Nick Fury met Hawkeye a few years ago, well their counterparts did....

I recently did a post about Chris Evans (Captain America) meeting Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) in a comedy years ago before suiting up as the Avengers. Well another pairing of future heroes took place back in 2003 when Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) co-starred in the action film S.W.A.T. Jackson was the leader of a s.w.a.t. unit while Renner was cast as Colin Farrell's (part of Sam's unit) ex-partner who turned rogue. Jackson and Renner didn't share too many scenes together but I thought it was cool that the future Fury and Hawkeye were in a movie together almost a decade before the Avengers assembled. Just another cool and random piece of trivia.

2012 - Year of the Renner

Today marks actor Jeremy Renner's 41st birthday and this guy's star is on the rise. Big time! Me and my friend and blogger extraordinaire Jennifer Cooper was just talking about him yesterday and now it's his birthday. Coincidence? I think not. People may think Renner has only just come around these past few years thanks to roles in 28 Weeks Later, The Hurt Locker, and The Town, but he's been around since the mid 90's. Getting his start in the teen comedy National Lampoon's Senior Trip back in 1995. Then he appeared in a host of TV series such as CSI and even my fave Angel. He played Jeffrey Dahmer in a 2002 movie that I have yet to see but Jenn raves about. His first major role in Hollywood would have to be as Colin Farrell's ex partner who goes bad in SWAT. Then he started getting more and more roles like in the Charlize Theron 2005 pic North Country and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Brad Pitt. Then came his Academy Award nominated Best Actor turn in The Hurt Locker followed up by another nomination for The Town, this time for Supporting Actor. Oh and let's not forget his role in the brief series, The Unusuals about life for some cops in the big city. I thought this was a great show but the powers that be didn't and canceled it like after only 6 episodes in 2009.

As SFC William James in The Hurt Locker (2008)

As James Coughlin in The Town (2010)

But 2011 has been very pivotal for Renner. First up was his cameo as Hawkeye in the summer's blockbuster Thor. That role will lead to this year's almost guaranteed hit, The Avengers. Where his character shares the screen with the likes of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). He just joined Tom Cruise for the recent Mission Impossible film which was a doozy of a ride. He's got the film Hansel and Gretel with Gemma Arterton due early this year. And then in August, he takes over the Bourne franchise. Not as Jason Bourne, but as new character Aaron Cross.

As William Brandt in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

With Gemma Arterton as Hansel and Gretel (2012)

As Aaron Cross in The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Add all that up and 2012 looks to be the year of the Renner. Count me very excited.

The Dream Team assembled

Tom Cruise does the Mission Impossible one more time...and hey it's the best one yet!

Tom Cruise returns as superspy Ethan Hunt for the fourth time in what I think may be the best Mission Impossible film yet. The film's opening has Ethan languishing in a Moscow prison before he is sprung by his IMF team of Benji (the returning Simon Pegg) and Jane Carter (a kick ass Paula Patton). Hunt gets to flex his muscles quick as he fights prisoners and guards on his way out with a Russian informant in tow. After Hunt is out, he is brought up to speed on the latest mission in which his skills are sorely needed. It appears a Russian extremist named Cobalt plans to launch a nuclear warhead at America once he has stolen the key components needed. It's up to Hunt and his team to stop him.

Jane and Benji waiting on Ethan

The first leg has Ethan and Benji going undercover at the Kremlin but that mission is compromised by Cobalt and a huge explosion is set off and Ethan is blamed for the incident. Now a rogue agent, Hunt is tasked by The Secretary of State (a nice uncredited bit by Tom Wilkinson) to stop Cobalt at any cost. Tagging along is analyst Brandt (played by Jeremy Renner) who gets involved in the action quite quickly. Soon our team has to do the impossible to stop Cobalt. Including a breath-taking sequence which has Hunt scaling the tallest building in the world in Dubai using nothing but suction gloves. It's been awhile since I seen a movie that has a scene where the entire audience is just gasping and looking at the screen in awe. The scene is flawless in execution and looks amazingly real. No CGI or another type of effect, just Cruise doing an unbelievable stunt. This scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Ethan having second thoughts about the whole climbing the world's

tallest building thing

And if MI4 offered nothing else for the entire movie, then that scene would be more than enough. But thankfully there are several more adrenaline pumping action scenes that follow. Including a foot chase which leads to a car chase during an unrelenting sandstorm; brutal fist fights with all team members, including a wicked woman on woman fight between Patton and a blonde assassin. And there is a doozy of a climatic chase and brawl as Hunt pursues Cobalt through a automated parking garage in India. All the time Ethan is pursued by a Russian detective who chases him all over the world. Reminds me of Tommy Lee Jones chasing Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.

Michael Nyqvist as Cobalt..looking to shake things up

What makes this new installment even better than the previous entries is that Cruise gets to show some vulnerability for a change. Gone is the cocky, never get hurt Hunt and now is a more patient and sometimes unsure Hunt, who still sometimes will take the risk. He just has to think about it a little more. Like when Benji tells him he has to climb the building in Dubai and should be a piece of cake. You can see the look in Ethan's face as he thinks..yeah maybe 10 years ago but now I'm a little older. Not as quick and my body has more wear on it. And let me be clear..Ethan gets banged up quite a bit in this one. I'm talking Bruce Willis Die Hard banged up. But he takes the punishment and keeps on coming.

The team in a heated discussion

Mission Impossible is directed with expertise by Brad Bird, who previously helmed the animated flicks The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Here he shows he can play with the big boys with it comes to heavy duty action and adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and now wait news when the next one will be announced. And trust me, there will be another one. I do hope that this entire team comes back as they gelled quite convincingly. Patton and Renner make great additions and Cruise and Pegg work magic once again.

Say something...I dare you!

So to all moviegoers, the mission should you decide to accept it..is to see one of the best films of this or any other year.
B+

Kind of busy right now..have to call you back

Dahmer

Okay so one of my favourite films that I'm going to recommend is one that is not traditional horror, the real life story behind it is one of the greatest horrors of American history, however due to my sick warped mind, I find this film to oooze melancholy and to be a real thing of beauty.  See that's the thing about horror, the sheer psychological torture that often frequents the genre can be one of the most stunning and purest forms of film making.  Dahmer is the perfect example of this.

Visually this film is stunning!  Director David Jacobson did one hell of a job directing this film, and with Jeremy Renner playing Jeffrey Dahmer, you have sheer perfection.  Jeremy Renner is one of my all time favourite actors and easily one of the best working in the industry today.  I've been in love with him since 1995 when I first saw him in National Lampoon's Senior Trip....a completely ridiculous movie but one that made it impossible for it not to be love at first sight the moment I saw him.  It wasn't until Dahmer though I believe he truly hit his stride.

With the story of Jeffrey Dahmer, Jacobson could have went down the route of providing a gross-out fest, focusing on Dahmer's experimentation with cannibalism where he ate the thigh of one of his victims.  He could have went more down the line of The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer, released in 1992, a film that focused on as many grizzly features as possible and was basically made to shock.  And it did shock...in the fact that it was so bloody awful!  David Jacobson's Dahmer however focuses on the mind of Jeffrey Dahmer, an incredibly tortured and broken soul.  The tag line for the movie is one of my all time favourite quotes - "The Mind is a Place of its Own."  Such a truer statement I've never heard.  We all have our own personal demons and struggles and what David Jacobson did with Dahmer was show how much like the rest of us he actually was.  And that's what makes this movie all the more horrifying.  I think it was a huge risk on Jacobson's part because let's face it....showing to the world how we could relate to parts of one of the most notorious serial killers of all time...it's not the kind of thing that many like to consider.

Personally I can relate to the loneliness that Dahmer felt, that feeling of wanting someone to stay with you forever, and the fear of them leaving and what you would do to keep them.  The film also deals with that feeling of not being able to talk to family, and to having little friends.  I am in no way condoning the things that Dahmer did, but neither do I condone the sentence he was given by the city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin.  He tried to create a zombie so they wouldn't leave him....I'm sorry but in no way, shape, or form does that represent a sane person.  And leaving him alone in prison, being as vulnerable as he was, that was a set up.  No doubt about it.

The structure of the movie was done where we see parts of Jeff's life in a three part time line.  We have Jeff in the present day (which would have been 1991) and then during the few years prior when he was drugging and raping men in the bath houses...although for the movie it has been changed to a gay bar.  The third part of the timeline, and most definitely my favourite, it is set in 1978 when Dahmer was 18 years old and killed his first victim Steven Hicks...renamed for the film as Lance Bell.  It was in this part that we saw Jeff in his desperate attempt to have someone never leave him.  The film ends after Jeff has killed Lance and despite his Dad's attempt to get him to see a psychiatrist for his drinking problem, he walks away.  The scene in which Jeff is walking through the forest to one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, Blue Theme by Siren Music Productions.  Three wonderfully talented women who create the most gorgeous and haunting music and did the whole score for the movie.

 I am not going to give anything more about the movie, all I am going to say is that it is the performance of a lifetime by Jeremy Renner.  It is one of my all time most favourite movies, and most watched.  I love it and can't recommend it enough.  :)