June 24, 2006

Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote a C-File (app. 1973), and I’m sure you want to hear all about it.  Well, actually, I’m sure you want to have heard all about it, which is like a whole different tense (pluperfect subjunctivitis), but you’d really rather not go through all the trouble of listening to me tell you about it.  So, since we’re all agreed, I’ll just be fast-forwarding through the last three months (if you don’t mind).

So there I was in Providence, Rhode Island when … ktcltktk … and then I was like, “No!” and she was like “Yes!” and then … ktcjlhkh … that piece of cheese must’ve been like two inches thick … kktkckhk … congestive heart failure? “Not likely!” he said and I just got to thinking…. kdtkhjtk … so many nerds you have more chance of tripping over untied shoelaces than… ktckhkl … DANG IT I’m only one dwarf I can’t heal everybody … “…if I get one more email from CareerBuilder I’m going to…” … kthckjt … and that was the last time I EVER try to install a window-mounted AC unit without the help of one or more yetis.

There! Now that we’re all caught up to speed, I can finally answer the question you really wanted to know the answer to, and that is, can Tom Cruise credibly portray anyone other than himself trying to portray someone else?  See below for answer.

Below: no.

I found this out by going to see Mission: Impossible 3 the other day as a sort of last hurrah for my friend Cynthia who is moving to Houston (poor soul) where she will be experiencing, presumably, no more hurrahs.  Meanwhile, I get to stay in Boston where the temperature is a balmy 60 something and the weather gods have apparently been trying to transfer the entire contents of the Adriatic Sea into the streets of Boston by means of dreary gray clouds, for whatever unfathomable reasons they may have.  But at least I get to have hurrahs.  So there.

I have now seen all 3 Mission: Impossibles (or is that Missions: Impossible?) and I think this last one is probably the best, on the grounds that it involved the fewest “Oh please” moments of any of the three, although that’s a little like saying Mussolini massacred the fewest indigenous groups of the Axis powers.   Speaking of “oh please” moments, there was a point at which Tom Cruise took out an honest-to-goodness EpiPen an injected it straight into Spy Felicity’s chest, causing her to be able to jump around in Charlie’s Angel style poses where just moments before she was four-fifths dead.  I am now the proud owner of an EpiPen. I’ve read the instructions quite thoroughly and there is little to no mention of gaining spy superpowers from using it.  Mostly, it says it will just “produce a slight tingling sensation.”   Granted that would be less dramatic:

SPY FELICITY: Tom Cruise?  Oh… I don’t think I’m gonna make it…
TOM CRUISE: This is adrenaline.  It will produce a slight tingling sensation. (injects her fiercely in the chest)
SPY FELICITY: Um, ow?

But I can now proudly brandish my EpiPen at the knowledge that a famous movie star once incorrectly handled one on the silver screen.  And why, you may ask, do I now own an EpiPen?  Because of soy, obviously.  We’ve all suspected at one point or another that soy was evil, but now we have explicit medical confirmation as a result of a rigorous test performed personally by me on a bowl of cereal with soymilk, resulting in an itchy mouth and swelling throat.  As it happened, I’m a big fan of my ability to breathe, so soy and I are not on speaking terms right now.  But should soy ever rear its ugly head, I’ve now got my magic EpiPen to inject myself and begin dodging dramatic explosions at a moment’s notice.

The movie was entertaining, at least, taking the viewer all over the world*, from warehouses labeled “Berlin” to warehouses labeled “Shanghai,” all while having the extreme pleasure of getting to watch Tom Cruise run like a woman.  There’s something just vaguely not convincing about Tom Cruise’s attempts to portray an action hero.  When he yells at people to move or get out or whatever, he sounds about 14 years old, which is not really as, well, commanding as it should be.  If a little dude came running out at you, flailing his arms in a distinctly unmanly fashion, telling you to “MOVE NOW BEFORE THE BOMB GOES OFF” in a cracking middle school type voice, would you move?

There’s also a section of dubious veracity in which Tom Cruise, wearing a latex mask, uses a device to simulate the voice of the person he’s impersonating.  This scene is very convincing because his studly technical expert is using a real computer to simulate the voice, including the need of at least 2 minutes to “compile” the voice file, which is actually pretty realistic in that it took any time at all.  If they REALLY wanted to be convincing, however, the scene would have gone like this:

            TOM CRUISE: We’ve got company, Studly Technical Expert!  Are we ready?
            S.T.E.: No, we are not ready!  I need an estimated 2 minutes to compile!
            TOM CRUISE:  He’s coming!
            (Suspicious bad guy enters room)
            SUSPICIOUS BAD GUY: Everything okay, sir?
            TOM CRUISE: *cough cough*
            S.T.E.: 5 minutes remaining!
            TOM CRUISE: *cough cough*
            SUSPICIOUS BAD GUY: Need a lozenge, sir?
            S.T.E.: 34 minutes remaining!
            TOM CRUISE: *COUGH COUGH*
            (shot of S.T.E. playing solitaire)
            SUSPICIOUS BAD GUY: ??
            TOM CRUISE: (shoots bad guy)
            S.T.E.: Next time I am totally disabling Norton’s.

But the movie was still pretty fun anyway, and my favorite part is kind of a spoiler, so if you don’t want to know I suggest you stop reading because this is a SPOILER INVOLVING HOW NONE OF THE SIDEKICKS DIE ALERT coming up.  For your internet convenience, I have separated the spoiler from the rest of the text with the following spacing lines:

** SPOILER INVOLVING HOW NONE OF THE SIDEKICKS DIE ALERT **
** SPOILER INVOLVING HOW NONE OF THE SIDEKICKS DIE ALERT **
** SPOILER INVOLVING HOW NONE OF THE SIDEKICKS DIE ALERT **
** SPOILER INVOLVING HOW NONE OF THE SIDEKICKS DIE ALERT **

So it turns out, and this will really REALLY shock you, that none of the sidekicks die.

** END SPOILER ALERT **

In most action movies, you know perfectly well that the hero, the love interest, the black guy, and the dog are totally untouchable, so you get to worry about the fate of all the white male extras, who are expendable.  Well, in this movie, for perhaps the first time ever, they all survive!  Isn’t that amazing?

So I give this movie 2 thumbs up.  Quite the hurrah, with hopefully many more hurrahs to come.  With luck, some of them might even be in C-File form.  Hope you’re having a fun, soy-free summer!

* of various studio backlots