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Watched on Saturday May 24, 2025.

Hear me out—maybe the sevastopol is moby dick.  

My heart sank a little when the entity’s plan turned out to be nukes.  The first film conjured a sense of existential dread envisioning a digital panopticon imprisoning and enslaving all of humankind in a hyperreality of its own making (which is what Gabriel actually wants to do!).  The entity just decides to kill everyone in this film.  

The underwater sequence is the best set piece in the series.  The visual motif of water rising to fill the frame had been introduced as an idea earlier in the film, and it develops through this sequence (as the submarine slowly rotates and falls to the ocean floor) as a visual way to see the gravitational orientation of the room as Ethan navigates the interior of the submarine.  

The constant iteration on this idea of the camera centered on Ethan as the water moves around the edges of the frame then resolves at the end in a very beautiful shot as Ethan falls unconscious, lying with his back to the ice as he’s surrounded by the glow of light penetrating from the surface.

With Dead Reckoning and this film, McQuarrie has leveled up into a master of this type of visual storytelling, which makes it a little frustrating when there’s so much yapping and recap.

There’s another visual motif all throughout the first half of this film: cuffs.  Characters are constantly handcuffed, with the camera constantly (very deliberately) closing in on that image, but it doesn’t have a payoff in the same way the water does.  It’s interesting to look at but it’s confusing why this thread even exists.

“Whoever controls the entity controls the truth”

McQuarrie loves to put in pseudo-philosophical themes to act as a glue that holds disparate set-pieces together.  My ideal Mission Impossible film is a meaningless series of incessant action scenes (thank god for John Wick 4), but as it stands McQuarrie’s writing is actually pretty good.

I have a friend who’s gonna hate me for this comparison (since I always bring this book up), but the idea of these governments and world powers vying for control of the entity—and thus control of truth—reminds me of the doubloon in Moby-Dick.

In the book, the gold doubloon is a reward or bounty Ahab establishes for the first person to see or kill (in the book the word used is “raises,” i.e. whoever raises the whale, and to me that conjures an image of a dead or captured animal being raised above the water, but I think the most common interpretation is that it means the person who sights him) Moby Dick.  On its face it’s just a standard monetary/gold reward for a feat, but the doubloon takes on a different significance when each crew member takes a look at the coin, and each crew member has a different interpretation of what they’re seeing.

Thus, the coin becomes a metaphor for the interpretation of a text and the search for meaning—or truth—within that text.  Each person finds a different truth, meaning that there is no one universal or inherent truth.  But, if one person were to own that coin, they would impose their version of the truth upon the text of the coin.

In the postmodern sense, everything is text, and everything is interpretation.  If one were to defeat the white whale (who is, among many things, a metaphor for the infinity of god) and gain dominion over the coin, they would essentially be gaining dominion over the text of the entire world, and thus imposing their universal truth.  Ahab saw only himself within the doubloon, and would thus be imposing his own solipsism upon the rest of the world.

Which finally brings me to why this film reminded of Moby Dick.  The Entity is much like Ahab: a solipsistic, truth-eating force seeking godhood.  But it is also the doubloon: it is the text we interact with to understand the world.  Take the scene in the airport.  The Entity changes what people are seeing—one moment a man is right in front of you, the next he ceases to exist.  It is both the text—the literal digital space that everyone is interacting with—and the author.  The Entity is seeking to be the all-encoming author of the world, literally editing the 1s and 0s of reality to conform to a narrative of its choosing.  Its prophecies and plot twists are Truth.

TL;DR sometimes McQuarrie gets too far up his ass with the high-concept meta-narratives and themes but it actually is fairly intelligent.  I’m hearing Final Reckoning is a lot more of this type of writerly meandering and a lot less set-piece theme park (though i’m sure it’s that too).

The action is sapped of so much of the kineticism present in rogue nation.  The chase scene through Paris doesn’t feel like a chase, it feels like Tom Cruise driving a variety of vehicles in slightly cool ways.  It's still good though.

Get it? Because he said he’d put him in a box? 🤣🤣🤣

In 10 years people will realize that this film is the core statement of the McQuarrie films. All of the Fallout glazing has gotten out of hand.

All of the fixation on predicting and controlling outcomes, and Ethan as an inexorable force of (Randian?) heroism that disrupts the laws of nature and bends fate to his will, is present and fully stated in this film, almost a decade before The Entity became MI’s final boss.

There’s this writerly meta-narrative in the McQuarrie films that I could do without, but the setpieces are so good that McQuarrie is worth the baggage he brings with him.

A lot of this was really good but there’s a moment before the big action sequence where one of the characters says cringe shit to a room full of people that aren’t real characters as if we should have an emotional investment in whatever’s going on.

One of those films that excels as a portrait of a week in someone’s life.  I.e. I love this in its denotative moments: a woman bored at work and maybe a little too stressed out to deal with her landlord friend; going through the minutiae of throwing a bird out the window that the cat dragged in then nursing it back to health the next morning when your neighbor finds it; strained familial relationships; etc..  Any sort of symbolic meanings and metaphors with the bird aren’t really what I’m looking for.

I’ve been struggling my way through reading Miranda July’s novel All Fours, and for all the stress (which is why I’m struggling) of the main character carrying out an affair, it has a similar appeal to this as a work about an artist’s relationship with their peers, their career, their work, etc. at a specific point in their life.

It’s not great but the first 30 minutes though

Fun movie.  If there’s ever a third one please get rid of all the law abiding cop stuff.  It’s such a drag when we could instead be enjoying the strained but humorous relationship between two hitman brothers

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

This thing gets better and better

Really lovely craft but none of the characters other than the main two are compelling, so their ultimate separation mostly feels like they split up for no reason.

This needed to be longer to make the emotions actually cathartic.  As it stands I really like the ideas (and the mr magorium climax) and the characters actually have really great chemistry together.  Florence Pugh’s great in this.

It’s the first time I’ve liked the staging of action in a marvel movie in forever (maybe ever). Both the intro and the team’s meet-cute fight have moments of visual intrigue, with the latter also having multiple threads developing simultaneously, instead of the typical linear turn-based rhythms of superhero films where a guy gets cooked then a new guy enters the frame, then repeat ad infinitum (though this happens later when it actually becomes a superhero film).

I love the Prashanth Neel color scheme (dark gray and darker gray) so this film is in the top tier of Marvel films visually.

There’s a pivotal tailing/shadowing sequence shot day-for-night with an abrasively blue filter.  

On one hand, it looks kinda weird (in a cool way) and is an effective way of letting us see everything on screen while letting us know the characters are effectively invisible (their headlights were off while the criminals’ were on), but on the other hand, there’s almost no contrast in the image/lighting so it looks incredibly cheap compared to the rest of the film.  It then starts to crosscut the exterior day-for-night subplot with the main character’s moody interiors lush with beautiful chiaroscuro.  

The ultimate effect is a visual whiplash between shots that is either completely brilliant or a sign of inconsistent/compromised filmmaking vision.  I.e. this is probably objectively mid but it was made for me to love it.

Edit: there is an insanely unsettling scene where Nani’s love interest gives him a hard drive which has a file of an AI recreation of his mom giving him a heartfelt message.  We’re supposed to be emotionally moved by it.

Somehow Lea Seydoux is in a million blockbuster franchise films yet 90% of her output is still real movies

Still almost incomprehensible how much better this is than anything else in the franchise, with the exception of perhaps MI2

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Musicians as griots and storytellers, preserving histories of a displaced and erased culture.  This film is incredibly complex and equally captivating.

The greatest sequel ever made?

There’s enough mind-numbingly boring shit in this that i can’t say it’s great, but this movie is genuinely beautiful.

Very funny movie though I think the combination of this and Fast X has led me to realize Momoa can’t do silly roles.  He’s very much a knockoff version of Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China in this film.

The running bit where Jack Black does his songs and everyone reacts like it’s weird is funny though a little disappointing, since I would’ve loved to see full musical numbers in the film.

Great directors understand that the best way to stage a scene at the dinner table is to put a gun in the middle of it (although I’m sure that’s just in the script lol).  There’s a sequence where the shot switches at random between all four corners of the table, no doubt frustrating anyone who still holds onto the 180 rule as if it is in any way a meaningful representation of spatial continuity.

Fassbender portrays a calm, composed, robotic person until that scene where all the spies meet to discuss the traitor and the camera gradually closes in on him absolutely losing it.

Full of languorous slow-mo and creative framing.

Tons of high angle rooftop shots looking down at the characters that eventually develop into actual rooftop sequences with Sasuke running on top of buildings.  Uses doorways and alleyways to constantly reframe and reshape the shot.  A few long (minute+) takes with a still camera that surprise with a sudden, energetic movement at the end.

There’s a shot where Sasuke enters a room and we see him in profile, but as he moves forward to talk to Mitsuaki the camera pans into a sort of over the shoulder shot (where we can still see his right eye), except all we can see is his head in the top left corner of the frame and the seated Mitsuaki’s face in the bottom right corner of the frame.  The entire rest of the frame is the “negative space” of the room they’re in.  A film full of unconventional, weird, intriguing choices.

There’s American Flag and Union Jack imagery in this movie that exists solely to show that Jason Statham’s character is still a patriotic American even though he sounds like Jason Statham.

There’s a biker gang that wears viking and samurai helmets that the climax for no reason.

Usually in these films there’s a point in the plot where the bad guys kidnap the main character’s family and they gain leverage over him.  This film realizes its appeal is in the remarkable ease with which Statham mows down the enemies, so it stays away from any sign that the mafia might gain the upper hand.

Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.

I like his cigarette gag

“I’ve lost another one of the only girls I ever loved”


I reviewed this after the first reel this is maybe the most racist film I’ve ever seen

Chaplin is so overrated compared to literally any other silent comedy star

Haha

To anyone not named Kinji Fukasaku, please do not hinge the plot of your gritty yakuza crime drama on truth serum.  You are probably not a good enough filmmaker to get away with it.

About halfway through a police officer shows up who starts hamming it up in every scene he’s in.  Believe it or not, this was the first time I realized this film was going to be goofy rather than just have the action be goofy (the difference between Lone Wolf and Cub and Zatoichi).

Really appreciate the interplay between the foreground and background in the staging.  There are also some subtle (or at least not flashy) oners that comprise three or four individual shot compositions which are achieved through actor and camera movement/rhythms rather than editing.  Really solid on a craft level even when the descent into a beastly existence is never compellingly realized.

Either I don’t get it or the film is just mid.  There are a lot of cool visual ideas and a few great scenes (or maybe just the one great scene with the relentless camera flashes as she tries to evade the man’s pursuit), but none of them actually look good because this thing was shot to look like shit on a video camera.

Reflections, projections, tattoos, images painted onto myriad surfaces.

I may grow to appreciate this particular digital aesthetic if I watch more Sato, so I’ll probably come back to reevaluate this movie someday.

It feints at a hint of self-aware feminism with some dialogue at the end but it just doesn’t work due to the actual events of the film.  A lot of the painless gags are funny.

Watched on Tuesday March 11, 2025.

Usually I understand why a movie I love might have a low audience consensus, but I can’t even comprehend it this time.  This film is gorgeous and full of cool shit.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

I always watching from a wallace and gromit dvd as a kid so this was really nostalgic.

Just when I was thinking Bong might be a fraud he makes his best film since Memories of Murder.  Has all of his broad themes of exploitation, animal abuse, etc. but this really dug into the fungibility of capitalist labor (I sound stupid to myself when I type that) in a really unique way.

This film goes through a few different arcs where the character dynamics aren’t always consistent, but I think it actually works out to the movie’s benefit.  e.g. there’s a scene where two women (his girlfriend and another side character) are negotiating a trade deal over who gets which Mickey, acting as if they can own/control Mickey as well as treating his different iterations as interchangeable.  Then for the rest of the film, that angle is dropped and their relationship is framed as much more wholesome.

There are a few other situations where the relationships change for no reason, e.g. his friendly(?) relationship late in the movie with the scientists who experimented on him.

Essentially, there are many great moments of intriguing psychological character scenes that are completely disconnected from each other; which should be frustrating but actually works.  It ends up feeling like a series of sketches aimed at exploring different ideas (like getting cucked by yourself) rather than connecting to a narrative whole.

Really solid action film with great execution of some of the modern action staples.  It’s got its own staircase fight, it’s got the John Wick gauntlet structure, etc.  

I think it suffers from the lack of story.  The fighting isn’t next-level to the point where it can singlehandedly elevate a film to a masterpiece—e.g. Timo Tjahjanto’s (massively underrated) Headshot—so even while the film is good, there’s always a sense that I could be enjoying myself a lot more.  The one real pause in the action (after the first act build-up) is an exposition scene with Sakata’s old police .  It’s pretty long for what it is, especially since Sakata’s brainless strategy doesn’t change a bit after getting the info.  I think I would have preferred some space for actual characters over meaningless exposition, but on the other hand that would go against the plain-action-film ethos of the movie.

I like how in every scene Fiennes says “we’re sequestered, I couldn’t possibly seek out information that would influence my judgment,” then when the other person says “ah yeah that makes sense” he goes “but i need to know.”

Just when I thought the climax was turning into slop the film switched art/animation style and went god mode.

Watched on Wednesday February 26, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday February 26, 2025.

Not his best work but every ten minutes or so there’s a beautiful shot composite that takes my breath away.

The subtitles were a bit of a trip.  Mixes archaisms like “fain,” “perchance,” “ye (and not as in the artist formerly known as kanye west),” “verily,” etc. with just straight up plain 21st century English, but then throws in the word “acme” out of nowhere.  Yeah it’s an old word but if you want an American audience to think archaic, don’t use the one word everyone associates with slapstick cartoons.

I watching this almost a decade ago but I don’t it being this GOATed.  Tsui Hark reminds me of Johnnie To in the sense that the staging always feels effortlessly brilliant.

Cool motif of POV shots where the characters are reaching their hands out.  There's one such shot where Dee points at a character, and the camera rack focuses from his hand to the woman he’s pointing out; and I can’t explain why but I just think it’s a really satisfying effect.

The plot isn’t groundbreaking but it works as an excuse to explore a world of transfiguration, magic deer, spontaneous combustion poisons, (literal) puppet warriors, and kung fu master detectives.  Really fun film to experience.

What the hell does the title mean

Unfortunately very boring.  The war “montage”/sequence is edited poorly and intercut with random fragments of scenes where random characters say the good guys are doing well and the bad guys are doing bad.

Because of the butchered pacing, the betrayal is both extremely telegraphed yet also completely surprising since any hint of melodrama had been dropped over an hour ago.

Toxic alpha male serial harasser super surgeon. He’s basically the same character as the guy from Animal but with less violence and more self-loathing.  SRV’s a good director but an insane (read: evil) writer, so I have an ambivalent, begrudging respect for his films.

SRV excels in Animal with the mass action scenes, and this film is a relatively straight-up drama, so it suffers in comparison.  Yet there are still many individual moments of cinematic pleasure.  In the last scene before the happily ever after ending montage, there’s a jarring jump cut (or perhaps a cut to a slightly different angle) that’s one of my favorite editing choices I’ve seen all year.

There’s a character who exists to be the punchline of all the misogynistic jokes.  She’s called a bimbo (or at least in the netflix subtitles), there’s a musical sting where a chorus sarcastically remarks “so smart!” when she says something stupid, Ranbir says she’s only meant “for flirting” whereas Deepika is meant “for loving,” every interaction with her is about rubbing her legs and/or manipulating her gullibility, etc.  

It leaves a sour taste in my mouth when every other woman in this film is a (good!) character and she’s just there to be the butt of every cruel joke.

There are great moments and sweeping haymakers of emotion in this film but there’s so much lacking from it that I can’t bring myself to say that it’s good.

1. Broken Rage
2. Sinners
3. Mickey 17
4. Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force
5. In the Lost Lands
6. A Minecraft Movie
7. Black Bag
8. Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
9. Ne Zha 2
10. A Working Man

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Boiling Point
2. Takeshis'
3. Dolls
4. Kids Return
5. Broken Rage
6. Kikujiro
7. Sonatine
8. Getting Any?
9. Beyond Outrage
10. Fireworks

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Hundreds of Beavers
2. Kanguva
3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
4. The Beast
5. The Killer's Game
6. Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
7. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
8. Dune: Part Two
9. Nickel Boys
10. Pushpa 2 - The Rule

...plus 83 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Kotoko
2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
3. Kwaidan
4. Cemetery Man
5. Hellraiser
6. Death Proof
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street
8. Guinea Pig Part 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood
9. Tales from the Hood
10. The Funhouse

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Alien Resurrection
2. Alien: Covenant
3. Alien
4. Prometheus
5. Aliens
6. Alien: Romulus
7. Alien³

1. Salaar: Part 1 - Ceasefire
2. Magic Mike's Last Dance
3. The Boy and the Heron
4. Oppenheimer
5. Asteroid City
6. Knock at the Cabin
7. Monster
8. Napoleon
9. Anatomy of a Fall
10. John Wick: Chapter 4

...plus 78 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Days of Heaven
2. Charulata
3. Apur Sansar
4. The Irishman
5. Il Soro
6. Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day
7. The Silence of the Lambs
8. A River Called Titas
9. Betty Blue
10. Yi Yi

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Mission: Impossible
2. Mission: Impossible II
3. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
4. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
6. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
7. Mission: Impossible III

1. Three Thousand Years of Longing
2. Inu-Oh
3. The Fabelmans
4. The Batman
5. Nope
6. Ambulance
7. RRR
8. The Northman
9. TÁR
10. Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction
2. Transformers
3. Transformers: The Last Knight
4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
5. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
6. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

1. The General
2. Sherlock Jr.
3. Cops
4. The Cameraman
5. One Week
6. The Navigator
7. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
8. Day Dreams
9. The Boat
10. The Goat

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. John Wick: Chapter 4
2. John Wick: Chapter 2
3. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
4. John Wick

1. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
4. Pulp Fiction
5. Death Proof
6. The Hateful Eight
7. Jackie Brown
8. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
9. Reservoir Dogs
10. Django Unchained