Action Friday #1 – Mission: Impossible – Fallout

For the first installment of Action Friday I thought I’d come out swinging. My son and I are huge Tom Cruise fans; like, mega-dorks of the highest order. We’re sort of the highest level Thetan of Cruise fans. I’m not saying we walk around wearing naval outfits and pretending we’re philosophical sea captains with the answers to all of life’s questions, but I am saying L. Ron Hubbard would approve of our level of enthusiasm.

Let’s get this out of the way right at the top: This is the best movie of 2018 and Green Book and A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody can suck it. Yes, a lot of this has been done before in other movies and in the M:I series itself: there’s a bomb ticking down to zero – will they stop it in time???; there are long scenes of Tom Cruise running – will he catch his target???; Cruise will subject himself to one dangerous stunt after another – will he live???

If you’re scoring at home, the answers are Yes, yes, and yes (though Tom is getting to the age where the answer to the last question could justifiably be “Yes, but why is Grandpa jumping out of a plane again?”)

The setup is pretty straightforward: Ethan Hunt, our hero, has once again made a fairly daft mistake and let three plutonium cores get out on the open market where – surprise! – terrorists are planning to purchase them and make bombs and our only hope is for Ethan to track down a shadowy underworld figure, impersonate him, secure the cores, and save the day, all the while having a CIA watchdog (played by the hunky, and clearly hard for Tom, Henry Cavill) hovering over him and generally making a nuisance of himself, oh my god who gives a shit? Check out this fight scene!

Hell Yeah!

Anyway, the movie progresses in fairly normal M:I fashion: there are double-crosses, double-double-crosses, triple-crosses, and I think an Ollie-Kick-Flip. There’s a lot of chatter about Ethan Hunt being the guy who chooses to save one life in an effort to save millions of lives, or some other mathematically problematic bullshit like that, but really this is about Tom Cruise defying age, osteoarthritis, and the series lack of engaging villains to make wonderful action fare.

In the third act we are treated to what is probably the best 15-20 minutes of any action movie ever. That’s right – EVER. If you haven’t watched it, stop reading, go watch it, then punch yourself in the face five times as an act of penance.

There is a glorious bit of Ethan Hunt climbing into a helicopter, falling, climbing again, commandeering said helicopter, and then, with no apparent knowledge of how to fly a helicopter, chasing down the bad guy. Why? Because Fucking Tom Cruise, that’s why!

My son, Ethan (that’s right, I named my kid after a fictional character in an action movie franchise – I’m that kinda nerd) was over the moon watching this in the theater. His constant jokes about Tom pulling a hamstring, only to overcome it with the power of Scientology, are some of the funniest things I’ve heard while watching a movie. And let’s be clear – we love Tom Cruise, even with the specter of his wacky pseudo-religion hanging over everything. Again, I NAMED MY CHILD AFTER A CHARACTER HE PLAYS. Clearly Henry Cavill isn’t the only red-blooded man who is hard for Tom Cruise.

In addition to the amazing third act, there is a great movie here, supported by a great cast beyond the aroused Henry Cavill. Ving Rhames returns as Luther Stickell, and can genuinely be considered the beating heart of this franchise; Simon Peg returns as Benji. Your mileage on Benji may vary – doesn’t he basically do Luther’s job? We already have Luther, right? I’m pretty sure we have Luther. Oh, wait – this a Bad Robot production – which means there’s probably a J.J. Abrams clause somewhere that requires Simon Peg. J.J. Abrams fucks everything up; Rebecca Ferguson returns as the wonderful Ilsa Faust; and we get great performances from Angela Bassett (more please) and Alec Baldwin (professional Donald Trump impersonator, who sometimes acts).

But really, we’re here for this:

And this, and most of all THIS. My spirit animal is Tom Cruise Running.

As a pure entertainment, M:I Fallout is a smash hit, and as a bizarre outlier of a series getting better as it goes along, it really delivers the goods, which is a good thing since Cruise has signed on to do (at least) two more sequels, at which point Ethan Hunt will be HALO jumping from low-earth orbit to land on a submarine that is a mile under the ocean, all from the comfort of his Little Rascal. And you know what? My son and I will be there, front row, popcorn and a copy of Dianetics in hand.

If you liked M:I Fallout, or if you’re a bad human and didn’t like it, or if you want to give me a suggestion for Action Friday, hit me up at averildickerson@outlook.com. See you next week!

Updates and What-nots

Just a quick “how ya doin'” to say the paperback of my book is now available on Amazon. If you don’t care for the Kindle format, by all means, give the paperback a whirl. The solution to the formatting problem that was keeping me from publishing the paperback was incredibly stupid and easy to fix once I isolated it. I think I’m going to write a self-help book one day with that title: Incredibly Stupid and Easy to Fix – How to Not Be a Dumbass.

On the blog front, my first Action Friday (guitar solo!) post will be up this weekend. Very excited for that. It’s definitely the newest movie my son and I have watched, and the first one he and I went to the theaters to see for Action Friday purposes. I hope you like it.

My current book project just took a major left turn. I was kinda deep into it when it dawned on me that I was writing it from the wrong perspective. I have a preference for a third person perspective, whether that is third person following one character – as this book was – or the third person omniscient POV that I favored in Despair. It came to me, I shit you not, in a dream. In the dream I was reading the book aloud to my cats (please send mental health professionals) and they didn’t like it. I’m not kidding. Please stop laughing. When I woke-up the answer was right there – shift the perspective to first person. I looked it over and re-read the first few chapters in first person and wouldn’t you know it – the cats were right. So, a quick re-write is in order, but no big deal.

Welp, that’s it for me today. As promised in my previous blog post, here are the media I’m currently consuming.

Last Movie: Arrival (I actually boo-hooed watching this. Again, send help.)

Current Book: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (Good read, but dense as Thor’s beard)

Previous Book Read: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer (very good; might do a retroactive review one day)

Television: The Expanse Seasons 1-3 (dope-ass show; definitely doing an Action Friday about it now that my son is hooked on it, too.)

Getting Back to Business

It’s been a minute since I last posted anything. Like, a lot of minutes. They say life comes at you fast, but sometimes life comes at you slow and gums-up the works. I don’t feel like doing a bunch of storytelling this go around – everybody has problems – but I do want to lay out a plan of action for getting my ass back in the saddle. Even if the only person listening is me.

I’m working on another book – a good one, I think – and I plan to have the first draft done by the end of the year. Why so slow? Because I suck at time management, so shut up. I’m also going to start making regular weekly posts to the blog. Some will be about books I’m reading, status updates on my novel in progress, and a fun little ditty called Action Friday.

Every Friday my son Ethan and I watch an action movie (though some times horror movies make the cut) and we chit-chat about what we saw and what we liked/didn’t like, though mostly it’s a chance to clown-around. The idea started when he asked to watch John Wick with me, and I liked it so much, I wondered what he would think about watching action flicks from when I was his age. The results have been fairly hilarious.

We’ve watched everything from Die Hard, to Predator, and a host of newer selections, like the Bourne movies. So, every Saturday I will put up some post or another, and if I don’t have anything interesting to write about, it’ll be something from the Action Friday notes I’ve been stashing. Whatever the subject matter, I plan on also listing the media that I’m consuming at that moment; books I’m reading, movies and TV shows I’m watching, etc. etc. If for no other reason, it will remind me of what is influencing me at that very moment.

In other news, I’m still working on the paperback formatting for my first book, Despair. It hasn’t been easy. Every time I submit a change or make a revision to the text that I think will pass muster, I get the dreaded message telling me that the format is outside of the page range. Sigh. But I soldier on. I’ve also opened a mailbox. The hope is, once I’ve built an audience, to field questions, suggestions, and business opportunities, but really I’d just like to hear from people who have seen my work, like it or loathe it, and to interact. I am still refusing to engage in social media, so this is the next best way for me to engage with my readers. You can hit me up at averildickerson@outlook.com. That’s right – screw you Gmail.

So, thanks for indulging me, and thanks for waiting on my sorry ass to get back in the swing of things. See you next week!