The seas haven't been smooth for used-to-be-totally-loved shortie Tom Cruise. Lions for Lambs didn't help his career commercially, and Valkyrie continues to have problems, so of course, thoughts would turn to his popular fluff fare. There have been some rumors about Mission: Impossible 4, and according to Slashfilm, an insider has told Life & Style Magazine: "Tom will make M:I 4 once Paramount greenlights the script. There will most definitely be another Mission: Impossible!"

This could be pure rumor just as much as fact, but I imagine it's true. There's only so long Cruise can stay relevant in the tabloids unless he gets back on track professionally, or jumps on some more couches. But I wonder if it could, or will, be a hit. Excitement has moved to other franchises, and while number three still brought in some cash, it's gross was under the money pulled in by the first two.

So, the question becomes: What could Paramount do to make this film relevant, other than re-starting the franchise with a new actor? Should this be a story about passing the torch? Is there a way to make people visit the film in bigger hordes? Should Tom Cruise give up, or is there a different franchise that might help his career?

Just when you thought you've seen it all ... okay, I'm not even gonna go there. Scientology! But anyway, Connor Cruise, Tom Cruise's 13-year-old adopted son, has landed a role in Will Smith's new flick Seven Pounds, where he'll be playing a younger version of Smith in a minor, non-speaking part. For those who aren't up to speed on Cruise and all his kids, you might be kinda looking sideways at your computer right now. "Did he say Cruise's kid is going to play a younger version of Will Smith?" Fear not, my illinformed friends, they're not taking a page from the Tropic Thunder playbook; oh no, see, Cruise's son Connor is adopted and he is of the same color as Mr. Smith. Phew. (Sit down Al, I didn't say anything wrong or offensive.)

The film, which also stars Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson and Barry Pepper, and is directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness), follows the story of a man (Smith) who affects the lives of seven strangers. It's a drama. There are no crazy special effects. And, yes, it comes out this December -- which, cross your shiny, manicured little fingers, means Smith will be listening for a knock on his door from Mr. Oscar come February. Seriously, though, I love Will Smith. I cannot think of a performance from him that I did not enjoy (performance, not movie -- stop smiling I, Robot, you're not off the hook yet), which is something I rarely say about an actor or an actress. Will Smith is like a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day, no matter which film he's starring in. Guy always finds a way to leave you feeling all warm and toasty inside. Mmmm ...

While it may have had an all-star cast boasting the likes of Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise, Lions for Lambs appeared without a splash. In fact, it hit audiences with a dull and disappointing thud. Honestly, that partially surprises me, partially doesn't, and partially disappoints me. The film is by no means a masterpiece, nor is it a powerful and hard-hitting political thriller, action film, or drama. However, it does pack a punch against apathy and disinterest, and does so with a passionate and measured hand.

The film focuses on three main interactions – the journalist (Streep) and the politician (Cruise), the professor (Redford) and the student (Andrew Garfield), and the two soldiers and old friends (Michael Pena and Derek Luke), who are in Afghanistan. Each character provides a face to an aspect of today's current war-filled society -- one that brings it out of abstract thought and the printed word.

What in the world is going on now? Valkyrie (recently criticized by Fox's Roger Friedman, who said the film "is set up for not only failure, but ridicule") has just shifted release dates yet again (according to The Hollywood Reporter); this time moving from October 2008 to President's Day Weekend 2009. You might remember that the flick was originally supposed to hit theaters this June, before the first release date shift was made. Some claimed MGM and United Artists were moving the film to the fall in order to line up for possible Oscar consideration. Could all of this early negative talk have convinced them to, instead, target one of the first big holiday weekends of 2009?

Seems like a pretty good decision to me. With everyone trashing Tom Cruise for his non-existent German accent and silly eye patch, there was pretty much no way this film was going to be taken seriously come Oscar time. The cast definitely rocks -- no doubt there -- but if Lions for Lambs proved anything, it's that you should not release a Tom Cruise film in the middle of Oscar season unless it's Thanksgiving Weekend and we're talking Mission Impossible 4. Valkyrie will now go up against a new Friday the 13th film and Confessions of a Shopaholic. Clark Woods, president of domestic distribution, had this to say: "When an opening became available for President's Day Weekend, we seized the opportunity. Moving into a big holiday weekend is the right move."

Let's hope there's still a right move to be made...

So for starters, the newest photos from Valkyrie manage to make Tom Cruise look a lot more dashing. Good thing, too, because the only other photo release prompted a flurry of cheap shots aimed at everybody's favorite tabloid whipping boy. Empire now has three new studio stills from Bryan Singer's historical drama about the infamous July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler. Joining Cruise are Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard and Terrence Stamp. There are also some extra shots in the newsstand edition of Empire this month, along with an interview with Singer.

Cruise stars as German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. In 1944, Stauffenberg along with other high-ranking officers in the Nazi party attempted to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Stauffenberg and his crew attempted to kill Hitler with a bomb planted in a briefcase. Obviously they failed, and the key players were rounded up almost immediately. By 1945, most of the men involved had committed suicide or had been executed in a variety of nasty ways.

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

I'm delighted by today's news that UA is apparently pleased enough with what they've seen of Valkyrie that they've signed screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie to a first look deal. The Usual Suspects is one of my favorite films -- the kind of film that will make me overlook a guy not doing anything of note for the next ten to twelve years of his career -- and what little I've heard about Valkyrie so far has put it at the top of my must-see list for 2008. It's got Carice van Houten, for starters, which should be enough to get anyone into the multiplex. The actual terms of McQuarrie's deal are known only to him and United Artists COO Xenu, but The Hollywood Reporter's writeup says that there are currently "several projects under discussion." One of them, we know, will not be the Alexander the Great biopic that McQuarrie spent much time on, only to be beaten to the punch by Oliver Stone's worst movie ever, and yes, I've seen U-Turn and it's great by comparison.

McQuarrie is currently prepping The Stanford Prison Experiment, a film based on a famous behavioral study conducted at Stanford in the 70s in which students had to play the roles of guards and prisoners and things got out of hands. For some reason, this doesn't really ring my bell -- I can't see how it will work as a sensible movie -- but one thing I love about McQuarrie is his fascination with history and I'm crossing my fingers that he'll use this deal to get his John Wilkes Booth screenplay into the development cycle immediately. What little I know of the script is that people who read it a couple of years ago were floored by it and that its development seemed to follow the same trajectory as the Alexander script -- it was written, it was tossed around and toyed with by some A-list actors and then dropped because of competition concerns. But unless it's flown under my radar, I don't know of any competing Booth film that has made it to the filming stage, so why not do it now? And seriously, raise your hand if you'd rather see McQuarrie's John Wilkes Booth biopic than Steven Spielberg's Lincoln biopic. Just like I thought -- every hand in the room.

After all of the shocking and sad news yesterday, there's nothing like a refreshing laugh, or 50. I've enjoyed many of the Funny or Die shorts that have popped up, but this one is pure gold. This time around, Jerry O'Connell spoofs Tom Cruise's creepy Scientology video -- you know, the one Patrick Walsh blogged about, where Tommy reveals that he, and other Scientologists, are like an EMT/Jaws of Life combo for terrible accidents. (Oh, how I'd love to hear WHY.)

After watching this clip, my appreciation for the former Slider has increased exponentially. I could type away and share some of the jokes Jerry includes in this clip, but it's better to just see it for yourself. Suffice to say, if there is ever a Tom Cruise biopic, I want O'Connell to star. Enjoy!

Hoo boy. Hoooooo boy. Check out this video of Tom Cruise aggressively preaching the merits of Scientology while the Mission: Impossible theme plays. It is very real, and you need to see it. Like, now. Let's just say the dude's even more into this than we thought. As Gawker (who's also hosting a clip) writes, "If Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch was an 8 on the scale of scary, this is a 10." Apparently, the video has been privately shared between reporters investigating Cruise's ties to the religion, although no writers have gone public with it for fear of lawsuits by the Scientologists. Until now. It's out there, baby.

I would check the video out quickly. Gawker claims they are not removing the clip, regardless of what pressure they get, but a lot of similar Youtube and Google videos have been put up and quickly taken down in the past week. The one we have up now hasn't been taken down, so get to it fast! The video is nearly ten minutes of pure Cruise intensity and oddness, undiluted by publicists and cover-ups. I did a little research while watching it, as I didn't know what some of the terms meant. When he says "org," he means "organizations," "KSW" is a policy letter used to "Keep Scientology Working," and "SP" is Scientology code for a "Suppressive Person." The video's most chilling moment follows Cruise's question, "Have you ever met an SP?" when that blood-curdling, hollow laugh kicks in. Remember Cruise's "Respect the c**k, tame the c**t" monologues in Magnolia? This is like that, only disturbingly real. But maybe I'm just being "glib."

Well, well ... seems the scales may finally be tipping in the WGA's favor here. First the fall of the Golden Globes, and then the news that Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists were making a side deal with the WGA similar to the deal struck earlier with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants. Now the Weinsteins, according to this story in the New York Post, are also close to making a "me too" deal, and Deadline Hollywood Daily is also tossing out rumors of Lionsgate and Lucasfilm coming around.

Neither Cruise nor the Weinsteins are stupid; making independent deals with the WGA can only give them a huge advantage over the major studios, and the more the independents strike deals, the more like arrogant assholes rich guys the moguls look. And you've gotta love any deal that makes Tom Cruise and the Weinsteins look like the nicest guys in the room, right?

It seems as though the WGAs strategy of making deals with the independent studios might not have been such a bad idea after all ... could this signal the beginning of the end of the writer's strike? Stay tuned ...

In honor of that impending deal Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists might be making with the WGA, allowing them to be the first Hollywood studio to bring writers back to work since the strike began, we figured it would be best to dig up an old Tom Cruise clip to share with you on this fine, fine day. But when looking for an old school Cruise clip that best celebrates this occasion, there was really only one place to go: 1983's Risky Business. You won't see Tommy gettin' down like he does here anymore; in fact, some of his more classic (and memorable) scenes involve the guy singing along to music -- having fun -- but he stopped all that nonsense long ago. Ah, but the clips still survive. Yay for us!

Some interesting tidbits about Risky Business: In this scene, Cruise improvised the entire dance. All it said in the script was that Joel needed to "dance to rock music." So yes, those are his moves ... and his moves only. Other folks we almost saw in this role include Tom Hanks and Nicolas Cage; both of whom auditioned for the part. Timothy Hutton was offered the role, but he passed. Thankfully, because it was this movie -- and, in some ways, this scene -- that flung Tommy Cruise into the spotlight. Good luck on your deal with the WGA, Mr. Cruise, and here's hoping you'll be doing a little dance like this once all the papers are signed.

Some major major news on the strike front seems to be leaking out today, with an official announcement expected to come at some point tomorrow (according to Deadline Hollywood). Looks like United Artists (aka the movie studio run by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner) is in the process of inking a deal with the WGA that's very similar to the one they made with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants. Said deal, if it goes through, would allow United Artists to work with writers on whatever upcoming projects they have planned, making them the first such studio allowed to do this since the strike began. Damn. Score one for Tommy Boy! It's not yet known which films will take advantage of this interim deal right off the bat, but we do know that Oliver Stone's Pinkville was recently postponed due to problems with the script. Chances are, with the cast for that flick already in place, it will be one of the first delayed productions to be back in business. Of course, this is all subject to the deal actually going through.

On the other hand, United Artists could get right to work on a literary property they just optioned for seven figures. While all this interim agreement talk continues, The Hollywood Reporter tells us UA has optioned the film rights to Ranger's Apprentice, a fantasy series written by Australian author John Flanagan. According to HR, it "follows the adventures of an orphan boy named Will who becomes an apprentice ranger and fights to keep the mythical kingdom of Araluen safe from invaders, traitors and other dangers with the help of his master Halt." Yup, that sounds like just about every fantasy series being optioned these days, but what's even more interesting is that writer-director Paul Haggis was in talks to adapt and direct at one point before the strike happened and halted those discussions. Haggis doing big-budget fantasy? Bit of a stretch if you ask me -- what do you think?

No, Tom Cruise won't be starring in the new version of Frank Herbert's Dune, but it sure does look like Peter Berg is going to be one busy director over the next few years. According to an informative report over at the MTV Movies Blog, we now know that Berg's next projects are:

1. A spy thriller with Tom Cruise that has a "great" script (aka Edwin A. Salt, which we reported on the other day).

2. A "big, big, big" big-screen rendition of Dune, which was made into a feature film by David Lynch back in 1984, as well as a collection of well-received cable mini-series.

When asked about "remaking" a film made by the illustrious David Lynch, the director was more than diplomatic: "Berg said that while he's "a big fan of Lynch," he believes "that interpretation has left the door wide open for a remake."

So that's good news for Berg, obviously. Tom Cruise and a massive sci-fi epic back-to-back. Not too shabby for the kid who once starred in Wes Craven's goofy Shocker. And while Berg's resumé as a character actor might be a little choppy, there's little denying that he's a solid director: His films include Very Bad Things, The Rundown, Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom. That's what we call 4-for-4. Well, I do.

While zipping through my RSS feeds this week, I found a blurb from In Style, via CNN. With the title "The world according to Katie Holmes," I couldn't resist. What followed was a word association game that shared her thoughts on a bunch of brief, personal topics like her work, marriage, fashion, and age. Between listing one of her roles of a lifetime as being a wife, making many marriage references, and talking about what husband Tom Cruise likes to see her wear, I started to muse about the good old days.

Remember when she was just starting out and lived for herself? When her main interest in life wasn't the fact that she nabbed Mr. Cruise? How about when Tom was wowing audiences everywhere instead of being the tabloid face of Scientology? It seems like a million lifetimes ago that Holmes was a big up-and-coming actress, and Tom was the uber-awesome, megastar actor that everyone loved. In memory of those days, I thought it would be nice to throw a couple great flicks into the DVD player that captured their great, successful, and gossip rag-free early days.

The Ice Storm



Before popping up in Dawson's Creek, Katie Holmes was Libbets Casey, a wild schoolgirl in the '70s who makes Paul Hood's (Tobey Maguire) Thanksgiving all sorts of memorable in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. My favorite of Ang's films, Storm stars one heck of a cast -- Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Maguire, and Elijah Wood. Instead of the regular thanks and turkey gluttony, the film deals with two families who struggle for happiness and a road out of romantic disillusionment -- all in a '70s backdrop of changing times and political lies.

But Kate comes into play outside of the family dynamic. Libbets is the object of Paul's affection, but he has to battle his paramour-stealing friend Francis (David Krumholtz) for her attentions. While her role is brief, it looked to be the start of something good. Of course, some of the work that followed couldn't even be classified anything but stinkeriffic, but still -- there's some good ones like this wonderful first role, Go, and of course, her next film with Tobey -- Wonder Boys.

Unfortunately, while you can find a few trillion billion TomKat videos up on YouTube, no one has reveled in Libbets love yet. So, here's a selection of other goodies from the movie, and some retro Katie action for good measure.

Charlie Rose Interview -- Ang Lee, Rick Moody, James Schamus

Clips set to the song "Santa Clara"

Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, and where to store your gum when making out.

Katie Holmes sings I Hate Myself for Loving You

Katie on Speed in Go -- Ignore the Dubbing

The release dates, they are a-changing! Universal just moved the release of the action flick Wanted, which stars Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy, from March to June 27th, 2008. That June release date was also held by Pixar's new one, WALL-E, and the Tom Cruise "Hitler assassination plot" flick -- Valkyrie. According to Coming Soon, Valkyrie has officially budged (though I think it would have absolutely crushed Wanted and it's courting a different audience than Wall-E). United Artists will now release the film on October 3rd of 2008 -- a date also held by less intense competition -- Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Guy Ritchie's Gerald Butler drama RocknRolla.

Valkyrie is directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Nathan Alexander. Tom Cruise has become everyone's favorite punching bag lately, and reaction to the trailer, particularly Cruise's lack of a German accent, was pretty hostile. (Although probably not as hostile as it would have been had he...attempted a German accent!) But the plot sounds awesome, Singer is a great director (Superman Returns aside), and it's got a hell of a cast -- including Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Fry, Eddie lzzard, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, and Black Book's stunning Carice Van Houton. How bad could it be? It's got to be better than Wanted -- have you seen the trailer for that thing? Haven't I seen that movie, oh, a thousand times already?