#but it is so anathema to what we know of henry's character

[fideidefenswhore]

Not everything here is a failure—the film is more misstep than fiasco, perhaps due to a visionary director losing authorial control of a prestige film to his producers, who may have had a more conventional movie in mind from the outset. Among the more pleasing stuff, a nicely gruesome vein is developed here,

 centering on Henry’s hideous, suppurating leg wound, into which Parr is at one point instructed to drop live maggots.

See, now I’m confused, because other reviews are saying this film moves outside of the Victorian stereotype/misinfo of Parr as nursemaid. But this would suggest otherwise...

[callmearcturus]

hello, hi i came across your post about dottie lasso and i wanted to say FUCKING THANK YOU for articulating how i feel about her. i couldn't msg you directly so i'm sending this lol.

i constantly see people pull the "oh she's trying, she's midwestern, she doesn't know any better" excuse which is completely baseless imo. she's manipulative and henry never gave any indication that he wanted ted to move back. they spent a whole episode showing how at home henry is/could be in richmond, that he has a support system there the same way ted does. it's one of the things i hate the most about how s3 ended (and that list is long). dottie doesn't like ted and she doesn't like him building a life away from what she thinks is the right place for him.

i also think her being so dismissive about therapy and his progress was very telling that she doesn't want him to do better and move on in a way ehe never could. she wants him repressed and sad bc that's what she still is.

Can I touch on the "midwestern" thing as a midwesterner myself? Bc that one is wild.

Because... Ted is midwestern too and he's a fascinating depiction. The show makes it a core of his character to be as wide with his references and interests as possible. When classic christianity is referenced, he always makes a lil remark that is clear code for "I grew up here and I know the language but I'm not one of you anymore." He has all the tics and habits of a man from that background, and he applies all of that candor to a lot of progressive ideals that doesn't come standard.

Like, lets be real, that's the core conceit and appeal of the entire show, that specific combination.

So why the fuck do we just say "oh it's okay, dottie's midwestern" like what the fuck. Like, when Ted was dismissive of therapy, I actually did chalk that up to him being midwestern at first, and then the show went on and established no actually it has nothing to do with that, he has bad history with therapy.

I dunno, I think diminishing someone's actions based on their circumstances is actually anathema to the show, so why would Dottie get a pass?

ANYWAY i'm rambling. probably bc the thing that hooked me on the show was i was gutted by seeing myself in a piece of media so vividly. there's a fucking reason I keep listening to Josh Ritter and looking at pictures of home.

[life-love-geekculture]

Dark Wind 3x06: Unhinged Ramblings

*clears throat*

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This is the peak episode of the season (possibly the series) but also just….ahhhh.

Okay, let’s focus on the real world first and the fact George is a bad ass. Like, can we hire this kid when he comes of age? He manages to evade his attacker, keep Joe from bleeding to death, and (spoilers) escape after being in hiding for like a week…as a teenager. Damn, kid. Well done.

George cheering aside, this was of course Leaphorn’s (and Zahn McClarnon’s) episode

Words cannot express how much I adore the show-don’t-tell nature of this episode despite all the character tea being spilt. If you want to know why Joe is the way he is, this is the episode that will tell you. The use of the stage to tell the fable that parallels both the events of the past and the present with Joe serving as both a central character and witness to the events; playing particularly on the ambiguity of the past & what Joe remembers (or chooses not to remember despite the episode dialogue pretty explicitly telling the audience our worst assumptions are unfortunately correct). The fact that when Joe is substituting in as one of the boys, it’s William he takes the place of, not himself. That’s reserved for our resident baddie George, giving us a clue of the kind of person Joe understandably wishes he was during the event in question.

And while all this is going on, we’re basically watching Joe’s subconscious take the time to drag his ass for being an idiot. One of the standout lines of the episode coming from Washington’s figment:

“I’m not saying what you did was wrong. I’m just saying it’s not justice the way your badge defines it.”

Again, everything you need to know about Joe is out in the open here. This is a man who has built himself around his badge and this role in the community. He’s taken what he went through growing up, particularly his parents push for assimilation, and tried to find meaning for it by using it to help his people. And to act counter to those principles, even if he ultimately gave Vines a “fair” trial, it’s hardly a wonder he’s been a mess this season.

I also love though that Joe’s subconscious tells him point blank his biggest problem is he just didn’t talk to his wife! Whether it’s his emotional constipation, his assumption Emma was to weak to share the burden following Joe Jr.’s death, or a combination thereof; he certainly wouldn’t have been in the Vines mess if he opened up to her. And even in the moment he still doesn’t listen to his own damn self which is just…

Anyway to the past….

I do want to give credit to Robert Knepper for embodying such a great villain in this episode. In spite of Joe’s need to characterize him as a monster, there’s just enough humanity in the performance (particularly when he’s reminding Joe he was a kid at the time) that it really drives home Henry’s point later. He was a man. A man who did bad things and needed to be stopped. But still a man. That said, every time he referred to Joe as Joey I about threw my remote through my tv in blind range.

Speaking of Henry, I love him even more now. And it just makes his line from season two (“your whole life.”) even better. Ain’t nobody in the world gonna find that body. I also just adore the implication that literally everyone in Joe’s family adopted or otherwise is essentially better at crime than he is. How is he so bad at crime?!

The main thing I took away from their exchange though is the tragedy is in the aftermath of his confession to Henry. It really helps explain why Joe’s go-to reaction to trauma and tragedy is to shut down and say very little. Because either way you look at it, the end result of telling his father led to something bad happening.

On one hand, his confession led to a man’s death. I mean sure, Joe thought about killing the SOB, but everything we’ve learned about him in the course of three seasons tells us murder is anathema to his moral code. Even at his angriest and most vengeful, he couldn’t shoot Vines. Leave him in the desert? Sure. The man might be as good as dead out there, but he had a chance. The desert itself became judge, jury, and executioner, which is a far fairer form of justice than the man probably deserved. Now, imagine the impact that black & white view of the world would have on a twelve year old realizing his dad likely committed the worst crime instead of arresting the bad guy (like cops are supposed to do).

It’s really no wonder he made himself believe his own father didn’t believe him and that came with it’s own repercussions. If Henry wouldn’t believe him, who ever would?

Additional thoughts:

Honestly, I love how we’ve already had so much of the real world action set as a teaser from episode one. So even though Joe is completely out of it, we the audience still know what’s occurring.

Also, poor Natalie. That woman deserves a raise for all the weird ass radio calls she’s received from Joe & Chee respectively.

Again, can’t praise Zahn’s performance enough! But I do want to give a shout-out to the absolutely pitch perfect WTF reactions every time Joe slipped into the dream world. It was the perfect amount of levity to balance out the heaviness of the rest of the episode.

[tenaciouspostfun]

Stories

Submitted



Ferrari. Movie Review.

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"Ferrari" differs from "Ford vs Ferrari" that played several years ago. This movie deals with the personal life of Enzo Ferrari and his inner conflicts. Where "Ford vs Ferrari" dealt with the competition between the two great auto makers, this movie takes us to the life of the man in Modena,Italy.

Enzo Ferrari has had a long time mistress, Lina Lardi played by Shailene Woodling in which he has a son with her, Piero. Years before, Enzo had lost his older son (Dino) to a long illness and it has hurt him deeply; he visits his son's tomb often.

What makes "Ferrari" work so well is several-fold: the great cinematography, excellent directing by Michael Mann and the acting that each and every actor puts into their roles. One gets a sense of the time and place of where Ferrari grew up and lived his life.

In what maybe her best role since "Blow", Penelope Cruz hits it out of the park as Ferrari's wife, Laura Ferrari. Determined, classy, demanding and smart, Cruz is the true matriarch of this family; she takes no crap from anyone. Laura is bitter over losing her son; losing her husband as she toils with the car company that it teetering on bankruptcy.

Ferrari himself (Adam Driver) is a calm, calculating man who is always in control of his emotions, always. He too is a demanding man who does not suffer defeat very easily. He, after all is a car company that produces cars to support his racing team which is anathema to all the other car companies in the world. Being that he makes so few cars he needs to win races for his company to survive.

What complicates Ferrari's life is his other life, a mistress and a son that he tucks away in the countryside. Where his wife thinks that he is having multiple affairs, it his other secret life that lays bare the controversy in this movie. Only a handful of people know of Enzo's secret. Like his first child, Enzo nurtures this young boy, teaches him about engineering and even though he is young, he educates him about practical daily matters.

What makes Ferrari most appealing is that the director deftly moves us from a nasty wife at the beginning who is unlikable to a stealthy woman that we all respect at the end. Even though her husband has not been kind to her, she stands behind him at all times. She is by no means a pushover, however, she is his fortress. Laura manages the books, delves out the salaries of the workers and is a very shrewd businesswoman.

Another reason "Ferrari" appeals is the cars themselves and the racing scenes; lifelike and engaging, both the direction and cinematography make this movie a winner. I don't think I will ever forget the near end of the last race scene that involved fatalities; never have I ever witnessed a scene like that in all the years I have watched film!

Even though it is billed as a work of fiction, "Ferrari" is a work about real people who experience what the film depicts. Much of the story is based on the man, his company and his life, but not all of it is factual. What is factual about the man is that he loved his cars and his racing team, he built cars like no one else could. Where Henry Ford build an assembly line, Ferrari built works of art, something that Ford's son who would later take over the business couldn't do.

At a little over two hours, "Ferrari" for the most part moves nicely (there are some slow points), it engages the audience and keeps the characters interesting and for the most part, likeable.

Enzo Ferrari, Penelope Cruz, Adam Driver, Michael Mann, Patrick Dempsey, Hollywood, Academy Awards, Oscars.

Words: 639

[toast-the-unknowing]

HI! I wanted to say that I really love your writing and I get really excited to see notifications that you've posted new work! And I was just curious if you worked in an office of some kind, and if so how do you find the time/motivation to sit in front of the computer and write personal work. It's just something I've been struggling with myself, and I wanted to ask if you had any similar experiences. If the answer is no, then no worries :) Thanks again!

Oh, that's a tough one, Anon.

I do currently work in an office -- as An Adult I've had an array of jobs, all of them either retail or customer service or "office assistant in a field I don't care about." And I’m sure that every job has the power to take away from your creative work, just as a simple matter of resources -- time and energy spent working can't be spent writing -- but there's something extra challenging about jobs you don't like, jobs you're doing just because you have to. They take so much out of you.

Motivation is one of my personal crosses to bear. I don't have it. I consistently struggle to find the motivation to do basic life tasks. So I don't know that I have answers for you, but I definitely have sympathy.

I also have, like, so many more words than I thought, so they’re going behind a cut.

When motivation is in short supply, the stuff that has to happen or you will literally die comes first. That's okay. It gets to come first. If I put on clothing and show up for work and eat some kind of food at some point, I got through the day. That's an accomplishment. And sometimes doing that uses up all my motivation for the day. Sometimes I can't even get up that much motivation, let alone do anything else. That sucks, but it happens.

But it doesn't happen every single day.

Some days have more motivation than others. Some seconds have more motivation than others. Why can I do the thing in this one second when for weeks it's been blocked like a grayed-out option on a computer menu? I don't know. But I could. Motivation is weird like that. You never know when it will show up, so you have to give yourself opportunities.

You know your office better than I do -- is the culture "get the work done on time and we don't care what you do" or "YOU MUST PERFORM 'PERFECT EMPLOYEE' AT ALL TIMES"? What's the layout of your desk? Can people read over your shoulder? How nosy are your bosses/coworkers? How strict are the internet controls your IT department uses? How busy are you? What are your own particular psychological quirks and philosophical attitudes? What's your anxiety look like?

It may be that "work on my writing while on the clock" is not an option for you. I get that; in the time I've been an office worker, I've been all over the place, from "my own writing is what I spend the majority of my time on while I'm at work" to "I won't even touch my writing on a company computer." Right now is closer toward the latter. But, if writing at work is an option for you, now, don't lose out because your current project is saved to a .docx file on your home desktop. Make it so that if you had to, you could write under literally ANY circumstance. I carry a Chromebook with me everywhere. Before that I carried a composition notebook and a pen at all times. I know people who write fics in draft emails or the notes app on their phone.

When time and motivation are scarce, you have to build in the opportunity anywhere that you are able to. Those might not be the same opportunities that work for other people. I've heard established writers say things to newer writers like "if you don't have the time during the day, just wake up earlier," and that's so discouraging and heartbreaking for me to hear. "Wake up earlier" isn't an option for me. "Wake up on time" is barely an option for me. Getting out of bed is a bottleneck for all of my motivation issues to all run into each other at the same time. But "work on the bus" does work for me. Not every single day. Maybe one day I'm tired. Maybe the bus is really full. Maybe the person I'm sitting next to looks like my mother and that makes it weird to write about boys kissing. Maybe the one fic I really really really want to work on that day is porn, and no I'm not going to do that on the bus/at work/on my lunch break. Maybe I pull out my Chromebook and open it and look at my fic with every intention of working on it and just.....nothing happens, for forty minutes, and then I'm embarrassed and put it away. That's fine. Because if I do write something on one of those commutes or lunch breaks or "just gotta kill time" evenings even once, then it was worth it. If I give myself lots of opportunities, then even if I don't take most of them, I still get stuff done I wouldn't otherwise.

Little bits COUNT. If all you manage to write is "in this scene the characters argue" THAT COUNTS. You wrote a thing. Because the next time you write, that can become "in this scene the characters argue about money and Adam storms off". And then the next time it can be "the characters argue about money and Adam storms off and Blue says something really cutting to Gansey and Gansey is crushed." And then, and then, and then.

It sucks to write a story one tortured sentence at a time, but it can be done, and sometimes that's the only way that it does get done. Some days all I do is turn [gansey says hi] into "Hello," Gansey said, and you know what, that counts.

Sometimes when writing has been hard or impossible for me, I've done writing adjacent tasks. Maybe the motivation isn't there, right now, to get writing done. Can you daydream about something you know you'll never write in a million years? Can you spend your commute, or the time you spend watching paper feed through the scanner, or that awkward minute in the break room when your boss is getting coffee at the same time as you -- can you spend that time thinking about a Hogwarts/ABO/vampire/fake dating/rock band/Groundhog day/all-of-the-above fic that you would never write? Because daydreaming and dicking around can be very helpful for getting your brain in gear to write. And if you daydream about the story you're actually writing, or one you'd like to write, (a) you get caught up in it needing to be GOOD ENOUGH which is anathema to free wheeling fun times, and (b) you run that risk of coming up with that PERFECT bit of dialogue that you aren't able to write down and then you forget it. If you forget that really funny bit of dialogue for the Declan/Henry soulmate alien abduction shapeshifter fic you were never going to write, well, what does it matter?

I've done this before when I've been in a place where I'm not writing, and there's something about being able to say, "okay, I didn't write anything, but I came up with five different fun little stories that I can go back to, in my brain, any time I feel like it." And I've discovered things about the characters that I do then want to use in a "real" story . Maybe you will stumble across an interesting dynamic or interaction in that OT6 West Wing crossover you were never going to write, but it's worth revisiting in something you do want to write. When you're able to.

The ways of motivation are mysterious. I don't really know why it's easier to find the motivation now than it's been at other points in my life, in other fandoms. I think part of it is momentum, from accepting "okay I'll just try to do a little bit of writing" and then the little bit happens and keeps happening and becomes a big bit. There's been so many times now where my bus pulls up to my stop and I go "ugh I have to put the laptop AWAY and GO HOME why" and I just try to race home so I can sit down on the first chair I find and keep writing.

Are there some places, or times, or situations, or writing mediums, where the motivation comes a little easier? If you don't know of any can you pay attention for those? Is there any way to capitalize on that? If super boring meeting where I don't have to do anything but I'm not allowed to skip is a great time for day dreaming about your writing, is there anyway to take your lunch/a coffee break/a really long bathroom break where you hunt & peck type into your email drafts right after that?

I tried tracking my writing once, on the suggestion of a very convincing essay by an author who promised that only good things could come from meticulously noting where the writing happened and when and how many words. The result was that my word count dropped to zero. Very easy to track! Not so great for literally any other goal I had. But I've learned a lot about my process since then, not from spreadsheets and journals but just from...paying attention, and asking myself questions, and thinking back on all the thinking about writing I do, and it's become easier to make words happen. Not a guarantee, but -- easier. So I think the most helpful thing is just to give yourself opportunities, even little ones, to write or create, and then just...pay attention. To your process and your words and your motivation and your situation, and try to work within those and not against those.

[marcjampole]

Trump is almost the same person as Teddy Roosevelt in personality and character, except Trump speaks loudly & carries no stick at all

Since the election pundits have from time to time compared Donald Trump to various former presidents, most frequently Andrew Jackson because both were racist populists with tempers who liked talking tough and using the military. But I’ve also seen writers find similarities in Trump’s temperament to both Adamses, in incompetence to Buchanan and in dishonesty and political strategy to Nixon. Trump himself has spoken of his accomplishments as worthy of a Lincoln, which to people who live in the real world is akin to claiming an average Little League baseball player is as good as Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays (or Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout for younger readers).

In a continuation of this trend, Vice President Mike Pence recently compared his boss to Theodore Roosevelt — a comparison that may have surprised many Americans because TR is depicted as a hero and one of our greatest presidents in most history books while the public already realizes how unprepared and incompetent Trump is for the job he has now held for about eight months.

But as Stephen Kinzler’s depiction of TR in his entertaining and illuminating The True Flag reminds us, Trump and Teddy share so many personality, character and class traits that you might think they’re the same person. The True Flag discusses the debate surrounding the Spanish-American War and its bloody aftermath in which American soldiers tortured, raped and slaughtered their way to victory against rebels in the Philippines, the first time the United States used its military might to make acquisitions beyond the borders of the contiguous 48 states. The book focuses on the imperialist arguments made at the end of the 19th century by TR, Henry Cabot Lodge and the yellow journalist William Heart, who with Joseph Pulitzer pretty much invented fake news. They and many others were in favor of projecting American military might, holding possessions in which the inhabitants could not have free elections and extending U.S. control to peoples considered racially and culturally inferior. On the other side, the peaceniks believed fervently that the U.S. should not pursue military adventurism and that it was unconstitutional suppress the voting rights of people in other lands; they included such luminaries as Mark Twain, former President Grover Cleveland, Jane Adams, Andrew Carnegie and the distinguished Senator Carl Schurz.

Nowhere in The True Flag does Kinzler mention Donald Trump, but the picture he paints of TR is so similar to the Donald we have seen for the past 30 years that you could swear it was Trump being described.

Let’s start with their backgrounds. Both TR and Trump were born in the lap of luxury with a silver spoon in their mouth, on third base and thinking they hit a triple. Filthy rich.  The Roosevelt family had what’s called old money. Very old money. The original Roosevelt arrived in the New World from Holland sometime in the years just before 1650 and bought a lot of land in mid-town Manhattan, the original source of the family wealth. Trump family money also originally came from real estate—developing and managing properties.

Inherited money gave TR and Trump immediate access to the public through the news media and to political circles that would not be available to most people. Both used that access to expatiate about controversial topics, going to war and projecting America’s might in TR’s case and, for Trump, spreading the bold-faced, racially-tinged lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

But access doesn’t necessarily translate to respect. For the most part, the ruling elite, including the Republican Party, disliked both and found both to be a royal inconvenience, and with good reason: The Rough Rider was and Trumpty-Dumpty is a self-centered and loud-mouthed buffoon who often spoke/speaks without thinking and acted/acts impetuously. The center of TR’s world was TR, who thought himself the best man for every job and burned to wield the power of the presidency. Sound familiar? Many in the Republican Party at the turn of the 20th century feared that the irresponsible Roosevelt would gain the power that he so blatantly sought. Same for Republicans during the 2016 primary and election season.

But while despised by the political, civic and intellectual elite, TR and Trump were/are highly popular with large segments of the American public, thanks to the news media. In TR’s day, the media meant newspapers, of which there were many, many more across the country than today. Interestingly enough, Teddy’s rise in the public esteem was fueled to a great extent by one media giant, William Randolph Hearst, who owned and ran a media empire of newspapers based on sensationalizing the news and saber-rattling for wars of conquest. Hearst grew to dislike Teddy, especially after Hearst also became infected by political ambition.

Here’s where the similarities get really sick: Both Theodore Roosevelt and Donald Trump built their reputations on fabrications. TR was the warrior, the hero, the Rough Rider who led a band of volunteers up San Juan Hill against the Spanish Army in Cuba. In fact, the hero spent a total of two afternoons in battle. His one casualty was an escaping unarmed prisoner surrounded by TR’s men who he shot in the back several times. Kind of sounds like big game hunting.

Most of us now know that when Donald Trump agreed to be the business mogul featured in the original “Apprentice” he was a failed real estate developer and casino operator in multiple bankruptcies and a mess of financial trouble. It was the mass media—the television show and the entertainment and celebrity media that covered it—that established his reputation as a business master of the universe, thus giving Trump the platform to pursue his sometimes successful and sometimes disastrous branding business.

Two frauds that the media turned into celebrities.

The last similarity: both were accidental presidents. The Republican Party made Teddy McKinley’s VEEP to remove him from power and the public eye. The plan backfired when McKinley was assassinated and Roosevelt assumed the presidency. Let’s not dwell too long on the long string of freak occurrences that enabled Trump to win the electoral college despite losing the popular vote by about three million, including the wave of voter suppression laws, the interference by the Russians, the weakness of the other Republican candidates and former FBI Director James Comey’s ridiculously stupid twin decision to release information about the Clinton probe but not about the Russia-Trump connection.

A consideration of the differences between the two men is sobering, because it reminds us that the problem with Donald Trump is his not his emotional frailties but his political positions and the reasons he holds them.

Roosevelt believed in science and in weighing the evidence, which among other things, informed him of the need to protect the environment from the degradations of human beings. He backed down from his imperialism once he became president and had more information and experience (and perhaps the power after which he lusted). TR was well-read. His beliefs in domestic matters tended towards the progressive, which in those days meant minimizing the power of large corporations and setting the rules to create fairness for workers and consumers.

By contrast, Trump is poorly read and educated and holds a basket of deplorable beliefs about immigration, crime and the economy that are rooted in the myths of the 1950’s, and by myths I mean beliefs that were wrong then and not held now. On global warming and environmental regulations, he has ignored basic science and the advice of virtually every reputable expert in favor of his own irrational beliefs. He looks past the crime statistics which shows an enormous long-term decline and instead believes in the harsh image of crime in the cities depicted in the tabloid newspapers that he read in the 1960’s and 1970’s, before the days of cable news.

Which brings us to the issue of racism. TR made and Trumpty-Dumpty makes a large number of racist statements. Racism was inherent to the Rough Rider’s imperialism and lurking behind many Trump’s beliefs and actions. But TR’s racism reflects the mainstream thinking of his era. Like Woodrow Wilson and much of the Progressive movement, TR believed in the inherent superiority of white people of European descent. Racism tars his reputation, but most every other white American was racist at the time. I doubt that TR would be an overt racist today, since all his views, even his foreign expansionism, were mainstream. By contrast, Trump’s racism puts him out of the mainstream. Virtually every Trump statement or action to be condemned by other Republicans has involved denigration of or harm to African-Americans, Muslims, Mexicans or other non-white minorities. He flirts with racist groups that hold views that are so far out of the mainstream as to be an anathema to virtually everyone else.

Finally, despite his heavy-handed narcissism, Roosevelt ended up being one of our better presidents, rated by some among the top ten. In contrast, by ending DACA and U.S. support of the Paris agreement, disrupting relations with long-term strategic allies, cracking down on immigrants, trying to kill the individual health insurance markets created by the Affordable Care Act, threatening the civil rights of the transgendered and rolling back environmental, business and educational regulations, Trump has already done enough damage to America and the world to rate as the second worst person ever to win the electoral college or succeed a dying or resigning president. All he has to do to slide below Harry Truman to the very bottom of the list is convince the American military to drop a nuclear bomb on some enemy.

The lesson, again, in comparing these two highly narcissistic individuals is that it’s not the state of Trump’s emotions that should be of concern, but his politics. It’s his harmful, racist and misogynist stands and beliefs that are most dangerous to the future of the United States.

[falkenscreen]

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE X 6

This is the best Mission Impossible film since the first one and that’s now the fourth time you’ve heard that.

Going against the grain in more ways than one, super-agent Ethan Hunt’s escapades are not only getting better with successive instalments (save of course the first sequel) but, converse to just about every other Hollywood franchise, showcasing progressively shorter gaps between entries. Going from a six-year hiatus between Mi2 and Mi3 to five, then four, then three, the change of pace befits and reflects the series’ transition from anthology action to a set of straightforward sequels.

The same can be said for the recruitment of the series’ now first-time returning Director Christopher McQuarrie, who has tried crafting something closer to the original’s style and sensibility than any other sequel. Picking up with “The Syndicate’s” efforts to subvert world order, Rogue Nation’s troupe of rogue super-spies, now known collectively as ‘The Apostles,’ are hatching all sorts of dastardly plans, because destruction and chaos will beget a better future, or something. Think Ghost Protocol, the League of Shadows, Inferno, whatever.

Henry Cavill joins proceedings moustache in tow, his CIA Agent proving more than an adequate counter to Cruise’s Impossible Missions Force veteran. Kicking off an extended second act with a HALO jump, this first of innumerable exciting sequences signals the commencement of what is just about as close as any film has come to a recreation of the beloved Spy vs. Spy serial. Contending with a myriad of shady figures, multiple identities, double-crossing, triple-crossing and reveal upon reveal, the littered illustrations that would have constituted Fallout’s plotting are a joy to behold in a breathless, consummate hour-plus of action story-telling.

And it is action story-telling to be sure with Fallout, with few exceptions, permitting it’s blustering sequences to evolve naturally from proceedings or character interactions, rather than feeling the need to summarily insert shooting because there hadn’t been any for a while. Certainly the case for the initial encounter between Hunt and Cavill’s Walker, the rivalry as they launch from the plane into a thunderstorm tells us all we need to know about these characters and a dynamic which thrillingly persists.

As for the action, reliably excellent throughout, it is a pleasure to see Cruise at work knowing that it is actually Cruise, whether it be him running around London landmarks, engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat in a bathroom or hanging off a helicopter as it perilously chases another through a ravine.

Comparable in style and story to much explosive fare, among them The Dark Knight and some modern-era Bond flicks, curiously Fallout is markedly similar to Spectre; not just for the heated return of a frazzled antagonist but for it’s blatant and none-too-blatant hark-backs to earlier iterations. Packing an early scene eerily similar to how we were first introduced to Hunt all those years ago, an elegant allusion to the first movie is also the centre-piece of an arresting sequence that no doubt took inspiration from John Wick and its assassin-heavy sequel in an entry that more than any other seeks to reckon with it’s precursors while attempting to emulate the series’ still greatest triumph.

Mission Impossible was the first action film I ever saw and more than any other opened up for this author, and no doubt many others, a world of phenomenal heart-pounding action extravaganzas. Fallout’s greatest asset and vice is simply that it has a script, co-written by McQuarrie, beseeming Brian De Palma and his early vision here handled by a Director content to sacrifice the semblances of that master’s intensity for needless levity.

For all the faults of the hapless Mi2, and there are many, it at least stuck to the mettle of the first and the sincere, singularly tension-filled adrenaline-heavy bearings that so recommended it. There’s nothing wrong with a film least of all a thriller being self-serious, with the series following J.J Abrams advents in Mi3, here returning as Producer, pivoting to encroaching comedy and occasionally light irony. Fairly this was done to at least tacitly account for the unavoidable and increasing incredulity which later came to characterise the likes of serial death defiers ala James Bond, Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne and fairly Dominic Toretto; anathema to a series that still relies on Hunt being a nominally grounded character. Having said this, as Cruise’s ever-endearing Hunt, now in his sixth outing, evolved from a relatively fallible figure to a performer of any and all death-defying theatrics the series both delivered some of it’s best moments and lost what at the very outset De Palma rendered so stylistically distinct.

Consider the train sequence in Mission Impossible where we first meet Ving Rhames’ Luther, or any encounter with Jon Voight’s or Vanessa Redgrave’s marvellous creations; all are littered with confounding and wholly unrealistic dialogue that worked ideally in the world De Palma built. Identically stylised dialogue appears in several sequences in Fallout, whether it be in reunions with Rogue Nation veterans among them the excellent though underused Rebecca Ferguson, or The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby doing a spot-on impression of, well, someone famous.

Bookended by tonally divergent comic stylings in the likes of both the terribly miscast Simon Pegg and Alec Baldwin and absent the original’s noir-ish self-confidence, the injections of humour clash terribly with the stylings McQuarrie has otherwise pursued and those abounding action sequences that don’t let up. At one point a character quips “don’t make me laugh” – advice the filmmakers should have taken more measuredly.

This is not to say that the first film did not have humour; far from it, there’s a light, very memorable sequence as Hunt goads Jean Reno’s tough-guy over a disc he thinks is in his possession, and of course there’s any scene involving Max. In Fallout it’s comparatively forced and never as endemic to proceedings, with Hunt wholly pausing before an anticipated stunt to proclaim to Pegg’s Benji that he’s going to jump out of a window, as if the act of doing so wasn’t enough to fixate us or required an acknowledgement that this is all just a bit preposterous.

Yes, of course it’s preposterous; we’re not here in spite of action that we know is improbable, we’re here because of it and to see Cruise perform stunts barely any star of his calibre will even attempt. We don’t, nor have we ever needed constant reminders that the filmmakers are in on the shtick and don’t really think someone can pull all this off. An apparent drawback of now the last four entries, the undue levity has the added effect of breaking up that tension otherwise so well evinced. In the first movie and that now iconic bullet train sequence, De Palma at least waited until after everything literally ground to a halt following ten breathless minutes to allow the conductor to faint and let us have a chuckle. As good as Fallout is, there’s no such sustained excitement here and hasn’t been for now twenty-two years.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is in cinemas from August 2

[fideidefenswhore]

Who is your most hated Seymour? For me, it's John, Thomas, Edward and Jane.

roflmao, tbf, i know intellectually that there's not enough there there to justify hating john seymour, but he does give me bad vibes...whatever happened with catherine fillol was weird and i do get the sense he was involved even if not in the rumored way. and also, when siblings hate each other to such an extent, it's often bcus they were pit against each other by their parents, so i get the sense he was not a good father (there's some debate on whether he died late 1536 or 1535, tbf, but if it was the former it's strange that none of children seemed to mourn his death, that he wasn't mourned at court as the queen's father, etc) . margery doesn't have enough about her known for me to judge; it's sort of weird to me that this stereotype has fallen she and jane had a bad relationship and her favorite child/daughter was elizabeth (this occurs in like...several...novels). we don't have an equivalent positive remark to 'next to mine own mother, no woman alive i know better' (AB, about her own, and to bridget wingfield), nor any records of them often being in each other's company during significant events or eras, but we don't have anything negative either. i get you have to make choices in fiction and 'neutral' is not an interesting one but like...damn.

what's interesting about edward and thomas is that, even before their sister becomes queen, edward is not spoken of well by his contemporaries. very early (iirc, 1535) on, his 'small conscience' is decried, and he becomes such an avaricious figure that cromwell and the king have to interfere in his attempts to manipulate and loophole property laws to his own advantage and the impoverishment of others (and, not usually in his favor, despite him being a royal in-law). thomas, however, seems like he's better liked in the 1530s, although this can maybe be attributed to him being more of a nonentity (a comparative example is some tudor authors insisting GB was 'better liked' than his sister anne-- not true, it seems-- or more often, that their sister mary was...which is probably true, but also probably more indicative of relative lack of power and positions and leverage than 'kinder' personality)...it's not until the 1540s that we get comments of the same genre ("somewhat empty of manner"). thomas thus seems more like a figure of gradual corruption, his arrogance was increased by his nephew becoming king, it seems, and resentment brought out an ugly side of his character (arguably, the same with edward, just earlier on).

it's extremely unpopular to say this on here, but yeah, jane is definitely not a favourite of mine, either. but i don't think my reasons for this are really common...i don't care if she slept with henry before marriage, i don't care if she didn't, i just find her biographers weirdly contradictory in their judgements of her character, the nature of her rise, and her own beliefs. there's also like, this sense of historic illiteracy from some of her defenders...joining a royal household (as far as the most prestigious positions, that is) was not the equivalent of serfdom (as in, they could leave at any time). jane's supporters were courtiers who hated anne, so it's reasonable to assume she did, as well. so, there's this sort of moral hypocrisy about jane as a figure and her advancement and how she came to her position that has always prevented me from warming to her as a figure. 'she hated anne and all she stood for' explains her involvement in her downfall, but not her securing the position in her household in the first place. and by virtue of her close proximity to anne as queen, she also knew that it was nigh impossible that she was actually guilty of the accusations of adultery.

what else...her defenders insist that the oaths of supremacy and succession were anathema to her moral compass, yet she likely did have to have had taken them herself, just as a subject, and if not that then definitely as a member of anne's household. this wouldn't have martyred/imperiled her life, althought it probably would have her career (elizabeth darrell never took these, so i wonder if the penalty for women was different...? barton is often cited as an example but this was not in her indictment. princess mary seems to almost have been a victim of this, but it might've been more that her signing was more important since she was a rallying point for dissenters).

and even if jane never took these, the presence of noblewomen serving anne as queen lent to her greater image of royal legitimacy. she had to have known that, and if she didn't believe her position was legitimate...then why be part of that tapestry? there's not an equivalent to her predecessor to be made here, not when anne left her own predecessor's household and began her own as soon as she came to believe catherine was not legitimately queen or henry's wife. any credulousness towards contemporary report of this time would suggest anne was extremely hostile towards her rival, but there is a difference between declaring that you'd sooner watch your rival hanged before revering them and, well...actually doing that (...effectively, if not literally).

actually, i don't think there's actually much to suggest jane was set against the religious supremacy unless you make some suppositional leaps (the dissolution wasn't so explicitly connected here, her support of mary as princess, even if rather cosmetic, could be seen as support for her decision not to take those oaths herself for nigh on two years...). nor against succession acts as brought by parliament, since the same illegitimized any potential rivals to her future children, and she seemed to make a point in one of her only pieces of writing we have in emphasizing edward's legitimacy (implicitly, at the expense of her stepdaughters).

the narrative fiction i probably dislike about jane the most is this idea that she was so reverent of catherine's memory, it's really fucking weird, honestly... it bothers me because i know it's embellished to increase reader/viewer (the tudors comes to mind) sympathy and somehow for me it does the opposite, lol. there's something about the concept of her trading on the memory of this beloved woman (who, herself, probably didn't even remember jane, there's nothing to suggest any kind of friendship between them) who was exiled, this woman whom jane did not a single thing for (not even abstaining from joining the household of her rival), that just really grosses me out. henry was the one who was her husband, and obviously he was a fucking asshole to and about her, but there's at least something more...direct, in his attempted erasure of her memory. it's always bothered me that it's never acknowledged that the antecedent (which was carried on throughout) to jane's queenship was the erasure of both her predecessors, the illegitimization of both their daughters, both of them being subordinated, and, more or less (mary present for christmas, elizabeth not, but both there during the rebellions) equally expelled from court.