Michael Mann posting: watched Heat and Collateral recently. what a funny director
copy pasting things I wrote elsewhere
loved the other letterboxd review that said “Every woman in this movie looks so tired” lol.
COLLATERAL - michael mann loves to combine auteur cinematography and blocking with the funniest sort of thematic shallowness. this time it comes off really well because Tom Cruise is an absolute gun superstar and can pull off extremely stylized dialogue with ease, and because there’s only one woman in the movie and she barely gets any speaking lines. (oh and Irma Hall who absolutely steals her scene) smart writing to focus on Cruise and Jamie Foxx’s characters. shout out to the Jazz club scene btw, vincent was right, you learn jazz in the streets.
COLLATERAL still whips because Tom Cruise is absolutely magnetic at all times. the themes are still dumb but Tom Cruise carries them off because he’s a super weird and insane guy who makes the characters incipient-crypto-tech-bro sociopath life philosophy believable. My problematic fave, he’s on my shortlist of actors who I will watch in basically anything. (Basically just him and Paul Newman on that list rn?)
Michael Mann is such a funny director. The most beautiful shots known to man mixed with the most 13 year old boy themes to exist prior to the release of Boondock Saints
Saw someone on Letterboxd call Vikram Vedha “Heat but dumb” - actually it’s Heat but exactly as dumb, just more self aware
Agree with you. COLLATERAL stitches together the double style of the proletariat and noble classes, the former engaged in low-level assassination work, should be likes to brag, gamble and whores, the latter is act with measure and professional, should be not doing this kind of street job. The story is stupid and full of intellectual obscenity, but Tom Cruise makes the role speak itself, save everyone’s job.
My thumb hurts and I had already had the plan to try and watch 20 movies in September so my body did the heavy work for me.
I am trying to watch A Better Tomorrow on hard-mode (Japanese subs). It seems like a Vibe Movie but the cast of very pretty men is hard to follow.
I have a lot to say, but the thumb and all, will say I cannot figure out how The Godfather gets called The Best Movie outside of a Worldwide Hard-On for the Mafia.
So far The Godfather Part 2 is an indulgent Free Check and I wish I had a pamplet from a Japanese theater to explain the cast.
It’s not the best movie but it has great camerawork of dimly lit interiors and the violence is very effective. I also love Brando. Maybe thats why people like it. Everyone loves Brando.
Watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. All of the pieces would have been fine but it was missing inspiration and needed more time to cook. The only inspired action set piece was at the very beginning, and the ending leaves a minor plot hole entirely unaddressed.
watched Arrival last night. I liked it! I thought it was a bit heavy-handed in its message but the way it gets there was pretty cool. The Big Rock is impressive! The effects in general were very good.
The most unrealistic part is when Jeremy Renner asks “Wanna make a baby?” and she says “Yes.”
somehow I missed that Udhayanidhi Stalin (the DMK minister recently in the news for saying “We must eradicate Sanatana Dharma” which, baller move, massive respect) not only produced this film but starred in it. His last film before turning to politics full time. Udhay is himself a third generation politician and Dravidian activist, his grandfather and his father were both chief minister of Tamil Nadu and he is being groomed as next in line. So the story of a father-son political duo is sort of an attempt to ground his personal political story in anti caste activism rather than just being a nepo baby. And he got Mari Selvaraj, one of the best anti-caste directors working today, on board
had its moments but felt like a missed opportunity, craft-wise
Finally got my hands on Tsui Hark’s The Blade and it was a revelation. They shot all those battle scenes as shot reverse shot face close ups with swords going like a blender between them and it looks amazing. Incredible lighting. Everyone is screaming and debased and experiencing a mental breakdown every time they fight at all, and the camera brings it through in this amazing way… the action is framed to focus on the acting during the martial arts scenes rather than the stunts, if that makes any sense. So many thrilling camera tricks in the fights… the first big fight scene in the bandit camp is just amazing.
The story has a lot in it I don’t like–they kill a sex worker character I was hoping to see more of for absolutely no reason, I cannot believe how little reason they even pretended to supply for her death, and there are a few bandit clans that seem probably pretty racist–but the good stuff goes unbelievably hard. There are some incredible monologues from the young woman who occasionally acts as the perspective character… I feel like half the VO monologues had something in them that made us holler. Very poetically on the nose stuff.
I love how everyone has dumb little tricks. The bad guy has like six weird gadget tricks he reveals during his big fight.
One of those movies where you can imagine an alternate version of the genre where everyone tried to do this instead of whatever they ended up doing. I wish more shit looked like this!
Oh god yeah it is very horror esque… there’s a lot more gore than I expected in it too. Nothing toooo gross but there are a couple very disturbing dismemberment scenes, some of which are scary because of the emotion involved rather than just the gore necessarily. It’s great
speaking of gore, I watched STUCK on tubi because Stuart Gordon is gross and BOY HOWDY WAS THIS GROSS. it opens up with a close up of someone shitting themselves in a hospital and then a close up of someone cleaning it
its based on a true story of a woman who hit a dude with her car, got him stuck in her windshield then drove home with him in there, and left him in her garage to die, and she almost got away with it
its hilariously over the top apathetic. the dude who gets hit by a car has a horrible day where everyone treats him like shit the he gets hit by a car and no one cares, and if they do there’s some beuracratic bullshit keeping them from doing anything to help the man. just this seething ARENT AMERICANS THE WORST over and over it’s so funny
