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| .: FEBRUARY - MARCH 2005 | |
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MTV cops.That, allegedly, was the two-word phrase that inspired Miami Vice. The famous TV show, which ran from 1984 to 1989 on NBC, reinvented the staid Dragnet-style police drama by combining the moral ambiguity of film noir with music video-paced editing, flashy fashion and an original use of contemporary music that cast pop and rock stars in lead roles and based whole episodes on their songs. The result was a pop culture juggernaut whose influence continues to resonate in CSI: Miami's sun-drenched landscapes and NYPD Blue's complex characterizations, as well as music and violence-heavy video games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Executive producer Michael Mann, whose penchant for style and crime informed his recent hit movie Collateral, shepherded the series to the small screen and supervised its distinctive look. Don Johnson, a hard-partying pretty boy best known until then as the lead in the cult sci-fi flick A Boy And His Dog (1975), was cast as conflicted Miami detective Sonny Crockett. He was paired with macho B-movie actor Philip Michael Thomas, who played cocky New York street cop Rico Tubbs. Together the stylish duo took down drug dealers and smugglers while tooling around Miami in the fastest cars and seducing the most beautiful women, while the hottest Top 40 hits played in the background. Miami Vice's reliance on popular music to illustrate what occasional director Thomas Carter has called "psychological subtext" was not an original concept, but its use of contemporary hits, selected by music coordinator Fred Lyle, was. The Carter-directed series pilot, 'Brother's Keeper', set the tone, using Phil Collins' atmospheric 'In The Air Tonight' to drive the similarly moody climax. Music from U2, Honeymoon Suite, Tina Turner, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Cyndi Lauper, Peter Gabriel and countless others would crop up, and series composer Jan Hammer's theme would become a hit in its own right. Even more unique was the creation of entire episodes around certain songs. Eagles singer Glenn Frey's narrative-heavy single 'Smuggler's Blues' (taken from his 1984 solo album The Allnighter) would inspire the popular first season episode of the same name. First-time actor Frey was also cast as bush pilot Jimmy Cole and would go on to make occasional forays into film and TV. Other musicians who brightened Miami Vice's pastel-coloured world included Sheena Easton, Phil Collins, James Brown, Ted Nugent, Little Richard and The Fat Boys.
Vice's other major influence was on fashion. Costume designer Bambi Breakstone dressed the dynamic duo of Crockett and Tubbs in five to eight outfits per episode, always using approved colours like fuschia, green, blue and pink. Tight T-shirts worn under unreconstructed blazers or fabric jackets in pastel colours became all the rage as the public twigged on to the Italian styles featured week after week. Designers responded to the demand, with Kenneth Cole launching a shoe line named for "Crockett" and "Tubbs," and Macy's opening a Miami Vice department for men and boys. But if Miami Vice looks hopelessly outdated today, a cheesy if iconic relic of the '80s, think again. Michael Mann, who went on to direct A-list hits like 1995's Heat and 1999's The Insider, is returning to the fertile waters of southern Florida in a Vice movie. Rumoured to star are Irish hottie Colin Farrell as Crockett and Ray's Jamie Foxx as Tubbs. No contracts have yet been signed, but Farrell recently told the Chicago Sun-Times that Mann's script was "brilliant... It's Mann doing his heavy and tough stuff, with the kind of great dialogue you saw in Heat and Collateral." Start polishing that Ferrari Daytona Spider 365 GTS/4. Vice is still nice - Sean Plummer |
.: ALSO IN THIS ISSUE |
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BRIEF ENCOUNTERS STUFF BODY LANGUAGE MOVIE PREVIEWS ACCESSORIES CONCERT CALENDAR TECHNOLOGY SOUNDTRAX REWIND/REPLAY
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(On the flip side, Johnson and Thomas used Miami Vice's success to launch musical careers. Johnson's 1986 album Heartbeat spawned a Top 5 US hit in the title track, and featured contributions from Bob Seger, Tom Petty and Diane Warren. Far worse was Thomas's ego-driven album Living The Book Of My Life (released on his own label, Spaceship Records) and the infamous single 'Just The Way I Planned It', voted year after year as the worst video ever made on Ed The Sock's annual MuchMusic program Fromage.)
