We’ve known for months that absolutely nothing was wrong with Valkyrie, and now we’re just a few days away from watching this tiny independent feature storm the box office, redeem United Artists as a production entity and make Tom Cruise a respectable household name again.
Of course, there is the slight problem: he’s portraying Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who may have disagreed with the party politics, but still rocked the swastika and straight salute. How exactly did Cruise, one of the great symbols of the “Blockbuster Film” and American culture, wind up so perfectly suited as a crippled, over-zealous Nazi embroiled in conspiracy? We’ve excavated evidence from his filmography to track the transformation.
How to craft a Varietybox office trend story: line up your greatest hits of disingenuous statements from past stories (Juno–the little movie that could! Cloverfield dropped 68% in its second weekend, but that’s not so bad–even if it wasreally 72%!); find either wildly optimistic or severely apocalyptic structuring rubric to make these old chestnuts seem, uh, less old; repeat.
Speaking of Cloverfield, Paramount, apparently turning a blind eye to the film’s lack of staying power, has offered director Matt Reeves two new jobs, including a Cloverfield sequel. He’ll also direct The Invisible Woman, “a Hitchcock-style thriller that probes the mind of a former beauty queen who turns to a life of crime to protect her family,” from his own script.
Paul Haggis is setting up a production shingle at Tom Cruise’s Scientology rec center studio, United Artists.
Jesus Christ –– or, Xenu? (And is that a valid Scrabulous word? The mind reels…)
If you’re one of the 85,039 hippest people in the universe (as of this writing), you’ve probably already seen the Defamer-hosted, Tom Cruise-starring Scientology indoctrination video. But if you haven’t … enjoy! We’re en route to Park City and our “real” content will be in short supply until Friday.
Despite what Stephen Colbert says in the video above, Will Smith has not confirmed that he’s a Scientologist (nor has he denied it, of course). All that happened was that, according to the Daily News, Will Smith distributed cards promoting the Church of Scientology personality tests. Now, that may sound like Smith is attempting to recruit people, which isn’t something that a non-member would necessarily do, but the I Am Legendstar has only so far claimed to be a “student of world religion” and has only really proven himself to be a good friend to Tom Cruise and a non-committed supporter of this particular religion (including donating thousands of dollars to Scientology programs).
So if Scientology is but one of the many world religions Smith is a fan of, where is the news that he’s handing out bibles and other religious promotional materials? Well, even if he was doing that, the news would still highlight this event because of how the media treats Scientology. Actually, I’m surprised the story hasn’t been covered more widely than it has been. Could it be that the media companies don’t want such potentially career-damaging news to be covered because they depend on Smith to save their Hollywood-centered butts? After all, Smith is currently the second biggest movie star in terms of box office gross, and it would be a shame if he suddenly became the sort of box office poison that Tom Cruise is now considered to be.
Cruise’s lawyer and close confidante Bert Fields gave a rare interview to The Mail on Sunday to pour scorn on Morton’s book, titled Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography.
He criticised a passage in which Morton claims some “fanatical” Scientologists believed Suri Cruise was actually the result of a sperm donation by Scientology’s dead founder, L. Ron Hubbard.
Morton writes that Ms Holmes may feel she was in “the horror movie Rosemary’s Baby, in which an unsuspecting young woman is impregnated with the Devil’s child”.
Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that this actually happened: Tom Cruise actually had Katie Holmes impregnated, without her knowledge or consent, with L. Ron Hubbard’s sperm. Is Morton a bit fuzzy on the plot of Rosemary’s Baby, or did L. Ron actually come back from the dead and handle the job himself? Or both? I can’t find the actual conception scene from the film online, but maybe the original trailer will help us puzzle it out.
Steven Boone has published an a-ma-zing interview with film critic Armond White. There’s almost too much good stuff here; at one point, White deflates Boone’s theory that digital video has allowed filmmaking to transition from “aristocratic medium…to one where poor people make films.” White says: “Poor people don’t make films. They’ve got other things to do.” Also, check out Boone’s companion piece at The House Next Door: Ten Armond White Quotes That Shook The World.
“What if this guy got you pregnant? Basically an over aged hippy who ended up with a woman far, far hotter than he could ever have hoped for.” Dennis Kucinich as Seth Rogen’s character from Knocked Up, and other 2008 Presidential Candidates as 2007 Movie Characters.
David Hudson has the first round of competition titles for the Berlin Film Festival. Included: Errol Morris’ S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure, and my favorite English-language film of the year thus far, There Will Be Blood.
Kate Coe has found a new twist in the Theresa Duncan vs. Scientology story: Apparently, sometime Scientologist Beck told an Italian newspaper that he was starring in Duncan’s Alice in Wonderland-inspired film, years before he told Vanity Fair that he had never even talked to Duncan about being in the project. The VF article theorizes that Beck’s withdrawl from the project led it to fall apart, which led Duncan to the depression that led to her suicide.
A few updates on the death of Theresa Duncan/disappearance of Jeremy Blake: The L.A. Times is reporting that a fisherman has found a partially-decomposed body off the coast of Sea Grit, NJ; the Asbury Park Press says police believe it might be Blake, but they’re trying to track down the artist’s dental records to confirm.
Also of note: in this L.A. Times story from yesterday, Chris Lee probes Duncan’s assertion that she and Blake had been stalked/harassed by Scientologists ever since Blake worked on Beck’s Sea Change record in 2004. Blogger John Stodder takes issue with Lee’s story: “This is a hit piece, disguised by the language of compassion. The Times’ speculative implications are completely meritless. The fact is, we don’t know their mental state, and because the police say they aren’t looking into the Scientology/harassment angle, we can assume they didn’t see evidence to justify a connection. Keep in mind the police have seen both suicide notes.”
Stodder also links to a few posts by Ron Rosenbaum about all this. Rosenbaum was apparently a dedicated reader of Duncan’s blog, and in a post dated July 21, he explains that he’s not content to let the matter lie with the New York Times:
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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How to craft a Variety box office trend story: line up your greatest hits of disingenuous statements from past stories (Juno–the little movie that could! Cloverfield dropped 68% in its second weekend, but that’s not so bad–even if it was really 72%!); find either wildly optimistic or severely apocalyptic structuring rubric to make these old chestnuts seem, uh, less old; repeat.
Steven Boone has published 
