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Filtering by Tag: Michael Mann

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Ferrari"

Chris Klimek

Two-hander* PCHH episodes are somewhat rare, but I was glad to be able to take part in one with pal Linda Holmes about Michael Mann’s new biopic Ferrari. That it was just the two of us allowed for some discussion of how the movie fits into the 80-year-old auteur’s filmography that we might not have gotten to with a larger panel.

Other critics who on the whole love Mann’s work as much as I do have taken more from this picture than I did. As you’ll hear, I found it to be surprisingly staid and conventional, coming from the guy who’s only other biopic was Ali, 22 years ago, and whose prior feature — almost nine years ago! — was Blackhat, a little-seen thriller that was at least as exciting as it was disjointed. In my City Paper review, I called Ferrari “a sensible sedan of a movie,” which I think fits. Good movie, but I don’t think it’s even as exceptional as Ali, never mind Heat or The Insider or Thief. As always, I’m open to revising my opinion upward upon a second viewing.

*I still don’t get why two-actor plays are called “two-handers” instead of “four-handers.”

Collateral Ham-age: "Stuber," reviewed.

Chris Klimek

Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani are fun together, but Stuber is a misfire. (Mark Hill/Fox)

Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani are fun together, but Stuber is a misfire. (Mark Hill/Fox)

Halfway through another summer packed with sequels and reboots and brand IP extensions, it give me no pleasure, none at all, to have to tell you that Stuber, an action comedy from an “original” screenplay and starring two very talented and appealing comic actors in Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani… is just Collateral, only not as good. My NPR review is here. Ugh! I feel terrible!

Petty Larceny: Den of Thieves, reviewed.

Chris Klimek

He's the Sheriff: Gerard Butler, under fire. (STX)

He's the Sheriff: Gerard Butler, under fire. (STX)

Here's something I mean with all the generosity of spirit that I hope I possess in my heart: Den of Thieves, a new—well, newly released—crime movie, is not as bad as one might expect the directorial debut from the screenwriter of A Man Apart and London Has Fallen to be. That's because writer-director Christian Gudegast has taken the greatest Los Angeles cops-and-robbers movie ever made and replicated it as closely as one can while filming in Atlanta, with a growling Gerard Butler standing in for an ad-libbing Al Pacino.

My NPR review of Den of Thieves is here. I believe the phrase "coffee-table action flick" is a Klimek Original. 

The Long Warm-Up to Heat

Chris Klimek

Michael Mann's Heat, one of my favorite films, is The Dissolve's Movie of the Week this week. I contributed this essay about the sprawling crime picture's many progenitors, including the short-lived-but-great late-80s TV series Crime Story. 

You'll want to read Scott Tobias' keynote and Nathan Rabin & Matthew Dessem's forum discussion, too. The latter is where I learned that Kate Mantilini, the Beverly Hills bistro where Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro's famous late-night sit-down in Heat was shot, closed last year. When last I was there, in 2005, a giant still from The Scene hung on the wall.

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