There’s an LA Times story this morning about how Paramount has promoted Apatow-com Drillbit Taylor around the fact that star Owen Wilson has done no interviews, in fear of having to answer questions about last summer’s suicide attempt. Instead of talking to reporters, Wilson taped “Drillbit-themed introductions to Fox’s Sunday-night prime-time lineup.” If there are three steps to managing a celebrity scandal––denial, confirmation, confession––the Wilson camp has chosen to remain mired in Step 1 for going on seven months, a stunning and curious feat in the era of confession as commodity.

After enumerating a number of projects fatally wounded by the unsavory off-hours activity of their stars, LAT writers John Horn and Gina Piccalo note in the last paragraph that Nine Months, the Hugh Grant film that was released just two weeks after the star was caught with a prostitute, grossed $70 million––according to this chart, more than Dumb and Dumber, Bad Boys or Babe, all of which spawned sequels.  The Hugh Grant scandal seems to represent a turning point in spin: by appearing on any show that would have him the day before his movie’s premiere and talking about the hooker incident directly and self-mockingly,  Grant was able to completely deflate the issue, successfully turning confession into commercial.

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Young girl with problems writes song about said problems; song becomes major international hit, thus putting girl in situations that feed those same problems; girl hits rock bottom one month before major awards show and a big, public deal is made of getting her help for the problems she said she didn’t need help with in the song; shy and contrite but somehow still aggressive, girl performs the now-mythic song on said awards show; almost immediately thereafter, she is told via television monitor that she’s won a major award for the same song; over the course of a few seconds on live television, she falls apart, asks for help and then miraculously and brilliantly regains her composure––thus essentially reenacting the above cycle in a compressed space; girl is welcomed, problems or not, back into the embrace of semi-polite mainstream culture.

I’ve expressed my doubts about the media event that is Amy Winehouse before. I don’t deny that the girl has been photographed in some bad situations, but the whole crack video to rehab to Grammy triumph trajectory just seems a little contrived, a little too perfect a story of celebrity redemption. But whether her much-documented problems have been exaggerated, or even underplayed, there’s no denying the power of the clip above as an exclamation point on the end of this narrative. Just those few moments where she appears to be taking in the news of her Record of the Year win via the satellite monitor, and her face cracks and her hands grip for something that isn’t there––this is Judy Garland stuff. You can’t make that shit up.

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As political polemic and as entertainment, Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs is mostly unsuccessful, but as a statement of purpose on behalf of its co-star and executive producer, Tom Cruise, it’s mildly fascinating. Through sheer force of star power, Cruise manages to temporarily hijack this lumpy lecture, and turn it into a battle cry against the corporate media that both built and destroyed him.

You probably don’t need to be reminded that Cruise has had a rough couple of years, culminating in the announcement in November 2006 that he and long-time producing partner Paula Wagner had signed a deal to resurrect MGM’s dormant United Artists. Some saw this as a savvy move for both Cruise and MGM: disappointing box office on Mission Impossible: 3 aside, there’s still no one on the planet with Cruise’s international name-and-face recognition, and as he proved with War of the Worlds, which made $65 million in its first weekend just a scant month after the couch jumping incident, the guy can open the right project regardless of what’s going on in his personal life. But skeptics (myself included) wondered if MGM was just throwing Cruise a bone—if they weren’t doing anything with UA anyway, was handing the brand over really a sure sign of confidence?

The guy had—has–something to prove. With his career at the crossroads, the choice of Lions For Lambs as the vehicle to drive him over the hump is not an immediately logical one. It’s worth noting that Cruise didn’t go looking for politically relevant story to tell—Redford signed on to direct the script, and then called Cruise, looking to cast him. And I may get permanently disinvited from Sundance for saying this, but I’m not sure if Redford fully knew what he was getting into.

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