Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Coming Soon
From our guest blogger Leanne Miller from playittoday.org
One of the most eagerly anticipated film trailers of 2011 hit the web recently in the form of the fourth entry in Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible franchise – and it seems there are plenty of new reasons to get excited about its release.
Five reasons to get excited about the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol film trailer
Overall, it looks like Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, to give its full title, promises the same high octane action we’ve come to expect from the series.
A brand new director – in more ways than one…
The film news websites and blogs went crazy with excitement last May when it was confirmed that Brad Bird had been selected to direct the fourth Mission Impossible movie. But questions were raised as to what fans could expect. Ghost Protocol won’t be Bird’s directorial debut, but with only animated features like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille to his name, everyone is looking forward to seeing what he can do with a live action feature.
A brand new Tom Cruise?
In addition to starring as Hawkeye in Marvel’s upcoming superhero-athon The Avengers, Jeremy Renner has been added to the Mission Impossible 4 cast and many have suggested he could return as the replacement for Cruise as lead character Ethan Hawke if the series continues. Speaking to Collider.com, co-star Simon Pegg even commented: “[Mission Impossible 4] certainly sets up a new IMF agent who can return and who is an Ethan-level player.”
Two brand new – but familiar – faces
Fans of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its two made-for-TV sequels will already know the face of Michael Nyqvist. As Mikael Blomkvist (the role being taken on by Daniel Craig in the upcoming remake), he was the investigative journalist who partnered with the trilogy’s eponymous female, but here he’s playing the bad guy. Another familiar name that has been added to the Mission Impossible cast is Lost star Josh Holloway. Although not too much is known about his part, it seems he’ll be on the side of the good guys.
A brand new love interest?
Special Agent Ethan Hawke hasn’t had much luck with his female co-stars in the previous films. But following in the footsteps of femmes fatales and love interests like Emmanuelle Beart, Thandie Newton and Michelle Monaghan, Paula Patton (Precious) and Lea Seydoux (Inglourious Basterds) will be the ladies we’ll be watching in Mission Impossible 4. Will there be romance? Will there be double-crossing? Well, only time will tell – but my guess is yes!
No uncertainty about Uncertainty
We are all faced with hundreds, maybe thousands, of minuscule decisions each day. Bus or subway? Where and when to go to lunch? Work late or cut out early? The other day during a much-needed day of hookey from the YIL-factory I was walking by the IFC Center and saw a poster for Uncertainty, next showing in twenty minutes. I was sick of walking the streets in the cold and not buying Christmas presents so I ducked into the theatre and am very glad I did.
Manhattan or Brooklyn?
Easy question. Where to spend the 4th of July. Your girlfriend’s family’s party in Brooklyn or your buddy’s party in Manhattan. Flip a coin.
That’s how Uncertainybegins. With the flip of a coin. What follows are two separate movies: one follows Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his girlfriend Kate (Lynn Collins) to Brooklyn. Intertwined is the second movie – what would have happen had the two chosen to spend the day in Manhattan.
At first glimpse the premise is reminiscent of the less-than-stellar Gwyneth Paltrow 1998 film Sliding Doors (I much prefer her Great Expectations from the same year). To keep both Uncertainy story lines separate the film’s writers/directors used color: Yellow for Manhattan (clothes, taxi that brings them there) and Green for Brooklyn (clothes, minivan that brings them there). A much more clever device than Paltrow’s odd blonde/brunette hair cut and coloring.
What follows are two incredible stories as different as can be. In Manhattan Bobby and Kate find a cellphone in the back of a cab that leads to a fast-paced, gripping espionage story of murder, blackmail and what two people would be willing to do for more money than they could ever fathom having with action scenes of roof jumping that rival the Jason Bourne films. Not an easy feat for an independent film.
In Brooklyn, surrounded by her family, Bobby and Kate come to terms about their feelings for each other, their future, her mother’s disapproval. It is an intense, sometimes stifling, family/relationship drama.
The in-depth, claustrophobic nature of the film and the relationship presented on screen set to a defined period of time of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn films reminded me of a mix of Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy Before Sunrise and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers/Scarlett Johansson Match Point.
While not the perfect movie – a few of the loose ends seem to tie up a bit too easy at the end – Uncertainly certainly is a movie to be seen. Levitt, once again as he did in (500) Days of Summer (which you may or may not have heard I kinda liked), proves his ranking as one of the top actors under thirty today and Lynn Collins shows her dramatic abilities are far superior to her roles in True Blood and X-Men: Wolverine (which is a damn good show and a fine movie themselves).
Its too late to see Uncertainty at the IFC Center in New York (though it does seem to be still playing in LA), but the smart folks over at IFC released the movie On Demandsimul with the theatre release. So look for it there.
