Tom Cruise is Fuckin' Passionate, Man.

Last year I spent a lot of time researching scientology on the web, and only found articles either extremely defensive of it or extremely against it. One site tried to take an objective stance, but in reality it had become a haven for ex-scientologists to decry the 'church'.

Just the fact that the 'church' tries to silence anyone who makes negative comments is enough to turn me against it. That, and Battlefield Earth.

READ THE ARTICLE folks, it's fucked up again

why do the celebrity scientologists never talk about THE SPACE ALIENS?!?!

Scientology was awarded tax exempt status and that pisses me off.

-- amateur!!!st (|/...), August 18th, 2004.

i think i read somewhere that celebrity Scientologists are paid big $$$ to praise Scientology in interviews and such. Obviously the sc-fi/alien stuff isn't going to attract most people.

or hell, Tom Cruise vs Tom Green. there's yer PPV event.

What a card! What a cut-up! He slays me!

I'm trying to figure out whether it's good I've never heard of this person before or not.

also, ladies & Gentlemen, we overlook Mr Cruise's MANLINESS as displayed in such films as COCKTAIL.

which was GREAT until the flick actually went to the tropics.

My understanding is that they are actually quite homophobic and very conservative in their 'family values' - they encourage marriage and discourage divorce. Of course, if you're a $camentology celeb, you aren't held to the same standard. Like most cults or authoritarian societies in general, really.

Their first celebrity recruit was Errol Flynn. If you are cool with Errol Flynn you don't care what people do with their privates in their spare time. Period.

One of the first things you have to do is be audited and share your sexual past with them. If I'm a celebrity with a checkered past and my church knows every detail about it you'd bet I'd be defending them to the death too.

Poor little Katie Holmes. If she tries to leave now, he'll eat her baby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Scientology

Britney Spears sex video

Let's make millions!!!

great. mental images of rubbed red & chafing...

they just had to tell me to stop laughing in the library im in...

http://www.babybeing.com/

Welcome to the Planet Earth Division of the Universal Adoption Service Providers Network (UASPN).

The Baby Being is a lovable, safe and collectible doll for children, as well as fans of science-fiction and those who have a real interest in the possibility of extra-terrestrial life.

The UASPN hopes that children and adults will enjoy this unique gift that truly goes beyond the boundaries of gender and race. Baby Being is 11 Inches (28 cm) from head to toe and weighs 3/4 of an Earthling pound.

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LOL

From Radar:

Scientology Comes to South Park

South Park is the highest-rated show on Comedy Central thanks to its willingness to slaughter sacred cows, but sources say even show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are a bit nervous about the blowback from tonight’s episode. Entitled “Trapped in the Closet,� the duo set their crudely animated sights on Scientology and Tom Cruise—topics previously deemed “off limits� due to the actor’s close ties to Comedy Central’s sister company, Paramount Pictures, we’re told.

According to a source who has read a draft of the script, it begins with Stan leaving a psychiatrist’s office only to be hailed as a savior by the leaders of a strange, Scientology-esque cult because of his off-the-chart results on an E-meter-like “personality test.� A group of Hollywood A-listers quickly gather outside Stan’s house, we’re told, with Tom Cruise somehow ending up stuck in a closet—leading a news crew stationed at the scene to report that Cruise’s fans fervently want the actor to “just come out.�

In the end, R&B star R. Kelly—whose multi-song summer opus gave the episode its name—swoops in to save the day. (We suspect Chef will be sitting this one out. A rep for Isaac Hayes, who supplies the voice of South Park’s horny cook and who happens to be a Scientologist, said her client hadn’t heard about the plot and that she didn’t “think Chef was even in it.�)

The unwanted cartoon cameo comes at an awkward time for Cruise. The actor recently canned his career-wrecking publisister Lee Anne DeVette, and has been trying to restore his image with help from Rogers & Cowan spin-masters Paul Bloch and Arnold Robinson. Comedy Central’s parent company, Viacom—which also owns Paramount—might not be too keen either about seeing its studio’s big-money Mission Impossible 3 star ridiculed yet again just when America had seemingly moved on from its obsession with his sexuality and Scientology ties.

Asked about the South Park episode, Robinson said, “We have no knowledge of it, so we don’t have any opinion about it at all.� Paramount spokeswoman Nancy Kirkpatrick also declined to comment, saying, “I don’t know anything about it…. I can’t make that judgement.�

Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox explained that he didn’t know any details of the show because, “these guys literally write and rewrite the episode almost right up to the moment it airs.� Asked whether taking potshots at Cruise and Scientology was a wise move, Fox said the network has Stone and Parker’s back: “If you know South Park, they are free and have been free to satirize anybody and anything they want to. They’ve made fun of MTV, they’ve made fun of Viacom, they’ve made fun of Comedy Central, and we’ve never interfered with them.�

But will Xenu and his legion of intergalactic followers be as forgiving?

The Denial!!!

Happy Valentines Day!!1

haha

Dude wants a spot in the new Star Trek movie.

Hitler too.

Holy shit I know you all have seen the video! So why is nobody talking about this?

TOM CRUISE IS HERE TO HELP.

very terrifying

we're talking about it on a nother thread.

try to spot it!

Aha. I have topic-blindness.

;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzIM5Ya0yYM

A+

interview with some VERY interesting anecdotes from former $cientologist about Cruise and David Miscaviage (the leader of $cientology):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/bc/glosslip/2008/04/25/Glosslip-From-Our-Lips-To-Your-Ears

"Glosslip Radio keeps going in its coverage of the abuses of the Church of Scientology. This segment's guest is Marc Headley a 15-year veteran of the CoS where he worked closely with CoS leader David Miscavige and actor Tom Cruise. Marc has explosive details about both men and we are thrilled to be able to talk to him. For more info on March, visit Glosslip.com, including details about Miscavige beating Scientology staff members."

tom cruise is such a sad man :/

hey, can anyone help me find the post where the crazy sc1ent0l0gy video was discussed? am struggling...

David Beckham says it isn't easy sitting down to dinner with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

"We were at dinner once with Tom and Katie ... and we sat there and everyone was like, 'OK, let's play a music game, let's start a singing game!'" Beckham, 34, recalled on George Lopez's TBS late night show, Lopez Tonight, Wednesday

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/becknite.jpg

What is a singing game?

London Bridge is Falling Down?

hahahahahahaha wait

so basically she is still a massive nerd who doesn't realize she's cute and he is superturbogay and also a massive nerd, is that what Beckham is saying

a terrifying moment where you realize your ascent to the top levels of fame and fortune will end in singing in the round with a pair of celebrities who believe we are controlled by aliens and volcanoes.

"No offense, Tom Cruise, but if you could stop talking and just wear these sunglasses for the rest of our meal it would go a long way towards sustaining my boyhood fantasy of what life at the top is like."

"so no singing?"

"No, just wear the glasses and occasionally break into a devilish grin while we eat. Thank you so much."

U2 is fuckin' ponderous, man

They were just trying to embarrass Victoria.

The idea of those listening to the dinner party converstion of those 4 in a room at one time is a good working definition of hell

http://i.imgur.com/LeF3y.jpg

Not passionate enough, I guess
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20608003,00.html

A friend of my wife's predicted this years ago. Apparently five years was all part of the "contract".

When does the tell-all come out? That's what I want to know.

She probably had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I wonder how many people would be married to Tom Cruise for five years if it meant a lot of money?

If it means a lot of lectures about Scientology I think it might be less than you think.

l. ron hubbub

http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Squirt%20in%20Face.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339772030534http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Creepy%20Laugh.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339771708483http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Squirt%20in%20Face.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339772030534http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Creepy%20Laugh.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339771708483
http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Squirt%20in%20Face.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339772030534http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Creepy%20Laugh.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339771708483http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Squirt%20in%20Face.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339772030534http://theorange.co/storage/TC%20-%20Creepy%20Laugh.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1339771708483

you fucking people broke my monitor

is it weird that my reaction to this is being irritated at all the people who are making five-year contract comments and being like WELL EVERYONE KNEW THIS MARRIAGE WAS A SHAM AMIRITE and so overbearingly world-weary about it? like not just here but on FB etc. i don't even know why i'm irritated about it, i guess it could be true, but just like something about this pervasive society-wide cynicism creeps me out.

also it's been 5.5 years since they got married, so did they build an extra six months into the contract to make it a little less suspicious or was there bureaucratic red-tape or something?

Yeah, I totally wish people could be a little less cynical and more sincere about our treasured celebrity marriages.

maybe it's just sadness that something can be so obviously fake that it fools literally no one

xxp Lawyers being lawyers prob.

she seemed so happy

she was an sp all along

"It's so hot out, Tom Cruise had to shave his beard"

tom, consider this marriage

*drops papers on dinner table*

suppressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqlyQZkq2Ug

uh oh, tom's back on the prowl! vrooom vroom!

Third Party Law: It was clearly all Suri's fault.

A THIRD PARTY MUST BE PRESENT AND UNKNOWN IN EVERY QUARREL FOR A CONFLICT TO EXIST

why do the alien cult people bring outsiders into their world? i thought that was half the point of the alien cult. that the fake marriages were in-house.

maybe there is a special "normal partner" dispensation for movie star alien cult members

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/tomcruise.gif

it's weird that one of the biggest actors in the world is likely this sad, deluded little man

THINK ABOUT IT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y7CpS0gtlk

you're glib

matt lauer is glib, it's true.

where do celebrity relationship portmanteaus go when no one needs them anymore

http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12485327-all-three-of-tom-cruises-marriages-ended-when-wife-was-33

like the dead rock stars age of tom cruise divorcees

nicole kidman and mimi rogers jammin in heaven

You know, he's a loon, but a few years back I was totally surprised that he participated in the DVD commentary for "Risky Business," in a totally laid-back fun sort of way. Obviously he could have blown it off, or mailed in some EPK palaver, but he was there chatting away with the director for two hours. I thought, hey, not bad, Cruise. For a loon.

he owed that guy in a big way.

what a low bar cruise has to clear to impress, hold conversation with former co-worker for two hours

risky business is so rad

tom cruise is p awesome

xxpost Careful how you use that word "clear," mister.

I think it's a masterpiece, for real. Like Michael Mann directing a sex comedy.

Set in Chicago, Tangerine Dream score, sly critique of capitalism, moody lighting ...

misogyny...

its dreamy

http://www.conspirazzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fish/leper.jpg

not surprised Tom Cruise would be a bro about the RB commentary. He condescended to give Billy Wilder a meeting when Cameron Crowe considered him for the part of the older sports agent guru in Jerry Maguire. Why would Tom Cruise give Billy Wilder ten minutes?

this looks like it could be good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivion_(2013_film)

live action wall-e remake

god i loved war of the worlds so much. i could watch it every day. i never thought i would ever love another tomcat or spielbergcat movie again.

tom cruise is p awesome

He seems completely unbalanced irl but he has made a lot of good movies. I'd rather that than a nice well adjusted actor who makes a lot of dreck.

I saw about 15 minutes of Born on the Fourth of July last week, and he was indeed pretty great.

I'd like to see hom and John C. Reilly do some kind of Face/Off-type body-switching movie.

He should have never fired Pat Kingsley, seriously.
― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Tuesday, August 17, 2004

this might be the case of the trophy wife who turned out to be a golden raspberry

chris klein is staring at his phone tonight

you think tom will give chris klein a booty call?

http://i.imgur.com/l8B20.jpg

Hey, how does one raise a child a Scientyouknowwhatist, exactly? Do they put kids through the same nonsense as adults? Hook them up to doodads and make them confess transgressions? Do the Youknowwhats believe in some equivalent of original sin, or are they given free reign until some specific age when their parents are all, hey, now you get hooked up to machines! Do Scient... kids get home schooled a lot? Does the (ahem) Church have its own parochial schools?

Slate:

This is shaping up to be a crummy season for Scientology. New Yorker writer Paul Haggis is said to be writing an exposé of the church. The movie The Master, due in the fall, takes a highly critical look at a church/cult that appears awfully similar to Scientology. And of course, Scientologist John Travolta has been inundated with lawsuits from several men, including massage therapists and a personal assistant, alleging he made unwanted sexual advances, including asking one of the men to “take me.” This is not the sort of scandal Travolta can fix by simply kissing his wife on the red carpet, though he did try. Given the persistent rumors that Tom Cruise is also gay, there will be no doubt those who joke that the men’s marriages are dissolving so that they, at last, can be together. We, however, will not make this joke.

There are apparently sci-tie schools out there operating under the auspices of Montessori schools. There was one that got outed as being sci-tie in Toronto a few years ago and Jonathan Larroquette attended a sci-tie preschool or something in L.A. in the 80s.
xp

Do Sci kids say the pledge of allegiance? Sit out Christmas carols?

Etc?

http://i.imgur.com/OtyNj.gif

33 = Masonic plot to destroy Scientology, obviously.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Np3prmY-_X8/T8reIRnTwVI/AAAAAAAACGY/RzNg9fLQepQ/s400/Frank+TJ+Mackey+03.jpg

I don't think I have ever seen a film with Tom Cruise in where I've liked him. To be honest, I can't think of any films with Tom Cruise in that are good at all. Magnolia is an okay film, I like certain bits of it a lot, find others a bit cloying, and I don't think his acting is very good. Obviously his character is supposed to be unlikeable, so it's unsurprising that I dislike the character, but there's something about the way it's acted too, that I just think... it isn't actually any good.

Oh, I guess that one time I got my boyfriend to DJ chillwave over the top of Legend, that was quite cool. But aside from that... nah.

have you seen ghost protocol?

war of the worlds is a msterpiece. so is the outsiders. so is taps.

He is probably Hollywood's weirdest looking guy to be considered handsome. No slight intended, but I think he looks a lot like a capybara or other large rodent.

I have not seen Ghost Protocol. I don't like action films, that might be one thing.

Also, capybaras are way cuter than Tom Cruise.

The only performance of his I haven't liked is in 'Tropic Thunder'. Aside from that Cruise is golden to me.
I liked his character in 'Magnolia'. emil.y the cruiser is "quietly judging you" for your dissent.

i like almost every tom cruise movie ive seen, and ive seen almost all of them

mi1, jerry macguire, collateral, risky business etc all so good

even the bad ones are good because you get to see tom cruise giving 110% in every scene, you always know he will be acting his hardest

minority report was so bad. that's the one where he just stands in front of an electronic chalk board for half the movie, right? he does give 110% when he does his crazy chalkboard routine though.

see

colin farell said tom cruise intensely researched the electronic chalk board and learned how it worked and everything, when clearly just waiving yr hands around in the air wouldve sufficed, which is what colin farell did

I liked Minority Report a lot, except for the ending. But not sticking the ending is more of a Spielberg issue than a Cruise issue.

war of the worlds was so amazing.

it didnt make a huge impression on me, maybe i should rescreen

i don't even really know what people think of that movie. i just thought it was amazing and beautiful.

i don't think i even read any reviews of it. i didn't even see it in the theatre. one of the great regrets of my life :(

its rly good but with a terrible pro-military/pro-usa ending

the aliens and their technology are def scary and the sound design is nuts

i kinda disliked it? but not enough to really argue against it. and i did see it in theaters.

the opening 2/3 of wotw in particular is pretty great

if u wanna talk terrible endings tho, i remember ppl actually laughing in the theater

I was impressed that spielberg showed the aliens draining people of their blood and misting the blood everywhere and keeping them in the cages

whatever floats yr boat man

keeping them in the cages andn ot letting them go on the boat and drowning them in the water

thats what aliens do (bad ones)

americans too (guantanamo/waterboarding) ;o)

that water scene with the boat...oh god like a nightmare perfectly realized.

i just never thought i would feel spielberg majik again. i wanted to love a.i. but i didn't.

Tim Robbins was terrible in War of the Worlds. Is Tim Robbins good in anything? He always seems to be hypnotized, Herzog-style

Have you seen AI again since you had kids?

Just curious.

like epic all-consuming spielberg majik. i've probably enjoyed some stuff that he's done in the recent past but not on that jaws/close encounters level.

One answer to earlier questions about schools (learned this from the Haggis article, I think):

http://www.delphian.org/

knight and day is underrated, it's sort of like bringing up baby in that everyone is a dangerous lunatic in it and tom cruise is perfect for that

no. i would watch ai again though.

when cameron diaz is all "is tom the good guy or just some delusional psychopath?" it wouldn't work with like matt damon, of course he's a sweetheart. but yeah tom might bite your face off.

i wasn't a tintin fan. but i'd had a long day. that movie felt like it was 4 hours long. movie seats made me hurt.

never realized that ILX housed so many tom cruise fans. i liked him early on (outsiders, risky business), but quickly came to think he was just the worst. still, i admit that he's got incredible "screen presence" and can act up a storm. despite my reservations, i loved him in eyes wide shut.

spielberg's war of the worlds is a drag.

no.

i just looked at spielberg wiki and i didn't even know that the movie war horse existed. guess that's what you get when you don't have cable and don't read newspapers.

war horse of the worlds

war of the horse worlds

wotw is some fucked up shit but def entertaining

war of the worlds is opposite of drag for me. completely riveting from first to last. a film school could teach a course just on that movie. its big but there are those tiny tense moments that he is still apparently a friggin' genius at creating. after all this time!

i dig scary spielberg.

i'd definitely watch wotw again before close encounters

yeah it has its problems but I dunno how you could think WoTW was a drag

he mostly uses his forces for good but he could make a movie that would scare the hell out of everyone on earth if he felt like it.

(i mean he kinda did with poltergeist...)

i really like watching tom cruise on screen too. i care very little about his off-screen life.

spielberg's probably been responsible for scaring more children than any other filmmaker

cruise performances definitely err on the side of annoying than boring, something to be said for that

looking at the spielwiki i see empire of the sun - a movie that the majority of the planet has completely forgotten if they ever saw it in the first place - and i can't help but think about how that movie would have been another director's crowning achievement in life and when people talk about spielberg they never even mention it. (not talking about YOU dweebs, you probably talk about it. talking about normal people.)

but i guess you could say that about a lot of great directors. i need to see that again. tonight. maybe they have it at the FYE store...

knight and day is underrated, it's sort of like bringing up baby in that everyone is a dangerous lunatic in it and tom cruise is perfect for that

― da croupier, Saturday, June 30, 2012 11:50 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

its awful actually

he mostly uses his forces for good but he could make a movie that would scare the hell out of everyone on earth if he felt like it.

― scott seward, Saturday, June 30, 2012 11:57 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i was just thinking that. the image in wotw that always sticks with me are the people tearing the windshield open with their fingers. that made me go daaaamnnnn

ive always loved cruise. and i always knew he was crazy. i remember when minority report was coming out, someone asked him in an interview why his face is always being mutilated or masked in his recent films, and he kind of laughed it off, but i was like A-HA! i decided then that he had michael jackson levels of crazy bubbling underneath. just seeing his insane cry-for-help laughter when doing press should've been enough to tip everyone off, the couch jumping wasnt even necessary

totally agree with the first 2/3 of WOTW being amazing, so many truly scary, haunting things happen, but then it pretty much goes off the rails.

moment when burning train rolls by is just random and frightening.

its awesome!

i don't mind the robbins stuff either. i just thought it was weird and creepy and scary! what a strange long interlude to stick into your blockbuster. dude is a genius. all is forgiven for Hook. and i never thought i would be able to say that.

spielberg's probably been responsible for scaring more children than any other filmmaker

― da croupier, Saturday, June 30, 2012 11:59 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this!! bio-suits in ET, aliens coming in under the door in close encounters... freakin mola ram pulling out hearts...

face meltings, not to mention bits in amblin films like gremlins, goonies, poltergeist...

ive always loved cruise. and i always knew he was crazy. i remember when minority report was coming out, someone asked him in an interview why his face is always being mutilated or masked in his recent films, and he kind of laughed it off, but i was like A-HA! i decided then that he had michael jackson levels of crazy bubbling underneath. just seeing his insane cry-for-help laughter when doing press should've been enough to tip everyone off, the couch jumping wasnt even necessary

joe queenan's written a lot about the fondness of big male actors for being tortured and having their faces jacked up - brando, eastwood, gibson, stallone, etc (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jul/23/art.joequeenan - longer piece in one of his books). queenan figured these guys knew dudes wouldn't support them if they didn't get their pretty selves knocked around, but most of these guys were lunatics too

there was also something i read once about a run of movies travolta did where he died at the end of every single one

but ya, spielz was never the cuddly fam-friendly director ppl may assume he was, a big part of his ability to drawn in kids was his use of the grotesque and scary

will smith went through a real isolated messianic run there with hancock, i am legend, pursuit of happyness and seven pounds xpost

joe queenan's written a lot about the fondness of big male actors for being tortured and having their faces jacked up - brando, eastwood, gibson, stallone, etc (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jul/23/art.joequeenan - longer piece in one of his books). queenan figured these guys knew dudes wouldn't support them if they didn't get their pretty selves knocked around, but most of these guys were lunatics too

― da croupier, Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

nice

can't find it online, but Queenan's face-mashing overview, "The 400 Blows," is in his Confessions Of A Cineplex Heckler book

it's the christ thing. mel being the extreme example.

makes sense in a non-crazy way that people who become famous for their hero faces would be intrigued by stories in which that's threatened or obscured.

probably just guilt that they make so much money for being pretty. well, not in stallone's case, but in other cases...

flipping through the queenan piece (actually named "the 4000 blows", my bad), he mentions that while just about every big male star has been beat up once, stallone is the only actor who's famous ONLY for movies where his face is bashed in.

xp - plus anxiety about the threat, a wish to prove that they're more than just an appearance, aspirational toughness, etc.

spielberg's probably been responsible for scaring more children than any other filmmaker

Jaws, dudes.

Empire of the Sun is a really great movie. Totally overlooked, or at least forgotten about.

Mel Gibson is notorious for getting tortured and beat up in films.

i even love the dad/kids stuff in the house before the aliens come. those scenes are great. what a great movie.

sorry, can't stop thinking about war of the worlds.

i saw empire of the sun when i was a kid and it made a big impression on me.

not any of the 'big' shots but just the interaction between john malkovich and kid bale, which i thought was the coolest thing ever at the time.

i need to own a copy of that movie. i'm actually talking about empire now! also WOTW too though. i actually did a copy of that, but i might have sold it in the store...

maybe i need to see WotW again, i dunno. saw spielberg's version as an overinflated restatement padded out with redundant daddy hero/family in peril shit. best bit was the cat and mouse sequence in the basement and that was taken straight out of the original.

empire of the sun is brilliant.

thats actually the worst bit

no wait the tim robbins basement stuff is the worst... actually the last shot is the worst.

but you're wrong about the rest

what does "overinflated" even mean in that context

Empire of the Sun is kinda famous around these parts in that an ILXor almost got Christian Bale's role. Alternate histories and all.

xp - lot of big, expensive-looking, digitally-engineered things happen without generating much by way of tension or thrills

totally thrilling and tense!

eh whatever. i think the tension is a star of the movie. they are so close to doom the whole time and you feel that.

ya not to mention the fact that wotw was one of the first movies to really be economical about what "big expensive things" you actually see... i remember thinking how great it was that it was all from tom cruise's POV

eh whatever. i think the tension is a star of the movie. they are so close to doom the whole time and you feel that.

― scott seward, Saturday, June 30, 2012 1:25 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exactly... the whole movie until the end is just about him running away!

maybe i was hungover at the time

Empire of the Sun is kinda famous around these parts in that an ILXor almost got Christian Bale's role. Alternate histories and all.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:01 PM (24 minutes ago)

Never heard that before. What's the story?

the whole movie until the end is just about him running away!

Isn't this 90% of Cruise's movies

sorry to hear you didn't get that callback, ned

It was so sad.

More seriously: Alba, who may or may not post much any more, is IRL one N1ck Dast00r, son of an actor as well. Pretty much it was down to him and Mr. Bale and the latter got the nod, though Alba did get another role in the film. Alba being a good fellow and all, there is an alternate universe where he's winning awards for The Fighter and explaining about Batman while Mr. Bale is trolling us here going "LA DE DE DA."

Cool! "The More You Know"® etc

No offense to Alba, but I don't know if anyone else could have made the choices Bale has made career-wise

like, there's an alternate reality where another british kid was in a spielberg movie, but i don't know if that kid went on to dance in newsies, play patrick bateman and practice gun kata

actually, alba's film tastes are pretty out there too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJdMDvjfyQ0

Come to think of it, Cruise didn't really shift over to action flicks until he was pushing 40, did he? It's like the older he gets, the more action movie guy he gets.

Megastar midlife crisis?

what would alba's voice as batman be like

oi, alfie, fetch me blood sausages innit time to flog some baddies aye

that was terrible, I'm sorry

All of Cruise's three marriages broke up when his wife at the time was 33, and ended when she was 34.

whatta bombshell

Apparently she filed the papers this time.

"It's like the older he gets, the more action movie guy he gets."

the Cage conundrum.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1105484.1341081473!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/image.jpg

Tom Cruise as Bad Lieutenant would be great.

http://gma.yahoo.com/toms-turn-katie-holmes-shocks-him-surprised-nicole-203827407--abc-news-tv.html

He should go for Elisabeth Moss.

war of the worlds is pretty remarkable. that whole section of the film when they escape the initial alien attack is like the spielster showing roland emmerich how to do that shit right.

Dag: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/06/katie_holmes_scientology_sec_checking_suri_tom_cruise.php

"It's like the older he gets, the more action movie guy he gets."

the Cage conundrum.

― scott seward, Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see also: kate beckinsale.

WOTW is utterly terrifying until the last reel and i give spielberg major props for that. although on a personal level it's almost too disturbing and unedifying for me to handle. it feels like a 100 minute snuff film sometimes.

haven't seen empire of the sun since 1987 but i was so moved by it at the time that i almost rose out of my seat to cheer at one point. probably one of the most intense moviegoing experiences i had as a kid. have no idea what i'd make of it now.

yeah the part in WOTW when the guy just shoots the other guy as they drive away.

though made me wonder, movie reality and all but if aliens invaded, the gun shops would be the first to be looted I would think, maybe there just arent that many guns in bahston

xp - lot of big, expensive-looking, digitally-engineered things happen without generating much by way of tension or thrills

― contenderizer, Saturday, June 30, 2012 1:02 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, this is literal crazy-person talk. Almost from the moment that first tripod comes out of the ground it's crazy tension and thrills with a few small interludes. Especially the section from where everyone's waiting to get on the ferry, that godawful sound goes off and those tripods appear over the hill, to when they first enter the basement is bravura excitement.

I thought it was gonna be lame and bloodless when the people were literally just vaporized but shit got real with the red fungus

That's right out of the book, too. The first victims are simply vaporized by the Heat Ray, later people die a lot more violently.

meat contenderizer

love WOTW. one of the few movies that have given me the similar rush of excitement as an adult that i regularly got at blockbuster movies as a kid. Ferry scene is all time.

The ending of WotW makes me so mad that I can't really appreciate the rest of it.

Just turn it off with thirty minutes to go and announced "And they all died, the end."

i... don't remember the end?

i also loved wotw and was surprisingly gut-wrenched by it.

Empire of the Sun was my first really memorable movie-going experience. Picked the book up years later and it didn't make as much of an impression, then again Ballard channels those experiences through SF.

Spielberg's constant fumbling of his endings is so jarring most of the time if it was anyone else you'd think he was parodying happy endings.

"love WOTW. one of the few movies that have given me the similar rush of excitement as an adult that i regularly got at blockbuster movies as a kid."

this is it right there. movie magic. for real. say what you want about spielberg but the dude bleeds film. in his lesser stuff the manipulation (and sappiness) can piss you off, but when he's on, i'll follow him anywhere.

you guys are almost making me to want to re-watch WOTW but...nah

I thought we established seven years ago that WOTW is top-notch Spielberg thrillmaking (up until the Tim Robbins stuff if that really bugs you that much).

People blaming Steven Spielberg for an ending that H.G. Wells essentially wrote are the worst savages.

I mean the last line of the book is "And strangest of all is it to hold my wife's hand again, and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead."

In fact:

I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening slowly as I approached.

It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt empty. The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs.

I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writing-table still, with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder. For a space I stood reading over my abandoned arguments. It was a paper on the probable development of Moral Ideas with the development of the civilising process; and the last sentence was the opening of a prophecy: "In about two hundred years," I had written, "we may expect----" The sentence ended abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my mind that morning, scarcely a month gone by, and how I had broken off to get my Daily Chronicle from the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the garden gate as he came along, and how I had listened to his odd story of "Men from Mars."

I came down and went into the dining room. There were the mutton and the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle overturned, just as I and the artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long. And then a strange thing occurred. "It is no use," said a voice. "The house is deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to torment yourself. No one escaped but you."

I was startled. Had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the French window was open behind me. I made a step to it, and stood looking out.

And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were my cousin and my wife--my wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry.

"I came," she said. "I knew--knew----"

She put her hand to her throat--swayed. I made a step forward, and caught her in my arms.

This conventional wisdom about "Spielberg screws up his endings" is like the dumbest shit ever.

It's not that he "screws them up" (IMO) but that they are so often tonally jarring with the rest of the movie--something that's actually interesting about them! AI is of course the masterpiece of this but it's present in a lot of his movies.

It's not so much that Spielberg screwed up the ending to WOTW as much as he screwed up allowing there to have been some doubt that Cruise's son wasn't totally obliterated in that explosion halfway through the movie.

Not, of course, that I care at all. The movie's fantastic.

It's not that he "screws them up" (IMO) but that they are so often tonally jarring with the rest of the movie--something that's actually interesting about them! AI is of course the masterpiece of this but it's present in a lot of his movies.

― ryan, Saturday, June 30, 2012 8:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, in A.I. it works because it is actually an incredibly emotionally devastating ending.

in WOTW it feels ridiculously unlikely given all that's come before and also completely hackneyed, the emotions don't seem real. it almost feels like a "taxi driver" ending, one that is very likely a fantasy, except that isn't really inscribed tonally into the ending it's just a result of the disjunct between it and the bulk of the film.

i haven't seen most of the big spielberg movies in a long time so i can't speak to how often he has such issues w/ endings. the one that comes to mind is schindler's list. which just feels phony. i was going to say saving private ryan but in honestly the entirety of that film feels phony to me.

The ending of A.I. is v phony. Often his endings go for "emotionally devastating" registers but you often laugh when you look back, they don't survive or are enhanced by any recalls of them later on.

Except the ending of AI wasnt Speilberg's doing, it was Kubrik's. I was a little suprised to learn that, but the schmaltzy parts were all the Kubrik bits.

Yeah but Spielbergo kept it. If we had a problem with the ending and wasn't up to changing it, he shouldn't have done it - not like anyone was putting a gun to his head..

The ending of A.I. is v phony.

Naturally. It's a fairy tale ending, to a sad story that has been reduced to a fairy tale because that's all that's left to comfort David. The closure the ending provides is intrinsically false, and deliberately so – the challenge of the last few minutes is that for the David and the audience must both accept the flimsy irreality in place of any more satisfying conclusion.

For that to work you'd have to grant Spil and Kub any degree of storytelling sophistication.

I'm not about to.

its cool because aliens rescued him

Naturally. It's a fairy tale ending, to a sad story that has been reduced to a fairy tale because that's all that's left to comfort David. The closure the ending provides is intrinsically false, and deliberately so – the challenge of the last few minutes is that for the David and the audience must both accept the flimsy irreality in place of any more satisfying conclusion.

OTM. I find the end of AI to be inherently tragic, even devastating. David, the robot programmed to be just like human, outlives the entire human race, and the aliens who come to learn about humans have to learn about them from a closest-to-human robot, whose sole comfort is a fairy tale told to him by a long-dead mother he's been cruelly, almost sadistically imprinted to, the ironic outcome of William Hurt's experiment, which was of of course to deliver him to a mother Hurt knew would cast him out, just to see what would happen. It's beyond sad.

zzzzz

yall tying yrselfs in knots trying to sell this ending that was so wtf o rly when like actually viewed in the context of a movie

Except for the vocal minority who love this famously divisive movie, of course. It's not like we're praising Transformers 3 or something.

By the way - and this has no bearing on you, specifically, lag∞n, but goes back to something I asked Scott, but is it fair to a rate a film more highly as a parent, especially if the movie pertains explicitly to themes of parents and having children? Because my estimation of AI, which was already high, when up after I had kids. Same with a few other movies. Has my opinion been tainted by sentiment/emotion, or has it actually become more valid as I grow into an intended audience? Dunno.

Oh, and yeah, Tom Cruise.

(Sorry for typos, and Tom Cruise)

Naturally. It's a fairy tale ending, to a sad story that has been reduced to a fairy tale because that's all that's left to comfort David. The closure the ending provides is intrinsically false, and deliberately so – the challenge of the last few minutes is that for the David and the audience must both accept the flimsy irreality in place of any more satisfying conclusion.

― uncondensed milky way (remy bean), Sunday, July 1, 2012 8:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

it's funny I can picture this in my head done in a kubrickian way that achieves the effect you're talking about, but spielberg's reimaging of it veers into sentimentality, spielberg wants to have his cake and eat it too

yo Josh, those dudes at the end aren't aliens

tbf i feel like i actually have the most possibly emotional connection to this film because i own a robot child

I know they're not aliens (they're robots). I was just using the vocab the previous poster I was responding to used.

I am a robot, child.

its true it was i who called them aliens cause to me they are but thats cause im a robot from mars

fold your hands child, you walk like a robot

btw im sort of outraged that this awesome and necessary tom cruise thread has devolved into yet another spielberg genuflection, you people cant get enough

Tom Cruise.

cruisekat

I wonder if we'll see Cruise in a post-Scientology world and what that will look like.

@rupertmurdoch:
Watch Katie Holmes and Scientology story develop. Something creepy, maybe even evil, about these people.

lol rupert wilin on tweets today

Would like to see a TMZ/Scientology/Murdoch Mexican standoff.

Katie Holmes believes Scientology now views her as a threat to the organization and has put a team on her tail ... sources close to the actress tell TMZ.

We're told Katie believes in recent weeks -- as the discord between her and Tom Cruise grew -- Scientology has been following her moves, especially in New York City.

This does not appear to be the mind of a paranoid person. People who have photographed Katie multiple times tell TMZ there have been several "mysterious" men and vehicles around Katie's apartment and following her when she's out.

Specifically ... a white Cadillac Escalade and black Mercedes SUV (see above) have been seen near Katie's NYC apartment for the past week.

FYI -- there is a publication that has put a tail on Katie, but the people doing that are separate from the people Katie believes have been dispatched from Scientology.

It is unclear if the two vehicles that have been constantly spotted near Holmes' pad are from Scientology or from the publication.

If Katie is able to keep the divorce in New York -- where courts generally like to award sole legal custody to one parent or the other when there is conflict -- proof that she's being tailed could help her case.

Hahaha

People who have photographed Katie multiple times tell TMZ there have been several "mysterious" men and vehicles around Katie's apartment and following her when she's out.

Like, uh, the paparazzi?

amazing

"Katie Holmes believes Scientology now views her as a threat to the organization and has put a team on her tail"

actually just dawson's creek fans...

"i don't always photograph Katie, but when i do there have been several 'mysterious' men and vehicles around. stay clear theta clear, my friends."

wait, why aren't they aliens? and if they're alien robots, wouldn't the alien-designation take priority?

they're just super-evolved robots. David is like their long lost ancestor

it's funny I can picture this in my head done in a kubrickian way that achieves the effect you're talking about, but spielberg's reimaging of it veers into sentimentality, spielberg wants to have his cake and eat it too

― now all my posts got ship in it (dayo), Sunday, July 1, 2012 6:36 AM (2 hours ago)

otm. the ending of AI seems as though it was intended on some level to be subversive and wrenching, but spielberg and his crew work overtime to present it, instead, as a big moment of shmaltzy, redemptive uplift. it's as though SS doesn't like, understand or trust his own movie. his waffling makes nonsense out of something that really should have been devastating.

gonna watch WotW this week, cuz i don't remember a single scary or thrilling moment in it, and i'd like to be proven wrong. spielberg was my first favorite director.

wait, so the robots, they were just chilling on earth for a million years, then decided on a whim to fish the kid out of the ocean?

spielberg was my first favorite director.

Spielberg only in the last decade+ became one of mine.

wait, so the robots, they were just chilling on earth for a million years, then decided on a whim to fish the kid out of the ocean?

i get the impression that they're archaeologists, and david is their latest find

they sensed his advanced circuitry using their advance circuitry retrieval units housed in their data bank schematic hubs. but the technology for all of this took millions of years to develop.

x-post

the ending of AI seems as though it was intended on some level to be subversive and wrenching, but spielberg and his crew work overtime to present it, instead, as a big moment of shmaltzy, redemptive uplift

authorial intention aside (which is a pointless discussion for a movie like this) that's the point of this scene for me. I've written about this a bunch elsewhere on ILX but it's like the "uncanny valley" of happy endings--which is why it's so curiously powerful for some and so limp for others.

here's what i wrote on another thread: and that's why the final scene resonates so strongly with some people, i think: it's this constructed fantasy of a reconciliation, of becoming a "real boy" and not a robot, or of giving yourself that illusion, and so , i think, the ultimately untenability of our ultimate desires, that even if we got them we'd reject them as false.

the "uncanny valley" of happy endings

A+++ way to put it!

i don't get the fake marriage thing. is katie holmes gay? did she know that cruisekat was gay? is nicole kidman gay? is keith urban gay? he looks kinda gay. but he's australian so its hard to tell. paul hogan always looked kinda gay to me too. but gaydar is thrown off by the aussie/brit thing. someone could just have really nice manners. everyone in hollywood has probably ALWAYS known that john travolta was gay since he was a sweathog, right? but did his wife just go along with a marriage for the money or did she really not know? she had to have known. is will smith gay? i know jada is. and eddie murphy is famously gay, but wait he's not a scientologist. is beck gay?

i mean its not the 50's. can't you just be single and closeted? why have a big family and be so public about your perfect marriage and everything? its bizarre.

i actually liked that robin williams robot servant movie. reminded me of AI.

"the 'uncanny valley' of happy endings"

A+++ way to put it!

it is a good way to put it. still doesn't work for me. movie does seem to be saying something fascinating in spite of spielberg's best attempt to muzzle it, but despite the ideas involved, it just doesn't work for me. after the tonal mess of the second act and the missed-opportunity "real ending" (david and bear sitting underwater forever praying to the blue fairy), the far-future coda is more "interesting" than engaging.

the whole thing is a like a great movie in model kit form. here are the pieces: put them together in a way that suits you. first act is one of the best things spielberg's ever done, though.

^ could have used an editorial once-over, but clear enough i guess...

ok it's been awhile since i've seen it, but what i remember is the robaliens saying something like, "we scoured the intelligences in the universe but found something unique on earth" so these dudes evolved from earth, went out exploring, found other alien dudes, but decided home was the awesomest?

we may never know...or will we?

i mean its not the 50's. can't you just be single and closeted? why have a big family and be so public about your perfect marriage and everything? its bizarre.

― scott seward, Sunday, July 1, 2012 12:22 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya its weird tho tbf cruise and travolta have maybe been around long enough since its wasnt ok to be single and closeted - but its prob a weirdo scientologist thing anyway

is katie holmes gay? did she know that cruisekat was gay? is nicole kidman gay? is keith urban gay? he looks kinda gay. but he's australian so its hard to tell. paul hogan always looked kinda gay to me too. but gaydar is thrown off by the aussie/brit thing. someone could just have really nice manners. everyone in hollywood has probably ALWAYS known that john travolta was gay since he was a sweathog, right? but did his wife just go along with a marriage for the money or did she really not know? she had to have known. is will smith gay? i know jada is. and eddie murphy is famously gay, but wait he's not a scientologist. is beck gay?

― scott seward, Sunday, July 1, 2012 12:22 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

btw Are All Actors Totally Gay

ya its weird tho tbf cruise and travolta have maybe been around long enough since its wasnt ok to be single and closeted

still ain't okay for american "leading men" to be gay

the point is it seems like a lot of trouble to got to have these families

jeez, you should have seen what my dad went through. don't suppose the impetus to do shit like that has gone away, especially for people in the public eye. even if they are actors...

there was something unsavory about the 'bonuses' structured for how many years the marriage lasted, that reminded me a lot about the way metallica made a big show of hiring their new bassist with this big novelty check for a million bucks.

marriage as a hunger game

Pretty sure Scient is not terribly pro-gay. I believe they clear the gay away. It even has its own wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_sexual_orientation

Regardless, it is a potential career killer, or hinderer, for folks like Cruise, and can therefore be used against him as blackmail, which is Scient strategy. If Cruise is gay, though there is far more insinuation-cum-confirmation of Travolta than there is for Cruise, who exists in some sort of secretive phantom zone.

claims that this or that star is gay, absent solid confirmation, always strike me as an expression of homophobia as much as anything else. did you know that rod stewart had a gallon of jizz pumped out of his stomach?

Oh, for sure. But what solid confirmation is there beyond a public confession? Travolta is being sued by several dudes right now, which is not confirmation, and has been dogged by bath house stories, which is no confirmation, and has been more or less outed by Carrie Fisher, which is no confirmation, either. But it's a lot more than Cruise has had attached to him, or Pitt, too, at one point. Or Jeremy Renner right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6G1ZDO_mNg

one of the first things about john travolta's private life that i ever knew when i was a kid was that he had been in love with that woman who was in the boy in the plastic bubble and who also was gonna star in eight is enough (i think?) before she died.

i mean, that is a LONG time to know stuff about someone's fake love life!

is keith urban gay? he looks kinda gay. but he's australian so its hard to tell.

LOL <3

i definitely understand if people think gay rumors about celebs are distasteful, but with travolta it's like katt williams' thing on whitney houston - "nobody says the same shit about you for twenty years. If a mother fucker calls you a crack head for twenty years, you are smoking crack."

yeah, i was referring more to the seemingly baseless but weirdly persistent rumors about cruise. there's good reason to suspect that travolta is gay.

cruise is gay tho

and for the record imho its not homophobic or unseemly to speculate considering celebrities are public sex symbols

i think it's a little bit homophobic!

http://www.edgeboston.com/display/viewimage_story.php?id=133052

this is why people think Travolta is gay

there is no similar evidence for Cruise

all of the evidence for Tom Cruise I've encountered is along the lines of "I have friends who have worked on movies he's been in and they all claim he hits on dudes"

yeah it's all hearsay and speculation

i think it's a little bit homophobic!

― goole, Monday, July 2, 2012 1:21 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it could be or it could be just wanting to know what is up w/yr fav celebrities

I have a friend who supposedly knows someone (gay) who hooked up with him on Fire Island one summer. lol. definitive proof imo.

we cant be gifted a travolta style private jet goodbye kiss for every gay celebrity guys, sometimes we have to use our intuition and baseless rumors

otm

also

lol

idk there's a complex of loathing and prurience about it imo.

sure for some but thats a preexisting condition, also loathing tom cruise shouldnt necessarily be confused w/homophobia

Re: Gay Tom, I was once told a long implausible story involving an island in Greece and a face mask

details now please

I don't know if there's really a way to escape prurience when talking about the sexual orientation of anyone!

x-post - Although that sentence is so perfect that this might be one of those times where I prefer not to know the specifics.

!!!

Most of the stories I remember wrt Tom being gay was back in the day when I would read my grandmother's copy of the National Enquirer, there was a lot of innuendo about Tom and wrestlers. Real greco-roman wrestling, not an affair w/Randy Savage or anything fun and WWF related.

Come on though, that would have been so much better.

It would have! Imagine the forbidden love between him and the Iron Sheik.

Re: Gay Tom, I was once told a long implausible story involving an island in Greece and a face mask

― manditory fun. day (Ówen P.), Monday, July 2, 2012 1:33 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i heard one abt a facemask and an orgy for super rich people or something

I don't know if there's really a way to escape prurience when talking about the sexual orientation of anyone!

― Victory Chainsaw! (DJP), Monday, July 2, 2012 1:34 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or in the publics relationship to celebrities in general, all part of the human experience, play through!

Real greco-roman wrestling, not an affair w/Randy Savage or anything fun and WWF related.

if you don't think that greco-roman wrestling personalities are "fun" then obv. you haven't been paying any attention to the olympic trials. god i feel sorry for people like you

there's a good use of your pity

Frankly, I'm amazed at the near total lockdown of Tom Cruise's (private) public life, given his level of stardom. He's practically at Malick levels of off the mapness, or Dylan, for that matter. Where does Cruise even live?

I imagine him living on a plane constantly circling the globe, like the rich guy in "Contact."

Have you guys seen the video of him at his birthday party on the Freewinds (Sci tie cruise vessel) where he sings Old Time Rock 'n Roll? It's pretty amazing.

Oh, it was linked in the voice articles anyway if you haven't then do yourselves a favor and watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSgMrrf5QzQ&feature=player_embedded

ugh is so embarassing and cringe-inducing

that said, the split is pretty impressive

tom is one of the most talented and beautiful actress ever!!

Xwomen1234 5 days ago

@ lagoon, lol.

The story was long and implausible and told by [a really famous actor] when I was drunk. I don't remember the details, but the fact that this even a famous actor was relating a long and implausible story involving a Greek island and a million-dollar disguisey mask suggests that wild speculation continues all the way up to the top

when super uptight driven people try to kickback and have some fun its best to avert yr eyes xp youtube

[a really famous actor] <<<WHO

can't believe Eugene Levy would be so reckless

Lot of jealousy in this comment section..

Tom Cruise is awesome.. Acting (few good men, Vanilla Sky), Stunts (MI:2/3/4), Comedy (Tropic Thunder, Knight is Day) and now singing in Rock of Ages.. Judging someone by their personal life when you don't know them is idiotic.. The guys a total ledge...

oneandonlyJonnySad 2 weeks ago

lol JS, yes! He's so stiff and awkward it's just awful.

omg a ledge

a total ledge, you guys

i had a friend who swore up and down that clooney and marky mark had been a secret couple like foreverrrr. no idea what his source was.

why is he always holding his hand over his forehead? He did that on Oprah to. Maybe he's got some kind of radar going on there.

leahlove762 1 month ago

I am falling back in love with Youtube comments

xp: lol whut

also eugene can do an amazing thing with an egg and a ruler xp

I sometimes think people treat celebrity rumors like a cross between Pokemon and Madlibs

Gotta (verb) them all

sexy pokeman and madlibs

Poor Bob Seger.

God I feel sorry for people like him.

"and for the record imho its not homophobic or unseemly to speculate considering celebrities are public sex symbols"

this is kind of batty logic. it explains in part why people do it, but doesn't necessarily negate the unseemliness.

by being attractive and in movies, you are tacitly asking me to question your sexuality in a public forum

yes

does kevin spacey qualify as a public sex symbol?

Does this hold true for waiters/waitresses?

no

that's what i mean by the loathing + prurience: anybody richer, more famous and prettier than me MUST be bent, just look at him, must be having ALL KINDS of crazy gay sex, i believe it all

well that would be asking the question Are All Actors Totally Gay

there's this 'key figure in anti-gay organization turns out to be gay' dynamic at work in people's fascination that's maybe not exactly morally defensible, but maybe it's karmically defensible?

where mostly i think people are asking 'is this actor gay'

i want to know what happened to that big boil kevin spacey had on his neck when he was on wiseguy.

so is it karmically ok to question a scientologist's sexuality but not a unitarian's?

basically gossip is ugly and if you're better than that great, and feel free to shame me if i do it in front of you, but if we're all on the same world-not-helping page i got some questions about public sex symbol ryan seacrest

and its not like theyre above self loathing or prurience but i think we all know gays themselves are the biggest consumers of gay celebrity rumors

people who look down on celeb gossip make me sick. boil in hell, sicko freaks

well, and the opinions of straight people regarding who is or isn't gay are just intrinsically suspect

i think we all know gays themselves are the biggest consumers of gay celebrity rumors

is kinda going down the "how come they get to call themselves that word and i can't" road

half the people i know talk about everyone else i know all the time. seems like tomkat or any other celeb should be beyond fair game. if you were above all that you wouldn't even own a computer.

i knew someone was going to bring that comparison up and i wholeheartedly reject it xp

i mean shit, i made my living for a couple years regurgitating rumors for a website so i'm not throwing stones, i just think most justifications are weak

i do think everyone would be a bit more circumspect in dishing on cruise if he were a unitarian, yeah.

that's what i mean by the loathing + prurience: anybody richer, more famous and prettier than me MUST be bent, just look at him, must be having ALL KINDS of crazy gay sex, i believe it all

(xpost...) but i mean that just speaks to human envy in general

i don't think it's automatically gross if someone is wondering whether a famous male romantic lead is straight or gay or whatever offscreen

I honestly do not understand why people are bothered by his (or any other celeb's) sexuality. So what if he's gay? Or bisexual? I mean, what the fuck does it matter?

celebrities were BORN to be ridiculed and speculated about. they serve that function in our society. in return they get good tables at good restaurants.

feel like celebrity gossip is p lame and discursive but not morally wrong because the celebrities themselves have opted in - they have in fact devoted tremendous energy to opting in and in most case want the attention v badly - where as someone like that lady who rush limbaugh called a slut just because she wrote an editorial is more a victim of the mass media machine

I honestly do not understand why people are bothered by his (or any other celeb's) sexuality. So what if he's gay? Or bisexual? I mean, what the fuck does it matter?

― Nathalie (stevienixed), Monday, July 2, 2012 2:36 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well its interesting from the pov of their sexuality is marketed to you in one way and occupies this particular cultural niche but actually its another way, you have been tricked but now youre untricked, and then theres just human curiosity want to know things abt people wanting to know what celebrities look like w/o their make up wanting to know how yr neighbors houe is decorated like on the inside etc

straight people speculating about whether or not people they don't know are gay way too often resembles a form of mockery, the identification and labeling of "faggy" or even just "weird" behavior.

there is for sure often homophobia in the mix but its not an essential aspect of the speculation

lagoon, you're kind of conflating "i don't feel bad for that person being caught in a shit cycle because they put themselves in a situation where that would be a given" and "there's nothing wrong with me feeding the shit cycle"

well i dont blog abt it if thats what youre asking, heavens

it's like pretending illegally downloading music isn't shitty because the record industry is corrupt

Well, I agree and get it (up to a point). But honestly I don't think people are really that interested any more when it comes to Cruise. He just seems like a once popular cult victim these days.

and yeah, i obv don't actually think enjoying celeb gossip is a crime per se, i just like dismantling weird "they're asking for it!" defenses.

there is for sure often homophobia in the mix but its not an essential aspect of the speculation

― lag∞n, Monday, July 2, 2012 1:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is kinda like saying there's dirt in the water but the water itself isn't dirty

the 'celluloid closet' is a real ancient thing tho, cutting against what i've been saying

and H4A is basically right, too

If you're Marc Maron, substitute gay speculation with did-your-parents-make-over-80K, for similar loathing/hypocrisy reasons.

geez the gay thread isn't as prurient as this one

Also, I do think that celebrities have the option to be out of the public eye (and thus the gossip machine).

and yeah, i obv don't actually think enjoying celeb gossip is a crime per se, i just like dismantling weird "they're asking for it!" defenses.

― da croupier, Monday, July 2, 2012 2:45 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont think youve really dismantled it tbh, they are for sure asking for it, like literally cultivating it - the shitty part abt it is more its shitty mind pollution for us the consumers of it, were doing it to ourselves! and we dont even get good tables at restaurants or sex out of it

i hereby christen the prurient public gaydar impulse 'pinkeye,' as in 'hey, do you think that tom cruise is gay?' 'nope, no idea, but he's definitely in the pinkeye'

butt joke in 3, 2, ...

i like it

There are a couple of things unique to cruise w/r/t all this. He's not a very good actor, except when playing roles that are basically Tom Cruise, so him being confirmed as gay really changes the reading of his movie roles, probably for the better. This wouldn't work on a good actor like Ian McKellen -- his being gay doesn't turn the old Nazi from Apt Pupil gay, but it does for Cruise.

they are for sure asking for it, like literally cultivating it

was kevin spacey cultivating it circa glengarry glen ross or was he not complicit until the oscar noms?

McKellen would have been a gangsta Boba Fett ("Put Capt. Solo up my cargo hold").

(xp)

are we talking about the festering neck boil or his (alleged) homosexuality?

was kevin spacey cultivating it circa glengarry glen ross or was he not complicit until the oscar noms?

― da croupier, Monday, July 2, 2012 2:50 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the moment he got a publicist

This wouldn't work on a good actor like Ian McKellen -- his being gay doesn't turn the old Nazi from Apt Pupil gay, but it does for Cruise.

I initially read this as "Tom Cruise thinks gay actors play gay characters exclusively"

lagoon, do you actually check to see whether celebs have publicists before you question their sexuality or did you just make an arbitrary distinction that has no actual weight on whether you do that?

oh they all have publicists, gay publicists

I'd be more interested in a list of celebrities who don't have publicists

well if they knew they'd have moral rights to privacy if they didn't, maybe they wouldn't!

they want you to be interested in their lives!

Homer Simpson: I believe that famous people have a debt to everyone. If celebrities didn't want people pawing through their garbage and saying they're gay, they shouldn't have tried to express themselves creatively. In closing, you people must realize that the public owns you for life! And when you're dead, you'll all be in commercials, dancing with vacuum cleaners.

the whole thing w/ celeb gossip being a huge industry and actors being the biggest celebs is just inextricably fucked to begin with. 'hey try to be convincing as this character while also being a public figure whose life is a subject of fascination to most of the people watching the movie' i mean what the hell.

homer otm.

p sure tom cruise has never expressed himself creatively

actors are the worst and most spiteful gossips alive.

show biz people in general. heartless and cruel.

and look how they're dressed

tom cruise employs people to get his life into us weekly, he cannot complain abt being in us weekly!

what's that got to do with reading it?

idk i dont personally read us weekly

you're glib, lagoon. you're glib.

im sry i am being glib re celebrity gayness news

ou don't even know what celebrity gayness is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, lagoon, okay? That's what I've done. Then you go and you say where's-- where's the medical test? Where's the blood test that says how gay a celebrity you are?

what are you going on about now?

its true ive studied these things

Because just knowing people who are gay celebrities isn't enough. You should be a little bit more responsible in knowing really--

if you can't ridicule tomkat who can you ridicule? its our right as americans.

I am enjoying this thread immensely

Scott, here's the point. What is the ideal scene for life. Okay. Ideal scene is someone not having to announce their sexuality. Okay. So, now you look at-- and you go okay. A-- a departure from that ideal scene is a celebrity having to defend their privacy, okay. And then you go, okay. What is the theory and the science behind that, that justifies that?

You just communicate about it. And the important thing is, like you and I talk about it, whether it's -- okay, if I wanna know something, I go and find out. Because I don't talk about things that I don't understand. I'll say, you know what? I'm not so sure about that. I'll go find more information about it so I can-- I can come to an opinion based on-- on the information that I have. I'm passionate about learning. I'm passionate about life, Scott.

wow, i think you need to lie down. luv ya though!

dying

Brilliantly done. I don't know who the Brooke Shields is in this situation though.

scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE3bm4_Rryg

#themoreyouknow

to match the analogy, you need someone who has publicly outed themselves and has embraced their gay identity as part of their overall public brand

with that in mind, and considering the rumor/tabloid connection, I'm gonna say... Perez Hilton

<3 croup

oh god i hadn't watched that video in so long. i thought anthony was really losing his mind. phew. glad he's okay.

well i'm still debating minute distinctions on the morality of celebrity gossip on a message board, so keep me in your prayers

lol xpost - OMG me too. well done.

yeah i mean i would probably agree that gossip or celebrity culture etc etc is a symptom of evil and badness in the world and all that but its low on my list of evil symptoms or whatever. a lot of it can be nasty and also be about knocking supposedly perfect people off of their pedestals, but in the end people ARE kinda nasty at times. gossip is human. speculation and morbid curiousity is human. you can choose to feed it or not. its a choice. just by not having cable television i feel like my load has been lightened. i don't see ANY of the t.v. gossip/cable news stuff anymore. haven't a clue. and i stopped buying the glossy celebs mags that i used to love. i used to buy them all. i like being out of it except for threads like this! these threads are kinda olde tyme fun for me. plus, tom cruise is a fracking idiot.

what are you going on about now?

;-)

i have thoughts you know. deep cruise-like thoughts.

This'll all seem quaint in 20 years.

people will be posting the exact same thoughts on ilx scientology threads in 20 years, nobody's attitudes will have changed one bit regardless of what happens to it.

This'll all seem quaint in 20 years.

― Odd Spice (Eazy), Monday, July 2, 2012 3:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes once we've all converted fully it'll seem so charming that anyone ever doubted LRH

Nah, I mean that the whole Empire/Post Empire idea of celebrity identity keeps evolving, in a way that what's secret and what's not, and what's career-ending and what's not, will keep changing.

I keep wondering if Cruise and Mel Gibson have spent any time together, and whether they seem similar in person in their zealotry/intensity/etc.

cruise and mel had dinner back when tom was with nic and actually tom was like "omg can you guys stop talking about australia"

Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson... two total ledges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPkWYTUiPTo

there's this 'key figure in anti-gay organization turns out to be gay' dynamic at work in people's fascination that's maybe not exactly morally defensible, but maybe it's karmically defensible?

Sure, sort of like when Republicans are caught cruising bathrooms or whatever. There's also the issue (or at least an issue within some vocal sectors of the gay public) that living a lie - that is, pretending not to be gay - is more destructive than just saying none of your business, which is the line taken by, say, Queen Latifah, Kevin Spacey, Alicia Keys and until today Anderson Cooper.

xpost Awesome, I had been humming the bassline to that all week. My fave Rakim.

Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson... two total ledges

I resemble this remark!

capybaras are way cuter than Tom Cruise.

^ truth bomb

I resemble this remark!

hahahahahaha

i want to know what happened to that big boil kevin spacey had on his neck when he was on wiseguy.

― scott seward

he got lanced

by which I mean he had hot sex with a guy named Lance

never realized how hilarious Lance is as a name.

50 years young today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnIJxcqSKgY

wtf it's impossible for me to read the ending of a.i. as "schmaltzy" as opposed to deeply tragic. they revive a spectre of his "mother" for a few short moments after which she--like the entire human race--is consigned to oblivion forever. it's horrifying and puts the audience face-to-face with its own morality in way few popular (or really, any) films dare to do.

and i felt this way the first time i saw it, in the theater, and every time since. i found the movie emotionally draining from the first.

anyway i think cruise feeds this by making huge shows of every major milestone in his personal life (oprah appearance to announce he had fallen in love [!] with katie holmes, selling photos of suri, etc.) -- he seems so hell-bent on advertising his normative status that i don't think it's too surprising that people get curious about the motivations behind it.

of course this could all be a vicious cycle where rumors of his homosexuality float around and that compels him to essentially promote his heterosexuality. giving rise to more rumors, etc. if he isn't gay, or even if he is, i can imagine that's a rotten circle to be trapped in.

did I miss someone cluelessly parsing the end of A.I. yet again?

<3

of course this could all be a vicious cycle where rumors of his homosexuality float around and that compels him to essentially promote his heterosexuality. giving rise to more rumors, etc. if he isn't gay, or even if he is, i can imagine that's a rotten circle to be trapped in.

uh if you're compelled to promote your heterosexuality, you are basically queer

and real talk: it's only rotten if you're homophobic

I pretty much agree with that although I think there's also a weird narcissistic streak running through Tom Cruise that muddies the waters, like it could be he promoting his heterosexuality not to fend off gay rumors but because he thinks people Want To Know. Especially in the last 5-10 years, it seems like he can't operate in the public sphere without turning into this weird freakshow spectacle (possibly because when he goes off the rails it's amazingly memorable, a la Oprah's couch or the Lauer rant).

tom cruise and the heterosexuals would be a good no-wave band name

pretty sure tom cruise is only really sexually attracted to himself

then he's never been happier than he was in this moment

http://images2.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/movies/movie_awards_confidential/stiller_cruise/article/281x211.jpg?width=281&height=211

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXfpX5kM35w&feature=related

It was Becks!

Maybe. Possibly.

Not exactly Bowie and Jagger, but I guess you take your fantasy celebrity trysts where you can get them.

now picturing Cruise as Frank TJ Mackey with Beckham & his squeaky little voice. yuck.

it's true Cruise and Becks were caught in bed together, but what that rumor report leaves out is that they were playing Pillow Fort

http://i.imgur.com/MyFfz.png

lol

calmly walking away from exploding marriage

COOL GUYS DON'T LOOK AT CUSTODY RIGHTS

david beckham is lining up behind him as we speak.

hey now!

they actually make a pretty prefect couple! both annoying/rich as hell. talented at being famous. uh...annoying...oh i said that already.

http://i.imgur.com/l8B20.jpg

it's kinda creepy that Tom Cruise travelled back in time just to marry Carol Channing when she was young and hot

^^^PLEASE let this happen so that "TomKat" can be replaced by "CruisIng"

watched spielberg's war of the worlds again. still don't care for it. novel here

not sure what i did wrong there

www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&boardid=40&threadid=41161&bookmarkedmessageid=3611865

Scott, Sandy is in love with JT and wants to marry him. OMG how the hell did you find that clip?

not sure what i did wrong there

you left off the "http://"; at the beginning

jope

Especially in the last 5-10 years, it seems like he can't operate in the public sphere without turning into this weird freakshow spectacle (possibly because when he goes off the rails it's amazingly memorable, a la Oprah's couch or the Lauer rant).

This is why he was a genius choice to play basically Axl Rose in Rock of Ages, BTW.

yeah, they're both pretty fuckin' passionate, man

The keywords in the articles about their divorce (Tom Cruise, celebrity, California cult, Scientology, Hollywood actress, Rosemary's Baby, fear, moonchild, running for her life, scandal) evoke Sonic Youth's EVOL.

moonchild?

Katie Holmes will be represented in court by attorney Kim Gordon who will recite case via spoken-word poetry monologues.

Xpost moonchild was my own touch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1m1l00eaDg

The keywords in the articles about their divorce (Tom Cruise, celebrity, California cult, Scientology, Hollywood actress, Rosemary's Baby, fear, moonchild, running for her life, scandal) evoke Sonic Youth's EVOL.

― Cunga, Tuesday, July 3, 2012 8:42 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

woah

Although the Village Voices article on Scientology from a few months back touched on that. Holmes "special birthing process" or whatever was headlined on tabloids five years ago called back to Hubbard's interest in Crowley's moonchild theory.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/02/scientology_and_4.php

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/nekokaiju/5496214/10395/original.jpg

almost looks like her!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oc70Fl6yUdg/TWxVNkVOvRI/AAAAAAAAKUU/NJG5cfysz_I/s1600/screenshot9640.jpg

siri?

Crowley was not impressed. He wrote to a friend in April, "Apparently Parsons or Hubbard or somebody is producing a Moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these goats."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_birth

and then

Silent birth, sometimes known as quiet birth, is a birthing procedure advised by L. Ron Hubbard and advocated by Scientologists...

The "silent birth" became a source of media interest when it was known that outspoken Scientologist actor Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes, who converted to Scientology from Roman Catholicism, were expecting a child. Reports that the couple would follow the practice of silent birth were denied, until photos were taken of large placards being delivered to the couple's mansion bearing instructions for the silent birth, such as "Be silent and make all physical movements slow and understandable."[4]

that was instructions for the midwife in handling cruise tho

he's like those goats, but instead of falling asleep he jumps a sofa when startled

The fact that Chuck Manson was briefly involved with the church of 'tology, and how he eventually murdered Roman Polanski's pregnant wife (Rosemary's Baby redux?), is coming next on Unsolved Mysteries: The ILX Years

^^post is best appreciated if read in Robert Stack's voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v9mtaMotF4

pumped

tom cruise is... padiddle

werner herzog plays the villain in this. christopher mcquarrie's first time directing in 12 years

i don't care if it's from a book by robert louis stevenson, jack reacher is a porn name

jack reacheround

"Many women are not capable of pleasure in sex and anything adverse they say or do has no effect whatever upon your pleasure. Their bodies thrill you...You have no fear if they conceive. What if they do? You do not care. Pour it into them and let fate decide..."

ew

movie looks dumb as hell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Reacher

Reacher knows how to drive although he is admittedly not a very good driver. He has never possessed a driver's license.
[edit]

Reacher has the uncanny ability to know what time it is

Reacher is 6' 5" tall (1.96m) with a 50-inch chest, and weighing between 210 and 250 pounds (100–115 kg).

Tom Cruise perfect casting choice

It is also in this novel that Reacher's internal monologue reveals that he has a music collection in his head, which he listens to.

in the movie he's actually a Jamaican monster called Jah Creature

xpost well, he walks on stilts, does he not?

Does he still clap his hand in this manic way? He used to do that in every single movie. Very annoying.

i watched war of the worlds last night and it was p rad

can u write a point-by-point rebuttal of contenderizer's essay

I think he just did

although i didnt read contenderizers entire piece i get the sense that i agree w/one of his points which is that spielberg tends to me a lil too pat. like everything is so formally illustrative, even if those strokes are often masterfully applied. and spielberg acolytes can kinda come off like people who are into locating the perfect pop song.

but i came to the conclusion that its ultimately kind of a hollow complaint cause his movies are so good whats the point of wanting them to be some other thing.

lol I kind of hate Spielberg's movies but I still give you the points

except for ai the end of ai is dumb no matter what anyone says

iirc i agree but i havent seen it in forever

i went to the movies once on a v hot day and saw pootie tang the fast and the furious and ai, in that order

somewhere morbs just had a dizzy spell

that is a sick triple-bill, lot of variety + all good movies

just chop the last 20 minutes off any spielberg film, makes it twice as good

or leave early to go see part of pootie tang again

that should just be one film edited together. "pootie tang the fast and the furious and ai"

that's a great triple bill

lol xp

incorrect! last scene of raiders. close encounters. etc xxxp

2001 was the golden age of movies

ya it was a v auspicious selection

ok, any spielberg from 1995-onward? idk, not going to look up the cutoff line. probably everything post-schindler's list where they all come out and hug schindler at the end

"pootie tang the fast and the furious and ai 2: joe dirt"

worst thing abt WotW was magically resurrecting the son at the end, but the ending was so dull & schmaltzy overall that it hardly seemed worth a mention

the end of munich wasnt super corny was it

pootie tang the fast and the furious and ai
i laughed i cried it was better than cats

the end of munich wasnt super corny was it

― lag∞n, Thursday, July 5, 2012 10:54 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it had that shot of the twin towers which was a bit do u SEE

(to use an old ilx expresh)

ha i have zero recollection of that

oh god I never watched munich and now I don't need to

munich is vv good!

munich is pretty amazing

SPOILERS please

its kinda one for the haters, p hardcore

9/11 happened

xp

with you two endorsing it, all I need is morbs popping in to say he didn't watch it and it'd be an obvious must-see

ha

Minority Report ended around the 110 minute mark iirc.

Yeah, Munich has a brutality that doesn't even show up in Schindler's List, but it's not the kind of sophomoric nastiness of The Lost World. It's some down and dirty shit.

That scene with the woman on the houseboat, it's like . . . this is a SPIELBERG MOVIE?

SPOILERBERG

i haven't seen munich either. i should watch it.

i couldn't bring myself to watch where to find nike shoes america what a country airport movie either. big meets perfect strangers.

definitely not the latter

xp That's Born on the Fourth of July, yeah?

i couldn't bring myself to watch where to find nike shoes america what a country airport movie either. big meets perfect strangers.

― scott seward, Thursday, July 5, 2012 11:25 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/13682440-421/tom-cruise-katie-holmes-reach-a-settlement-in-divorce-case.html

damage contrlolz

Cruise missile: dodged.

http://oi49.tinypic.com/35aolxw.jpg

jann wenner choosing sides

I thought that screamed "EUNUCH!

Trashed! Katie Holmes and Suri's Car Sideswiped by Garbage Truck

http://www.theonion.com/articles/katie-holmes-glad-she-can-finally-practice-sciento,28780/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gRmhw8z73

couldn't physically make myself get through to even hear him speak

love tom walmart!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0gRmhw8z73w

WHY DOES OBLIVION NICK SO MUCH FROM MOON AND MASS EFFECT?!?!!?!?!?