Mission:Impossible 7 Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

 a 2hr 47 mins part one new Mission: Impossible, don't you guys overdo it?

Every new Mission film (as every new film) gets a longer running time as opposed to Hitchcock's rule about length of the film according to human bladder...

I didn't like the MacGuffin at all, you don't really have great bad guy here and it seems like a cut  together melange of action pieces trying to top those before -as those M:I movies are. This one tries to quote/rip-off the original one with Brian De Palma style red herrings, shot compositions, the train and the return of Kittridge (Henry Czerny). New femme fatale is introduced, Venice party rave style reminds of John Wicks, etc. The plot is mumbojumbo (mambojambo?) and we all know it. It's just pretext so why so serious? Well, Ethan Hunt  (Le Cruise) is, 'cos he needs saving the world (Again) on its own. And to top himself with another world record stunt, or I should say the much too much publicised stunt that sells these M:I films since Burj Khalifa in the fourth one. 

And Tom Cruise it's not getting any younger...he's gonna be 61 one by the time this one comes out. It's his and his only, his sole production and presenting credit, his director attiree, mr. Christopher McQuarrie who only directed a film of his own (The Way of the Gun), before becoming Cruise's main man...(Jack Reacher, 3 M;I and one coming up), scripts for Valkyrie (where they met), Edge of Tomorrow, The Mummy (!!!), Top Gun deux: Maverick. Maybe you remember, this is the guy who wrote The Usual Suspects back in 1995......Well I guess if he's happy with it, why should we be envious;)? As he works in such problematic enterprises (Covid shutdowns, reshoots, rewrites, studio madness over budgets, you know, the usual drill), this is the true Mission: Impossible, behind-the-scenes.

A 291 mill. $ budget for half of a movie...studios (Paramount) can't say no to the Cruiser especially after he saved the world B.O. with Top Gun 2. I'm afraid Part Two will fare even worst...

Odd coincidences: the train chase like the opening scene of Indy V and a Rome central a car chase like in Spectre and stunts on the Spanish Steps like in Fast X or XI, anyway the one from this summer.

Score by Lorne Balfe, the Scott's second film in the franchise after M:I 6-Fallout in 2018. Liked that movie much better. And the score (see here on my top 2018 soundtracks). See ya next summer for Part Deux! No more reshoots I hope;)

3 out of 5, 6 out 10!

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Saw the fifth INDY on premiere day -June 30, on a huuuge screen and liked it (it's already controversial and I don't understand the badmouth, never compare with the original trilogy! That was four decades ago...I was fearful to be dissapointed. After all I am a fan for life of the character and his adventures. Less crystal skulls. The film, after a wait of 15 years since the fourth one, was touching and heartfelt old-fashioned and James Mangold did a great job! There are four screenwriters credited including David Koepp and Mangold himself. Probably more hands and brains there. It's a dignifying end chapter, with old wisdom and even bitterness of a lost era. Also a lost era of filmmaking.

John Williams' score is magnificent and elegant (the Maestro is 91 now and came again out of retirement, as he did it again for The Fablemans, I guess this will be his final score...just when you hear the musical theme you get goosebumps, well, I did), Harrison Ford (81 in 13 days!!!, and he was 78 while filming) is THE INDY (the de-aging at the beginning it's Ok as they said it will be, not grand but works here as opposed to The Irishman and other films) and the girl, Helena (his goddaughter) - brit Phoebe Waller_Bridge (Fleabag series) is a very nice female companion, like a version of Katherine Hepburn on the African Queen days, Mads Mikkelsen is brilliant (as always and he made history as the villain in both Bond (Le Chiffre in Casino Royale) and Indiana Jones franchises!, same as Julian Glover...), Boyd Hollbrook great baddie, plus some nice cameos (no spoliers here!). I liked the new kid, Teddy (Ethann Isidore), Thomas Kretchmann ("Spoils of war go to victors"), Toby Jones (Basil Shaw, Helena's father), Olivier Richters-the tall henchman (2m18”!!!), the nice and touching Antonio Banderas part (Renaldo), Shaunette Rene Wilson (an agent like Cleopatra Jones).

It's the first digital Indy and it was shot beautifully by Mangold's attired cinematographer, Phedon Papamichel (from Identity to Le Mans/Ford vs. Ferrari, sans Logan...). Points go to Adam Stockausențs production design (he worked for Wes Anderson and Spielberg-in Bridge of Spies, Ready Player One and West Side Story). You sense the Spielberg touch and homages all the way (making it up as it goes along;).  I have no clue if Lucas was involved. 

In the end credits Mangold's thanks go to Milos Forman and Alexander Mackendrick. Nice.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny it's also the longest film of the series (2h34'min) and the first one without opening credits, plus the Paramount joke on the logo, cos it's the first Disney distributed and so forth...also it's the first to have an underwater sequence (and eels!). If you buy the MacGuffin and gimmick in the final act it's cool, if not bummer, and I have a feeling most of the audience won't :(

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival one month ago and I heard from then mixed reactions, more pointing to a thumbs down than up...I saw Indy IV in Cannes in 2008 and I really really wanted to like it, but alas...I saw it last time last week and still the final act is horrendous, and it's all Lucas fault. Plus Shia doesn't really shine as Mutt...earlier this year I saw again Indian Jones and the Last Crusade which is my second favourite Indy flick after Raiders of the Lost Ark which I saw 1st time on video when I was 12, one year after its release, on a black and white TV in my house, with another 50 mesmerized people, brought impromptu by a guy I didn't know, and it changed my life (and his;), but that's another story...

Unfortunately BO predix not so good :(, though so...the film cost 295 mill. $ to be made (plus probably another 100 mill $ for marketing and advertising), more than 1000 people worked on it, at Pinewood studios, in Morocco and Sicily,  with New York exteriors, tons of special effects, extras  plus the Covid problems, a lot of post production but also a lot of set dressing and practical effects.

Also in the film can be heard The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour and David Bowie's Space Oddity, cos' it's all happening in 1969...there's a small nod to The Godfather and Nino Rota (1st Sicilian shot, done on a crane I think)...

Anyway, I will go and see it again on that huuuge screen! see if it gets better or not, or holds on to my fearful first but now enthusiastic encounter with a dear dear old friend. Well, we've been friends for 40 years...

T B Concluded...

• "I don't believe in magic. But a few times in my life, I've seen things. Things I can't explain. And I've come to believe it's not so much about what you believe,it's how hard you believe it."
•                                                               dr. Henry Jones Jr. 

RIP Alan Arkin

Uncanny, cos' I just had a conversation last night with Mein Amerikanishe Freund about Catch 22, and mentioned Alan Arkin who played Yossarian in Mike Nichols' 1970 adaptation of Joseph Heller master work. And then next day I find out from Variety that Alan Arkin died, age 89. He was born in 1934, same year as my mom...He had a voice and style, instantly recognisable. Kind of a sarcastic tone and malitious smile. A great versatile actor, he did about 100 films. 

Arkin was considered more of a comedic actor and I know him from The In-Laws (directed by Arthur Hiller) which I saw with my parents at Astra cinema in Brasov in  1979 or 1980 (film came out in 1979 in the US), brilliant action comedy. But he was a brilliant psychopath in Blake Edwards' thriller Wait Until Dark (1967), where he terrorized blind Audrey Hepburn. Next year he was playing inspector Clouseau in the same titled Inspector Clouseau film, directed by Bud Yorkin and co-written by Edwards but the film was a flop (and not really funny, but hey, better than the Steve Martin crappy remakes) and Peter Sellers came back to the character in 1975, with Edwards directing it.

He wasn't initially an actor, but a folk singer in a group called The Terriers. He recorded with them in 1955. Then he was a singer on Broadway. He also directed TV and the  cult film Little Murders in 1971, a very black nihilistic comedy starring Elliott Gould, based on a play by Jules Feiffer Arkin directed on stage in 1969.  

He won an Oscar (and a BAFTA) for Little Miss Sunshine (supporting) but he deserved one for Argo.  He played last the psychiatrist (as in Grosse Point Blank) in the Netflix series The Kominsky Method (for which he was nominated for 2 Emmys).

I think I will revisit The Russsians are Coming, The Russsians are Coming (1966), where he was nominated for the first time for an Oscar (out of four noms) and won a Golden Globe. 

RIP Julian Sands

Warlock himself gone...

...disappeared in the mountains near LA gone hiking 5 months ago (Jan. 13, 2023)...now was found...

Julian Sands  died just a week after being 65...

He was Shelley in Ken Russell's Gothic, Liszt in Impromptu, a doctor in The Doctor and the Devils, the doctor in Boxing Helena, the doctor in Arachnofobia and The Phantom of the Opera (Erik) in Dario Argento's adaptation of the tale from 1998.

Last I saw him in The Killing Fields (1984), one of his early parts on the screen, which I saw again this winter.