Fiends for mojitos Katie Walsh and Blake Howard begin their drink-along podcast through every loveable morsel of Michael Mann's misunderstood masterpiece MIAMI VICE (2006).
On their addictive podcast dedicated to Miami Vice, called Miami Nice, critics Katie Walsh and Blake Howard regularly invite guests on to talk about the film. (I’ve been on, as you might imagine.) But unlike most other podcasts devoted to single titles, the guests on Miami Nice are rarely there to talk about some specific element of the picture. Rather, the podcast serves almost as a confessional. Guest after guest talks about how they became obsessed with this strange, once-detested marvel of a movie and the circumstances that led them to it. Then they (and by they, I of course mean we) try to make sense of the film and ascertain why it’s so … habit-forming. Usually, there comes a point when it seems that everybody has simply run out of words.
Katie Walsh is a Los Angeles-based film critic, journalist, podcast host, and moderator. She reviews weekly film releases for the Tribune News Service, and the Los Angeles Times, and is a frequent guest host of the Maximum Fun podcast Switchblade Sisters. Her writing has been published inVanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Playboy,The Playlist, Nerdist,Slate, The Hairpin, indieWIRE, Women and Hollywood, Town & Country, Movieline, CAP the Magazine, and Nonfics, and she frequently contributes film reviews to KCRW’s Press Play with Madeline Brand. She has covered many international film festivals as a critic and reporter, and has moderated dozens of Q&As with filmmakers and actors around LA. She is a part-time lecturer at Chapman University, teaching the Film Studies class “Practices of Writing About Film.”
Check out Twitter or Rotten Tomatoes for links to recent reviews, and use the contact form to get in touch for any writing, hosting, or moderating needs.
Series includes:
MIAMI NICE: VINDICATION w/ Jeff Zhang
Hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join the editor and podcaster at Strange Harbors, Jeff Zhang to talk about becoming a “Mann Head”, the proximity of COLLATERAL and MIAMI VICE, and mood, themes and authorial intent trumping plot any day of the week.
MIAMI NICE: loosey goosey, casual cool w/ David SIMS
Hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join the co-host of the Blank Check podcast, film critic for The Atlantic David Sims, to talk about how Michael Mann makes him happy, THE KEEP RPG game, the “Soy Boyz” and so much more.
MIAMI NICE: Outsider Art w/ Josh Lewis
Hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join the host of the Sleazoids podcast, film programmer, theatre manager and physical media guy Josh Lewis, to talk about how much he and Harmony Korine love Miami Vice.
MIAMI NICE: Peak principle w/ BRYAN EDWARD HILL
Hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join screenwriter, photographer, tv writer, and director, Bryan Edward Hill, to talk about how Michael Mann’s ability to fuse genre and philosophy without losing either’s potency and so much more.
MIAMI NICE: Choose vibes, choose eroticism w/ Fiona Underhill
Hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join pop-culture writer at The Digital Fix and features writer for Slash Film, Fiona Underhill, to talk about how wrong people are when they say MIAMI VICE (2006) looks bad and Michael Mann's overwhelming sense of romance.
MIAMI NICE: Puncturing Myths w/ Jason Fitzroy Jeffers and Brandon Harris
Hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join multi-hyphenates filmmaker-film festival director Jason Fitzroy Jeffers and studio executive-film director-critic-programmer-screenwriter-educator Brandon Harris to talk about MIAMI VICE (2006) holding an uncomfortable mirror up to the reflection of early 2000s Miami.
COLLATERAL CONFESSIONS: Coyote in the Headlights w/Cory Everett
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join the mastermind behind Cinephile Game Night & Lil Cinephile, Cory Everett. Katie, Blake and Cory discuss witnessing Katie Walsh watching Collateral, the deep bench of supporting actors and the incredible painterly quality of Mann’s digital photography.
MIAMI NICE: Sea Penis w/Jordan Harper (Pt. 2)
This is the second of two episodes where hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join screenwriter, and award-winning author of SHE RIDES SHOTGUN, THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA & EVERYBODY KNOWS, Jordan Harper. Katie and Blake talk to Jordan and discuss the concept of “utopic elsewhere”, and the Freudian reading of the “GO FAST BOAT.”
MIAMI NICE: I come to bury him w/Jordan Harper (Pt. 1)
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard screenwriter and award-winning author of SHE RIDES SHOTGUN, THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA & EVERYBODY KNOWS, Jordan Harper. Katie and Blake talk to Jordan about the episodic nature of Miami Vice, wanting to consume Colin Farrell’s ANIMA, and “Strap yourselves in” coming on the show not to praise previous guest Travis Woods, rather to bury him.
COLLATERAL CONFESSIONS: Off Sunset with Justin Liberman
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join former Michael Mann assistant during the COLLATERAL & MIAMI VICE, Justin Liberman. Katie, Blake and Justin discuss his first hand experience on the set of COLLATERAL, potential alternate titles of the film and another example of why the Cruise/Mann collaboration is truly electrifying.
MIAMI NICE: Live, Laughs, Loads w/Travis Woods
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard host of INCREMENT VICE, contributing editor at BRIGHT WALL/DARK ROOM, truly one of the most talented film critics in the world, Travis Woods. Katie and Blake unleash Travis and go on a journey - strap yourselves in.
MIAMI NICE: The Swen Cut w/Ryan Swen
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join a freelance film critic and contributor to Reverse Shot, Criterion, Film Comment and The Film Stage, Ryan Swen. Katie, Blake and Ryan discuss his love of BLACKHAT and his pandemic project to create an approximation of the infamous director’s cut and the consistent request to stoke the fires of modern MANN-dom.
COLLATERAL CONFESSIONS: His name's not even Vincent with Stuart Beattie
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join the screenwriter of Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Stuart Beattie. Katie, Blake and Stuart discuss the lengthy “shoot your shot” genesis of COLLATERAL, subverting the inherent trust of driving and being driven, before weighing in on Vincent’s full name and who Jason Statham plays in the film.
COLLATERAL CONFESSIONS: Vincent Collateral with Amy Nicholson
This episode hosts Katie Walsh, and Blake Howard join podcasting legend (Unspooled, Feature Presentation, Halloween Unmasked) and Tom Cruise scholar Amy Nicholson for the first “formalised” COLLATERAL CONFESSIONS digression on MIAMI NICE. Amy shares her controversial feelings about where Collateral fits in the Tom Cruise oeuvre before endorsing the “Vincent Collateral” character name.
MIAMI NICE: Michael Mann, Drip Lord w/Jonah Weiner
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join a contributing writer to the New York Times whose profile Michael Mann’s Damaged Men took him into the trenches of FERRARI pre-production, Jonah Weiner. Jonah, Katie and Blake discuss his experiences of his trip to Rome, director “fits”, Italian Neo-Realist movie recommendations and drinking wine in the afternoon with the one and only Michael Mann.
MIAMI NICE: It's About Love w/Manohla Dargis
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard join one of our most sought-after guests - the world’s greatest living film critic, the senior film critic at the New York Times, Manohla Dargis. Manohla breaks down Miami Vice, as only Manohla can.
MIAMI NICE: "Exceptional" w/Drew Taylor and Charles Hood (from Light the Fuse)
This episode hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard to celebrate Drew Taylor and Charles Hood’s incredible Mission: Impossible companion Light the Fuse podcast, whose 200th episode featured the one and only TOM CRUISE.
TOKYO NICE: Episode Eight "Yoshino" - Directed by Alan Poul
In this special bonus episode of MIAMI NICE aka TOKYO NICE hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard discuss Katagiri trying to land Hakuza ‘big fish’, taking meth for journalism, requesting for your bare derriere to be on screen in your rider, and so much more in the finale terrific new HBO MAX series Tokyo Vice directed by Alan Poul.
MIAMI NICE: Longer Load Sequence
In this episode, hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard welcome avid listener CK who introduces a "dossier" of footage from early Miami Vice test screenings that outlines a series of interesting alternatives to the Vice we know and love.
TV Spot Link: https://www.traileraddict.com/miami-vice/tv-spot-2
Blackhat Hacker Cut Site: https://miaminice.watch/
TOKYO NICE: Episode Six “The Information Business” and Episode Seven “Sometimes They Disappear” - Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka
In this special bonus episode of MIAMI NICE aka TOKYO NICE hosts Katie Walsh and Blake Howard discuss the simmering intensity of Ayumi Tanida’s Tozawa and Ansel Elgort’s Jake Adelstein as the worst stalker in Tokyo the in the sixth and seventh episodes of the terrific new HBO MAX series Tokyo Vice directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka.