Cinema Sunday
So, Tom Cruise's remake of War of the Worlds comes out at the end of the month. Is that why he's dating a "Dawson's Creek" teen, jumping on couches, and telling clinically depressed people to avoid taking anti-depressants. You know, to get people excited about the movie?
In case you haven't been following the Hollywood gossip, here's a brief recap of the Tom Cruise meltdown, courtesy of the London Free Press:
Tom cruisin' for a reputation bruisin'
Hollywood is wondering if Tom Cruise has gone bonkers over both his Scientology beliefs and new girlfriend Katie Holmes. In addition to leaping about on Oprah's couch professing his love for Katie, he's also converting her to the controversial religion of Scientology. Additionally, Tom is reportedly preaching Scientology on movie sets. He gave the cast and crew of War of the Worlds plaques setting out his strange Scientology beliefs: "Never need praise, approval or sympathy; Never fear to hurt another in a just cause," and "Don't desire to be liked or admired." Meanwhile, it's said Tom and Katie, who now attend Hollywood events on his motorcycle, with him in black leathers, will soon be married in a Scientology ceremony.
PREDICTION: Tom's weirdness is going to hurt his career; studios become wary of his cult preaching.
Per the LA Times, Tom suggests the journalists take a introductory class on Scientology before they interview him. LAT also provides a quote from Tom's "Acess Hollywood" spot: "You have to understand that with psychiatry, there is no science behind it, and to pretend that there is a science behind it is criminal." There is, of course, lots of science behind the Scientology claim that it can cure mental illness through driving out the dead aliens that are clogging up your brain.
And here's more on Tom's Scientology-inspired beliefs on psychiatry via a recent interview he gave to Entertainment Weekly (the link is AOL-only -- but if you ARE an AOL subscriber, you can also read this EW article about "Manos, the Hands of Fate").
Your comments about antidepressants on Access Hollywood — do you think going after Brooke Shields for her book about postpartum depression might have made the argument a little too personal?
It's not a matter of making it personal. I care about Brooke. I want to see her do well. I think she's really talented. But she's misinformed. And, you know, from that Access Hollywood interview, I've gotten over 154,000 responses from people thanking me. You should see some of the letters I get. People go for help but their lives don't get better because of these drugs. They get worse. They feel numb and they're told that's a good thing. It's becoming like Huxley's Brave New World. It's like what the English did to China with opium [in the 19th century]. How is this different? It's how you degrade a society — by drugging the piss out of it.
Yeah, but Scientology textbooks sometimes refer to psychiatry as a ''Nazi science''...
Well, look at the history. Jung was an editor for the Nazi papers during World War II. [According to Aryeh Maidenbaum, the director of the New York Center for Jungian Studies, this is not true.] Look at the experimentation the Nazis did with electric shock and drugging. Look at the drug methadone. That was originally called Adolophine. It was named after Adolf Hitler... [According to the Dictionary of Drugs and Medications, among other sources, this is an urban legend.]
So, watch for Tom's next movie to be a remake of Marathon Man, this time featuring Josef Mengele torturing the protagonist (Tom) by giving him Adolophine, and subjecting him to psychoanalysis instead of the dentist's drill ("Babe, you loved your mother and hated your father --- now tell me, is it safe?") And then Fu Manchu shows up with a plan to dump Prozac in New York's water supply. And somewhere in there, Tom is forced to take Soma, and have recreational sex with a pneumatic babe (Angelina Jolie).
But anyway, let's look at a movie from the time when Tom was just a simple hick NASCAR driver who found true love (but not the really great kind of true love that he would find later in life) with a teenage neurosurgeon. Yes, it was a long time ago, and yet even back then, Tom was older than little Katie Holmes is today. I guess it all goes to show you that Tom never should fired his publicist and replaced her with his sister.
(BTW, this review is by Scott C., who liked the movie so much that he moved right accross the street from a Scientology Center, to be closer to his hero.)
DAYS OF THUNDER (1990)
Directed by Tony Scott
Screenplay by Robert Towne; story by Towne and Tom Cruise
Well, we’re in for 107 minutes of NASCAR, so let’s get into the spirit of the thing, shall we? Put on that denim baseball cap with the Confederate stars-and-bars patch sewn on the front, Polident your partial upper, and chug down a 64-ounce waxed paper cup full of flat, body temperature Budweiser. There.
Gentlemen...Start your movie!
We’re at Daytona, where Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is whizzing around in his little car, laughing as other drivers crash. Cut to a farm in South North Carolina, where Randy Quaid tries to convince Robert Duvall to build him a race car, while Robert attempts to run Randy over with a tractor and spray his crushed skull with liquid fertilizer. Neither one is succeeding.
Randy and Robert show up at the track, to meet and evaluate Randy’s new driver, Tom Cruise. Tom has no experience driving stock cars, and will have to prove himself to a skeptical NASCAR establishment by demonstrating how handsome he is. Tom is aided in this task by the director, who casts a lot of weird-faced hillbilly types in the supporting roles.
Robert agrees to build a car for Tom, and quickly leaves to go have a Flashdance-like welding montage with his crew of greasy, unattractive crackers.
Thirty seconds later, the car is finished, and we’re in the middle of a race, where Henry: Portrait of a Bumper Car Operator proceeds to ram repeatedly into Tom’s rear end, expressing some deep-seated urge that only Freud could figure out. Robert tells Tom that Henry’s only "rubbing" him, and adds, "Rubbing is racing." So apparently, every weekday the Tokyo subway system is packed with NASCAR drivers.
Tom wins his first race and gets drunk. He reveals that dad was a con man who disgraced the family name, and Tom’s trying to redeem himself and find a new father figure, which makes Robert shift uncomfortably in his seat, and furtively eye the exit. Meanwhile, Tom seeks to heal the child within by having sex with a hooker while the drunken pit crew looks on.
In our next race, Tom and Henry crash, and are airlifted to Supermodel Memorial Hospital, where Tom is placed in the car of Dr. Nicole Kidman. Nicole is a distinguished neurosurgeon, even though she hasn’t had her first period yet, and makes the Candy Stripers look wizened.
Now the movie becomes a delightful romp, as Tom mistakes Nicole for a prostitute. During the examination of his brain, he puts her hand on his stick shift, but she’s repulsed and leaves (Nicole was absent from medical school the day they covered the stick shift). Tom, feeling unloved, splays on the bed in his revealing hospital gown, with his legs spread to the camera. Out in the lobby, the concession stand reports a sudden drop in hot dog sales.
Tom is released, and asks Nicole for a date as she’s getting into her car. She declines, while discreetly attempting to slam his penis in the door. Instead, Tom winds up going out on a date with Henry: Portrait of a Rebound Relationship.
Eventually, Nicole realizes that if she wants any additional screen time, she’s going to have to date Tom. So she cuts cheerleader practice and flies down South, where she flings the little fellow into a wall and sexes him up.
The director cuts away rather quickly from this scene, so they go visit Henry, and watch him pass out. It’s now obvious that Henry isn’t handsome enough to provide Tom with sufficient competition on the racetrack, so they bring in Cary Elwes, while Nicole must break the sad news that he is now Henry: Portrait of a Subdural Hematoma.
Meanwhile, Tom has lost his nerve, and freaks out during a race when Cary bumps him. He responds by chasing a taxi in his rental car, while Nicole panics and loses her fake American accent. Afterwards, she gives Tom the Big Speech about Courage, Denial, and To Thine Own Self Be True. She ends by saying, "Go to hell, you (unintelligible) son-of-a-bitch! You made me sound like a doctor!" But this is unfair, since he actually made her sound like an out-of-her-depth actress playing Polonius as a hot Australian teenager.
Tom, inspired by Nicole’s nearly incomprehensible speech, tells Henry that his brain is leaking, and he ought to get that looked at, so it’s back to Supermodel Memorial.
Meanwhile, Randy fires Tom and hires Cary, when he realizes that blondes have more fun. Henry asks Tom to drive his car at Daytona. Cary is sponsored by Hardees. Tom is sponsored by MelloYello. If they crash, they’re going to produce a fairly disgusting Meal Deal.
Finally, the Big Race is on. As the cars roar around the track, Tom’s face becomes caked with oil and grease, until he looks like Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer; however, his teeth remain startlingly white. In the stands, meanwhile, exhaust fumes mix with the smell of menthol cigarettes and gardenia-scented toilet water.
When you look at all this, it makes you proud to be an American. Oh sure, we have to import oil from the Mid-East, musicals from Great Britain, and ingenues from Australia; but when it comes to Circus Maximus-style spectacles designed to stupefy the tobacco-chewing proletariat, the United States is entirely self-sufficient.
3:13:16 AM 
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