Mission: Impossible

I have watched this film for the second time and I still don't know what the hell is going on. Double agents everywhere you look, everybody is ready to turn on you at the drop of a hat and people are dropping dead left and right. One of them Emilio Estevez, who I had totally forgotten was in this at all. Well, he barely is. Rest in peace.

To make comprehension even more difficult, people that one presumed to be dead resurface later on in the movie. They may or may not be on your side (probably not).

The cast is full of acting heavy weights. And I am not even referring to Tom Cruise here. Kristin Scott Thomas (alas, another agent we lose too early in the game), Jon Voight (good guy? bad guy? alive guy? dead guy?), Emmanuelle Béart, Vanessa Redgrave (I mean, come on), Ving Rhames, Jean Reno (who always makes a film immediately better).

Whenever the blot gets to confusing, there is an explosion to distract the cast and the audience. Or, I think that it the reason. Some of them are caused by exploding gum. James Bond didn't have exploding gum, did he? So, there.

There is also the famous Topkapi-rip-off-scene. If you do not know what I am talking about, that means you have not seen Topkapi, in which case we can never be friends.

Also, a helicopter in a tunnel dragged along by a train. Fighting, danger, gum, explosion! Such fun!

5/10

Big Night

Brothers Primo and Secondo came to America to make it in the restaurant business, but there little Italian place is failing while the restaurant across the street - run by Pascal - is thriving.

Primo is a very gifted chef but unwilling to compromise his art because a 'philistine' customer wants a side order of spaghetti with meatballs to her risotto (starch with starch!). His younger brother is trying to keep their business running but knows they need money fast to keep the place open.

Secondo comes to Pascal for financial help but Pascal offers him a way to make some business. He will call up an 'old friend', a famous jazz musician to come and eat at their place to get some publicity.

Now the brothers start working towards the big night feverishly. And if that alone didn't keep them busy, they also both have trouble with the women in their lives - Secondo is cheating on Phyllis with (of all people) Pascal's girlfriend Gabriella. And Primo has his sights set on the flower lady Ann, but is to shy to even ask her out.

Then the big night comes and all their friends and neighbors have been invited, but the guest of honor takes his time. When it gets later and later - and the guests get drunk and start dancing around the room - Secondo decides it is time to eat - big shot jazz musician or no. Everyone agrees that the food is divine. As the night progresses, Secondo gets more and more nervous about the coveted guest and the publicity and word-of-mouth he should have brought the restaurant. In the end, he never shows. And he was never going to because Pascal neglected to call him in the first place in a rouse to drive the last nail into the restaurant's coffin and convince the brothers to word for him.

An absolute joy to watch.

from Roger Ebert's review:Big Night is one of the great food movies, and yet it is so much more. It is about food not as a subject but as a language - the language by which one can speak to gods, can create, can seduce, can aspire to perfection.

9/10 

Thinner

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King (or rather, his alter ego Richard Bachman).

Billy Halleck, an overweight small town lawyer, accidentally hits and kills a gypsy woman with his car. During the deposition, the local judge and a policeman fix the case so that there will be no further criminal investigation into the death, which gets ruled accidental. As he leaves the court, the gypsy's father comes up to him, strokes his cheek and says, "Thinner". From that moment on, Billy starts losing weight rapidly.

The gypsy apparently also cursed the judge (who slowly turns into a lizard - official explanation "skin cancer") and the policeman (who sports a gross collection of boils all over his body). Billy tries to find the gypsy, convinced that the one who puts a curse on you is also the only one that can lift it again.

Stephen King himself has a cameo in the film, like in several others. Here he plays the local pharmacist.

The book is rather mediocre and so is the film.

3/10