Buffa's Buffet: Michael Mann talks 'Ferrari'' and 'Heat' Pacino scene, lights fuse on sequel talk

Here are five VERY RANDOM things on my mind as the weekend begins.

Vacations are only satisfactory if the return is handled properly. You can’t return on Sunday, and return to work on Monday. That has road rage and anger management class written all over it. Allow a little more space between the return and the real return. After four days in Florida’s Longboat Key strip, I am back in St. Louis and literally sweating as I type.

Sarasota had heat, bringing in 100 degrees Tuesday. But it also has a 24/7 breeze from the ocean opposing the bake. My hometown has nothing to guard it, if only the Mississippi River could break wind that far and wide. As Princeton Heights welcomes back one of its princes (Patrick Morris’ words, not mine), let’s talk about completely random topics.

Time has to go somewhere.

5) Michael Mann drums up excitement for Heat 2

All of this seemed like a wild fantasy of mine until the writer/director dropped his first novel last summer… a sequel to his 1995 classic. In case you missed my interview with co-author Meg Gardiner or review of Heat 2, the soul of the novel follows events leading up to, and following the Los Angeles collision of master thief Neal McCauley and Special Crimes Unit Lieutenant Vincent Hanna.

That part of the book details what hardened a young McCauley into the stone-cold pro he is when Heat begins, and what turned Hanna into a midnight or less crime fighter. What most people don’t know about Mann is that he paints the history of his characters in heavy detail for every movie.

Pacino’s Vincent had a cocaine habit we never saw on film, including a deleted scene where the cop snorted some coke off a dagger held behind his back. Tom Cruise’s hitman Vincent had a complete backstory that fed certain aspects of Collateral. According to Mann, the “she had a great ass” line came from a Pacino improv take, one of many “wild” ones the director allowed its longtime muse to try out. That petrified look on Hank Azaria’s face is apparently authentic.

It’s the little things that make Mann’s films extra special, which makes his next film-first in eight years-highly anticipated. You can’t find a hotter ticket for me this winter than Ferrari, Mann’s decades-long odyssey about the legendary car maker who changed the racing game with his go-for-broke design in 1957.

Wisely, the upcoming biopic takes the Danny Boyle Steve Jobs route in picking out specific moments in a subject’s history instead of serving up the “youth to old age and suddenly go” shenanigans.

NEON

For Enzo Ferrari (played by Adam Driver), that pivotal year saw his personal and professional life crash in a ball of flames, producing something that reinvented the land of speed for people who needed triple-digit engines in their lives. Penelope Cruz plays Laura Ferrari, while Shailene Woodley portrays Lina Lardi: the two women in the vehicular Frankenstein’s world.

Mann talked about both projects, real and imagined, old and new, for Variety this week. Calling it a must read is like calling Heat a decent cops and robbers flick for a weekend time kill. If Tony Scott has any company atop my favorite filmmakers list, it’s Mann. Their movies come alive in their own unique way.

That’s the one you get for free; the next four cost you. As the Joker said, “if you’re good at something, never do it for free.”