Posts Tagged ‘Tom Cruise’
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I think the title for today’s strip is quite possibly the biggest groaner in 6-plus years of Theater Hopper. It’s delicious. I love it.
I was thinking about The Day The Earth Stood Still and the quote I took from Owen Gliberman’s review from Entertainment Weekly that I grabbed last week. Y’know, the one about how Keanu Reeves “seems to be trying to wriggle out of the charge that he’s a flat actor by acting flat on purpose.”
The more I got to thinking about it, the more I decided that it was kind of an unfair stigma. I mean, there are plenty of actors who only have one or two moves and audiences love them for it. Maybe Reeves inate sense of distance is something that makes him unknowable to some audiences – and that makes him interesting or sexy. There are dozens of different reasons why people gravitate toward one actor and not another.
Look at my interest in Will Ferrell. Some people might find that inconcievable. And, truthfully, I can see it from their perspective. He plays a lot of the same roles, he does a lot of the same tricks. But, for me, it’s all about his line delivery. Earlier this year in Step Brothers when he’s burying John C. Reily and states simply, “I’m burying you!” just the emphasis he puts on “burying” puts me in stitches every time.
I’m weird.
I didn’t see TDTESS this weekend. I couldn’t bring myself to it. The whole movie looks big, dumb and loud. Reviews didn’t help, either. Especially those that claimed it was heavy-handed.
TDTESS is the THIRD movie I can think of off the top of my head in recent months that has promoted some kind of environmental message or made eco-terrorists the bad guys. First it was Quantum of Solace, then it was Transporter 3. Now (instead of nuclear proliferation), Reeves as the alien ambassador Klaatu has come to warn the human race to clean up the environment… or else! It turns out WE’RE the villains! *GASP!*
What I really wanted to see this weekend was Milk, but Cami and I didn’t get the chance. I’m bummed because I think we’re going to be talking about it on The Triple Feature tonight and I really wanted to participate. Gordon saw it last week and was chomping at the bit to talk about it. I’ve seen him posting across social networking sites all last week chatting it up, so I know he’s ready to go. My birthday is on Sunday. Maybe we can snare a babysitter this weekend and check it out then.
Until then, don’t forget to tune in to The Triple Feature tonight and do my best to either moderate or keep up. As always, we record live at 9:00 PM CST. Be there and ask questions in real-time. Or, if you have a Skype connection and a microphone, call us yourself and ask it!
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you here on Wednesday!
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Originally I was going to do a comic about San Diego Comic-Con. But at this point, I think if I read one more tweet, blog post or status update about Panel “X” or Celebrity Sighting “Y” I’m going to scream.
Good job, internet. You’ve covered San Diego Comic-Con so thoroughly I have no interest in talking about it with anyone else.
Salt hit theaters this weekend and raked in $36 million at the box office. Certainly a very respectable opening. But the big story is that Inception only slid 31% in its second week, earning $43 million in ticket sales. For a cerebral thriller like Inception to have that kind of staying power in its second week is a testament to how good the film is and how strong word of mouth was.
The reviews for Salt have been 50/50. Critical reaction to Knight and Day was practically the same.
This kind of surprised me because I don’t know anyone who saw Knight and Day. Meanwhile, I have several friends that went to see Salt and raved about it. I’d had heard it favorably compared to The Bourne Supremacy and films of that ilk This left me with the assumption that Cruise picked the wrong horse.
I suppose the only way to be sure is to wait around a couple of weeks and see if anyone is still talking about Salt. Although, if it couldn’t unseat Inception in its second week, I find the prospects of that unlikely.
Then again, with Dinner for Schmucks, Charlie St. Cloud and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore as Salt’s only competition this weekend, maybe it’s got a chance!
What do you guys think? Did you see Salt this weekend? Was it any good? How many of you went back for a second helping of Inception? Leave your comments below!
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According to All Headline News, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are boycotting the Oscars this year because they were offended by co-host Anne Hathaway’s impersonation of Holmes when she hosted Saturday Night Live in November.
Quote All Headline News:
A source told the Daily mail, “Tom and Katie don’t want to cross paths with Anne. They used to be friends and took Anne to a Tina Turner concert in 2008 when Anne split up from her boyfriend Raffaello Follieri.”
“Katie feels they were really supportive at a difficult time so she feels let down that Anne took to national TV to make fun of her.”
“Anne didn’t even warn her it was going to be on TV.”
If you missed the sketch in question, Hulu still has it up on their site:
Personally, I thought the impersonation was fairly accurate and I remember it being well-received when reviews of Hathaway’s turn as host came in.
This leaves me to wonder, “Exactly how thin-skinned are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes?” Considering the rest of the world now thinks of Katie Holmes as some kind of brainwashed Stepford Wife, Hathaway’s impersonation of her was fairly tame. To me, it came of as much more playful – almost affectionate.
If nothing else, this raises Hathaway’s cool-quotient in my book by, like, a million points. Pissing off Tom Cruise for fun and profit? WIN!
What’s your take?
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Yesterday the trailer for Rock of Ages came out and I was sufficiently underwhelmed. I pretty much tuned out the minute the title card read “From the director of Hairspray.” That is, unless their talking about John Waters.
Spoiler Alert: They’re not.
I know the appeal of Rock of Ages is supposed to rest on the car crash appeal of watching Tom Cruise slum it a little bit. He rarely does comedy, so it should be fun to watch him flail around for a bit, right?
Let me tell you right now that I saw a touring production of Rock of Ages earlier this year and it is easily the most mindless two hours I’ve ever spent in a theater. Basically, it was a bunch of singers and dancers performing in a show FAR below their ability, singing karaoke versions of Whitesnake songs.
Don’t get me wrong. I love that music. But that’s not a show. There’s no story here. If I’m going to sit through a “musical,” I want at least ONE original song, ‘kay?
By the way, what the hell is going on with that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” / “We Built This City On Rock and Roll” mash-up at the end. More importantly, why the hell is “We Built This City” showing up in so many trailers this year? It was in the first trailer for The Muppets as well.
It’s even on the soundtrack.
Don’t most intelligent people consider “We Built This City” to be one of the worst recorded songs ever? Blender and VH1 did in 2004. A 2011 readers poll in Rolling Stone concluded the same thing. Evidently Bernie Taupin is blackmailing Warner Bros. and Disney executives with some rather incriminating information.
What’s your reaction to Rock of Ages? Fun-time musical or limp noodle nostalgia trip? Leave your comments below!
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I was having a little bit of trouble coming up with an idea for the Top Web Comics voting incentive sketch for today. So I kept it pretty simple and just drew a picture of Tom Cruise. It’s a little wonky, but not too bad for 5 minutes at the drawing table. Vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics to check it out.
Before I get into today’s comic, let me just take a moment to talk about last week’s comic. I was worried that it was a little too dark and gruesome, but you guys proved me wrong. Support for last week’s Chipmunks comic was phenomenal. You guys did a great job sharing the comic on Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon and the result was one of Theater Hopper’s HIGHEST traffic days in MONTHS.
Not only was last week’s comic one of the most shared and visited on the site, it was also the HIGHEST RATED comic on the site.
I don’t know if you guys have seen it, but there’s those little stars between the comic and the blog post that you can use to let me know how much you like or dislike that week’s comics. As of this writing, there were 49 votes and an average rating of 9.89 out of 10. That, like, NEVER happens. That’s pretty much like 48 people giving the comic ten stars and one guy giving it one star. Crazy-unheard of.
I’m sure the ranking of the comic will flatten over time. But it was just another indicator of how well that comic connected with you guys and I appreciate it. I guess I didn’t realize there was so much latent Chipmunk hate out there! Thanks again!
As for this week’s comic, it started out as something completely different. I abstained from seeing Mission: Impossible 3 because I was feeling very much anti-Tom Cruise at the time. I kind of regret that now as several friends have told me that M:I 3 was very, very good. I should have know this because Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in it. So… duh.
I suppose there’s nothing keeping me from seeing it now except for time and availability. If Netflix offered it through streaming, I probably would have seen it by now. Alas, that’s not the case.
At any rate, the comic was basically going to be about how I was planning on seeing Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but how Tom Cruise was the absolute LAST reason I was seeing it.
And that’s true.
For me, the primary reason to go is to see how director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant) handled his transition from animation to live action. That doesn’t happen very often – if at all. I guess I can’t think of a lot of animators who have made that leap, can you?
Bird has a very action-oriented style to begin with and he also has a cynical sense of humor. I wanted to see how much of that could be infused into the Mission: Impossible franchise.
Probably the SECOND reason for me to see Ghost Protocol is for the preview footage they’re showing of The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. We’re luck enough to have an IMAX theater in town and they’re showing it. That’s a big draw for me.
From there, I’m interested in seeing Jermey Renner and Simon Pegg. Tom Cruise falls somewhere below that. Really, if you’re the 5th most important reason to see a movie, does it matter where you actually rank? Probably not.
Look – I want to like Tom Cruise again. He’s got a lot of charisma and he generally picks good projects. But somewhere along the line, his enthusiasm and intensity wore me out. Tom Cruise will be 50 years-old next year. FIFTY! Anyone who acts like Tom Cruise does at 50 is either in gross denial or is running away from something. Maybe if I have millions of dollars to insulate myself from reality, I’d see life more like Tom Cruise sees it. But as of right now, it’s clear to me we’re not sharing the same planet.
I guess the thing that trips me out about the M:I franchise the most is that they’ve been making these films since 1996. That’s nearly 20 years. In some ways, it’s a very unlikely franchise that seems to propagate itself purely on Tom Cruise’s ambition to prove that he can still do his own stunts.
If Cruise had opted out after the first or even the second movie, they might have continued making cheesy direct-to-DVD flicks or maybe even rebooted it again completely by now. But when you start talking about an action franchise that’s approaching the 20 year-mark, you’re talking about James Bond-level longevity. Is it any wonder that Jeremy Renner is being groomed to take over for Tom Cruise after he leaves?
Follow the money, people. Follow the money.
That’s all I have for this week. Next week’s comic might be delayed due to the Christmas holiday. I’ll try to work in advance, but you know how that usually goes.
In the meantime, thanks for your continued support. If you liked today’s comic and want to share it with your network, don’t forget the ShareThis buttons below the blog post. You can use them to share this comic with friends through Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon or even e-mail!
If you have any comments about Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, be sure to leave them below. I’m curious if anyone saw it in IMAX this weekend and what they thought of The Dark Knight Rises footage? C’mon! Spill!
Until then, have a safe and happy holiday! See you next week!
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