It's becoming pretty clear that Michael Mann is starting to lose it in his later years as a filmmaker. Since Ali in 2001, it's been a case of diminishing returns from Mann, to the point where his 2015 movie Blackhat failed to even get a wide release, due to a critical drubbing and a general lack of audience interest. Still, this is the guy behind Heat and The Insider, two of the greatest films of the '90s, so in 2012 Sight & Sound magazine thought it was still worth asking Mann what his top ten films of all time were. They shouldn't have bothered - along with Raging Bull and the obligatory Citizen Kane, Mann included Avatar, James Cameron's widely reviled sci-fi 'opus'. In the notes included with his top ten list, Mann wrote that Avatar "is a brilliant synthesis of mythic tropes", which "soars because, simply, it stones and transports you". Tell that to the poor cinema-goers who had to shell out extra for those crap 3D glasses just to see the damn thing, Mike.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
