Grab a bucket of popcorn and get ready for some high-flying thrills because the summer movie season officially begins with Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, starring the inimitable Tom Cruise in what is billed as his final appearance as Ethan Hunt, action-spy extraordinaire.  

The film follows almost directly from Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 (in a rather confusing title choice, there is no "Part 2" -- The Final Reckoning is, in fact, Part 2), where Hunt was battling a nebulous evil called The Entity, a sort of science fiction-inspired AI that sews misinformation and division across the world and which has inspired fanatical cult followers who are anonymously embedded in strategic positions of global and political power. Only one man, of course, with his crack team of fellow spies -- Grace (Hayley Atwell), Luther (Ving Rhames), and Benji (Simon Pegg) -- can save the day, and Final Reckoning follows his efforts to do just that, averting global disaster.

The Mission Impossible franchise has, in many ways, been one of the best and most admirable of the slate of popcorn movies, helmed by such auteurs and famed directors as Brian DePalma, John Woo (who directed my favorite entry), J.J. Abrams, and Brad Bird. It is, certainly, one of the funnest, with its tongue in cheek humor, ridiculously and wonderfully impossible plots, and, of course, its jaw-dropping action, out of which Tom Cruise has made a unique name for himself as the star actor who insists on doing his own death-defying stunts. 

And truly, there are few more delightful things at the cinema than watching Tom Cruise do his thing, whether it's dangling off the side of the world's tallest skyscraper, or jumping from a plane, or just running flat-out at gloriously fast speeds. (I genuinely love watching Tom Cruise run!)  And this film, while it takes a while to get going -- using some significant exposition elements in the first half, so that all viewers are up to speed with the plot -- when it does get going, the action is glorious, just an absolute blast, and the final action sequence, which involves bi-planes, is truly one of the finest of the whole franchise. As Robbie Collin noted in his 5-star review for The Telegraph, the "dazzlingly ambitious finale sees Ethan Hunt take on a challenge of biblical proportions – and he doesn't let us down." 

So set aside your serious arthouse thinking caps for a while and kick off the Memorial Day weekend with a full-speed ride on the Ethan Hunt train. There's nothing quite like it.  

Friendship, starring Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, and Kate Mara, also offers a ridiculous level of fun but in a completely different way from Mission Impossible, for where Mission Impossible made me clutch the arms of my seat at the tense action, Friendship had me holding my sides and wiping off the laughter-induced tears streaming down my face. It was a packed screening at the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) where I saw it, and I'm not sure I've ever been amongst a crowd that was laughing any harder or having more fun. 

To be sure, Tim Robinson's brand of humor is a unique sort, and if you're not familiar with his brilliantly eccentric sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave, drop everything and watch some of it now, just to get a taste of it. Even if you don't know the show though, you might be familiar with some of the memes it's spawned, for Robinson's humor, even in its hyper-specificity, often nails something very precise about our socio-political moment.

I do think there will be some for whom Tim Robinson just doesn't do it; I don't think there's much of an in-between on him. His stuff either really resonates or it doesn't.  But for me -- and for the packed audience at TIFF -- his work does what really good comedy can do so well: it targets something really deep in the human psyche and then exposes it for its absurdities. Robinson often pinpoints what makes a social situation really uncomfortable or awkward, particularly when a given person really really wants to fit in, to be a part of the group, to be cool -- and then he takes that situation to its most extreme and hilariously absurd ends. 

In Friendship, Robinson and director/writer Andrew DeYoung tap into that universal longing for belonging, for friendship, for a deep connection with another person, and for that desire to be truly loved and deeply appreciated by someone else. And then the film examines what happens if that friendship isn't what it seemed to be and if one person just does not feel the same way about the other person as that person feels about them -- with darkly hysterical results. 

It's a rare film that can be both so funny it makes your sides hurt and so thematically pungent that it is almost painful, but this is it.  And as friend of the Pickford, film critic and professor Brandon Wilson wrote in his 4-star review: "It feels like the tell that this film is about the absolute emotional and spiritual poverty of contemporary American life and the increasingly desperate measures we will go to to fill the void. Robinson's self immolation seems far fetched, but it's only a little bit heightened. He goes over the top but in doing so makes us face what we all have the potential to be if we totally gave in to our goblin selves."

Laugh until you cry, or cry until you laugh. Either way, join us this weekend! Tickets are already going like hotcakes.

We also have two events this week, in addition to the Sunday encore of Exhibition on Screen's Michelangelo: Love and Death: 

First up, for a Memorial Day matinee screening, is Nimona, a very special selection in collaboration with Whatcom Youth Pride, in anticipation of the Whatcom Youth Pride parade on May 31. The Oscar-nominated Nimona--"unapologetically queer" and based on the comic by nonbinary transmasculine cartoonist and artist ND Stevenson--almost got cancelled by Disney, "reportedly for being too gay," until "Annapurna and Netflix stepped in to save the project" (EW), and so it's a particular treat to be able to celebrate this film on the big screen. 

It follows the buoyant and life-affirming story of a wrongfully outcast knight (Riz Ahmed) and his shape-shifting sidekick (Chloë Grace Moretz) who live under an authoritarian government that views anyone "different" as monstrous, and the film ultimately offers a warm and poignant message of inclusivity and a celebration of individual differences.  Join us for this family-friendly screening on Monday at 1 pm!

Finally, The Tale of Princess Kaguya marks the last film in our month-long Takahata series, part of our larger Cinema East series, and it is an exquisite film, with breathtaking animation and a deeply moving story based on a Japanese folktale dating from the 10th century. The film justifiably received a rare 100% rating from critics, and as Wendy Ide rapturously noted in her review for The Times, "this is the kind of impressionistic, lovingly hand-crafted animation that is all too rarely seen now, with the trend for digital hyper-realism . . . each frame represents a level of artistry that makes it a mini masterpiece." 

Kaguya will be shown twice on Thursday, May 29 at 11 am and 7:45 pm, and we're delighted to have WWU Professor Tyler Walker here with us for the evening show, to offer an introduction. Watch out for Cinema East curator Jeff Purdue's newsletter in your inboxes on Sunday, too, for a special written introduction to The Tale of Princess Kaguya.  

See you at the movies, friends!

Melissa