New poem: RED MOON FANTASIA.

I saw a photo of the red moon


over the West Los Angeles sky at dusk


and suddenly my brain cued up
...

a piece of Jan Hammer-esque synthpop

just like what 80s televiewers heard

in the first two seasons of MIAMI VICE.

>

Imagine this scene:

establishing shot of

the coral-hued moon

then cut to two detectives

wearing linen suits

and Perry Ellis T-shirts

riding in a white Lamborghini

on Wilshire Boulevard

about to drive under

the metal wave sculpture

separating West L.A.

from Santa Monica.

Commenter on DEADLINE site with appropriate epitaph for HBO's LUCK.

Animal abuse (usually happening when filmmakers cut corners) is, sadly, nothing new in Hollywood.  Go back to the Golden Age of Movies, where horses were made to fall by the brutal "Running W" method, i.e. the Errol Flynn CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE from the 1930s.

Here's a definition of the "Running W'--http://www.omg-facts.com/view/Facts/46463

And it's sad to see that HBO, David Milch and Michael Mann apparently didn't do enough to protect the horses used on the now-canceled racetrack drama LUCK.  Three dead horses are three too many.

I'll turn the floor over to commenter ScottyB on the DEADLINE.com site's thread about the end of LUCK:
"It’s really amazing that such a talented crew and creators weren’t able to create racing scenes that were a combo of CGI and stock footage.  I really liked this show (but hey, I am one of the freaks who liked “John from Cincinnatti”) but they kind of deserved their fate after not finding a “work around” after the first two horse deaths.

In Battlestar Gallactica, they were able to fake space battles by showing Edward james Olmos moving ships around on a map, cutting to starfighters in cockpits and then cutting to stock battle footage.

The Mann/Milch team couldn’t figure out something similar with the thousands of hours of horse race footage in existence?"

Is Michael Mann out of step with a keep-it-simple-minded movie marketplace?

In a perfect world, one would think that a Michael Mann film about John Dillinger starring Johnny Depp would be surefire.

But the summer of 2009 is now shaping up as a replay of the summer of 1980, where Big Star films aren't guaranteed moneymakers--especially serious ones (I remember the underperformance of the prison-reform film BRUBAKER, with Robert Redford and a then-unknown Morgan Freeman in the supporting cast).

And it doesn't help that films like TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN and STAR TREK: THE DUMBED-DOWN EXPERIENCE have reached megahit status.

Here's film gossip columnist Kim Masters' take on PUBLIC ENEMIES' commercial chances and Mann's oft-remarked-on bullying behavior:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-30/public-enemies-true-crimes/full/