World Wide Web 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

Fungi Web of Life
laser digital IMAX 3D

Director – Joseph Nizeti – Co-directors – Gisela Kaufmann, Paul Phelan – 2023 – Australia – Cert. U – 40m

*****

The amazing world of fungi, its place in the ecosystem and how it may be able to help solve some environmental issues; narrated by Björk, presented by Merlin Sheldrake – out at the BFI Waterloo IMAX on Friday, February 9th

Think of fungi and most of us immediately think of mushrooms or toadstools, but those are merely its above ground manifestation. In fact, the wood wide web (a phrase easily misheard as the more familiar World Wide Web) extends through forests which are, as this notes in passing, disappearing at an alarming rate through deforestation, when the mostly slow paced and marvellous imagery and peaceful sounds and music on offer are briefly interrupted by a close up of the huge drive wheel of a mechanical digger and grating sounds of machinery to match.

Innovative Icelandic musician Björk, who has referred to her 2022 album Fossora as her ‘mushroom album’, lends her voice to the English language narration here. This gives the piece a strange, unearthly feeling that’s somehow perfect for its subject matter. Also on hand is biologist, writer and speaker Merlin Sheldrake, who wanders through the proceedings to visit Kew Gardens and assorted natural areas of forest around the planet to point out pertinent items and features.… Read the rest