Michael Mann‘s Public Enemies, which premiered last night in Westwood, is glorious and levitational — the most captivating, beautifully composed and freshly conceived gangster movie since Bonnie and Clyde. It’s an art film first, a Mann head-and-heart trip second, a classic machine-gun action pulverizer third, and a conventional popcorn movie fourth. The schmucks will go “meh” and the people who are hip enough to understand what this movie is doing/has done will retire to tens of thousands of nearby cafes and talk it over for at least a couple of hours.

Public Enemies director and cowriter Michael Mann (r.), costar Jason Clarke (l.) at after-party at the Hammer Museum. Compare the eyes, noses, jawlines, foreheads — they could be father and son

Tuesday, 6.23, 11:05 pm.

(l. to r.) Beyond The Box’s Paula Silver, Universal co-president Marc Schmuger, Pete Hammond at Public Enemies after-party

The Public Enemies after-party was perfect — excellent people, great Wolfgang Puck food (mac-and-cheese with lobster) and wonderfully fragrant air coming in from the open rooftop. It’s 2 am and I need to crash. I need to return a car and catch a 10:30 am plane so that’s it. I land in NYC around 7:45 pm — another dead-to-the-world confinement day on a United Airlines jet-slash-bamboo cage.