If only I was a movie star...

[lysander]

I just bought and watched the new "Miami Vice" last night (Director's Cut). I really enjoy Michael Mann's movies, the guy has a real style (especially in the cops/robbers genre) that comes through...and as many others have noted...he has a deep interest in realism.

On the realism note...did anyone happen to catch the little 5 minute vignette in the "extras" portion of the DVD featuring a day of training at the range for the cast?

Live fire exercises with Sig 550s, various handguns, and a Benelli M4. Shooting and moving in three directions on the range. Instruction from professionals.

All so they could look competent in the movies few action sequences.

....why didn't I join drama club in high school?

 

[Jeff White]

The same quality training is available to you. All you have to do is partcipate.

Jeff

 

[Jim Watson]

If you had, you would now be a famous studio star who thinks it is all right for him to brandish and shoot all manner of firearms on stage and to have whatever he wants for his own protection and sport... but supports gun control because he thinks his audience is too stupid to do anything but pay for his tickets, videos, and merchandise.

 

[wally]

+1 Jim!

--wally.

 

[wooderson]

Jamie Foxx grew up Terrell, Texas - just far enough from Dallas that I'd be willing to bet he went out in the woods with guns a few times.

Colin Farrell's Irish, and drunk most of the time - he probably can't pronounce gun control.

 

[lysander]

The same quality training is available to you. All you have to do is partcipate.

Jeff...where I have been able to afford the investment required (time and money)...I have done so. I was really just lamenting the fact that the whole cast (including the bit players) gets to do it for free. It must be nice to get to "play pretend" for a living.

Mann has been writing and making cops and robbers movies for three decades and some change. If he is an anti, it would seem strange that he spends such time and effort to force his actors to be educated on the use of firearms. If Michael Mann is an anti, then he is an anti of the "guns are only for cops and the socially elite" (as mentioned above by other posters) ilk.

 

[Jeff White]

lysander,
I would bet that some of the actors didn't appreciate it all. It was probably just another day at work to them.

I don't believe Michael Mann is anti-gun.

Jeff

 

[swampgator]

I was really just lamenting the fact that the whole cast (including the bit players) gets to do it for free.

You got it wrong. They didn't just to do it for free. They got paid! to do it. That really stinks.

 

[lysander]

I don't believe Michael Mann is anti-gun.

Jeff...I tossed my comments about Mann's stance on gun control as an afterthought and was really directing them here:

but supports gun control because he thinks his audience is too stupid to do anything but pay for his tickets, videos, and merchandise.

 

[Jim Watson]

I don't know Michael Mann's stance on gun control for the masses, but if he is not in favor of it, he is in a small minority in the entertainment industry. I stand by my post.

 

[gunsmith]

Mann seems better then most

when it comes to proper gun handling.

 

[mljdeckard]

Mann usually uses Andy McNabb for his gun handling training. He trained DeNiro and Pacino for heat, and Tom Cruise for Collateral.

I've been a Vice Junkie for many, many, years, and I saw the film opening night, and the only thing that really made me cringe, was the opening action scene when they shredded that hemi with the Barrett. Very realistic. Very inflammatory to people who want to ban them.

But yeah, if you like Mann and his style, rent Heat.

 

[Razor]

If you want to feel really bad, just think about all the flight time in an F-14 the guys in Top Gun got...

 

[Socrates]

Dad is dead, but he was a producer/director, with his own production company.
Brother still works down there.

To protect the innocent: Hollyweird is controlled by a bunch of folks that live in mansions, with private security, since LA doesn't cover a lot of the Pacific Palisades. The people that control the studios think that if they can ban guns, then all those black people, and mexican gangs are going to be thrown in jail, that live right down the hills, and, on a few days, like Rodney King, etc. have rioted, and threatened to invade their paradise. Many of these folks came from Europe, when Hitler took all the guns, persecuted the Jews, and, took over Europe. They don't seem to have learned the lesson from Hitler, and, don't believe government can be that bad, here.

I just got done reading the Smith and Wesson agreement with Bill Clinton, and, all I have to say is that's about as close as having a mob in the white house as we've come in awhile. 8 years of Hillary, and, we maybe very well be on our way to a police state. I think we've reached the point where we've created so much ineffective government, that these agencies have to justify their useless existence, and, do so by going after anyone they can. They also seemed to have learned the trick to go after stars, to create fear in the masses. It's getting scary...

It's truly amazing how much money goes into the government, and how little comes back..

Anyway, the people that control hollywood are the poster children for the term, "facist-liberal". If you don't follow exactly what their party line is, you don't work. Many actors are forced to follow that party line. Even the ones that realize the reality that the people they fear can get any weapon, anytime.

S