The Michael Mann poll

great, career-spanning interview which I don't think was posted

https://www.vulture.com/article/michael-mann-in-conversation.html

Great interview, Mann is so smart and perceptive. I interviewed him a couple of times, years ago, and he just exuded intellectual curiosity. He wants to know how everything works: a car, a gun, a street light, a criminal, a city. Just really focused on the how and why of it all.

Miami Vice director’s cut is an abomination

O to be in L.A.:

https://x.com/katiewalshstx/status/1742284331618328860?s=20

rewatched the theatrical cut of Blackhat on blu-ray the other day and I have to give some credit to the foley artists for the stabbing noises in the climactic fight scene

Stories out there today about Heat 2 filming this year, with Adam Driver in one of the leads.

Also:

michael mann fans be like HOLY FUCKKK pic.twitter.com/2Pf6tpqGa6

— bee (@beepupkin) January 5, 2024

idgi

https://www.cinemamoderne.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/heat-still1.jpg

?

Yep, and Manhunter too.

The Mann-approved Criterion issue of Thief seems to have been dipped in blue tint compared with the old Anchor Bay DVD, too. He took the whole "Blu"-Ray thing very literally.

There are a myriad of reasons new releases have different color grading, but I think the overall trend (barring WKW and others making editorial choices) is to try to attempt to get closer to the theatrical grading/light presentation on blu-ray, especially with HDR

I was watching the interviews on the recent Blackhat release and the DP, Stuart Dryburgh, briefly touched on the fact that typically a director gives notes and the editor handles everything before final handoff, but Mann would take charge of the final lighting/grading himself when the editors had finished cutting. His opinion was that Mann had a light touch on the couple of recent things where they'd collaborated, but the anecdote definitely speaks to his concerns

I found a quote of his from 2017, I think, talking about changing the color grading of "Heat:"

EW: When it came to remastering the film for the Blu-ray, were there specific sequences you focused on?

Yeah, the whole film! When you go into Blu-ray, and you go to 4K, you're in a different color space. Meaning that what was magenta doesn't translate exactly. There's no logarithm you could use to make "magenta" still stay magenta, with that exact color. So you have to imagine everything, from contrast, to how black blacks are, to what the color palette is. The ambition here was: If I was shooting the film two or three years ago, what would it look like? That was really it. So we went into every shot.

EW: Your style in your more recent films has evolved from when you made Heat. Did that affect how you looked at this film?

Let me put this rather precisely. When you see an emotion on a human's face, how much of the face do you see? What constitutes fear? What constitutes apprehension? What constitutes suspicion?

Yes, I evolved, but also, audience perception evolves, and media evolves, year to year. If I shot this film two or three years ago, this particular film would be less chromatic. And the sense of tension would become more pronounced with greater contrast and kind of a more blue-black palette, than the film as I wanted it to be when I shot it in '94-'95.

EW: Are there any moments in particular that bring up what you're talking about, that as you're working with the 4K, any sequence in the film that you think is seen anew on this definitive edition?

The one that comes to mind is when Hanna is chasing Neil McCauley at the end of the film past the airport. All that is a lot darker. Primary reds are stripped out. The reflections in the metal—everything is substantially darker, if I showed you the before and after. They're big steps, they're not subtleties.

there's a second season of tokyo vice coming to max next week?
i generally enjoyed s1 despite the elgort factor but i did not think there was much demand for more of it from anyone