This entry was posted on October 27, 2011 at 9:31 PM and is filed under the ugly . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
75 Responses to “Mission Impossible trailers (updated)”
Satyam ji
Just visit your blog and saw post of “MI4″ trailer link but its not open.I saw a trailer of Mission: Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol’ in youtube here the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f7RNheg3Do
LOL.. this thing was published in Delhi Times today.. How desperate few people are for publicity.. took her own ‘making out’ pictures with QT as a proof that this thing happened between them.. Lol
Plus, those pics have the air of “quick! click some before this celeb vanishes!” In the bottom two pics she seems more eager than QT…pretty trashy stuff..
For me the sequels never really achieved the same cloak-and-dagger fun of the first one directed by De Palma. This latest one interests me chiefly because it’s directed by Brad Bird.
@satyam- i felt third was incredibly well made film.
as regards, first it is universally accepted as incredibly good. THough second was heavily criticised but trust me, i remember seeing it when i was in school in natraj theater in ahmedabad, agree its doesnt look too mature in its genre, but it was like the best film in my school days and many others in my age group!
But for third i felt, JJ Abraham did quite a mature job, and especially climax where his wife takes over, now i just hope he hasnt got divorced! and why is he back into field is explained properly.
“Whether you are a fan or a critic of Tom Cruise, the Mission Impossible series has rocked everyone’s boat. And by the look of the MI4 trailer, this sequel is no exception. And with all the hoopla around Anil Kapoor getting to work with Tom Cruise, we couldn’t help checking out the promo just to get a glimpse of India’s biggest export to Hollywood sharing screen space with the Hollywood heartthrob. Can you spot him? Because, we surely can’t ! To our dismay Anil doesn’t feature in the official trailer.”
AK as a biggest export has to be a joke. Aishwarya has better record and don’t forget Kabir bedi, Gulsan, Om Puri and Irfan Khan.
Before getting Bak to the “grind”, hav a bit of flexibility!
Considering whether to catch “tree of life”!
Depends on whether time permits today, bit something I’ve been planning to watch for some time….
This actually looks enjoyable. I don’t know if it’s Brad Bird’s involvement but it looks fresher than the last two films by far. Feels more like a return to the tone of De Palma’s first movie.
Wow seeing Tom Cruise here made me nostalgic. He used to be a huge star, infact I’ll call him the last superstar of HW. The way HW works I wonder whether there will be another one.
Just expanding a bit on the theme above, what might be the reasons for the demise of superstars in HW? (Names like Clooney, Pitt, Dicaprio, Depp are big stars, but they aren’t what Tom Cruise was in the 90s.) I can think of a couple of reasons:
1. As always money is the main reason. The virtual monopoly of effect laden blockbusters where the choice of leading man is almost redundant deeply undercuts the value of a star. The next money spinner after these special effort extravaganzas are the comedies. For sometime Jim Carey held the fort here, but after that it has been too haphazard, so one year it’s Adam Sandler, the next Will Ferrell is the flavor of the season fading into oblivion as soon as the season is over and so on. Long story short, stars stopped being the cash cows!
2. Paradoxically the rise of celebrity culture. The 24/7 news cycle, internet, tabloids, paparazzis on one hand robbed the star of their aura while on the other hand gave birth to the “famous for being famous” celebrities like Paris hilton, Kim Kardasian et al causing the public to get jaded by the whole scene (here the genuine stars get unfairly tarred because of the flimsiest association: they all belong to entertainment business!)
December 15, 2011
Movie Review | ‘Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’
Falling Off Skyscrapers Sometimes Hurts a Bit
By MANOHLA DARGIS
What makes Tom Cruise run — run harder and run faster, leaping from one building and dangling off another, the world’s tallest — as he does to exhausting, unnerving effect in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” his latest exercise in extreme performance? The fourth in the franchise, this “Mission” has a solid cast, including a notable new co-star in Jeremy Renner; a new director, Brad Bird; and a story that’s as nonsensical as any in the series. Mostly, though, it has Mr. Cruise hurtling through the movie as if his life depended on it, which, to judge by the hard line of his jaw, his punishingly fit body and the will etched into his every movement, may be what’s at stake.
It’s fitting that Mr. Bird, the director of the Pixar movies “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” has taken over the reins of the franchise for his live-action directing debut. The “Mission: Impossible” movies belong to that outlandish, sometimes cartoonish class of action adventures in which lesser, Bond-like heroes walk or race from fiery explosions in between locking and loading, kissing and killing, and killing some more. The films, spun off the 1960s television show, fondly remembered for its rubber masks and Lalo Schifrin’s brilliant, pulsating theme music, added Mr. Cruise, who in the 15 years since the first installment has tumbled from his top spot as the world’s biggest movie star to lag behind neo-action figures like Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp.
Mr. Cruise may be somewhat down (certainly his smile has dimmed), yet he’s scarcely out. That’s partly because of Mr. Bird, who has given this movie a self-aware levity that’s intended to clear away the bummer blues of the last “Mission,” five years ago. Directed by J. J. Abrams, who is also a producer of this movie, the third film skewed the series too dark with a nihilistic baddie (chilled to shivering by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a nightmarish torture scene. It also burdened Mr. Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, with a wife (Michelle Monaghan), an unwise move — American action heroes, latter-day fantasies of our native rugged individualism, walk alone, not down the aisle — which suggested that the soon-to-be-remarried Mr. Cruise was borrowing a chapter from his own life.
The new movie, written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, both alumni of Mr. Abrams’s television show “Alias” (mostly), ditches the wife and gets back to action basics with globe-trotting, nifty gadgets, high-flying stunts and less loquacious villainy (Michael Nyqvist). (It was also partly shot in Imax, which doesn’t really enhance anything.)
Ethan, after being broken out of a Moscow prison, where he had been idling among hordes of bull-necked Ivans and Igors, sets off on another mission with an old teammate, the tech whiz Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and the obligatory pretty lady, Agent Jane Carter (Paula Patton). The mission goes bust and boom, as does a debriefing with Ethan’s boss (Tom Wilkinson, uncredited), whose murder finds Ethan and his team blackballed (if still sleuthing) and keeping company with an intelligence analyst, William Brandt (Mr. Renner).
Mr. Renner, who played the main bomb specialist in “The Hurt Locker,” eases effortlessly into the blockbuster register, where star charisma and presence like Mr. Cruise’s matter more than emotionally selling a scene. Mr. Renner has to do some actual acting because of the role (surprise: there’s more to Brandt than a suit), and his low-key performance is a dividend in a movie in which almost all human interactions take exaggerated form, with more throttling than talking, or so it seems. Mr. Renner isn’t an obvious action type — he’s good-looking rather than roguish or boyishly pretty — but as soon as he rolls up his sleeves and picks up a gun, it’s obvious that he’s qualified for the job.
For his part, Mr. Cruise seems comfortable resuming his franchise duties, though there’s a palpable difference in his affect, even from the last movie. He still radiates intensity bordering on mania, but without the familiar “what, me worry?” air of invincibility. Maybe it’s age: he turns 50 next year, or perhaps Mr. Bird’s approach doesn’t sit well with him, even if it also fits. The wolfish Cruise smile seems tighter, at times reluctant, despite Mr. Bird’s efforts to lighten the mood with banter (much of it supplied by a chattering Mr. Pegg). Over the years Mr. Cruise, a divinely superficial presence in pop fodder like “Top Gun,” has grown progressively heavier, weighted down by stardom, ambition and the misstep of turning his personal life into a public drama. At times he can feel leaden.
Unexpectedly, though, his age and inescapable gravitas work for “Ghost Protocol,” partly because they invest the outrageous stunts with a real sense of risk. Mr. Cruise’s primary job in the “Mission” series is to embody a not-quite-ordinary man whose powers are at once extraordinary and completely believable, a no-sweat feat in the first few films.
Here, however, when Ethan ziplines off a building onto a truck and then rolls hard onto the street, Mr. Bird — while borrowing more than a little from the “Roadrunner” cartoons — also makes you aware of the fragility of the body ricocheting on screen, absorbing every blow for your entertainment. And when Mr. Cruise hangs off the even taller building, what you see isn’t just a man doing a crazy stunt but also one poignantly denying his own mortality.
Like her last paragraph. But there’s also an analogy here with SRK in Ra One and Don 2 (of course SRK never had this history with the genre unlike Cruise).
One has to admire the will of these guys even if the gods of time cannot be so easily defeated even by the strongest wills! It’s not about the box office as much. Stars can extend their lives a lot on this score. It’s much more crucially about a world where those box office triumphs don’t mean as much. People enjoy the ‘blockbuster entertainment’, they show up if you will but the star doesn’t control the narrative the way he (or she) once might have. Even successful reinvention is just the best ‘compromise’ one can make with time.
and here’s the paradox of reinvention — one must build continuity with what one was, one must find success commensurate with one’s history. Yet at the same time one must ‘deny’ or cancel out large chunks of that history to begin ‘anew’.
and to this degree (much as I’ve said for SRK in the past) MI4 is a useless enterprise for Cruise. Even if it’s a blockbuster how long can Cruise keep doing this stuff?! He still needs other genres. ‘Just’ getting a hit is not enough in his season of life. Sure he’s better than many others in that he has the opportunity.
Note by the way how Brad Pitt has been stealing up on him for some years now. Pitt was always the Abhishek (if you will) to Cruise’s Hrithik. The latter was certifiably ahead on the box office score. But Pitt always had more edge if not greater box office success. On the other hand he’s been getting it together finally. The films still don’t all work but he had a success in the critically acclaimed Benjamin Button, he was in tree of Life, he got fantastic reviews for Moneyball and perhaps gets an Oscar nomination. He’s never done too many Troy-like films though he could easily have had more of that sort of career. And he still isn’t likely to get the MI kind of gross with his choices. But he’s enjoying a peak moment in his career in many ways when Cruise is battling the ‘he’s spent’ narrative.
“Stars can extend their lives a lot on this score.”—agree fully—good points there satyam
Though feel SRK in this genre is nowhere comparison to someone like cruise (budget/cinematogrpahy/sensibilities notwithstanding)
Unlike what srk/kjo/srk fans would like us to believe, they still are not comparable.
btw With Tom cruise, one is talking about the most interesting face/ “facial cut” of all time
Heck, even in his later day “knight n day” he looked better than Diaz in most scenes (if they can be compared)
ps–willbe checking out this one
This”holiday season” of mine will take its toll on the film releases lol
true but Bollywood cannot be compared to Hollywood in terms of creating this sort of blockbuster entertainment. Also Cruise has been doing this forever whereas SRK started doing it as a way of reinvention in his later years.
It’s released only on IMAX this weekend. Next week it’s a regular release. While I wouldn’t mind doing the IMAX for this (everyone’s talking about three or four breathtaking stunt sequences here, even by Hollywood’s ‘been there done that’ standards) the problem is that both such theaters at my end are not very convenient for more than one reason.
Should add as a follow-up to some of the comments above that I finally revisited MI2 and my hunch was right. This is a far superior work to MI4 at very many levels. I had also forgotten just how remarkably alluring Ms Thandie Newton is!
There are stars and then there are stars of here cruise /Pitt variety ..
Guys like Cruise(even with modest actin skills) are not a superstar for nothing
Cinema is ultimately a visual media and great
Looking leads are an asset-this includes people like hritik
Besides the “cruise” school of superstar is always a rare commodity
Love cruise
Have already mentioned by admiration
for his “facial cut”
One of the best “faces” ALLTIME on cinema IMO
I haven’t seen any of the earlier Mission Impossibles, so I cannot compare. This one was good fun though.
Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner are excellent at this sort of thing- but Paula Patton has to be one of the least charismatic movie stars I’ve seen in a long time. Why she got cast at all is beyond me.
Well, let’s say she’s got a slightly ‘different’ appeal-definitely not the Megan fox or Cameron Diaz school…lol
Nothing outstanding though but different yes
And not for those who find Kareena attractive ..
There is a certain “rawness”, well lemme stop there haha
Amy: u need to be a guy 2 understand certain things lol
Talking of Kareenas non attractiveness–just to correct the mood
lemme announce two more awards of my own selfstyled awards for this blog–
“Miss jungli jawaani”
and
“Miss Jungli Billi”
any suggestions for the nominees…
(to be taken in its spirit, nothin personal)
hehehe
Thoroughly enjoyed MI4 but even this can’t beat the atmosphere and freshness of De Palma’s first film. The MI series in general is a mixed bag and I far prefer the Bourne trilogy (moving ahead as they are without Greengrass and Damon, I admit I’m kind of checked out) but this latest version has some spectacular action moments that demand big screens and loud speakers. This isn’t a very interesting deal for Cruise’s stardom though. While it to some extent rejuvenates him he’s got to go back to doing good movies with good directors. These days it’s easy to forget that he was where someone like DiCaprio is now – working with the best of the best from Scorsese to Spielberg to Kubrick, to Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Paul Thomas Anderson. The list goes on. And it’s this kind of stardom that really matters.
Pitt’s doing fine but he never was and don’t think he’s ever going to be the kind of commanding star Cruise once was. They’re both pretty much beyond that part of their career in any case. Generationally speaking they just don’t matter in the way someone like Leo or Gosling matter. Or at least their careers aren’t as interesting. This year has been Pitt’s as far as I’m concerned though. On another note recently saw The Descendents and I’m surprised Clooney is coming in for the kind of praise he’s getting. This is like a Lifetime movie with nice little performances. Nothing more, really. But Clooney is at a point where it seems even his flatulence will come in for some kind of praise.
You’re right on Pitt though he looks better going forward than Cruise. On Clooney he’s a favorite with Hollywood and which includes the media. The Descendants isn’t the sort of film I’d check out on anything but a DVD!
You should check out A Dangerous Method when you get a chance. Cronenberg has been a bit shafted even though I can see how a film like this may not have many takers…
As always, gf encapsulates a lot in that succinct post
A much longer guardian piece (though an old piece) that tried to analyse this comparison
My personal preference is cruise…
Head to head: Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio Photograph: KIYOSHI OTA/REUTERS
There is a story playing out right now in Hollywood that epitomises the perils of fame, the precariousness of success and the dangers of celebrities left unguarded. You can imagine it framed in the blockbuster vernacular, the voiceover delivered in the gravelly, portentous boom that comes as standard in every trailer: “Two men. One dream: to be the king of the multiplexes. But they dared to want more. They dared to want . . . integrity.” Then the names and faces of two Hollywood behemoths would flash up on screen. Tom Cruise. Leonardo DiCaprio. Who will prevail?
Knight and Day
Production year: 2010
Country: USA
Cert (UK): 12A
Runtime: 109 mins
Directors: James Mangold
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jordi Molla, Marc Blucas, Paul Dano, Peter Sarsgaard, Tom Cruise, Viola Davis
More on this film
Barring some dramatic turning of the tide, DiCaprio is now secure in his place as Hollywood’s unimpeachable golden boy, while Cruise, the previous incumbent, is in danger of resembling the court jester. On paper, the pair still occupy similar territory. They aren’t separated by much more than age (Cruise is 12 years older than DiCaprio) and a few million dollars. With two legitimate recent hits behind him in Shutter Island and Inception, DiCaprio can expect $28m per movie, while Cruise is still able to command $22m a throw. (Forbes magazine notes that “Cruise’s career has been rocky lately”, but attributes his ongoing fortune to revenue from “a string of older hits that constantly play on TV”.) Both men have sought out many of the same directors including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg; DiCaprio is also close friends with Michael Mann, who cast Cruise in a rare bad-guy role in Collateral.
But it is in the management of their image that the stars begin to diverge. DiCaprio has policed himself efficiently, keeping his life largely private and expressing himself through his work. But with Cruise you never know what you’re going to get next; and audiences cannot help but drag the baggage of his off-screen life to the cinema with them, which is the worst possible outcome for any actor.
Two revealing Cruise moments, both screened on British television in the last fortnight, testify to the extent to which his image has been corroded. The first was on BBC2′s Top Gear last week. Cruise and Cameron Diaz, his co-star in the very poor shoot-’em-up comedy Knight and Day, consented to be interviewed mere metres away from the great unwashed, or Jeremy Clarkson as it says on his passport. To the casual observer, this appearance represented nothing more than a pair of A-listers unafraid to appear to be slumming it if it means spreading the word about their new movie. But to Cruise-watchers, the Top Gear gig was the latest desperate attempt by the star to rehabilitate a persona that has fallen starkly into disrepair over the last five years. He’s trying to be seen as the guy next door whose dental work just happens to cost more than your house.
There have been numerous factors that have driven a wedge between the star and his public, but few of them date back to BC – that is, Before Couch. The notorious “couch-jumping” incident on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show in 2005 is where the trouble really began. In the wake of a newspaper poll, which had expressed scepticism about his relationship with the actor Katie Holmes, Cruise sought to demonstrate his love for his then-fiancee (now wife, and mother of his daughter Suri) by leaping up and down on the most sacred couch on US television, and generally causing untold distress to Oprah’s upholstery.
That brings us to the second Cruise moment of recent days, when appearing on Alan Carr’s talk show, David Walliams professed his love for his own bride by performing a personal take on the Cruise episode. So ingrained is Cruise’s Oprah appearance in our collective memory that no explanation was needed.
Watch the original clip again and it is clear that Cruise fully believed himself to be staging a winning display of devotion. What the world saw was something else entirely. “What happened, happened,” Cruise told Esquire magazine earlier this year. “Afterward, wild things were being said about me, and once they’re in the ether, there’s nothing you can do about it. It felt like being the new kid in the schoolyard again and the other kids are whispering and whispering about you and suddenly you hear what they’re saying, and you think, ‘What? That didn’t happen. Look at the reality of the situation.’”
At the same time that Cruise has suffered a steep, nosebleed-inducing depreciation, Leonardo DiCaprio has risen to fill the space vacated by him. DiCaprio has never really belonged to the same species of performer. At 36, he is 12 years younger than Cruise; and whereas the Top Gun pin-up always had his sights set on stardom, DiCaprio was an actor first, and a superstar entirely by accident. (Blame Titanic. He does.) However unconvincing some might find him as a grizzled adult in the likes of Blood Diamond and Shutter Island, there is no mistaking his relief now that he has traded in his pin-up status for a face that looks like it has been around the world a few times, even if just on a student visa.
In his earliest films (This Boy’s Life, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?), DiCaprio was as full-blooded and fearless an actor as it was possible to find. He was also a natural. The young Cruise, on the other hand, had the motivation to succeed, but not the dramatic alchemy of a DiCaprio. In Richard T Kelly’s oral biography Sean Penn: His Life and Times, Penn recalls some illuminating first impressions of the teenage Cruise when they worked together on the 1981 drama Taps: “This was a guy who was ready for his chance, no question about it. He wouldn’t have known that himself – he was second-guessing everything all the time. But that didn’t stop him from committing when it was time. Cruise was so . . . like he was training for the fucken Olympics. I think he was the first person I ever said ‘Calm down!’ to.”
Cruise went on to do some nimble comic work as a rich kid out of his depth in the bawdy comedy Risky Business, and had a dignified flirtation with the brat pack in Francis Coppola’s The Outsiders, but it was Top Gun in 1986 that both ratified him as a star, and eclipsed his potential as an actor. Not that being a star is easy. But for a long time, that’s what Cruise was. Learning to be an actor again in films such as Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia seemed to demand of him the gruelling development of an extra muscle, whereas the daily grind of celebrity – cranking up the charm, gladhanding fans and smooching babies, manipulating his public persona – came naturally.
It doesn’t look so natural now. The more Cruise tries to avert continuing disaster, the more vulnerable he appears. After a series of damaging PR disasters, he is in danger of becoming a laughing stock. Knight and Day was a relative flop on its recent US release, pulling in just over $20m on its opening weekend – a fraction of its $107m budget. It’s the lowest gross of any of Cruise’s action films since Days of Thunder 20 years ago, and an unambiguous sign either that audiences are growing weary of the star’s extravagant confidence, or that his extra-curricular tomfoolery has undermined his formerly palatable on-screen persona.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio is riding high. Christopher Nolan’s Inception, in which he plays an “extractor” who enters the dreams of others, has dominated the world box office since its release last month; at the time of writing it has amassed a worldwide total of $363m and shows no sign of waning, with research indicating that audiences are making repeat visits to untangle its mysteries, however threadbare. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, DiCaprio admitted that he hadn’t acted in the nine months since completing the film – he simply hasn’t found the right project yet. And while he is scheduled to play J Edgar Hoover in a forthcoming biopic directed by Clint Eastwood and scripted by Dustin Lance Black (the Oscar-winning writer of Milk), he doesn’t need to lift a finger until he’s good and ready.
Cruise, on the other hand, hasn’t got a moment to lose. Last month, David Thomson wrote in this paper that Inception was the sort of film that Cruise might have made a decade ago. And while the age difference, and disparity in acting styles, between the two performers means that they can’t often have been rivals for the same parts, it’s true that Cruise had his shot at Inception-style material with Vanilla Sky (a remake of the Spanish thriller Open Your Eyes) and Minority Report (a philosophical thriller far superior to Inception). But thanks to the decline in his image, he now lacks even the gravitas to solicit an audience’s goodwill for an undemanding blockbuster such as Knight and Day.
The couch-jumping incident may have contributed to being dropped by the studio Paramount, which made the Mission: Impossible trilogy, but the general mistrust of Cruise has long been bound up with his vehement promotion of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard’s extra-terrestrial-based religion. “As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” said Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount’s parent company Viacom, when news broke of the studio severing its ties to the star in 2006. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”
That euphemistic phrase “recent conduct” covered not just the couch-jumping but Cruise’s messy public spat with Brooke Shields (the star of the 1981 film Endless Love, in which Cruise had an early, supporting role), during which he berated her for fighting post-partum depression with psychiatry and anti-depressants, both bugbears of any card-carrying Scientologist.
He later apologised to his former co-star, but other rapprochements were longer in coming. Shortly after his outburst at Shields, he got into a verbal tussle about Scientology with US television host Matt Lauer on The Today Show. Part of Cruise’s delayed damage-limitation campaign in recent times has involved returning to The Today Show to reflect on his behaviour. “I went back, and looked at [the interview],” he told Lauer in December 2008, “and it was interesting . . . I came across as arrogant. . . I didn’t communicate it in the way I wanted to communicate it. Also, that’s not the way I am. That’s not the person I am.”
Cruise has since resolved not to discuss Scientology in interviews – “I think there’s a time and place for it,” he told Lauer – but there is no disentangling him from the subject. In any word-association game, you will invariably find that the words “Tom Cruise” are followed by “Xenu, dictator of the Galactic Confederacy.” His PR representatives seem to have been disappointingly slow to realise that, if you’re an actor hunting for widespread approval, you don’t do Scientology.
Even here, on the subject of public proclamations, DiCaprio has the edge over the older man. Where Cruise has been aggressive and passionate only in his promotion of his chosen religion, DiCaprio reserves his soapbox moments for selfless causes that most of us can get behind – he has campaigned on environmental matters (he co-produced and narrated the environmental documentary 11th Hour), worked with orphaned children in Mozambique, given $1m to relief efforts in Haiti. Cruise couldn’t look much worse if he were to speak out against composting, or be snapped in a clinch with Sarah Palin.
Despite all the strikes against him, Cruise still has certain things in his favour. On the plus side, he isn’t Mel Gibson. And he has plenty of chums willing to spring to his defence. “He’s a friend of mine and I find it very unfair,” James Mangold, director of Knight and Day, said recently. “I think there are wildly unrealistic expectations placed upon him. Tom’s an intense guy. He’s very physical but there’s something really funny about him and joyous and also, to be honest, something eccentric about him; how hard-working he is, how intense he is . . . The part of it that is most concerning for me is I just think he’s a phenomenal actor and some people deal with him as if he’s a lightweight. The reality is that he has delivered some of the best performances in movie history.”
The pressing question is how can Cruise recast himself in the public imagination, and can he recover his Hollywood crown? He has tried to kill off his old persona before, notably in Cameron Crowe’s film Jerry Maguire, which began with the sports agent played by Cruise undergoing a humiliating sacking…….
“On another note recently saw The Descendents and I’m surprised Clooney is coming in for the kind of praise he’s getting. This is like a Lifetime movie with nice little performances. Nothing more, really. But Clooney is at a point where it seems even his flatulence will come in for some kind of praise.”
Hahaha well said GF-exactly
I mean, havent seen the descendants obviously but am quietly surprised @ this “over the top” celebration
So don’t u think this is worth a watch
On a much unrelated note–
From the closing sentence of the previous note-”humiliating sacking”
Was reminded of a smaller profile, under celebrated film which are and went without much ado-larry crowne
Didn’t mind it
Found it reasonably satisifying
The fact that hanks doesn’t have to do much to interest me has also something to do with it
Also showed how JR still has it in her somewhat..
June 27, 2011 at 1:38 PM
It’s gone..anyway this clip of Tom swinging from Burj Khalifa is also very interesting.
June 27, 2011 at 1:50 PM
Here it is still available and unsurprisingly AK is no where to be seen.
June 27, 2011 at 4:09 PM
AK for sure might not have more than ten minutes of screen time
June 28, 2011 at 11:25 PM
Satyam ji
Just visit your blog and saw post of “MI4″ trailer link but its not open.I saw a trailer of Mission: Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol’ in youtube here the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f7RNheg3Do
Thank you.
June 28, 2011 at 11:32 PM
check it out now.
June 28, 2011 at 11:32 PM
yup dude because copyright issues thats why they pulled down the link, thnks!
June 29, 2011 at 12:21 AM
better quality…
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810179899/video/25771724
this is just a sick trailer. love the music. love jeremy renner. not a fan of tom cruise but this is clearly my fave role of his.
June 29, 2011 at 8:06 AM
Interesting update bout tarantino and an “indian girl”
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Indian-girl-spends-night-with-Quentin-Tarantino-tells-all/H1-Article1-715167.aspx
June 29, 2011 at 8:16 AM
Remarkable!
July 1, 2011 at 3:49 AM
LOL.. this thing was published in Delhi Times today.. How desperate few people are for publicity.. took her own ‘making out’ pictures with QT as a proof that this thing happened between them.. Lol
October 29, 2011 at 3:08 AM
Plus, those pics have the air of “quick! click some before this celeb vanishes!” In the bottom two pics she seems more eager than QT…pretty trashy stuff..
June 29, 2011 at 8:37 AM
I’m a sucker for this franchise. Didn’t even mind the third one.
June 29, 2011 at 9:48 AM
For me the sequels never really achieved the same cloak-and-dagger fun of the first one directed by De Palma. This latest one interests me chiefly because it’s directed by Brad Bird.
June 29, 2011 at 9:56 AM
no doubt about it..
June 29, 2011 at 11:49 AM
@satyam- i felt third was incredibly well made film.
as regards, first it is universally accepted as incredibly good. THough second was heavily criticised but trust me, i remember seeing it when i was in school in natraj theater in ahmedabad, agree its doesnt look too mature in its genre, but it was like the best film in my school days and many others in my age group!
But for third i felt, JJ Abraham did quite a mature job, and especially climax where his wife takes over, now i just hope he hasnt got divorced! and why is he back into field is explained properly.
June 29, 2011 at 11:50 AM
and my post must be pending for moderation since 2-3 days!!!!!
June 29, 2011 at 11:51 AM
oops just saw it!! my bad!
July 1, 2011 at 3:53 AM
Im a huge fan too… Loved all the three parts
June 29, 2011 at 9:48 AM
From TOI..
“Whether you are a fan or a critic of Tom Cruise, the Mission Impossible series has rocked everyone’s boat. And by the look of the MI4 trailer, this sequel is no exception. And with all the hoopla around Anil Kapoor getting to work with Tom Cruise, we couldn’t help checking out the promo just to get a glimpse of India’s biggest export to Hollywood sharing screen space with the Hollywood heartthrob. Can you spot him? Because, we surely can’t ! To our dismay Anil doesn’t feature in the official trailer.”
AK as a biggest export has to be a joke. Aishwarya has better record and don’t forget Kabir bedi, Gulsan, Om Puri and Irfan Khan.
June 30, 2011 at 2:25 PM
Satyam ji, Nice to see the official trailer of MI4. Just saw a interview of Anil Kapoor & his MI4 experience http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-YUU0UdvXQ
Thanks
July 6, 2011 at 5:09 AM
looks good …. the 1st was the best.
2nd rubbish
3rd v.good
July 8, 2011 at 5:32 AM
Before getting Bak to the “grind”, hav a bit of flexibility!
Considering whether to catch “tree of life”!
Depends on whether time permits today, bit something I’ve been planning to watch for some time….
October 27, 2011 at 10:23 PM
Anil Kapoor can be seen in this latest trailer.
October 27, 2011 at 10:38 PM
This actually looks enjoyable. I don’t know if it’s Brad Bird’s involvement but it looks fresher than the last two films by far. Feels more like a return to the tone of De Palma’s first movie.
October 27, 2011 at 11:46 PM
really looking forward to this..
October 27, 2011 at 10:58 PM
Wow seeing Tom Cruise here made me nostalgic. He used to be a huge star, infact I’ll call him the last superstar of HW. The way HW works I wonder whether there will be another one.
October 27, 2011 at 11:37 PM
Just expanding a bit on the theme above, what might be the reasons for the demise of superstars in HW? (Names like Clooney, Pitt, Dicaprio, Depp are big stars, but they aren’t what Tom Cruise was in the 90s.) I can think of a couple of reasons:
1. As always money is the main reason. The virtual monopoly of effect laden blockbusters where the choice of leading man is almost redundant deeply undercuts the value of a star. The next money spinner after these special effort extravaganzas are the comedies. For sometime Jim Carey held the fort here, but after that it has been too haphazard, so one year it’s Adam Sandler, the next Will Ferrell is the flavor of the season fading into oblivion as soon as the season is over and so on. Long story short, stars stopped being the cash cows!
2. Paradoxically the rise of celebrity culture. The 24/7 news cycle, internet, tabloids, paparazzis on one hand robbed the star of their aura while on the other hand gave birth to the “famous for being famous” celebrities like Paris hilton, Kim Kardasian et al causing the public to get jaded by the whole scene (here the genuine stars get unfairly tarred because of the flimsiest association: they all belong to entertainment business!)
October 28, 2011 at 9:55 AM
Hoping this turns out to be the “Casino Royale” of the franchise.
October 29, 2011 at 4:31 PM
tom is just to old for franchise …btw one hope it acheives the sucess like others
November 29, 2011 at 7:31 AM
December 3, 2011 at 9:17 AM
December 3, 2011 at 9:32 AM
Anil Kapoor is on a real high here.. the snaps he wanted all his life and being in India makes it that much better!
December 3, 2011 at 9:23 AM
December 6, 2011 at 7:34 AM
December 6, 2011 at 7:35 AM
December 6, 2011 at 8:27 AM
December 6, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Rajeev Masand interviews Tom
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/208677/hollywood-actor-tom-cruise-excited-to-be-in-india.html
December 6, 2011 at 10:46 AM
This is mercifully short. Cruise can come off as pretty fake in his interviews and Masand’s not exactly Charlie Rose so we’ve dodged a bullet here.
December 6, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Anil kapoor is soooo happy with all these pics
Incidentally so is aamir
Btw how is twilight –again this movie is in demand around me–is it tolerable
December 16, 2011 at 9:50 AM
doing 94% @ rottentomatoes
supposed to be the best MI till now apparently
December 16, 2011 at 10:00 AM
yes it’s got great reviews.. don’t think it’s better than the first one nor do I think this has been suggested at least in the reviews I’ve seen.
December 16, 2011 at 10:01 AM
December 15, 2011
Movie Review | ‘Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’
Falling Off Skyscrapers Sometimes Hurts a Bit
By MANOHLA DARGIS
What makes Tom Cruise run — run harder and run faster, leaping from one building and dangling off another, the world’s tallest — as he does to exhausting, unnerving effect in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” his latest exercise in extreme performance? The fourth in the franchise, this “Mission” has a solid cast, including a notable new co-star in Jeremy Renner; a new director, Brad Bird; and a story that’s as nonsensical as any in the series. Mostly, though, it has Mr. Cruise hurtling through the movie as if his life depended on it, which, to judge by the hard line of his jaw, his punishingly fit body and the will etched into his every movement, may be what’s at stake.
It’s fitting that Mr. Bird, the director of the Pixar movies “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” has taken over the reins of the franchise for his live-action directing debut. The “Mission: Impossible” movies belong to that outlandish, sometimes cartoonish class of action adventures in which lesser, Bond-like heroes walk or race from fiery explosions in between locking and loading, kissing and killing, and killing some more. The films, spun off the 1960s television show, fondly remembered for its rubber masks and Lalo Schifrin’s brilliant, pulsating theme music, added Mr. Cruise, who in the 15 years since the first installment has tumbled from his top spot as the world’s biggest movie star to lag behind neo-action figures like Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp.
Mr. Cruise may be somewhat down (certainly his smile has dimmed), yet he’s scarcely out. That’s partly because of Mr. Bird, who has given this movie a self-aware levity that’s intended to clear away the bummer blues of the last “Mission,” five years ago. Directed by J. J. Abrams, who is also a producer of this movie, the third film skewed the series too dark with a nihilistic baddie (chilled to shivering by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a nightmarish torture scene. It also burdened Mr. Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, with a wife (Michelle Monaghan), an unwise move — American action heroes, latter-day fantasies of our native rugged individualism, walk alone, not down the aisle — which suggested that the soon-to-be-remarried Mr. Cruise was borrowing a chapter from his own life.
The new movie, written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, both alumni of Mr. Abrams’s television show “Alias” (mostly), ditches the wife and gets back to action basics with globe-trotting, nifty gadgets, high-flying stunts and less loquacious villainy (Michael Nyqvist). (It was also partly shot in Imax, which doesn’t really enhance anything.)
Ethan, after being broken out of a Moscow prison, where he had been idling among hordes of bull-necked Ivans and Igors, sets off on another mission with an old teammate, the tech whiz Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and the obligatory pretty lady, Agent Jane Carter (Paula Patton). The mission goes bust and boom, as does a debriefing with Ethan’s boss (Tom Wilkinson, uncredited), whose murder finds Ethan and his team blackballed (if still sleuthing) and keeping company with an intelligence analyst, William Brandt (Mr. Renner).
Mr. Renner, who played the main bomb specialist in “The Hurt Locker,” eases effortlessly into the blockbuster register, where star charisma and presence like Mr. Cruise’s matter more than emotionally selling a scene. Mr. Renner has to do some actual acting because of the role (surprise: there’s more to Brandt than a suit), and his low-key performance is a dividend in a movie in which almost all human interactions take exaggerated form, with more throttling than talking, or so it seems. Mr. Renner isn’t an obvious action type — he’s good-looking rather than roguish or boyishly pretty — but as soon as he rolls up his sleeves and picks up a gun, it’s obvious that he’s qualified for the job.
For his part, Mr. Cruise seems comfortable resuming his franchise duties, though there’s a palpable difference in his affect, even from the last movie. He still radiates intensity bordering on mania, but without the familiar “what, me worry?” air of invincibility. Maybe it’s age: he turns 50 next year, or perhaps Mr. Bird’s approach doesn’t sit well with him, even if it also fits. The wolfish Cruise smile seems tighter, at times reluctant, despite Mr. Bird’s efforts to lighten the mood with banter (much of it supplied by a chattering Mr. Pegg). Over the years Mr. Cruise, a divinely superficial presence in pop fodder like “Top Gun,” has grown progressively heavier, weighted down by stardom, ambition and the misstep of turning his personal life into a public drama. At times he can feel leaden.
Unexpectedly, though, his age and inescapable gravitas work for “Ghost Protocol,” partly because they invest the outrageous stunts with a real sense of risk. Mr. Cruise’s primary job in the “Mission” series is to embody a not-quite-ordinary man whose powers are at once extraordinary and completely believable, a no-sweat feat in the first few films.
Here, however, when Ethan ziplines off a building onto a truck and then rolls hard onto the street, Mr. Bird — while borrowing more than a little from the “Roadrunner” cartoons — also makes you aware of the fragility of the body ricocheting on screen, absorbing every blow for your entertainment. And when Mr. Cruise hangs off the even taller building, what you see isn’t just a man doing a crazy stunt but also one poignantly denying his own mortality.
December 16, 2011 at 10:06 AM
Like her last paragraph. But there’s also an analogy here with SRK in Ra One and Don 2 (of course SRK never had this history with the genre unlike Cruise).
One has to admire the will of these guys even if the gods of time cannot be so easily defeated even by the strongest wills! It’s not about the box office as much. Stars can extend their lives a lot on this score. It’s much more crucially about a world where those box office triumphs don’t mean as much. People enjoy the ‘blockbuster entertainment’, they show up if you will but the star doesn’t control the narrative the way he (or she) once might have. Even successful reinvention is just the best ‘compromise’ one can make with time.
December 16, 2011 at 10:08 AM
and here’s the paradox of reinvention — one must build continuity with what one was, one must find success commensurate with one’s history. Yet at the same time one must ‘deny’ or cancel out large chunks of that history to begin ‘anew’.
December 16, 2011 at 10:13 AM
and to this degree (much as I’ve said for SRK in the past) MI4 is a useless enterprise for Cruise. Even if it’s a blockbuster how long can Cruise keep doing this stuff?! He still needs other genres. ‘Just’ getting a hit is not enough in his season of life. Sure he’s better than many others in that he has the opportunity.
Note by the way how Brad Pitt has been stealing up on him for some years now. Pitt was always the Abhishek (if you will) to Cruise’s Hrithik. The latter was certifiably ahead on the box office score. But Pitt always had more edge if not greater box office success. On the other hand he’s been getting it together finally. The films still don’t all work but he had a success in the critically acclaimed Benjamin Button, he was in tree of Life, he got fantastic reviews for Moneyball and perhaps gets an Oscar nomination. He’s never done too many Troy-like films though he could easily have had more of that sort of career. And he still isn’t likely to get the MI kind of gross with his choices. But he’s enjoying a peak moment in his career in many ways when Cruise is battling the ‘he’s spent’ narrative.
December 16, 2011 at 10:12 AM
“Stars can extend their lives a lot on this score.”—agree fully—good points there satyam
Though feel SRK in this genre is nowhere comparison to someone like cruise (budget/cinematogrpahy/sensibilities notwithstanding)
Unlike what srk/kjo/srk fans would like us to believe, they still are not comparable.
btw With Tom cruise, one is talking about the most interesting face/ “facial cut” of all time
Heck, even in his later day “knight n day” he looked better than Diaz in most scenes (if they can be compared)
ps–willbe checking out this one
This”holiday season” of mine will take its toll on the film releases lol
December 16, 2011 at 10:15 AM
true but Bollywood cannot be compared to Hollywood in terms of creating this sort of blockbuster entertainment. Also Cruise has been doing this forever whereas SRK started doing it as a way of reinvention in his later years.
December 16, 2011 at 10:17 AM
It’s released only on IMAX this weekend. Next week it’s a regular release. While I wouldn’t mind doing the IMAX for this (everyone’s talking about three or four breathtaking stunt sequences here, even by Hollywood’s ‘been there done that’ standards) the problem is that both such theaters at my end are not very convenient for more than one reason.
December 16, 2011 at 10:25 AM
*one* of the most interesting *facial cuts* of cinema
Agree that Pitt is ahead of cruise now
He has reinvented at the right time and has chosen more diverse stuff and importantly made it work
(inspite of being shorter lol hoho) Cruise had a bigger “impact” but yes, now Pitt seems to have caught up now
Many may have a different view but for me, cruise just slightly edges out pitt on the basis of looks/ charm
December 16, 2011 at 11:21 AM
to be honest I’m not a great Pitt fan either. Like him more at points than others.
December 16, 2011 at 10:31 AM
something for the fans
actually even pitt is amazing–a difficult one–he is a more versatle actor
lets have a poll–
whats your “take” satyam
January 19, 2012 at 3:08 PM
Should add as a follow-up to some of the comments above that I finally revisited MI2 and my hunch was right. This is a far superior work to MI4 at very many levels. I had also forgotten just how remarkably alluring Ms Thandie Newton is!
January 19, 2012 at 3:20 PM
I agree about Ms Newton but she looked very plain ( partially on purpose ) and unaslluring in The Pursuit of Happiness.
January 19, 2012 at 3:21 PM
I loved MI 4 but more than that am very happy for Cruise.
January 19, 2012 at 3:34 PM
I definitely enjoyed MI4, just thought they could have made a better film around some admittedly spectacular action/stunt sequences.
January 19, 2012 at 3:34 PM
The last of the superstars
There are stars and then there are stars of here cruise /Pitt variety ..
Guys like Cruise(even with modest actin skills) are not a superstar for nothing
Cinema is ultimately a visual media and great
Looking leads are an asset-this includes people like hritik
Besides the “cruise” school of superstar is always a rare commodity
Love cruise
Have already mentioned by admiration
for his “facial cut”
One of the best “faces” ALLTIME on cinema IMO
January 19, 2012 at 4:10 PM
I haven’t seen any of the earlier Mission Impossibles, so I cannot compare. This one was good fun though.
Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner are excellent at this sort of thing- but Paula Patton has to be one of the least charismatic movie stars I’ve seen in a long time. Why she got cast at all is beyond me.
January 19, 2012 at 4:27 PM
“Why she got cast at all is beyond me”–not beyond me (or Satyam for that matter hopefully lol)
January 19, 2012 at 4:29 PM
Do you think she is attractive? Really?
January 19, 2012 at 4:48 PM
find her very sultry.. though she does look very different in some of her other movies.
January 19, 2012 at 4:48 PM
don’t care much for her.. we’re in agreement on this one!
January 19, 2012 at 4:42 PM
Well, let’s say she’s got a slightly ‘different’ appeal-definitely not the Megan fox or Cameron Diaz school…lol
Nothing outstanding though but different yes
And not for those who find Kareena attractive ..
There is a certain “rawness”, well lemme stop there haha
Amy: u need to be a guy 2 understand certain things lol
January 19, 2012 at 4:49 PM
Hahaha- I don’t find Kareena ‘attractive’- I just think she is entertaining and quite talented.
January 19, 2012 at 5:10 PM
Talking of Kareenas non attractiveness–just to correct the mood
lemme announce two more awards of my own selfstyled awards for this blog–
“Miss jungli jawaani”
and
“Miss Jungli Billi”
any suggestions for the nominees…
(to be taken in its spirit, nothin personal)
hehehe
January 19, 2012 at 5:52 PM
Thoroughly enjoyed MI4 but even this can’t beat the atmosphere and freshness of De Palma’s first film. The MI series in general is a mixed bag and I far prefer the Bourne trilogy (moving ahead as they are without Greengrass and Damon, I admit I’m kind of checked out) but this latest version has some spectacular action moments that demand big screens and loud speakers. This isn’t a very interesting deal for Cruise’s stardom though. While it to some extent rejuvenates him he’s got to go back to doing good movies with good directors. These days it’s easy to forget that he was where someone like DiCaprio is now – working with the best of the best from Scorsese to Spielberg to Kubrick, to Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Paul Thomas Anderson. The list goes on. And it’s this kind of stardom that really matters.
January 19, 2012 at 6:03 PM
agreed mostly though I’ve never been big on the Bourne films.. but even Brad Pitt has been edging him out significantly in some ways..
January 19, 2012 at 6:12 PM
Pitt’s doing fine but he never was and don’t think he’s ever going to be the kind of commanding star Cruise once was. They’re both pretty much beyond that part of their career in any case. Generationally speaking they just don’t matter in the way someone like Leo or Gosling matter. Or at least their careers aren’t as interesting. This year has been Pitt’s as far as I’m concerned though. On another note recently saw The Descendents and I’m surprised Clooney is coming in for the kind of praise he’s getting. This is like a Lifetime movie with nice little performances. Nothing more, really. But Clooney is at a point where it seems even his flatulence will come in for some kind of praise.
January 19, 2012 at 6:14 PM
You’re right on Pitt though he looks better going forward than Cruise. On Clooney he’s a favorite with Hollywood and which includes the media. The Descendants isn’t the sort of film I’d check out on anything but a DVD!
January 19, 2012 at 6:16 PM
Yeah I caught a cheap matinee of Descendents and even this felt like a waste…totally a DVD watch.
January 19, 2012 at 7:54 PM
Wow, I haven’t seen this film yet, but am pretty disappointed — this film got some serious praise…
January 19, 2012 at 6:15 PM
on that note two movies that I caught up with on DVD recently and liked a lot were Margin Call and Another Earth.
January 19, 2012 at 6:17 PM
You should check out A Dangerous Method when you get a chance. Cronenberg has been a bit shafted even though I can see how a film like this may not have many takers…
January 19, 2012 at 7:56 PM
Yeah, I really want to see this, but will have to wait for the DVD; I don’t think it’s made it’s way to Indian theaters…
January 19, 2012 at 6:02 PM
As always, gf encapsulates a lot in that succinct post
A much longer guardian piece (though an old piece) that tried to analyse this comparison
My personal preference is cruise…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/05/tom-cruise-leonardo-dicaprio
Head to head: Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio Photograph: KIYOSHI OTA/REUTERS
There is a story playing out right now in Hollywood that epitomises the perils of fame, the precariousness of success and the dangers of celebrities left unguarded. You can imagine it framed in the blockbuster vernacular, the voiceover delivered in the gravelly, portentous boom that comes as standard in every trailer: “Two men. One dream: to be the king of the multiplexes. But they dared to want more. They dared to want . . . integrity.” Then the names and faces of two Hollywood behemoths would flash up on screen. Tom Cruise. Leonardo DiCaprio. Who will prevail?
Knight and Day
Production year: 2010
Country: USA
Cert (UK): 12A
Runtime: 109 mins
Directors: James Mangold
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jordi Molla, Marc Blucas, Paul Dano, Peter Sarsgaard, Tom Cruise, Viola Davis
More on this film
Barring some dramatic turning of the tide, DiCaprio is now secure in his place as Hollywood’s unimpeachable golden boy, while Cruise, the previous incumbent, is in danger of resembling the court jester. On paper, the pair still occupy similar territory. They aren’t separated by much more than age (Cruise is 12 years older than DiCaprio) and a few million dollars. With two legitimate recent hits behind him in Shutter Island and Inception, DiCaprio can expect $28m per movie, while Cruise is still able to command $22m a throw. (Forbes magazine notes that “Cruise’s career has been rocky lately”, but attributes his ongoing fortune to revenue from “a string of older hits that constantly play on TV”.) Both men have sought out many of the same directors including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg; DiCaprio is also close friends with Michael Mann, who cast Cruise in a rare bad-guy role in Collateral.
But it is in the management of their image that the stars begin to diverge. DiCaprio has policed himself efficiently, keeping his life largely private and expressing himself through his work. But with Cruise you never know what you’re going to get next; and audiences cannot help but drag the baggage of his off-screen life to the cinema with them, which is the worst possible outcome for any actor.
Two revealing Cruise moments, both screened on British television in the last fortnight, testify to the extent to which his image has been corroded. The first was on BBC2′s Top Gear last week. Cruise and Cameron Diaz, his co-star in the very poor shoot-’em-up comedy Knight and Day, consented to be interviewed mere metres away from the great unwashed, or Jeremy Clarkson as it says on his passport. To the casual observer, this appearance represented nothing more than a pair of A-listers unafraid to appear to be slumming it if it means spreading the word about their new movie. But to Cruise-watchers, the Top Gear gig was the latest desperate attempt by the star to rehabilitate a persona that has fallen starkly into disrepair over the last five years. He’s trying to be seen as the guy next door whose dental work just happens to cost more than your house.
There have been numerous factors that have driven a wedge between the star and his public, but few of them date back to BC – that is, Before Couch. The notorious “couch-jumping” incident on Oprah Winfrey’s chat show in 2005 is where the trouble really began. In the wake of a newspaper poll, which had expressed scepticism about his relationship with the actor Katie Holmes, Cruise sought to demonstrate his love for his then-fiancee (now wife, and mother of his daughter Suri) by leaping up and down on the most sacred couch on US television, and generally causing untold distress to Oprah’s upholstery.
That brings us to the second Cruise moment of recent days, when appearing on Alan Carr’s talk show, David Walliams professed his love for his own bride by performing a personal take on the Cruise episode. So ingrained is Cruise’s Oprah appearance in our collective memory that no explanation was needed.
Watch the original clip again and it is clear that Cruise fully believed himself to be staging a winning display of devotion. What the world saw was something else entirely. “What happened, happened,” Cruise told Esquire magazine earlier this year. “Afterward, wild things were being said about me, and once they’re in the ether, there’s nothing you can do about it. It felt like being the new kid in the schoolyard again and the other kids are whispering and whispering about you and suddenly you hear what they’re saying, and you think, ‘What? That didn’t happen. Look at the reality of the situation.’”
At the same time that Cruise has suffered a steep, nosebleed-inducing depreciation, Leonardo DiCaprio has risen to fill the space vacated by him. DiCaprio has never really belonged to the same species of performer. At 36, he is 12 years younger than Cruise; and whereas the Top Gun pin-up always had his sights set on stardom, DiCaprio was an actor first, and a superstar entirely by accident. (Blame Titanic. He does.) However unconvincing some might find him as a grizzled adult in the likes of Blood Diamond and Shutter Island, there is no mistaking his relief now that he has traded in his pin-up status for a face that looks like it has been around the world a few times, even if just on a student visa.
In his earliest films (This Boy’s Life, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?), DiCaprio was as full-blooded and fearless an actor as it was possible to find. He was also a natural. The young Cruise, on the other hand, had the motivation to succeed, but not the dramatic alchemy of a DiCaprio. In Richard T Kelly’s oral biography Sean Penn: His Life and Times, Penn recalls some illuminating first impressions of the teenage Cruise when they worked together on the 1981 drama Taps: “This was a guy who was ready for his chance, no question about it. He wouldn’t have known that himself – he was second-guessing everything all the time. But that didn’t stop him from committing when it was time. Cruise was so . . . like he was training for the fucken Olympics. I think he was the first person I ever said ‘Calm down!’ to.”
Cruise went on to do some nimble comic work as a rich kid out of his depth in the bawdy comedy Risky Business, and had a dignified flirtation with the brat pack in Francis Coppola’s The Outsiders, but it was Top Gun in 1986 that both ratified him as a star, and eclipsed his potential as an actor. Not that being a star is easy. But for a long time, that’s what Cruise was. Learning to be an actor again in films such as Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia seemed to demand of him the gruelling development of an extra muscle, whereas the daily grind of celebrity – cranking up the charm, gladhanding fans and smooching babies, manipulating his public persona – came naturally.
It doesn’t look so natural now. The more Cruise tries to avert continuing disaster, the more vulnerable he appears. After a series of damaging PR disasters, he is in danger of becoming a laughing stock. Knight and Day was a relative flop on its recent US release, pulling in just over $20m on its opening weekend – a fraction of its $107m budget. It’s the lowest gross of any of Cruise’s action films since Days of Thunder 20 years ago, and an unambiguous sign either that audiences are growing weary of the star’s extravagant confidence, or that his extra-curricular tomfoolery has undermined his formerly palatable on-screen persona.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio is riding high. Christopher Nolan’s Inception, in which he plays an “extractor” who enters the dreams of others, has dominated the world box office since its release last month; at the time of writing it has amassed a worldwide total of $363m and shows no sign of waning, with research indicating that audiences are making repeat visits to untangle its mysteries, however threadbare. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, DiCaprio admitted that he hadn’t acted in the nine months since completing the film – he simply hasn’t found the right project yet. And while he is scheduled to play J Edgar Hoover in a forthcoming biopic directed by Clint Eastwood and scripted by Dustin Lance Black (the Oscar-winning writer of Milk), he doesn’t need to lift a finger until he’s good and ready.
Cruise, on the other hand, hasn’t got a moment to lose. Last month, David Thomson wrote in this paper that Inception was the sort of film that Cruise might have made a decade ago. And while the age difference, and disparity in acting styles, between the two performers means that they can’t often have been rivals for the same parts, it’s true that Cruise had his shot at Inception-style material with Vanilla Sky (a remake of the Spanish thriller Open Your Eyes) and Minority Report (a philosophical thriller far superior to Inception). But thanks to the decline in his image, he now lacks even the gravitas to solicit an audience’s goodwill for an undemanding blockbuster such as Knight and Day.
The couch-jumping incident may have contributed to being dropped by the studio Paramount, which made the Mission: Impossible trilogy, but the general mistrust of Cruise has long been bound up with his vehement promotion of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard’s extra-terrestrial-based religion. “As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” said Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount’s parent company Viacom, when news broke of the studio severing its ties to the star in 2006. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”
That euphemistic phrase “recent conduct” covered not just the couch-jumping but Cruise’s messy public spat with Brooke Shields (the star of the 1981 film Endless Love, in which Cruise had an early, supporting role), during which he berated her for fighting post-partum depression with psychiatry and anti-depressants, both bugbears of any card-carrying Scientologist.
He later apologised to his former co-star, but other rapprochements were longer in coming. Shortly after his outburst at Shields, he got into a verbal tussle about Scientology with US television host Matt Lauer on The Today Show. Part of Cruise’s delayed damage-limitation campaign in recent times has involved returning to The Today Show to reflect on his behaviour. “I went back, and looked at [the interview],” he told Lauer in December 2008, “and it was interesting . . . I came across as arrogant. . . I didn’t communicate it in the way I wanted to communicate it. Also, that’s not the way I am. That’s not the person I am.”
Cruise has since resolved not to discuss Scientology in interviews – “I think there’s a time and place for it,” he told Lauer – but there is no disentangling him from the subject. In any word-association game, you will invariably find that the words “Tom Cruise” are followed by “Xenu, dictator of the Galactic Confederacy.” His PR representatives seem to have been disappointingly slow to realise that, if you’re an actor hunting for widespread approval, you don’t do Scientology.
Even here, on the subject of public proclamations, DiCaprio has the edge over the older man. Where Cruise has been aggressive and passionate only in his promotion of his chosen religion, DiCaprio reserves his soapbox moments for selfless causes that most of us can get behind – he has campaigned on environmental matters (he co-produced and narrated the environmental documentary 11th Hour), worked with orphaned children in Mozambique, given $1m to relief efforts in Haiti. Cruise couldn’t look much worse if he were to speak out against composting, or be snapped in a clinch with Sarah Palin.
Despite all the strikes against him, Cruise still has certain things in his favour. On the plus side, he isn’t Mel Gibson. And he has plenty of chums willing to spring to his defence. “He’s a friend of mine and I find it very unfair,” James Mangold, director of Knight and Day, said recently. “I think there are wildly unrealistic expectations placed upon him. Tom’s an intense guy. He’s very physical but there’s something really funny about him and joyous and also, to be honest, something eccentric about him; how hard-working he is, how intense he is . . . The part of it that is most concerning for me is I just think he’s a phenomenal actor and some people deal with him as if he’s a lightweight. The reality is that he has delivered some of the best performances in movie history.”
The pressing question is how can Cruise recast himself in the public imagination, and can he recover his Hollywood crown? He has tried to kill off his old persona before, notably in Cameron Crowe’s film Jerry Maguire, which began with the sports agent played by Cruise undergoing a humiliating sacking…….
January 19, 2012 at 6:19 PM
“On another note recently saw The Descendents and I’m surprised Clooney is coming in for the kind of praise he’s getting. This is like a Lifetime movie with nice little performances. Nothing more, really. But Clooney is at a point where it seems even his flatulence will come in for some kind of praise.”
Hahaha well said GF-exactly
I mean, havent seen the descendants obviously but am quietly surprised @ this “over the top” celebration
So don’t u think this is worth a watch
On a much unrelated note–
From the closing sentence of the previous note-”humiliating sacking”
Was reminded of a smaller profile, under celebrated film which are and went without much ado-larry crowne
Didn’t mind it
Found it reasonably satisifying
The fact that hanks doesn’t have to do much to interest me has also something to do with it
Also showed how JR still has it in her somewhat..