Culture Gabfest: Tom Cruise Nearly Died So You Would Like this Movie Edition

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s show an all-star team of super agents join Julia to gab including guest host Amy Nicholson, film critic for the Los Angeles Times. Their first mission: Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, the supposed final installment of the Tom Cruise action juggernaut. Like Cruise on to a vintage biplane, Dana jumps on the call to discuss all the film’s death-defying stunts, clunky exposition, and lasting cultural impact. Next, they’re joined by Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion to dish on Sirens, Netflix’s pastel-hued dramedy starring Meghan Fahey, Milly Alcock, and Julianne Moore. Finally, Slate’s music critic Carl Wilson arrives to grapple with the hugely successful, but critically polarizing, new Morgan Wallen album I’m the Problem. In an exclusive Plus segment, Amy, fresh from the Riviera, shares with Julia and Dana her favorite films and moments from the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Endorsements: Amy: The 19th season of the British game show Taskmaster, wherein a group of comedians are made to do impossible tasks by host Greg Davies. Carl: The Mock Trial-centric live episode of the musical improv podcast Off Book, and the podcast itself while you’re at it. Julia: The quintessentially American, summertime experience of eating a hotdog on a ferry as well as the 2011 film Money Ball. You can also hear more from Amy on her podcast Unspooled and from Carl on his substack Crritic!. Want more Culture Gabfest? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Culture Gabfest show page. Or, visit slate.com/cultureplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Julia Turner, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest Tom Cruise nearly died, so you would like this movie edition.
0:17.9	It's Wednesday, May 28, 2025, and this week we'll be discussing Mission
0:22.4	Impossible, Final Reckoning, starring Tom Cruise, and directed by his longtime collaborator,
0:27.8	Christopher McCquiry. Is this final installment, which cleaned up at the box office this
0:32.0	weekend and will be the most successful opening to the mission films to date? Bring the series
0:37.4	to a satisfying conclusion. We will
0:39.4	reckon with that alongside Dana Stevens, Slate's film critic. Next, we turn to Sirens, the juicy
0:45.5	new Netflix series starring Megan Fahey and Millie Alcock as sisters in conflict over their
0:50.4	father's illness with Julianne Moore playing Alcox ethereal billionaire boss and best friend.
0:56.2	We'll discuss the show and its take on sisterhood, responsibility, and class with Slate Senior
1:00.9	editor Rebecca Onion. Then we dive into Morgan Wallen's new album, I'm the Problem. By most
1:07.2	measures, Wallen is the most popular man in American music. We'll try to puzzle out why with Slate's music critic Carl Wilson.
1:14.6	Steve is out sick today. Get well soon, Steve. So we've actually got a rotating third seat, as you just heard.
1:21.6	But with me throughout will be a guest host, Amy Nicholson, film critic for the LA Times and host of the podcast Unspooled. Welcome, Amy.
1:30.9	Hi, I'm really happy to be here. Good morning. So glad to have you here for a whole show.
1:35.1	I know. Let's do it. Gonna be a treat. Mission Impossible Final Reckoning is the eighth and supposedly last installment in Tom Cruise's Deaths Defying
1:45.3	franchise and the fourth directed by Christopher McCrory. As in its immediate predecessor,
1:50.8	Dead Reckoning, the villain this time is AI, an entity called The Entity that's threatening
1:56.9	to launch all the world's nukes at once for reasons that don't really matter that
2:02.3	much. Before we dive in, we will listen to a clip from the trailer in which we will hear a table
2:07.8	full of government suits. You'll probably recognize Nick Offerman's voice in there as they examine
2:13.0	Ethan Hunt's file before deciding once again whether to task him seeking the world.
	...

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