The Missing

Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones are wonderful actors, and Ron Howard is a great director, but everybody makes a turkey now and then. Gobble-gobble.

The Missing Picture

The Missing Picture (L’image manquante) (2013) (France, Cambodia) This has to be the first Cambodian film I have ever seen. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language film (and lost to the completely unexciting The Great Beauty. It is narrated in English or French, take your pick, from a script by the director, Rithy Panh. And of course it is about the ... Read more »

Mission: Impossible

Here, for once, is a franchise that really deserves the six movies that have been made, and I have high hopes for the next two, already shooting. If you want fast, loud, and brainless, you can’t do better than Mission: Impossible. Sometimes that’s exactly what I need, to just be entertained by something that doesn’t insult my intelligence more than five or six ... Read more »

Mission: Impossible 2

Among the half-dozen eggs in this basket, there probably had to be a rotten one, and this is it. And brother, is it rotten. I hated it, hated it, hated it, and its hugely overrated director, John Woo. He is hailed far and wide as a great action director, but don’t you believe it. He is incompetent. He is terrible. He’s talentless. There are several reasons I say this, but let’s just stick ... Read more »

Mission: Impossible – Fallout

What can you say that hasn’t already been said? Movies like this are preposterous, so unless you can check your critical faculties at the gate, there’s no point in seeing them. But if you are just looking for a highly entertaining action movie, they don’t get much better than this. And there is that little frisson of incredulity in knowing that that crazy Scientologist is actually Read more »

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

This was directed by Brad Bird, who previously has only done animation for Pixar, movies I liked a lot. We had a good time. I hardly ever saw the TV show, but I know the idea, that the M:I team fooled people into believing something that was not true. A Big Con, high-tech. This had a lot of that—plus, of course, a lot of slam-bang action, too—and it was a team, ... Read more »

Mission: Impossible III

Luckily, this great action series was able to bounce back here after the John Woo disaster. J.J. Abrams, in his first outing in the director’s chair, takes the idea back closer to its roots. It is full of the usual well-done action scenes, but I must admit to you that it’s been about a month since I saw it, and my memory for plots and stunts has never been good, so I won’t try to quote ... Read more »

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

This would be M:I5, if you’re counting. By the time most franchises reach #5 they have pretty much played out. I’m happy to report that this one is still going strong. It’s just about the best series for real, almost old-fashioned stunt work, and for once, when they say the star actually performed his own stunts, it’s pretty much true. In #4 he really did dangle on a rope midway up the ... Read more »

The Mist

Stephen King may be the best story teller of his generation. His imagination is awesome. He writes two kinds of story. One sort is thoughtful, character-driven tales that draw you in by making you care about the people involved, like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile (both directed by Frank Darabont, who directed this one, ... Read more »

Mister Roberts

Most classic movies hold up well on an second or third viewing. A few don’t. I’m going to have to put this one on that short list. It’s a personal opinion, and a result of changes in me more than anything. The central point of my objection is that I no longer admire nor really believe the standard cliché of the day: “Just let me get into combat, sir! Let me at ‘em!”

Sure, I know ... Read more »