Mission: Impossible Villain Deaths (Ranked)

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Say what you want about this franchise, I certainly have over the last couple weeks on the show, but the Mission: Impossible films are not shy about dispatching their villains and heavies in (mostly) glorious fashion. Indeed, ever since Brian De Palma's 1996 espionage masterpiece dropped, the bad guys in these movies have been taken out in a variety of wild ways. Having re-watched the entire franchise (again) in anticipation of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at the carnage to try and figure out which villain exit is my favorite. Spoilers, obviously…

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Watching the Balcony: Working Girl, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Rain Man & More

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One of my favorite YouTube channels to hit up when I’m high and it’s too late to start a movie is That Old T.V. For whatever reason, the only “old T.V.” the uploader seems to care about are episodes of At the Movies and the even older Sneak Previews with Siskel and Ebert. It does also feature a bunch of Ebert & Roeper and beyond, but I don’t really fuck with that era.

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Sundance '23: The Midnight Shorts Program

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If there’s one thing I love about film festivals, it’s a good shorts program. Considering there’s almost zero ecosystem for short films to find audiences, these kinds of line-ups are crucial parts of festivals and often will feature some incredible work you aren’t going to see anywhere else.

The shorts program in the Midnight section of this year’s festival did offer up a few wild gems, but not everything worked for me. Let’s see what’s what:

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Tubi Treasure Chest: Land of the Free (1998)

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I can’t recall what led me to first add Jerry Jameson’s 1998 action thriller to my Letterboxd Watchlist, perhaps because it’s a film starring the White Guy Karate C-Team Starter, Jeff Speakman (The Perfect Weapon, The Expert) as an ex-Navy man protecting his family against acting legend William Shatner’s crooked, right-wing politician? Yeah, that probably had something to do with it.

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