Tom Cruise is the Greatest Auteur Slut of Our Time
What keeps Tom Cruise relevant after 30 years in Hollywood? Take this hint from his Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird: "You look at the directors he's worked with [...] It's a who's who. Scorsese and Kubrick and Spielberg and Oliver Stone -- when Oliver Stone was making better movies -- and Michael Mann and Sydney Pollack and on and on and on. It's kind of stunning. Not every one of them was a great movie, but he's worked with great directors over and over again, and you can engage him in those conversations." Or Paul Thomas Anderson. Or Ridley Scott. Or Brian De Palma. Or John Woo. Or Neil Jordan. Isn't Quentin Tarantino hiring at the moment? Let's make that happen. [LAT]
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DiCaprio is next in line. Cameron, Danny Boyle, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lurhmann, Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, Christopher Nolan, Clint Eastwood, and Tarantino. And many more to come.
Nicholson beats them both.
Kubrick, Scorsese, Antonini, Polanski, Huston, Ashby, Payne, Burton, (Dr.) George Miller, Rafelson, Nichols, James L. Brooks, Forman, Beatty, Sean Penn, Arthur Penn, Hopper...
How the mighty have fallen: Episode 5. Cruise was directed by Coppola in The Outsiders, which was only his third film.
And even the second tier of directors he has worked with is mighty impressive; Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Tony Scott and Cameron Crowe.
I think the real insight here has been missed. Clearly this is a continuity of victims of Tom Cruise having used his OT level 7 taste-draining vampirism (it's in the manual.) Before Tom = Godfather. After Tom = Jack. Bryan Singer has been bed-ridden for months, locked into his room at night by his personal assistants to keep him from sleepwalking towards the gates of the Scientology Celebrity Centre. And his next film is called Jack.... the Giant Killer. Hmmm...
HEEE! It's pretty scary how many A-list directors have hired him with his limited ability. But it actually means little. A-list directors want massive audiences too, and at the time they made films with Cruise, he could deliver audiences. Not anymore. So I wouldn't expect anyone with the desire to have a large audience hiring him.
What about his ex-wife? Nobody beats her:
Philipp Noyce, Tony Scott, Robert Benton, Ron Howard, Van Sant, Jane Campion, Kubrick, Luhrmann, Amenabar, Lars von Trier, Daldry, Hirschbiegel, Minghella, Glazer, Pollack, Shainberg, Baumbach, J.C.Mitchell and upcoming projects with Park Chan-wook, Philipp Kaufman and Lee Daniels.
Mimi Rogers was in all those movies?
Well, it's true, and lets not forget Kubrick. He was terrific in Eyes Wide Shut.
Let's all forget Eyes Wide Shut.
If you compare it to music, Tom Cruise is like a charismatic songbird approached by top composers