#VERY good soundtrack; unsurprisingly a LOT of these tracks are going on my own cold weather playlist

[executiveibex]

finally bought the winter in hieron soundtrack and. jack de quidt needs to think of my poor heart and stop subtly working the main hieron theme and other leitmotifs into these tracks in increasingly more melancholy and poignant ways

[thebreakfastgenie]

@kaelio I believe you were the one who asked about the Elizabeth Weber drama! I had it all typed out the other day but tumblr ate it and I was too distraught to type it all out again right away. CW for brief mentions of suicide attempts. 

There’s kind of a soundtrack to this as relevant songs are noted throughout.

When the story of Elizabeth Weber begins her name was actually Elizabeth Weber Small. Elizabeth is Catholic and when she became pregnant fairly early in her relationship with Jon Small they decided to get married. Jon Small was in a band called the Hassles, which featured Elizabeth’s brother Harry as a keyboardist. Unfortunately, Harry was struggling with addiction, and when he became unstable and difficult to work with Jon fired him from the band and replaced him with Billy Joel. 

According to Jon, Elizabeth initially did not like Billy, but Jon and Billy immediately became best friends. Within a few years Billy and Jon decided to move on from the Hassles and start their own group called Attila. At this point we must acknowledge that the Elizabeth Weber drama performed a public service by ultimately leading to the end of Attila because Attila was the worst band maybe ever. Attila was a self-styled metal band featuring Jon Small on drums, Billy Joel on organ and vocals, and absolutely no one else. He even tried to scream on some of their tracks. Can you imagine Billy Joel doing screamo? Yeah. They also hooked up a bunch of amps and stuff to make their live shows as loud as possible. Unsurprisingly, Attila wasn’t doing well, and all of them were struggling financially. This led to Jon, Elizabeth, their young son, Sean, and Billy all living in the same house together. 

According to the most recent biography of Billy Joel, Elizabeth claimed she and Jon had already separated, and Billy only discovered later that this was untrue. I’m not sure I buy this, but in any case, Billy and Elizabeth started sleeping together. Jon found out and that was the end of Attila and their marriage. It was also during this period that Billy Joel drank furniture polish. There was also an incident where a friend, seeing he was stressed about the situation, gave him some pills and he decided to take them all at once. This is also when he wrote the suicide note that eventually became the lyrics for Tomorrow Is Today, which appeared on his first album, Cold Spring Harbor. 

With Attila mercifully dead, Billy and Elizabeth drove from Long Island to Los Angeles to kick off his solo career. This trip was the inspiration for Worse Comes To Worst from the Piano Man album; the “woman in New Mexico” refers to Elizabeth’s sister who they stayed with along the way. 

Billy and Elizabeth were living together when one day Elizabeth said “we’re getting married.” Billy didn’t particularly want to get married, but he thought it was the right thing to do, so they went to the courthouse that afternoon. Jon flew out occasionally at one point they were all in a parking lot together, possibly to hand Sean over for a visit, and they all just started laughing together about the absurdity of the situation. They also used to put 6-year-old Sean on airplanes by himself to go back and forth for visitation. Billy has said Ain’t No Crime from the Piano Man album is about “a fight with my wife.”

The story of Billy Joel’s first record deal is a post of its own, but while waiting out that contract we get to the Piano Man period, where Billy was playing in a bar under the name Bill Martin (his middle name) and Elizabeth was working there as a waitress while also taking classes to get a business degree. Eventually Billy signed with Columbia and they decided to go back to New York (half of Turnstiles is about this: Say Goodbye To Hollywood, New York State of Mind, and Summer Highland Falls refers to the town they were living in when they first got back). 

Sometime during this period Billy asked Elizabeth to be his manager. I'm more sympathetic to Elizabeth than most fans. She is a very intelligent woman who faced a lot of sexism in he music industry in the 1970s. In any case, Billy Joel wrote two songs about her on the Stranger: She’s Always A Woman, which referred to how people saw her as cold or cruel but he didn’t see her that way, and his first real hit, Just The Way You Are. The latter was presented to her as a birthday present and, the story goes, Elizabeth asked if she also got the publishing rights. Now, I can excuse this, because as his manager she did need to know, but she was later witnessed outside smoking a cigarette muttering about how she “didn’t even get the fucking publishing.”

Eventually Elizabeth got tired of being Billy’s manager and her brother, Frank took over. Frank continued as Billy’s manager even after Billy and Elizabeth got divorced, which turned out to be an awful idea. While making the Nylon Curtain Billy Joel was in a bad motorcycle accident. Elizabeth came to visit him in the hospital and tried to rush him into signing divorce papers while he was still out of it, hoping to get concessions he would not have agreed to otherwise, saying “oh let’s just get this over with!” He figured out what was going on and kicked her out. Billy Joel summarized A Room of Our Own as “I got divorced,” and Surprises, both from the Nylon Curtain, is also said to be about the divorce. (Laura is not about Elizabeth, it’s about his mother, though all he’ll admit to is “a member of my family.)

Frank Weber went on to scam Billy Joel out of a ton of money, which the song The Great Wall of China on River of Dreams is about. Billy stopped playing She’s Always A Woman in concerts for a few years, though he often retires songs just because he’s tired of playing them. A few years ago Elizabeth attended one of his concerts and he played it for her, and it’s since found its way back onto his regular setlist. When he played Just The Way You Are at the concert I attended he said “well, it didn’t really work out, but it was fun while it lasted.” He’s still on good terms with Sean, who refers to him as his stepfather. Jon Small became a music video director and directed some of Billy Joel’s music videos and they’re still close friends. Apparently they’ll still call each other up to talk about Elizabeth sometimes. 

[douxreviews]

Mission: Impossible 1-6 Review

"Your mission, should you chose to accept it..."

Your enjoyment of this series will most likely depend on how much you can tolerate Tom Cruise, as he is the dominant feature of the entire franchise. There's barely a scene in any of the six films produced so far that doesn't feature him. I'm indifferent to the man, I neither love nor loathe him, but will admit that, as an action star, he rarely ever puts a foot wrong (probably because it would cost him his life, crazy stunt lover that he is).

For the uninitiated, here's a brief overview of what the franchise is about. Cruise stars as Ethan Hunt, a Tom Cruise-ish international superspy who isn't as cool as Bond or as interesting as Bourne but is the equal of both when it comes to running from his own government and performing outrageously over the top stunts (all without the aid of stuntmen). Watch as he is forced to relive the same plotline over and over again, wherein he is framed by a one dimensional villain played by an actor who deserves better, and forced to go rogue so he can chase after the one dimensional villain played by an actor who deserves better and stop him from getting his hands on some vaguely defined MacGuffin and prove his innocence all with the aid of a team of interchangeable IMF agents, but mainly Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames.

What the Mission: Impossible series lacks in originality it makes up for in thrills. This is one of the most dependable, consistently good action franchises going. Out of the six films released there has only been one true failure. That is an impressive track record for any franchise as old as this one. One of the things that has helped keep the franchise fresh over the decades is the revolving door of talented directors, hand-picked by Cruise himself, who have all brought their own distinctive style to each instalment.

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Unlike most films in the series, Briann de Palma's original is a spy thriller first, action film second. There is really only one big action set piece (the final fight on top on the Eurostar) and it has not dated well. What has stood the test of time, however, is Hunt's iconic CIA break in, a sequence that is just as tense today as it was 22 years ago. What lets the film down is a plot that isn't nearly as clever as it thinks it is, clumsily handled twist, and some poor underwritten supporting characters. Mission: Impossible is a perfectly decent thriller, with its leading man on top form, but the more you watch it the harder it becomes to ignore its faults.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)

For all its faults, the first Mission: Impossible is a absolute masterpiece compared to the film that followed it. Mission Impossible 2 is like someone decided to do a parody of OTT action films, but forgot to include any jokes. They then gave that film to John Woo and told him to make the most John Woo-ish film he could. The result is, unsurprisingly, a complete mess on every level. Worse still, someone thought it would be a good idea to get Limp Bizkit on the soundtrack. For that alone, this film deserves to be banished to cinema purgatory for all time.

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

J.J. Abrams took over directing duties for the franchise's third outing and produced what is essentially a big budget episode of Alias (the opening scenes of this movie and the pilot are almost exactly the same). This is not a bad thing, as Mission: Impossible III is one of the series' best films, but a lot of the time it does feel like you are watching a J.J. Abrams greatest hits package, which also means enduring many of the director's more annoying traits (Yes, that means you, pointless lens flares). The film is also plagued by many of series' recurring problems. The villain, although the series' best, is still weak, the supporting characters are mostly forgettable (I can't for the life of me remember the names of Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q's characters), and I'm not sure if the film was being clever or incredibly lazy in not revelling what the MacGuffin actually is.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

From its opening jailbreak, set to the sweet sounds of Dean Martin, it is clear that Ghost Protocol is going to be fun. Brad Bird brings some Pixar sensibilities to proceedings, such as solid story structure, creative set pieces and strong character work. Ghost Protocol is the franchise in its purest form, bringing together everything that worked about the first three films, although still struggling to fix everything that didn't. The film's villain is almost an afterthought, and Mrs Ethan Hunt is hastily written out, although mercifully the series has abandoned any further attempts to make Hunt another Bond by saddling him with a new love interest. Now in his 50s, Cruise shows no sign of slowing down, or being tied down as he once again battles Ethan Hunt's true arch nemesis, gravity, and scales the tallest building in the world in a sequence that would give Spider-Man vertigo.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

In terms of style, Christopher McQuarrie's Rogue Nation is the least distinctive of the six Mission: Impossible films. It feels very much like it was cut from the same cloth as Ghost Protocol. Again, this isn't a negative, as Rogue Nation is one of the series' best films. The structure mirrors that of the first film, but without all those silly twists. The first act is a game of cat and mouse in a Vienna opera house that is pure Cold War thriller. The second act features a tense, elaborate break-in followed by a high speed bike chase that puts Woo to shame. And a third act showdown with the bad guy is okay, but feels like a letdown after everything that came before it. The film's trump card is without a doubt Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust, a mysterious double agent who spends almost the entire film saving Hunt's ass.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Fallout breaks from tradition by bringing back the entire Rogue Nation team (minus Jeremy Renner, who was too busy not being in Avengers: Infinity War) for an encore. The first direct sequel in the franchise's history, Fallout sees the definitive Team Hunt line-up (Ethan, Ilsa, Benji and Luther) forced to work with CIA “hammer” August Walker (Henry Cavil and his dastardly moustache of doom) to stop the followers of Rogue Nation baddie Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) from getting their hands on nuclear weapons. It's not often you get to say this about the sixth installment in a 22-year-old franchise, but Fallout is the best Mission: Impossible film yet and my vote for the best action film of 2018. Some have even proclaimed it to be one of the greatest action films ever made. I'm not sure I would go that far, but there is no question that this is an exceptional work of action cinema. While the previous Mission: Impossible films had about one or two standout set-pieces, Fallout has nothing but standout set-pieces, all of which will leave you breathless.

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011.