The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

EARLY ACCESS IS COOL. Back in October, I worked as the House Manager of The Music Box Theater for the Chicago International Film Festival. As a former employee, once in a while I get an invite for an exclusive screening of a film. I don’t have lots of time and can’t take advantage of these invites often.

Monday, on the other hand, I received a ticket to catch a movie I’ve been very excited about. You’ll get to see Tom Cruise close out the Mission Impossible franchise on May 23rd. Not me. I saw it this week. Remarkably, and with no planning commenced, I walked into the lobby and there was Gisela (who works with me at the day job and also did her time with the CIFF). Of course, we hung out and enjoyed the action.

Since DePalma and Cruise jump started things with the generally excellent Mission Impossible, the films have experimented and resulted in a few missteps. Like the MCU Infinity Stone saga, the films—both good and not-so-good—have slowly built a solid narrative: in the first movie, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt loses his entire team and is betrayed by his mentor. The ensuing films have effectively been his rebuilding of family and doing everything in his power to keep them alive while saving the world.

Since MI:3 the series has been rebuilding his team. The first film was a reboot of the seminal 1960’s television series and DePalma elevated it to great effect. A top-notch spy thriller with great stunts and the establishing of Ethan Hunt at its center. MI:2 is the John Woo joynt filled with slow motion doves, operatic sequences, a bit too over-the-top for even this franchise, and the inclusion of Thandie Newton (arguably one of the five most beautiful women on the planet). It also brought back Luthor (Ving Rhames) who, aside from Cruise, has been in every single film.

MI:3 enlisted Benji (Simon Pegg) as the comic foil “guy in the chair” and introduced the idea of Hunt marrying outside of the IMF and the complications therein. Ghost Protocol kept Luthor and Benji as anchors and was, by far, the most real of the movies in that director Brad Bird involved a lot of faulty technology to heightened both the suspense and humor.

Rogue Nation brought in writer/director Christopher McQuarrie as well as Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and Brandt (Jeremy Renner), an inclusion from GP. By Fallout, the team was set—Ethan, Luthor, Benji, and Ilsa. Oh, and McQuarrie, who stayed on and helmed that film as well as the two closing chapters.

OK. There are those who won’t see a Tom Cruise movie because he’s weird, because he’s a Scientologist, because he’s a cis white guy. Fine. I love Cruise. He’s the last genuine movie star and his religious beliefs are no stranger than most religious beliefs or the belief that Palestine is a haven for women and gays. I don’t have to have dinner with the guy, just watch his badass movies. And I do.

With MI: Dead Reckoning the endgame is afoot. The villain is an A.I. called The Entity that can take over and manipulate the entire fabric of cyberspace. That film was a set of three brilliant action sequences that culminated in the most brutal cut of all—the death of Ilsa at the hands of The Entity’s human gofer, Gabriel (Esau Morales). It introduced Hayley Atwell (one of the five most beautiful women in the planet) as a thief with the skills to become a member of the IMF. Bringing back Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby) as the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave’s Max from the first film began the pattern connecting the films in a larger narrative (Kirby was introduced in Fallout) as was bringing back Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge (also from the first film).

And we finally get the end of the story with Final Reckoning.

While easily the most earnest of the eight films, the stakes with Hunt vs The Entity are the highest so far and appropriately so. With several incredibly edited and executed fight scenes and two unbelievable and epic Tom Cruise Did WHAT?! Sequences as well as great actors (Angela Bassett, anyone?) grappling with potentially world ending dilemmas, this film is what Endgame was for the aforementioned Marvel Saga. In this case, the mission is more impossible than any that have come before and the payoff is extremely satisfying. Adding to the fact that, with an enemy that can infect any of the connected tech used in previous films causing Hunt and Co. to go almost completely old school to win the day, this one has a rawness and immediacy that felt earned over time.

The few issues I have include making a side character for the past few films the son of a pivotal early character (too late for any genuine impact) and the tone of “Please. My Farts Smell Like Glory” earnestness and melodramatic dialogue (a thesaurus-load for the multiple ways to intone with gravity that the “world is going to end”) gets to be a bit much. I mean, “Every personal sacrifice you made has brought this world another sunrise.” and “You are always the best of men, in the worst of times.” is a bit too high on itself in any script. A detail that separates this from previous installments is that most of the plots and Big Bads fit well within that original 1960’s vibe but Dead Reckoning and this film rip fears of AI out of our each day and the immediacy of the perceived threat seems far more pressing than a dude threatening to distribute the NOC list or blow up a city with a stolen nuclear warhead. That said, Final Reckoning closes the entire franchise well.

The first big set piece of the franchise is Cruise hanging by a set of ropes to steal a NOC List from a server using nothing more than his balance and a knife. The last big set piece involves him clinging to the wing of a bi-plane at top speed with nothing but himself. And, without spoilers, this aeroplane stunt had me wondering if this was the final reckoning when Hunt finally kicks the mortal coil. It was a real nail biter. Best part is that the camera is right there and you can see that’s Tom in every single, gut wrenching, frame.

So, thank you, Tom and gang, for 20 years and over 20 hours of super fun, incredibly entertaining work that feels somehow… complete. Well done.

LOVE FOR SALE. Yup. The grift was always pretty obvious with his relentless new bullshit cryptocurrency coin and the fact that we still haven’t seen the man’s tax returns but the acceptance of a $400 million jet from Qatar? Qatar, known for pearl diving, Al Jazeera, and the highly conservative Islamic practices governing alcohol, dress, and public behavior. Qatar, known to have effectively purchased the most influential colleges in the last coupla years.

There are two thoughts on this from my angle: our President is so brazenly criminal, we no longer can sustain our functional outrage or, like Las Vegas, at least the man is honest about his dishonesty—making him the most American of politicians. Oof.

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

GOTTA HAVE THAT QUARTER POUNDER. Consider the following report from Trump’s state visit to Saudi Arabia this week, posted by the foreign-affairs journalist Olga Nesterova: “As part of the red-carpet treatment, Saudi officials arranged for a fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit to accompany President Trump during his stay.” Seriously, the president has an entirely different version of what red carpet means than myself. I mean, not Wendy’s?

MAYBE IT’S THE BED? Man, I’m sleeping like a professional these days. Thanks, sis!

PAPARAZZI VOX POPULI. We didn’t mean to. None of us sat down in third grade and thought, When I grow up, I want to spend 80% of my waking life documenting strangers, acquaintances, and my own filtered reflection like I’m Spielberg on Adderall. But here we are. Everyone’s a lens now. Everyone’s watching. And worse, everyone’s capturing. We’ve all become the goddamn paparazzi.

Not the classic ones—those sunburned hyenas in Hawaiian shirts outside the Ivy waiting for Lindsay Lohan to stumble out of a Range Rover. No, we’re more subtle. More sinister. We’re the domestic paparazzi, the everyday voyeurs, the unsolicited biographers of our own mediocre existences. The line between private and public got buried under a mountain of ring lights and portable chargers. And we’re all holding the shovel.

Look at us. Filming our toddlers’ tantrums like they’re auditioning for a trauma reel. Capturing that guy on the L train picking his nose so we can post it with a caption like, “CHICAGO, amiright?” Going out to dinner and taking fifteen fucking photos of the pork belly before tasting it—not to remember the meal, but to show strangers we can afford it.

You used to need credentials to stalk people. A press badge, maybe a grizzled editor growling deadlines between drags of a Lucky Strike. Now all you need is a phone with a decent camera and a complete lack of boundaries.

We film fights in parking lots. We livestream funerals. We TikTok our dog’s limp and call it “content.” There’s no experience too sacred, no grief too raw, no joy too spontaneous that we won’t slap a filter on it and serve it up for clout. We’re not living—we’re producing. We’re not reacting—we’re framing.

The worst part? We’ve even paparazzi’d ourselves.

Every post is a press release. Every gym selfie a PR campaign. Every “candid” shot of our messy kitchen counter is curated authenticity, which is just another way of saying bullshit performance art. We say “just living my truth” but what we mean is “please like me enough to make this feel real.”

Even our misery has marketing value. Cry on camera, but make sure the lighting’s good. Share your trauma, but follow it up with a discount code for bath salts and a Patreon link. The sacred is for sale, and business is booming.

The paparazzi are parasites, getting unfiltered shots for the hope of a greasy check. We’ve become worse—bloodsuckers taking highly curated videos so other people will make us popular. At least the check had objective value.

Can you tell that this whole trend is kinda driving me a little batshit?

LIVING IN THE NASCENT DAYS OF SKYNET. Yup. The robots with increasingly advanced AI brains are starting to get antsy.

The worst part? AI has decades of movies about humans fighting back against the robot takeover to study in order to win the planet. I’m not going to cower in despair or become a doomsday prepper like the guy who created these AI models but, gang, it’s coming. Remember that time you lost your patience with your Dell Computer and smashed it with a shoe? No? The computer does.

WE DO HAVE A REALITY STAR PRESIDENT, AFTER ALL. The Department of Homeland Security is considering being part of a television show in which immigrants would compete for potential U.S. citizenship, an idea the producer pitched as far back as the Obama administration.

Department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said she had spoken to the producer of the proposed television reality show and that consideration of the idea was ongoing.

The Venn Diagram of dystopia used to be between 1984 and A Brave New World. It’s looking more like a strange brew of Terminator and The Running Man. You know, because we aren’t literate enough to recreate literature…

MARK YOUR CALENDARS. Joe and Co. are staging an event on June 14th in Chicago with the intent of both blowing off some well deserved steam and raising a dignified middle finger to the current administration.

Looks like we had a show postponement on that Saturday, so I’ll be there. If you’re in town and decide to swing by, say hello!

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Funny that last summer was so packed with events in the park (eighty in three months) and this summer my venue has a slow schedule during the summer (although I might as well move my new bed to the office for the Fall). Like I traded out experiences. I have to say, I’m really looking forward to enjoying my city in the summer without having to be in charge of the crowds.

As we begin to enter into the Summer of Climate Change Toaster Oven, take the early days as a chance to get outside, feel the sun, and remember the days when the robots aren’t putting us into pods as batteries.