Is the McLaughlin Group senator the real Senator Walter or Ethan Hunt in the mask? Why not make a mask of William Donloe and steal the disc? Was Jon Voight in shape to run across a high-speed train?
Rolled over from unintentional comedy: is the Senator John Walter on the McLaughlin Group the real senator or Ethan Hunt in the mask; one theory is that Walter is real but secretly an IMF agent whose skepticism of the intelligence community is a simulation of dissent, letting the IMF use his identity.
Three potentialities for Senator Walter are laid out: an elected human man who likes fishing and does not know about his Prague gala attendance, a blue dog Democrat from Virginia not on alt.fish, alt.bible or alt.arms; a co-opted intelligence officer serving Virginia while working for the IMF; or a wholly constructed 65-year-old citizen played entirely by Tom Cruise when needed, all for 60 grand a year.
Follow-ups: would you watch a 1996 movie about an old senator played by Tom Cruise now, why is Cruise not returning to the Walzer IP (as transcribed), and why was his Tropic Thunder transformation praised over his work as John Walter.
If Ethan can make a mask of anyone's face, why not make a mask of William Donlow (as transcribed), who worked inside the vault, and steal the disc; the question was asked before and nobody has a satisfactory answer.
Was Jon Voight in any shape to traipse across a high-speed train; he looks fitter than ever in the parachute suit and black SWAT outfit, possibly with a stunt double, so when he pretends to be hurt in the coffee shop he is lying, and when he strikes Ethan there is a weird intense physical energy, a bit of old man strength.
Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's original script killed the original IMF team including Peter Graves; a near-bankrupt Apple tied in with PowerBooks and a web adventure game; the Langley heist homages Dassin's Topkapi and Rififi; Ethan Hunt's name may honor Watergate's Howard Hunt
The original script came from two earlier writers. Katz and Huck (Gloria and Willard, as transcribed) reportedly opened it with the original IMF team, including Peter Graves, on a mission with their youngest member played by Cruise, all killed except him, leaving him to solve who killed his team, which may be another reason the older stars did not return.
Apple was almost bankrupt at release and tried to get cool again through a corporate tie-in, with PowerBook laptops in the movie, plus an early promotional website called the Mission Impossible Web Adventure, sinking about $15 million into it; things worked out for Apple.
The Langley heist homages the Jules Dassen (as transcribed) classics Top Copy and Rafifi (as transcribed); some think Ethan Hunt's name is a sly tribute to Howard Hunt, the former CIA spy involved in the Watergate break-in, and Ethan Hunt is called a perfect, anonymous yet fun-to-say name.
Nominees: Ethan typing internet access into a computer, the Netscape browser the IMF uses to watch news clips, floppy disks, the attention-drawing surveillance eyewear worn by Hannah and Sarah in the Prague scene, the masks, and the whole Claire plotline.
The masks are disputed: one side finds them unbelievable with no rules, while the other says these movies need something preposterous, and the masks, inherited from the TV show, are that thing, even as later films add voice strips; the objection is that with good mask use half the movie need not happen, since Ethan could just walk in as Don Lowe (as transcribed) and take the knock list, prompting the joke about Andy Greenwald in a mask.
The senator mask Ethan wears is the worst offender: he has ostensibly been impersonating a sitting U.S. senator for an untold time, doing interviews; the hosts argue whether the senator exists, with the theory that he is a real adversary of the IMF taken on fishing trips to County Kildare while the IMF uses his face, versus an entirely invented man elected to high office and only ever played by Tom Cruise.
In 1996 the political landscape was different: a teenager would have accepted old Senator Walter without question, since nobody knew their senators or how to contact them, and a political category is jokingly suggested after the Quint campaign bit from the Jaws episode.
Pressed for a final answer, the masks are chosen over the computer tech, which should be graded on a curve, though the forward-looking movie suffers when a floppy disk appears, the Langley screen just reads download complete, and Luther hacking Max's computer on the train amounts to typing plain instructions; the masks are confirmed with a fist bump.
The award is defined as supporting character actors who make the most of their time; Vanessa Redgrave, born in 1937 and about 59 or 60, one of the great actresses of the 20th century, plays an arms dealer named Max who communicates via Usenet group, and is argued to have more sexual chemistry with Cruise than anyone in his movies except Kelly McGillis.
Redgrave looks at him like he is a steak, chews over every line, calls him dear boy, seems to have been taking nitrous hits, and smiles like a shark when he comes in; the shroud scene is recalled, with Ethan hooded in a knit hat and warned he will wear the shroud indefinitely if Max does not like what he has to say, and the clip of her asking who he is and his demand for $150,000 is played.
Whether it is a flaw or a nitpick, the villains' goals in the whole series are elusive: this film has Phelps and Max, and what they have going on, beyond shifting money around, is unclear; the explanation offered is Phelps's bitterness, voiced to Ethan as a tool for a war that is no longer going on, farmed out on $60,000 a year, the same line Ed Harris has at the end of The Rock the same year, read as the post-Desert Storm, Fukuyama end-of-history mood.
Other nominees: Henry Zerny (as transcribed), who did not pop off after this, whose performance once seemed over the top and is now excellent, including his interplay with Barnes played by Dale Dye, bullying him throughout, and dressing like a G man from the 1930s in overcoat and fedora once the pursuit of Hunt begins; he built a career on the dick bureaucrat after Clear and Present Danger, called his iconic performance.
Emilio Estevez, coming off Young Guns, seemed to be doing a fun cameo and never showed up in a blockbuster ensemble again, with The Outsiders and The Mighty Ducks debated; Kristen Scott Thomas was remarkable; Jon Voight has too many minutes played for the award but is unrecognizable from the iconic 1970s actor of Coming Home and Midnight Cowboy.
Ving Rhames gets respect: Luther becomes Ethan's conscience across the series, and casting the burly Marcellus Wallace figure as the smartest hacker in the room was a smart choice that holds, even after Simon Pegg is introduced; one host then goes with Redgrave.
Jean Reno is shouted out for a volcanic hot streak from The Professional through this to Ronin, where he plays nearly the same role more gregariously, with Sean Bean as the Jean Reno of Ronin; French Kiss with Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan is cited as his erased earlier appearance, and Redgrave is confirmed.
There are not many casting what-ifs because the movie was put together by Cruise and Wagner; Juliette Binoche turned down Claire because she did not want to be known for blockbusters, which worked out for her, and it would have been a funny coincidence with Kristen Scott Thomas in two well-seen 1996 movies in the year of The English Patient.
Peter Graves and Martin Landau from the original series turned down roles after reading the script; Graves did not care for Jim Phelps being the villain and Landau thought it got away from what made the show good, though the hosts wonder whether the roles were smaller than they wanted and joke about Landau feeling himself after his 1994 Oscar.
Since Claire did not have to be European, Demi Moore is floated as a reunion with Cruise after A Few Good Men; sex scenes between Claire and Ethan were written and cut, a kiss appears in the trailer that is not in the film, and despite the grabbing and handsiness and an implied night together there is not much chemistry.
1996 was the year of Striptease for Demi Moore, so it would have been a left turn; Claire is called an underwritten part and one of the weakest aspects, a Russian doll for Jim's motivations in a Hitchcockian way; Susan Sarandon is also mentioned, but the objection is that Moore is too visceral and signals a fight scene is coming, whereas Claire's sphinx-like quality serves the narrative, so maybe Emmanuel Bayer (as transcribed) is right for it after all.
The movie is in a race against time as digital life changes; it was weirdly prescient about wireless streaming video, while things like Netscape no longer make sense; the first nominees are the Hitchcockian vibe of drawing on 1950s and 1960s Hitchcock for an espionage movie, especially in the Prague sequence, the cat-and-mouse format of the set pieces built on ducking into rooms, masks, disguises and hanging from places rather than buildings falling, and Cruise's performance.
Casting great actors in supporting roles is argued to hold up: Voight at the right stage of his career to be Phelps, a character from the television series; Manuel Bear (as transcribed), an actress few American filmgoers had seen; Jean Reno coming off Leon the Professional with his dickishness; Ving Rhames, who becomes the only other connecting figure in the series along with Monaghan; Kristen Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave, Emilio Estevez and Henry Zerny (as transcribed), later of Sharp Objects, all lived in and knowing what movie they are in.
The Prague sequence is bittersweet because two or three movies of the Estevez, Kristen Scott Thomas and Cruise team would be welcome; it is set up like Alien with people who know each other, down to the wife's coffee and the barn in Kiev, and the scene where Cruise and Kristen Scott Thomas make out while tracking the arms dealer shows legitimately good chemistry, if less than Cruise's with Vanessa Redgrave; killing off those movie stars 35 minutes in is called a Hitchcockian twist like Janet Leigh in Psycho.
Estevez's line about lasagna while showing Cruise the chewing gum explosive is a favorite; red light green light and 'you've never seen me very upset' show Robert Towne style dialogue sprinkled throughout, and the hosts assign roles: Koepp the genius of action plotting, Zalian (as transcribed) the dramatic storyteller, Towne the king of memorable lines, with Tom Cruise movie starring on top.
De Palma's visual flair under control is the final nominee: the deep-focus shot where Don Lowe (as transcribed) is dressed down by Henry Zirny's (as transcribed) CIA character before being sent to Siberia, a charismatic look unlike same-looking modern blockbusters, stylish and fun where a Villeneuve film never makes you laugh; De Palma's playful visual style is named the pick.
Nominees run through the Prague sequence as a whole (a 32-minute opening act that even fades to black after Tom Cruise jumps through the Aquarium and escapes from Kittredge), Ethan and Max's negotiation, the Langley heist, and the Phelps versus Hunt coffee scene where Hunt sees what Phelps has done while Phelps lies to him, the scene that confused a generation of filmgoers.
One host admits not understanding the coffee scene until rewatching it yesterday after roughly 20 viewings; the Langley break-in is called the most iconic, incredibly staged, ripped off numerous times, and the precedent for Tom Cruise attempting something that seems impossible, even though Wu takes it to another level.
The scene one host rewound four times is Ethan on the horn with Kittredge after the team is killed, shouting that his team is dead, that they knew we were coming, that the disc is gone and the list is in the open; the clip is played, and Cruise is said to go Ruffalo before Ruffalo and to resemble Bill Paxton in Aliens.
The Kittredge call is a bookend to the Aquarium restaurant scene: before it Cruise is loud and brash, cracking jokes while Jon Voight's Phelps lays out the plan, and in the restaurant he turns cerebral, seeing the other team, the waiters and the lovers on the river bank; the Langley heist is then named the pick, iconic and almost all in silence, with the tension of Don Lowe (as transcribed) about to come back, and compared to the silent drilling heist in Rafifi (as transcribed), the host's favorite heist movie.
Further Langley favorites: the digital sound meter, the rat in the air duct likened to the final shot of The Departed, the Top Copy (as transcribed) reference to the same filmmaker Jules Dassen (as transcribed), the trope of explaining the heist on the train before doing it with Jean Reno, Ving Rhames and Emmanuel Bayard (as transcribed), Cruise's Cheshire Cat grin saying it is even worse than you think, and the first encounter with the idea of an air-gapped computer; Langley is confirmed as the most rewatchable scene.
Asked for memories earlier, the Langley drop of Cruise hanging is named the iconic image inside the movie, one the later Mission Impossible films call back to every time, and the film is called De Palma's last great movie. — Sean Fennessey
The new category is introduced as something these podcasts have circled before; it is expected to be really funny for a Roadhouse episode, with a case that Ben Gazzara was robbed in 1989 and for the Jeff Healy Band (as transcribed) for Best Original Song.
Several of those nominees are liked, In the Bedroom a lot and Gosford Park pretty good, but Fuqua and Training Day should have been nominated; Lord of the Rings was a tough hang that soaked up nominations for years in a way Star Wars never could, even though one host would take Star Wars a hundred times.
Early validation from a nomination might have set Fuqua on a different course, since the movies he made after this resemble Training Day; Denzel's Best Actor win over Russell Crowe, Sean Penn in I Am Sam, Will Smith in Ali and Tom Wilkinson in In the Bedroom is fine, and Halle Berry won for Monsters Ball (as transcribed).
As in Rain Man, where Tom Cruise is the best person in the movie but Dustin Hoffman won, the performer who blows everyone away obscures how good the other one was; Hawke had to avoid being blown away by Denzel, be on PCP for half an hour and be believable in the fight scenes, which is likened to Chris Paul playing on a hamstring.
Nobody here would pick Kingsley in Sexy Beast over Hawke, though he is good in it; two-hander movies like Butch and Sundance, The Sting, The Color of Money and Rain Man raise the question of how filmmakers present the straight man, and Redford is seen as more important than Hoffman in All the President's Men.
Hawke is in more scenes and the movie starts in his house, so he could be argued as the lead with Denzel supporting, but really both were best actors, and doing it otherwise is like making Geena Davis supporting in Thelma and Louise.
Later, on the phone, the Hawke loss to Jim Broadbent is called terrible and one of the few times an actor was right there with Denzel, alongside Viola in Fences, Morgan Freeman in Glory and Hanks in Philadelphia; he should have gotten that award.
Earlier, the hosts note Denzel had only a supporting Oscar before this, having been passed over for Malcolm X, He Got Game, The Hurricane and Remember the Titans.
The reported chance for Edward James Almost to reprise Castillo was declined, disappointing the hosts; the transcribed spelling remains unresolved. — Bill Simmons
Jan Hammer reportedly declined a request for a different score. — Bill Simmons
The idea that the requested score was death metal is a joke and speculation. — Bill Simmons
Robin Williams's Boston accent; Matt Damon's frosted tips; the Miramax logo in the opening credits; Will's breakup with Skylar; the screenplay Oscar win over Boogie Nights; the length, especially the two long jokes when Skylar meets Will's friends
Robin Williams's Boston accent is not great and gets a little New York, though some hosts have no ear for it and thought they were all fine; one host says his own accent is gone and only comes out when drunk.
Asked who has the best on-screen Boston accent, the answer is Matt Damon's Will Hunting, the gold standard in the history of movies, better than Wahlberg in The Departed, because the attitude, being ready to fight at all times, is half of it and Damon figured that out more than anyone.
Matt Damon's hair has not aged well; he has talked about regretting the frosted tips and would probably spend money to CGI it away; one host had the same haircut without the tips and thinks it belongs to the mid nineties.
The Miramax logo in the opening credits; Will's breakup with Skylar, I don't love you, has not so much aged badly as remained a rough, physical three minutes that is hard to watch.
Good Will Hunting winning Best Screenplay over Boogie Nights: both are Oscar-worthy with a hundred memorable lines and great characterization, something has to win, and one host prefers Boogie Nights as a movie but calls it close and says this movie holds up.
Asked to choose for the Oscar between Robin Williams and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, the answer is that the Forster performance is amazing, Jackie Brown is really great, and this is not even the number one movie to have given Robin Williams an Oscar for. — Sean Fennessey
Films Williams should have won for are then thrown out, apparently by more than one voice: Dead Poets, Fisher King, Garp, Good Morning Vietnam, all those movies.
It is long: from a rewatchable standpoint, when Skylar meets Will's buddies and the two long jokes come, you know the jokes after 50 viewings and it drags.
That is a great Skylar scene and there is not enough of her; the great part is not the joke but watching everybody else, the awkwardness, realizing this is the woman he is going to marry, the see-about-a-girl scene playing out in real time with the friends. — Shea Serrano
Others agree it is a necessary scene that only gets a little slow in a movie of about 2:05; Casey Affleck needling Ben back and forth is loved, as are scenes of people talking in bars and diners, and bombed out of his tree has been quoted for 20 years; the alternate jokes on YouTube were all funny; Damon's long barn story in Saving Private Ryan is called the worst part of that movie, though it is supposed to be bad because the guy is a dipshit.
The Joker's 'I don't want to kill you... No, you complete me' raises whether Jerry Maguire exists in the world of The Dark Knight, whether the Joker has seen it, whether Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger are figures there, and whether the Joker had a Netflix subscription.
Harvey Dent's die-a-hero line gets a 'Ding, ding, ding', the line quoted every night on social media; the Joker's 'better class of criminal' line sounds great though nobody knows what it means; Gordon's closing 'hero Gotham deserves... a dark knight' speech is mocked with hashtag who talks like this and I said the name of the movie in the dialogue.
More Joker lines follow: 'Why so serious?', basically the movie's tagline, which Pink put in a song; 'introduce a little anarchy'; 'I'm an agent of chaos'; the vision of a world without Batman; and 'I want my phone call'; his melodramatic readings make you believe the dialogue is good.
The question draws four quick 'Cruz' answers and 'That easy', for how much time he spends on camera running the gamut while physically doing little: funny, panicked, cool, sad.
Asked which athlete performance it compares to, the answer is a quarterback performance, cool and going for it when everything is on the line, followed by 'I think Cruise too'.
As a last question, who won the code red scene: Sean Phenasy (as transcribed 'fantasy') thought Cruise did, and one panelist agrees, citing how Cruise walks around and quietly approaches the camera while Jessup is stuck in a chair, so Nicholson works at a disadvantage.
Says Tom Cruise wins the movie largely because of this scene and calls it his best performance, but Nicholson owns every inch of the frame: the 'entitled' speech drips with contempt only Nicholson could deliver, and his quiet, growling, low-register power is the most powerful. — Amanda Dobbins
'I think Nicholson wins. Go Nicholson' is offered with evidence from an interview in which Cruise marvels at the subtle things Nicholson did, while the reverse never happened.
One panelist rides or dies with Nicholson; the case made is that Cruise gives the platonic ideal of a Cruise performance, while this and The Shining are atypical late-career Nicholson unlike Chinatown and Fizey's pieces (as transcribed), catching him past his prime after Terms of Endearment, known from Lakers games, tan and clearly having fun; the section closes with 'I think Nicholson first when I think of this movie' and agreeing to disagree.
Asked whether the late Bacon appreciation means going rogue for Bacon, the reply is no, since he has about four scenes and is like a table in most, despite the softball line, the basketball scene and his shell-shocked look at the end; 'I just can't get off Cruise Island'.
