Descending into Vice

Miami Vice, the series, epitomized style. You may not remember the story lines but the pastel suits that Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas wore on this 1980s series were unforgettable.
Thankfully, Michael Mann, the mind behind that series, decided to do something too many directors don't do: He went about as far from remaking the series for the big screen as he could.
The movie of the same name might bear some outlines of similarity but that's about it.
Instead, Mann has created a dark world in which good and evil blur, where doing your job and living your life has little to separate them from each other.
A few critics have blasted the movie, but I found myself drawn into the world Mann is creating here.
Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don't do much here, and you wish Naomie Harris, so good in Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest, had more time on screen. But the minimalism works, and the action set pieces have the power and the ability to shock you out of your senses.
And the mix of music and gorgeous cinematography puts you into the queasy underbelly of undercover police work, the compromises and sacrifices you make to get the job done.
It is a compelling piece of work, one I want to revisit soon.
And then there's The Descent, your basic horror flick. But it is also something more, thank goodness.
Here, we follow six women into the mountains after one has suffered a tragic loss. They go spelunking into the caves and find themselves trapped, squeezing themselves through small passageways as they look for a way out.
One by one, they fall victim to blind flesh-eating monsters.
Yet, as the movie slowly sets up in the beginning, the women are victim to much more than monsters. They have little pent-up demons of their own, secrets they have that will devastate them more than the monsters will.
And the slow beginning sets up for a psychologically tense finale, one you don't often seen in slasher flicks such as this.
What a sweet surprise.