Monday 21 May
 
 

Dark Crimes

Mill Creek Entertainment’s budget pack of noir, Dark Crimes, strongly goes against the notion that films in the public domain are there because they aren't any good. That’s nonsense.
05/18/2012 | Comments 0

The Aggression Scale

True to its title, The Aggression Scale begins quite aggressively: A woman just done with her daytime jog enters her home, whereupon a gunshot blasts her back out to her front yard. A hit man emerges and snaps a Polaroid for proof.
05/18/2012 | Comments 0

Cinema Verite

In 1971, the all-American, Nixon-loving clan known as the Loud family made history without even trying. They just allowed cameras into their lives for six months, and the result was PBS' An American Family, television's first reality series.
05/18/2012 | Comments 0

Knights of the Round Table

From 1953, Knights of the Round Table proudly boasts the CinemaScope logo as it opens, trumpeting itself as an epic Hollywood costumed drama on a massive scale: no expense spared, no detail ignored. And no story engagement.
05/17/2012 | Comments 0

The Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls

On the bloody heels of Something Weird Video's The Blood Trilogy comes another Blu-ray of pioneering indie filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis' well-known works. The disc may hold one feature fewer, but high-def beggars can't be choosers, so chew happily on what you got: 1970's The Wizard of Gore and '72's The Gore Gore Girls, which would be his last directorial effort for more than 35 years.
05/17/2012 | Comments 0
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Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol


Rod Lott December 21st, 2011  

One need not worship Xenu to enjoy “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” starring America’s most famous Scientologist, so check your religious beliefs and Operating Thetan levels at the door.

In fact, so ridiculously entertaining is this fourth chapter of an uneven franchise, it may very well make my list of the year’s best films. This is pure Hollywood product at its unapologetic, blockbusting best.

Tom Cruise returns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, now sprung from a Russian prison to infiltrate the Kremlin and prevent nuclear war. That’s all a MacGuffin, of course, to get Hunt and his three teammates moving from one set piece to the next, each impressively larger in scope and stakes than the one before.

The exciting opening is fluff compared to the climactic showdown between Hunt and a missile-happy madman (Michael Nyqvist, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) amid levels of varying heights in an automated parking structure.

Most exciting of all is Hunt scaling a Dubai hotel with gecko-grip gloves, proving director Brad Bird’s (“The Incredibles”) move from animation to live-action as seamless. He improves upon J.J. Abrams’ underappreciated 2006 “Mission: Impossible III” while making “Protocol” a direct continuation.

From “III,” Simon Pegg (“Star Trek”) reprises his comic-relief role, now upgraded to field agent. New to the team are Paula Patton (“Precious”) as a stunner of an ass-kicker and Jeremy Renner (“The Town”) as an intelligence analyst whose fists are as fast as his thoughts.

Both fit so snug, one hopes they’ll survive the “M:I” revolving door to return for chapter five.

 
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
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