Michael Mann

Michael Mann is a visual stylist of the highest order, but he has gotten signature performances from elite actors. He reflects on some of them: Daniel Day-Lewis in "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992) "There's a tremendous confidence that you get as an actor that you as a man or as a woman can do what your character does. If you're playing Daniel Boone and you know that you can be dumped into wilderness and have breakfast, lunch and dinner, four seasons a year, and survive, it shows.

Training camps regularly prepare football players for their roles on the field, so why not one to help them prepare for their post-gridiron roles — in this case, a career in Hollywood? That's the idea behind the inaugural NFL Hollywood Boot Camp that kicks off (so to speak) Monday on the back lots of Universal Studios. Born out of a meeting between Film Life Chief Executive Jeff Friday and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, the new program is funded by the Player Engagement division of the NFL, an educational arm that also offers programs in broadcasting, business and music for current and former NFL players.

With his arms folded, and showing just the slightest of smiles, Michael Mann stood in his office on a recent afternoon and watched the opening title sequence to the first episode of "Luck," the HBO series that will air next year and give Mann his first television directing credit in 22 years. On the screen, a montage showed racehorses, gamblers, mob men and money as the Massive Attack song "Splitting the Atom" pulsed along with its languid whispers of desire. "I wanted to nail ? in an abstract, free-form way ?

After years writing television shows such as "Starsky and Hutch," "Vegas" and "Crime Story" and producing the series "Miami Vice," Michael Mann left television for film with little intention of returning. The director of such movies such as "The Insider, "The Last of the Mohicans" and most recently "Public Enemies," Mann had fully embraced the world of film: Its long shooting schedules, big budgets and creative autonomy were a perfect fit for his exacting personality. Then a new HBO script, set in the world of horse racing and penned by David Milch ("Deadwood," "NYPD Blue")

Michael Mann, the new lead guitarist for the Blasters rock band who was known to fans as Hollywood Fats, died Monday of an apparent heart attack. Mann, 32, was rushed to Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center in full cardiac arrest, said Ted Braun, assistant hospital director. The guitarist came by his nickname because of his weight, estimated at more than 250 pounds. "He worried about his weight," drummer Bill Bateman said. "It was his genes. He was a chubby kid."

When I spent an afternoon talking with Michael Mann about "Public Enemies" last month, I asked him, half-jokingly, if he had a technical advisor that helped him with the details of John Dillinger's bank robberies. Mann is a famously intense stickler for detail. When he shot "Ali," for example, he filmed the scenes of the young champion at home at the boxer's actual house in Miami.

The walls of Michael Mann's Universal Studios office were just painted black. The Mies van der Rohe chairs are black leather and stainless steel, and coming soon is a black credenza. "I love it," says the 42-year-old producer, dressed nearly all in black himself. "This place is visually quiet." Not exactly. Mann's black-jacketed elbows rest on a huge aqua desk with red trim and a yellow base, courtesy of Milan's Memphis design group.

Three years after being hailed as the seminal force behind a revolution in the way television looks and sounds, Michael Mann dismisses the acclaim with an impatient wave of his bagel. The executive producer of "Miami Vice" and another NBC police series, "Crime Story," is happily breakfasting in the Formica splendor of Canter's Fairfax deli ("I've been in these booths writing episodes sometimes through three shifts of waitresses--14, 16 hours," he says fondly).

Will Smith is dancing around the boxing ring, throwing a few practice jabs before shooting a scene, when he notices a pesky newspaper columnist leaning against the ropes, taking notes. "Is there a journalist out there?" he shouts, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Because I need me a journalist to whup!"

It was the movies that killed John Dillinger -- Gangster No. 1 until he was gunned down outside a Chicago theater after taking in the pictures one hot night in 1934 -- and it was the movies that brought him back to life. More than once. But this time it's different. This time Michael Mann is in charge. Win, lose or draw, Mann, director of "Heat," "Ali," "The Insider" and the current "Public Enemies," is inescapably one of the masters of modern American cinema.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show, the massive annual expo in Las Vegas devoted to the hard sell of high tech, it's just assumed that the next big thing is always better than what came before. That's why director Oliver Stone managed to sound lonely in a crowded room Saturday when he suggested that, for cinema, the future just doesn't look so bright. "Watching my children and friends look at a computer screen with a movie ? with the lights on, with interruptions, trying to multitask ?

January's annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is where tech companies roll out new gadgets. The Blu-ray disc was introduced at CES in 2004, and the Xbox debuted there in 2001. Going back further, there was the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985), Pong (1975) and the VCR (1970). The 2011 edition will undoubtedly have plenty of new toys, but participants also will have a chance to stop and think about how these devices have changed the nature of entertainment.

With his arms folded, and showing just the slightest of smiles, Michael Mann stood in his office on a recent afternoon and watched the opening title sequence to the first episode of "Luck," the HBO series that will air next year and give Mann his first television directing credit in 22 years. On the screen, a montage showed racehorses, gamblers, mob men and money as the Massive Attack song "Splitting the Atom" pulsed along with its languid whispers of desire. "I wanted to nail ? in an abstract, free-form way ?

Michael Mann is a visual stylist of the highest order, but he has gotten signature performances from elite actors. He reflects on some of them: Daniel Day-Lewis in "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992) "There's a tremendous confidence that you get as an actor that you as a man or as a woman can do what your character does. If you're playing Daniel Boone and you know that you can be dumped into wilderness and have breakfast, lunch and dinner, four seasons a year, and survive, it shows.

A Penn State University panel on Wednesday cleared a climate professor of falsifying data, concealing information and misusing confidential information, but ordered a full investigation into whether he violated academic standards in researching global warming. The decision followed a preliminary inquiry into questions raised by the unauthorized release in November of more than 1,000 private e-mails written by several of the world's top climate scientists, including Michael E. Mann, the Penn State professor.

When I spent an afternoon talking with Michael Mann about "Public Enemies" last month, I asked him, half-jokingly, if he had a technical advisor that helped him with the details of John Dillinger's bank robberies. Mann is a famously intense stickler for detail. When he shot "Ali," for example, he filmed the scenes of the young champion at home at the boxer's actual house in Miami.

Hollywood is full of filmmakers who are uncompromising perfectionists, but only Michael Mann could boast that he not only has a favorite room to screen his films -- the Zanuck theater on the Fox lot -- but also a favorite row in the theater where he thinks you should park your fanny for the optimal viewing experience.

"LOOK, I'm speaking not as a director, but I think I know what most directors want out of life," says Jamie Foxx when asked about the work of his latest film boss. "They want to be recognized for their style. The minute you see the first frame of a movie that he directs, you go, 'Wow, that is a Michael Mann flick.' That is what he has captured on the biggest stage, and that's what [actors] want to be part of."

It was the movies that killed John Dillinger -- Gangster No. 1 until he was gunned down outside a Chicago theater after taking in the pictures one hot night in 1934 -- and it was the movies that brought him back to life. More than once. But this time it's different. This time Michael Mann is in charge. Win, lose or draw, Mann, director of "Heat," "Ali," "The Insider" and the current "Public Enemies," is inescapably one of the masters of modern American cinema.

Hollywood makes myths and always has, and I guess that's as it should be. Moviegoers want to be entertained, after all, so moviemakers have long burnished history to make it more entertaining. From "Birth of a Nation" all the way up to "Mississippi Burning," "The Untouchables" and the little-remembered CIA-in-Laos film "Air America," the facts of American history have marched off to battle with Hollywood myth and, sadly, at least for me, lost almost every time.