This Time It's Personal

"This time it's personal" ... "We finish this now" ... "It's gotta be that way" ...

All such crime flick edicts manifest tonight, 6:35 pm, in the Director's Hall at The Bridge. A crew of four converge in the City of Angels. Our score? Opening night of Miami Vice. Two live here. One drove all night Thursday. One paid $489 to fly.

Advance tickets were $65, and the subsequent nightlife this weekend will cost hundreds -- maybe thousands -- more.

Foolish by some standards, but no less foolish than the $150m it cost to bring us 2.5 hours of film. Cool by some standards, but not as cool as we could be if we had $150m to dispose of as we pleased. Sometimes taking down scores in the real world is less captivating than doing so in Michael Mann's world.

But for us, like Mann, this is personal. It all started with this cameraphone picture one of the four took in a theater lobby about six months ago. From there, the Vice weekend was predestined. In the end, nobody will remember the money or the effort or even if Vice sucks ass. We will only remember the convergence of far flung crew members, the vices that were consumed, and the aura that it left us with.

The aura of complete selfishness that you can only get from complete trust in your core crew. The dichotomous mindset that Mann has made a career documenting. The outright display of ego that he evangelizes: "I like working with people who are good at what they do. People who have a strong point of view. Healthy egos."

That's what this weekend is about. Egos clashing in search of the best one-liner. Eleven dollar drinks clanking as we praise our own genius for slacking at the highest level. And THX-enhanced explosions cracking our THC-enhanced domes to kick it all off.

To that, all I can say is: It's gotta be that way.

The Day Journalism Died

[We interrupt the final 5 days of Miami Vice Month for this important breaking news announcement]

Tuesday, July 25 will forever be known as the day journalism died. It was presumed dead for years, but nobody really knew for sure. Not until Stephen Colbert gave journalism a proper burial on Tuesday night when he responded to attacks from NBC News and ABC News that he was playing politicians for fools on The Colbert Report.

Jake Tapper, a senior correspondent for ABC News, asked: "With the reputation damaging risk associated with an appearance on The Colbert Report, why do politicians keep going on the show?"

Colbert's answer: "This show is the news. Not only is this show the news, evidently it is news. It's gotta be news because you morning shows are the news and you're doing reports on it. So I guess Congressmen come on my show in the hopes that you'll use their appearance on my show on your show."

Forbes, CNN, USA Today, and however many other media outlets joined ABC and NBC in reporting on Colbert's recent interviews with Congressmen Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA). Interviews in which he gets them to say crazy things or reveal their lack of knowledge about their jobs. This means all of these so-called purveyors of journalism have absolutely no defense against Colbert's claim. These journalists using a comedy show as a source also means that people should let go of any hope they have that objective reporting of facts is still alive.

Nobody knows precisely when journalism started dying, we just know that it happened while the internet and 24-hour cable news mushroomed. Maybe it was in October 1996 when Ronald Reagan's and George Bush Sr’s closest media advisor Roger Ailes created and launched Fox News – an event which marked the official transformation of TV news from journalism into partisan political strategy.

Or maybe it was January 30, 1998 when Jake Tapper published a Washington City Paper cover story titled I Dated Monica Lewinsky; the piece that ran less than two weeks before the story of Lewinsky's ‘relations’ with Bill Clinton broke, and marked the official transformation of political journalism into global entertainment.

Or it very well could have been in January 1999 when overgrown frat boy Craig Kilborn lost the Daily Show top job to the more politically-minded Jon Stewart. The strength of the Stewart/Colbert satire model has since grown so strong at uncovering and reporting facts, it’s sparked questions as to whether their shows should be considered a news source. But isn’t this debate relevant for all other news sources too?

If formats (satire, humor, entertainment, political strategy, etc) have killed journalism's core tenets of objectivity and balance, now it's just a matter of who presents the most credible information. In a reporting era dominated not by fact but by format, the real question is: who's doing their research? Is it a guy like Colbert who knows more about all our country’s Congressman and districts than just about anyone? Or is it the ABC News correspondent who’s playing Texas Hold ‘Em with a chimp?

And so shouldn't Colbert be praised, not attacked, for challenging Congressman Westmoreland on his lazy, lemming-like policies -- regardless of the format in which he poses these challenges? Or should Jake Tapper just cut his Real Journalist losses and go back to the news-as-entertainment model he used to sneak his way into hard news?

Here's the Colbert Report clip that sparked all of this. You decide.



[We now return to Miami Vice Month on GSunderground, already in progress]

Miami's Economic Realities

AP reports that Miami Vice brought about $27 million into the Miami economy while filming but that "the movie's true worth will likely emerge after audiences get to see it." The movie will teach audiences one of two things: (1) how hard we have to work before Miami PD hands us a brand new Ferrari, or (2) how many people we have to kill before we earn the trust and all-cash salary from some prolific drug lord. So naturally, it provides the perfect insight into Miami's economic realities. Speaking for myself, I'm postponing my relocation plans until I see the movie.

Michael Mann Seeing Red

It's common knowledge that Michael Mann's eye for detail borders on the insane. He ordered whole areas of Miami repainted when shooting Vice for TV in the 80s. He had to re-shoot the Robert DeNiro/Ashley Judd hotel room scene from Heat countless times because he had to try every metal hanger known to mankind until they made just the right clang when DeNiro swiped them. And now Entertaiment Weekly, in their cover story on the new Miami Vice, reports that Mann banned the color red from the entire movie.

Even if the movie turns out to be sub-par, this one fact alone makes all the hype worthwhile. Pure hubris of this magnitude is pure entertainment to me because it's the furthest thing from my (and probably everyone else's) daily reality.

The only question now is whether his red-less vision was actually realized. With the movie still four days out, all we have are pictures to go on, and they don't tell the story of a visionary who always gets his way. Two of the most popular movie stills floating around show Jamie Foxx as Tubbs wearing a red shirt in one, and both men wearing black t-shirts with red writing in another. You could argue that Tubbs' shirt isn't really red and that the red on the t-shirts is immaterial. But I would argue that if the Mann with the vision doesn't want to see red, there can be absolutely no red ever for any reason whatsoever.

Even if you can defend your way around that indefensible case, there's no way around the next one: the very title of the movie that's being used for all trailers is half red. So either EW failed in their fact checking or Mann failed in his vision.

After seeing that Mann appeared publicly during the shoot with Foxx wearing a red shirt, I'm starting to worry he might be losing focus.

In Reluctant Defense of Colin Farrell

One of the Miami Vice Month writers here on GSunderground has said more than once that Eric Bana would be a better Sonny Crockett than Colin Farrell. I could let it go once, but after his last piece, I feel compelled to explain why Rob (despite his eloquence) is wrong.

I loved the Minority Report 'pre-crime' take on preventing Farrell's role, lest his performance commit a crime against humanity. But where was the mention of Farrell's role in Minority Report? This was his breakthrough blockbuster role -- he played the Department of Justice climber who's career motivations had audiences riveted trying to figure out whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. He revealed the Big Brother conspiracy even before Cruise, but paid for it with a bullet in the chest from Ming The Merciless himself, Max Von Sydow.

Farrell pulled off this good-versus-bad dichotomy flawlessly even in the shadow of Tom Cruise. Granted, at the time Cruise was coming off of a string of masturbatory art house nonsense like Magnolia and Vanilla Sky, so he was an easy target for a fresh Hollywood climber. Even still, Farrell delivered in Minority Report, thanks largely to his own internal darkness and his own struggle with trying to be the good Hollywood role model like Cruise while also having a weakness for every vice known to mankind.

Even our resident Farrell doubter has pointed out that this struggle is the very essence of Sonny Crockett.

In fairness to Rob, I agree that there is evidence to doubt Farrell on a blockbuster level. Sure there was Tigerland, the underground role that made him, and Minority Report, the mainstream movie that he stole. But where was he in all the so-called blockbusters that followed: Daredevil? SWAT? Alexander? Talk about masturbatory nonsense. Perhaps the Farrell's worst turn as a mainstreamer was Phone Booth. Who the fuck told him he could be a global hero by playing a PR guy? The fact that he even listened to this advice, no matter how big the payoff was, is perhaps enough evidence alone for Rob to be justified in his concern.

I also think Rob is onto something with Eric Bana because the connection to the Michael Mann sensibility is very close. Bana was the main character (another guy torn between two lives) in Munich, which screenwriter Eric Roth wrote. The two movies Roth wrote just before Munich were Ali and The Insider -- both Michael Mann vehicles. So there's reason to believe Bana could have pulled off Crockett, but not reason enough. Bana is too clean. He has no visible vices.

Farrell on the other hand is the king of vice -- the man simply can't say no to copious amounts of booze and ass and countless other spoils of a Hollywood fast life. That's why he's got the best read on life as an undercover cop -- someone who's trying to do the right thing, but all the spoils are there for the taking.

So I'm going out on a limb and saying that Farrell will redefine the Crockett archetype for a new generation and give the old generation what they expect from the only cop in history who could rock a white suit with no socks and still be the baddest mofo in the precinct.

Don't Worry: Mann is no Bay

In a recent comment I took a few shots at the new Vice, basically calling it Bad Boys III. In doing so, I may have committed a crucial error by insinuating that Michael Mann and Michael Bay were in some way similar in terms of directorial skill. Not true! In fact, directorial skill is pretty much the only real reason that the new Vice isn't simply Bad Boys III. I want to stress that point. What was a tongue-in-cheek post about Vice would just simply be The Truth if Mann was as big of a hack as Bay. Seriously. Mann's skill as a director is the only reason I can say the words "I was kidding" about that post. Just wanted to clear that up.

And while we're here, this also seems like a good time to point out a few other things about Bay:

1. He rips off pretty much everything you see in his movies. If he sees a photograph that he thinks is cool, he puts it in a movie. If he sees a great chase scene, boom, consider it jacked. In fact, he even stole the EXACT idea for his website from Mark Romanek (http://www.markromanek.com), complete with the changing photos on the front page. He was forced to change it, but if you check out Bay's site now (http://www.michaelbay.com), you will still see some striking similarities. For his action scenes, he tells an assistant the general idea (car chase ending in explosion) and has them put all the best car chases and explosions on a DVD so he can lift all the best stuff out and throw it in his latest piece-of-shit movie.

2. He is the biggest asshole on planet earth. I hear Mann is a pretty big a-hole as well, but nobody holds a candle to Bay. He made one assistant drive to San Francisco to retrieve his wallet from a restaurant. He threw a coffee in one person's face because it only had one Sugar in the Raw, not two. He has two 200-pound dogs that routinely lunge at strangers and drag personal assistants across four-lane highways. Will Smith once told him, "You are lucky this isn't the set of 'Ali' because I would knock your ass out." A real sweetheart of a guy. (No, I wasn't his assistant, just in case you were wondering.)

3. He almost got busted for ripping crap off when somebody filed a lawsuit claiming that The Island stole over 100 scenes from an old 70's sci-fi movie. The story kind of went away so either there was a settlement or Bay passed the buck on to the re-writers.

4. Due to the horrible failure of the aforementioned The Island, Bay almost lost Transformers, which is probably his last chance to leave a mark on the film industry. If he blows this, I think he's done. That said, it will probably look terrific (because he does have a pretty good eye for a shot, some incredible equipment, amazing DP's, and - of course - reels and reels of blueprints from which to work!) and make $250 million, which of course means that we will be subjected to many more Bay catastrophes in the future.

(I also want to add that while Mann has a pretty bad rep as well for being a jerk, I do love his movies. But how long are studios going to let him run long, overspend - usually by almost double the projected budget - and then fail to deliver at the box office?)

Miami Vice Soundtrack Picks (and an iTunes Loophole)

In a sure sign of the times, iTunes released the Miami Vice Soundtrack Tuesday, a week ahead of the official release date for Amazon and the rest of the lowly terra firma music establishments. But there's a catch ... besides 2 tracks you can buy individually, you must buy the whole album, which costs $13.99. I've got two words for that: No fucking-way.

We've already let iTunes lure us in with the $9.99 per album model plus the option to purchase $.99 tracks when we don't want whole albums. So I don't see why anyone would pay a 40% markup for any album. Especially not for soundtracks, which are never good all the way through -- it's all about picking a few good soundtrack songs and moving on. So let's do that for the Miami Vice Soundtrack, while finding a way around the $13.99 pricing.

Mogwai: We’re No Here
Mogwai: Auto Rock
These are the two best songs off the MV soundtrack, and they’re both off Mogwai’s last album so you can get them without buying the whole soundtrack (if you choose only one, choose We’re No Here). Mogwai takes awhile to grow on you because it takes their songs awhile to build -- but that song structure is their great talent. Mogwai is often called progressive rock but I think they fall on the lighter side of sludge rock. The genre hounds over at Pitchfork would shoot daggers at me through their horn-rimmed glasses for saying that, but I stand my ground that Mogwai’s contemplative hard rock places them more in a class of rock that began with Sabbath and now includes bands like Isis and Queens of the Stone Age. These two songs exhibit Mogwai’s just-right mix of hardness and emotion, incorporating some rough bass, sprawling guitar and wistful keyboards.

Moby: Anthem
Michael Mann is clearly a big Moby fan, and for good reason. Moby can always deliver electronic music with just the right layers of instrumentation to hook listeners who aren’t all jacked up on E. However, if you’re going to download one of Mann’s handpicked Moby songs, you should download New Dawn Fades which is a Joy Division cover from the Heat soundtrack that is tragically overlooked. Speaking of instrumentation, New Dawn Fades is a guitar-led composition whereas Anthem is more straight-ahead club music.

Nonpoint: In The Air Tonight (movie)
Phil Collins: In The Air Tonight (tv show)
And finally, there is the signature Miami Vice song, In The Air Tonight, which became an inextricable part of American pop culture because of the TV show. It’s one of those songs that everyone -- even pompous music snobs like the horn-rimmed folk I mentioned before -- can at least appreciate because it’s got pop accessibility with just a hint of dark flavor. It was the pitch perfect anthem for the sordid yet stylized crime underworld Miami Vice depicted. For those who don’t know what the song is about, listen to Stan by Eminem – it tells you everything you’d ever need to know about In The Air Tonight (in minute 3:55) with a strong hint of it’s own dark flavor.

As for the movie soundtrack, wannabe metal band Nonpoint’s 2004 cover of the song will replace Phil Collins’ version. It’s too bad Collins’ version didn’t make the cut because it still stands the test of time and needed no update – especially not by some pseudo thrashers who wouldn’t know a hardcore riff if it was sitting on their face.

I think it’s well worth your $1.98 to download both songs just to compare for yourself, and if you don’t have that Emimen song, his In The Air Tonight riff alone is worth the $.99.

As we enter into the home stretch of Miami Vice Month, I will still do a few more music posts, because there’s a shitload of good music from the show's five seasons that I have picked out. In the meantime, happy listening.

Style From My Own Eye

I'm not a straight-up label whore, but I'm definitely more into style than your average straight guy. My mom was a model then a clothing store owner and my grandfather was a tailor, so I guess I didn't have much of a choice. I'd like to think I have a strong filter that helps me formulate my own views on style, but I'm not impervious to the constant cultural influences around me -- nobody is.

I got to thinking about this after reading Rob's 'Cultural Impact' post which talked about how Miami Vice either created or tipped many key style trends of the 80s. This is my conclusion after reading it: If I'm going to take style cues from pop culture, I'd rather take them from a crew of laconic badasses minding their own business than from five loquacious Queers eyeing me.

Put another way, I'd rather observe style than have it templated out for me. In a pop culture context, this means I get more style ideas out of watching Vice's Tubbs or Collateral's Vincent & Max than I ever would from watching some high-concept reality show on Bravo.

For example, look at this picture from Collateral -- Vincent in a tie-less suit and Max in a hoodie with a plain t-shirt. This is a definitive picture for me because it closely approximates my two lives: Not-quite-conforming businessman and not-quite-readable regular guy. On the leisure side, I tend to pair a more urban t-shirt with my hoodies, but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that same t-shirt under a suit jacket. On the business side, I also wouldn't ever top the tie-less suit with a pair of $400 shades.

If you mix too many ideas, it doesn't make you stylish like the magazine spreads and style shows suggest. It makes you a jackass.

It's OK for chicks to rock multiple elements in a single get-up. But for guys, you can only have one or maybe two standout things going at once. That's why I'd never wear a trendy t-shirt, or even a pair of overpriced shades, with a nice suit jacket. It's too much.

The sunglasses thing is great example. It's OK -- stupid, but OK -- for a guy to wear a pair of $400 shades, but they better be dressed like Max in every other way ... nothing else can flash besides those shades or that guy will instantly reveal himself as a slightly richer version of the lost soul he was in college.

So while my style is influenced by pop culture just like the next guy, I try not to listen too hard. And if I am listening, I am checking out movies and shows rather than taking notes from reality TV and dog-earing magazine pages.

Because I'm convinced that style can't be taught. It can only be observed. The rest, you just have to let evolve naturally around your personality.

Real Tight Crew, Huh?

Remember that scene in Heat when Michael picks up Waingro for the armored truck score in the beginning? It goes like this:


Waingro: You guys always work together?

Michael: All the time.

Waingro: Real tight crew, huh?

Michael: Real tight.

Waingro: Yeah, this works good I'd consider going again, you know.

Michael: Yeah, stop talking OK Slick.

I bring it up because I'm still wondering why Edward James Olmos isn't playing Castillo in the Miami Vice movie like he did in the show. He was offered the job but turned it down. There are strong rumors he didn't want to work with Colin Farrell and weaker ones that he was busy developing a talk show, but the end result is that he didn't reunite with Michael Mann, the king of real tight crews.

For the bad rap Mann gets in the press about brow-beating those around him, he still takes down scores with the same crews repeatedly. High profile examples include Jamie Foxx who worked with Mann on Ali, Collateral and Miami Vice; and Al Pacino who worked with Mann on Heat and The Insider. A low profile example is Tom Noonan who played Kelso (the wheelchair-bound bank score mastermind) in Heat and played a serial killer in Manhunter, Mann's prequel to Silence of The Lambs.


Another low profile example is Barry Shabaka Henley who played Daniel the trumpet playing jazz club owner in one of Collateral's most chilling scenes. But he won't be low profile for long because he's assumed the role of Castillo for the Vice movie. I didn't bother looking this up until today because, without Olmos, I just assumed there would be no Castillo in the film adaptation. I saw Henley on the previews and recognized him from Collateral, but didn't realize who he was playing.

I'm not sold on him as the grave, taciturn Castillo of old. How could anyone play that role with more ice in his veins than Olmos? I'll admit Henley sold me as the apologetic but proud Miles Davis disciple Daniel, but I'm highly dubious about his ability to deliver the meditative fury I expect from Castillo. Of any role that's a potential disappointment for this movie, this one is it.

Let's hope that Henley works good so I can consider going to see Vice again and again like I did Heat.

OK then, I'll stop talking now.

Will Miami Vice Month Stand The Test of Time?

Let's get something straight: the 80s sucked ass. I know VH-1's empire was built on 80s references and I used the word 'nostalgia' twice in a recent piece gushing about an 80s TV show. But Miami Vice Month isn't about yearning for a decade that told the world Nagel paintings were high art and told me Cavaricci pants were high style. It's about seeing what happens to a creative effort over time.

News of the day dictates the agenda of most web writers. Their formula scientifically simple: (1) summarize the day's hot story/stories, (2) make a clever comment or two, (3) move on. Some writers are very good at it, but when I go from blog to blog to zine to zine, I see most writers spinning the same weary web of pithiness.

Just like all the forthcoming Miami Vice stories leading up to the movie's July 28 release date. I personally guarantee every single Miami Vice story across all media will involve analysis or humorous takes on the following topics: Jamie Foxx was a prima donna during the shoot. Colin Farrell partied but stayed focused. Michael Mann was a control freak, but everyone respects him eventually. The shoot was plagued by problems. The Miami Vice movie isn’t like the TV show.

So we wanted to see what happens when you extend the creative writing process beyond the movie promotion news spike. And on this note, let’s get one more thing straight: writing in the web era isn’t journalism and news reporting, it’s entertainment and commentary. Which means it's more artistic process than scientific formula.

I realize anyone can pass the same judgment on me that I just passed on ‘most writers’, and I’m fine with that. Because all I’m trying to do is add some style to an all too pervasive formula. And just like I know Michael Mann and Anthony Yerkovich will bring fresh angles to a 22 year old creative effort, I know we’ll do the same as we extend the news cycle to 31 days. So check it out if you can pull yourself away from your favorite writer over at PredictablePithiness.com for long enough.

Michael Mann vs. Michael Bay vs. Michael Bolton

In a comment yesterday, Adam said that the Miami Vice movie might as well be called Bad Boys III, and if I didn't know better, his strong case would have convinced me. I was planning on evangelizing the genius of MV director Michael Mann later on in Miami Vice Month, but for now I just have to make one or two comments about Mann versus Bad Boys director Micheal Bay (pictured).

Michael Mann was the first director to put DeNiro and Pacino on the screen together at the same time -- not even Coppola did that. Early in his movie career, he directed the prequel to Silence of the Lambs. And most recently, he brought golden boy Tom Cruise to the dark side for the first time, and transformed Jamie Foxx from a Booty Caller to a perennial Oscar contender.

Michael Bay, on the other hand, directed both Bad Boys movies which were enjoyable effects-laden spectacles, but have absolutely no character presence whatsoever, and therefore no shelf life. In between those he directed The Rock, which is an undeniable combination of spectacle and character involvement. It was a sign he could be one of the greats, but then he went back to pure-spectacle-with-some-dialogue-inserted-to-fill-gaps with Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. With these, he bet on Ben Affleck twice in a row.

If that's not a sign Bay is the ultimate A-list purveyor of B-quality content, here are two more: Entourage, the new mouthpiece for what Hollywood is thinking, just ripped Bay to shreds last week when Ari told Vince Bay was going to replace James Cameron as director for the Aquaman sequel -- and Vince hung his head, ready to walk off the project. Worse yet, Michael Bay, with his sunken-in cheeks and 80s hair, looks like Michael Bolton.

This last fact alone is enough for me to pretend Michael Bay doesn't even exist -- especially when compared to Mann.

The Future of Terrorism

Since posting my Ken Lay-influenced plot idea as part of GSunderground's Miami Vice Month, another infallible plotline has come up. Check it out...

I got on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago this morning wearing a Coup t-shirt and my Swiss Army briefcase over my shoulder. I had just picked up two bits of plane reading at the newsstand: a Financial Times with the Mumbai bombing story on the cover, and a Discover magazine with a cover headline reading "The Future of Terrorism" placed over a black silhouette of the Twin Towers. Not long after takeoff, I realized my cell phone was still on. I unzipped my front briefcase pocket to get it, and a razorblade scraper (see picture) fell out into the aisle.

I was little surprised, but quickly put it away without looking around. As my heart raced, I pondered the not-so-believable truth that I -- the guy with all the terrorist content wearing a t-shirt of a rapper once suspected as a 9/11 conspirator -- would be spewing to authorities:

We have this beloved plastic basketball hoop suction-cupped to one of the glass walls in my office. Between calls and meetings, we’re constantly taking shots to relieve the stress. One of the suction cups wore out a few weeks ago and we super-glued it to the glass. Then last week, one of our brokers had a client in with her kid and they tried to lower the hoop, not realizing one of the suction cups was shot. So two nights ago, I bought a new hoop, and yesterday I brought in the blade scraper from my toolbox at home so I could remove the super-glue residue before sticking the new suction cups to the glass wall. And I left the scraper in my briefcase.

Yea right, Mister. Now come with us. And here’s a little taser blast to make sure you don’t get out of line while we re-route this plane back to SFO.

Passengers’ panic reaches a fever pitch by the time we land, and they rush me while the flight crew is trying to get me off the plane. In self-defense, I kick some khaki-wearing Blackberry motherfucker who just sucker-punched me in the jaw, and make a break for it.

I make it off the plane with my wallet but not my briefcase, buy a Golden Gate Bridge t-shirt and hat I hang low on my head, and hop a plane to Miami before SFO security can figure out what’s up. In my briefcase, they also find detailed notes for a story involving some corporate drone who’s gone off the deep end and gets his hands on some homemade explosives.

All but the part about actually getting caught carrying the razorblade is true, including the contents of my briefcase. The rest is just to get the storyline started. So if Michael Mann is looking for a life-like Miami Vice sequel idea, it can kick off where Crockett and Tubbs come track me down at The Delano ... where all hell will break looose. And box office gold will shimmer.

The Very First Miami Vice Soundtrack

On Saturday when I posted music picks from Heat, Collateral and early Miami Vice, I promised to delve deeper into the first-ever Miami Vice soundtrack. So without further delay, here’s every (downloadable) song that was in the pilot episode of the TV show. As Miami Vice Month continues, I will do more music picks from the show’s history, from Michael Mann’s movie history, and of course from the upcoming Miami Vice movie soundtrack.

Phil Collins: In The Air Tonight (tv show)
Nonpoint: In The Air Tonight (movie)
In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins became a pop culture icon because of Miami Vice. It’s one of those songs that everyone -- even pompous music snobs -- can at least appreciate because it’s got pop accessibility with just the right dash of dark flavor. It was the pitch perfect anthem for the sordid yet stylized crime underworld Miami Vice depicted. For those who don’t know what the song is about, I’d suggest listening to Stan by Eminem – it tells you everything you’d ever need to know about In The Air Tonight (in minute 3:55) with a strong dash of it’s own dark flavor.

As for the Miami Vice movie soundtrack, wannabe metal band Nonpoint’s 2004 cover of the song will replace Phil Collins’ version. I’m sure it will fit the visuals to a tee, but it’s too bad Collins’ version didn’t make the cut because it still stands the test of time and needed no update – especially not by some pseudo thrashers who wouldn’t know a hardcore riff if it was sitting on their face.

Cindi Lauper: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Talk about pseudo musicians, the Miami Vice pilot also featured Cindi Lauper and the song that made her famous. Which I will never understand because she wasn’t hot, she dressed like ass, and her music blew. It would seem to me you’d need at least one of those things to become an American idol.

Lionel Richie: All Night Long
Rockwell: Somebody’s Watching Me
Now that I’m done channeling my inner Simon, we can move on. Next up are two definitive 80s songs, which normally wouldn’t be a positive. But Lionel Ritchie, like Phil Collins, was a staple of the decade. What his post-Commodores party songs lacked in outright funkiness, they more than made up for in good vibes. The nostalgia effect of listening to him now just compounds the joy, making this song a must download – actually the whole album, Can’t Slow Down from 1981, is worthy of your collection.

The other 80s hymn featured was by one-hit-wonder Rockwell. Whereas Richie’s music of the day successfully combined pop and soul, this was the first entrée into mixing new wave and soul. Again, if the song’s chorus doesn’t get you, the nostalgia will.

Rolling Stones: Miss You
This song brings us back to the timelessness. It was part of Miami Vice’s 1984 pilot, but it was released in 1978 on the otherwise lackluster Some Girls album. Even today, it has a sound that can’t really be pinned down to any one era, especially not the 80s. While the rest of Some Girls was an attempt to usher in a newer sound, Miss You was the only one that didn’t miss in any way ... another must-download.

Lumbergh Was Almost Crockett

The most interesting tidbit I’ve learned during my Miami Vice Month research thus far is that Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas edged out Gary Cole and Jimmy Smits respectively for the roles of Crockett and Tubbs. Smits is well-known for his subsequent work in LA Law, NYPD Blue and The West Wing. And it’s not a stretch at all to see Smits as Ricardo Tubbs. I think if he’d gotten the role, he would have played it even better than Thomas – or at least have been more successful in parlaying the role into future work.

However, what really strikes me is that Gary Cole is the guy who went onto play Bill Lumbergh in Office Space. I’m surely not the only Office Space disciple out there who admires the Lumbergh role to no end, but that role makes it all the more difficult for me to accept Cole as an undercover slickster working low and high society in Miami. Then again, Cole has honed his dramatic chops for years as a partner and performer in Chicago’s renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and is an understated force in comedies like Office Space, Dodgeball and the upcoming Talladega Nights.

So who knows what Miami Vice would have been like with Cole and Smits as Crockett and Tubbs. At least they weren’t ousted completely. Smits played Crockett's partner Eddie Rivera in the first episode, but was killed in the first twenty minutes of the show – then came the meeting with Tubbs (see yesterday’s entry). As for Cole, he got to play a low-level middleman in a season one episode called Trust Fund Pirates. Hardly the TPS Report Nazi that made him famous, but work nevertheless -- and at least it aint Nash Bridges.

Music In The Air Tonight: Sept 16, 1984

When Miami Vice aired it's first episode, Brothers Keeper, on September 16, 1984, it immediately redefined TV with it's pioneering mix of vision and sound. Below is the montage leading to the final-scene shootout in episode one, set to Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight (itunes).



This slick nighttime driving sequence influenced what was to come from MV producers for years, such as the pre-coffee shop scene in Heat where Pacino chases down DeNiro to Moby’s New Dawn Fades (itunes), and the pre-club shootout scene in Collateral where Cruise eyes the glowing-eyed wolves to Audioslave’s Shadow On The Sun (itunes).

You gotta wonder whether it's the visual style that made the Phil Collins song seem so hard, or whether Collins actually was hardcore before he became the king of Disney flick scores. I mean, at least Moby has decades of club credibility, not to mention the fact the New Dawn Fades is a Joy Division cover (itunes). And the fact that Audioslave was preceded by Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine speaks for itself.

Nevertheless, this 'In The Air' scene’s appeal is undeniable, and it made the song an icon of American pop culture. More to come on this in a couple days. In the meantime, here’s another episode one video showing how Crockett and Tubbs first met.



And here's a list of DOWNLOADS THAT KICK ASS (itunes):
>> Phil Collins: In The Air Tonight
>> Moby: New Dawn Fades (from Heat soundtrack)
>> Joy Division: New Dawn Fades (original that Moby covered)
>> Audioslave: Shadow On The Sun

A Lay-man's Plotline

Here's a surefire Miami Vice plot: A newfangled shipping company bursts on the scene down in Miami, and is lauded as revolutionizing an otherwise straightforward industry with technology and innovation. Investors rush in, the founders get filthy rich and start winning high-level government friends with exorbitant campaign donations.

Turns out the company is a front for the drug cartels, and the stock wealth disappears overnight, causing tens of thousands to lose their life savings. Lawsuits ensue and assets are frozen, but not before the CEO can stash about $50 million to keep his family fed. And not before he helps a former CIA chief and his family take prominent political posts in Florida and beyond. The CEO is facing life in prison, but dies of a heart attack just before he's convicted and sentenced -- coincidentally, his untimely death occurs on vacation with all of his family close by.

Autopsy is clean, but Crockett and Tubbs don't buy it. They go on to reveal a conspiracy way beyond a mere corporate scam, something that goes onto the highest levels of government and jeopardizes their lives and the very foundations of law enforcement and law itself.

I am torn between Sudden Death and Loyalty Oath as my working titles for the episode (or movie sequel). For further script notes, just do a couple searches mixing the terms 'Ken Lay' and 'George Bush'. It's all there, clear as the Enron business plan.

The Heat Style Suit

This is the first Miami Vice Month post about tie-less suits, but I'm guessing it won't be the last. When Heat came out in 1995, me and my crew were almost through college, and beginning to think about what professional life would be like. Pondering important career questions like where would the hot chicks go for happy hours, and what clothes would replace our shorts and baseball caps.

Three of us went to check Heat on opening day, and the image of DeNiro's grey suit with no tie tattooed itself on my brain. That was the answer to an office world still dominated by ties -- but ready to fall. And what better way to crumble the establishment than with a three-button suit with no tie. For a boss to call your Heat Style Suit inappropriate would be like a Fox News political correspondent calling Jon Stewart dangerous. It can't be done ... just like Stewart's comedy defines the political melee from above, a tie-less suit is the very aura of professional composure.

It's just a matter of how you carry it. Michael Mann knew this long before Heat and even before he put Don Johnson in white Armani with t-shirts. He kicked off the movement in 1981 with his first movie Thief, in which James Caan pioneered the look. A look that made even Tom Cruise a flawless, focused pro in Collateral. An attitude that turns you into a stepping razor. An outfit that we call Heat Style Suit.

Why No Castillo?

Edward James Olmos turned down the offer to reprise his role as icy Vice leader Castillo for the Miami Vice movie. Word around the camp fire is that Olmos bailed because he felt Colin Farrell was too much of a bitch to bother working with. Personally, I feel that if Michael Mann can de-bitch-ify Tom Cruise, he can perform the same miracle on anyone. Olmos should have known this, and should have taken the chance to put a bow on the role that made all cop show bosses before and after obsolete. But then again, he was busy during the Vice movie shoot reprising a variation on the Stand and Deliver theme so close to his heart. And he was playing a dude named Julian ... who in their right mind would turn down that opportunity?

Miami Vice Month On GSunderground

It just turned July, and that means one thing: it's Miami Vice month. Michael Mann's full circle manifesto comes out on the 29th, which gives us plenty of time examine Vice in all it's aspects ... the demon-exploring plots, the stark photography, the hypnotic music ... the timeless style.

A style patented by Mann back in 1984 when the show launched, and perfected over decades. Pastels just needed to be darkened and the Jan Hammer theme music just needed a little spaced-age sinister twist. Done and done. One glance at the movie website reveals that Crockett and Tubbs are still the hardened bad-asses they were back in the 80s, and the heady beat looping on the site is a sure sign that serious shit's about to go down.

We'll post updates every day this month on the culture of Vice and the people behind it. Posts may be music picks from then and now, comparisons of the old and new actors, or just a quick mention of some product like the Sama shades Sonny and Rico wear. And we won't rest until our favorite creative vice is unleashed upon the world at the end of the month.

Daily updates throughout July on one topic...