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So last night in Portland, there was a top-secret test screening of Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. Mann’s latest doesn’t come out until July 1, but it sounds like it’ll be worth the wait: Set in the ’30s, it stars Johnny Depp as bankrobber John Dillinger, Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, and about a billion other fancy-pants stars as other historical figures.

Goddamn I wanted to go to this. No doubt Public Enemies is far from finished, but I’d still walk barefoot over shattered glass to get a peek at whatever Mann’s up to with this one. (In this case, “walking barefoot over shattered glass” involved a far less dramatic course of action–i.e., me talking to a nondescript lady who was handing out passes to to the test screening at Lloyd Cinemas on Tuesday night, and me insisting that of course I was not in any way a member of the media, and me thanking her for the passes, and then me getting heartbroken like a 16-year-old girl when I called to RSVP for the screening, only to be told it was already full.)

SO. I wasn’t able to get in, but were any of you Blogtown readers able to? I wanna hear what you thought. Not spoilers, necessarily–I recoil from those like a vampire reacts to garlic, hissing and clawing and spitting–but just general impressions. The phrase “non-disclosure agreement” has no meaning here, friends.

With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.

2 replies on “Michael Mann’s <i>Public Enemies</i> Screened Last Night in Portland. WERE YOU THERE?”

  1. I was lucky enough to go, as I have not been to a screening before and always wanted to go. As for the movie, I knew a little of what it was about after looking it up on IMDB before going, but just knowing Depp and Bale were involved I figured it would be quite good.

    Personally, I wouldn’t say it was awesome. I think it was a well done movie, but slow and a little weak at times. We saw a working cut, so the lighting wasn’t perfect and the sound was so quiet sometimes I couldn’t understand the dialogue.

    It was hard for me to give my opinion right after the screening, but after a full day, I could say I would recommend it. But I wouldn’t recommend it like Dark Knight or the Matrix BITD. It’s a good story, and Depp plays Dillinger perfectly, but the plot wasn’t as strong as I would have liked.

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