Cool News
A Scripter Of PUBLIC ENEMIES Takes On A True Tale Of Enslaved Sailors...
Merrick here...
THIS piece at Deadline says that Ronan Bennett, scripter of Michael Mann's PUBLIC ENEMIES, is adapting Dean King's book SKELETONS ON THE ZAHARA. A "true story" set in 1815, the story follows 12 American sailors who are forced into slavery by "North African Arabs" after they're shipwrecked.
King's source material book (from which Bennett is pulling) can be found HERE 
.
An actual account of these harrowing events called SUFFERINGS IN AFRICA, from Captain James Riley, can be found HERE
. According to THIS Wiki entry...
Abraham Lincoln listed "Sufferings in Africa," along with the Bible and "The Pilgrim's Progress," as the books that most influenced his political thinking.[1]
This could be a very interesting and compelling film.
Here's what Captain Riley looks like...
I could see Kevin Spacey in that role...
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the American sailors are the bad guys, right? RIGHT?
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surprising coming from mann and depp
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Damn slaves!
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Proof that no period movie should be shot with the dirty looking HD look. I think it worked for Miami Vice (which I still feel gets a bad rap), but man Public Enemies just looked cheap. Hard to believe it cost 100 million dollars.
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Looks like they shot that movie in my cousins back yard in up state NY
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But he's been kind of the king of not making good use of his budgets in recent years. If he's going to get these huge budgets, I would think the studios would require him to make his films look professionally done. It's crazy that the guy went from shooting his films like Kubrick, to shooting like a ten year who just got a cheap Sony video camera for his birthday.
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Not all of Manns films are great, but I always looked forward to them bc of the way they looked. He has not done a good film since Collateral
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Vice (other than some of the night stuff), but come on, that thing was shot for 150 million. But man a period piece like Public Enemies just looked awful and phony other than a few shots here and there.
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No bullshit, no camp, a realistic style of Miami cops fighting drugs. Public Enemies had it's problems but still a solid action film. This movie sounds like a decent movie.
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hope he can pull this one off a little better.
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But I am glad to read I am not the only one with love for the Miami Vice movie. Still like it a lot. There should be a sequel, actually, to explore that world a bit more.
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Granted, it wasn't the all-out classic I was hoping for, but my expectations were huge. I still really enjoyed it. Depp made it - charismatic as hell. Mann throws you in the era and illustrates what is like in that time in history. All those who bitch about the HD in this movie, i liked it. It looks better on DVD, less jarring.
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best book ever! so much better than that lost city of z crap that brad pitt was making. this book is begging to be made into an epic!!!
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A return to the Gilbert Grape/Finding Neverland type of understated acting instead of the over the top freak shows that have been kind of the norm for him post Pirates.
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Sep 02, 2010 12:56:18 PM CDT
Once again, Harry, Nikke Finke scoops you
by marcel_the_negro_projectionist
What's up with your spies these days, Harry? -
Precisely because of the script. From Heat and The Insider alone we know Mann can make a modern classic. I hope this is a good movie because the story is intriguing. I hope they all escaped.
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Slavery was legal in America in 1815, so there's a great irony of Americans getting captured in Africa and being forced into enslavement. It should be an interesting film.
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It captured the feel of that time period so well. Like you were watching history.
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What extended shootouts are there in TDK? I remember not a one.
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was the middle part when it went off on crockett's romance thing with gong li. that kind of stuff worked on the tv series when you could develop it over a series of episodes, but in the movie it just turned out to be a long boring middle part. Instead it should have showed Crockett already with a girlfriend, no girl friend at all, or dealing with his ex wife. The middle part took away from the partnership/friend ship of crockett and tubbs and made jamie foxx's rico very secondary in the movie. It was as if jamie foxx was barely in the movie. Now the beginning part and end part of miami vice was perfect, but that long boring middle part prevented it from being a great movie
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I always compare every movie I watch to The A Team, because really what doesn't say a good movie like a shitty 80s TV series?
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Public enemies was unbelievably boring. It hardly showed any interaction between Dillinger and his gang. And the romance between Dillinger and his woman never was believable. That movie was one of the biggest let downs of a movie in my lifetime considering the talent involved.
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please don't sound like one of these douche bag fan boys who just down a movie they like just because the public at large loved it to. Same thing happened this summer with Inception. When Inception first came out modern day fan boys loved it, but when they saw that it made bank and the public at large loved it to, they started shitting on it. Same thing goes for scott pilgrim, because it tanked at the box office, modern day fan boys are screaming how brilliant it was. Thing is if scott pilgrim made bank they would be screaming how overrated it is. Modern day fan boys are like long time US soccer fans who got all pissy when non soccer fans got into the world cup this summer because the us made it to the round of 16. That took longtime US soccer fans contention away that their so much smarter than non soccer us sports fan. So instead of being smart and being able to recognize brilliant stuff, your really a douchebag who likes to shit on anything that is loved by the public at large no matter whether its good or not. Even if you didn't like Inception, you should be glad it made bank simply for the fact maybe hollywood will make more sci fi movies like that. I hated avatar but i'm glad it made bank cause now we will see more space sci fi movies.
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don't hate on the a team simply because your child hood sucked
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whats this talk about Bale's movies be about action whether than comedy over the next decade, when its only been 2 yrs since that movie and t:salvation has been his only movie since then. And when has Bale every done a comedy? get a clue dude
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Pisses me off when people try to shit on masterpieces just because everyone likes them. It doesn't show how "cultured" or "cool" you are, it just makes you look like a pretentious, posing jackass.
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Like totally.
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Sep 02, 2010 5:47:50 PM CDT
The Barbary Pirates did take captives...
by harryknowlesnonexistentinceptionreview
...but I just thought they locked them up in dungeons and held them for ransom. I'll have to research this one. Incidentally, fighting the Barbary Pirates was one of the first jobs given to the US. Marine Corp after the American Revolution. That's why the "Shores of Tripoli" line in the Marine anthem. I liked Public Enemies, but then I find Marion Cotillard to be hot in the extreme. French chicks are the best.
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Yeah just another worthless fanboy who hates TDK because it was popular and wasn't owned outright by the fanboy crowd (ie, hated by critics and/or loathed by the general public). Comparing anything to an A-Team episode makes choppah look like the cunt that he is...
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Sep 02, 2010 6:09:53 PM CDT
People, people....that is merely The Choppah's latest meme.....
by jehovahs_witness
....search the other talkbacks and you'll see he uses the same meme using different movie titles. The Choppah is seeking to be as repetitive and unfunny as BringingSexyBack. It's a tall order, and an unachievable goal, because when it comes to unfunny....BSB is in a class of his own....but The Choppah is pursuing it, nonetheless.....
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