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Moriarty’s DVD Blog! MIAMI VICE: UNRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT Review!
The other morning, I took a quick trip down the 170 to the Universal lot, where, I had an early morning screening of the director’s cut of MIAMI VICE set up. My co-writer didn’t see the film in theaters, so for him, this would be the only cut, and I wanted to hear his reaction to it. As we walked from the parking garage to the screening room, we had to pass the EVAN ALMIGHTY stage, and outside, there were cages with lions waiting. Random bit of surreality before I’d even had my morning caffeine.
I’m glad Universal is putting both the theatrical cut and the unrated alternate cut on disc, because I think they’re both worthwhile. I really liked the film when I saw it, and I think this new cut has some interesting alternative choices, but it doesn’t really change my feelings one way or another. It’s just different, and equally as interesting.
The film opens now with a boat race in progress. But don’t expect a Tom Cruise movie version of a boat chase. Mann just shoots the business of the race, the details, not playing it for tension, but for mood. It’s beautiful stuff, and there’s a little bit of set-up for the nightclub scene that used to open the film. I don’t think the boat scene really adds anything substantial to the film, but it may set up the “MIAMI VICE vibe” for viewers better than the immediate hard cut into the chaos of the nightclub scene. The boat scene looks like the TV show, but with a modern aesthetic. It connects this film to that show, and then immediately begins to move past it. I know a lot of people have complained that they didn’t enjoy this because “it’s not like the show,” but I don’t think that’s right. I think this is a really canny extension of the show. On that series, I think Crockett and Tubbs were both fairly young, and they try to play like they’re all badass and world weary, but as cutting edge as it was for ‘80s network TV, it was still ‘80s network TV. The show offered up a side order of cheese on a regular basis. What worked was the sort of broken-hearted yearning for a normal life that was a running undercurrent with these undercover guys. Add fifteen years of wear and tear to those characters so that they really are as emotionally threadbare as the TV series pretended, and that’s the movie.
That’s why all the emphasis in Mann’s film is placed on moments of bliss stolen in this world of shit. When Crokett (Colin Farrell) and Isabella (Gong Li) run away to Havana for a lost weekend, Mann takes his time with it. He gives it even more room to breathe in the director’s cut, and I like the additions. These two both know that their relationship will not work. It will not end well. I don’t think they have any illusions at all. That’s what makes it so poignant. I think Gong Li’s work is great in the film, and very touching. When she’s conducting business, she plays the hard exterior well, but when she’s alone with Crockett in her home in Cuba and she’s showing him the photo of her mother, she’s so vulnerable, so young. And Mann adds more reaction for her at the end, when she realizes that Crockett’s a cop, really allowing her to play the betrayal. Mann’s also enhanced the relationship between Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) and Trudy (Naomie Harris), adding a note of dread early on. Right after Crocket and Tubbs have that creepy limo meeting with Montoya (Luis Tosar) in that militarized no-cell-signal zone, Tubbs tries his phone again. It suddenly works. He calls home to talk to Trudy and tell her he’s okay. She thanks him for the flowers. What flowers? The flowers you sent. I didn’t send flowers, so you should check the card. HELLO FROM YOUR FRIENDS IN THE SOUTH. Tubbs can still see Montoya’s taillights as he drives away, and he finds out they’ve already reached out to let him know that they know who Trudy is and where she is.
You don’t learn much more about Gina (Elizabeth Rodriguez) or Larry Zito (Justin Theroux) or Stan Switek (Domenick Lombardozzi) in the director’s cut. All Mann has done is enhance certain relationships and tighten up a few sequences in subtle ways.
The home video transfer of this looks pretty great, but I want to see the HD transfer, which I think is a direct mastering from the source. Exciting stuff. The extras on the disc are nicely produced, but not particularly in-depth. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the feature commentary with Mann yet, but I will as soon as I actually have the finished disc.
I know this one divided viewers, but I feel strongly that it got a bum rap. This is a very good film, and although not an improvement over the theatrical cut per se, this unrated edition is well worth your time.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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woohoo
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Seiously, she had the best moment in the film.KIEFER, HIRE THIS GIRL AS A NEW CTU FIELD AGENT/BLACK BAUER LOVE INTEREST!!!You do that, and I'll never complain about the show ever again! ;)
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No interesting characters, no decent set pieces (aside from the final gunfight, which was adequate at best), and overall just a boring, boring, boring experience. I love Michael Mann's other stuff, I love the HD look (especially during night shots with city lights), but I was uncomfortably bored and happy when it was over. Massive disappointment.
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Damn you Michael Bay
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A very tense atmosphere right throughout this movie, successfully maintained all the way through. Mann seems like such a nice bloke in interviews, I have no idea how he gets his bad guys to be so convincingly nasty and threatening.
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All it was missing was Steven Segal. And will someone please get a goddamn voice coach or some shit on Mann's next movie? All that fucking mumbling was just annoying.
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Then again i've never seen the original show, and despise utterly all kitch 80's tv.
I thouhgt it was an interesting story about some undercover cops. -
Fuck it, then. This "unrated" bullshit is getting out of hand. I'm getting the theatrical cut.
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No other film I can think of has ever captured the intensity and atmosphere of a place like Miami (I'm thinking of the Car Park scene under flourescent light with the storm brewing in the background) it actually made me feel like I was on holiday again. Michael Mann put together an excellent film and one that ends as well as it started which isn't always a strong point for Mann films. Plus I loved the badass captain, when he said he would take you down you believed every word.
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What was your favourite film of the year? Superman Returns? Miami Vice was a thing of beauty from a master filmmaker. There were shots and sequences in it better than whole other films i've seen this year. Probably my favourite film of the year, along with United 93, The Departed and The Prestige. I salute you, Mr Mann.
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but that was Michael Mann's first completely bad film. Hopefully the only one.
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Returns? One or the other? I guess if you hate Lady in the Water, then you must love, um, Bloodrayne, huh? Nice logic. That guy was right: Miami Vice was boring, and it sounds like the director's cut is just more boring crap. The Departed was a great movie, though. Best this year.
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be contrary, I love Heat and The Insider. Miami Vice was hollow and aimless compared to those movies.
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I'm a huge Michael Mann fan, but damn was I ever disappointed by this film. It's not awful, it's just not...good. And it's certainly nowhere near being 'Michael Mann good'. Plot wise it doesn't really go anywhere, character wise it's wafer thin, pacing wise it's stilted, and entertainment wise it's extremely lacking. It just all felt kinda dull and hollow and strictly by the numbers. It was very nicely shot though, I'll give it that much.
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'who are talking to?'
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I did enjoy it quite a bit. It's not Mann's best but it's still a Micheal Mann movie and thus far better then average.. The standoff scene, were they try to rescue from trailerpark boy is Mann pur sang. The only real Miami Vice feel I got is during the go-fast boattrip to Cuba. Bliss!
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Even though they are anything but short. Must be, like, skill and stuff.
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That's because you get lost in the world of his film and don't want to leave. I always feel sad when a Mann movie ends.
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No, I was just illustrating the opposite end of the film-making spectrum.
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I have to say, when I seen this movie at a screening I was very suprised and dissappointed.. If I actually paid to see this movie I would have been pissed, but I'm a Mann fan, and I'll give this one a second chance...
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And I just don't understand how it can get so much praise here. I love Michael Mann, but this movie was the closest I've wanted to walk out of a theater ever.
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Because it was relatively long and it was during a heat wave this summer. I think I took a nap during the "speedboat to Cuba" scene.
I always thought they should have ended the film with someone singing a slow version of "Smuggler's Blues" in broken english. -
I really enjoyed the movie (not the best Mann but still very soldi film) but one thing that got on my neves were the grainy night scenes. I think they used the same type of cameras as in Collateral but I don't remember grainy shots in that film. Did they correct that in the Director's Cut?
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was that it was one of the most serious movies I have ever seen. I'm not completely against that, but it was almost depressingly serious. I dunno, maybe that was the point. I mean, maybe just one light scene, just one bit of comic relief? I know I'm not supposed to expect the TV show, but can't it have matched the spirit a little bit? I also thought they really should have used the other cops much more.
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You know the original that didn't have one ounce of comic relief and was non-stop high tension and gloom? Yeah I hope this version is darker and more gloomy so that I will kill myself afterwards.
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What didn't you like about it? I'm surprised you thought it was so bad you wanted to walk out of the theatre.
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someone else was Crockett. Farrel was boring, he had no soul, no heartbeat. ;)
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Don't have a title, but it was the one with the clamjuice swilling grizzled cop who went nuts over the guilt of having murdered a drug dealer and never being able to tell anyone. That episode was funny and sad at the same time.
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i loved this movie so much. it's beautiful visually, dark, and tense while being a completely ridiculous actioneer at the same time. i think people were pissed because they went in expecting explosions every five mins and got an avant garde action movie instead. sucks it didn't make much money, hopefully a fact that won't make it hard for mann to make another film.
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Still bad actor
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a LOT worse...
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...its because the majority of us have seen it before with the TV show. The first three years of Vice were great. Some excellent stories and acting. The movie was like an episode of the forth or fifth season. Script was predictable, not enough Tubbs, blink and you miss Castillo, the music was weak and there's no background on the two main characters. In the tv show, you liked these guys, that's why it was a success. This version of Crockett and Tubbs was a paint-by-numbers movie.
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That was with Bruce McGill( "D-Day" from "Animal House") and his partner was, and I forgot what a great job he did, David Straithern("Pierce Patchett" from "L.A. Confidential.") Straither's last line of the episode was brilliant as a shocked Crocket and Tubbs look on.
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I loved the first 20 minutes but after that it was all downhill. Here's an idea for a director's cut: Instead of getting the phone call from John Hawkes that pulls them into the drug case, they just continue to work the undercover prostitution thing and go on a whole new adventure that doesn't involve cuba, geishas, or Colin Farrell's hairy chest. Although in the end you gotta give my Mann props for casting Tom Towles... how about in the sequel he plays Tubbs??
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I absolutely Loved Miami Vice, okay I never watched the TV show so I didn't have any baggage going in but it was so fucking tense, some of the cinematography was genius and I loved each and every single minute of it, for me it was the third best film of the year behind Children of Men & The Host. I'd like to see a Mann Directed Bond film in the future.
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This was never "Miami Vice: the movie," it was "Robbery Homicide Division: the movie." "Robbery Homicide Division" was Mann's show on CBS a few years ago that was quickly cancelled, and you can feel Mann itching to return to his aborted project. The grainy HD look, feel, and story in Mann's latest film was far more like "RHD" than "Miami Vice." Mann simply transposes a vague Crockett and Tubbs onto "RHD." Several of the "RHD" stories are re-worked and repeated here. There's a strikingly similar shoot-out in an episode of "RHD" that plays a lot like the final shoot-out in the "Miami Vice" film. But even as an adaptation of "RHD," the film fails. "RHD" was actually a pretty decent show, and it's a shame it got cancelled (its failure is probably also one of the things that sent Tom Sizemore, it's star, into his tailspin of criminal idiocy). But "RHD"'s characters actually felt like they had a pulse, which was a huge problem in "Vice," where Colin Farrell's Crockett was monotonously glum and Tubbs-- who actually feels more interesting here-- disappears from the movie for long stretches. I understand why Mann uncharacteristically flopped with this one: I bet his heart wasn't in remaking "Miami Vice," it was really into going back to "Robbery Homicide Division." Mann just knew no one would buy a ticket to a re-make of that failed show, so he moved it to Miami, slapped the name "Miami Vice" on it, but kept most everything else the same from "RHD."
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Looking forward to the directors cut. Harrys review was shit, although i did wish it wasn't called Miami Vice but the same movie if you know what i mean (like Harry). Would've done a lot better. Still Mori, you set the bar on this site. Your original review was excellent and so was this.
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He's gettin the same bullshit backlash that Affleck fuckin got a few years ago. He aint his fault his profile is so high. Compare him to someone like Orlando fuckin Bloom then tell me how bad Farrell is. He still has excellent range and was suitably understated in vice. Naysaying sons a bitches!
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The movie was a boring piece a shit. Yeah I said it. No additional scenes will save this turd. There's nothing to this movie. They drive around. hang out clubs. (obligatory commercial for the soundtrack) Shower with girls. (An ugly one at that) A big shootout at the trailer park. The end. I almost walked out on this Turkey.
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City streets at night with tall lit up buildings. Zzz. Come on Mann. Do something different.
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I didn't care for the characters, I didn't think the direction or dialogue was that good, and at times it just seemed like a mindless action flick. Now, if this is all it was supposed to be, then I take back my hatred, but from watching things like Collateral, Manhunter, and Heat, I know Mann can do action and still make things interested. I wanted to walk out specifically at the long shootout at the end, as in my opinion it just went on forever. I'll admit that the shot from behind the driver's seat of a car, and the person gets shot with exploding rounds, and you see the back of the chair catch on fire, was cool, but I really was disappointed here. Maybe I was looking for the wrong things.
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Bay... ha ha, you thought I'd say Mann.
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We never find out. Maybe this version shows us? Mann's a hack! I chllenge Mann fans!
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Your chllenge. Meet me at midnight hair tied back, go get your knife.
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90% of action movies nowdays are retarded messes.
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I'm hard pressed to name one aspect of this film that was memorable. Obviously we must've been watching different movies, because I found it to be flat and worthless. Boring plot, boring dialogue, boring "action scenes", boring, boring, boring. I finally got to see Casino Royale yesterday, which is what I'd consider to be an entertaining action flick. Miami Vice was just a bunch of boring, needless bullshit that happened to be made very well. Great cinematography and editing can't save a plot that lacks any form of substance or actors that can't force in any kind of personality.
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That's the only way this movie would make sense to me-- if you could click and place an order every time you saw a piece of cool bling on screen. Because that's basically all it was, a two and a half hour shopping channel show for druglords. I love Michael Mann and this was the emptiest, most boring movie of the year, and Colin Farrell makes me miss the electricity that Craig Wasson brought to American cinema.
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and i found it fascinating for that reason. it showed me things i had never seen before. so what if there weren't any big explosions?
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Are a great idea. Nobody really gives a fuck about the cops flashbacks to his alcohol problem and messy divorce that turns him into a LONE MAVERICK. I liked the total minimalist approach in Miami Vice. Just no tacked on backstory and cookie-cutter redemption arc. It was more like a documentary of two cops, who have to act macho to stay in their jobs and are pretty fucking emotionless because they're driven to it. Until we see Farrell start to break his mask with the girl. I understand it's nothing like the tv show but I actually prefer it. I don't think Farrell is the greatest actor but he was playing the part as Mann explained it. Mann generally has characters who don't say much about their emotions or show much either until they eventually snap. Even something based on a true story like The Insider has characters keeping all their thoughts to themselves. It was actually fun to see cop characters who have something to do rather than anguish over the killer that got away or something shit like that. Personally I would have preffered Miami Vice to be a Heat length epic as it seemed set up to work on the pressures of udnercover work slowly messing the pair up. If anything it was too short. Don't worry, I expect most people don't agree with this. I just think it was hyped as a retro tv remake and then later as a popcorn action flick and it's neither.
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"The home video transfer of this looks pretty great, but I want to see the HD transfer" -- Seems to me that Mori has finally jumped on the HD bandwagon for good. WHAT SAY YOU, MORIARTY? That screening of the Fifth Element convinced you, huh? Nice to have you with us!
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The HD transfer of Miami Vice should be pretty sweet as it's a direct HD format to format with none of the film to HD issues. Besides the more video this looks the better.
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Michael Mann has decided to get the crew together and do another Miami Vice film. Apperently this one didn't lose enough money on its own.
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Mann is slipping; Ali was like a bad TV movie. The Moby music in Africa, Van Peeples as Malcolm X. He good a great performance out of Big Willie, but the film was dry as a martini. Collateral, was the script written by Haggis, it was very convoluted. Like Jamie Fox would try to take down this trained killer, why didn't he call the cops? Still LA Takedown is a masterpiece, (just kidding), Heat, The Insider,Manhunter great modern day classics, I just feel Mann is either repeating himself or he thinks his audience is dumb. Haven’t seen Miami Vice yet, but I'm actually looking forward to it. Also people should lay of Farrell. After slumming it when he broke through you can tell he's trying for meatier roles, he just keeps jinxing great directors, Mallik, Stone and now it seems Man. His performances are always strong but the movies just don't seem to work
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i thought it was pretty good.
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Better that than Man of Steel or anything else by Michael Bay. Actually, I'd prefer Mann to do another 'factional' epic like The Insider. Something about the real drugs world or politics. He'd really nail that. The Insider worked so well because it made just conversation and waiting something tense and beautiful to look at.
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I was watching it with my wife, loving the movie, halfway through, I turned to her and said "Great Movie Huh"? She looked like she wanted to kill me and said she's never been so bored shitless watching a movie before and wanted to walk out.
And I got that vibe from a a lot in the audience when the film ended. There were quite a few groans.
I liked it what can I say? Loved the look and found the characters and story interesting. -
http://www.thewillpower.org/
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I'm sorry, I don't care how fucked up Cruise's character was in the film, motherfucker was still able to aim straight. This man is supposedly a career assassin and he's gonna let a cabbie blow him away? That was utter bullshit. It should have ended like Scorcese's film, The Departed ended: with some balls.
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This one really seemed to divide people. I enjoyed it a lot, although in hindsight I think if I had chosen Talladega Nights that night I would have had a better chance of getting laid. My date hated it.
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Anyone who calls this movie awful has no business chiming in on movie quality. You have little foresight towards the cutting edges of filmmaking. This was pure Michael Mann if Michael Mann was an indie director un-interested in box office. This was clearly an idea film or 'tone poem' experiment using a script he felt like doing. It's a hard flick and people who were bored are simply jacked up junkies--pure and simple. Get some taste. Really. Unbelievable how deaf you kids are.
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One of the best looking of the year, and just a down to business tale. The backlash against it is still a bit of a mystery, but I guess I can accept the characters as a bit too much of cyphers. All of the drug trafficking was oddly entertaining, and my first introduction to the very yummy Gong Li.
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Read up on what happened behind the scenes. http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1217272_1_0_,00.html
The movie was okay but that was the problem because we expect so much from Mann. The man is a master filmmaker. I don't give a s*** if you don't agree. Buy the dvd and learn something from him. His dvd commentaries have always been interesting. Somebody above knocked Collateral but that movie has one of his best commentaries. lates.
Oh, yeah. Walking out of a movie is lame and annoying to the rest of us who have patience to watch a movie all the way through. Besides, theater don't give your money back after the first half hour of a movie. Great, you
saw the first act. -
Collateral was totally unrealistic at the end. The movie would have been much better if Cruise's character had finished his mission. I don't know, I just don't like the way Mann scripts his endings. I think DeNiro should have gotten away at the end of Heat as well but it was a bit more realistic. And it was a great movie by the way. Anyone notice that Val Kilmer had some kind of awful growth on his right arm in that film? WTF was that?
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Have you finally come around?! :)
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"The other morning, I took a quick trip down the 170 to the Universal lot, where, I had an early morning screening of the director’s cut of MIAMI VICE set up. My co-writer didn’t see the film in theaters, so for him, this would be the only cut, and I wanted to hear his reaction to it. As we walked from the parking garage to the screening room, we had to pass the EVAN ALMIGHTY stage, and outside, there were cages with lions waiting. Random bit of surreality before I’d even had my morning caffeine."
...first paragraph is brag, shill, brag, shill, brag, shill...repeat. With all due respect Aintitcool people, you've become a laughing stock. You guys are the very definition of 'bought and paid for'. They'll let you sing, dance, and sing some more... give you some rudimentary writing gigs, but make no mistake... the industry considers you (and others like you) as cheap advertising.
They'll send you screen shots, let you onto sets...why not? It's much cheaper than paying for ads. As long as they give you guys your 'fix' then you'll trend towards positivity... an occasional bad review is assured, but for the most part you'll play along. If you don't? Then you'll risk losing it all...and going back to your old lives. As pleasant as they were, you're scared to death of being socially irrelevant once again. -
The song in the club isn't in the soundtrack. The reason I think there are clear lovers and haters of this film boils down the fact that nothing was over-explained to the audience, people with low attention thresholds hate the film! As for Colin Farrell, show me a male american actor who can pull off a UK accent as well as colin can do a diverse range of american ones. And please don't answer that with Leo Di Caprio or Keanu Reeves. *end of rant*
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Am I the only person here to realize that by adding 'I' to the word 'Unrated' and mixing the letters around, you get the word 'Urinated'?
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I'm not saying I wanted non-stop explosions, and I'm not saying I didn't follow the plot. I just found the films constantly somber, serious and joyless tone to be too much. Do I want slapstick comedy? No. And I understand the idea behind these people becoming damaged by spending so much time undercover. It's just something that ends up depressing me more than entertaining me. And it far too much "The Crockett Movie." Switek and Zito had barely any hints of character at all, and they should at least have a couple of fun scenes in the movie. They were the more regular cops when compared to Crockett and Tubbs' cool cops. They're barely even named in the film. Why not make better use of what was good about the show? Mann should've taken the series, removed all the cheesiest elements, and based the film on the best of that series. All that said, even if the film didn't follow the show, it still needs some lightness, some humor, some relief from the excessive DRAMA. Farrell and Gong Li have one of those "serious" Hollywood romances where people manage to fall in love by somberly staring at each other and never smiling. And the "girlfriend of undercover cop is kidnapped" plot wasn't the most original, either. The movie's most memorable for a couple of graphic gunshots wounds, as far as I can tell.
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are completely intentional. I swear.
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He and Fincher are the two best Directors working in hollywood today. Fuckin simple as.... ya dig
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Man, I absolutely LOVED this film. Incredibly badass. The fact that it flopped so hard still makes me sick to my stomach. I imagine it playing better in Europe. Too dark and intense for mainstream American audiences.
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And I like Michael Mann.
This movie was a complete bust. -
Nov 25, 2006 12:39:22 AM CST
The Worst Ep Of C.S.I. Miami Is Better Than This Trash
by darth fabulous
Worst film of Mann's career. Compare Heat to this and try to argue with me about what Mann is capable of...MV is no story, horrible dialogue, horrible acting by high quality actors, etc.
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I'm sick of seeing unrated being stuck on every film package like its a recommendation. A film does not necessarily have anything crazy in because its unrated. It simply hasn't been rated.
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"The Worst Ep Of C.S.I. Miami Is Better Than This Trash" Wow, you're an idiot.
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Shaq Gotta Eat
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