Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

This seventh installment in the Mission franchise keeps up the energy of the previous Christopher McQuarrie helmed films - Rogue Nation and Fallout. The Cruise/McQuarrie partnership has a bit of alchemy about it. There's nothing we haven't seen before with these films, aside from the glare of publicity about Cruise's stunts, I suppose. Plot-wise, they don't reinvent the wheel but, blimey, they've got something. Could be the balance of camaraderie and extremely tense action sequences, or the lack of water-treading, or maybe the sheer star wattage of the Cruiser himself.

The gist of Dead Reckoning is that there's a malevolent AI called 'the entity' that has become sentient and has let world governments know that it can infiltrate anything it wants. Obviously, everyone wants to retrieve it and control it, except Ethan Hunt and his usual crew, Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson). They want to fuck it up. It's actually the first of these kind of films that ventures into sci-fi, in that the villain isn't human. It does have an 'agent', Gabriel (Archangel?), who is, coincidentally (or not) also an echo of Hunt's past. He's a proper wrong'un this guy.

The film looks great, with cinematographer Fraser Taggart apparently using a combination of digital and film. Locations include Rome, Venice, Abu Dhabi and Austria, where Cruise does a fair impression of Steve McQueen (you'll know when you see it). There's a lot to get through so a few exposition dumps are interspersed with those horribly body cramping set pieces. The extended train sequence is one of the most satisfying, yet nerve-wracking filmic events of the past decade. Sheer brilliance.

Hayley Atwell (Grace) and Pom Klementieff (Paris) add value to the cast, as do returnees Vanessa Kirby (Alanna) and Henry Czerny (Kitteridge - last seen in the very first Mission film from 1996!). A fun way to spend a couple of hours, and sometimes that's all we ask for. Looking forward to part two next year.

See also:

I usually avoid TV shows here but the central premise is pretty similar to series two of Star Trek: Discovery (2019), created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman. And for a compilation of Cruise's film catalogue, check out this supercut - Every Tom Cruise Run Ever.

(Film stills and trailer ©Paramount, 2023)

Revelation Film Festival 2023 - Wrap up

Just the lazy six for this year's Rev festival but it was a fun time all round (my balding ginger scone sneaks into the far left of the pic above). Here are the films I saw, descending in order of least to most liked.

Dùthchas ★½

A found 8mm footage doco from the island of Berneray in the Outer Hebrides. The approach could have been better, it's  bit dull - just talking heads interspersed with said footage from the 60s & 70s. The idea of a culture and language on the brink of extinction has merit but it just takes to long to get to the nub. There's a film in here somewhere but the execution needed more oomph and less chat.

Holy Shit! ★★

This is a scatological German porta-loo thriller (words I've never said or written in that order before). A dude wakes up in a dunny with a metal rod stuck through one arm, trapping him in this enclosed filth. This is a more disgusting, less claustro version of that Ryan Reynolds flick, Buried. It sets up the story well enough, with some minor political intrigue but can't keep pace with its high concept idea.

Frank and Frank ★★★

Albany set drama about two fellas called Frank (Myles Pollard and Trevor Jamieson) who bond when one of them can't start a fire. Fine performances (esp. Jamieson) and some clever writing but one or two things didn't quite sit right for me. Minor grumbles aside, there's a lot of good stuff here - the camel monologue was pure class, the Great Southern region scrubs up nicely, and most of the jokes played well in the screening too. More to come from director Adam Morris and his crew, shooting around Albany - they plan to make one or two a year in the area.

Devil's Peak ★★★

This is a taut little thriller set in the southern US about a crime overlord and his unfortunate dependents. Billy Bob Thornton is excellent as the patriarch Charlie, Hopper Penn, less so as his son Jacob. It plays a bit like a redneck Animal Kingdom and Perth director Ben Young had some fascinating things to say at the Q & A afterwards. Considering its low budget, it's a credit to the technical folk that it looks so good and the final 20 minutes or so really cranks up the near-Shakespearean drama. Robin Wright and Jackie Earl Haley add some heft to the cast, and Young seems to be one of the good guys re: wanting to deliver character films rather than template streamer fare. 

How to Blow Up a Pipeline ★★★½

Here's an environmental message piece dressed up as a clever thriller, complete with separated character 'chapters' in flashback and effective cross-cutting of the preparations and execution. Strong performances from a handful of semi-familiar faces fill this timely, noodle-provoking film. Whatever you may think about the politics of this film, there's no denying it's sharply shot and edited. Director Daniel Goldhaber hasn't made much up to now but I reckon that's due to change soon - he seems to know his way around a script.

Citizen Sleuth ★★★★

This is an intriguing backhander to true crime podcasts with a really engaging central character, Emily Nestor. She's a young West Virginian woman curious enough about a local girl's death to start the 'Mile Marker 181' podcast, but was it an accident or was it murder? The first half of the film shows an energetic, almost manic Emily, excitedly explaining the problems with the 'accident', but then it swings on a pivot when someone explains something that she had previously assumed about the tragedy, and from then on, the director, Chris Kasick takes things into his own hands, thereby diminishing Emily's role in her own film. Sounds odd, but it works in that this action gives her the impetus to face some hard truths (at least, that's how I read it). Like any doco about current events, there are multiple viewpoints from many concerned parties but I found this to be pretty balanced and entertaining to boot.

*Special mention must go to a great short film I saw before one of the main features. It's called Bald Future and it's a fucking hoot. Set in an awful office with an unhinged boss, it shows the trouble us chrome domes have to endure daily:) A cracker.

Talk to Me

This might be the scariest thing to come out of Adelaide since Wayne Weidemann. It's directed by brothers, Danny and Michael Phillipou, who apparently gained some fame and notoriety via a YouTube channel called RackaRacka, which sounds like it was a bogan version of Jackass. 

Talk to Me is a stylishly unsettling possession genre flick, with a couple of great performances attached. Future star, Sophie Wilde plays Mia, a final year high-school student still struggling with the death of her mother two years ago. Bored one night (remember, it's Adelaide), she tags along with her friend, Jade (Alexandra Jensen) and younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird) to a house party where a couple of twats are hosting a séance/possession event.

Mia gets involved but the 'rules' state the spirits can only be inside the living body for 90 seconds, else the fuckers might want to stay. Righto, parameters set then. The film really gets going when Riley appears to be channelling Mia's mum for a moment, followed by someone (something?) more sinister that tips him over the time limit. This scene amped up the shock levels and was pretty uncomfortable viewing.

For the Aussies who see this, I reckon the mundanity of the setting and the familiarity of the accents (not to mention a nearly roadkill kangaroo) bring an element of reality to an otherwise ridiculous story. Like any good horror film, the spooky shit is just cover for the real story, in this case Mia's inability to move on from the sudden absence of her mum. The title, ostensibly the imperative given when holding the creepy embalmed hand, probably has more to do with Mia's reluctance to speak with those left alive, especially her father.

Talk to Me has a lot to recommend. Miranda Otto has a great role as Jade and Riley's mother, it opens with a cracking party scene that ends with a bang, and the climax is tense and not at all easy to predict. If surprisingly sharp, teenage horror is your bag, this won't disappoint.

Talk to Me opens July 27th at Luna, Palace and other assorted cinemas.

See also:

You might have noticed that I'm not the biggest horror film fan, with some notable exceptions, so it's a bit tricky to pick others films akin to this. Obvious ideas would be William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), due to the possession angle but I'm thinking the modern horror wave would be slightly more comparable. If only I'd seen The Insidiously Conjured Witch Nun Annabelle.

Revelation Film Festival 2023 - Preview

It's time for the annual Revelation Perth International Film Festival and, as usual, there are some enticing films scheduled. It's running over 5 days this year, shorter than previous fests but with just as many films packed in. Screenings start on Wed July 12th and finish on Sun July 16th, mostly at Luna Leederville, but some are at Luna SX in Freo, and events and other screenings are to be held at The Backlot Perth and WA Museum Boola Bardip.

Titles that piqued my curiosity include: 

• Citizen Sleuth, a true-crime podcast documentary; 
• Holy Shit!, a German toilet-based thriller (I think); 
• Dùthchas, a doco about life on the Outer Hebrides; 
• Frank + Frank, a WA-made film that looks to be about mid-life male bonding; 
• Devil's Peak, a noirish southern US crime drama, directed by local Perth lad, Ben Young; 
• a trippy looking French hospital doco called De Humani Corporis Fabrica; 
• and a 40th anniversary screening of the Nagisa Ôshima gem, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

Rev always throws in a few music docos and this year's no different. Little Richard: I am Everything; What You Could Not Visualise: Rema Rema; and Lee Fields: Faithful Man all look promising.

There are also a few films about filmmakers (and I'm annoyed I can't get to any of them). Show Me the Magic, about legendary cinematographer, Don McAlpine; Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer; Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, about the influential video artist; and Fragments of Paradise, about indy film champion, Jonas Mekas. 

Those last two blokes I know nothing about, so it would have been nice to have a couple of clones to get to all the screenings. Choose carefully, people, there's a smorgasbord as usual, but with fewer days to see them in. Happy viewing.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

This fifth Indiana Jones installment is a fun adventure 'legacyquel' with Harrison Ford showing that while he might lack his old youthful vigour, he certainly hasn't lost his film star aura, or his acting prowess. It picks up the life of our hero in New York in 1969, at the time of the moon landings. He's a relic himself by now and it's a nice touch to bring the moon landings and the astronauts into Indy's orbit, showing the chasm between that whole period as representing the future and Indy's yearning for the past. 

A few more plot devices get sucked into this point in time - Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as Helena, daughter of Indy's old chum, Basil (played in flashbacks by Toby Jones); Mads Mikklesen's buttoned-up physicist villain, Schmidt (or Voller); said villain's goons; U.S. agent Mason, played by Shaunette Renee Wilson (in an unnecessary role); and 'real' device, the Alethiometer, no the Archaeopteryx, no, wait the Antikythera, a mechanism made by Archimedes, that old Italian inventor of the bucket bong. Indy has half of it, the baddies want the other half, and so begins a world jaunt.

Story-wise, James Mangold and writers Jezz Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp don't inject a lot of originality, but that's not really the point, I'd argue. Perhaps to counter the retreaded plot outline, they've sketched in a bit of fanciful guff relating to the powers of that aforementioned unpronounceable. Some folk were bummed with the introduction of aliens in the last one (Crystal Skull), so I wonder how they'll deal with time travel here. I mean, look, if you're happy with supernatural religious waffle, voodoo and zombie knights, then why not push the boat out? It's not like these films have ever been realistic.

There are one or two emotional moments where Ford shines - telling Helena about his son (no room for LaBeouf in this one), and a bit at the end that I won't talk about here. With all the Han Solo and even Indy stuff, I don't think we really appreciate what a great, charismatic actor this bloke is. Just quietly, I reckon he sneaks close to McQueen, especially with regards to his more subdued performances. 

We get a couple of slow spots - an overly lengthy chase scene in Tangier, for example - but in general, the pacing is fine. That John Williams refrain kicks in quite often, and honestly, it's a warm welcome every time (bloody nostalgia). There are knowing nods all over the shop - eels, not snakes (though the kid says they look like snakes, much to Indy's horror), whip, hat, returning cameos, the familiar red dotted travel line on a brown map, even one famous half-repeated scene from Raiders. The cave sequence recalls some of the best bits of the first three films - fine underground blocking that gives a solid reading of the environs, and the requisite scrapes and japes, of course. I saw Waller-Bridge referring to the cave stuff as one of her highlights in making this.

Look, I'm not sure if this is the kind of film that will bring in the kids these days, and I don't consider myself and huge Indy fan, but it hit the spot for me, the action and performances balanced the nostalgia and naffness.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is showing in many cinemas now.

Assorted thoughts.....

Oh, Witchiepoo! H.R. PufnStuf was playing on Indy's TV at the start!!

The de-aging CGI was pretty good but I think they still used current day Ford's body - he was moving like an 80 year old. There were a few nice references to his creaky body. 

Helena had a degree of agency - 'I'm rescuing you!' She even got to punch out Indy! What?!

A ludicrous climax but again, it's par for the course here.

That valid online theory about Raiders, where if Indy did NOTHING for the whole film, the result would have been the same (Nazis still opened the ark, all died), could apply here too - Indiana Inconsequential?

See also:

Well, obviously, go back to where it all began with one of Steven Spielberg's two great films, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Ford prime is in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982).

A Singular Crime

I've had a soft spot for Argentina for a long time, maybe it began with Maradona, and this has bled into their filmic output. There's a real grubby energy in those Buenos Aires streets, or the dusty landscapes surrounding the cities. At least, this is how it comes across, I've never been there myself. Of course, there's an added political angle in many of the Argentinian films I've seen, and this one is no different.

The original Spanish title is Un Crimen Argentino (An Argentinian Crime in English) - odd that they've found the need to change it for us. Anyway, this is based on actual events in Rosario in December 1980 - it kicks off the day after the murder of John Lennon - when a feckless salesman goes missing. Two court clerks are given the case (the role of criminal investigation is slightly confusing in Argentina), putting them, and their boss, Judge Suarez, in the sights of the police/military goons with their 'anti-justice' mentality. 

Nicolás Francella and Matías Mayer play partners Antonio and Carlos with mustachioed insouciance - Francella seems to be channelling Nic Cage's H. I. McDonnaugh from Raising Arizona (in fact, Francella actually sits in that uncanny valley between Cage and Jason Schwartzman). The rest of the cast heaves with endearingly sloppy, crumpled geezers, both just and unjust, and it's a bit of a happy jolt when one of the female characters shows up on screen - Malena Sanchez as the judge's niece and girlfriend of Antonio, Maria; and Rita Cortese as the forensic expert, Gobbi. Cortese gets the best scenes, especially when the lads need their heads knocked together, or when there's stomach-turning work to be done.

It's a curious film, this. There's a threat of the whole thing going off the rails, but aside from a slightly baggy midsection, it holds its course. The tone flits between TV detective show (maybe the 80s look); P. T. Anderson's Inherent Vice; and more serious political thrillers from the likes of Pablo Larraín. The director, Lucas Combina had only helmed TV series before this and he doesn't seem to be too concerned with how this will travel - it has a very 'local' feel to it, which is great. For example, if I'm not mistaken, there are a couple of references to the two-legged final of the 1980 National League, which was won by Rosario Central.

Minor issues include the motivation of the killer (if indeed, he WAS a killer) and the slight ropiness of the subtitling - what the fuck is a 'ratio' in relation to a café bar?! But all in all, this has an authentic, dated atmosphere and it brushes up against the corruption and menace of the times, while still offering hope. One character suggests Antonio and Carlos are members of different political parties - Radical and Peronista - hinting at their respective outlooks on life. A nice little, local, touch.

A Singular Crime is showing as part of the Spanish Film Festival at Luna and Palace cinemas.

See also:

Argentinian court based investigations are covered in Juan Jose Campanella's brilliant The Secret in Their Eyes (2009). Pablo Larrain's No (2012) goes heavier on the military dictatorships of South America, in this case Pinochet's Chile.