Review: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Tim here. After Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol came out in 2011, it seemed that the series had finally figured out how to become the best version of itself and could go on forever doing the same thing. And that's exactly what has now happened: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is slightly worse than its immediate predecessor in nearly every way, slightly better in a couple of others that are especially important, and is light years beyond the first three movies released between 1996 and 2006.

Like every M:I film, Rogue Nation is an almost perfect standalone object, with a couple throwaway lines referencing previous adventures and the assumption that you already know and like brash, middle-aged Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, the series' producer as well), but otherwise assuming that it needs to make its own case for existing (it's enormously gratifying in this age of shared universes and heavily choreographed multi-film narrative arcs that there's still one franchise out there that's willing to just make movies that work solely in reference to themselves. And it does this splendidly, throwing us right into the action with that "Tom Cruise hanging from the side of a plane" setpiece that has been the the focal point of the ad campaign, and building up to bigger and better things from there. [More...]

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Oscar Season Cometh. And Other Links

Vox has an article on how binge-watching is changing television -- and not just on Netflix. Some interesting thoughts if too repetitive
Variety Lupita Nyong'o headed for an Off Broadway play called "Eclipsed" - I'm still stunned and disappointed that her film docket isn't full through 2018. Hollywood is so f***ed up. 
Vulture it's somehow fitting that the news that Tom Holland has already shot his first Spider-Man appearance in  Captain America: Civil War broke in an interview about Chris Hemsworth's huge prosthetic penis in Vacation. The world is a horny voyeur for all of Marvel Studios's masturbatory impulses

/Film oh noooo a Robin Hood origin story in the works? I hate origin stories so much. Hate them hate them. When will our global obsession with "origins" of characters we already know end? Just tell a story about them!
Broadway Blog Bent, the powerful play about gay men in the Holocaust is getting its first major revival in some time. Plays through August in LA. Go and report back! Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters is even in it! Anyone remember the film version with Clive Owen?
Variety finally Ryan Kwanten books another series (I was wondering why he wasn't highly in-demand post True Blood). He'll play one of two leads in Amazon's new Western series Edge. I forsee a problem: People in westerns tend to keep their clothes on.
/Film Both of David Fincher's "straight to series" shows for HBO are apparently in trouble
The Guardian celebrates Jeremy Renner's five best performances. Well someone had too... he may be infinitely more famous now but his respectability as an actor seems to have taken a serious plunge once he attempted  four different franchises leaving tough drama far behind
Kenneth in the (212) rewatches the great LGBT flick Edge of Seventeen, which relates to a recent study on sexuality and friendshipe 

Peculiar WTFs?
Pajiba on The Shroud of Cruise in a pop-up church in Florida 
Boy Culture does Guy Ritchie require all his wives to be branded?
NPR here's a weird one. A 80 year old much decorated tough guy Marine looks back on his secret: he was the voice of Disney's wee fawn Bambi 

Oscar Season Cometh
Variety Student Academy Award finalists in animation, documentary and more. One of them is actually from BYU this year (my alma mater) and thats...
"Ram's Horn" by Jenna Hamzawi
TOH! reports that Cary Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation is getting a short theatrical release after all, presumably for Oscar play. Which is too bad for me because only heavy Oscar talk could convince me to sit through something this unpleasant/brutal. Here's the teaser

Awards Daily Truth, the true story about Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) and Dan Rather (Robert Redford) and a story about George W Bush that nearly ended their careers, arrives in October. (I'm actually a bit surprised by this announcement since Cate already has a leading role in the mix this year.) Speaking of release dates...
David Poland resets the field with departures and arrivals. This is the part that interested me most on account of 'you never know'. Some movies always get pushed back and losing two or three of these would be impactful to say the least in the communal speculation. 

My best guess, based on past histories of the directors and companies and/or absence of promo materials is that 2015 loses three of these four: Silence, Concussion, Snowden, and I Saw the Light.

Links: And Alice Faye's Centennial

The Dissolve Emily Blunt is finally revving back up her career. After Sicario she's headlining Bronco Belle
Guardian Ryan Gosling, ever the good sport about internet memes, finally eats his cereal, and a cancer fund is created to memorialize the meme creator
Empire the very busy young actor Will Poulter case as Pennywise in the new  version of Stephen King's "It"
Awards Watch I was the special guest on their latest podcast defending my first wave of predictions, particularly why I got behind Sicario and am hesitant on Carol.

Film Actually 20 most anticipated performances (I keep forgetting about Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong)
In Contention speaking of Foster, he's got a new film Comancheria, just picked up by CBS Films. Think they'll change the title before release? I'm taking bets.
Playbill If you've never seen Broadway darling and sometime TV & film player Kristin Chenoweth in concert, do NOT miss her tour. I've seen her like four times live and she's magic. It starts in August and she's hitting 17 states so see if any shows are near you!
MNPP who wore it best (skin suits edition): The Vision or Robbie Williams? 
The Dissolve has a cute Gremlins filled video about the history of the PG rating.  
Variety the rapping Granny from The Wedding Singer has died at 101 years of age 
Previously TV Joe Reid guests for a RPDR recap of the "prancing queens' episode. good stuff 
/Film Joss Whedon explains that messy Thor in the pool business from Age of Ultron (the more we hear about the making of the movie the more disastrous it sounds from an executive interference level; this can't be a good sign for the movies going forward.) 

It's the Black Widow's World. Marvel Just Doesn't Know It Yet.
Washington Post on "Black Widow's Feminist Heroism" - a great response to the weird outrage criticisms despite her film-rescuing place in those movies
Think Progress on further linked e-mails which show Hollywood's absolute sexism and stupidity about female heroes, they think Elektra and Catwoman are the best that can be done? Yikes!
Pajiba also Jeremy Renner doubles down on his sorry not sorry douchery about calling Black Widow a slut
Polygon would watch ScarJo's Black Widow Romantic Comedy via SNL. (as would I)  

Showtune(s) to go ~ Happy Alice Faye Centennial
When I revisited the Oscar nominated In Old Chicago (1937) a couple of years ago  I was a bit dismissive of Alice Faye, a major 30s film star (who isn't so well remembered today) who played Tyrone Power's conquest.  After more investigation the appeal has become far more obvious and since May 5th is her Centennial you definitely have 5 minutes to give her major voice - that's a memorably warm deep contralto. Here she is in two incarnations as a pre-code bad girl singing about 'Fooling with The Other Woman's Man' in Now I'll Tell (1934) looking like a visual inspiration for Madonna's future Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy. And then in a more traditionally romantic Technicolor light in Weekend in Havana (1941) with John Payne (Tyrone Power and then John Payne? lucky girl) singing "Tropical Magic"

Yes No Maybe So? Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Someone needs to do a supercut of all the things Tom Cruise has hung from in his career like a daredevil, an action martyr or a human sacrifice: there've been helicopters, cliffs, glass skyscrapers, Scientology campaigns, cables, and now a big jet plane. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation has a lot to live up to now that the series improbably peaked as late as its fourth installment, Ghost Protocol. 

After the poster, let's breakdown the trailer with our trademark trifurcation...

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Beauty vs Beast: Bombing The Globes

JA from MNPP here again, keeping the Golden Globes afterglow going with this week's double-edition of our weekly "Beauty vs Beast" poll. Looking for a communal villain at an awards show can be rough - one person's beastly Matthew McConaughey or nightmarish Alejandro González Iñárritu will be inexplicably loved by others (quite deranged folks, I'm convinced). But then there are the "Ooof" moments, when something lands with a quite resounding thud, and those are the times that well, those are what we'll most likely remember one two and ten years from now. Here are two of last night's "Ooof" moments. Which side do you fall down on?

I have my own opinions (read this tweet) as to what's going on with Jeremy Renner, who was all kinds of messy from the moment he hit the stage, but anybody who can make a long avowed J-Loather like me feel a pang of sympathy for her is sure accomplishing... something. On the other hand... the globes, they were definitely golden? As a statement of fact it's not false, exactly. Okay I'm stretching.

poll by twiigs.com

Next up...

That picture will never not crack me up. Personally I was down with Margaret Cho's North Korean schtick; what pushed it over the edge for me was the banality of her offered opinions, like the category mis-placement of Orange is the New Black. But I gather not everyone took to it so kindly! Meryl Streep, for instance, seemed genuinely mortified being roped into the routine. That said I don't know if you've heard this but Meryl Streep is considered a fine actress -- her horror might've been a ruse. A terribly terribly convincing ruse. (Maybe she'll win an Emmy for the performance next year?)

poll by twiigs.com

You've got one week to make your opinions heard; hit the comments and draw your battle lines. And yes, one week from now we'll know the Oscar nominations and the Golden Globes will be but a foggy hangover feeling; tis the nature of the awards beast.

PREVIOUSLY Last week's poll tackled Annie Hall in honor of Diane Keaton's birthday, and she easily la-di-da'd her way to a triumph, taking over 80% of the vote! Poor Alvy, this is gonna keep him in therapy for... yeah he's never getting out of therapy. Said brookesboy:

"I think some people think Keaton is getting by on charm in this role, but it's so much more than that. The seeming effortlessness in this performance is what makes it so special and enduring."