Just before watching Tom Cruise play a hotshot GOP senator in Lions for Lambs last night (my review will be in the next NR; it will not be favorable), I caught the trailer for Valkyrie, in which Tom Cruise plays Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader of the famous plot to kill Hitler. I would say that it looks a lot like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, with Cruise taking over the Kevin Costner, "woefully miscast American" role, except that Prince of Thieves was a dreadful movie in myriad other ways as well, whereas Valkyrie looks like it could have been pretty awesome ... if they'd found somebody else to play the lead, that is. To be fair, Cruise does look a little bit like the heroic colonel. But if the trailer is any guide, he'll be about as convincing in the role as - well, as you'd expect:
Comments (27)
To be fair, Cruise does act pretty well from time to time, as opposed to Costner. And Valkyrie looks totally awesome.
Lt. Kaffee, what are you doing in that silly Nazi getup?
Tom Cruise is a nut but probably his acting is in the upper quintile of Hollywood action heroes.
I've frequently heard Tom Cruise compared to Rock Hudson, which sounds about right to me. Handsome, generally likable, not an actor of great range but a perfectly serviceable actor in mainstream Hollywood fare. He's been enormously successful as an action hero, and (prior to his Oprah fiasco) was one of the few truly bankable stars in the movie biz.
So you wonder... why is a guy who could be making "Mission Impossible 7" (and raking in tens of millions) appearing in a preachy anti-war click that even the Daily Kos crowd won't have any interest in seeing?
It goes to show, no matter how rich or successful a performer is, he's never truly happy until he's ADMIRED by the Hollywood Left. Why else would a Jim Carrey (who could get a $25 million paycheck for making another Ace Ventura sequel) appear in a stinker like "The Majestic"?
I didn't realize that "wishing Hitler had been killed early" was a leftist view.
Oh how cool that movie would be with Christian Bale or Guy Pearce playing the lead role. Or even Jude Law.
Brittain- you really think Cruise made "Lions for Lambs" because it had "box office blockbuster" written all over it?
Sorry, I thought you were calling Valkyrie the preachy anti-war flick.
astorian said:
Why else would a Jim Carrey (who could get a $25 million paycheck for making another Ace Ventura sequel) appear in a stinker like "The Majestic"?
Um, because he wanted to be known as a good actor, not strictly as a comedian. Haven't you seen any of Carrey's movies* lately? What does that have to do with the "Hollywood Left" ?
Also, I don't think the reasons you stated are why Tom Cruise is compared to Rock Hudson. Just sayin'.
*Not that I've seen them, they've all looked pretty rank. But you know what I mean.
It seems to me the problem is that everyone else in the movie has a British accent, highlighting Cruise as "the American." But obviously the Brits are just as un-German as American Cruise -- they just make him seem out of place.
I grant you he's still playing the same Tom Cruise character he always gives us, but the contrast in accents just accentuates that fact.
Wow, Ross didn't like Lions for Lambs. I'm shocked, shocked. I keep wishing he'd like a movie that doesn't pander to his politics, but I'm usually disappointed.
I think it gets at once again the flaws in the complaint about liberal Hollywood. It's no more correct or incorrect to criticize a movie because you don't like its politics than to praise it because you do. Ross tends to think that saying something has a liberal perspective amounts to a criticism in and of itself. (Here's an example.) The problem with attacking bias or politicization in an artistic work is that eventually you always just run up against your own subjectivity. An argument that a movie is too political or too biased is really a charge that the creators of the movie don't share the critics politics. You can't discuss that sort of things without eventually bumping into "what you think is wrong, and that influences the movie".
Anyway. I would just love for a movie with a perceptibly liberal viewpoint to come out and Ross really enjoy it, or at least not sneer like he does at Haggis (a filmmaker I really dislike, by the way.)
I think he starred in Lions for Lambs because he assumed critics would lay off of him for a movie with Meryl Streep and Redford, and that it would bring back some credibility.
Get real, Woody- "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "The Truman Show" are the work of a guy looking to branch out. "The Majestic" is the work of a guy trying to ingratiate himself with the Hollywood Left by making yet another unwatchable movie attacking the McCarthy era.
Or possibly "The Majestic" is the work of a guy looking to branch out, who isn't quite sharp enough to understand why "Eternal Sunshine" and "The Truman Show" are smart, engaging movies and "The Majestic" isn't. Especially given that he had to base his decision on an early draft of the screenplay without seeing the finished product, for obvious reasons.
It's crazy to suggest this, I know, but not everything in Hollywood happens as a result of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Sometimes human beings make bad decisions, and sometimes they make decisions based on different criteria than we would use if we were in their shoes.
Careful, astoria - is that the Liberal Hollywood Conspiracy hiding under your bed? Boo!
Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like not all that long ago that McCarthyism was pretty much universally looked upon as a bad, distasteful thing. I guess that's out the window now that the Right Wing History Rewrite Project is in full swing (see the 'Reagan in Philadelphia' thread for more!). Maybe Ann Coulter will write a Joe McCarthy biopic and set us all straight. I bet you'd find that imminently watchable.
Well, maybe I'm wrong- maybe there were lines around the block to see "The Front." Maybe "Guilty By Suspicion" quietly raked in 500 million bucks. Maybe "The Majestic" was a smash hit on DVD. Maybe "For the Boys" flew under the radar and grossed a ton.
But I suspect not. Which makes you wonder why Hollywood keeps cranking out movies about the McCarthy era when it's pretty clear nobody wants to pay to see them.
Anyway. I would just love for a movie with a perceptibly liberal viewpoint to come out and Ross really enjoy it, or at least not sneer like he does at Haggis (a filmmaker I really dislike, by the way.)
Ask and you shall receive (at least, you'll receive "at least not sneer"; maybe not "really enjoy it"):
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/michael_clayton_1.php
I think it's fair to call that "a movie with a perceptibly liberal viewpoint" that Ross enjoyed, even if he didn't enjoy it without caveats.
'The Front' was pretty good, I thought. And when I saw "Good Night, and Good Luck." - hey, you forgot that one! - there indeed was a line around the block. There's a character in the original "The Manchurian Candidate" who's based on McCarthy - that's a pretty good film, too. And are we counting "The Crucible," too? That's good stuff.
But I see that I'm arguing with someone who thinks that 1) movies should only be judged by their box office, 2) a blacklist movie roughly once every decade constitutes "cranking out movies about the McCarthy era," and possibly 3) McCarthy has gotten a bad rap (?).
And hey, don't forget the Seinfeld episode where Elaine dates a communist and inadvertently gets him 'blacklisted' from his favorite Chinese restaurant. That must have really had you steaming mad!
On a Tom Cruise-related, as opposed to political, note: Cruise's performance here, judging by the trailer, doesn't seem nearly bad enough to wreck a good movie.
Maybe it helps that the character he’s playing was an unusually handsome, rich, and dashing son of one of Germany’s most famous aristocratic families. That means the whole, “Hey, he looks and acts more like a movie star than a German officer” thing doesn’t really matter as much, because the real Stauffenberg may have stood out among his peers in the same way (for example, my first thought was that Cruise is way too young to be believable as a Wehrmacht colonel, but Cruise is 45 and the real Stauffenberg never saw 37 [SPOILER ALERT: Hitler wins this round!).
Just because Hitler's the bad guy here doesn't mean the movie can't operate effectively as a thriller in which Tom Cruise plays a version of the standard Tom Cruise hero. Leaving aside his personal foibles and his limited range, I think Cruise is a decent actor with a gift for winning over the audience even when his character is under-written/unsympathetic/annoying. So he might be a good choice to play a charismatic and moral man who nonetheless sympathized with some of the less-savory ambitions of the Nazi regime (Germanizing Poland, for example).
Also, Stauffenberg was a golden boy who was maimed while serving his country--he lost an eye, a hand, and several of his remaining fingers in combat. There would be a certain amount of power in seeing a big screen hero like Cruise brought low in that way (again, that assumes his screen persona has survived his recent forays into... weirdness).
I think it's fair to call that "a movie with a perceptibly liberal viewpoint" that Ross enjoyed, even if he didn't enjoy it without caveats.
A fair point.
"The Manchurian Candidate" was an utter stiff at the box office, too.
So again, I have to wonder, why does Hollywood keep churning out movies that nobody wants to see?
Look, Rupert Murdoch loses a ton of money by keeping unpopular newspapers going in New York and Boston. Why? It's pretty obvious, isn't it? He wants to have an outlet for his political views in America's most important cities, and he's willing to waste part of his fortune to do so. But nobody should delude himself that the New York Post is a thriving concern.
Similarly, if Hollywood's big shots are HAPPY to lose money by backing left-wing conspiracy movies, well, they have a right to do so. But let's not pretend that making "Lions for Lambs" was a sound business decision. It wasn't. It had "preachy, boring, expensive flop" written all over it.
So, why did so many big stars want to be involved? Why did Tom Cruise want to produce it?
And why would the money men green light it?
Either they ENJOY losing money, or they're trying to curry favor with somebody.
Astorian, in arguing that Hollywood only deviates from the blockbuster/profit-maximizing model in order to disseminate propoganda and "curry favor" you must do at least two things:
Demonstrate that "The Manchurian Candidate", "The Front", "Farenheit 9-11" and the whatever lost money.
And then:
Explain why it is major studios make movies that are neither overtly political nor Blockbuster-esque (that is to say, 70% of the movies actually made).
Having done that you'll be well on your way to enlarging an obvious fact--that all things being equal Hollywood types are largely liberal and prefer making liberal "presitge" spiel over the "conservative" variety (whatever that would be)--into the full-blown conspiracy theory you're currently bandying.
Good luck.
When/where did I suggest that "Fahrenheit 9/11" didn't make money? It made what would have been a VERY respectable total for a summer sci-fi click and cost virtually nothing to make. It was HUGELY successful... but then, it was made on s shoestring budget and there was no risk of it losing a fortune.
"Lions For Lambs" was diffferent. It has a large cast of well-known, highly paid actors. Same with "The Manchurian Candidate." Same with "In the Valley of Elah."
So, either these actors willingly worked cheap (which makes you wonder why) or else the "suits" were willing to subsidize them to make a movie that wasn't going to make any profit (which should ALSO make you wonder why).
Similarly, if Hollywood's big shots are HAPPY to lose money by backing left-wing conspiracy movies, well, they have a right to do so. But let's not pretend that making "Lions for Lambs" was a sound business decision.
A film like Lions for Lambs typically makes most of its money in DVD sales and rentals, which now accounts for 60% of direct revenues for most films.
"An argument that a movie is too political or too biased is really a charge that the creators of the movie don't share the critics politics."
The argument against left-wing bias in movies is not that a given movie is left-wing. It is that ALL politically-based Hollywood movies are left-wing. So any criticism of a given movie's left-wing bias comes from the context that that movie is YET ANOTHER left-wing movie. It's "Oh no, here we go again."
Your point would make sense if Hollywood made both right-wing and left-wing movies. Alas, it does not.
I had no trust or faith that the leadership clear to the top would make the right decisions, however I completely trusted the guys serving next to me. I often felt we were being led by lambs…had Lions been leading the military, I would have reenlisted, instead I chose not to.
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Damn. I didn't think the trailer for Lions for Lambs looked very good, but I thought Tom Cruise looked very believable in the scenes shown with Meryl Streep. Guess not.
Posted by Sam | November 9, 2007 9:45 AM