCanal about their 2023 releases, and it's not that hard to surmise that Michael Mann is working on a new cut based on past releases.

I mean, I visited Criterion’s HQ once and just looking around saw a dozen cover art mock-ups, movies being digitally touched up, none of which had been announced. Any employee there could have mentioned any of those titles to any goober with a twitter account and it would in fact be “insider info.” Said goober could also release bullshit in addition to a few nuggets of truth.

Do you remember what the titles were, if you don't mind me asking?

[ford]

This muppet only has an inside source for some of the major U.S. companies (IIRC WB and Lionsgate). The problem is that he just steals info from other forums without giving any credit to the original source, and has announced so many titles that still haven't come to fruition. I'm still waiting for the Criterion releases of Mank and Da 5 Bloods that he claimed was going to be coming in 2021, or the 4K UHD of Fast Times at Ridgemont Times that was coming last year from Universal. The other problem with this goober is that he's a certified piece of shit who harasses people.

In the case of Manhunter, he's not saying anything that isn't already public knowledge. it's already a foregone conclusion that a 4K master is being worked on, as it appeared in the video from StudioCanal about their 2023 releases, and it's not that hard to surmise that Michael Mann is working on a new cut based on past releases.

I mean, I visited Criterion’s HQ once and just looking around saw a dozen cover art mock-ups, movies being digitally touched up, none of which had been announced. Any employee there could have mentioned any of those titles to any goober with a twitter account and it would in fact be “insider info.” Said goober could also release bullshit in addition to a few nuggets of truth.

Do you remember what the titles were, if you don't mind me asking?

This was years ago, I wanna say 2016 or 2017, I remember it’s how I found out about the Blu-ray BARRY LYNDON cause I watched a guy at a monitor cleaning up what I guess was the “raw” scan provided. Then I looked over and saw like four options for FIRE WALK WITH ME cover art hanging over someone’s cubicle, most of them I liked more than what was chosen.

There was something else that I remember shocked me at the time but can’t remember so maybe it’s something that got released a while back already.

[yoloswegmaster]

This guy, who usually does in fact have accurate insider info, claims a 4k "restoration" of Manhunter is being prepared by Mann himself.

However I was under the impression that the cut scenes only existed in the horrible VHS quality we saw in his last "director's cut" attempt? Wonder if good elements have been found...or if we're about to see what artificial intelligence can do with regard to "cleaning up" low quality footage into some simulation of 35mm?

Or perhaps Mann is about to dump the same VHS quality scenes into 4k footage? (Didn't stop him with the blu-ray.)

Ok, I just found out that he stole this info from this post on the blu-ray.com forum:

Just returned from a screening of this (newly struck 70mm print from Mann’s personal collection) in LA. Mann said in a Q&A there have been a few versions of this film and he’s working on a new one. They’re doing the remastering now and he’s going to add in some scenes he took out including the DC ending of Graham visiting the potential next victims, as well as other scenes of Graham talking about the mentality of his prey. No release date or window or anything.

[tenia]

I absolutely hate this kind of Twitter accounts, who dilute actual insider info a few accounts might have or, more directly, genuine first-hand new info from people working on these and are breaking the news (being from restoration labs or film festivals, for instance) with hearsays from hearsays from hearsays mixed with stuff already public but posted elsewhere (which often actually is the most reliable stuff they might post).

Within these, this account is one of the earliest I hid on my Twitter account, because of its wild unreliability to being with, then of the way he re-posts stuff taken from elsewhere (like an official announcement for a French release but reposted without the info it's not a US release so people will jump on it "OH WOW A RELEASE" before actually realising "yeah but in France"), and finally on top of already all that being overall agressive down to plain harassment.

So within what already isn't a particularly benevolent and insightful bunch (let's face this, most of these accounts are just tweeting intel from elsewhere in order to get clicks and now Twitter $$$ - I see this one has a Twitter Blue account, no surprise here), he manages to out-dumb them.

[dwk]

If Mann actually said that he was working on a new cut of Manhunter during the Q&A at a sold out screening, I am surprised that no one else seem to have posted about it anywhere.

[ford]

This guy, who usually does in fact have accurate insider info, claims a 4k "restoration" of Manhunter is being prepared by Mann himself.

However I was under the impression that the cut scenes only existed in the horrible VHS quality we saw in his last "director's cut" attempt? Wonder if good elements have been found...or if we're about to see what artificial intelligence can do with regard to "cleaning up" low quality footage into some simulation of 35mm?

Or perhaps Mann is about to dump the same VHS quality scenes into 4k footage? (Didn't stop him with the blu-ray.)

Ok, I just found out that he stole this info from this post on the blu-ray.com forum:

Just returned from a screening of this (newly struck 70mm print from Mann’s personal collection) in LA. Mann said in a Q&A there have been a few versions of this film and he’s working on a new one. They’re doing the remastering now and he’s going to add in some scenes he took out including the DC ending of Graham visiting the potential next victims, as well as other scenes of Graham talking about the mentality of his prey. No release date or window or anything.

Guessing it’s a reference to this screening.

[beamish14]

If Mann actually said that he was working on a new cut of Manhunter during the Q&A at a sold out screening, I am surprised that no one else seem to have posted about it anywhere.

I didn’t realize it was even a new 70mm print. I thought it was an archival one from 1986.

Interesting info on this particular blow-up here

[flyonthewall2983]

I’ve heard about the print in a few letterboxd reviews