rate the last movie you saw

[Eric Paddon]

(they basically take a piss all over the original series, its characters and concept -- no wonder why Martin Landau refused to make an appearance).

Which is the reason I never saw the first one or any of the other films in the series. I don't have anything against a film version charting its own course but when you go out of your way to diss the original, that is uncalled for. "The Fugitive" was its own concept as a movie with almost nothing that truly echoed the TV series stylistically (except for a moment showing Ford walking all by himself with his jacket lapels turned up. That evoked the image of David Jannssen "on the road" again) that at the same time wasn't running down the original.

[AndyDursin]

Which is the reason I never saw the first one or any of the other films in the series

I understand your frustration, yet I wouldn't write off the entire series just because of that one film. The sequels have gotten markedly better -- and really since GHOST PROTOCOL (#4) they've playfully, and much less pretentiously, evoked the spirit of the original series. You can pick up the series from there (there are hardly any recurring plot elements, so you can skip the initial three with ease) and IMO they are well worth seeing from that point onwards.

Very much looking forward to #6 this week -- allegedly one of the better action films of recent times (and apparently the best installment of this series altogether).

It took Cruise a while to get the formula right but the last 3 MI films have been, for me, highly entertaining, and much more satisfying than the DOA likes of Daniel Craig's James Bond snoozers SPECTRE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

Personally I found the M:I script so convoluted as to be unintelligible. I stuck it out until end though, suffering through the most ludicrously inane, preposterous climactic sequence ever put on film -- a helicopter flying through the chunnel? And it's explosion hurling Cruise safely back to the train? Oy vey!

It was dumb, but at least it was fun and had some energy to it -- which the rest of the picture IMO was lacking. When Elfman's score kicked into the Schifrin theme during the climax my blood finally started pumping -- just took too long to get there!

[Monterey Jack]

Agreed on most of your points but I think your DePalma bias adds 2 unwarranted points to the score.

I will admit I am an addict for De Palma's style, and to see it done on a lavish studio budget scale was a rare treat. Say what you will about the man, but he's made FAR more good/great films than poor ones, and his meticulous approach to designing and realizing suspense setpieces is peerless. The recent doumentary De Palma is a must even if you're not as enomored of his films as I am...he's a tremendously witty storyteller who is fairly unpretentous about his manner of making films. Maybe a lot of his films are "cold" in a way (Mission: Impossible certainly isn't a film that appeals to me on much more than a polished technical level), but he's certainly not incapable of delivering a movie that stirs the emotions as much as one's visceral responses (films as varied as Carrie, Blow Out, The Untouchables, Casualties Of War and Carlito's Way have moved me to tears). Even films as wildly uneven as Body Double, Snake Eyes and The Black Dahlia look and sound so great I'm willing to accept the plot holes and contrivances and poor performances.

[AndyDursin]

I respect that, I'm just not a big fan of his. I appreciate his technical attributes, and like a handful of his pictures, but his body of work is wildly inconsistent and includes more outright disasters/disappointments than quality films IMO.

[Monterey Jack]

Hey, agree to disagree, m'man. I just think De Palma's filmography will be looked back at with more respect whenever he passes on. Even his stinkers you can immediately identify as specifically his work.

[AndyDursin]

Hey, agree to disagree, m'man.

I will allow it...this once.

[Monterey Jack]

-Mission: Impossible 2 (2000): 8/10



-On the heels of Brian De Palma's knotty, overly-plotted predecessor, director John Woo's kinetic follow-up is a far sleeker act of filmmaking, with screenwriter Robert Towne re-contextualizing the great 1946 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Notorious into a dangerously simmering love triangle between Tom Cruise's returning Ethan Hunt, his former IMF rival Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), and the comely thief Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton) who Cruise falls for during a tempestuous recruiting mission and, to his dismay, finds he must send her back into the arms of her former lover in order to suss out the location of a deadly pathogen. Awkward...!

-Whereas De Palma's style tends to hew towards a tight -- almost suffocating -- precision when it comes to setting up the arena for one of his trademark suspense setpieces, Woo's style is all florid, gleaming surface, with his typically hypnotic use of FAST!!!slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-wFAST!!! action choreography and liberal use of varying film speeds. All of the director's usual stylistic fetishes are on enthusiastic display (leather coats flapping in luxurious slo-mo! Sunglasses! Photogenic showers of sparks! White doves!). So long as you're a fan of his style (as I am), M:I-2 offers up plenty of sleek, shallow pleasures.

-It's not just Hitchcock Towne's screenplay is riffing on, with blatant lifts of scenes from 90's blockbusters like Last Of The Mohicans and Darkman. Was he just renting random stuff from Blockbuster when he had the occasional bout of writer's block?

-Hans Zimmer's obnoxious rock score does the film no favors...instead of Elfman's sly approach skittering insidiously underneath De Palma's luxurious camerawork, Zimmer just bludgeon's Woo's already over-the-top visuals with his usual "band" of collaborators laying on the drum machines and wailing, Gladiator-era vocals by Lisa Gerrard that have dated the movie poorly.

-Cruise has the best chemistry with a female lead in the series with the outrageously gorgeous Newton. They have a smoldering banter that makes the plot convolutions have a glaze of authentic romance.

-Scott is a total stiff as the film's heavy-lidded heavy, his syrupy Scottish accent not delivering much in the way of charisma or menace. And to think...had this film's schedule not run over by a month or so, he would have played Wolverine in the first X-Men movie instead of the producers of that film having to settle for an Aussie nobody named Hugh Jackman. Thanks, scheduling difficulties...!

-Generic Aussie Dude as Cruise's helicopter pilot is probably the most forgettable team member he's had during the course of the series.

-Is this the only M:I film to take place almost entirely in one location? One wonders if the Australian locations were some kind of tax write-off.

-Cruise's hair is his best of the series, endlessly flowing in blow-dryed perfection during every slow-motion punch and kick.

-Ving Rhames' Luther Stickel once again is given little to do but sit in a van and deliver platitudes like, "Look out, Ethan", and "Be careful, Ethan". It's a thankless role across the entire series, although here he at least gets to blow up a car with agrenade launcher at one point ("Oh, I'm mad now...!")

-Like Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom and Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Mission: Impossible 2 is often dismissed as the "bad" middle child of the M:I franchise, and I've never understood why. It's shallow, thinly-written and overdoses on immediate post-Matrix "cool" affectations, but it's also stylish, exciting, fast-paced and...okay, "cool". I've always dug this movie, and hopefully a wave of dissections of the franchise as a whole leading up to the release of Fallout will allow a re-appraisal of this film.

[AndyDursin]

Damnation Alley (1977) 5.5 of 10

=Bargain Blu-Ray purchase and my first viewing of it in many decades. I really wish the could have found some of the scenes shown on TV since I still have a clear memory of a post-apocalypse scene of Peppard trying to talk with a drunken and depressed Murray Hamilton, who in the theatrical cut is seen on-screen watching the devastation, referred to briefly and then is glimpsed for one frame when the base goes up in convenient conflagration. You just don't get an actor like him for a film and then waste him like that.

Clearly they didn't intend to waste him, but axed his role. And this is most definitely a movie with a lot of problems -- a bad script and poor direction, and Fox just decided to cut their losses by paring the film down. Can't say I blame them.

Your post Eric inspired me to finally watch my Signal One (UK) Blu-Ray, which is mostly the same presentation as Shout's, but has a higher bit-rate and an excellent, additional commentary by Paul Talbot, who has done many of the Charles Bronson commentaries. He talks at length about the production history and sequences that were either cut or re-arranged (the animation with the planet was written to come at the start), and talks about how Heston and McQueen wanted too much money (Peppard sounds as if he was the 5th or 6th choice in lol).

I will say as unbelievable as the ending is -- it's my favorite part of the film. Goldsmith's score is lovely and provides a nice close to the film. The original story (something like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK on wheels) sounds like it had a lot of promise -- in fact I'm surprised nobody has tried to remake it -- but the movie misfires on pretty much every conceivable level.

[Eric Paddon]

McQueen was in that phase of his life where after "Towering Inferno" he was just turning down everything offered to him in sight. They never would have had a chance getting him. Heston, who frequently mentioned films he turned down in his journal I don't think ever mentioned that one (though he did mention turning down "The Omen") though the fact he'd worked with Jack Smight on "Airport 1975" and "Midway" I'm sure might have accounted for why an offer got made.

I have a Tonight Show from 76 with Peppard as a guest during the shooting (has the moustache). I should go back and look at it again to see what he said about the film specifically.

That sounds like an interesting commentary they had. Too bad it wasn't on the Shout release since I would have loved to have heard more those stories of what scenes were cut/rearranged. Yeah, I get that they pared down Hamilton to nothing, it just astonishes me they would do that since they should have been savvy to realize that having a key cast member from "Jaws" couldn't have hurt from a promotional standpoint.

[Monterey Jack]

-Mission: Impossible III (2006): 7/10



1.) TV wunderkind J.J. Abrams makes his big-screen directorial debut with this serviceable series entry featuring Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt --attempting to leave the spy game and settle down with new love interest Michelle Monaghan -- brought back into the fold via the hunt for a mysterious "Rabbit's Foot" being sought by a sinister arms dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman)

2.) Abrams hadn't yet shook off his television affectations with his virgin feature...it's TeeVee writ large, a double-length Alias episode with mediocre action choreography and dreadful, piss-poor shakey-cam lensing. Compared to the technical precision of De Palma or Woo, Abrams' work here is like a slap in the face, and mars an otherwise enjoyable experience.

3.) Simon Pegg makes his series debut as Benji, a Chloe O/Brien-ish IMF techie who pops up twice to deliver some gobbledeygook about the film's Macguffin and to assist Cruise in the field at a key moment, earning a handful of laughs with his brand of hiccupy nerd-vousness. Thankfully, he's had far more to do in the later sequels.

4.) Hoffmann's turn as baddie Owen Davian is the highlight of the picture, easily outclassing every other villain in the series. With his casual, low-key arrogance, he makes the most of his screentime and provides the film with its tensest moments, even if his eventual send-off is an abrupt letdown (I kept flashing on Keanu Reeves in Speed going, "Yah, but I'm taller...!")

5.) The best thing Abrams brought to this film was restoring the team dynamics from the original television series all-but-ignored by the previous movies. Cruise has a lively crew around him this time, including Jonathan Rhys-Myers and sexy Maggie Q. The film's mid-point abduction of Hoffman in the middle of the Vatican in Rome (and right under the nose of his unsuspecting bodyguards) is witty and clever.

6.) Michael Giacchino's busy, kinetic score is a big step up from Hans Zimmer's headache-inducing soundtrack from Woo's film, although he would top himself in the next one.

7.) I realize that never revealing what the "Rabbit's Foot" is is part of the point, Abrams and his usual co-screenwriters Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci playing fast and loose with the whole idea of cinematic Macguffins, but it still makes it hard to generate much suspense over it falling into the bad guys' hands.

8.) This movie might have THE most epic "Tom Cruise Running" shot of all time.

9.) Michelle Monaghan is a wonderful, gorgeous actress well-known for sassy, ball-busting turns in movies like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Gone Baby Gone, so it's a shame to see her wasted in a rote "Damsel In Distress" role, especially considering how she was tossed away in subsequent sequels.

10.) This is my least-favorite Mission: Impossible flick, although it has its pleasures. One only wishes that an authentic "auteur" had handled the direction, like early choices David Fincher or Oliver Stone. Abrams' work here is competent at best, sloppy at worst, and the technical ineptitude of the direction keeps hamstringing what should have been cracking action sequences. Shame. Abrams' best contribution to the series was as a producer on later installments, molding the series into a more "team effort" instead of the one-man shows of the previous installments.

[Monterey Jack]

-Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011): 9/10



1.) Animation wizard Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, the Incredibles movies) makes a smashing live-action debut with the most nimble, witty, and exciting entry in the franchise to date, with Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt -- after being sprung from a Russian prison in the prologue -- assigned to prevent the sale of stolen nuclear missile codes by a ill-defined madman (the late Michael Nyqvist, of the Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy).

2.) This one is a team effort the whole way through, both familiar faces (Simon Pegg thankfully given a much larger role as former IMF console jockey Benji, now an excitable field agent keen to work with "mawsks!"), and new-to-us team acquisitions like the incredibly lovely Paula Patton.

3.) Hey, remember when Hollywood tried to make Jeremy Renner "happen" in the first half of the '10s by shoehorning him into every action franchise possible? The MCU, briefly subbing for Jason Bourne, and here, as a intelligence operative who gets sucked into Hunt's latest spy game. Hey, I've got nothing against the guy -- he's a fine actor who's in good, terse form here -- but he's NOT gonna happen!

4.) There's a marvelous suspense sequence where Hunt and Benji use a thin sheet of reflective canvas to project the image on an empty corridor for an unsuspecting security guard at the Kremlin as they advance silently up the hallway hidden behind it. This is the kind of moment these films are at their best, where spycraft is just a hair removed from outright magic, beguiling the viewer with the improvisatory cleverness of the protagonists.

5.) Composer Michael Giacchino is given a more varied canvas to work with in his second go-around in the franchise, creating wittily stereotypical riffs on Russian and Indian musical tropes that plays especially good on CD.

6.) The film's one weakness -- a recurring problem in the series -- is a weak villain. Nyqvist is simply not very threatening, and his motivations as to WHY he's trying to trigger a nuclear holocaust (a stale plot right out of a mid-80's Cold War potboiler like Octopussy) are thin at best...hell, you have to watch the deleted scenes menu to have the one big acting scene he had in the movie!

7.) The scene where Cruise scales the side of the Burj Khalifa in Mumbai -- the tallest structure in the world -- armed with nothing more than a pair of adhesive gloves ("Blue means glue" ~ "And red?" ~ "Dead") is a moment that would leave even Peter Parker green with vertigo. And, for once, we're not seeing an actor comped into a stock shot via greenscreen...that's actually Cruise hanging there hundreds of feet in the air. Even with the guide wires painted out with CGI, it's the craziest stunt he's pulled off in the series to date, and culminates with a final jump to a window that will leave even the hardiest viewer squirming with anxiety.

8.) Hey, awesome Sawyer from Lost is in this!

[twenty seconds later, dead]

Son of a BITCH!!!

9.) One of the best examples I can think of when it comes to the sheer wastefulness of Hollywood is Ving Rhames making a token, thirty-second cameo at the end of the movie...and receiving a SEVEN MILLION paycheck for something he probably shot in a half-hour. Bloody hell...!

10.) Brad Bird's Ghost Protocol cherry-picks the best elements of the previous three installments (the Hitchcockian precision of Brian De Palma, the florid romanticism of John Woo, the funky team dynamics and wry humor of J.J. Abrams, here kept on in an exec producer capacity) and whips it into the most intoxicating stew of the series, blending thrills, laughs, and sheer audaciousness into one of the better action films of the last decade.

[Paul MacLean]

The Golden Compass (5/10)

Despite the immense popularity of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" books, The Golden Compass -- the film -- proves rather unremarkable, with a derivative storyline that seems to randomly cherrypick fantasy and fairy tale tropes, and does nothing fresh or inventive with them.

Pullman, a staunch atheist, was partly motivated in writing "His Dark Materials" to rebut the Christian allegory of CS Lewis' Narnia stories (which Pullman has often criticized). The Golden Compass is set in a world where the "church" is basically the villain, and a totalitarian organization which rules the culture with an iron fist. And that's fine -- I have no quarrel with any author expressing his world view in his writing -- but I get the sense that Pullman was so concerned with his "social agenda" he forgot the importance of originality. Little of Pullman's "anti-religion" perspective ultimately comes through in the movie anyway (toned-down by the filmmakers, nervous it could scare away audiences) and The Golden Compass often feels like a checklist of fantasy clichés -- the precocious young girl sent on a quest, talking animals, witches, strange races, etc. While the movie is essentially watchable, and has moments which are effective and even touching (particularly in the scenes between Lyra and the Ice Bear) it often lacks dramatic tension, and has boring stretches. It's not especially visually arresting or original either, with a visual style that draws heavily on Harry Potter and the Star Wars prequels (albeit in a more "steampunk" setting). The CGI effects have not dated well, and possess that gauzy, fuzzy, "looks nice but not real" appearance.

That said, the cast is very good -- particularly Dakota Blue Richards, who is wonderful in the lead role of Lyra. However, the casting is also unimaginative, with so many well-known faces on display, as if the filmmakers were thinking "Lets just get James Bond and Vesper, Count Dooku (& Saruman!), the guy from Dinotopia, and have Gandalf and the guy from Deadwood play the polar bear voices."

Being the first story in a trilogy, The Golden Compass has an open-ended, unresolved ending, which proves extremely unsatisfying as no sequel ever appeared. Yet for all its problems, this movie could at least have been a potentially great vehicle for a composer to write a wonderfully imaginative, inventive score. Unfortunately, the job went to Alexandre Desplat (whose music is serviceable, but not particularly interesting). The end credits also feature a truly awful Kate Bush song (and yet, this song appropriately sums-up the copious miscalculations that afflict this movie, so in a weird way it fits).

[Monterey Jack]

-Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015): 8.5/10



1.) Tom Cruise's go-to screenwriter of the teens, Christopher McQuarrie (who also directed him previously in Jack Reacher) gets to dip into the M:I pool with this terrific entry, finding Cruise's Ethan Hunt on the trail of "The Syndicate", a mysterious, terrorist organization personified by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), a bespectacled, buzz-cut thug out to snag the location of a vast sum of money to fund their future nefarious endeavors. It doesn't help that the government (personified by a tight-assed Alec Baldwin) has shut down the Impossible Missions Force, putting Hunt on the run from his own government as he continues his own hunt for The Syndicate's next target.

2.) Rebecca Ferguson makes quite the impression as Ilsa Faust, an undercover MI6 agent who Hunt keeps crossing paths with. Tough, confident and gorgeous, Ferguson -- suggesting a young Charlotte Rampling -- delivers a star-making turn here, and is one of the best female leads in the series.

3.) The sequence where Hunt and former IMF co-worker Benji (Simon Pegg as always) infiltrate a performance of Puccini's Turandot at a Viennese opera house is flat-out fantastic, playing homage to Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (either version) and generating palpable tension...but it's likely the sight of Ferguson clad in a spectacular, leg-baring yellow dress that will get your heart pumping the hardest.

4.) And speaking of the opera sequence, the would-be assassin Cruise's Hunt tussles with in the rafters during the performance kind of looks like a giant, 'roided-up William Atherton.

5.) Ving Rhames is back in a full-length role...and he's looking mighty chunky these days. Maybe if they gave him something to do other that sit behind a keyboard in these films, he might have a more svelte figure.

6.) Another stiff of an M:I villain. Harris, speaking in a soft rasp, certainly looks more threatening than most of the previous villains in the series (and he has an effective, pitiless glare), but he's not given nearly enough to do to designate him as a memorable baddie, being off-screen for long chunks of the film. Considering he's being brought back for the next installment, I hope he's given more time to develop some hostile anti-chemistry with Cruise.

7.) Cruise clinging to the side of a plane in mid-takeoff is another one of the series' most harrowing stunts. He's bucking to become the American Jackie Chan at this point, always willing to risk death for our vicarious jollies.

8.) McQuarrie's go-to composer Joe Kraemer delivers a sleek, effective score.

9.) The ultimate comeuppance for Harris' baddie is linked satisfactorily to his first appearance in the film in a "gotcha back" manner, but it's still a weak way to end the film, with barely a denouement in sight The movie doesn't conclude so much as STOP.

10.) Aside from the lame conclusion marring the film's climax, this is the second-best of the series, filled with terrific action and sly wit.

[AndyDursin]

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT
8/10

Too late to write this up thoroughly. All good except for 2 things:

-For anyone who wanted a Mission Impossible score that sounded like Terminator, here you go. There is no easy way to say it but Lorne Balfe blows. And its a shame because there are a number of moments in the film that would have been enhanced by a quality score. Or even just a serviceable one.

-McQuarrie made one mistake, I felt, in taking way too long to reveal the villain. Especially because it is tipped off so obviously so early. Didnt need to be drawn out that long.

Movie is a little too long and maybe a bit too serious, but otherwise, its well made, entertaining and they nailed the climax this time. Vanessa Kirby makes a very strong impression (too bad she leaves the movie midway through). A hearty thumbs up!

[jkholm]

TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES

7.5/10

What do you do when your AC's out? Go to the movies, of course. Normally, we don't go to 7 PM movies on a Saturday night but we headed to an AMC theater located inside an abandoned shopping mall* last night.

I'm only familiar with the show Teen Titans Go based on overhearing it when my kids watch it. That's not a problem though. The story focuses on Robin's obsession with getting his own superhero movie. There are plenty of gags aimed at both Marvel and DC, including some pretty obscure ones which long time comic book fans will enjoy. There's even a great song sung by Michael Bolton called "Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life" which absolutely deserves an Oscar nomination. If you have Superhero Movie Fatigue, this is the cure.

* Yes, an abandoned shopping mall. Valley View Mall, cone a north Dallas staple, has been trapped in redevelopment limbo for years now. The second floor theater is the only remaining establishment (aside from a few weird shops still lingering in the corridor at the mall's only entrance.) The mall is largely blocked off from public access but you can look down from the balcony into the cavernous depths below. It's eerie, like a zombie movie. Tickets were cheap though, only $7 for adults and $5 for kids. And aside from sticky floors, the auditorium was great.