Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Sometimes I can't believe my luck. When I put this next in my queue, I had no idea it was set around Christmas, with plenty of audiovisual trappings thereof. That said, the time of year is no more important to the plot than it is in Die Hard (both produced by Joel Silver). Doesn't even rate a mention in the KKBB Wikipedia synopsis.

New York burglar Harry (Robert Downey Jr.), on the run from police, accidentally enters a room where acting auditions are being held -- for just the kind of character he is. The casting director (Larry Miller) sends him to L.A., where PI "Gay" Perry (Val Kilmer) is supposed to train him for a screen test playing a PI. He also runs into former friend/crush Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), now a struggling actress, and smittenly tells her he's a real detective. In no time, Harry and Perry (yes, it gets confusing if you don't listen closely) witness the disposal of an actual, rather high-profile murder victim. Not long after, another reported death means something more personal to Harry. Against Perry's advice, he tries to solve the mystery himself with what he learned from a fictitious novel series.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

While this movie came seven years after Gone in 60 Seconds and seven before Gone Girl, I couldn't have told you which was which. It was high time I saw one of them. I ruled out Gi60S for not being popular enough. Both GBG and GG involve Ben Affleck, but only GBG has him as director, and he seems less of a gamble than David Fincher.

The heroes are a pair of mainstays in Dennis Lehane's novels: Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and, with less focus, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan). When a little girl gets kidnapped, her aunt hires the two private eyes, against the recommendation of the police captain (Morgan Freeman). Their main advantage is that Patrick knows almost everybody in the Boston slum, allowing him connections the cops wouldn't have. They still do some work with police detectives (Ed Harris and John Ashton), but with too much disagreement.

Mission: Impossible — Fallout (2018)

For once, an M:I entry has the same director as last time. As such, it enjoys clearer continuity than usual, perhaps helping us remember the order of the unnumbered sequels. (I might have been the only person in my theater to recognize a callback to the first movie in the form of a funeral for "Max.")

The Apostles, the Syndicate's offshoot following the arrest of leader Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), have acquired three nuclear bombs and plan to sell them to a terrorist code-named John Lark. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) accepts the mission to stop them, partly by impersonating Lark. But while the FBI director (Alec Baldwin) trusts the Impossible Missions Force now, the CIA director (Angela Bassett) doesn't, so Ethan must go with CIA agent August Walker (Henry Cavill), who's not introduced with good humor and thus will be obnoxious at best. Indeed, Walker initiates the suspicion that Ethan is Lark....

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

If someone had told me after the first or second M:I entry that there would be a fifth in 2015, I would have dismissed the prediction with a raspberry. If someone had told me in 2006 that it would star Tom Cruise, I would have rolled my eyes. Funny how these things change.

In Ghost Protocol, Ethan Hunt and company had their remote support cut off and dealt with failing gadgetry among other new problems. This time it's worse: The CIA director (Alec Baldwin), believing that the Impossible Missions Force made up the destructive force known as the Syndicate to justify its own less ruly acts, gets the IMF officially disbanded. When Ethan doesn't stop doing what he does, he becomes a wanted man, worrying the few people willing to help him track down Syndicate honcho Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, who needs little more than a stone face).