Hallelujah289

First off, Tom Cruise is in great form. He's running as fast as ever. And doing major stunt work. Yes he's older, age happens to us all. But he's also ripped and I like that he looks like a normal older person and not made of plastic.

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is very much a love letter to all the Mission Impossible films, with many flashback collages of Tom Cruise in his younger years. As well as all his love interests, his antagonists (including RIP Phillip Seymour). There is an emotional energy to the film, like a montage of Ethan Hunt the actor as well as Tom Cruise the person, who has lived many of his years before our eyes to the age he his today. I like the tribute, as I feel as though Tom Cruise's star has faded somewhat unfairly. He is showing us through this film his discipline to show up as an actor despite the general feeling that he's not worth showing up for.

The film itself is a mix of the best of film: incredible action scenes, high stakes. And a decent message of standing together in a world of increasing isolation despite increasing connection.

But also, the film is also a bit of an over complicated mess. I haven't seen the most recent Mission Impossible films (perhaps two of them) and I was pretty lost. I really didn't know what was happening half the time.

Or what was going with the flashbacks as they were intercut between past and present and I just couldn't follow what was happening now vs then. It was a style choice that could have worked if there was a point to the complexity. I kept waiting for a hammer to drop. Like am I supposed to be wary of what I'm seeing is a simulation? Or not? I think it was half intentional, and half not.

But despite my confusion, I did enjoy the film. I thought the actors were well cast. And all acted seriously and with purpose. I liked seeing new (to me) and familiar faces.

I think Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning has very good potential to be an amazing film. But something with the plot coherence failed. I think the intercut editing style is to blame. And also paying to tribute to too many moments from the past films at once.

Even still, as a film that is as much tribute to Tom Cruise as it is to Mission Impossible, I think there is a sincere, emotional core here that did have me tearing up at the end. It's one I wouldn't mind watching again.

"Willard: The Hermit of Gully Lake" is as much tribute to the people of Nova Scotia as it is to the hermit Willard MacDonald who inspired them to offer their assistance.

Neighbors, fellow hunters, woodsmen, social services, veterans of World War II, offered their slice of perspective on the man that survived over sixty years alone in a cabin by Gully Lake, throughout the bitter winters of the area.

A deserter of World War II, and a man who shied away from authority as the sentence for desertion was once the firing squad, Willard lived an anonymous life never wanting to put his name to paper. He had an intense need for the wilderness, and denied many kinds of financial aid (even his inheritance which it's uncertain whether he knew about), including a newly built $20,000 home from his own forfeited pension.

A quiet, private man, deeply untrusting but somehow inspiring of the camaraderie of many people, Willard is a study of contrasts. His love of music inspired many folks to be written about it. Yet he was himself unskilled at violin and guitar despite the solace he took in these instruments.

His story is compelling in the focus of his life. But also the chances he didn't take. And the creature comforts that he said no to which were laid at his feet.

I don't know that Willard is himself inspiring, despite what those who knew him said. But I do find the love they showed him to be inspiring, even though ultimately Willard stuck to the only life he knew. And was eventually claimed by the winter landscape which sheltered him and gave him his mystique.