Better Call Saul, Year Six

Spoilers for everything up to this season.

The final season of "Better Call Saul" is split into two halves narratively.  The first nine episodes finish the story of Saul Goodman in the past, or up to the beginning of "Breaking Bad."  The last four take place mostly in 2010, when Saul is living in obscurity as a Cinnabon manager, and his past catches up to him at last.  AMC decided to split these episodes differently for broadcast, ending the first batch with the big, shocking cliffhanger in episode seven.  It's not a bad choice, however, since everything after that episode feels like an extended denouement, especially for Kim Wexler's character.

The first part of the season was great, and the final fates of Nacho, Lalo, and Howard were exactly what I was hoping for.  Saul, like Walter White, becomes the antagonist of his own story, and Kim firmly reestablishes herself as the moral center of the show.  The "Breaking Bad" universe hasn't had the best track record when it comes to female characters, but Kim has been the big exception, and she's easily my favorite out of everyone this year.  Rhea Seehorn is absent from a good chunk of episodes, but whenever she's onscreen, you realize that you couldn't have the show without her.  You realize why Saul makes the choices that he does in the finale.  Everything that the show has spent five plus seasons setting up for their characters pays off beautifully.      

I admit that I felt some restlessness while working through the final run of episodes, because I didn't find the Gene Takavic storyline all that compelling, though the big heist he engineered was fun, and it was great to see Carol Burnett pop up in a surprise role.  The various intersections with "Breaking Bad,"and the cameos of so many familiar actors was diverting, but also distracting.  The finale was really wrapping up both "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul," however, so I can't really complain.  There is absolutely no arguing that Vince Gilligan and his collaborators didn't end the show on their own terms, and considering the pandemic delays and Bob Odenkirk's health scare, I'm grateful.  However, the best way to watch these episodes of "Better Call Saul" might be to pause at episode nine, marathon all of "Breaking Bad," and then finish out the rest of "Saul."  While the writers do their best to give us some resolution for characters like Mike and Gus, mostly through flashbacks, their absence is deeply felt.    

The show's production is as good as ever, and "Better Call Saul" stands out for its many unorthodox storytelling choices.  This is one of the few shows that can get away with black and white cinematography (with some stunning uses of spot color), laconic pacing, and long dialogue-free stretches.  There's a montage of Kim's humdrum daily routine in one of the final episodes that is one of the most devastating things in the whole show.  And I appreciate that the aging actors who were all brought back for guest sports weren't subjected to CGI facelifts or much makeup.  Instead, they're mostly just kept in shadow or dim lighting, which itself feels like an apt aesthetic choice as the walls close in around Saul in the last acts.

It's not really fair to compare "Better Call Saul" to "Breaking Bad" because they're very different shows telling very different stories.  However, "Saul" feels like the greater accomplishment, telling a more mature, less sensationalized story that doesn't shy away from hard consequences.  Where "Breaking Bad" had to stack the deck to keep us invested in Walt as a protagonist, Saul is a much more morally ambiguous figure who is able to prove that he was worth rooting for in the end.  The relationship that he has with Kim is fascinating, truly one of the best screen romances that I've ever seen.    

I don't expect that the ending will go over well with everyone, but I've been watching a lot of film noir lately, and this feels like the right place to leave Saul and Kim.  I'll be back next time with my Top Ten episode list and a few closing thoughts.

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Rank 'Em - The Best Picture Winners of the 2000s

Decade by decade, I'm ranking the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture.  From greatest to least great, here's the 2000s. 

No Country For Old Men (2007) - 2007 was a great year for the Oscars, with a Best Picture slate full of unconventional, interesting nominees, including "Juno" and "Michael Clayton."  I'm honestly a little surprised that "No Country" beat out "There Will Be Blood," but the race was a close one, and I would have been happy either way.  "No Country" is still one of the Coen brothers' best thrillers, and easily one of the best films of the last twenty years.

The Hurt Locker (2009) - The first year of the modern era to feature an expanded slate of nominees, and there were plenty of good options.  "The Hurt Locker" may not have been the flashiest or the most innovative winner, but it is a very solid thriller and war film that launched Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie to stardom, and got Kathryn Bigelow her directing Oscar.  I'm not surprised that the film was controversial, but the win was anything but.

Chicago (2002) - One thing you'll notice about Best Picture winners is that they're mostly serious, heavy dramas.  "Chicago" is one of the only exceptions of this era, a flashy, full-throated musical with an all-star cast, based on the legendary Bob Fosse show.  And my affection for its verve and its exuberant performances outweigh any quibbles I might have with the filmmaking or the singing and dancing prowess of its decidedly non-Broadway cast.

Million Dollar Baby (2004) - This is one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films, mostly due to Hilary Swank's aching performance and the tragic, uncompromising ending.  I suspect it's the last great film that Eastwood has made to date, though some aspects of the plot haven't aged well.  It was certainly the peak of screenwriter Paul Haggis's career, who would unfortunately go on to direct the worst Best Picture winner on this list, the very next year.    

The Departed (2006) - I think my trouble with "The Departed" boils down to the fact that I watched "Infernal Affairs" first and still like it better.  Scorsese famously got his Oscar for the film, and I can't deny the combined powers of the cast - including Mark Wahlberg's best work onscreen by a mile - but I just can't manage much real enthusiasm for the movie.  Then again, I also can't justify giving the statuette to any of the other nominees from that year.  

Gladiator (2000) - It's a lot of fun to watch, but I tend to agree with Roger Ebert's assessment that Scott's sword and sandals epic delivers more hype and angst than action and adventure.  People remember the iconic scenes, and tend to forget the other 150 minutes of Roman politicking and Russell Crowe's brooding.  I would have picked "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to win, though either Soderbergh pic would've also been good choices.   

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) - While I am tremendously fond of everyone involved in the movie, and love that it opened so many doors for the younger actors, I find the movie itself only so-so.  Danny Boyle's stylistic embellishments and frenetic editing are doing an awful lot of the work, and the best thing about the movie is almost certainly A.R. Rahman's vibrant score.  That said, "Slumdog" is still the best film that was nominated that  year.  

A Beautiful Mind (2001) - When people pointed out that Charlie Kaufman lifted a speech from "A Beautiful Mind" for the end of "I'm Thinking of Ending Things," it struck me as such a perfect encapsulation of this film's utter banality.  It's not bad, but it shouldn't have been in contention.  "The Fellowship of the Ring" is the most obvious nominee to replace it, but "Gosford Park" and "In the Bedroom" are also good picks.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - Look, I like the original "Lord of the Rings" trilogy as much as anyone, but "The Return of the King" is overlong, indulgent, and entirely too pleased with itself in the end.  I'm also still a little upset about the truncated epilogue, though I understand why it had to be that way.  Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" would have been my pick for winner, followed by "Master and Commander."

Crash (2005) - The problem was never that "Crash" beat "Brokeback Mountain" for Best Picture.  The problem was that "Crash" was even nominated for Best Picture in the first place.  It still mystifies me how the Hollywood establishment got behind this film, embracing its simplistic, tone-deaf portrayal of race relations in Los Angeles.  And if they didn't want to vote for "Brokeback Mountain," Spielberg's "Munich" was right there!

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The Video Essay Recs, 2022

Last year's post on Youtube video essays was a lot of fun to put together, so I'm doing it again.  Below, is a selection of my favorite video essays, analysis, and criticism from roughly the last year.   Most are related to media, though there is one that is really stretching the definition.  There are several creators from the previous list that are back with new videos, but I tried to include a good selection of newcomers.  

CJ the X: Subjectivity in Art - A breathless ramble about art - how to create art, how to consume art, and how to contextualize art.  It also contains a rant about "Encanto," a discussion of the photos of Vivian Meier, and the establishment of a content creation continuum with CJ and Mr.  Beast on opposite ends.  And if you've got a take on the dead flowers, I'd love to hear it.  

Accented Cinema: When Hollywood Speaks Chinese, I Cringe - Accented Cinema presents takes on Asian cinema from an explicitly Chinese POV, which is invaluable.  This essay tackles one of my long-held pet peeves, the sloppy, uninformed use of spoken Chinese in western media by people with no familiarity with the language.  After suffering through so many well-meaning actors murdering Chinese dialogue in everything from "Firefly" to "Daredevil," it was so gratifying to hear someone else validate what I'd known for years.

Super Eyepatch Wolf: What the Internet Did to Garfield - I toyed with writing a post about the r/imsorryjon subreddit, because I found it fascinating to see so many people sharing in this same impulse to render Garfield as an eldritch abomination.   So I'm glad to see that Super Eyepatch Wolf spends so much time talking about that community, while also exploring other Garfield fanart and media, and the enduring cultural impact of a popular and seemingly uncomplicated comic strip character.  Oh, and extra credit for the research that went into breaking down how a Garfield strip actually functions.

Brows Held High: Sins. Cinema. - I've seen other Youtubers take aim at Cinema Sins before, but few with the amount of editing skill and well-informed exactness as Kyle Kallgren.  I like that he gives the channel its due as a creator of reliably entertaining content, while also taking their format to task for being utterly useless for anything else.  Seeing the application of the familiar Cinema Sins critiques to beloved art films like "Holy Mountain" and "Koyaanisqatsi" is wonderfully absurd, and the final revelation of what the channel's biggest contribution to the discourse actually is warms my nerdy, cinephile heart.   

Broey Deschanel: Spring Breakers and the End of Indie Sleaze - It's surely a sign of getting old when a movie that you think of as being pretty recent is suddenly a nostalgic favorite.  Well, maybe that's not the best way to describe "Spring Breakers," which Maia posits started as a critique of the early 2010s youth culture of permissiveness and excess, and has now come to largely embody it.  It's always fascinating to see the process of how the past is remembered and quantified, and which cultural signifiers end up sticking to a particular era.  "Spring Breakers," against all odds, seems to be sticking.  

Patrick Willems: Sam Raimi's Best Scene (Is in a Movie He Didn't Direct) - I'm not going to take a position on the stance taken in that title, but it's always fun to see a straightforward breakdown of the way an interesting scene is directed.  It helps that Willems is so enthusiastic about Raimi's work, and the scene itself really is one of the only good things about a remarkably mediocre Coen brothers movie.  And if you haven't figured out which scene this video is about by now, you'd better go and watch it.  

Defunctland: Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History - Finally, I'm probably cheating a bit by including a video about queuing strategies at the Disney parks, but this is genuinely one of the most impressive videos I've seen this year on any topic.  We get what is essentially a feature length documentary on the rise and fall of the FastPass system, a look into the workings of the Disney parks, and way more information than I ever needed about crowd management analytics.  And it's engrossing stuff.

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"The Patient" Needs Some Patience

FX's "The Patient" is an odd, but ambitious piece of serialized fiction.  It's a serial killer story told in ten half hours, which probably works if you're spacing out the installments, but feels repetitive and overlong if you're binge watching.  The premise is strong, and the actors are good enough to keep your attention, but I couldn't help thinking that the whole thing probably would have been a lot more compelling if it were a nice, compact, two hour movie.

Steve Carrell plays Dr. Alan Strauss, a therapist who has been kidnapped by one of his patients, Sam (Domhnall Gleeson), who is secretly a serial killer.  Sam has decided that he needs help, and the best way to get it is to make Alan live in his basement and be available for psychiatric consultations 24/7.  While Alan does his best to placate Sam and figure out a way to escape, he also uses the time to grieve his recently departed wife Beth (Laura Niemi), and work out his issues with adult son Ezra (Andrew Leeds).  

I appreciate that the series isn't too sensationalistic. The writers, Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, are the creators of "The Americans," and keep the character drama at the forefront.  A lot of the time is spent with Sam and Alan in their therapy sessions, but we also follow them separately - Sam struggling to keep his impulses in check, and Alan trying to stay ahead of him.  Alan eventually starts having his own imaginary therapy sessions with his own therapist, Charlie (David Alan Grier), and flashing back to episodes from his past.

The performances are very good, and there's always a wonderful uncertainty to the characters.  Sam is clearly dangerous and unpredictable, but he's struggling to do the right thing, and often shows signs that he has the capacity to become a more mentally stable human being.  His logic may be warped, and he makes bad decisions, but there's a salvageable person there.  Domhnall Gleeson does a good job of making him simultaneously sympathetic and off-putting, someone who passes for an average oddball on the surface, but is hiding some serious problems underneath.  Alan has reason to hope that he might be able to speed along the therapy successfully, but rightly fears for his life at every turn.

Steve Carrell is the main event here, giving one of the better performances I've seen from him.  Viewers might be surprised at how much of the series is about Alan grappling with his own emotions and relationships.  Some of Carell's earlier work could come across as unintentionally comedic, but that's never a problem here as Alan battles Sam's dark side.  A significant subplot involves him looking back on his estrangement with his son, his mistakes as a parent, and his relationship with his Jewish faith.  This is a man who was in the middle of a personal crisis before he was kidnapped, and that doesn't stop just because a serial killer decided to insert himself into Alan's life. 

Despite what I think about the show's structure, it's well paced and the various twists and turns are deployed with skill.  As you'd expect with a serial killer as a main character, there's some violence and upsetting situations.  However, this is not a horror series, and the camera doesn't linger.  The worst is usually kept offscreen.  The ending is also pretty atypical for a thriller, and I appreciated that the show's creators were willing to take a significant creative risk. 

If you have the patience and the inclination, there's plenty to like about "The Patient."  I don't think that it achieved everything that it wanted to, but I hope that these more interesting, unusual character dramas keep getting made.  

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"The Bear" and "Only Murders," Year Two

I knew from the outset that "The Bear" wasn't a series I was going to be much inclined to like, but the glowing reviews won me over.  While I don't regret watching the show, and acknowledge that it's extremely well made, I think I was right that "The Bear" is not to my tastes at all.  The show follows Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), who has inherited a struggling Chicago sandwich shop after his brother's suicide, and has given up a career as a rising gourmet chef to try and keep the place afloat.  He clashes with the restaurant's colorful staff, including his cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), new sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edibiri), and long-timers Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), and Ebrahim (Edwin Lee Gibson).  He owes money to his uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt), is avoiding his sister Sugar (Abby Elliott), and is still processing the death of his brother.

I don't know what it is exactly that puts me off of "The Bear."  It's one of a steadily growing number of good half-hour dramas, very authentic in its portrayal of the restaurant business, very diverse, and features a nice mix of strong performances.  Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edibiri are the standouts, easily carrying the bulk of the show, and never making me question for a second whether they knew what they were doing in the kitchen.  However, this is a series with a lot of yelling and a lot of intensity, where the main character is constantly miserable, and everything seems to be going wrong all the time.  The much lauded "Review" episode, shot all in one take, following the staff during a terrible day, is close to brilliant, but I found the material difficult to get through.  Richie is a stereotypical aggressive asshole, cursing and provoking people constantly.  Maybe I shouldn't have binged so much of "The Bear" at once, because the Safdie-esque level of anxiety it created really wore me down.  I understand why people like the show, but personally I'll be approaching the next season with caution.  

Meanwhile, "Only Murders in the Building" has returned for a new season.  If you liked the first year, the second is about on par.  This time Charles, Oliver, and Mabel are trying to solve the murder of Arconia board president Bunny Fogler (Jane Houdyshell), and Mabel is a prime suspect.  Many of the famous guest stars from last season drop by again, and they're joined by plenty of new ones, including Amy Schumer, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Rapaport, and Cara Delevigne.  The show's success has also emboldened the writers to push their characters in some new directions.  Charles gets a new daughter-figure in teenage Lucy (Zoe Coletti), and a chunk of the mystery revolves around his shady father.  Oliver is in crisis when his son Will's (Ryan Broussard) parentage is called into question.  Meanwhile, Mabel confronts more painful events from her past, and gets a new love interest in an artsy newcomer played by Delavigne.    

While being a hit show has its perks - like a snazzy, fully animated opening sequence, and the clout to attract bigger names - I worry that "Only Murders" might be getting a little too big too fast.  The charm of its first season was in its oddball nature, having a pair of senior citizens team up with a sarcastic youngster, and make a go at being amateur detectives and podcasters.  Everything in the second season feels much more calculated and polished.  The cameos are more self-aware, and the plotting frequently overcomplicates itself, and big reveals are spaced out to try and deliver bigger moments.  A lot of this comes at the expense of the main characters just getting to hang out and be silly or bored together.  Instead, they're constantly being hustled along from one big calamity to the next, so the more casual character moments tend to get lost.  Mabel goes through a lot this season, and it all feels rushed, despite ten episodes feeling like a few too many.  The performers are good enough week to week that I didn't much mind, but "Only Murders" is frequently in danger of biting off more than it can chew.

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"Resurrection" and "Prey"

I could write a pretty lengthy paper about the shared images of body horror found in both "Resurrection" and Alex Garland's "Men" from earlier this year.  Both movies are psychological thrillers that gradually edge into horror territory.  Both are about women who are terrified of men.  Both contain hallucinatory imagery and depict impossible events, possibly the products of the disordered minds of their protagonists.  "Resurrection" is more grounded than "Men," taking place in a fairly normal, recognizable world.  Our main character, Margaret (Rebecca Hall) is only afraid of one man, her abusive ex David (Tim Roth), who reappears in her life after decades.

At least, she thinks it's David.  There's every reason to believe that the menacing figure might be a phantom, a wholly imagined creature she's using to justify her increasingly erratic behavior and emotional instability.  Her apprehensions about the safety of her nearly-adult daughter Abbie (Grace Kaufman) and her lover Peter (Michael Esper) begin to spiral into paranoia.  Roth's David is a subtly chilling madman who makes unreasonable demands of her, and Margaret is the only one who can placate him.  If that means walking to work barefoot, performing obeisances in the dead of night, frightening her loved ones, and letting her life unravel, that's just how it has to be.  Written and directed by Andrew Semans, the movie smartly never gives clear answers.  Does David exist?  Did he ever exist?  Does it matter either way?

In the wrong hands, a premise like this could have been a mess, but instead it's a great showcase for Rebecca Hall.  She doesn't convince us that any of the strange events in her life are real, but she makes it clear that Margaret believes that they are real, and is tormented by them to the point of desperation.  She gets us to treat absurd notions as deadly serious, because she's utterly committed to their reality and never flinches.  Hall has played several similar roles, such as Christine Chubbuck in "Christine" and the heroine of "The Night House."  This is the first time one of her performances has really gotten to me, maybe because the manifestations of her pain are so clearly tied to past trauma and guilt and motherhood.  It's absolutely riveting to watch, and "Resurrection" largely works because of her efforts.

Another great performance, of an entirely different kind, is delivered by Amber Midthunder in "Prey."  I have no particular attachment to the "Predator" franchise, but I have to admire Dan Trachtenberg and Patrick Alson for coming up with such a fun concept for a new entry.  Set in 1719, "Prey" depicts a tribe of Comanche encountering an alien Predator (Dane DiLiegro).  Our heroine is an aspiring hunter named Naru (Amber Midthunder), who has to use her wits to find a way to defeat the Predator, because she and her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) can't hope to match it in strength or technology.  There are some Easter eggs here and there for the established Predator fans, but "Prey" is more interested in being a pure cat-and-mouse action film, and is very good at it.     

The film is getting a lot of attention for its rare indigenous heroine and portrayal of Comanche culture.  The filmmakers even went to the trouble of preparing a Comanche language version of the film for those who want a more immersive and historically accurate viewing experience.  However, at the end of the day the movie still needs to deliver on the action and the thrills, and "Prey" has no trouble doing this.  Amber Midthunder makes for a solid underdog, and gets a cute dog for a sidekick too.  I've seen her in a couple of projects now, and I'm so happy to see her getting more of the spotlight.  Dakota Beavers is apparently a complete unknown, but his screen presence is excellent.  And then there's the Predator itself, who is clearly less experienced and less deadly than some of the ones who have featured in other films, but still a significant threat.  We get to see a few of its early bouts with CGI animals, including a bear, to set up its deadly capabilities.  

When the Predator finally sets its sights on humans, I think the resulting clashes should satisfy anybody who likes the other films in the franchise.  And for those new to this universe, I couldn't think of a better introduction.          

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"Thor: Love and Thunder" and "Top Gun: Maverick"

Minor spoilers ahead.

I'm generally a fan of Taika Waititi's films, but I confess that I didn't understand why "Thor: Ragnarok" had the overwhelmingly positive reception that it got.  Sure, it helped transition Thor into a more comedic character, and introduced Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie, among others.  However, what I've always liked about Waititi is his ability to pair the irreverence with more heartfelt stories, and "Thor: Ragnarok" was pretty much all irreverence.  I think that's why I was so pleasantly surprised by "Thor: Love and Thunder," which is much more of a movie about emotions and personal growth than any of the marketing let on.  It's also very much a kids' film, in a summer that has suffered from a dearth of good kids' films.  

Thor, who we last saw with the Guardians of the Galaxy, is still adventuring through the cosmos.  We see him check in with Valkyrie, find an injured Sif (Jamie Alexander), and learn about a new threat - Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who is on a quest to rid the universe of all the deities he can get his hands on.  Meanwhile, Thor's ex-girlfriend Jane Foster has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and winds up gaining his powers through some mystical shenanigans with his hammer.  Jane and Thor cross paths again, sparks fly, and you can guess what happens next.  Parts of the story are incredibly dark and bleak with Gorr's young daughter (played by Hemsworth's daughter India) dying in the opening pre-title sequence.  Parts of the story are incredibly silly, like Thor being rewarded for his exploits with the gift of two giant goats who scream a lot.  

And how does Taika Waititi get these two parts of the film to mesh?  Well, that's the film's biggest problem.  He doesn't.  "Love and Thunder" swings wildly between the funny, lighthearted parts of the film where Thor trades jokes with Korg, and the more serious, heartrending material where Jane is dying of cancer, and a grief-stricken Gorr is not coping well with the loss of his daughter.  The former works better, because we get plenty of the usual Marvel spectacle, and a lot of the humor is specifically aimed at the very young and immature.  The plottier stuff feels more rushed, with muddled stakes, and clearly there was a lot left on the cutting room floor, considering the amount of people announced for this film who are nowhere to be found.  Still, it mostly works, and Waititi is able to keep all the balls in the air.  There's a gorgeous black and white battle sequence.  Russell Crowe shows up as Zeus.  Though some of the execution is clumsy and odd, I appreciate having a Marvel film that is willing to go this hard on genuinely risky material.

On to "Top Gun: Maverick," which I've put off writing a review for because I can't imagine I can say anything about it that far more eloquent reviewers haven't already said about it.  Yes, this long-gestating sequel to 1986's "Top Gun" military action adventure film is a rare legasequel that works, and is actually better than the original film.  Yes, Tom Cruise at sixty is still as much of a movie star as he's ever been, and watching him woo Jennifer Connelly, and corral youngsters Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Monica Barbaro makes it clear he hasn't lost an ounce of charm with age.  Yes, the glorification of the American military industrial complex is blatantly obvious, but the film is such a piece of fantasy that the enemy is not only unnamed, but totally anonymous throughout - barely glimpsed enemy pilots are always fully covered in black face masks.   

Joseph Kosinski and his collaborators treat "Maverick" as a throwback, replicating the opening aircraft carrier sequence with a new version of the "Top Gun" anthem blaring through the speakers.  The whole story is a lead-up to a big final mission, leaving aside all the complications of the politics and ethics of war, in favor of the video game simplicity of achieving new benchmarks and powering through tricky flight parameters.  What really sells it is the past three decades of filmmaking advancements, that allow the cameras to now be in the air with the fighter planes, or right alongside the speeding motorcycles, ridden by a Tom Cruise who is doing all his own stunts.  It's a vast improvement from the first "Top Gun," where all the aerial combat footage was obviously acquired separately, and had to be written and edited around.  There are several shots in "Maverick" that echo shots from "Top Gun," except executed the way we all wished they could have been the first time around. 

So, I understand why filmgoers have flocked to the film.  It's an uncomplicated, scintillating action spectacle that just wants to deliver an adrenaline high and have the audience leave feeling like a million bucks.  The characters and performances aren't great, but they're good enough.  The mission isn't really plausible, but it feels just plausible enough that you can set disbelief aside for a while and enjoy the ride.  And it's nice to see Val Kilmer again, though I have to wonder how Kelly McGillis is doing these days.  And the cult of Cruise is still weirding me out something fierce, but it's also nice to know that his clout means that I don't have to worry about a "Top Gun 3" for the foreseeable future.  

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