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nedraggett · 2 years ago

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My impossible mission!

Greetings, hello. So, back in the summer of 2023 I revealed a truth: it had been almost thirty years since the first one and yet all this time I had not seen any one of the Mission: Impossible movies. Not a one. Honestly I think this is neither here nor there since everybody has any number of things you’re ‘supposed’ to be paying attention to in art/life/culture but that’s the point, everyone of us comes at that question differently. In my case, it was a combination of my never really following actors across careers – a film interests me for other reasons and the last time I saw Cruise in a first-run anything was, I’m pretty sure, Interview With The Vampire back in 1994 – and the fact that I was generally “Hm so it’s a bunch of spy movies but he does his own stunts I hear?” which still wasn’t enough.

But time went on and I kept hearing more and more people go “No wait these are actually really good, even if he is insane.” (Insert reasons why insane here, I’m sure we all know them.) So with the seventh one about out and noticing the first six were all on Paramount+ anyway (of course I subscribe, Star Trek and Drag Race, c’mon), I figured “Well let me buy a cheap ticket to see this new one and meantime let me actually watch all these older ones in the runup.” Which I did very quickly over the past week prior to that seventh one coming out, and then watched the seventh, and then I shared honest-to-god fresh thoughts about them all for you here. Fast forward two years, the eighth one is now out, and so I continue the tradition with this added-to and slightly revised post. My summaries follow, and they’re absolutely and totally accurate. Totally.

Mission: Impossible – But Not As We Know It: It’s 1996 and gosh darn it people sure are excited about email and early Zip drives! More on that in a bit. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt playing a smugfuck, but when Jon Voight is your boss sometimes things rub off. They all go to Prague to live the life of post Cold War slackers and get free food at embassy parties, but after various objections most of them are killed while trying to be leet haxorz and the like, so Ethan grabs some sushi to go before another bunch of slackers can hunt him down for his haircut, but not before telling him that they’re sure he is a bad guy who sold out and sold them out. Sure hope this issue doesn’t end up being a constant in Ethan’s career, that would be very frustrating! Ethan remembers something about god and how Emmanuelle Beart is hot (understandable, really) so that leads him to first use a janky Usenet client, then an impossibly showy and memory-eating email program, and then to tell everything to Vanessa Redgrave because why wouldn’t you tell everything to Vanessa Redgrave. After asking Ving Rhames to be an imposing funny guy and Jean Reno to be stubbly, they realize they desperately need the copy of Minesweeper stored at Langley but kept in a way that mostly results in death, which they avoid aside from a rat. But best to keep your knives strapped more closely to yourselves next time, that can cause problems! Jon Voight turns out to be Not Dead but basically argues to Ethan that French people are evil and corrupt which is why they all work for him because he too is evil and corrupt, as one becomes in his stage of his career working 30 years for the state. (Wait, I’ve worked almost thirty years for A state, hold on here.) Anyway, this is a geopolitical argument Ethan objects to, for he has a good heart, and also knows something about bibles placed by the Gideons, so it’s wise to be a theologian. So now it’s time to get on the Chunnel train, get a wind machine to the face, and then after the bad people all die, arrest Vanessa Redgrave. Rude! Time to settle into a nice long nap on a plane, except Ethan remembers too late that maybe the free flight he got on IMF Airlines had some strings attached. Back to the grind! (Real talk: obviously what at the time was controversial as such – ditching all the old characters except a recast Phelps and then reveals him to be the chief asshole this time – was secretly genius, enabling both film and eventual series to keep what was transferably iconic – disguises, handwavey tech, “Your mission should you choose” setups, general skullduggery, heists and breakin schemes, credit sequences showcasing moments from the plot itself and of course the two core Lalo Schifrin themes – and drop everything else. Honestly the quietest of all the films in ways and I will credit de Palma for that, because having everything fuck up at the start and then play the afterechoes out makes Hunt, who after all is being introduced as a character here, seem unsure at times as much as he ramps up plans; the whole London hideout sequence is a good example before we hit the train at the end. Best action sequence: even though it’s anything but fast motion, it’s pretty obviously the CIA breakin, barely any dialogue, tension ratchet to the max and the clearest callback to the original series’s inspiration, Topkapi. Uncredited role: Emilio Estevez, who gets some sharp metal to the face! Wait until President Bartlet hears about that! End theme: U2’s rhythm section when they all thought they were DJs, and they make the theme 4/4 instead of 5/4 so they should be the targets of Ethan’s next mission. Rating: 3.5 out of 5 water condensation drops.)

Mission: Impossible 2 – Slow-Motion Birds: Ethan Hunt decides crawling all over big rocks that will kill him with the help of gravity is a logically relaxing way to spend a day off, but before he can get to El Capitan and film a documentary his new sunglasses talk to him because he was supposedly in a plane that crashed earlier. But surprise! It’s Dougray Scott playing Mr. We’re Quite Alike Really You And I wanting to steal some dread disease to sell to the highest bidder so everyone can probably die including himself if he’s not careful, showing that once again maybe the IMF’s real problem is a bad hiring and HR process, something that will continue to crop up. So Ethan goes to Spain to atmospherically find a required recruit and it pretty quickly turns out that both Mr. We’re Quite Alike and Ethan have a thing for skilled and notorious thief Thandiwe Newton because come on, who across the gender and sexuality spectrum WOULDN’T have a thing for Thandiwe Newton. After that it is determined that Ethan’s hair, jacket and sunglasses means he’s required to go to where The Matrix was filmed and hit all the tourist spots, including horse races where it is vitally important to track down Brendan Gleeson and tell him that acting in In Bruges will be an excellent idea. Ving Rhames and another guy pause from telling sheep dip jokes in the Outback to conclude that escaping by kangaroo is just a myth and Mr. We’re Quite Alike must be confounded before he does bad stuff, and that this all involves breaking into a building and sneaking around while avoiding dying miserably, as opposed to just opening the front door and pretending they’re looking for the toilet. Can’t they be more practical? However, Mr. We’re Quite Alike has already inhabited Ethan’s mindset and face a few times and knows his every move, so Thandiwe decides she’s had enough of both bros and injects herself with something Ethan should have just gotten rid of more quickly but he was dicking around. Typical. Mr. We’re Quite Alike turns out to be a day trader and really wants some cash so he can invest in Beanie Babies, so Ethan and friends break into a special secret place and blow shit up and swap faces and run around, to Mr. We’re Quite Alike’s nettlement. Eventually a bunch of assholes die in cars, on bridges and riding motorcycles, sometimes all at once, leaving Ethan and Mr. We’re Quite Alike to almost but not exactly kill each other until one of them finally does, Thandiwe is convinced that cliff-diving is best done in Acapulco, and eventually Ethan and Thandiwe go hang out so they can look at the Opera House and why the fuck did the universe keep us from having them be the power couple for the rest of the films to follow, come on now. (Real talk: the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom of the series, I guess? Pretty obviously John Woo making a John Woo film and that’s why the birds, the fights, two evenly matched types in the end and so forth. But really, isn’t it kinda obvious – especially given the disguise/swapped personality motifs – that Dougray Scott should have been replaced with Woo veteran Nic Cage? The final showdown alone would probably still be talked about if it was Cage in maniac mode, he probably would have wanted to actually ride some of the bullets he shot and they would have made it work, I just know it. And, let’s face it, Cruise and Newton have a screen chemistry that WORKS. Best action sequence: the end insanity is admittedly great but I do especially like the building breakin and then subsequent fuckup, it’s simultaneously almost what you expect and ‘are you kidding me right now,’ which is key, really. Uncredited role: Anthony Hopkins as a black turtleneck sex cult guru pretending to be an IMF leader, because why wouldn’t he be. End theme: I had seriously almost forgotten that probably one of the most important things in the history of recorded music – Metallica’s freakout about Napster that brought the concept of file-sharing to the mainstream and essentially fully transmogrified the business for the literal next century – was due to their ‘are we nu-metal now?’ contribution to the end, talk about an aural beauty mark. Rating: 2.5 out of 5 physics-defying kicks because while it’s still great and all, in fucking up things with Thandiwe Newton’s experience of filming, the M:I machine lost the perfect foil and the chance to fully go into a Hollywood action equivalent to Lupin III with her as a Fujiko Mine for the rest of the series, nothing against Rebecca Ferguson you understand. Or I guess Michelle Monaghan but SPEAKING OF WHICH…)

Mission: Impossible 3 – Conventional Heterosexual Matrimony: *pulls Rainer Wolfcastle pose and shouts to the sky* “ABRAAAAAAAAAAMS!” Jesus Christ. Okay no, it’s not a disaster really but good Christ almighty. Anyway, fine: flashforward aside where we all realize “Wait can’t we just watch Philip Seymour Hoffman kill people instead?”, Ethan Hunt realizes that settling down in a polite suburb with the world’s most polite and fake-laughy engagement party happening is a really dull way to spend any more time so he goes to the local drug store and asks Billy Crudup “PLEASE get me the fuck out of here, what was I thinking.” Billy Crudup obliges but needs to let him know that he will be dealing with puzzlebox bullshit at the end of it all but such is Ethan’s desperation that Crudup says “Fine, you and Ving go rescue Felicity with the help of Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers” and before Ethan can say “Isn’t that a little on the nose for the mid-2000s” it’s off to Berlin and Felicity’s head exploding a bit, ah well. Laurence Fishburne in his floating across franchises role as Mr. Authority gets mad but Billy Crudup says nice things so obviously Billy’s the real bad guy and what do you know, turns out later he is! Doesn’t Ethan get briefed on this stuff? Anyway, newcomer Simon Pegg, having noted that Ving’s got a pretty sweet deal going, decides to join the early retirement plan on offer, though he’s still working up the ranks by creating Myspace profiles. Ultimately Philip Seymour Hoffman is just too damn charismatic and good an actor so logically he must be captured. Ethan and Rhys-Meyers need to play stereotypical Italians in traffic, to the point where I was surprised their disguise was as DHL guys rather than singing pizza delivery dudes or something, and then they and Maggie and Ving avoid stealing all the Pope’s secrets and the lists of child abusers he’s protecting or whatever in favor of an instant makeover, because it’s all Spy Eye for the M:I around here. Sadly everyone finds out that Virginia is not for lovers, unless you love blowing up bridges, and Ethan gets suspected of being bad again. He definitely has a real problem with that issue, he should talk to somebody about it, like Billy Crudup, and then he runs away because he’s good at that for sure. Anyway Michelle Monaghan got kidnapped, shanghaied if you will, so Ethan laughs politely at Hoffman’s little joke and notes that diving off a tall Chinese building is really fun at night, especially with the help of an automatic pitching machine. Sadly he eventually gets himself kidnapped and outacted by Hoffman demonstrating that he demands better of his minions, leaving Eddie Marsan to go “Wait, am I in this movie?” and Crudup to try and explain that W’s foreign policy is Good, Actually, which Ethan is not pleased with. Pegg helps Ethan run around a lot, alas Hoffman discovers that the laws of physics means he is not in fact an immovable object, and Monaghan saves Ethan with the power of love, because it makes one man weep but another man sing. (Real talk: fucking Abrams, thank god he just retreated to producing and occasional “I have an idea” stuff for the series after this because otherwise the rest of this watch would be a slog. Yes, he can make a solid entertainment at times, he’s done it more than once, but more than anything else in this series this REALLY felt like an extended TV episode of something, not even just Alias. It didn’t help that Michael Giacchino’s music added a lot of sap in the solo-piano moments that are waaaaaaay of their time and place, and I’m mildly surprised a cover of “Hallelujah” didn’t happen at some point. Still the machine itself functioned and while it was still going to need some improvements, I guess it started to figure exactly what M:I as continuing star vehicle needed to be – it’s weird to realize that this IS indeed the only George W. era film of the bunch and it sure does feel like his second term on any number of levels. Also, thank god there were delays on production because Simon Pegg’s role was originally cast with Ricky Fucking Gervais, and I don’t care if Pegg’s not quite your thing because imagine if we had THAT gurning fucking mug to deal with in the rest of the series. Best action sequence: thankfully the whole deal in Rome is pretty engaging, and we get the delightful moment of Philip Seymour Hoffman literally having to act as Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and thus climbing around and doing shit, the film is honestly worth it for that, and RIP to him once more. But honorable mention to the counterintuitive move of not showing anything inside the Shanghai skyscraper once Ethan gets in. Uncredited role: nobody this time but yeah that WAS Aaron Paul wasn’t it. End theme: WOW speaking of mid-2000s, a Kanye track with Twista and Keyshia Cole? Perhaps they realized after this that just going with random cuts and otherwise sticking with the score in the actual end credits was the solution. Rating: 2 out of 5 confused Greg Grunbergs.)

Mission: Impossible 4 – I Climb Thing: Hmm, a movie set in Hungary, Russia, Dubai AND Mumbai? Why this won’t be a problematic watch in 2023! In a surely not symbolic move at all, Sawyer from Lost runs out of a building into the street and is immediately killed by Lea Seydoux. I like this movie already! Ethan Hunt meantime is prepping mentally for a nude fight scene with Viggo Mortensen at some point but is interrupted by Paula Patton and Simon Pegg going “WOULD YOU JUST” so he concludes Dean Martin is just the thing for a prison riot. (Seems like it.) Turns out Paula is sad about Sawyer, but before anyone can ask her to take a psych eval, they are asked to break into the Kremlin for thievery reasons, the concept of ‘too much too soon’ having escaped the IMF. Sadly our Big Bad just beat them to the punch and then proceeds to blow up a big chunk of the Kremlin, which rather irritates the Russian government, leading Ethan to excuse himself before facing a full medical exam without anesthetic and with certain instruments. An actual IMF Secretary explains some more things to Ethan but puts himself in the line of a bullet completely by accident, isn’t that the way! Jeremy Renner insists it wasn’t him because he would use a bow and arrow but Ethan isn’t amused and everyone meets up to go over the fact that they’re now disavowed and without resources except for a train car that would supply most modern governments and the ability to end up in Dubai just like that, very handy. There’s a big shady deal going down but it had nothing to do with the Qatar World Cup bid, whatever do you mean, they’re over there. Regardless, Ethan seeks to make sure Sepp Blatter doesn’t immediately get the launch codes to destroy the DOJ Anti-Corruption Unit, but not before he shows everyone how a real man washes hotel windows. Everyone then seeks to double cross everyone else, which only makes sense, though Lea sadly has irritated Paula some and thoughts are exchanged, except Jeremy goes “Ah fuck it” and uses a gun even though it’s very uncivilized. Ethan runs after a bad guy who is another bad guy, then they go talk to another bad guy who is a good guy who acts like a bad guy to deal with a good bad guy. Heads spinning, they fly to Mumbai and finally Ethan gets to be James Bond! Or at least wear a tux. Dudes get negged, other dudes die, cars drive, people run around, and the bad guy persuades a Russian sub to destroy San Francisco, which causes me consternation I admit. Happily Ethan really has honed his ‘I just need one second, really’ approach, so only the Transamerica building is nicked, but the missile lands right in the water where my sis and her whaleboat rowing crew often practice and that would have been tragic! Hey fuck you Ethan Hunt, do better next time! (Real talk: okay, whatever groundwork Abrams sorta laid down obviously gets perfected here, Brad Bird and team just make this thing sing, something indicated by returning to a version the opening credits style of the show and the first movie, and while the fine tuning of the ensemble wasn’t quite there yet it was much closer than it was, while the full sense of “Oh wait, Tom Cruise really MIGHT actually die” as a marketing hook was now absolutely in place. A quietly genius move NOT to have the chief villain be a big presence, instead someone always just about slipping from their grasp up until the end; meantime, having everything constantly trip them up – even after the Kremlin/Secretary thing, the mask machine breaks down, everyone arrives at the Burj too early, etc. etc. – allows for more thinking on the fly instead of just being a well-oiled machine. While there were plenty of typical comedy moments here and there in a formulaic ‘gotta break tension’ way in the first three films, I honestly believe it’s Cruise’s “No SHIT” moment in the Burj which points the way to the rest of the series knowing how to make comedy actually work from there on in. There’s just enough distance to maybe be able to place it as a mid-Obama era film now in retrospect but it still feels like we’re in the actual sense of these films knowing what they are at last based on where everything would go, as opposed to the formative years. In essence, this was the point in my watch where I went “Oh I get it now” in full, and the fact that the movies started rolling out more regularly, however driven by Cruise going “Wait I’m not getting any younger,” makes total sense. Best action sequence: Dubai obv., part climbing madness, part caper, part shootout and part “Can a man actually outrun a sandstorm?” Uncredited roles: Tom Hollander going “If Hopkins can do it so can I” and Ving Rhames and Michelle Monaghan going “Uh we’re still here, thanks.” Rating: 4.5 out of 5 insufficiently charged climbing gloves.)

Mission: Impossible 5 – Fasten Your Nonexistent Seatbelts: Ethan Hunt suddenly realizes he doesn’t need to check any luggage and happily just makes the last seat on a flight out, though sadly there’s no real time for any drinks service. Annoyed, he decides to leave with their cocktail mixes, for which he is thanked. Suitably relaxed, he goes to a London record store to pickup a Crosley turntable for his Record Store Day purchases, accidentally resulting in the backing up of a bunch of pressings for starving younger bands. As it happens, Ian Curtis is there already looking for a particular bootleg pressing of early demos by Warsaw, so when Ethan scratches the last remaining copy Ian makes his feelings known, adding “All you agents beware.” Lady Jessica almost gets a chance to use the gom jabbar on Ethan but various Sardaukar claim precedence, making Jessica realize that Ethan is perhaps actually the Kwisatz Haderach instead. In Washington, wouldn’t you know it, Ethan’s being accused of being a contrary asshole AGAIN, doesn’t his union step up for him? OG Jack Ryan says the IMF fucks around too much instead of doing proper agent stuff like getting on a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic while Jeremy Renner desperately hopes he won’t be asked about his side gig with the Bourne group. Simon Pegg has had enough of his regular performance reviews and agrees that he needs to relax but confuses a Vienetta with Vienna, but Ethan doesn’t mind and promises him some Phish Food later. Lady Jessica, having been told by the Bene Gesserit to stop fucking around with the Face Dancers and vice versa, complicates matters as do two random Teutons but the show must go on, except the explosive climax is unplanned. Ving Rhames and Renner are too old for this kind of shit but they’re off to Morocco where Ethan really really wants to finally ride a sandworm. Lady Jessica tells Ethan that fear may be the mind-killer but that Ian Curtis desperately wants the master tape for Unknown Pleasures kept in one of the secret Fremen water storage tanks. Everyone proceeds to betray and/or chase everyone else, a perfect excuse for eventually remaking Easy Rider at 200 mph. Thankfully Simon Pegg made a DAT copy but the master tape itself is erased, leading Ian Curtis to swear revenge on behalf of Martin Hannett, kidnapping Pegg and forcing him to listen to muddy Crawling Chaos bootlegs and thus requiring Ethan to deal with the UK Prime Minister as ultimate keeper of all Factory records, except the movie came out a couple of weeks after the Brexit vote so most would have just given up David Cameron to him anyway. Ethan taunts Ian Curtis by driving up the prices of OG vinyl pressings of “Transmission” on eBay as he and Lady Jessica force him to go to the center of the city where all roads meet, looking for them. In the end Ian Curtis is lured into a third stage Guild Navigator’s breathing chamber on Lady Jessica’s suggestion and is captured, as the confusion in his eyes says it all. (Real talk: the Christopher McQuarrie years begin and pretty much all the pieces are about in place now in terms of a core ensemble with moments of variety after; if Bird set the template and tempo for where it all should go then McQuarrie had a perfect handle on how to make all the implicit nonsense make perfect sense in the moment, all while once again finding new ways to kill Tom Cruise or nearly so. One of the best signs came early: the opening credit sequence is now truly a ‘greatest hits’ series of clips of what we’re about to see as per past show and first movie practice, quick, immediate, gives away nothing, sets expectations up. Rebecca Ferguson absolutely brought some necessary energy as well, she and Cruise clearly click in a ‘yeah our characters could fuck’ sense that Newton absolutely had with Cruise and Monaghan just doesn’t (even though it’s clearly shown in 3 that they’re the only characters that did, go figure!). Sean Harris as our chief baddie and implicit Blofeld to Hunt’s Bond is another sharp move, a classic cold English villain who you absolutely want to see get fucked up more than once. Alec Baldwin mostly grouses but hey. Best action sequence: oh Casablanca easy, from the planning the raid on the storage facility to the end of the motorcycle chase, barely any pauses, the whole thing’s a marvel. Rating: 4.5 out of 5 lathe-cut terrorist messages.)

Mission: Impossible 6: Free Mustache Rides – Ethan Hunt is trying to enjoy a nice relaxing dream but Ian Curtis keeps telling him “This is the way, step inside,” and it’s not helping. Ethan is told that three pawnshop balls have been repainted and are being auctioned to the highest bidder, which just shows you how tough the economy continues to be. Sadly the usual exchange of niceties between him and his crew and a generic arms dealer turns out to be an issue due to a bunch of raincoat-wearing Curtis followers insisting there’s a third Joy Division album somewhere. After Ving Rhames skins Wolf Blitzer alive and stuffs Simon Pegg into his pelt, they fool the Norwegian Unabomber and it’s off to Pari–no wait a minute, Angela Bassett employs her low voice against Jack Ryan’s rasp and insists that for the balance between the Big Two that Superman come along, since Jeremy Renner is somewhere upstate checking out on a family that mysteriously dissolved. This Superman, using the cover name Mr. I’m Obviously Going To Betray You, seems more Bizarro-like when he leaps out of a plane and reenacts that one The Dark Knight Rises image with the lightning but Ethan demonstrates that there’s more than one way to crash a party. Working their way through a crowd of pleasures and wayward distractions trying to find Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter Vanessa Kirby of the House of Vanessa, Superman explains he’s trying for a Tom of Finland look but a bunch of French bros laugh in the bathroom and ask when he’s going to the Kingsman auditions and things get complicated. Luckily Lady Jessica is back, and wants to know if Ethan’s just trying to fold space again. Turns out Kirby is in deep cover as amoral blonde Princess Margaret and everyone’s trying to kill her, we can’t have that! She tells Ethan and Superman they have about twenty four hours to spring Ian Curtis if they want the pawnshop balls, and while Ethan realized he wanted time this puts things in perspective. Happily everyone is distracted just right except when they aren’t and a bunch of French people on all sides of the law are angry, time to go! Ian Curtis gets sprung by Simon Pegg, who asks him to sign the Sordide Sentimentale single since they are in France and all, while Lady Jessica shows that Fremen needle guns are good but lasguns might have been better. Logically since everyone’s in Paris they go to London, presumably inside the train this time. OG Jack Ryan is irritated and everyone leaves but Superman confronts Ian Curtis and says “I tried, please believe me, I’m doing the best that I can!” Whoops! Turns out Simon Pegg wanted Superman’s autograph too, but the Curtis fanatics break in after a further triple double dog dare cross and ol’ Jack is left stuck to a flagpole by his tongue, but thank you for your service. Ethan gets his jogging in for the day but Superman flies off to say he stands for truth, justice and the American way but he means the Zack Snyder version so he’s just going to kill everyone instead. Time to crawl around Kashmir before this happens and Michelle Monaghan is there! She’s doing good things! She’d like to catch up over coffee but Ethan notes that he has to pick up his DoorDash delivery assignment within fifteen minutes or he’ll lose his star ratings. Grabbing a helicopter to chase down Superman, who has a competitive route, he leaves Lady Jessica and Simon Pegg to fight Ian Curtis, who complains that the noose around the place is cheap irony, while Michele chats with Ving a bit while adding “Should that be ticking?” Various Things Happen but in the end Ethan remembers “Oh hold on I DO climb rocks don’t I” and taunts Superman by quoting Blues Traveler’s “Hook” at him, which shows he is no better than Benjamin Bratt in Poker Face, the fiend. Still, all three sections of the team simultaneously score Taylor Swift tickets, the world is saved from a fakeout ending, Ian Curtis is left to be a middle-aged man with the weight on his shoulders, Michelle gives Ethan her blessing to apparently make suggestive crysknife jokes to Lady Jessica, and everyone’s happy forever! [Editor’s note: this was later shown to be false.] (Real talk: I really do get what everyone was saying now about how, in a real upending of expectations when it comes to open-ended franchises starting big and petering out, Fallout might well have been the best of the movies to that point. It felt like everyone had everything absolutely down by now, from McQuarrie to the stunt teams to the actors, all the comic moments landed even better than in the last one and those were pretty solid, and for the first time points of continuity from the previous film all have an impact, whether it be the performances of Harris, Baldwin and Ferguson in particular or things like returning composer Lorne Balfe’s musical score, which is easily some of the best of the whole sequence and for once shows a composer working to contrast the Schifrin themes rather than simply shade and riff on them – the various well-employed fakeout/dream sequence sections get soundtracked with this melancholy and ominous chill, a solid move. Hell, even the call back to the rock climbing of M:I 2 made sense because it didn’t have to be explained at all, and it settled the Monaghan arc too in a way that was both obvious for plot mechanics and strangely sweet. Though I kept expecting her new guy to be an Apostle undercover, which was probably the point. Henry Cavill and Kirby were both perfect additions to the overall pool in turn, and the point a friend of mine made the other day that this movie feels the starkest of the bunch – like there’s a tiny group of people at the forefront and all the huge city populations around them are distanced and serene – is apt. Best action sequence: honestly this almost felt like a response film to Mad Max: Fury Road because it barely seemed like it broke for anything. For once the ending felt absolutely earned rather than a ‘we gotta end it because the script is over’ necessity but the actual best sequence is probably the Paris crash/chase/crash etc. deal, though shout out to the bathroom fight as the first near wordless sequence since the CIA breakin in the original movie. Rating: 5 out of 5 Cavill sleeve tugs.)

Mission Impossible 7: And Under The Polar Cap Bind Them -- Somewhere in the Arctic a Russian submarine attempts to reenact The Hunt For Red October except nobody told them that they’d be playing the part of the actual sub that was blown up, a minor detail. This is less important than our introduction to the newest ensemble cast member, back after a lengthy retirement, Sauron! Sauron, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give him a round of applause. Ethan Hunt is in Amsterdam chilling so logically he’s got the munchies, only to be told that Lady Jessica hijacked a spice shipment and the Guild is pissed. Near Sietch Tabr, Lady Jessica busies herself with speeding up the irrigation process with some fresh fertilizer, but Ethan suggests letting it lie fallow for a bit. At ComicCon, Hall H is full of bloggers trying to figure out how to use typewriters while backstage there’s an argument about if they can do anything now that the strike’s on. Ethan asks everyone to pardon his stinkbomb but meantime deals with the guy who was chasing after him back in the first movie. He’s his boss now, time for wacky hijinks! It’s straight back to Dune with Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, only for them to realize that they can’t escape ComicCon no matter how hard they try because Deathstroke, Mantis AND Agent Carter are all there stealing and/or stalking them and each other, not to mention the members of an official US antimasking squad who seem bitter that not everyone agrees with the science they really did study themselves. Turns out Mantis isn’t interested in feelings so much as other people feeling dead, which Deathstroke approves of, while Agent Carter has fallen prey to kleptomania, it’s one of those days! Off to Italy where, when in Rome, Ethan does what the Romans do and becomes an impossibly polished and fashionable lawyer just like that, while Deathstroke shows that it’s always vital to carry out research. Agent Carter is narrowly sprung from her plan to simultaneously enter all the national competitions for next year’s Eurovision all at once, but then pretty much every moving vehicle in the city and the occupants and riders therein decide that she and Ethan will jaywalk no more. A typical day in Rome, granted, but their sweet ride seems a little sour while Mantis is very annoyed someone cut her antennae off and wants to explain this with weapons. Agent Carter decides to check in on whatever Hank Pym is doing these days but Lady Jessica is back, having had a refreshing time on Caladan. Turns out Princess Margaret is throwing a big party in Venice so who wouldn’t go there next, and she’s invited everyone! Ethan, Lady Jessica, Agent Carter, Deathstroke, why even Mantis is there but she’s dressed as Harley Quinn and the ComicCon crew doesn’t know what to think. Sauron shows up as well demanding the smallest of things, a mere trifle, and Deathstroke reveals he’s actually the Witchking of Angmar and would like to help kill everyone, but Ethan realizes that the DJ is driving him nuts and he needs some fresh air, a touch the antimaskers still don’t get. Harley Mantis insists it’s actually an Adam Ant tribute but Ethan argues she seems more My Chemical Romance, but sadly Lady Jessica gets stabbed with a Morgul-blade. Ving needs to update his antivirus software while Agent Carter decides that maybe this bunch isn’t as Hydra-ridden as SHIELD. An attempt to combine Murder On The Orient Express with a gender-flipped The Prince and the Pauper proceeds to play out, while Ethan insists to Simon Pegg that he has a totally legit FastPass for the newest Disney ride, though he’s still arguing some of the details as he goes. Wait, a fight on top of a train again, at least there’s no tunnel this timAAAAADUCKDOWNQUICK! The Witchking rues the day magic was invented, Ethan and Agent Carter are relieved that Mantis appreciates a good turn done, and elsewhere Sauron wonders if a tower would be a better hiding spot. Tune in next week year for more! (Real talk: so having taken all the other films in in a rush I did wonder how exactly the pacing would work for this one as a two-part story, and I think they handled it pretty smartly; it’s not as high a peak as McQuarrie’s two previous efforts but it doesn’t have to be as a result. Instead of the near wall-to-wall rush of the past two, there’s a much more deliberate pace here, which oddly enough (but, if the original plan of this being the capping off of the series holds, logically as well) is one of several callbacks to the original film throughout. Henry Czerny as Kittridge most obviously, also all the sleight of hand stuff, and easily most notably Ilsa Faust’s death, the first time a team member (as such) has died since said first film. There’s one other interesting move where, for the first time in the entire series, we get a sense of what Ethan Hunt was like before the IMF -- it’s all fairly tropey, but by not exploring that at all until now it actually feels like an earned moment. My sense of what’s happening is that this is the big setup and the concluding film will be full-on action madness, and the tinges of haunted chill in the last one have a stronger resonance here -- the introductory sequence for Hunt is pretty damn bleak for a start, and after Faust’s death you get a sense of everyone going through the motions for a bit, not as actors, but as people hit with a sudden loss would do, and the film takes a little time to understandably breathe. The absolutely killer sense of how to make comedy work continues: the entire Rome chase scene is just as amazing as that as it is straight action, while the capping insane stunt as teased in the trailers, Hunt going off the cliff, is also the culmination of a ridiculously perfect dialogue between Cruise and Pegg, and I literally laughed at how the stunt ended, all while the tension in the train scenes was building up. And yet, none of it undercuts the action, the sense of time running out -- indeed, so good was all that that when the cliff setting first appeared I was actually surprised by it, even though it was so heavily featured beforehand as noted. I joke about Sauron but seriously, not only is the Entity just one big eye, and also a bit of a One Ring type thing too, the whole setup where instead of letting other governments control Ethan will set out to destroy it is VERY Lord of the Rings, so I think it’s more key to all this than might be guessed. But oddly enough, perhaps, I will argue there’s a specific Bond film you all should go back and check out -- the first one I ever saw, and Roger Moore’s best tougher turn wih the character, 1981′s For Your Eyes Only. That too notably has a Macguffin centered on advanced tech on a wrecked ship, there’s a car chase with a very unsuitable car early on, and how the film ends feels not dissimilar to where this likely will be leading in the conclusion next year. Just a hunch! When it comes to newer cast members, Pom Klementieff is mostly a wordless killer and whether or not you buy the end twist as such, hey, but she does a good enough job, while Esai Morales -- been great to see more of him recently, he did a solid supporting turn in The Master Gardener earlier this year, and he has one of the most underrated speaking voices in acting -- is just a coolly commanding bad guy in the right mode, solid casting and I think better as a more grizzled and equal figure to Hunt than Nicholas Hoult would have been, as was first the case. Hayley Atwell pretty obviously is the main get and you do get a sense of a calm spark with Cruise but, given the film’s plot, no more than that for now, and she holds her own as someone who clearly has done a lot of shit but quickly realizes she’s dealing with a whole new level of it. While I’m a touch suspicious that there’s a feeling of rotating actresses and in out with Rebecca Ferguson’s departure after this -- I will absolutely miss her but I’m glad we had enough of her as we did -- that comment I made back in my M:I 2 review about how Thandiwe Newton could have made the series of a hell of a Lupin III riff? Well here we are with another accomplished career criminal and hell the Rome car chase is centered around a yellow Fiat 500, what more of a nod could you have! Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis pretty clearly feel escaped from a more typical buddy cop setup but it doesn’t break anything, and I do like the office politics grouchiness from Whigham about the IMF ‘clowns.’ Meantime kinda great to see Kirby get to do the playing-someone-playing-someone-else big turn this time, and I’m totally thrilled to see she’ll be back in part two, she’s a fun elegant chaos factor character. Best action sequence: you know, I’m not entirely sure! Again I think the actual best ones we’re going to get in part two so it felt a hair held back at points, but the Rome chase sequence was both amazing and funny as noted, the alley fight with Pom K. pretty brutal if relatively quick, and the train tension/chase/fight/bomb buildup to wrap it up was a smart spot to end on. Rating: 4 out of 5 cigarette lighters.)

[EDIT: IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE NEWEST MOVIE YET, STOP READING HERE, Y’KNOW?]

Mission Impossible 8: Precioussssss -- Ethan Hunt has decided to give himself a bit of a break and get into collecting old VHS tapes, only the sound is kinda screwed up on one of them and appears to be talking to him, and then it takes out the janky JVC player he’d scrounged online. But apparently Sauron has decided he really wants to reboot WarGames big time and this is causing some furrowed brows. Naturally this leads Ethan to find Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames while busking on the London underground -- again! Taking a quick break to free Harley Mantis from having to hear endless variations on “The Blue Danube” and inviting the younger antimasker from last time to consider proper considerations of what a virus can do, they go back to Old Blighty and then Ethan and Agent Carter get either double- or triple-crossed, or took out one team and then got taken out, or something like that. Whoops, Deathstroke is back and he’s kinda annoyed and wants revenge on Sauron, and Ethan had better help or else Agent Carter’s fashions will get smudged! (Though Deathstroke’s more fully zaddy than ever, as he does.) After various portentous exchanges on personal philosophy, marital relations and the necessity of theft, Ethan decides that suicide is a solution and--psych! He means OTHER people should die, since they keep trying to kill him. (Reasonable, under the circumstances.) Deathstroke, duly annoyed, takes it upon himself to force Ving to fix a broken electronic Rubik’s Cube while he runs off with Ving’s portable playlists for his house sets. That’s not very nice! Ethan then decides to take a break in an isolation chamber for a while to get his head together but it would be so much better if the constant messages from Sauron about tourism in South Africa weren’t regularly implanted in his retinas. He then tells the team that’s about time to consider just going ahead and holding the annual retreat without him for once, though he’ll join in for the Outward Bound part. Ethan attempts to assist with the Rubik’s Cube but Ving shoos him away and says he was about ready to finally retire, but please, watch where you step when you exit the ride. The older and crabbier antimasker then is all “Oh hi Ethan, you won’t believe who my dad is!” and indeed we don’t but unfortunately we can’t leave the plane we’re all on so it’s off to the one place nobody would think to look for anyone: West Virginia. There we confirm that Angela Bassett has gotten a pretty nice promotion! (I hear there’s a four year review.) Accompanied by Kittridge once again, a bunch of advisers and secretaries, plus Nick Offerman and Mark Gatiss -- it’s always Mark Gatiss, isn’t it -- she listens to Ethan spin the most ridiculous and convoluted scenario anyone has ever heard anywhere in the entire history of the planet. Logically, her response is to practice Ye Olden Arts of Calligraphy and Wax Seals, M’Lord. Ethan is whisked away to a carrier group in the Pacific and whaddaya know it’s beloved streaming character Rebecca Welton being butch except she insists on saying things like “So you’re saying we’re in...the DANGER ZONE!” Ethan quickly begs off before she can start singing The Love Boat theme, while Everyone Else goes and checks out a polar island that turns out to hold original copies of the first three games in the Ultima series. Well hey it’s the guy who had that copy of the CIA’s Minesweeper game from thirty years back, he’s married with dogs now! Sadly Russian neighbors are visiting and mistranslate what a fire sale means, so Agent Carter decides it’s time to race the Iditarod in order to retain a sense of cosmic balance. Meantime, Ethan has switched from Top Gun to Hunt For Red October in an attempt to crossbreed franchises while stripped down to his skivvies, though it’s a pity the one autograph hunter wanted to carve his name in Ethan’s skin. Deciding that going for a swim is the best idea, Ethan shows that it’s always good to keep keys, flares and Ziploc bags with you in case of unforeseen incidents like potentially live torpedoes and definitely dead bodies. His attempt to join the Polar Bear Club does go somewhat awry but Everyone Else including the new island recruits show the value of planning ahead for certain scenarios, specifically the ones avoiding death. (Well, some forms of it.) Anyway, taking the travel advice from earlier, Ethan and crew are off to South Africa to see the world’s only useful computer server farm, apparently (because nobody knows about it) oh and did we mention that this whole time Sauron has been idly breaking into nuclear weapon systems just because? He’s so good! Wait he wants to kill everyone and rule...nothing? Sauron really needs therapy at long last here, all that time floating around shapeless will do that to a fallen Maia. Before Ethan and crew can check in to their four star salt mine, Deathstroke reappears and explains that bombs are bad, so please, if only Ethan could just give him that portable solid state drive, he absolutely needs to download all the FLACs of 90s pirate radio techno mixes he can. Hey wait it’s Kittridge and the older antimasker, here to save things for the US Gubmint once more! (Namely, save the Entity for themselves, must they always be so greedy?) But then Deathstroke’s team attacks them and it’s all fun and games and blood down here. Wait, should that be ticking? Several piles of bodies later, it’s up to Harley Mantis to save Simon Pegg from death courtesy of a metal tube and booze, for Agent Carter to tilt the pinball machine juuuuust right to ensure an extra life for everyone, for the other team members to collectively run faster than Usain Bolt ever could under less than optimal conditions, for Angela Bassett to go “What we if we just flicked it all on and off except we just turn it off” and for Ethan to reenact what Snoopy and the Red Baron would have been like crossed with the UFC. Deathstroke ends up with a splitting headache, Ethan does a hard reboot of the portable drive, Sauron never realizes he should have seen that old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode about what happened with Professor Moriarty, manly/cool/righteous handshakes are exchanged, Ving speaks from beyond the grave while Ethan stares at cows and everyone goes back to London so Agent Carter can give Ethan a bitchin’ glowstick for the next rave. That is all that we want out of life, isn’t it? (Real talk: well if this isn’t meant to be the last film, they sure weren’t doing a good job in hiding it. Clips, memories and callbacks all over the place, most obviously to the first one but I was amused at how hard they leaned into, of all things, a key plot/Macguffin detail from the third one -- the third one! THAT one? -- to retrofit the general Entity plot here. (Though I will say this: since that film specifically didn’t show Cruise heisting said Macguffin in Shanghai, as I noted above, they had to create a sequence for it thus ensuring everything fit together. Which, in its own silly way, does work!) It’s left open ended enough that if the idea that a new team now exists formally consisting of Cruise, Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Greg Tarzan Davis will continue going forward, they could, but honestly this really does feel valedictory in a ‘exactly how can you top this’ vein, with its flashbacks, the sense of a full on career over the course of the entire cycle considered, etc. etc. I will say that it succeeds in its brief: it really should have been punchier -- longest movie of them all by far and didn’t need to be -- by the time everything was heading into the final act I realized I was wound up -- sweaty palms even! -- so hey, bring it. Not bringing back Rebecca Ferguson and actually killing off Ving early on -- the true great survivor of this entire cycle until now besides Cruise, appearing in all the films one way or another -- actually raised some stakes, and I even thought Pegg was going to buy it for a sec there, though it sure is weird to realize that he is the new long term veteran of this whole thing. Cruise is again Cruise, what to add -- it is kinda great that the whole insane and manic intensity of Hunt as a character combined with his hyperprecise planning and deeply convoluted summaries of bizarre scenarios and the like gets actively called out on more than once, but the hero’s gotta hero and then disappear into the shadows once again. And boy he REALLY wants to show that he’s still reasonably jacked more than once, there there, I’m sure you are, sir. Everyone else major beyond Pegg having already been introduced in the previous film or earlier kinda means there’s equally little to say there, there’s some good humor beats, good action ones, and everyone’s perfectly adequate to the general pattern of the franchise -- though I will single out one hilarious moment where instead of seeing what Cruise does to a couple of bad guys we see Atwell reacting to it instead with increasingly incredulity, then cut to what might as well be a Warner Bros cartoon ending with knocked out bad guys, if with more blood. Sure, why not! Esai Morales is underused, frankly -- he appears at the beginning and at the end, in essence, and he’s kinda missed during the middle stretch, a properly charismatic villain that the good ol’ Entity just can’t be. There’s not much in the way of new character introductions beyond Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, a very good Tramell Tillman and a couple of other sorts -- though shout out to Katy O’Brien playing a take-no-shit Navy diver on the sub, I would be down with her as a future team member, frankly. In keeping with the flashback impulses I do especially appreciate the crazy deep cut of bringing back Rolf Saxon from the very first film -- indeed, sent to Alaska like Kittridge said -- and Lucy Tulugarjuk as his wife, though not deeply sketched out, plays a solid ‘seems nice but will merrily conk you on the head for your bullshit’ sort. McQuarrie does the job, Lorne Balfe does fine, it’s a big entertainment, and if it maybe should have been released last summer as planned rather than the murky mess of a world that we’re in now, well, that’s timing for ya. And -- once again -- you can never knock that amazing theme in combination with the opening credits, it always works whenever deployed. Rating: 4 out of 5 USB drives.)

In sum and speaking regularly: so yeah, whatever impulse Cruise, producers and everyone else had early on and whatever their thoughts were about how it might go, basically finding the sweet spot between the James Bond model and the Jack Ryan technophilia was a clear stroke of commercial genius, and rather than being beholden to an original show’s requirements/feel they blew everything up to make it their own while never truly abandoning the idea that people will happily shell out for damn good capers writ large. The Schrifin themes absolutely help anchor everything; the main theme is so perfectly balanced between being playful and being intense that on top of being an instant earworm it always conveys the sense that we’re here to be entertained first and foremost. It’s the Bond theme factor certainly and just as powerful. Ethan Hunt is barely a shell of a character, more just a creature as monomaniacal at succeeding in his job as Cruise himself is, so it’s a symbiotic fit. In terms of Hollywood action franchises he’s now played this character in more movies than any of the Bond or the Ryan actors, or Willis as McClane or Stallone as Rambo or Schwarznegger as the Terminator etc, and is as much a superhero as anything in DC/Marvel but, not seen to be as ‘class’ as Bond and actually stumbling and limping at times, retains just enough of humanity, even if more like an alien in a human costume, which would be appropriate. There’s enough ‘are we the bad guys?’ moments going around that you can feel duly critical about the IMF (and implicitly ‘Western interests’ if you will) but of course the story and the perceived audience never wants them to be REALLY bad, it’s all those other ones trying to fuck up Ethan that are the problem. Ving Rhames is the comfortable set of shoes for everything, and that Luther seems to have more of a life than Ethan is so not surprising; Simon Pegg turned out to be a perfect accidental X factor, the ‘goofy’ guy who isn’t a hateable comic relief type. Once they finally realized they absolutely needed someone like Rebecca Ferguson too and then cast her, the rest was gravy; transitioning from her to Hayley Atwell brings a different energy but still created a solid new dynamic. And then after? Guess we’ll see!

#mission impossible

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nedraggett · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on 2018

No need for me to be fancier than that! And yeah I realize that nobody should be using Tumblr any more but until I figure out a proper revive of my old Wordpress site, this will do for now.

So anyway: I wrote this up for a private email list reflecting on the end of the year in terms of things I especially enjoyed culturally. Well, why not share it?

My year went very well — steady at work and in life, being 47 means more aches and pains but you have to learn to live with it. The state of the world is something else again of course and we need not spend more time on the blazingly obvious. That said, the history bug in me has been constantly intrigued by the slow drip of the investigations (and revelations) and were it all fiction, I’d be thoroughly enthralled instead of quietly apprehensive, of course. November did provide some partial relief on that front so bring on the new year. In terms of my own written work, nothing quite equalled my heart/soul going into last year’s Algiers feature for NPR, but my two big Quietus pieces this year — on Gary Numan’s Dance and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings — were treats to write, while my presentation on the too-obscure Billy Mackenzie at PopCon was a great experience.

In terms of music this has been one of the most concert-heavy years I’ve spent. Even having moved to SF in 2015 I only did the occasional show every so often — there was so much going on (even in a local scene lots of long-timers say has been irrevocably changed) that I was almost spoiled for choice, and part of me also just wanted to relax most nights. But deaths like Prince’s and Bowie’s among many others served as a reminder that there’s no such thing as forever, and you never know what the last chance will be. More veteran acts than younger ones in the end for me — greatest missed concert regrets this year included serpentwithfeet, Lizzo, Perfume Genius and Emma Ruth Rundle among the younger acts, while being ill when Orbital came through will be a lingering annoyance, still having never seen them live. But the huge amount of shows I did see outweighed that, ranging from big arena stops like Fleetwood Mac to celebratory open-air free shows like Mexican Institute of Sound to small club sets by folks like Kinski, Six Organs of Admittance, Kimbra and many more, including, for the first time in years, a show in the UK, specifically a great performance by Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera. If I absolutely had to grade my top picks among shows, Cruel Diagonals, Johnny Marr, Wye Oak, Peter Brotzmann/Keiji Haino, John Zorn/Terry Riley/Laurie Anderson, Laurie Anderson again separately, Nine Inch Nails, VNV Nation, Jarvis Cocker, Beak and, in terms of no real expectations turning into utter delight and thrills, a brilliant set by Lesley Rankine under her Ruby guise, with Martin Atkins on drums. Best damn combination of righteous ire, hilarious raconteurism and compelling, unique approaches to how performance can work I’d seen in a while. (As for recorded music in general, uh, endless?)

TV, as ever a bit sporadic, with a few things on my to-do list — still need to catch The Terror for sure, and what I saw of The Alienist looked good; I love both books so I need to see how it all worked out, similarly with the just-dropped version of Watership Down. Pose I definitely need to catch up with since it sounds like Ryan Murphy stood out of the way to let the best possible team do the business on it, but my real unexpected delight of a show this year was also Murphy-based, American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. While not down the line perfect, it was absolutely more compelling than not, and in fact at its best was a shuddering combination of amazing music cue choices, a reverse structure that helped undercut any attempt at making Cunanan seem sympathetic or an antihero, and, at its considerable best, a ratcheting up of terror and horror that a friend said was almost Kubrickian, and I would have to agree. And, frankly, Darren Criss really did the business as Cunanan, a controlled and powerful turn. Only a few of us seemed to be following it at the time, but when it scored all those Emmys, then while it was as much a reflection of Murphy’s status, it honestly felt well deserved. Meantime, you’ll pry my addiction to all the RuPaul’s Drag Race incarnations from my cold dead hands but it’s the amazing online series that Trixie Mattel and Katya do, UNHhhh, which remains my comedy highlight of the year, with at least a few jaw-dropping/seize up laughing every episode. (Kudos as well for Brad Jones’s The Cinema Snob, ten years running online and still funny as fuck while digging up all kinds of cinematic horrors.) Also, tying back into music a bit, late recommendation for something you can only see on UK TV/streaming so far, but get yourself a VPN and seek out Bros: After the Screaming Stops, in which the two brothers in the late-80s monster hit pop band Bros (never had any traction here but pretty much owned the entire Commonwealth and beyond) try for a comeback. It’s an unintentionally hilarious and harrowing portrait of two twins who have a LOT of issues, have clearly been through a LOT of therapy, but are still…not quite there. UK friends said it was a combination of Spinal Tap, Alan Partridge and David Brent and they were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

Movies, less specifically to choose from — I remain an essentially sporadic populist when it comes to what I see in theaters, but I can say for sure that Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse is a hell of a thing and will almost certainly prove to be a real year-zero moment down the line. Possibly the most affecting watch was Bohemian Rhapsody, in that I also saw this in the UK — in Brighton, which besides making me think of the band’s song “Brighton Rock” is also notably the country’s most LGBT-friendly city; those I was with felt the movie’s themes, successes and flaws/elisions deeply, and the constant discussion of it for the next few days was very rewarding. As for books, John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, delving into Theranos and the amoral duo behind it, was properly enraging and compelling, while Beth Macy’s Dopesick, if not perfect, nonetheless adds to the good literature on the opioid crisis, while as ever indirectly calling into question who’s getting the focus and care now as opposed to in earlier times and places. My favorite music publications as such probably remain the two I most regularly write for, The Quietus and Daily Bandcamp, while Ugly Things is the print publication that I most look forward to with each issue, and am never disappointed.

Podcasts now consist of a lot of my regular cultural engagement, kinda obvious but nonetheless true. Long running faves include My Favorite Murder — Karen and Georgia are an amazing comedy team who have figured out how to reinterpret their anxieties in new ways — The Vanished, which at its best often casts a piercing eye on how official indifference from law enforcement is almost as destructive as their more obvious abuses (recent discovery The Fall Line does this as well, even more explicitly), Karina Longworth’s constantly revelatory Hollywood histories You Must Remember This, Patrick Wyman’s enjoyable history dives on Tides of History, my friend Chris Molanphy’s constantly excellent investigations into music chart history Hit Parade, the great weekly movie chats by MST3K vets Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu along with Carolina Hidalgo on Movie Sign With the Mads, and The Age of Napoleon, which really has hit my history wonk sweet spot. New to me this year was It’s Just a Show, a really wonderful episode by episode — but not in exact order — deep dive into every episode of MST3K ever, by two fun and thoughtful Canadian folks, Adam Clarke and Beth Martin. (Adam also cohosts a new podcast, A Part of Our Scare-itage, specifically looking at Canadian horror. It’s not just Cronenberg!). Among the excellent one-off series this year: American Fiasco by Men in Blazers’ Roger Bennett on the failed US World Cup attempt in 1998, Dear Franklin Jones, a story about the narrator’s experience growing up in a California cult and how his parents came to be followers in the first place, and the Boston Globe’s Gladiator, their audio accompaniment to their in-depth story of the life and ultimate fate of Aaron Hernandez. Finally, totally new series this year that quickly got added to my regular listening: American Grift, a casual and chatty look at various scams and schemes, overseen by Oriana Schwindt, The Eurowhat?, a running look at the Eurovision competition throughout the year from the perspective of two American fans, and The Ace Records Podcast, an often engaging series of one-off interviews with various musicians, fans and so forth by UK writer Pete Paphides (I highly recommend the interviews with Jon Savage and Sheila B). Hands down my two favorite totally new podcasts of the year were The Dream, a more formal story of American grifting in general hosted by Jane Marie — this first season’s focus was on multilevel marketing, and Marie and company’s careful way of seemingly backing into the larger story makes it all the more compelling and ultimately infuriating, especially in the current political climate — and the hilarious Race Chasers, a RuPaul’s Drag Race-celebrating podcast by two veterans of the show, Alaska and Willam, loaded with all kinds of fun, behind the scenes stuff, guests and an easy casualness from two pros that strikes the perfect balance between going through things and just shooting the shit. Returning podcast I’m most looking forward to next year: the second season of Cocaine and Rhinestones, hands down. Check out the first season for sure.

And there ya go! Keep fighting all your respective good fights.

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nedraggett · 8 years ago

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Run ragged

It didn’t work. And while I wasn’t surprised by that, I did want to tease out why, at least for myself.

I honestly was openly skeptical of Blade Runner 2049 for a while, so I can’t hide my bias there. I wasn’t totally ‘salt the earth and never mention it again’ then and am certainly not saying that now. But each new trailer left me feeling more ‘uh...really?’ and the explosion of immediate praise from many critics even more so. I wasn’t contrarian, and neither did I think groupthink was at work, but I suspected a massive wish fulfillment was.

So I generally avoided reactions after that and figured I’d wait for things to die down a bit -- even more quickly than I might have guessed, seeing its swiftly collapsing commercial performance over here. My Sunday early afternoon showing near here was about maybe 2/3 full on its third weekend, so it’s found an audience, but I’m in San Francisco -- I expected an audience there. Enough friends have posted theater shots where they were the only person in the room to know this is dying off as an across the board thing, and never probably was.

I’m not glad it failed, but I’m not surprised -- in fact, being more blunt, I think it deserved not to be a hit. The key reason for me played itself out over its length -- it was boring. It’s a very boring movie. It’s not a successful movie except in intermittent moments.

That said, of course not everyone agreed (I’ll recommend as an indirect counterpoint to my thoughts this piece by my friend Matt, which went up earlier today). And boredom is not the sole reason for me to crucify it -- there were a variety of things one can address. I’ll note two at the start since they could be and in a couple of cases I’ve seen were particular breaking points for others:

* The sexual politics of the movie, however much meant to be in line with the original scenario as playing out a certain logic, were often at least confused or hesitant within a male gaze context, at most lazily vile beyond any (often flatly obvious) point-making. I often got a mental sense of excuses that could be offered along the lines of ‘well...you know, it’s supposed to be like that in this world, it’s a commentary!,’ which is often what I’ve seen in positive criticism of, say, Game of Thrones. Maybe. That said: not that any sort of timing played into it, but the fact that Harvey Weinstein’s downfall began two days before release, and the resulting across-board exposure and on-the-record testimonials from many women against far too many men, couldn’t really be escaped. Further, since the fallout was first felt, after all, in the film industry, seeing any film, new or old, through the lens of what’s acceptable and who gets through what hoops -- and who is broken by the experience -- is always important. It’s not for nothing to note that the original film’s female lead Sean Young got shunted into the ‘she’s crazy’/’too much trouble’ file in later years where male actors might perhaps find redemption; the fact that she played a small part in the new film made me think a bit more on her fate than that of her character’s. (Another point I saw a few women brought up as well -- having a key to the whole story be pregnancy and childbirth as opposed to infertility wasn’t warmly received.)

* It’s a very...white future. Not exclusively, certainly. But people of color barely get a look in, a quick scene here, a cameo there. A black female friend of mine just this morning said this over on FB about the one African American actor whose character got the most lines, saying:

to have the only significant black character be this awful, creepy man who seemed to be an "overseer" type to the children, was really uncomfortable and another perfect example of scifi using an 'other' narratives or american slave narrative but within a white context. We all know what it's supposed to represent and so it's just straight up lazy writing at the end of the day and exploitative.

Meantime, another sharp series of comments elsewhere revolved around how a film perhaps even more obviously drenched than the original in an amalgamated East Asian imaginary setting for the Los Angeles sequences barely showcased anyone from such a background. Dave Bautista certainly makes an impact at the start, but after that? The fact that I can think of three speaking roles for actors of that (wide) background in the original, as in actually having an exchange with a lead character, and only one in this one, maybe two if you count the random shouting woman in K’s apartment building, is more than a little off. Add in a ‘Los Angeles,’ or a wider SoCal if you like, that aside from Edward James Olmos’s short cameo apparently has nobody of Mexican background, let alone Central American, in it, and you gotta wonder. My personal ‘oh really’ favorite was the one official sign that was written in English and, I believe, Sanskrit. Great visual idea; can’t say I saw anyone of South Asian descent either.

Both these very wide issues, of course, tie in with the business and the society we’re all in -- but that’s no excuse. And there are plenty of other things I could delve into even more, not least my irritation over the generally flatly-framed dialogue shots in small offices that tended to undercut the grander vistas, or how the fact that Gosling’s character finding the horse carving had been telegraphed so far in advance that it was resolutely unremarkable despite all the loud music, etc. My key point remains: boring. A sometimes beautifully shot and visually/sonically striking really dull, draggy, boring film.

The fair question though is why I think that. A friend in response to that complaint as echoed by others joked what we would make of Bela Tarr films, to which I replied that I own and enjoy watching Tarkovsky movies. Slow pace and long shots aren’t attention killers for me per se; if something is gripping, it will be just that, and justify my attention. Meanwhile, the original film famously got dumped on for also being slow, boring, etc at the time, and plenty can still feel that way about it. Blade Runner’s reputation is now frightfully overburdened and certainly I’ve contributed to it mentally if not through formal written work; it succeeds but is a flawed creation, and strictly speaking the two big complaints I’ve outlined above apply to the predecessor as much as the current film, it’s just a matter of degrees otherwise. But if you told me I had to sit down and watch it, I’d be happy to. Tell me to do the same with this one, I would immediately ask for the ability to skip scenes.

I’ve turned it all over in my head and these are three elements where things fell apart for me, caused me to be disengaged -- not in any specific order, but I’m going to build outward a bit, from the specific to the general, and with specific contrast between the earlier film and the new one. These discontinuities aren’t the sole faults, but they’re the ones I’ve been thinking about the most.

First: it’s worth noting that the new film brings in a lot of specific cultural elements beyond the famed advertising and signs. Nabokov’s Pale Fire is specifically singled out both as a visual cue and as an element in K’s two police station evaluations, for instance. Meanwhile, musically, I didn’t quite catch what song it was Joi was telling K about early in the film but a check later means it must have been Sinatra’s “Summer Wind,” featured on the soundtrack. Sinatra himself of course shows up later as a small holographic performance in Vegas, specifically of “One For My Baby,” while prior to that K and Deckard fight it out while larger holographic displays of older Vegas style revues and featured performers appear glitchily -- showgirls, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis in his later pomp, Liberace complete with candleabra. All of this makes a certain sense and on the one hand I don’t object to it.

But on the other I do. Something about all that rubbed me the wrong way and I honestly wasn’t sure why -- the Nabokov bit as well, even the quick Treasure Island moment between Deckard and K when they first talk to each other. The answer I think lies with the original film. It’s not devoid of references either, but note how two of the most famous are used:

* When Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty introduces himself to James Hong’s Hannibal Chew, he does so with a modified quote from William Blake’s America: A Prophecy. (This fuller discussion of that quote and how it was changed from the original is worth a read; it’s also worth noting that Hauer brought it to the table, and wasn’t planned otherwise.) But he doesn’t do so by spelling out to the audience, much less Chew, that it is Blake at all. You either have to know it or you don’t. If, say, we saw Batty clearly holding a copy of the book -- or maybe more intriguing, a copy in Deckard’s apartment -- then that would be one thing...but it becomes a bit more ‘DO YOU SEE?’ as a result. Clunkier, a bit like how Pale Fire worked in the new film.

* Even in the original soundtrack’s compromised/rerecorded form, I always loved the one formally conventional song on the original soundtrack, “One More Kiss, Dear.” I just assumed as I did back in the mid to late 80s, when I first saw the film and heard its music, that it was a random oldie from somewhere mid-century repurposed, a bit of mood-setting. It is...but it isn’t. It’s strictly pastiche, a creation of Vangelis himself in collaboration with Peter Skellern, an English singer-songwriter who had a thriving career in his home country. It just seemed real enough, with scratchy fidelity, a piano-bar sad elegance -- which was precisely the point. You couldn’t pin it down to anything, it wasn’t a specifically recognizable element. It wasn’t Elvis, or Liberace, or Sinatra.

This careful hiding of concrete details -- even when the original film showcased other clear, concrete details of ‘our’ world culturally, but culturally via economics and ads -- is heavily to the original’s benefit, I’d argue. There’s a certain trapped-in-baby-boomerland context of the elements in the new film that, perversely, almost feels too concrete, or forced is maybe a better word. It’s perverse because on the one hand it makes a clear sense, but on the other hand, by not being as tied to explicitly cultural identifiers -- whether ‘high’ literature or rough and ready ‘pop’ or whatever one would like to say -- the original film feels that much more intriguingly odd, dreamlike even. I would tease this out further if I could, but it quietly nags -- perhaps the best way I could describe it is this: by not knowing what, in general, the characters, ‘human’ or not, read, listen to, watch in the original, what everyone enjoys -- if they do -- becomes an unspoken mystery. Think about how we here now talk about what we read, listen to, watch as forms of connection with others; think about how the crowd scenes in the originals feature people all on their own trips or in groups or whatever without knowing what they might know. We know Deckard likes piano, sure, but that suggests something, it doesn’t limit it. We know K likes Nabokov and Sinatra -- and that tells us something. And it limits it.

My second big point would also have to do with limits versus possibilities, and hopefully is more easily explained. Both films are of course amalgams, reflections of larger elements in the culture as well as within a specific culture of film. The first film is even more famously an amalgam of ‘film noir’ as broadly conceived, both in terms of actual Hollywood product and the homages and conceptions and projections of the term backwards and forwards into even more work. It is the point of familiar reference for an audience that at the time was a couple of decades removed from its perceived heyday, but common enough that it was the key hook in -- the weary detective called back for one last job, the corrupt policeman, the scheming businessman, the femme fatale, etc. etc. Set against the fantastic elements, it was the bedrock, the hook, and of course it could be and was repurposed from there, in its creation and in its reception.

2049 is not a film noir amalgam. Instead, it’s very clearly -- too clearly -- an amalgam of exactly the wrong place it should have gotten any influence from. By that I don’t mean the original film -- above and beyond the clear story connections, its impact was expected to be inescapable and as it turns out it was inescapable. Instead it’s an amalgam of what followed in the original’s wake -- the idea of dystopia-as-genre -- and that’s poisonous.

Off the top of my head: Children of Men. The Matrix. Brazil. Her. Battlestar Galactica, the 2000s reboot. A bit of The Hunger Games, I’d say. A bit of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (not a direct descendant of the original at all, of course -- George Miller always had his own vibe going -- but I caught an echo still). The Walking Dead. A fleck of The Fifth Element. Demolition Man, even, if we want to go ‘low’ art. But also so many of the knockoffs and revamps and churn. There could be elements, there could be explicit references, there could be just a certain miasma of feeling. But this all fed into this film, and made it...just less interesting to me.

Again, the first film is no less beholden to types and forebears. But the palette wasn’t sf per se, it was something else, then transposed and heightened and made even uneasier due to what it was. 2049 has to not only chase down its predecessor, it has to live with what its predecessor created. But did it have to take all that into itself as well? It becomes a wink and a nod over and again, and a tiring one, a smaller palette, a feeding on itself. And it’s very frustrating as a result, and whatever spell was in the film kept being constantly rebroken, and the scenes kept dragging on.

This all fed into the third and final point for me -- the key element, the thing that makes the original not ‘just’ noir, the stroke of genius from Philip K Dick turned into tangible creations: the replicants, and the question of what it is to be human. Humanity itself has assayed this question time and time over -- let’s use Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a start if we must for the modern era, it’s as good as any. We as a species -- if we individual members can afford the time and reflection at least -- seem to enjoy questions of what makes us ‘us,’ and what we are and what we have in this universe. This much is axiomatic, so take that as read.

The replicants in the original film -- famously thought of differently by Dick and Ridley Scott, to the former’s bemusement when they met and talked for their only meeting before the latter’s death -- set up questions in that universe that are grappled with as they are by the characters in different ways. Between humans, between replicants, between each other, lines always slipping and shading. Their existences are celebrated, questioned, protested against. But we don’t live in these conversations for the most part, we tend to experience the characters instead; it’s often what’s unsaid that has the greatest impact. And if the idea of a successful story-teller is to show rather than tell, then I would argue that, again, flawed as it can be, the original film succeeds there be only telling just enough, and letting the viewer be immersed otherwise. (Thus of course the famous after the fact narration in the original release insisted upon by the studio, and removed from later cuts to Scott’s thorough relief.)

By default, that level of quiet...I would almost call it ‘awe’...in the original can’t be repeated with the same impact. The bell cannot be unrung, but that’s not crippling. What was crippling was how, again, bored I was with the plight of the characters in 2049. How unengaged in their concerns I generally was. One key exception aside, I never bought K’s particular angst outside of plot-driven functionality, and frankly they often felt like manikins all the way down from there. Robin Wright’s police chief had some great line deliveries but the lines were most often banal generalities that sounded ridiculous. Jared Leto’s corporate overlord, good god, don’t ask. As for Joi and Luv, Ana de Armas and Sylvia Hoeks did their best, and yet the characters felt...functional. Which given the characters as such would seem to be appropriate, but their fates were functional too. Of course one would do that, of course the other would do that, of course one would die the one way, of course the other would die that way, and...fine. Shrug.

So, then, Deckard? Honestly Harrison Ford had the best part in the film and while I found him maybe a bit more garrulous than I would have expected from the character, he did paranoid, wounded and withdrawn pretty damn well. Not to mention comedy -- the dog and whisky combo can’t be beat, and it’s worth remembering his nebbishy ‘undercover’ turn in the original -- and, in the Rachel scene, an actual sense of pathos and outrage. I bought him pretty easily, and it made everyone else seem pretty shallow. When K learns about the underground replicant resistance and all, the bit about everyone hopes they are the one was nice enough, but the rest of it, clearly meant to be a ‘big moment,’ was...again, dull, per my second point about the limited palette. A whole lot of telling, not much showing, and such was the case throughout. It was honestly a bit shocking -- but also very clear -- to myself when I realized how little I cared about humans or replicants or any of it at all towards the end. It all felt pat and played out, increasingly unfascinating, philosophy that was rote. It could just be me, of course -- maybe this is an issue where the stand-ins of replicants versus realities of robots and AI, along with the cruelties we’re happy to inflict on each other, means the stand-ins simply don’t have much of an imaginative or intellectual grip now.

Still, though, I’ll give the film one full scene, without Ford. As part of his work, and to answer the questions in his own head, K visits Ana Stelline, a designer of replicant memories. This, more than anything else in the film outside of certain design and musical elements, felt like the original, or something that could be there. It introduced a wholly new facet -- how are memories created for replicants? -- while extending the idea that instead of one sole creator of replicants there are multiple parts makers with their specialized fields in an unexplained (and unnecessary to be explained) economy. Stelline’s literal isolation allows for space and the limits of communication to be played out in a way that makes satisfying artistic sense, and Carla Juri plays her well. It builds up to an emotional moment that sends K into an explosive overdrive that is actually earned, and Juri’s own reaction of awe and horror is equally good. But -- even better -- the scene ends up taking a wholly new cast later in the film, when more information reveals what was actually at play, and what K didn’t know at the time, and makes the final scene a good one to end on in turn (and by that I mean back in her office, specifically).

The problem though remains -- one scene can’t make a film. One can argue that it’s better to reach and fail than not at all, but it’s also easily argued that one gets far more frustrated with something that could have worked but didn’t. I don’t think an edit for time would have fixed the film but it would have made it less of a slog while not sacrificing those visual/sonic elements that did work; it still would leave a lot of these points I’ve raised standing, but it would have gone down a little more smoothly, at least. But sometimes you’re just bored in a theater, waiting for something to end.

#blade runner #blade runner 2049

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