Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.


July 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 71

Total Comments: 23


Full Archive



Mission: Impossible 3 / USA / 2006

I dreaded that Abrams might have just used this opportunity to simply create the longest, most-expensive episode of Alias ever (a show I was never all that thrilled with, no matter how much I tried). Instead, Abrams infused the franchise with qualities that it has lacked in the previous two incarnations – namely a genuine sense of urgency and peril. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the psychosis of Tom Cruise, but Abrams (like a few other directors) understands the key to using Cruise as a movie-star is to allow the audience to watch him constantly suffer, enduring enough stress to create virtual exhaustion, before pulling his character back from the point when that torment becomes excessive. Equally appealing is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s blunt portrayal of the film’s heavy, which is so indifferent and casual at times that it feels as if he’s continually irritated with even being associated with this summer blockbuster. While the dramatic moments veer between surprisingly poignant to utterly tacky, Abrams really is focused on the delivering continuous action. By cranking up the intensity and placing his protagonist in hazardous circumstances, Abrams has fashioned the most engrossing pure summer action blockbuster since Michael Bay’s The Rock (yeah, I said it). Of course, I should admit that I’m completely biased to anything that has Keri Russell involved in it.

by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Paramount Pictures 35mm Print
18 Jul 2006 1:20 PM | Submit Comment


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