He's a mind-reading, shape-shifting incarnation of chaos!

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE-DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE

2023

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Written by Erik Jendresen and Christopher McQuarrie

Spoilers: moderate

Desert planet

DUNE: PART ONE

2021

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Written by Jon Spaihts, Eric Roth, and Denis Villeneuve

Spoiler alert: good golly, it's Dune

It's us who haunt the past

REMINISCENCE

2021

Written and directed by Lisa Joy

Spoiler alert: moderate

King Week: You taste like whiskey

In which we arrive at the true purpose of this Stephen King mini-marathon, a film that I have some serious issues with, yet still could not recommend enough, particularly given how few of us went to go see it when we should have.

DOCTOR SLEEP

2019

Written and directed by Mike Flanagan (based on the novel by Stephen King—and, y'now, the screenplay, by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson)

Spoiler alert: moderate

I'm jumping out a window!

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—FALLOUT

Parts of it are every bit as world-class as everyone's saying, but Fallout is, in the end, only a good M:I movie.  That means it's great by regular movie standards, and it does amazing things the series has never done before (which itself is in the best tradition of its best forebears); but it's also a Mission: Impossible that sometimes almost drops down to "boring," and that's a sin this franchise has never committed.

Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie

With Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa Faust), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Alec Baldwin (Sec. Alan Hunley), Angela Bassett (Director Erica Sloane), Henry Cavill (August Walker), Vanessa Kirby (White Widow), and Sean Harris (Solomon Lane)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Impossible Week, part V: Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny, and he has made you his mission!

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—ROGUE NATION

Is this the end of the Impossible series?  $267 million and counting argues no: but the beginning of its end, it may well be.

2015
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Written by Drew Pearce and Christopher McQuarrie
With Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa Faust), Simon Pegg (Benji Dunn), Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell), Alec Baldwin (Alan Hunley)

Spoiler alert: mild