i am actually looking forward to "collateral"

Resisting joke.

Anyway, once I have more time, I am going to comment on the Film People! Explain Yourselves! thread because I think my enjoyment of Collateral may have something to do with my relationship to Hollywood these days.

*cellphone hand*

Yes. Although Miami Vice is the show Manhunter *could have been*.

Actually, he does grin very briefly. The camera doesn't hold on it so I wonder if it was a reflexive action that Mann left in and not anything deliberate.

The real star of the movie is the City of Los Angeles - obviously fitting for a neo-noir about anonymity. Each frame could have easily been blown up into a coffee table-sized book of photographs.

Absolutely OTM.

I think it's a Michael Mann thing. I didn't mind it too much - heck even the Oakenfold during the scene at the Fever club was pretty effective. Really the only time I found the music intrusive enough to kick me out of the moment was the idiot song that comes on during the coyote sighting.

I really liked the sequence when Ruffalo seems to save the day, then takes three in the chest, Foxx's shoulders slump and he gets in the cab. Ruffalo's death was unexpected, even under "the good guy automatically gets killed" logic.

Anyway, I went to see it because I love the way his movies look on a big screen. I wasn't disappointed. His movies are like giant video installations, and it was way cooler than anything I saw at the Whitney Biennial.

whoa. lop off the last 30 minutes and the film could easily have gone this route.

spittle, you are cool..

Vincent was just such a weird character, wasn't he? And the way no one in the office building at the beginning or in the hospital reacts at all to this silver-suited dude wearing shades indoors after dark? He was like the most conspicuous hitman ever. But then he wants to be all "anonymous", and has the whole riff about the guy dying on the train and no one even noticing, as if there's anything remotely overlookable about him. But I guess that's what Edelstein got at with that line about the lonely man in the great suit.

spittle, it's funny that you say vincent = imaginary; the other day there was some cruise bio thing on E, and i started cracking up at the thought that he was delivering his interviews to noone, just an empty room with a camera, for hours. there's something abt cruise that invites that kind of dislocation.

i liked the shootout at the club even tho i could feel the movie heading south during and after; cruise (even if he doesn't 'get' his character the way welles got harry lime) does understand the kinetics of that kind of thing. his chilly gunhandling was fantastic.

Actually, I liked that about the character. He *doesn't* get it, not completely. He's ex-special forces, not a natural, charming philosopher like Lime. He's resigned himself to the fact that killing is his job, but in several scenes, it's made clear that he's not at peace with it.

"private sector? six years"

And while the blacked out building is illogical (though, no more than anything that precedes it), it (including the subsequent train chase) disposes with the plot irregularities in favor of pure mood, and, further, it's exquisitely brought off -- there's no musical score to distract from the level of suspense. And TC (or a stuntman) bailing on the window-thrown chair. That counts for something.

i don't think i mean this.

i dont know, ive maybe seen half an episode of homicide in my life. but if you mean the faux-amateurish hand camera style, constantly zooming in and out and moving around, thats not it. its one long take, the camera is fixed on bardiem and the zoom-ins are microscopic, hardly noticable. crosspost.

DVDs. Rent 'em. Seriously.

We kept thinking it'd end up like Se7en where Max phones up Jada Pinkett Smith right at the end only to discover that Vincent had killed her right at the beginning of the movie and they'd been driving around LA all night without him finding out.

i get that weird Japanese vibe from all of Mann's post-HEAT stuff. No clue as to why.