MANN AGED: CAAN'T GET AWAY WITH IT

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MANN AGED E3: HEAD & SHOULDERS

In our earnest and sincere desire to give lessons the Jack about being a man by watching Michael Mann movies we've reached dodgy ground as both our our Mann movies this week feature protagonists who are criminals. Criminals who find brief succor in the arms of a woman, but cannot escape their nature (which is stealing shit).   

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) is Mann's first all-digital project and features Jack Sparrow as John Dillinger and Batman as Melvin Purvis, the dogged Bureau of Investigation agent trying to capture him. Too long a list of a great actors support both these fellas as one robs and the other tracks. A dynamic not unlike Mann's masterpiece Heat which, at times, feels like this is remaking taking place in 1933. Any good? Any life lessons about being a man?

Then Mann's theatrical debut, 1981's THIEF, starring James Caan along with James Caan's shoulders, which prove so wide they got separate billing (that is a fact, check it out on IMDBPro, our new sponsor!*). One of Mann's most enduring films for the Mann Fans, does it teach us anything about being a man other than stealing is a viable enterprise right up until it really isn't? Listen and find out!

Between the two films, made nearly 30 years apart, we can definitely trace the lines of Mann's preoccupations with men lost to the primacy of their "jobs" and inability to find peace in what we think of as "the real world," try as they might. A couple bangers as we begin covering  the more notable films in his filmography. 

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.


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