Before I start the newsletter in earnest, here are the movies I caught up with in July:
July was a mix of some of the summer’s most anticipated movies and classics that I was interested in checking out. The big names here are Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Oppenheimer, and Barbie. One of the movies featured here, The Manchurian Candidate, was a first watch for me. It certainly was a lot darker than I originally anticipated and although the more recent remake (2004 with Denzel Washington) was fine, I enjoyed the original even if many of the setpieces were replicated.
The other movie I was excited to catch up with was Blue Hawaii. After watching Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, I had been interested in watching some of those early Elvis features. Thankfully, The Criterion Channel programmed a bunch of his features in July. Oddly enough, Angela Lansbury played the difficult mother in both Manchurian Candidate and Blue Hawaii. That wasn’t something I planned ahead of time! I quickly learned while watching Blue Hawaii that Elvis was not an actor. The movie is mostly a vehicle to see the famous singer perform some of his hits while engaging in a romantic subplot. Shame on me for expecting anything else.
Other than that I watched some classic Fourth of July movies like Yankee Doodle Dandy and Jaws. Do you have a favorite patriotic movie that you turn on during the Fourth of July? Let me know in the comments.
I realized while I was putting this newsletter together that I hadn’t really talked about the newest Mission: Impossible yet. On one hand that seems absolutely bizarre because heading into 2023 it was my most anticipated movie of the year and it received excellent reviews heading into its opening weekend. On the other hand, it has absolutely been demolished in the buzz that surrounded Barbie and Oppenheimer. It lost screens to those two movies— regular screens in the case of Barbie. Premium screens like IMAX to Oppenheimer. Maybe it would’ve helped Paramount to move one of its most dependable franchises (and star vehicles with Tom Cruise) to another date. Why it didn’t work in the box office is beside the point. Was it any good?
Is there any movie plot that feels more on the nose than Dead Reckoning Part One? Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is tasked with destroying a superpowerful A.I. before it takes over the world. The U.S. wants the A.I. to use as a weapon underestimating just how catastrophic the damage would be if it was unleashed to its full potential. That does sound a lot like the battle the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are waging against the studios during the strike and the fear of A.I. taking all their jobs. Anyways, this all-powerful A.I., known as The Entity, wouldn’t be all that intimidating if it didn’t have an evil henchman working for it. This is where Gabriel (Esai Morales) comes into the picture. Hunt and Gabriel have a past and Gabriel is one man you don’t want to mess around with.
Morales isn’t the only new actor to come into the Mission: Impossible fold. The cast is joined by pickpocket Grace (Captain America’s Hayley Atwell) to obtain the two parts of a key. This key is used to unlock the structure that keeps The Entity hidden. Plot has never been the strong point of Mission: Impossible so let’s discuss the stunts.
There are five major setpieces (in my opinion) that occur during Dead Reckoning Part One — The desert siege, the terminal chase, the handcuffed car chase, the Venice club and fight, and the train sequence. The train sequence is most phenomenal, taking up the last forty-five minutes of the movie and starting with Cruise’s motorcycle jump which has been highly promoted. It’s a fantastic sequence and really is worth the price of admission to the entire movie. The other highlight for me was the car chase sequence in Rome. Here Atwell and Cruise are handcuffed while trying to drive a getaway car. It’s a neat twist on the traditional chase sequence.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s no franchise as consistent as Mission: Impossible. Each time out there are going to be new fantastic stunts, beautiful locations, and watching Cruise get smashed around. What could be better? While Dead Reckoning Part One isn’t my favorite in the series, I’m still looking forward to the next one. (B)
Links
In the newest podcast of It’s the Pictures, I talk about the new Ira Sachs movie, Passages. Really loved the performance from Franz Rogowski and while I’m higher on the movie than this review from Digital Trends, I think it does a great job of discussing the movie in more detail. (In select theaters, streaming on Mubi eventually)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is humming along to its season two finale, but before that, they did the Star Trek series’ first musical episode. It’s a ton of fun and there are two decent songs in the bunch to boot! (Available on Paramount+)
I’ve been singing the praises of Apple TV+ for a little while now, and if you’ve subscribed it’s well worth a month to try out quality shows like Pachinko, Severance, Ted Lasso, Silo, For All Mankind, and more. The Ringer has a new article discussing the quality of content on Apple TV+ and how it’s set to become the next HBO.
The new season of Good Omens premiers on Amazon Prime Video and I had the pleasure of reviewing it for RogerEbert.com. Click to read my review of the David Tennant and Michael Sheen show.
New Home Video Releases:
I’ve gotten three new releases to 4K UHD from Warner Bros recently and I wanted to shout them out below.
The first two available now are new transfers of East of Eden and Rio Bravo as part of Warner Bros. 100th anniversary. I put in Rio Bravo yesterday and the picture is fantastic compared to the older releases of the classic Western. I’ve found more of these Warner Bros. 4K UHD releases to really emphasize the picture and audio quality of the movie and sadly not provide much else. If you love the movie, maybe that’s enough, but I sure do miss the days of special features.
That’s also the case with Warner Bros. new edition of Enter the Dragon. The 4K transfer of the disc was conveniently left out of Arrow’s recently released Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest which collected all of Lee’s movies, except for Enter the Dragon, in 4K. It was obviously because WB wanted to release it themselves. What we get is a great-looking transfer of the movie, but one that is seriously lacking in extras compared to the Criterion Blu-ray of the movie that was released a few years ago. If you just want Enter the Dragon in its best format, this is likely the way to go. But if you want all the history with it, you might consider adding either the Arrow set or Criterion set with this disc.