When Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One opens tomorrow, audiences will rediscover Henry Czerny‘s Eugene Kittridge, playing not just the IMF director but one of the great all-time, upper-level, intelligence community dickheads.

If you’re any kind of fan of this franchise, you know that Kittridge, who’s been absent since his debut appearance in Brian DePalma‘s Mission Impossible (’96), is a near carbon copy of Czerny’s original upper-level intelligence community dickhead — CIA deputy director Robert Ritter in Phillip Noyce‘s Clear and Present Danger (’94).

While Ritter and the ’96 version of Kittridge were two peas in a pod — identical appearance, brusque, cynical, bespectacled — the present version of Kittridge is a slightly different species. Gray-haired, a bit heavier and with a sense of the absurd about the high-end intelligence car-chase and train-wreck racket, as some of his lines register in a deadpan humor vein.

HE is more of a fan of Ritter than Kittridge as Ritter would never, ever fuck around — he meant every damn word and never considered any sort of black-humor perspective.

What am I really saying? Clear and Present Danger played it straight and for the most part unironically while Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is a double tracker — mostly an ace-level thriller but partly (or at least at times) a Buster Keaton action film, as some of the action hijinks summon titters and guffaws.

Unfriendly friendo: “I figured I’d clarify the situation on that recent French Connection piece that you’re so riled about. The one written by the N.Y. Times Magazine‘s Neila Orr, I mean.

“First off, the New York Times Magazine operates from a completely different staff than the daily paper does. One hand is never informed as to what the other is doing. Given the writer is a story editor on the magazine, it’s likely that she just decided to write it up herself.

“Second, the front-of-the-book rubric under which the piece appears, “Screenland,” is strictly an opinion (or wankery) column. It’s not reported as such. It’s just a given writer going off. So the author can’t be faulted for not doing reporting; it’s not a reported column — it’s a thumbsucker. You’re asking something of it that it doesn’t have to be. It’s an op-ed and it’s written as such. I didn’t find Orr’s piece particularly satisfactory, but that’s the way it is.”

HE replies: “Nonetheless Orr, cautiously assigned to write about the the French Connection censorship for an obvious reason, was writing a piece about a still-unsolved and mystifying situation, and she didn’t even attempt the boilerplate option of asking for explanations from Friedkin and Disney. I’m sorry but that’s stunning. How long does it take to make a couple of calls or bang out a couple of emails? What, she couldn’t be bothered?

“Imagine a Times staffer writing a thoughtful essay about the recent disappearance of Amelia Earhart in, say, early August 1937, or only a few weeks after Earhart’s plane was reported missing on 7.2.37. Imagine a Times staffer not even inquiring about the latest findings while putting the piece together.

“As a representative of The N.Y. Times, Orr would have obviously been able to request statements or perhaps even land an interview or two — a request that may have actually elicited a response, given the Paper of Record’s lordly history and cultural standing.

“And yet Orr chose not to go there because…what’s the explanation again? Because she and her editors live inside an elite, cloistered, administrative membrane (i.e., the Times‘ weekly magazine) that apparently derives satisfaction and solace from, among other things, turning off the curiosity switch.

“But hey, at least she was able to exercise her authority (by way of identity and birthright) by typing out the actual N-word. Impressive! I’m sure this got the attention of Donald G. McNeil Jr., who was almost certainly amused.”

The French-speaking Jordan Ruimy has reminded everyone that Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer (Universal, 7.21) will screen for Paris journos tomorrow morning (Tuesday, 7.11) at two locations — Le Grand Rex (1 Blvd. Poissonnière, 75002 Paris) and Le Cinematheque francaise (51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris).

The review embargo will lift at 11:30 pm Paris time, or 5:30 pm in New York City.

With this morning’s debut of the grand and stirring trailer for Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon (Apple/Sony, 11.22), there can be no doubt that Dariusz Wolski‘s cinematography (Barry Lyndon-ish, exquisitely lighted, immaculately framed) will be Oscar nominated…no question about it. An absolute visual knockout.

Let’s go for the gusto and predict that Napoleon will almost certainly be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar…look at it! And given this, how could Scott not land a Best Director nomination?

I’m almost disappointed that this trailer has popped online, as I’d understood it would be exclusive to theatres (attached to Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One) for a few days. I bought a ticket to see MI:7 tomorrow evening specifically to catch the Napoleon trailer on a big screen.

As expected, Joaquin Phoenix‘s Napoleon Bonaparte doesn’t speak with a Pepe Le Pew French accent. Nobody in the entire cast does, it seems.

Phoenix will deliver a fascinating performance, I’m sure, but his obviously un-youthful, unmistakably creased, late-40ish features argue that he’s too old for the part.

Phoenix was roughly 48 during filming, and (let’s be honest) looked it. Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise-to-power heyday was between ages 20 and 40, or between 1789 (the launch of the French revolution) and the Battle of Wagram (1809). He met the 32 year-old Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) when he was 26, which was also Phoenix’s age, more or less, when he played the rancid Commodus in Scott’s Gladiator (’00).

Marlon Brando‘s performance as Napoleon in Henry Koster‘s Desiree (’54) was more age-appropriate. Born in 1924, Brando was 29 and 30 during filming.

Oh, and by the way? Catherine Walker‘s presumably brief performance as Marie Antoinette seems perfect. That impudent, fuck-the-peasants expression is just right.