Well, Mike Birbiglia’s new Netflix special The Good Life was far funnier. He’s just great.
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Thank you SOOOO much!! This show made my day.
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You’re welcome 
I’m glad you enjoyed it. It was one if the few shows that made me laugh out loud.
Mission Impossible (1996) - Brian DePalma
Mission Impossible 2 (2000) - John Woo
Mission Impossible III (2006) - J. J. Abrams
Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - Brad Bird
Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) - Christopher McQuarrie
Mission Impossible - Fallout (2018) - Christopher McQuarrie
Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One - (2023) - Christopher McQuarrie
Yup. In preparation for the final (?) film in the franchise, we binged all seven M:I films over the course of a week. One per night. It’s a fascinating exercise, watching the series develop into itself. Though I list all the directors above, we all know that if there’s an auteur of this property, it’s Tom Cruise.
To get it out of the way: Fallout is probably the best, though an argument could be made for the original film. Then is some order of III, Ghost Protocol,Rogue Nation and Dead Rockoning, with 2 being unambiguously the worst film, but NOT the least entertaining, if that makes sense. It also holds the honor of containing the best haircut Tom Cruise has ever or will ever have.
I’ve seen the M:I series compared to Bond, which, well, sure. But through they share all the super spy genre tropes like gadgets and stunts and exotic locales, they’re really quite different beasts. Bond is, at least until very recently, eternal. There would always be a Bond. It was a role. And Moore, who portrayed him the longest (seven films), was already a replacement. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is different. To the extent Ethan Hunt is a character, he is Cruise. Full stop. The man is over 60. He can’t dangle off the side of a plane forever (though, hey, more power to him if he wants to try!) I don’t know what M:I would be without Hunt/Cruise. I suppose we’ll find out in the next 20 years.
I confess, I kinda love these films. They’re the BEST kind of cinematic junk food, engineered to be as entertaining as humanly possible, and not afraid to open their wallet to get the job done. In isolation, watching them over the years, I could not have told you a single detail about any of their plots from memory. Something about a list or a thing and Cruise has to break in or whatever. Didn’t matter. He jumped off a goddamned building! Tom Cruise! Broke his ankle! He did the rock climbing! He hung off the Burj Kalifa and did a HALO jump! No further thought needed! But there IS a plot there! There are actual characters! Sure, Tom Cruise spends an inordinate amount of time in these films just running, but he manages to make even those moments mean something!
People are calling Cruise “the last real movie star” for all sorts of reasons as the industry tries to find its way out of the streaming wars and pandemic aftermath, but I think the person he may have most in common with these days is James Cameron. Maybe he’s hasn’t quite gone to the bottom of the Mariana trench yet, but his ability to get these films made and the apparent lengths he will go to and the work that he’ll put in deserves Cameron levels of appreciation. And most every time, you can see it on screen.
I’ve got tix for Final Reckoning this Sunday, in REAL IMAX. Sacramento, happily, is one of about 12 places in the country that has a real IMAX 70mm theater. Saw Oppenheimer there.
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Agree—so well-written. Birbiglia’s material is very personal and real here, to the point where some commenters say The Good Life veers more into a one-man show rather than a comedy special. That’s how it came across to me, too.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it stays with you in a good way.
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We were fortunate to see him open for Lewis Black at the Tower Theater, along with Dave Attell back in 04 or something. First time I’d ever heard that name, which at the time was part of his act.
All 3 were fantastic.
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It was really good. Thx for the rec 
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We’ve seen three or four of his live performances, beginning with Sleepwalk With Me in a tiny Off Broadway theater. And a couple of months ago, we saw him make a surprise appearance opening for Jane Wickline at Upright Citizens Brigade, filling in last minute for another performer who cancelled.
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He was in Philly last year, but tix were $$$$.
We’ve been very lucky scoring discount tix (one of the few perks of having a .edu email address).
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Huh. Our household has one of those.
I have TDF Passport, which wouldn’t work for you guys, but especially if your person works for a state university, there may be a similar program.
Neato! We’ll have to look into it.
I’m so you glad you saw it and liked it!
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Against our better instincts, we almost watched this terrible movie to the end.
Bad acting, bad dialogue, and I saw the ‘twist’ coming a mile away… and yet, there was another 30 min left after the reveal. Nope.
Avoid at all cost!
To cheer us up, we watched Conan Must Go in Spain with the gorgeous and funny Javier Bardem & the New Zealand episode with Taika Waititi. I actually thought they were better than the Austria episode.
Shame there are so few of them.
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On my list, if it’s available up here.
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It’s on HBO MAX, if you have access to that.
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Took a while(I have to watch it in CRAVE TV up north here) , but I figured it out! Thanks 
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You’re welcome! Enjoy. While your at it, you should try Duster, Hacks, and Banshee 
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