pressure Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Christopher M^cQuarrie – 2022 – US – Cert. 12a – 163m

*****

Tom Cruise’s eighth and director Christopher M^cQuarrie’s fourth Mission: Impossible outing delivers up to par globe-trotting action set pieces and considerably more plot than last time – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, May 21st

When Tom Cruise made his first Mission: Impossible movie (Brian DePalma, 1996), no-one foresaw that the property, already a successful and long-running TV series emblazoned into the cultural zeitgeist along with its immediately recognisable Lalo Schifrin theme tune, would turn into an equally successful movie franchise. With each passing movie, it has seemed a better and better fit for Tom Cruise – while he has a wide-ranging career, this franchise is today what his name immediately brings to mind. After several directors, the franchise and Cruise somehow found another director -actually a writer director – who seemed to fit the franchise as well as he did. Chrstopher M^cQuarrie did uncredited rewrites on the fourth entry Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and has directed and written or co-written every entry in the franchise since. Watching these films, you sense a shorthand developing between producer-star and writer-director, with each film feeling more assured than its predecessor.… Read the rest

Next Sohee
(Da-eum So-hee,
다음 소희)

Director – July Jung – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 134m

*****

A schoolgirl on an internship is appallingly exploited by her employers, and a police detective is called in to investigate – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

Here’s a film which presents a real problem for reviewers. Something monumental happens in the middle of the film which entirely changes it. It’s a little bit like the shift from the traumatic drama to the police manhunt in High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963) and a bit like the infamous shower scene in the middle of Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). And yet, the film is like neither of those classics in any other way (except, perhaps, the fact that it’s a remarkable film that will leave you with an indelible impression afterwards). Still, how much can a reviewer give away without ruining the film for audiences?

It’s very much a film of two halves. The first half centres around Sohee (Kim Se-eun), a star pupil at an average secondary school. She is obsessed with dancing, specifically the kind of dance moves associated with K-pop girl- and boy-bands. Among her friends are another former intern from her school who dropped out of her intern position and now spends her evenings getting paralytically drunk.… Read the rest