So is “ghost protocol,” like, an actual THING in intelligence ops, or is the subtitle of the new Mission: Impossible film just another example of screenwriters and marketing guys smushing words together until they come up with a combination that “sounds cool?” Somebody help me out here. In any event, the resultant film, which I reviewed for MSN Movies, is actually a quite decent example of what some call a “popcorn movie,” AND it actually IS worth seeing in the IMAX version if you can afford it.
I was going to skip this, but I forgot Brad Bird directed it and given his work on “The Incredibles,” “The Iron Giant,” etc. I’m curious to see what he does with this picture (even if Cruise has the final word on the creative side of things).
Funny you should mention. Henry Czerny in that review, Glenn. I remember helping him when I was working in retail about 6–7 years ago and was thinking “Hey, it’s Henry Czerny!” and “I’m proud of myself that I remembered his name.”
Nice guy.
It sounds kind of internet‑y in a Live Free Or Die Hard way: “Their ghost protocols are taking down all of the governments firewalls, get their IPs to deploy trojan blogs across the twittersphere, stat!”
http://www.ehrensteinland.com/htmls/library/tomcruiseletters.shtml
What every happened to Henry Czerny? Actually you can see him every week in the oddly popular ABC series “Revenge”. Not that anyone in these here sophisticated environs would watch such a thing.
Henry Czerny is currently playing a sleazy corporate executive/asshole rich patriarch in ABC’s prime-time soap REVENGE. Madeline Stowe is also in it (and awesome) as Czerny’s wife, so if you’ve been in the mood for a trip down memory lane, check it out.
Dunno about ‘ghost protocol’ and its veracity in re actual spycraft, but John Le Carre created the term ‘honey trap’ out of whole cloth and it’s entered the spook lexicon as a working term of art. See this article from March 2010:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/12/the_history_of_the_honey_trap
“So is “ghost protocol,” like, an actual THING in intelligence ops?”
No.
How much of the film do you figure was shot in the 1.44:1 IMAX format, Glenn? I’m seeing it tomorrow (mostly for Bird’s direction and, well, that Dark Knight Rises prologue that precedes it).
@ JC: THe publicity materials say about 30 minutes, and I’d say that’s right.
Thanks a bunch for the quick response. 🙂
Being one of the less sophisticated participants here, I haven’t missed an episode of REVENGE yet. It wasn’t very good the first few weeks, but I like Stowe, and it was a decent timekiller. Lately it’s actually gotten kinda good, with some fun, outlandish twists.
I regret I haven’t seen yet any of Bird’s films as director (nor any other Pixar film, for that matter… it’s not a matter of avoidance like superhero movies, but of forgetfulness), but he may well be another of the unsung geniuses behind ‘The Simpsons’ when ‘The Simpsons’ were still great (I stopped watching around the 13th season, and things had been downhill for a while). It’s easy enough to focus on the screenwriting, but when you consider the important though subtle part played by framing and comic timing, and then listen in the DVD commentaries to all the decisions and ideas in those departments coming from Bird, and you notice that he left during the 9th season and you proceed to analyze and compare the framing and comic timing of the episodes afterwards… we-el, it’s not exactly a clear-cut case of autherism, but one starts to wonder if the change of show-runners was really the principal reason behind the fall from grace.
If you see only one superhero (or Pixar) movie, see ‘The Incredibles’. I admit that’s the sort of hyperbole you’d expect to find on a poster, but it’s close enough to the truth.