Miami Vice

Started by MacGuffin, December 12, 2005, 03:36:03 PM

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Gold Trumpet

This movie was so bad that my head is still spinning from it.

It was nothing but an endless series of crime talk and tough guy banter. The rendering of all that useless jargon was so bland that it felt like a reading from the phone book. The dialogue was nothing short of embarassing. I hid my face when Jamie Foxx referenced Jackson Pollack in an intimidation speech. That scene was topped when a girl stares a guy down with a gun and gives him a Dirty Harry speech before she kills him.

Of course this film also has no bearing to reality. The Miami police department is mega millionaires with extravagant mansions in highly scenic locales. They issue their detectives with pilot licenses so they can fly jets during cases. The detectives also drive cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They also have professional racing boats around to use at their conveniance. Every extravagance possible is utilized in this movie and endlessly exploited. I know the film was having trouble with an overflowing budget during filming. With the way they advertise the ideal Miami they should have contacted their host city for extra money. The film has more sincerity in advertising Miami than it actually does in being a movie.

There were some memorable moments about seeing this film. 1.) I was carded for the first time in a year and a half when buying my ticket 2.) This was the first movie I saw where I noticed someone sleeping. He was directly behind me and snoring. Everyone else looked at him and the great thing is that no one minded. No one even tried to wake him up. They had no interest in having a pleasant experience because the movie already destroyed that hope. 3.) When the credits hit, the race for the door was priceless. I was in the middle section and sitting next to the aisle and I still beat everyone to the door. Some guys were trying to get out first but I was timing the end and I got the good first jump. It was the first time I ever saw a legimitate attempt by half the audience to run out the door.

edison

What a total disappointment.

Yeah, I really though this would be somewhat good, it sucks that I can't really remember the last good movie I saw at the theater. As far as this movie goes, it was just a nice commercial for the Miami night life. Also plenty of moments where characters just stare off into the distance and ponder their life. Booooring. Trumpet mentioned the run for the door at the end, but for me I was in shock that it was over because the jump to the credits was so abrupt. I sat there thinking "That's It!"

I actually liked that part when the girl cop capped that guy after giving her Dirty Harry speech.


Gold Trumpet

Quote from: edison on July 28, 2006, 07:57:45 PM
Trumpet mentioned the run for the door at the end, but for me I was in shock that it was over because the jump to the credits was so abrupt. I sat there thinking "That's It!"

True, but I sat there thinking, "What can be left but an ode to 'The Amazingly Gay Duo' with Foxx patting Farrel on the ass for a job well done?" So I expected a murky attempt at ambiguilty and as soon as the picture went to black for more than one second I was gone.

SHAFTR

Quick Thoughts

*  Disappointed...Miami Vice is lesser Mann (read: Child)
*  Yet another cop movie that gets bogged down in a convulated drug plot
*  Reminded me of 3 things Mann does great:
a)  Shooting at night
b)  Action scenes
c)  killing people
*  The women in the movie are a problem only because Mann spends too much time on the relationships.
*  Shorten the movie by 25 minutes and tweak the script and it could have been great, instead it is just an ok movie with some moments of great promise.
"Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon"

jigzaw

damn.  I've been looking forward to this film because I usually really like Mann's movies.  I haven't seen it yet, but will anyway. 

But someone mentioned the running time, and that's a great point.  It seems filmmakers are pressured to keep a movie short so they can run it more times during the day and more people will want to see it.  But I've noticed that the big blockbusters are getting longer and longer.  Pirates was over 2 and half hours for no good reason!!
Superman was nearly 3 hours long!!  (I liked Superman, but it's another example). 

Why in the world do airheaded action films need to be racing to Godfather or Gone with the Wind running times?

MacGuffin

Quote from: jigzaw on July 29, 2006, 10:55:23 AMBut someone mentioned the running time, and that's a great point.  It seems filmmakers are pressured to keep a movie short so they can run it more times during the day and more people will want to see it.  But I've noticed that the big blockbusters are getting longer and longer.  Pirates was over 2 and half hours for no good reason!!
Superman was nearly 3 hours long!!  (I liked Superman, but it's another example). 

Why in the world do airheaded action films need to be racing to Godfather or Gone with the Wind running times?

It's like The Los Angeles Times heard you:

Why Are Movies So Long?
Blockbuster runtimes have grown to epic proportions. Here's how come.

Storming out of "Superman Returns" in early July, I was all sorts of annoyed about all sorts of things. How could Bryan Singer cast the incredibly bland, totally unendearing Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane? And what possessed him to give the 23-year-old actress a 5-year-old son? Why did that person one row behind me have to rustle his movie candy so loudly during the one quiet scene? And why the heck was that movie so long?

"Are they allowed to make movies this long?" I asked myself (and my husband, and my friends) after seeing the film. "Isn't there some sort of common-sense law about keeping movies at or under two hours?"

As the weeks went by, the question about movie length continued to plague me. When will I have four hours to spare to watch the second installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean"? Would I have liked "King Kong" if I hadn't been scared off by the three-hour-plus runtime? Is it just me?

After much searching on the Internet and a few phone calls to acquaintances, I finally found a man who could help answer my question: Stuart Fischoff, professor emeritus of Cal State L.A., whose expertise is in all aspects of media psychology, especially film and television.

Fischoff, now living in Southern Illinois, says if there has ever been a study of how long human beings can sit in front of a movie screen and not get bored, he hasn't heard of it.

"But it's an interesting question," he says. "The length of the movie is a subjective experience. Time itself has no objective value, so it depends on whether you like the movie or not. If it engages you for three hours than three hours is not too long."

Fischoff says I can blame the early success of two-hour films like "Star Wars" and "Jaws" with giving movies license to be longer. "Because they got such incredibly high box office returns it became common for blockbusters to be two hours," he says.

He also says the rise of multiplex theaters have contributed to an increasing film runtime. "If I'm an exhibitor and I have one screen at a theater and I show a movie that is three hours long, over the course of the day I'm depriving myself of something like three screenings," he says. "But if I have a multiplex, I can show the same movie on two different screens and catch people at different times."

Among other factors that movie exhibitors and distributors have to take into consideration are the appetites of the customer; bathroom breaks for women ("Women pee more," he says); and how long parents can afford to pay a baby sitter.

"The ideal movie length is different for different age groups and why you are going to the movies," he said. "Each group has a different sense of what is the right length for the movie.

"There is no truth," he added. "There are only multiple truths."

Isn't that always the way?
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

pete

didn't siskel say something like "no good movie is too long, all bad movies are too long"?
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

cron

Why are attention spans so Short?
context, context, context.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: pete on July 29, 2006, 12:30:57 PM
didn't siskel say something like "no good movie is too long, all bad movies are too long"?

Roger Ebert. "No good movie is ever too long and no bad movie is ever too short."

polkablues

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on July 29, 2006, 12:59:19 PM
Quote from: pete on July 29, 2006, 12:30:57 PM
didn't siskel say something like "no good movie is too long, all bad movies are too long"?

Roger Ebert. "No good movie is ever too long and no bad movie is ever too short."

Third time's the charm.  Here's the exact quote:
"No good movie is too long, just as no bad movie is short enough."  He said it in reference to "The Best of Youth", for obvious reasons.
My house, my rules, my coffee

pete

he's been saying that way before The Best of Youth came out though.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Sunrise

This film is a contradiction. I found it to be an astonishing visual achievement. Some, perhaps most, will only see the negatives of the dv. But it worked for me and especially in the action scenes. The grain and deep focus certainly set the mood in what is an almost completely nocturnal movie. Vice is all a testament to what Michael Mann does best: bringing the audience into the action, breathtaking visuals, and an obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. While I love all of those strengths, the latter does not allow Vice to reach a level with his greatest works. There is waaaaay too much expositional dialog in the film and Colin Farrell gets stuck with most of it. Some of you have already discussed that (with much more negative bravado).

Similarly, plot has never been a recurring positive for Mann. Collateral and Vice both suffer from "that could never happen" syndrome. All that said, it is just a movie and one that exists to draw out the conflict between the characters and establish a specific mood and visual style. I think it succeeds to those ends.

Oh, and the Mogwai tracks are great.

Ghostboy

I pretty much agree with GT on this one. Overall, the movie was really boring. Or unintentionally hilarious. The dialogue was pretty hilarious at times - especially those manly one-liners. The testosterone was pushed so far that I just about grew a third testicle. Colin Farrell has done great American accents before, but he kept losing it this time.

On the plus side:

It did look really beautiful, though, and the last half hour was pretty good. If that had been the first half hour, maybe the film would have been better.

I loved the non-event that was the last shot. Good abrupt beginning and ending.

Justin Theroux's rolling shoot out bit was pretty awesome.

pete

what a bunch of haters.
aside from being a bit dry (but there was always nice pictures to look at) I really enjoyed it.  I had fun following their tactics and how michael mann was trying to depict all these aspects of an action movie with more realism--how a club operates, how an informant stays alive, how operations a run, how to dance salsa, how to kill a dude with a knife, what a druglord turf looks like...etc.  Mann seems to have a fetish for methods and in this one everything is detailed almost pornographically.  the romance was really weak.  aside from the hot/coldness of gong li, the love wasn't all that explosive or convincing.  But the police aspect of it, it seemed like Mann really wanted to justify the glamour and thrill of undercover policing on film by detailing the methods, to make a convincing portrait.  I guess he failed to convince a bunch of haters on this board though. 
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

killafilm

I'm jumping on the bandwagon on this one. 

I think I let some of the AICN hype get to me.  They made it seem like it was going to be a pretty awesome ride.  Yet, I came out all meh.  If the whole movie had the heart of the last 3/4 it would have been ohh so much better.  I did love seeing so many actors from HBO in various parts.  And some, some of the photography looked rather great.  I'm still not totally sold on this look Mann seems to cherish.  I really liked what they did with Collateral, and now having spent the past year in LA I understand how it really does show what nighttime in LA looks like.  But it's certainly a look and at night it looks good so whatever.  What ever happened to the leak?