Films That Matter
An Impossible Mission
How do you wrap up a franchise like Mission: Impossible? That is, if this even is the final installment... as they’ve made it sound (while at the same time, stars not named ‘Tom Cruise’ pipe up and suggest that might not be so). It has been twenty-nine years, with different writers and visionary directors – from twisty Brian De Palma and the action hair stylings of John Woo, to the lens flares of J.J. Abrams and animation expert Brad Bird, it was only about ten years ago that the franchise decided to opt for The Usual Suspects scribe Christopher McQuarrie for the final four. To return to that opening question once more, you could end with a Sopranos’ style cliffhanger, simply make another entertaining movie like the many before – like Everybody Loves Raymond did it with its final episode, or try to tie everything up in a neat little bow by bringing everything together as the Daniel Craig era did with James Bond. Well, it is definitely more along the lines of the latter example, with some distinct differences.
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Riverboat Fantasy
Steamboat Bill, Jr.August 7, 2017An inside joke for fans of Buster Keaton, they surely know that he often wears a pork pie hat in his films. Well, while watching 1928's Steamboat Bill, Jr., there is a scene where his uncle takes him to buy a new hat – to replace the effeminate French beret that currently adorns his little head. A revolving number are tried on by the young man, with the closest to his original being wholeheartedly rejected. Though he does eventually purchase a much larger version of a pork pie hat, it flies off of his head and into the flowing river, not to be recovered. This, in many ways, is symbolic of the changing era the talented silent comedian found himself in. After the box office debacle that was The General (now considered one of his greatest features), Keaton was no longer blessed with carte blanche when making his movies – the studio keeping a keen eye on spending and limiting his overall control.
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Star Pick with Gerry Cooney
The Fighting IrishThe Quiet ManAugust 2, 2017I was fortunate enough to sit down with legendary heavyweight boxer Gerry Cooney not too long ago. One of the biggest punchers to ever grace the bright lights of the ring, his career spanned from 1977 to 1990, a final record of twenty-eight wins and only three losses (twenty-four of those victories came by way of knockout). A towering six feet, six inches, and with an impressive eighty-one inch reach, the offensive minded boxer dismantled two legends of the sport, Ron Lyle and Ken Norton – leading him to a match with the great Larry Holmes, a spectacular bout that went into the thirteenth round, ending with Cooney losing by TKO. After three more convincing wins, Cooney faced two more formidable foes, Michael Spinks and George Foreman, the latter bringing an end to his illustrious career.
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The Game Within the Game
Atomic BlondeJuly 30, 2017A woman – bruised, battered and alone in a cool, sterile bathroom, attempting to lick her copious wounds (literally and figuratively) prior to being brought before an equally uninviting clandestine location filled with higher ups is the lead in (to clarify, it is the second scene) to the new David Leitch (co-director of the first John Wick) action thriller Atomic Blonde – based on the graphic novel “The Coldest City” by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart. Set during the last days of the Cold War, the female spy is Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), an MI6 agent who, ten days previously, had been sent into Berlin to complete an unenvious mission. Retelling her tale to her twitchy superior, Eric Gray (Toby Jones), and the seemingly more daunting CIA agent, Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman), she is watched closely by Chief ‘C’ (James Faulkner), who sits just behind a one-way mirror – it feels like the dame is utterly alone, perhaps more fragile than she has ever been before.
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A Deadly Game of Cat and Mouse
The Black CatJuly 25, 2017If thou darest, journey into the darkest depths of the supernatural gothic giallo thriller, Lucio Fulci’s 1981 horror feature The Black Cat, loosely based upon the Edgar Allan Poe short story that analyses the “spirit of PERVERSENESS” found deep within every human. A warning for those with a feline phobia, this can be seen as the Cujo of cat films. Available in either Italian or the English language, the meandering tale is absurd in a sense, but a whole lot of fun. For the first fifteen or so minutes, we are not exactly sure what is happening, yet Fulci develops an intoxicating aura. Set in the English countryside, it seems like a black cat, with eerie yellow eyes, is killing people in the quaint little village. Often showing the feline’s perspective, we swiftly stock its prey too, eyeing the next kill.
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Amazon Prime
Wonder WomanJuly 23, 2017Very much a coming of age story, Patty Jenkins’ 2017 comic book film Wonder Woman is a tale of adventure and self discovery, a sweeping journey into all of the beauty and horrors this planet, and those living on it, must contend with. A young Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), for those of you who do not know, is an Amazonian princess, the daughter of Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), living on the untraceable island of Themyscira. Mixed up in the age old story of the Greek Gods, their protector Zeus, though dying by the hand of his war driven son Ares, is able to protect the race and give them a weapon for when the God of War mends his wounds and returns to create havoc once more (the historic scene is beautifully depicted as if we were observing a moving Italian fresco).
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The War Channel
DunkirkJuly 21, 2017Both awe-inspiring and controversial, vividly complex while often being infuriatingly loose in structure and character, Christopher Nolan’s 2017 effort, Dunkirk plays like an epic silent war film of yesteryear. Revolving around the rescue of British soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, France in 1940, it is a piece of history well worth telling (and this film will make sure that the harrowing tale will be known by a wider audience still). With hundreds of thousands of men trapped by the Atlantic Ocean on one side, swiftly approaching German troops on the other and bombers overhead, it feels like the soldiers are monkeys in a barrel, just waiting to be shot. The British military have basically given up on them, hoping to rescue a measly thirty-five or so thousand, leaving the other three hundred and fifty thousand for slaughter. Despite the short span of the English Channel, their destroyers and other navy vessels are easy targets on the open seas – meaning that they must pull back and fight another day.
