Mission Impossible: Fallout could be a template for creating action movies. This is everything you want in a pure action movie, offering the same suspense, mystery, and comedic tones you expect from this top-of-the-line franchise. Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men) reprises his most recognizable character (Top Gun came out over 30 years ago. Maverick is great, Ethan Hunt is the identifiable Cruise character, at least for anyone younger than 35). I’ve spent a good part of the last two decades knocking Tom Cruise for his choice of roles, wishing he would return to the types of roles that earned him three Academy Award nominations between 1990-2000. And honestly, at the time, I thought he was phoning it in for box office dollars. I understand an action flick here and there.
Category Archives: Mystery
You Were Never Really Here (2018)
I’m conflicted. Lynne Ramsay’s (Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin) You Were Never Really Here is not a great movie. Yet it received an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and four stars on Roger Ebert’s website. A few times during my viewing, I wanted to say aloud, “This movie sucks,” but, of course, that is something I would not do. But you can imagine how surprised I was when the movie received applause after its conclusion. I was flabbergasted, but I was in an art theatre (this was the only place it was showing). It had been a good year and a half (Arrival) since the audience had last clapped after a movie. So, I decided to read a little about this movie and see what I missed that others saw. First, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance (Gladiator, Walk the Line) was excellent. He was so even and heavy as a down and outgun for hire suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from what he witnessed while serving in the military and from suffering from events of his childhood he was never able to process.
Into the Forest (2016)
Movies that make you think long after they are over are among the best movies. Movies that make you feel present in the moment, or movies that bring out whatever type of emotion they were designed to bring out, are, of course, strong contenders to the effectiveness of a movie as well. But when you are still thinking about something you’ve seen, months or even years after it is over, and feeling the need to watch it again (even if you didn’t love it) is one of the biggest compliments you can give a movie. I’m saying that Patricia Rozema’s (Mansfield Park) Into the Forest is Platoon or E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Still, it is a movie that will keep you involved and have you think about it after viewing.
Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele’s debut feature film, Get Out, was a film that I originally wasn’t going to review. I liked the movie well enough, but it wasn’t one that I felt comfortable writing about. I only do so now because it will likely be nominated for Best Picture and could get as many as ten nominations. This is kind of crazy for a movie released in February. It certainly isn’t unheard of, but it is rare. Its Academy Award nominations, 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and $175+ million in box office revenue off a $5 million budget confirm that this is one of the most surprising and successful movies ever. It may be THE most successful horror movie of all time if you measure it by those four factors alone. It’s a movie that keeps you engaged and entertained from its very first scene (think a toned and shorter version of the first scene in Scream), powers its way through a unique plot that you’ve never seen on film before, and keeps you on the edge of your seat through its bold and unpredictable final act.
mother! (2017)
There are two different types of people in the world. When asked if they’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s (The Wrestler, Black Swan) mother, there is a group of people who will say no. And then there is the group of people who look at you with a bizarre look on their face and shamingly say, “Yeah,” and hope you don’t ask any follow-up questions. And that’s not to say they are embarrassed by admitting that they’ve seen the movie (we’ve all been at a theater before when we walk out with our heads down, hoping that we don’t see anybody that we know because we don’t want them to know we just paid to see a movie that bad, but because the film is so far out there that a follow-up question asking the person what they thought about it or if they liked it might allow them to draw conclusions about us. Aronofsky makes movies that you either love or hate. I adored The Wrestler and Black Swan but passionately hated Noah.