The Opening of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992) – one of my favorite scenes.

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Bradley Crain

I can’t let Michael Mann’s 82nd birthday pass without sharing one of my favorite scenes of his filmography. Have y’all ever started watching a movie and immediately knew you were going to love it?! That’s what the opening 4 minutes of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS did for me. The credits start and the soundtrack reveals the powerful musical theme of the movie as well as its beautiful mountain setting. And then we join Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis), his dad Chingachgook (Russell Means), and his brother Uncas (Eric Schweig) in the middle of their hunt as they’re sprinting through the woods after their prey. They just look so cool running together under Mann’s stylish direction. It’s not even the best scene in the film, but it’s the scene that drew me in and let me know I was in for something special.

Happy Birthday, Michael Mann and thanks for sharing your talent with all of us!

Enjoy this awesome scene, my friends!

Scenes That I Love: The Tiger Scene From Manhunter

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since today is Michael Mann’s birthday, today’s scene that I love comes from his 1986 film, Manhunter.

In this scene, a blind woman (played by Joan Allen) pets a sedated tiger while her new boyfriend (Tom Noonan) watches. This would actually be a pretty romantic scene if not for the fact that her boyfriend is also a homicidal maniac. This is a scene that, when you watch the film, seems to come out of nowhere but, when you look back, you realize it was one of the key moments in the narrative. While the killer watches the woman who represents a possible redemption embrace another predator, the profiler played by William Petersen continues his way into the killer’s tortured psyche.

This scene is Michael Mann at his best.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Michael Mann Edition

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, we celebrate the 82nd birthday of the great Michael Mann! It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Michael Mann Films

Thief (1981, dir by Michael Mann, DP: Donald Thorin)

Manhunter (1986, dir by Michael Mann, DP: Dante Spinotii)

Heat (1995, dir by Michael Mann, DP: Dante Spinotti)

Public Enemies (2009, dir by Michael Mann, DP: Dante Spinotti)

Lisa Marie Reviews An Oscar Nominee: The Insider (dir by Michael Mann)

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1999 Best Picture Nominee, The Insider, the American media takes a beating.

Al Pacino plays Lowell Bergman. Bergman is a veteran newsman who, for several years, has been employed as a producer at 60 Minutes. He is a strong believer in the importance of the free press and he’s proud to be associated with both 60 Minutes and CBS News. He’s one of the few people who can manage the famously prickly correspondent, Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer). When we first see Bergman, he and Wallace are in the Middle East and arranging a tense interview with the head of Hezbollah. It’s easy to see that Bergman is someone who will go anywhere and take any risk to get a story. It’s also apparent that Bergman thinks that the people that he works with feel the same way.

That all changes when Bergman meets Jeffery Wigand (Russell Crowe), a recently fired tobacco company executive who initially agrees to serve as a consultant for one of Bergman’s story but who leaves Bergman intrigued when he reveals that, due to a strict confidentiality agreement, he’s not allowed to discuss anything about his time as an executive. As the tobacco companies are currently being sued by ambitious state attorney generals like Mississippi’s Mike Moore (who plays himself in the film), Bergman suspects that Wigand knows something that the companies don’t want revealed.

And, of course, Bergman is right. Wigand was fired for specifically objecting to his company’s effort to make cigarettes more addictive, something that the tobacco industry had long claimed it wasn’t doing. Wigand’s pride was hurt when he was fired but he knows that breaking the confidentiality agreement will mean losing his severance package and also possibly losing his marriage to Liane (Diane Venora) as well. However, Wigand is angered by the heavy-handed techniques that his former employer uses to try to intimidate him. He suspects that he’s being followed and he can’t even work out his frustrations by hitting a few golf balls without someone watching him. When Wigand starts to get threats and even receives a bullet in the mail, he decides to both testify in court and give an interview to Wallace and 60 Minutes.

The only problem is that CBS, after being pressured by their lawyers and facing the risk of taking a financial loss in an upcoming sell, decides not to run the interview. Bergman is outraged and assumes that both Mike Wallace and veteran 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt (Philip Baker Hall) will support him. Instead, both Wallace and Hewitt side with CBS. Left out in the cold is Jeffrey Wigand, who has sacrificed almost everything and now finds himself being attacked as merely a disgruntled employee.

Directed by Michael Mann and based on a true story, The Insider is what is usually described as being “a movie for adults.” Instead of dealing with car chases and super villains and huge action set pieces, The Insider is a film about ethics and what happens when a major media outlet like CBS News fails to live up to those ethics. (No one is surprised when the tobacco company tries to intimidate and silence Wigand but the film makes clear that people — or at least people in the 90s — expected and hoped for more from the American press.) Wigand puts his trust in Bergman and 60 Minutes largely because he believed Bergman’s promise that he would be allowed to tell his story. It’s a promise that Bergman made in good faith but, in the end, everyone from the CBS executives to the tobacco companies is more interested in protecting their own financial future than actually telling the truth. Wigand loses his family and his comfortable lifestyle and Bergman loses his faith in the network of Edward R. Murrow. It’s not a particularly happy film but it is a well-made and thought-provoking one.

Pacino and Crowe both give excellent performances in the two lead roles. Pacino, because he spends most of the film outraged, has the flashier role while Crowe plays Wigand as a rather mild-mannered man who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a national news story. (Crowe’s performance here is one of his best, precisely because it really is the opposite of what most people expect from him.) Crowe does not play Wigand as being a crusader but instead, as an ordinary guy who at times resents being put in the position of a whistleblower. (Director Mann does not shy away from showing how Bergman manipulates, the reluctant Wigand into finally testifying, even if Bergman’s motives were ultimately not malicious.) That said, the strongest performance comes from Christopher Plummer, who at first seems to be playing Mike Wallace as being the epitome of the pompous television newsman but who eventually reveals the truth underneath Wallace’s sometimes fearsome exterior.

The Insider was nominated for Best Picture. Somehow, it lost to American Beauty.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 3.6 “Shadows In The Dark”

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Crockett loses it!

Episode 3.6 “Shadows In The Dark”

(Dir by Christopher Crowe, originally aired on October 31st, 1986)

Crockett and Tubbs are assigned to work with Lt. Ray Gilmore (Jack Thibeau) in investigating a series of burglaries. The burglar has broken into several houses. Each time, he eats whatever meat is in the house, he draws a picture on the wall, and then he steals a pair of pants. Gilmore is convinced that the burglar is working his way towards doing something even more serious and deadly.

Crockett and Tubbs soon discover that Gilmore is suffering from intense burnout. Years spent getting inside the minds of burglars and working nights have left Gilmore angry and erratic. When Gilmore finally snaps and starts shooting an icebox, Crockett and Tubbs assume that the investigation is over. Instead, Castillo informs them that, with Gilmore now committed to a mental hospital, they will now be in charge of the investigation.

Soon, Crockett finds himself becoming just as obsessed as Gilmore. He starts staying up late. The few instances in which he does sleep, he’s woken up by intense nightmares. Crockett becomes obsessed with the mysterious burglar, to the extent that Castillo and the rest of the Vice Squad start to worry that he’s losing his mind. In the end, Crockett does manage to figure out what house the Shadow (Vincent Caristi) will be targeting next. Both the Shadow and Crockett break into the house at the same time, leaving the homeowner terrified as the two men fight.

“I’m a cop! I’m a cop!” a desperate and wild-eyed Crockett shouts at her while holding up his badge.

This was a dark episode, one that played out more like a mini-horror movie than a typical episode of Miami Vice. (Appropriately, this episode aired on Halloween and was clearly made with the scary season in mind.) While I do think Crockett’s descent into madness happened a bit too quickly, I can’t deny that Don Johnson did a great job as the unhinged Sonny Crockett. When he desperately yelled “I’m a cop!,” it was obvious that he was trying to convince himself as much as the poor woman who owned the house. Though this episode was definitely a showcase for Don Johnson, Edward James Olmos did get plenty of opportunities to employ the Castillo stare as Crockett grew more and more unstable. Finally, Vincent Caristi was truly frightening as the Shadow.

Interestingly enough, the episode’s plot is similar to Manhunter, which came out earlier that year. The episode even features a scene where Crockett, Tubbs, and Gilmore visit a former burglar so that they can get his insights on their current prey. (Manhunter, of course, was the first film to feature Dr. Hannibal Lecter being consulted about a serial killer.) Miami Vice‘s producer and creator, Michael Mann, directed Manhunter and, though he didn’t direct this episode, it’s clear that Shadow In The Dark was meant to be a bit of an homage to the film.

Season three has, so far, been a bit uneven but this was a good and offbeat episode.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Danny Trejo Edition

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Len wishes a happy 80th birthday to the man and the legend, Danny Trejo! Trejo’s journey from being a gang member to an ex-con to a drug counselor to a pop cultural institution is an inspiring one, all the more so because Danny Trejo is so candid about both his past struggles and his present successes.

It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Danny Trejo Films

Runaway Train (1985, dir by Andrei Konchalovsky, DP: Alan Hume)

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987, dir by J. Lee Thompson, DP: Gideon Porath)

Heat (1995, dir by Michael Mann, DP: Dante Spinotti)

Machete Kills (2013, dir by Robert Rodriguez, DP: Robert Rodriguez)

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.16 “Smuggler’s Blues”

Posted on December 25, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett and Tubbs head down to Colombia and learn about the smuggler’s blues!

Episode 1.16 “Smuggler’s Blues”

(Dir by Paul Michael Glaser, originally aired on Feb. 1st, 1985)

Someone is blowing up drug dealers and their families in Miami. Homicide Detective Jones (Ron Vawter) doesn’t know why anyone cares about a bunch of smugglers being killed but DEA Agent Ed Waters (a youngish Richard Jenkins) is concerned that a vigilante is on the loose.

If there is a vigilante on the loose, who could it be? Well, we know that it’s not going to be any of our regular cast members, even if Castillo does seem to be kind of tightly wound. So, that really leaves Jones and Waters as our only two suspects. Looking over the notes that I trotted down for this episode, I see that I immediately said that Waters had to be the killer because, when the killer anonymously called the Department towards the end of the episode, I instantly recognized Richard Jenkins’s voice. Of course, it turned out I was totally wrong. Detective Jones turned out to be the killer and apparently, I have no idea what Richard Jenkins actually sounds like.

Anyway, before Detective Jones can be revealed as the murder, Crockett and Tubbs have to go to Colombia so that they can go undercover as dealers and purchase a large amount of cocaine. The idea is that the vigilante will target either Crockett and Tubbs or they’ll go after Trudy, who is undercover as Tubbs’s wife. Working on their own, Crockett and Tubbs recruit a pilot named Jimmy Cole (Glenn Frey) to fly them to Colombia.

Former Eagle Glenn Frey was specifically cast in this episode because the plot was largely based on a song that he had written, Smuggler’s Blues. (The episode’s script was written by Miguel Pinero, who played Calderone earlier in the season.) The song is played throughout the episode, the lyrics hammering home one of Miami Vice‘s key themes. The war on drugs can never be won because there’s way too much money to be made in smuggling and selling.

It’s a good episode, one that features a likable guest turn from Glenn Frey and plenty of action. When Crockett and Tubbs land in Colombia, they find themselves having to fight off both enforcers and cops. Their only ally is Cole, a man who they would normally be expected to arrest, (In a nicely acted scene, Tubbs and Cole bond over the fact that they both served in Vietnam.) Back in the United States, Crockett, Tubbs, and Cole have to fight off a thief, played by Richard Edson. And after all that, it’s still up to Tubbs and Crockett to save Trudy from being blown up in a trailer and this leads to wonderfully tense bomb disarming scene. In the end, Crockett and Tubbs score a victory but we are left with little doubt that it will only be a temporary one. That’s the politics of contraband, to quote both the song and the show.

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.15 “Golden Triangle: Part Two”

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode is all about Castillo!

Episode 1.15 “Golden Triangle: Part Two”

(Dir by David Anspaugh, originally aired on January 18th, 1985)

Last week’s episode revealed a little bit about Castillo’s past and what actually goes on underneath his stoic facade. This week’s episode exposed even more of Castillo …. literally!

Part two of Golden Triangle opens with Castillo very much out of uniform as he strips down to a black speedo and swims in the ocean. To be honest, it was a bit strange to see because …. well, he’s Castillo. Castillo shows no emotion. Castillo never smiles. Castillo, up until last week, had no life outside of his work. Now, suddenly, the viewer learns that Castillo has kept himself in pretty good shape. It’s weird to see someone with that good of a body and that strange of a mustache.

After his swim, Castillo meets with Crockett and Tubbs. They tell him that they are searching Miami for both Lao Li and May Ying. Castillo tells them not to, saying that “This department is not my private detective agency,” but Crockett and Tubbs insist on being allowed to help. As they explain it, Lao Li is a heroin dealer so they’re actually doing their job by searching for him.

It turns out to be much easier to track down Dale Menton (John Santucci), a former CIA agent who knew Castillo in Thailand and who was Lao Li’s handler. Menton reveals that Lao Li and his entire family is in Miami and they’re all hiding in plain sight. He even gives Lao Li’s phone number to Castillo. Menton also mentions that he was the one who, years ago, informed Lao Li that Castillo was planning on raiding one of his drug shipments. As a result, most of Castillo’s men were killed and, after his house was blown up, Castillo wrongly believed that May Ying had been killed.

Castillo meets with Lao Li (Keye Luke), who explains that he is only in Miami because he is retired and that he’s no longer in the drug business. (Needless to say, Castillo sees right through him.) Castillo also meets May Ying (Joan Chen) and discovers that she is now remarried and has a son. Somewhat touchingly, Castillo is happy for her. However, Castillio also knows that May Ying and her husband have been brought to Miami to serve as hostages. If he goes after Lao Li (or Menton), May Ying will be killed.

Lao Li is very clever but his dumbass grandsons (played by Peter Kwong and Kevin Gray) are not. They ignore Lao Li’s order to lay low and instead, they start dressing like Sonny Crockett and driving around town in a White Lamborghini. When they’re arrested while in the middle of a drug deal, Castillo realizes that he finally has the leverage to take Lao Li down.

This episode was pretty much a showcase for Edward James Olmos, who played Castillo has being the one man in Miami who was not willing to compromise his values. At the end of the show, Lao Li suggested that there might be a mutual respect between him and Castillo just for Castillo to inform him that no, Castillo had absolutely no respect for Lao Li. The episode ended with Castillo watching as May Ying and her husband returned to Thailand, happy to know that she was alive and doing well but also resigned to the fact that she could no longer be with him. It was an emotionally powerful moment.

Next week, Crockett and Tubbs head to Colombia!

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.14 “Golden Triangle: Part One”

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Castillo opens up!

Episode 1.14 “Golden Triangle: Part One”

(Dir by George Stanford Brown, originally aired on January 11th, 1985)

Okay, things are going to get a little complicated here. This is one convoluted episode.

Crockett and Tubbs’s latest assignment has them pretending to be the head of security for a Miami hotel. Castillo wants them to catch two crooked cops who are shaking down the prostitutes who use the hotel as their office. Tubbs and Crockett aren’t happy about it because it makes them feel like they’re working for Internal Affairs but Castillo makes it clear that he has no patience for any dirty cops.

Unfortunately, they’re not having much success with the security gig. The episode opens with Crockett and Tubbs subduing a guest who is freaking out on Angel Dust. “Attack the whack!” as the Disco Godfather once put it.

Crockett decides to put on a pair of thick glasses and a pocket protector and sit by the pool. He’s approached by Candy James (Robin Johnson), a high-class escort who asks Crockett if he wants to party. Crockett promptly arrests her.

After Candy agrees to help Crockett and Tubbs (in return for her criminal record being wiped out of the system), Crockett and Tubbs decide to go undercover as pimps while still pretending to be hotel security guards. When a guest named Albert Szarbo (John Snyder) and his unnamed Thai associate see Tubbs setting Gina up with her date (who is actually Zito), they decide that Crockett and Tubbs must be using the hotel as a front for their own prostitution operation. Szarbo approaches Crockett and explains that he wants to rob all of the hotel’s safe deposit boxes.

With Candy’s help, Crockett and Tubbs discover that the crooked detectives are Herb Ross (Paul Austin) and Dan Garcia (Gary Jellum). Ross and Garcia are arrested but are released just a few hours later. Because they were not actually arrested by Crockett and Tubbs, they assume that Crockett and Tubbs are still just the hotel security guys but they also assume that Crockett must have snitched on them to the police and….

Wait? What? Seriously, how does everyone in Miami not know, at this point, that Crockett and Tubbs are cops? They make no effort to hide the fact that they’re cops. Even when they’re undercover, they refer to each other by their real names and spend half of their time talking about what’s going on back at the station. Even if the criminals don’t know that Crockett and Tubbs are working undercover, you would at least expect their fellow police officers to know.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Candy. Candy said she would leave Miami after Ross and Garcia were busted but, instead, she shows up back at the hotel. Crockett is not happy about this but then he finds himself being confronted by Szarbo and Ross, who claims that Crockett is a snitch. Candy steps up and announces that she’s the snitch, saving Crockett and Tubbs’s case.

However, it turns out that Szarbo was lying to Crockett about wanting Crockett and Tubbs to be present when he robbed the safety deposit boxes. Instead, he was just using Crockett so that he could get a look at the vault before breaking in. Szarbo and his associate pull off the robbery and are then murdered by whoever hired them.

Castillo takes one look at the body of Szarbo’s Thai associate and realizes that he was tortured to death by associates of Chinese General Lao Li, a drug lord who Castillo tangled with before he joined the Miami PD. The normally stoic and unemotional Castillo opens up a little and reveals that he spend three years working undercover in Thailand for the DEA. Castillo says that they need to discover why Lao Li wanted whatever was in the safety deposit boxes.

Leaving his office and helping Tubbs and Crockett with their investigation, Castillo stuns everyone by revealing that he’s actually a total badass who speaks Thai, knows martial arts, and can handle himself in a fight. A search of all of Miami’s Thai restaurants eventually leads Castillo to Lao Li’s assassin. After an exciting fight with Castillo, the assassin purposefully commits suicide by swallowing his own tongue.

Back at police headquarters, Castillo, Crockett, Tubbs, Zito, and Switek takes a look at some of the items that were recovered from Szarbo’s hotel room. Castillo has deduced that Lao Li has come to the United States and his immigration visa was probably in one of the safety deposit boxes. He then looks at a picture of an attractive Chinese woman. (Some viewers will recognize her as being actress Joan Chen.) When asked who the woman is, Castillo replies, “My wife.”

This was a great episode, with a wonderfully twisty plot and a great fight scene between Edward James Olmos and Paul Tenn. After spending the past few episodes as a glowering figure who spent most of his time standing in his office and glaring at Crockett, Castillo revealed a bit about himself and it was fun to discover that this stoic figure was actually a total badass.

Next week: Part two of Golden Triangle!

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.13 “Milk Run”

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Crockett and Tubbs fail to observe movie line etiquette.

Episode 1.13 “Milk Run”

(Dir by John Nicolella, originally aired on January 4th, 1985)

At Miami International Airport, Tubbs is sweating buckets (one thing I do appreciate about Miami Vice is that it captures that Yankees never seem to get used to Southern humidity) while Crockett watches and smiles at a woman in a miniskirt. Not surprisingly, ZZ Tops’s Legs is playing on the soundtrack. Having good legs is definitely a plus in life. They’ve certainly helped me out.

Anyway, Crockett and Tubbs notice that two teenagers have just paid for a ticket to Colombia in cash. Crockett and Tubbs confront them in the airport cafeteria, causing both Louis Martinez (Evan Handler) and his friend, Eddie Rivers (Al Shannon), to make a run for it. They manage to outrun both Crockett and Tubbs. Louis and Eddie may not be as streetwise or experienced as the two cops but they’re definitely a lot younger and a lot quicker.

Louis is enthusiastic about Eddie flying down to Colombia and smuggling cocaine-filled statues into the United States. Eddie is more nervous about it and keeps saying that he wishes he could just go home and pretend like they never agreed to help this week’s villains, the Moya cousins.

Not surprisingly, at least to anyone who has watched this show, Crockett and Tubbs just happen to be investigating a drug warehouse that belongs to the Moyas. After the warehouse blows up, they discover a locker full of the statues and they also find out that the Moyas are into Santeria. This leads to a scene where they attempt to interrogate one of their informants (played by Rainbow Harvest), a Santeria high priestess who works at a “punk rock movie theater.” (Don’t ask me, I didn’t write the episode.) While Crockett keeps bothering her at work, Tubbs has a tense conversation with her boyfriend, who is played by a youngish Eric Bogosian!

The two stories eventually link back up. Eddie flies to Colombia but he and Louis are arrested by Crockett and Tubbs as soon as he returns to America. While Louis continues to play tough, Eddie talks about how he wishes that he could just go back home and not get involved in any of this. Crockett promises Eddie that he’ll make sure he gets home safely. Can you guess who ends up getting gunned down the cartel at the end of the episode?

Milk Run was an episode about which I had mixed feelings. At first, it was hard for me to have much sympathy for either Louis or Eddie. But, at the same time, I also had a hard time having much sympathy for Crockett and Tubbs. Whether they were holding up a line to interrogate a ticket agent at the airport or holding up the line to interrogate the Santeria priestess at the movie theater, they ended up holding up a lot of lines and that’s a pet peeve of mine. But, by the end of this episode, I felt sorry for Eddie and the dark conclusion drove home the episode’s point. There’s no way to escape your decisions. Of course, by this point, we pretty much know what’s going to happen whenever Crockett promises to keep someone safe but that didn’t make the ending any less effective.

This was an okay episode. The ending was powerful and it featured a strong supporting turn from John Kapelos in the role of a sleazy attorney. In the end, the message was clear. Don’t get involved with a shady business unless you’re totally prepared to deal with the consequences.