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THE FILM STRIP: Foxx brings ‘Miami Vice’ to the screen; Farrell responds to rumors; Gregory Hines and Mabel King live again on DVD; Year’s biggest hip hop party
*Having done the films “Ali” and “Collateral” with director Michael Mann, actor winner Jamie Foxx moseyed up to the director at Muhammad Ali’s birthday bash and suggested he think about turning the “Miami Vice” TV series into a feature film. Mann’s initial response: take a hike.
A couple of years down the pike and with an Oscar under his arm, Mann reconsidered Foxx’s reasoning for the film adaptation.
“I wanted to do it because I thought it was a hot idea,” Foxx said at a press conference with Colin Farrell and Mann. “When I talked to Michael Mann I said, ‘Why don't you do “Miami Vice,” you did it as a television show? I can just see [he imitates the theme music], and then we do Jay-Z. We do this, we do that.’ And he's like, ‘Get out of here.’ But after enough of going up to him and saying, ‘Look, I really think that this is a great opportunity for you, to take a commercial hit, a franchise, and bring it to the screen’, [he relented].”
Mann wants everyone to know if things don’t turn out as expected, Foxx is the culprit.
“First of all, it’s all Jamie’s fault because he talked me into this starting in 2002 at Ali’s birthday party,” Mann chuckles. “But the proposition that really became really exciting for myself and then for all of us was the idea of really getting into undercover work - what it does to you, what you do to it, and the whole idea of living a fabricated identity that's actually just an extension of yourself, and doing it in 2006, doing it for real, and doing it right now.
“Which, if you think about it, then defines a whole bunch of stuff. You're not gonna have crocodiles or alligators, you're not going to have sailboats. You're not gonna have nostalgia. You're going to do it for real as a big picture. It's going to be R-rated because you do dangerous work in difficult places, where bad things happen. You have relations with women. There's sexuality, there's language, and that became an exciting proposition. But it started with the real function, for actors and directors, myself as well, of what is undercover work for real, what is that stuff.”
Farrell chimes in, “Here, here. Yeah, you know, as we two boys have said, it was Jamie's idea, and then I talked to Michael. I'd been talking to Michael for a couple of years about finding something to do together, and then this came along. It was just the perfect opportunity.
“I didn't really think much about good ol' Don Johnson,” the actor who suited up as his character Sonny Crockett in the television series. “If I was to think about the early Crockett, would've been in f**king trouble, because I would've been arguing with them over the suits that I wanted to wear…where’s my crocodile, and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, Jamie said he met Don in a restaurant in Los Angeles.”
And what did Johnson say to Foxx you ask?
“You can tell Colin Farrell when he’s through with my jock strap to give it back,” Foxx recalled. Farrell also mentioned he left a message for him before filming, but Johnson never returned his call.
Rumors of bad blood on the set were also addressed at the press conference.
“They wrote that me and Jamie were killing each other and I hadn’t even met him yet,” Farrell retorted.
“The article was nonsense,” Mann interjected. “That was one story. And then while finishing filming in Peru, there was the story of a shooting. Now that absolutely happened, you know. We prepared flawlessly for our security precautions. A policeman was stopped by uniformed Dominican military, which was our outer perimeter of security.”
“And Michael shot that,” Foxx enthused. “It will be on the DVD version.”
IN THE CRATES:
Out this week on DVD are the epic tales of the supernatural, “Amazing Stories,” produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. The two-dozen classic episodes of “Amazing Stories: The Complete First Season,” spotlights some of Hollywood’s best-known talent (Gregory Hines, Mabel King, Tim Robbins, Kevin Costner, John Lithgow, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen) and directors (Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Timothy Hutton). Seeing Gregory Hnes in “The Amazing Falsworth” reminds us of the great void left when he lost his battle with cancer. And bad behavior is not a problem for Mabel King in “The Sitter.” These are just two stories among the remaining 22 exciting tales.
Digging in the crates, I also came across two DVDs that are worthy of viewing. “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party” not only harbors one of comedy’s funniest stand-ups, but a host of hip hop performers. Among the party performers are Kanye West, Mos Def, the Fugees, Common, Pras, Dead Prez, Freeway, Lil’ Cease, the Roots, Bilal, Big Daddy Kane, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, John Legendm Kool G. Rap, Tariq Trotter, Jill Scott and Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, to name a few.
Also in the crate is the hilarious, romantic comedy “Something New.” The film bombed at the box office because of bad marketing. Instead of bringing people into the theatres, the trailers turned people away. The lead character’s relationship with her father is just as important, if not more so, than her relationship with her boyfriend. Much is made about the fact Black fathers are missing from the househould. Not only is Kenya McQueen’s (Sanaa Lathan) father present, but very much a part of her life. There are also other Black male professionals such as Blair Underwood, Donald Faison and Mike Epps.
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