Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 5/31/25
More Tacos, Less Trucks edition
We’d like to start off by announcing that all of your votes have been tallied and the overwhelming majority of you voted to reinstate Taco Tuesdays, and yes, there will be chicken tacos available. We were frankly surprised at the number of you who were suddenly so enthusiastic about tacos, but that’s okay because we’re just happy that everyone took the time to answer our little Quality of Life Survey.
We are also aware of your Extreme Dissatisfaction with the decision to stop selling CBD gummies in the NTAB Commissary, citing upcoming supply disruptions from Your Political Heroes in the Texas Legislature. We are currently in a dialogue with Apocalypse Bunkers in Colorado and New Mexico, seeking alternate sources, but nothing is confirmed yet.
There is an impassioned letter writing campaign going on, and while we certainly applaud the effort, we aren’t sure how effective a protracted campaign is going to be. Our recommendation, then, is twofold: Be sure to write your letter in the form of an easily disproven conspiracy theory (they won’t bother to check), and if you could use really small words, and write the whole letter on a hundred dollar bill, it would maximize your chances of one of Governor Abbott’s lickspittles actually reading it.
From the Department of Media Relations
The Agency of Broadcasting is recommending a course of instructive and educational videos to watch while we enjoy the fabulous luncheon that was put together from the Bureau of Special Projects. These institutional videos won’t be long, because we understand that the average citizen has a twelve second window to absorb new information before an ad, a pop-up, or a notification you didn’t know you’d agreed to, interrupts and breaks the narrative flow. Nevertheless, we think there’s real value in these films and you’re encouraged to watch them in your free time.
· Scott Galloway on AI eating itself
· While not dependent on trucking per se, this investigation is troublesome to me as a driver in Texas: Driverless Trucks In Texas
· Another short and sweet instructional for anyone who might have a YouTube presence: Digital Tar Pits - How to Fight Back Against A.I.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Note: We would like to apologize for the omission of the eighth Mission: Impossible movie review last week. It won’t happen again.
Novocaine (Paramount)
Jack Quaid suffers from a rare condition that does not let him feel pain. When his bank is robbed and his office crush kidnapped, he turns his genetic disorder into a super power.
If you’ve seen the trailer for this, you know it’s impossible to not compare it to Nobody and the other “average Joe gets the shit beat out of him” subset of action flicks from the last few years. As such, I don’t really know what else it’s bringing to the table, outside of the innate likeability of Jack Quaid and his everyman energy. Oh, wait, I do know: the high velocity martial arts action of the fight scenes—straight out of Yuen Woo Ping’s Fight Team—is really well-done here, just perfect, gruesome mayhem.
There is, however, also a story being played out, and while Quaid’s character’s journey is nice, the big twist can be seen from orbit, and it’s not quite enough to pull this movie away from the likes of Nobody, Love Hurts, Sisu, Boy Kills World, et.al. But let’s be clear about this: the plot is all in service to the gimmick, and with that comes a sometimes funny one-upmanship of increasingly painful gags, with Quaid simply unable to tell how badly he’s been hurt. Just at the point you think, “Okay, I’ve seen all the cards,” there’s scene in the third act that is laugh-out-loud funny and something I’ve never seen before in a movie.
I liked Novocaine. But I also like the above films, each one with a bit of a twist. Having an unwilling protagonist apologizing for the bone-splintering violence he’s inflicting is cute. It’s a post-modern martial arts flick with no apologies.
Fountain of Youth (Apple)
John Krasinski and Natalie Portman are estranged sibling on a treasure hunt, directed by Guy Ritchie.
Anything I could say about this film would be redundant. I’m sure you have an opinion of Guy Ritchie, so I won’t bore you by mentioning Snatch, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Sherlock Holmes, and all the rest. You’re in or you’re out already.
If you’ve seen the trailer for this, you know it’s impossible to not compare it to National Treasure and the other “likeable scamp runs through historical locations and solves puzzles for two hours” subset of action flicks from the last few years.
Fountain of Youth is exactly that. It’s got action, heart, great stunts, Hong Kong-style fights, and all of that other cool stuff, like guns and explosions and so forth. The only thing you’ve got to decide is, how much do you like John Krasinski and Natalie Portman? There is zero stretching of their craft for either of these two. They are both in lanes they are very familiar and comfortable in, and thankfully, that plays to their strengths. I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to completely shake Jim from The Office, but I love watching him try.
Ritchie brings his A-game, with his usual charm and flair for violence and little moments between characters, a seemingly incongruous mix, but that just means that the slow down scenes don’t slow the movie down.
While not burdened with an overabundance of profundity, you will enjoy picking out all of the creative bits and pieces from which Fountain of Youth is assembled. It’s a perfect matinee flick, or a great family night movie that’s not full of saccharine and schmaltz. Even the really smart kid isn’t an annoying distraction, and that might be the greatest accomplishment of all.
Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning (theaters)
Ethan Hunt picks up the trail of the Entity, last seen in M:I—Dead Reckoning for a monster blow-out, greatest hits-style send-off.
This is one of the movie franchises that’s only gotten better over the years. Well, maybe not better, but certainly more dialed in. There’s not a lot of properties that you can see them trying to keep what works and jettison the rest, refining the story down into a few key concepts: world-altering threats, villains who don’t act stupidly, double-and-triple crosses, and so much fast action and jaw dropping stunts.
I was not a fan of the first Mission: Impossible movie. First off, I think Brian de Palma is the most overrated director living today, followed closely by Ridley Scott. But the movie really broke the “canon” of the TV series in a way that nearly every fan rejected. Also, that trailer played on a loop for months, completely giving away and ruining the impact of that tunnel explosion. You know one I mean, even if you didn’t see the movie. It was in the commercials, every fifteen minutes, for months prior.
We are well past that point now. And Kudos to Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie for backwards writing these last few movies to help tie everything together, even the first two installments. These final (c’mon, folks, really? How dumb do we look?) two movies tie the series up nicely, a thing that they didn’t need to do, but then again, McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects, so he’s on brand with it. It may be Tom Cruise’s last turn as Ethan Hunt, but it’s not the last movie. Please.
I don’t think there’s anyone who signs off on Tom Cruise’s personal life choices, but he’s managed to do something over the years that’s pretty incredible: he’s gotten people to shut up about Scientology and his role in it. He has done this by falling ass-backwards into the role of the American Jackie Chan, wherein he tries very hard to kill himself with practical stunts and they film it for our amusement, like bored Roman senators.
That’s what we’re watching, of course; the incredible spectacle of Tom Cruise running and jumping and punching and hanging off of airplane wings, trains, buildings, anything that might kill him. Base jumping off of cliffs. Good Lord. Sorry, I meant “Praise Xenu.”
If you’re in, then you’re already in. If you stopped watching the movies years ago, and didn’t know that Phillip Seymour Hoffmann was a better villain in the third movie than most modern Bond villains, I think you should go back and leisurely revisit the Mission: Impossible franchise. If for no other reason than to watch them try, and fail miserably, to update Lalo Schifrin’s incomparable musical score, because it can’t be improved upon, it can only be covered.
After falling for flix at an impressionable age but ultimately deciding to forgo a shot at the biz I became a working stiff and dad - no regrets. But when the End Times come and I stumble through the gate of that compound you’ll establish for us refugees it will be because I trust you to tell me what I missed.
We saw the latest MI this past Thursday. We enjoyed it, though it seemed it fell back into the "main hero saves everything" trope rather than the emphasis on the team. I admit, I wouldn't watch a MI for years because when I heard what they did with Jim Phelps in the first one, I took it as an insult to every fan of the original series. And to this day I haven't watched it, and never will. My one main fault in this one is that it circles back to that one. However, Martha, ever the action flick fan (whereas I'm more of the romcom fan, though I also enjoy action), finally got me to start watching with the 4th one I think, and I've quite enjoyed the series. I just wish someone would grab Cruise and deprogram that gullible brain of his.