After two asinine outings, Tom Cruise finally figured out how to get a Mission: Impossible to work. There’s an actual story–the viewer’s engagement with the plot doesn’t revolve around one’s appreciation of Tom Cruise and his frequent grin. The difference is in Cruise himself. He’s no longer charming the women aged twelve to fifty-two in […]
Entries Tagged as 'Tom Cruise'
Mission: Impossible III (2006, J.J. Abrams)
February 18th, 2009 · No Comments
Tagged: Alex Kurtzman· Billy Crudup· Bruce Geller· J.J. Abrams· Laurence Fishburne· Paramount Pictures· Philip Seymour Hoffman· Roberto Orci· Tom Cruise· Ving Rhames· ★★
Valkyrie (2008, Bryan Singer)
December 30th, 2008 · No Comments
For Valkyrie to work, Bryan Singer needs to get–give or take–five minutes when the viewer isn’t entirely sure Adolf Hitler wasn’t assassinated. The entire premise of watching a film, a historically-based film, where the conclusion is well-known and suspending disbelief… he needs five minutes. Maybe the trick is casting Tom Cruise as a German. By […]
Tagged: Bill Nighy· Bryan Singer· Christopher McQuarrie· Kenneth Branagh· Michael Sheen· Nathan Alexander· Tom Cruise· Tom Wilkinson· United Artists· ★★½
Risky Business (1983, Paul Brickman), the director’s cut
November 18th, 2008 · No Comments
There are three things I want to discuss about Risky Business (there isn’t room to cover the fourth, why Tom Cruise is so excellent in this film then mostly terrible for the next twelve years). The subjects are director’s cuts, teen movies and this film’s portrayal of women. All three are somewhat interconnected and maybe […]
Tagged: Joe Pantoliano· Paul Brickman· The Geffen Company· Tom Cruise· ★★★★
Lions for Lambs (2007, Robert Redford)
October 27th, 2008 · No Comments
Hopefully, Lions for Lambs will be the most topical film ever made. Hopefully. In fifteen years, hopefully it won’t make any sense. It probably will.
As a dramatic narrative, it’s pretty limp. Most of the scenes with the big three are dialogue scenes, written by someone not incompetent but without much gift for it. It’s a […]
Tagged: Kevin Dunn· Matthew Michael Carnahan· Meryl Streep· Robert Redford· Tom Cruise· United Artists· ★
Collateral (2004, Michael Mann)
July 9th, 2007 · No Comments
I actually had to go do some IMDb research (that bastion of scholarly data) before I started this post, because I had to know if Michael Mann intentionally made a movie starring Tom Cruise, with a reasonable Hollywood budget, and intentionally shot it to look like an episode of “Cops.” And he did. He wanted […]
Tagged: DreamWorks Pictures· Mark Ruffalo· Michael Mann· Stuart Beattie· Tom Cruise· ★½



