Mission: Impossible

De Palma’s holds up so much better than I remembered. Lots of plays on illusion and perception throughout. I recalled the train thing at the end as a 90’s too cgi set piece but the sense of speed is really potent and transcends in a way lots of blockbuster set pieces don’t.

The first JJ Star Trek still probably his best executed movie and even that's just...fine

Agreed. Definitely the best thing he’s done imo.

i think its good, not fine, but yeah agreed on him otherwise

depalmas mi is vvg, the vibe is pretty unique, the lower-key stunts and chases are in the (here it comes again) ronin vein and everything else is like a better bond

whats different about the beliefs of every movie hero as proxy?

that cruise's beliefs are scientology as opposed to apple pie/individualism/liberal humanism?

― dele alli my bookmarks (darraghmac)

eg using actual slave labour to build his (let's say) 12th and 13th homes IRL makes it a little hard to buy him as a paragon of decency in movies imo

There’s a good ridiculous long take of his continuous running.

― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Tuesday, July 31, 2018 9:17 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is the best scene in 3

having just watched it this is absolutely otm, also liked Hunt being literally dead during the dispatching of the actual big bad

I'm not especially distracted by Cruise's evilness because most movie stars are irredeemable for the wealth-hoarding alone

wow another smaug take from the left

Harrison Ford is especially evil, being both a wealth hoarder and a nerf herder

Running in movies since 1981

ok this is pretty funny

i enjoyed this in a does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin sorta way

I took the day off work today. So I went to see this in the middle of the day. It was fine! Should’ve been Armie Hammer ‘steada Henry Cavill. I also went to the library.

I can't really see Hammer pulling off being as physically imposing (though it would have made the "I prefer a hammer" line a howler)

but hammer is like 6ft 4 and absolutely physically dominated cavill in man from uncle!

yeah i think he would be a great hardman. he’s like 8ft tall basically

cavill's phsys

oops.

cavill's physique was slightly distracting because i kept thinking "when does this character have time to go to the gym 2 hours a day and down protein shakes constantly..."

yeah he is just a slab

when he whipped off his jacket in the early restroom scene I was like, well, guess this just became boxing club

when you see Cavill in this & Man From Uncle it is like he’s not even the same bummed out dude that was playing Superman

he missed his moustache

I don't remember much about the first five films, though I do remember liking the last two a lot. Yet I hated almost every interminable minute of this one, which felt like B-list Jackie Chan boilerplate. They could have showed the reels out of order, for all it mattered.

Lots of stuff I didn't like this time around, but for some reason more than all the others I was struck by how ridiculous (in an already ridiculous series) it is that literally everyone in this film is a well-dressed model/superhero ninja ... *except* for the two deus ex people that Hunt hangs around with.

xpost Scanning the most recent bits of this thread, yeah, I was also struck by how huge Cavill must be. Haven't seen the Superman movies, but every once in a while in this film they shoot him so that he looks only modestly massive next to Cruise. *pauses post to look up his height.* Huh, he's only 6'1? I guess Cruise is pretty short, but this guy must be all muscle.

some actors stand on platforms, Tom insists on forced perspective shots and makes everyone else stand in a hole

everybody needs to watch the end of the mission Impossible b-roll where cruise is congratulating everyone, it is really the distilled essence of something that i can't quite identify. it is so rock-hard pure, so irreducibly cruise, yet lacks any of the boyish tenderness that those of us who like him in these movies still see in his performances. it's like he's become the ice-man!

I love reading stories of him being super cool to cast mates. Who was the one dude? Jake Johnson, who was in The Mummy? Yeah, him: https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/jake-johnson-the-mummy-interview-spoilers

Here’s a story that is very anti-Hollywood, but very Tom. He wanted me to work out with him and get in shape for the movie. People have told me in the past, including New Girl, that I need to lose weight and stay in shape. But they don’t tell me how. It’s like, "Hey tubbo, fit into these slacks!" Tom said, "I really want you fit for this movie." I literally thought I was going to have to call Max Greenfield to do Crossfit. But Tom said, "You’ll be training with me and my trainers. If you want I’ll put you on a food plan with my chef. The food is great." And the food was great.

He (also) said I could use his gym whenever I wanted. One day I go to work to work out and one of the (assistant directors) goes, "You can’t go in right now because Tom is working out." I thought, "That sucks, I got here an hour early to get this in, but he’s Tom Cruise." After, when we were shooting later that day, he said, "What happened to you? I thought you said you were going to work out this morning?" I told him I was told not to bother him and he got really pissed. He said, "Let me make something crystal clear: I don’t care what anybody on the crew says to you, they don’t know what I’m saying to you. And I’m saying to you that you are always welcome. I don’t care what I’m doing in there. You’re my castmate. Come in." He’s the best.

yeah l liked that story too

that's cool but if Tom told his castmate that he could use the gym whenever he wanted he should have maybe given the relevant people the heads up that's what was going on

"I'm the president! use air force 1 whenever you want! later!"

he just makes his young male co stars work out.

he was the same with jerry o connell iirc

Maybe he is relatively lonely/isolated and likes the company. I hear a lot of stories of Cruise hanging with cast members on set or during filming, but not a lot of stories (lately) of his personal life, when the Cruise Machine goes on lockdown. Do you think his workout buddies - or anyone - hangs out with him off-set? For such a tabloid target, Cruise has mastered the art of disappearing, or maybe people just don't talk about it. Here are a couple of more good stories printed on Vulture:

Before Jonathan Lipnicki, there was another kid set to steal the show on the Jerry Maguire set. He spent a few weeks filming, but after a certain point, he “ran out of gas,” Cameron Crowe told Deadline, and wanted to leave the production. The role was recast — Lipnicki stepped in — but Crowe got a call from the mother of the boy who almost took the role. “Weeks later, the mother of the first kid calls the office. I got on the phone and she says, ‘Will you please tell Tom Cruise thank you for the way he has kept in touch with my son, sent him letters and gifts, and just let him know all is well?’ I thought, wow, I had no idea Tom Cruise was doing that,” he said. Crowe continued:

“She said, ‘It really helped my son. He’s over it now, he’s fine, and Tom did a beautiful job helping him transition back to his life.’ I went to Tom, later, and said, you quietly helped this kid through what could have been a terrible transition. Thank you, but why did you never tell any of us? Tom said, ‘I just didn’t want that first actor to go to the movies, look at the screen and think he’d failed. I wanted him to love movies, his entire life.’ That is the quiet way Tom Cruise conducts his professional life.”

During the filming of Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Sr. impolitely inquired about Tom Cruise’s sexuality. “He gave Tom Cruise a hug and said, ‘I love you, man. Now seriously, are you gay or not?’” Gooding Jr. recalled, years later. “I almost fainted. And thought, Please, lord, let me disappear.” Cruise was so chill dealing with the prying parent: “Tom just laughed and said ‘No,’” his co-star reported.

During rehearsals for A Few Good Men, Kevin Pollock noticed Tom Cruise making notes in his script with a ridiculously huge pen. At first, they joked about it. Then, Cruise convinced Pollock to try writing with it. “It’s like an angel wing floating on a cloud. It was a magical pen,” Pollock recalled to the Chive. Even Demi Moore agreed the pen was a total joy to use. When Pollock learned the pen cost $500, he was crestfallen. Later, Cruise’s assistant showed up with a gift: the luxury writing utensil itself. When Pollock admitted to his co-star that he hadn’t used the pen because he felt it deserved a special spot on his mantle, Cruise bought him a second $500 pen — one for the mantle, and one for Pollock’s pocket.

As Bill Hader and Tom Cruise were in Los Angeles filming promos for the 2010 MTV Movie Awards, word reached the set that a car bomb had just gone off in Times Square. Hader was a new dad at the time, concerned about his wife and infant daughter in New York. Cruise noticed Hader’s concern, and asked when he’d get to go home to check on them. Hader wasn’t due back to the city for two more days, and so, Tom Cruise took over the set and got Bill Hader home by 8 a.m. the next morning. As Hader recalled:

“He thinks for a second. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We’ll get you home tonight.’ And in that moment, Tom Cruise, as Les Grossman, in a karate gi, began to direct all my coverage,” Hader recalled. “All my footage, all my close-ups. Boom! We do three perfect takes. Boom, boom, boom. Everyone’s chest-butting each other, some people are chest-butting themselves, people are going insane.” Two days’ worth of work, Hader said, “and he got it done in 45 minutes.” Then Katie Holmes came up to him and handed him a piece of paper with his new flight information. “You’re on the red eye tonight,” she told him. “I’m like, ‘What?!’” Hader said. Because Cruise got him out of work and on a plane that night, he was able to surprise his wife and daughter by 7:45 the next morning and check in on them in person. “So that’s what it’s like to work with Tom Cruise,” Hader said.

There are a few more good ones. http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/19-unsettlingly-nice-tom-cruise-stories.html

Obviously he has a team of assistants and stuff to help him give gifts and do good deeds, but he sounds pretty consistent (including real life acts of heroism). He's generous, he listens, he pays attention to details. For all I know these are all just facets of being the human incarnate of an intergalactic God, but who knows?

i hate to say it but i think hes just mimicking keanu

Keanu seems amazingly generous to his Matrix FX and stunt guys, but I guess I haven't heard too many other Keanu stories.

theres millions it like chuck norris memes at this stage

https://st2.depositphotos.com/7036298/10935/i/950/depositphotos_109352288-stock-photo-little-businessman-sign-with-giant.jpg

Cruise is 100% on at all times. When he sleeps, he probably drops to the ground for six hours, immediately jumping out of his hibernation cube upon waking.

but not a lot of stories (lately) of his personal life

Miscavige not well known for his Instagram presence.

finally saw this - first MI flick I've seen in the theater. I thought it was a blast, as nearly good as the last one. There seemed like a lot of moments where Cruise looked genuinely freaked out by what he was doing.

like in an existential crisis kind of way?

seemed so - it was very odd

I assume this is legit? It's apparently a hilarious CGI facial hair gaffe.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/zwlym2htxixrmickyy1d.Gif

Or maybe just a work in progress? It's hypnotic to watch his beard pop in and out.

He’s just puffing his neck flaps out as a threat display

Stunts and set pieces were great and Cavill’s hot but otherwise this flick didn’t do much for me. I prefer the last one.

Might have come off a reel for the responsible fx studio

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n16/michael-wood/at-the-movies

I watched Ghost Protocol on Sunday and watched Rogue Nation last night. Yeah, theyre a lot better than the original 2 movies (De Palma one is good but fuck John Woo and his dancing motorbikes). Ghost Protocol just shading Rogue Nation which was a bit too CGI-heavy but RN was definitely funnier

Took me a second to remember neither of those was the new one. I wonder what titles have been left on the table?

Mission Impossible: End Game
Mission Impossible: Dead Drop
Mission Impossible: Think Globally, Act Locally

Mission Impossible: The Hunt for Hunt

All of the actors seemed like they were tired and done with the franchise. Who do you think would be a good replacement team?

counterpoint: they didnt

yeah no- I am more than happy to see cruise keep at this until he physically can't any longer. this was a blast and I have no doubt that even if the next one is only half as good, the quality of the series is so ridiculously high that it'll outclass most anything else.

if I had any complaint I'd like to see more punchy dialogue on the next go

Angela Bassett was so so awful in her brief time onscreen. I don't know what happened, I can't recall ever seeing her in anything else where she was distractingly bad so I'm assuming she's a perfectly competent actress, but she was just brutal here. Baldwin wasn't much better.