Mission:Impossible 7 will cost a reported $290 million; we revisit Bill Duke’s 1992 film Deep Cover in honor of the Dr. Dre Super Bowl halftime show; a very fine Bob Odenkirk profile; some great movies that got zero Oscar nominations. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.
Mission: Impossibly Expensive: Variety reports that Mission: Impossible 7 will end up costing $290 million, $100 million more than its predecessor, because of COVID costs. I guess there are worse ways to spend money than keeping your team safe.
OK, So They Also Spent Some Money on This: The film also includes a stunt in which Cruise runs his motorcycle off a cliff. “This is far and away the most dangerous thing I’ve attempted,” says Tom Cruise. “I wanted to do it since I was a little kid.”
Peloton Movie Reviews: In honor of Dr. Dre doing this year’s Super Bowl half-time show (with Snoop Dogg, Eminem and more) I watched Bill Duke’s 1992 film Deep Cover, whose soundtrack includes the first-ever Dre-Snoop collaboration. Also: It’s a fantastic movie that you should absolutely not watch on a Peloton. Here:
Bob Odenkirk Bliss: If you’re as big of a Bob Odenkirk fan as me, you’re going to really enjoy this New York Times profile of the writer-actor-director as he returns to the final season of Better Call Saul. It’s understated, keenly observed, takes its time, and doesn’t pander, exactly like Better Call Saul (and Odenkirk). Writer Jonah Weiner notes that before his breakthrough as a dramatic actor on Breaking Bad, “Odenkirk’s pedigree was in comedy, where he enjoyed a paradoxical status: legendary and obscure.”
Great Detail: In his first Breaking Bad episode, Weiner writes, Odenkirk “didn’t bother to memorize the reams of cascading, hucksterish dialogue that the writer Peter Gould had crafted for him, certain that these lines would be cut way down by the time he stepped on set. They weren’t.”
Speaking of Cascading, Hucksterish Dialogue: The man accused in the new doc The Tinder Swindler of ripping off his Tinder dates has been permanently banned from the app.
Naked Honesty: Here’s a great tweet from Richard Dreyfuss.
I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has enjoyed my films. I am very proud of my filmography. I admit I’ve made some terrible movies but for the first thirty years that was just because the movie wasn’t as good as the script, and in the last 20 years it’s just because of money
— Richard Dreyfuss (@RichardDreyfuss) February 9, 2022
The Unnominated: Variety has a terrific list of 22 films that deserve to be seen despite receiving zero Oscar nominations. I especially agree on Sean Baker’s Red Rocket (one of my two favorite movies from last year) and Pig — Nicolas Cage getting nominated for (and winning) Best Actor would have been one of the all-time-great Hollywood stories. Also: Nothing at all for The French Dispatch, one of the most beautiful-looking movies I’ve ever seen?
Prediction: As Deep Cover nears its 30th anniversary in April, you’re going to read a lot of critical evaluations of how good it is and under-appreciated it’s been. In the meantime, enjoy the theme song, which I’m betting Dre and Snoop will not perform at the Super Bowl because everyone’s so sensitive these days.
Main image: Jeff Goldblum and Lawrence Fishburne in Deep Cover.
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