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…apparently America doesn’t care for either.
When your film gets beaten out by a doggie snuff film, your career might be waning despite what Paul Dergarabedian says. You have to appreciate the spin though:
The opening did not rank among Cruise’s highest, but it blew away most similarly-targeted movies, like The Good Shepherd, K-19: The Widowmaker, Thirteen Days and Hart’s War.
The soft bigotry of lowered expectations is now a way of life.
(Image courtesy of like pulling teeth)
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The demise of his sorry career cannot come too soon and is already years overdue.
The fiscal yardstick for flop is obscure these days, but the stench of a stinking artless film is not. Cruise is toast. His once good sense of what vehicles to take on seems to have left him.
Tom Cruise “was attracted to the role based on the resemblance of his profile to the colonel’s”.
Now that’s shallow ego talking. Cruise probably thinks he’s the second coming of Stauffenberg.
The only film I’ve enjoyed with him in it was Magnolia; but let’s face it, he was playing a hyped up version of himself. The man is ridiculously arrogant.
Speaking of shallow egos, will we be seeing the loveable bassets this evening?
Sometimes the fiscal yardstick is obscure, and sometimes it’s not.
I actually liked Cruise in Tropic Thunder, but his role should have been chopped a bit, as the move got less funny the longer it got.
The only movie I liked Cruise in was “Collateral” because it was the only movie I’ve seen him in when I didn’t think, “Oh, there’s Tom Cruise, playing ____________.” Or maybe it was because he was a cold bastard and that’s how I imagine him IRL.
Not sure why anyone would go see a movie about Nazis — no matter how good it might be and no matter who’s in it — for Christmas. Cruise is actually a decent actor, imho; it takes talent to turn in an excellent performance in an otherwise awful movie like Magnolia.
Something for the kids:
Predictions for 2009
Not necessarily defending Cruise here, but the Brad Pitt vehicle which had twice the budget and The Official Approval of Oprah, isn’t faring much better.
Of course the doggie will win. It was promoted within an inch of its life and there are many dog owners and people who read the book who are a natural audience.
Besides the R rating, my husband remembers seeing a movie about this plot before.
The only reason that Valkyrie did as well as it did is that the ads promoted it as being from the director of X-Men, and inattentive folks showed up hoping to see Wolverine go after Hitler.
Think that was a telebision movie.
Hey! Eddie Izzard was good in Valkyrie!