Is ‘Digger’ the Tom Cruise Movie We’ve Been Waiting For? Plus: Our Top 10 Tom Cruise Performances.

I'm Sean Fennese.

I'm Amanda Davin.

And this is the Big Picture A Conversation Show about Digger.

Today on the show we are digging into Digger the new apocalyptic comedy from Alejandro González

in a re-to-starring Tom Cruise.

Long time listeners of this show know that we have been fascinated by Cruise and have

longed for him to return to dramatic parts in original stories.

We finally got our wish with this movie, which is likely to be among the most divisive

of the year.

Amanda and I will talk about the film's grasp at relevance and satire.

It's decorated cast and the unique storytelling approach it takes.

Then we will get into our Cruise bag by sharing each of our ten favorites of his performances.

Digger is as big a Cruise acting showcase as we're likely going to get for the foreseeable

future and so we'll also take a look at yet another very crowded and star-laden best

actor race.

We'll get into it all right after this.

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OK.

This is probably the least amount of information that we've ever shared with one another.

Yes.

About a movie in the history of this show.

I did not even open the outline.

You gave me the bullet points of the rubrics.

Yes.

You know the run of show today.

I know they're on a show.

You gave me the option.

We were talking about it outside with friends.

We've talked about it around each other with other people, but have not shared anything.

I think part of that, for me at least, we're saving it for the show.

Part of this show is going to be me trying to figure out how I feel.

I said last week or earlier this week that I've just been all over the place day to day

in how I think about this film and what I think works and what I think don't work.

Let me just say right now, not a masterpiece.

Yeah.

Not a five star.

Not my favorite film of the year.

And what?

So digger, not a masterpiece.

Digger, not a masterpiece.

You want to do a chiron in the booth, shirt?

I'm not a masterpiece.

I'm not a masterpiece.

Not a masterpiece.

I do feel confident in saying no matter where I net out on good or bad or worthwhile or the

biggest embarrassment to hit Warner Brothers since the last embarrassment.

This is one of the most annoying movies I've ever seen.

I found the experience so irritating.

And the movie knows that I will find it irritating and anticipates that.

And sometimes I think it anticipates in a clever way and I want to give it credit.

But then I think about it and I don't want to give it credit.

I'm not really sure.

I can't tell whether I liked the fact that it was annoying or not.

But that is the two things you can say is not a masterpiece.

Okay.

And the most annoying movie.

You just jump right into it.

I haven't even had no details about the movie here.

Sorry.

I was just kidding.

I was just kidding.

You wanted to launch it.

We've been waiting.

We haven't talked about it.

That's it.

Okay.

That is a testimony, I think, to some of the urgency of the, maybe not the material, but the

circumstances of the movie.

Yeah.

And the fact that it is the kind of thing that we've been waiting a very long time for.

And so it kind of demands a feeling.

I'll give it just a few bullet points before I share some of my thoughts.

It is directed, producing co-written by Innery II, co-written with Alexander Dinalaris,

Nicholas Chacabone, and Sabina Berman.

These are all people he's worked with before on screenplays.

It's shot by Immanuel Lovesky Chivo.

This is a return for Chivo to Innery II film.

They took some time off on Bardo.

Music is by Cosmo Sheldrake, in addition to Cruz, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hewler,

Michael Stullbar, Robert John Burke, Emma Darcy.

Sophie Wilde and Jesse Plemons appear in the film.

It is about the most powerful man in the world, an oil tycoon named Digger Rockwell.

Racing to proof he can be humanity's savior before the disaster that he has unleashed

destroys everything.

I liked this movie.

I have significant reservations about it.

Yeah.

And I do identify somewhat with the, I'm not sure that I found this movie irritating,

but I certainly saw it attempting to provoke me and to kind of nudge me in the ribs pretty

frequently.

And whether or not it's unpleasantness is a feature or a bug is, I think, part of a

wider conversation about Innery II in general.

Yeah.

That there is something very knowing about his bombacity and his willingness to say,

I'm rubbing your face in it, deal with it.

I frequently dislike that in the films.

This film has an antidote to that, which is Tom Cruise.

It does have Tom Cruise doing something we've not seen him do in a very long time, if

ever.

And so I think I ultimately come out on the movie as mixed positive.

I've only seen it once and it was a week ago.

And I've been reading some of the reviews this morning and people have got their knives

out for this movie, which I find really interesting.

And that has not typically been the case for Innery II in the first wave of reaction for

most of his films, all the way up to Bardot.

And I don't see this as like a hateable disastrous nightmare of a movie at all.

I think there are some things about it that are fascinating, some things about it that

are really well drawn and executed.

There are also some things about it that are so solipsistic and obvious and frustrating

yes, that it's very hard to just throw my heart into it because it's not that kind

of a movie.

But I'm happy it exists.

I'm happy that I saw it.

I want to see it again.

It is interesting.

And I have been thinking about it and been going up and down in how I feel about it.

I think my initial reaction was it's really, really annoying and I think I like it because

it does anticipate it is intentionally provoking and you know, the showmanship of any

Innery II film is very purposeful and very directed in this film in a way that is cheeky

but also does know what you're going to respond to and is trying to bring the audience along

about.

It's like very self-involved film which all films are in their own way.

It's just that this is self-involved in a need to retuse that which means that it is

incredibly fussy.

And it is often like very remedial.

And the writing and the hey, this is the point and this is what we're trying to do here

is very, very on the nose and in your face as you said.

But it does have a couple tricks up at sleep.

It has Tom Cruise and even the Tom Cruise performance is very interesting and he gets

some opportunities to do what our friends, our friend who we're just talking with thinks

he's doing.

You know, he is in full, old makeup prosthetics doing like the Texas voice with an animatronic

cat.

And then there are a couple times in the movie where I was like, oh, and sometimes because

he was unlocking some larger version of the bombastic performance and sometimes because

he was the Tom Cruise that I remember from 1993 and we're marks for that.

So I think there's one more phase in his performance that we really haven't seen before either,

which we can talk about when we get deeper into the story too that is fascinating.

And look, we're just big fans of Cruise.

I think we acknowledge that he's a very strange guy, you know, and that time seems maniacal

and his extracurricular activities are often frequently upsetting.

But as a screen presence, I think he's one of the most fascinating people that's ever

appeared in movies.

I love watching him in movies.

I have really enjoyed the mission impossible era while acknowledging it's been fairly

one note in terms of what it's asking of him.

And we fell in love with him in the 90s watching him go to extremes and a lot of different

kinds of movies with a lot of different kinds of filmmakers.

This movie actually asks him to do many things that he really hasn't done before.

He has done prosthetics before.

He has done accent work, but he has not done them in quite this way.

Maybe we should talk about what the movie is first, at least on the surface.

And then we can talk about what it is when we get into spoiler territory.

Yeah, which we're going to do.

We have to do it to have a proper conversation about that.

And I know there are going to be a lot of lucky loose who just want to know what we think

about this and start the episode.

And I'm begging you to, if you're that curious, stop now.

See the movie.

Maybe you'll be mad at us, but at least you can then listen to the rest of the conversation.

I would encourage people to watch the film because this is a risk taking mainstream studio

movie with a big movie.

Sorry.

And I'm I ask for this on every episode.

Like if I if I'm not actually saying there's some value to this, then I would be a hypocrite.

It doesn't mean make the movie perfect.

It doesn't even make it great, but it does make it once again, not a masterpiece.

Not a masterpiece.

Now, I think it's worthy of people's time.

And they can come to their own conclusions.

But the movie does begin as what it looks like in the trailers, which is a very outsized

Dr. Strangelove-esque mad cap satire about a wealthy oil baron who's got a drilling project

in Greenland.

And his his project we learn via video call leads to glacier displacement and ice shelves

that we soon learn will threaten areas of northern Europe.

And this is, you know, potentially putting millions of lives in danger.

And so it sends this man who is essentially living alone with his servants and his, his

animatronic cat into a kind of a tizzy.

And we learn that this man who is this very powerful baron is actually more powerful even

than the US government, you know, that he's able to call meetings in his private home that

everyone kind of bends the knee to him, that the president asks him, well, what would

you do, Digger?

And he uses this power as an opportunity to, I think like maybe live his truth in a very

strange way.

That's that's shaded by something underneath the surface of the movie that we won't get

to yet.

But the movie doesn't really turn specifically to like what the US government is going

to do about it.

It turns to what Digger and the US government is going to do about this crisis.

And it really stays in his perspective the entire time.

And it shows us that I think you use the word remedial and I think that's right.

There's something very simplistic about this component of the movie, the satire of the

movie.

That's just like billionaires run the world.

Yeah.

And they're vain glorious assholes.

And every decision they make is about their own ego and their own desire to win and conquer,

which is the kind of sentiment that I think we've shared on this show before.

But I'm not sure needs to have an entire two hour Fantasia devoted to it.

And so and it is played.

As you said, it starts with him alone with this animatronic cat and he is doing, you

know, the tropic thunder style performance at the beginning and in classic and retufaction.

It's a very like designed stylized apartment with once again, an animatronic cat and the

cameras are moving just so everything is very controlled specific.

And as the characters start coming in, it is incredibly heightened and it's it's satire

that is beyond satire.

Like they're they're trying to be funny and the it's very like they're high on their

own supply.

Essentially is the way that they're doing the performance and it's broad and you can

understand what they're doing.

But it's not it's not sophisticated in any way.

You're like, oh, this is you guys are all really, really at 15 and this is everyone's

trying to hard.

Yes.

I think about 20 minutes since the movie, you start asking yourself like, well, is this

just kind of a swing and a miss at a Kubrickian or Terry Gillian style movie where you've got

a huge idea and in order to execute that idea, you need these really outsized performances

and you need this lavish production design and this sense of like, it's almost like a

hyper world because you're living inside of a billionaire's castle and then the movie

does shift.

Yeah.

And I think I mean, do you want to speak about the shift now?

I mean, I it's about 20 to 30 minutes into the movie and most of what I've described

is what happens in the film all the way up until that point.

So if you don't want to know anything else about this movie, as Amanda said, you should

go out and check it out.

The tricky thing about this is that not a lot of people are going to see this movie.

Yeah, it's not really tracking to do well.

And it's not at all commercial.

Yeah, it's just not.

It's not.

And yet there's something kind of fascinating about it.

So, you know, apologies to Jack Sanders who hasn't seen this film and now is putting ear

muffs on.

Yeah.

He's trying to leave the room.

We see you.

Okay, Jack.

Go.

Go.

Yeah.

The idea of this big meeting of the president and generals and the vice president and Digger

and Riz Ahmed who plays the sort of head of his environmental group that oversees whether

or not catastrophes will be happening on rock on the rock.

And Sans Dracooler, his sister is there yelling loudly about how she is he's ruining her,

you know, environmental startup.

Yes, her alternative energy company.

Watch a sequence in which the president played by Goodman and Cruz is Digger are looking

out onto a completely constructed facade that looks like a view out his back window.

And all of a sudden a tree falls over and a large man appears in the background and it becomes

clear that this is a set.

It's a constructed set.

This is a constructed world.

This constructed world is actually a very expensively mounted play and that the play is a

play about a real life man named Digger Rockwell and that Tom Cruz is playing Digger Rockwell

and also an actor playing Digger Rockwell.

And we get a handful of flashes throughout the film where the production, which is essentially

a rehearsal, it's a sort of day of rehearsal.

Yes, the tech rehearsal, I think.

Is a kind of dual crisis.

It's a crisis that shows us something in the world, really what's happened to the world

through the means of storytelling and also a kind of personal crisis for this actor,

which unfurls throughout the movie.

And so Cruz gets to play two different parts.

And I got to say when they revealed initially that it was a play, I was a little bit skeptical

and then as soon as we see Cruz behind the scenes, I was very engaged.

I was completely caught me by surprise and having a conversation like this on a podcast

kind of ruins that for so many people and I apologize if that's something they didn't

want to know.

But it, we did our best.

It hugely elevates the movie for me and it was fascinating to learn that this was not

the plan, that this was an idea that they came to much later, that the originally it sounds

like the film was mostly just Digger.

Okay.

But this artifice, this story underneath was developed over time.

And I think it's the, it really deflates the movie in a very special way because if

this was, if all they were trying to accomplish was billionaires will destroy the world and

were fucked.

Yeah.

That's just not a very interesting idea for a movie.

That's something we already know about.

And this second layer, I think has me kind of had my head spinning a bit about what it

is that the movie is trying to say.

And maybe it doesn't really have anything to say.

But I at least spent more time trying to unpack what it was trying to accomplish than I

ever would have if it was just, you know, this kind of Terry Gilliam in, in sheep's clothing

kind of movie, you know?

Absolutely.

No, I think that the twist is the only thing, the twist and what it allows increases performance.

The way that it allows you to think more about the way that it justifies all of the

effort that you can see in the film because they are putting on a show.

So you're like, you're fine.

If it's suddenly, if everyone suddenly like three sizes too big and everything looks

a little too hyper stylized because it is examining the process of making that in

the context of the movie.

So we like meta things.

There are going to be a lot of people who just tune out as soon as this reveal happens.

And I think in my screening, which was mostly an influencer screening, there was a lot

of what?

As soon as it happened.

But to me, it's genius because the reveal comes at the exact moment where I was ready

to write it off.

Exactly.

I was just like, well, this is like this is done.

Yes.

And I was like, can I leave, you know, like what can I accomplish in this time?

I think the movie knows that.

Yes.

Totally.

So in that sense, I want to give it credit for it.

Even though on the flips, if I think too much about that, I'm like, well, it is kind of

annoying that you're trying to set me up this way just to poke me and make me want to

not not be here anymore.

And what is even that?

What is provoking me with this like, you know, farcical idea of billionaires are bad?

Like I know, I know.

I know.

And like the earth is screwed.

Also, I know what like what is that?

Well, it's particularly during because the movie is full of jokes, but not funny.

And that's a problem.

Well, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like if the movie was just attempting to be that very broad satire, but you're not laughing,

it's kind of valueless.

Now after we get this reveal and we see, you know, Cruz's character is sort of an actor

and crisis trying to make this right.

And a kind of a subterranean component of the movie that is very important, I think, is

his kind of complex relationship with the director who's played by Sophie Wilde.

And they're pushing against each other a lot.

And there's this kind of friction about what's the right way to play this.

And it reflects our struggles with us.

We're watching it where it feels very broad and it feels not right.

It feels like it's almost not.

And I don't know if, you know, Ritu gets this.

I think this is the intention.

It almost doesn't matter ultimately.

It's how you receive it.

But that character saying, this feels off to me.

This isn't how this would happen.

Yeah.

It reflects our own sense of a theatrical reality.

When you're in the theater, you want something to feel real enough that you're swept away

and then you can accept the absurdity of it while you're inside of the story.

As opposed to it feeling like a series of paper dolls being moved around the chessboard.

And the movie does feel like that on the flip side when you go to see live theater.

The performances are bigger because they have to be louder because they're playing for

the cheap seats.

It's a different performance style.

It's not the subtlety of screen acting where a look conveys everything.

Everybody kind of is yelling at each other in a stage play in some respects.

And so I thought this totally complicated the movie in a way that I really enjoyed.

But then the movie doesn't interesting thing where it then goes back to just being

digger for a long stretch of time again.

Correct.

And it, I think it gets more interesting, but also a lot of the jokes don't hit.

And there are times where you're innovated watching it.

And you're almost waiting to know why they pulled us out of the movie.

And I was surprised by the posity of real scenes with the cruise actor.

And I'm curious like what you think about that.

I think we do it is it four times when we see him out of it, maybe five.

I couldn't count at this point.

But yeah, there's, he's in the dressing room a couple times.

He has a couple standoffs with the director.

And then sort of the final after the show wraps scene.

The other thing that it does, and I couldn't tell whether this was sloppy or really interesting.

You know, here we did the experience of watching this film.

It is.

Is that the way that it segues between the real life and the on stage, the production

is through like the backstage screens and the kind of like the live cameras of what

is on.

So sometimes you are watching the stage production on a TV screen next to, you know, Jesse

Plemons, who is one of the producers and we'll come back to him.

And then you kind of go into the camera.

So the boundaries between what you're seeing and what's real and what's on a screen and

what's on a stage are blurred.

And I guess that is purposeful.

I think it's pretty artfully done.

Yeah.

I think what it does is it rips open the can and says like, well, what's really inside

this story?

And I'm not sure that it ever totally gets us to a satisfying meal inside of the can.

But getting my brain going and being relieved that it wasn't just the movie that was

marketed to me had a real power.

And I think for some people, they may not like that reveal or it may not really have

any impact on them.

I think that that accounts for some of the negativity that you're seeing about the

movie.

I'm trying to figure out if this is a movie that feels that it's message is important,

that it's cynicism is important, that it's message about cynicism is important.

I don't quite know because the movie goes more or less where you might imagine it's going

to go.

And there's a segment in the middle of the movie that I think ultimately makes the movie

worth seeing.

Yeah.

But at the conclusion of everything, well, you're left with like something that is common

in Inari too's films, which is this sort of like, you're fucked.

What do you do about it?

You are.

There is also an element to me.

And I don't know whether that again, whether the film is aware of it or whether I just

reflected it on it.

In this movie, there is a little bit and also like, and we're all dancing while Rome

burns.

And there is something about this thing that we are doing, both the production that's within

this film, but then also this film that we're making.

Does that matter?

Has not changed the way that people think about the world, has not changed the world that

we live in.

I think the closing shots of the film and the credit sequence are some of the more, I was

again, I was surprised by them and sort of affected.

And they seem to me a signal of the film's understanding outside of it's like tiny little

jewel box in a way that I kind of want to give it credit for.

Yeah, I wonder if the idea that this kind of storytelling has emotional value.

The idea of pointing at something that has happened historically, it set us off course

as a civilization and then having some comfort in that by experiencing the grandeur and

the sadness and the absurdity of all of those things.

Right.

Does that make us feel better?

Is it a temporary self from the cast outside?

Yeah.

It is a pretty, these are grand ideas that he's going for.

I mean, he sure is going for grand ideas and a lot of times they're a little bit too obvious

to be entertaining or to be feel valuable to me.

I think the movie that it's most similar to, I know you just rewatched last night, it's

a word man, both tonally and in terms of its strident efforts to value with its very physical

kind of handmade production.

Sure.

And also production within a production.

Yeah, that's right.

And self doubt of the main character in terms of whether what this person is doing is valuable

and whether salvation can be possible for this character or for the, you know, the world

at large.

And to be sharply trained on a male actor.

Sure.

And a male actor dealing in one way or another with his past movie star successes and

there is a lot of real life meta text brought to both of these.

Yes.

What this movie means to cruise and what cruise means to this movie.

Likewise, for Michael Keaton playing a superhero some years after playing Batman, the

thing with it with Birdman, which as I've said before, I really enjoyed the first time

I watched it.

And then the second time I watched it and thought about what its targets were and what its

intentions were.

It just felt way less impactful to me was those targets are just really small.

You know, they're Hollywood, they're male fragility, they're the place of critics in our

culture.

These like very kind of modest, kind of like grudge bearing targets.

This movie's targets are way bigger than that.

Sure.

I was really taken aback on my rewatch of how much time Emma Stone's character spends

talking about what goes viral on the internet.

Yeah.

And the, just, I mean, but it is, it's like an errands

swork and level of obsession with very specific blog posts that are just, it makes it feel so

dated, so small, so petty.

And but it was funny that watching Birdman made, tipped me back on the negative side of

Digger for a little while because I was like, oh, this does have all the DNA of the things

that I don't like about, about inner retu films replicated in some of the same ways.

And again, I just find the experience and the, you know, with the particularness.

I did wonder if this is how other people feel about West Anderson movies.

I just think there's a huge difference.

To me, inner retu is constantly settling scores.

He's using his work as a way to kind of thunder back when he feels is unjust.

I don't see West Anderson doing that at all.

No, I don't.

West Anderson is just very closed off in his own roles.

In the design, they're very similar.

Yeah.

But, but it just kind of, you know, I respond to the emotionality and the ideas and West

Anderson movies so differently than I do to inner retu movies, which I agree are petty

and reductive and just, I mean, they just feel like the op-ed page of any major newspaper

yelling at me all of the time.

And I don't read op-eds for that reason.

So just really, really kept in obvious.

But some people do seem to respond to both op-ed pages and inner retu.

So I just, there is something, there is something polarizing about him in a different way.

You're right that that digger just takes on things larger than the internet.

And whether or not it's like worthy of those big swings is debatable.

Again, I'd like to see the movie again to get a better sense of how I feel about it.

The sense of surprise though that played out through the movie was was worthy to me.

And again, the reason to see the movie is that Tom Cruise is making a lot of choices in

this movie.

And there are times when he does become full.

Yeah.

There's a big centerpiece in the film.

Yeah.

And then back to digger's story where he's asked to testify essentially in front of a

large tribunal of some kind.

And when we saw the movie clips back in April, I compared it to a Roy Anderson movie.

And it looks that way with like these dusty gray white men, these kind of monochromatic

washed out backdrops and costume decisions.

And after Rizzo Med's character does what he is asked to do, which is to in public excoriate

his bosses behavior and the work that he's done in oil drilling and explains that he

is responsible for this massive ecological crisis.

Digger then enters the arena and Cruise like uncorks one.

It's just he's a great yelling actor.

He's not a subtle actor.

He never has been.

He's a showman.

He is he is he's Vince from the color of money.

He is Daniel Caffey, you know, barking back at Jack Nicholson.

He is he's maniacal Ethan Hunt, you know, and he's doing it with Jerry Jones's accent,

wearing a I guess a red velvet cowboy suit.

Sure.

Yeah.

And a hat and he delivers this speech about why he does what he does and why the world

needs him and why the world needs oil.

He is it is essentially a 10 minute version of you need me on that wall.

You want me on that wall, which I was just I thought of the same thing.

Of course we did.

And I was grinning up at the screen and listen again, it's like it's a room full of real

people not CGI people.

Yeah, though there are dummies very specifically placed throughout almost was like mocking the

idea of this tribunal totally and but so you know it's big in design and the camera is

kind of following him around and yeah, if it's if it's not one take then it's designed

to be very much.

Well, there are times where he grabs someone's phone and he starts yelling into the phone

and then we cut to the camera as though it's he's talking into it.

But there but there's just a lot of camera work and a lot of noise going on around him

Visually and aesthetically to say like this is a big thing and because it's Tom Cruise,

he just like wipes all of that out of the way and all you can do as look at him in this

ridiculous accent in full prosthetics just absolutely tearing it up.

I was grinning.

It's a great sequence.

It's a great sequence.

I can't believe this is happening and I also can't believe I'm grinning at if it

were anybody else and if you weren't bringing that it you know, I thought of Wes Anderson

again because of like the the the hack man versus Wes Anderson rail ten and bombs like

tension.

Yeah, there is something that he is dressed up in all of the like inner two stuff and

is just pure rage and Tom Cruise's humanness for the first time on screen in 15 years.

There's also something about the way that they've built us build digger up to this point

as somebody we don't quite know whether or not he's going to fall on his sword.

We don't know if he has any contrition.

We've not really seen him as that kind of a character until this point and this is actually

happening inside of this play that is called fossil fools.

And so which is stupid but also kind of funny.

And he obviously does the thing that we expect most stride and billionaires to do which

is that he in this sense of deluded grandeur not only defends himself but implicates everyone

and says you want your the things you don't these things you don't need delivered to your

house within two days.

You want to be able to use yourself on you want to be able to drive wherever you want

to go that oil is mother's milk that this is the gift that God has given us on this

planet.

And it's not persuasive because we know it's ridiculous and self-serving but he's

so committed in the part that you get you do get caught up in everything that he's

communicating and he's obviously being shouted down by the members in this of this committee

that are in the room.

And you're kind of on cruise aside and this is like a common thing that happens where

cruise you know think of cruise and magnolia playing TJ Mackey where you're like this

guy's a piece of shit.

He's also really charismatic and interesting and I kind of hope the movie goes back to

him soon.

And so again to me it's a real price of admission moment in a movie totally.

And I'm not sure that the movie ever totally like recovers from that height.

No, but on the flip side it gives you normal cruise and cruise and repose and cruise

out of the prosthetics which is what you are both literally longing for if you're a cruise

head and you're watching this movie because aside from that one you know 10 minute sequence

it can be a lot.

But it's also metaphorically what we have been yearning for for going on 20 years now

of just like I would like to see Tom Cruise be Tom Cruise again and there's this magical

wordless moment during the reveal where you know after that giant head pops out the

shot goes just like a little bit wider like so you see the margins and you see the lights

and then in silence you watch Goodman and particularly cruises bodies change and relax

and it's basically like there it is they're off they're off duty and it was kind of like

watching old Tom Cruise take over his body again and I I've viscerally reacted to it I was

just like oh there he is there is that moment and the character gets out of to the subplot

the thing that is going on below the movie is that behind the scenes in between the rehearsals

or like you know during the this tech rehearsal Tom Cruise's daughter is traveling home from

somewhere and then her plane for a while goes missing and you know and it's weather conditions

and it is indicated that the weather conditions are because of climate change and because of the

just unreliable nature of the real world impact of the story that they're telling on stage and so

he's mostly acting opposite video calls and or opposite Jesse Plemons who is the producer

who offers to try to help him find his daughter yes and so his real life character

is dealing with the consequences of what his on stage character is you know gladiating for

all the time and he is betwixt and between and also still really committed to the show which is

what's the amazing part of it so a true actor in crisis movie opening later something oh yeah

and but so he's quiet he's not uh he's not freaking out he's not screaming he is just nervous and

almost internal and again you haven't seen any internality in a cruise performance in 15 years

at the same time and he can still do it I know and and what's so amazing about it is also that he's

still in the prosthetics and they seem to do something where I mean I guess he's still fully in them

but he does look a little bit different when he's off stage I don't know what he's

described the posture well because he's relaxed then I wonder if even his face is more relaxed

he's not performing the digger hypertension right whereas you have him and he's also using a voice

that honestly we've not heard in a long time he's using a a normal speaking voice that you might

have heard in gosh what's a movie what's the last movie he made where you felt like he wasn't just

maybe a blivian maybe in some of the more quiet moments of oblivion where he's having conversations

I think you're erasing some emotional moments in top gun maverick and so am I but yes yeah but

you know there's just something about the iconography totally yeah he's reusing things rather than

finding it but just like just a single one-on-one conversation with a person where there's like a

little bit of anguish a little bit of unsuridence that is it is just nice to see from him it's a

little bit like you know applauding a dog for taking a shit outside it's like he's an actor like

he's what he should be able to do we know we can do it sure but like again we haven't seen evidence

of it and like even like recent video evidence of the man being asked direct questions he can't

use a he can't use a proper noun yeah yeah he's like it's really it's there's just not always

something that I know that's the thing is in the press he's not showing us any of this and in

movies even even the the originalish movies that he's made American made or the mummy like even in

those movies there's no the mummy being like one of the original movies that he's made is

it just real sign at the time yeah it's unfortunate um I think there's also something about the fact

that the movie was shot at Pinewood which is the legendary London studio where many bond movies were

shot where many Star Wars movies were shot where Superman films were shot but also like we're black

narcissists was shot you know that there's this great storied history of complex colorful productions

being mounted in this place and you feel it like we're backstage it is yeah a little bit of a backstage

drama when the movie is interested in portraying those moments and again I'm really grateful that they

did I'm not totally sure it feels like two thirds of one movie and one third of another movie and I'm

not sure if they're really in agreement with each other and not just because they're different

kinds of films but because of what one is saying to the other but I'm still sorting through that

feeling I don't know if there's anything else specifically about crews that you want to highlight

we should also talk about the rest of the cast yeah it's funny how I I think so highly of the

rest of the cast that I'm like well surely they wouldn't have signed on to something that was actually

just stupid in the end so there's got to be more specifically Jesse Clements and the Jesse

Clements can we talk about that the Jesse Clements scene where it is revealed that he is the real life

nephew of the digger character and he is producing this play sort of as an exorcism but really

as like imagery habillitation and we should say this is an older play it's kind of a full classic

that was made in the aftermath of the ecological disaster that actually happened on earth in

this story and that it's being revived here on this sort of anniversary almost yes and so

the the crews the real life crews character and Sophie while the director are like really coming at

heads and there's like the you know the climactic bomb dropping scene that everyone is playing

for with their version of dr. strange love on like so much cocaine and or even more cocaine I don't

know and then there's a friction about like this is this is too much this isn't real this isn't

how it would happen there's no humanity in this and the Clements character because you've kind of

wondered why Jesse Clements one of our great actors is there just kind of skulking around the movie

occasionally and looking like eager and being funny and definitely like you know sending up every

single producer he's ever seen just lurking around on set but then he comes like almost like

like a deity to like explain to everybody here is what is happening and here's why we're actually

doing this and you can't trust that character's motivations either and you can't trust his explanation

but it is sort of the Rosetta Stone of the movie and I do find myself thinking well Jesse

Clements of why I respect so much wouldn't do anything that's like ultimately really stupid so

so a lot of actors we love just stupid things all the time I know I know I know I know I know what you

mean though I mean it sends to many other actors in this cast but but I'm just sort of like so this

explanation and this kind of um you know because what it's saying is that that this is supposed to be

some sort of we're supposed to like learn from art but also that it's impossible to separate

the art from the you know the real world and the motivations of the people who are making it and

that nothing can be this like perfect ideological exploration or you know nothing can actually

save we can't save the world to art I'm sorry do you that's what his character wants because I'm

that's also a little bit foggy to me yeah it feels personally very valuable and important to him and in

fact the younger version of him figures significantly into the conclusion of the movie who's portrayed in

the play and and this does seem to be sort of like a reckoning for his family name and this but a

sort of like let's let us not forget yeah that the Rockwells did destroy the world but also there's

something sadly tragic about that that we should acknowledge but isn't the character also slightly

motivated by other aspects of it like of the family wealth or the other business like does

because Sandra Hewler is his character's mother and her company does hang on and then as

manufacturing the gas mass or something so there is something um you know politically and financially

motivated within that character which is communicated so you know I think it's ultimately like a fairly

nihilistic um whole take on it I'm not told I don't totally remember the particulars of that

character other than it seems like he's like everybody else he's compromised yeah and it's a

funny movie because it's about the struggles of the art and the artist and what the value is of

conveying these stories to us and whether they a swage us during difficult times or whether they

just make us better understand ourselves in the human condition but the movie has this that

sequence that you're describing is a director and an actor not being on the same page the situation

that I'm sure you know retus been in many times that I'm sure cruises have been in many times and

the person who solves the issue is the producer now that might actually be accurate yeah but to

dramatize that is very funny and it also kind of tells you a little something which is like the man

with the money is the decider yeah so it does have this really kind of clever

conclusionary idea yeah it's just like unfortunately this is how the world works and there's kind

of no way around it even when it comes to staging the art nevertheless they continue to put on

the show and people are moved in the at the performance right and they're plotting and they're

these very earnest tight close-ups on all their faces and then sure a warning bell goes off

and we learn that we are truly living in a post-apocalyptic environment and everyone starts putting

their gas masks on which leads to the conclusion of the film and I don't you said nihilistic I don't

is it well the other thing just speaking of it is the man with the money who saves it is the

the resolution of the the real life cruise character um it's a plotline and what happens to his

daughter which is I thought I thought this was interesting like the way that they handle which is

it's it's entwined into the actual story and so the digger character loses the the nephew character

over the side of the the boat and but in the middle he gets a phone call and and he takes it

because I guess it's a rehearsal and whatever and also you listen life life happens yeah and and

also these people are supposed to be ridiculous right they're not as they're they're not supposed to be

aspirational people so he takes the call he just says okay cruise does like it's amazing very controlled

emotional acting and then goes right back in the scene where the character is letting go of his

nephew and they finish the play you don't know the resolution of the phone call though it's

everything around you is being indicated one way and then it turns out that she's totally fine

because the billionaire producer has used his all of his money and resources to safer um and so

what's our takeaway for real life stakes and uh well it's like to to me that just undermines the

art right that it's like the the artistic stakes are you know art doesn't actually art can't say

if real life or even like really portray the stakes in the way um what's really happening here is

that just like if you if you have money you're gonna be okay and the the despair that is portrayed

near the end of the play yeah in the story maybe can't match the despair of the actual actor who's

whose family is in peril right but again the only solution is to like buy your way out of it with

the elevated technologies sure and so the movie is like kind of a cross purposes and I think it

it's unclear to me if it even knows what it is trying to convey to us it's also okay if it does not have

a conclusion that we have to absolutely understand and stand by and i it's kind of a relief to me

that it wasn't as simplistic that there wasn't someone just wasn't tom cruise standing on the stage

delivering a very obvious monologue about what it means I agree yeah the word digger falls to one

knee and expresses his regret for the minute he's done and then the curtains close and it's over um

I think the rest of the cast is poorly served by the movie agree for a very specific reason

which is that they don't really get to operate outside of the play and so you only get to see these

extremely obnoxious performance styles i think resume resume comes out the best because we get to

spend the most time with him but when he's in a group anytime there's a group activity the movie is

like kind of awful yes kind of not just thank you yeah just really annoying yeah okay and there

and they're supposed to be and that's the point yeah but you're just also like if this is bad

hang yeah and it's sort of like how do you want to spend your time is this is this valuable and

you know I make the case that in a horror film when something is really awful I'm having a good time

this wasn't the same for me I when when there's the big meeting immediately after the president is

informed of what's happening that scene is very obnoxious and not very funny you know there's a joke

about how there are no women present you know there's a woman be you know because the c-word is used

and then there are no women present everybody laughs hardily and it's like and the worst

column brothers movie of all time sure and it goes on the laugh goes on for like a long time and

that is really when you start to turn against the movie which the movie does know it is intentional

and yet there's a scene later in the film where the all of the um the president's cabinet and

digger and are all watching on a television the events transpiring when the ice shelf officially hits

northern Europe and there's mayhem we don't actually see on the screen what they're watching

but their reactions are so ridiculous and overwritten and unfunny and again like does a movie

deserve credit for knowing that this is unpleasant to watch and making something unpleasant to watch

I mean I'm not a comment on like the failure of the art and the way that the play is being staged

or not it's unclear yeah I think in the moment I didn't think it was and then when we sit

here talking about it I want to give it credit and I do think that there is intention at it and I

will say in other situations horror movies being a great example where I really don't enjoy watching

something you are often like but that is the point yeah so and that you we do you and I both try

to give films credit for creating situations that get reactions at once because that is I mean

that's definitely in a retuse uh no doubt objective in the Revenant in San Luis Paros in all his movies

so I do think that it's intentional and there's a difference though because in horror films it's

often about invention it's often about seeing something you've not seen before and being

agonized in a way that feels creative this is durational this is like we're sitting you inside of

something that's just annoying to be around yeah and that in and of itself is not a value to me

and it's hard to not hold past prejudices against him I mean and that's why when I watched

Birdman and I was like oh you really think all of this is important I do find that with digger I

want to give it a little credit for being I almost want to credit the self-loathing or the

the the the fact that to me at least the movie indicates that all of this is useless and there is

something punishing about that that is acknowledging the the punishment of the movie itself so I guess

I give it a little credit but then like I said sometime I'm like wow that was really annoying

yeah and I know most of the stuff that you said I wrote this down I've seen this written about a

and a few places the sort of like what does this all add up to yeah question of the movie and I

I don't know if it's anything and I and I don't know if that's a problem or not I don't know if

because movies that are have more modest means more modest ambitions it's easy to say well it's

okay it's just a movie yeah you know the love hypothesis is just the movie um

resident evil is just a movie maybe it has some cool thematic intent but it's not about anything

right this is a how we live now movie that's the whole point of the movie yeah it's like let us

confront you and it with the agonizing potential of our future but also maybe it's okay if you're

rich and also maybe it's okay to still be living in a hellscape as long as we're communing in the

in the shadow of art or maybe I don't yeah people are very happy at the end of the play they're

very happy they're moved right but to me that's and then they put on their gas mask it is right

there in the same scene to me I don't think that I don't even I don't think the the play is presented

as any sort of long-term achievement yeah beyond making these people happy for a moment in the

total nightmare that there but it's like they we made a play about this and then nothing happened

yeah the movie if you look at it from one direction does have the same effect of a person during

an acceptance speech in an award show lecturing the world about what's wrong the world and a sort of like

your Tom Cruise yeah like if you're concerned about this um and perhaps you should be about the

potential ecological nightmare forthcoming um address that in the press yeah oh I definitely

don't think that the movie or interview to or cruise or anyone involved is actually interested

in any lessons about like the actual earth or the oil or springboard because I think I do I

think don't look up as a really interesting comp for the movie because you know that movie is flawed

I think I was a little bit higher on it than the majority of people uh um give or take the academy um

but uh I think of it is very similar to this movie where it's attempting a very difficult tone

it's using stardom as a refracting tool and but I know that Adam a K comes to that movie honestly

that he like he really believes that that that movie is trying to be a bellweather for a proper

crisis in our world and whether or not you feel that it works and conveys the message or isn't obnoxious

because it's very you know moneyed people telling you what's wrong with everything it's at least like

an alarm sounder and this movie it feels kind of trapped like it feels like it's it's skipped a step

and it's just like you're doomed yeah which okay thanks Tom Cruise like could you help us perhaps

what could you do with your massive influence and power I guess you can make art right that's your

job is to make art yeah and that is what the movie is about which is when that's what it is I just

do anything else for make art I I did not think about you know the fact that our world is ending in

the earth that we're inheriting we're giving to our children is you know rapidly dying like for a

second while watching this movie yeah I like I don't think this movie is like materially interested

in it and or I'm sorry you mean against until the end because it's just it's just the the window

dressing for the crisis of the filmmakers and the and the the actor character in the film but then

at the end those final shots as you say where we see sure the devastation and the way that the

people are living now in that in this future world um I thought that that was sincere I don't you

know for sure but I mean that's like that's a grace note I you know I don't I don't for example I

don't think that Tom Cruise signed on to this movie because he's you know unveiling an initiative

to to save the earth you know through renewable energy although that would be okay I welcome it you

know yeah I you can use a sure of status and wealth um the other movie I thought about is the

Megalopolis same um the difference between the two movies is is the Megalopolis is so romantic

it's so passionate and it thinks it's compassionate I'm not sure that it actually is and I was

one of my gripes with it was that it ultimately felt similarly so optimistic to this movie but

this idea of like only I can process the great trauma of our times through my singular vision yeah

it's something I kind of enjoy when directors do even if the movies don't work like it is kind

it is what I want you to do but then it really is like in the eye of the beholder or the you know

the person I have the director who do you want reimagining the world the movie I thought about

was Mickey 17 it has a lot in common with I think actually in terms of text in terms of you know

highly stylized production weird performance at the center from a movie star we love a director

with a lot of success and recent success at the Academy taking a swing with Warner Brothers money

and um not all of the performances and certainly not all of the political commentary landing

and very mad capsidirical yeah the performance sounds very similar so if you found that movie to be

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to store near you in a re-touch obviously we we've been on kind to him on the show this is his eighth

feature film um i he has a case for second third fourth most significant filmmaker of this century

you know like we talked all about Nolan as this you know titan of the 2000s and you can point to

a handful of other people who we really enjoy you know yeah this has been a certainly a pta

century it's been uh i don't know who else would you put in that class or somebody who's really been

going since 2000 it has been making great works over that time people will get about del Toro

and alfonso cuaron his inner e2's friends and compatriots from exco trying to think so on the 25

for 25 lists we had a cuaron mm-hmm no del Toro no inner e2 nope no spielberg uh we had a Nolan

we had no bill noob but bill noob is obviously an active throughout this entire century

but i mean he's only made eight movies but two of those movies have one investor actor he's one of

those decade filmmakers live um i mean yeah this is among my favorite of his movies as i look at the list

i really despised bardo and i've had people push back on me and be like you don't understand the

mexican heritage and the point of view of that film and why that's so important to our history

i acknowledge i don't come to the film with that experience but that's true of many people that

are gonna watch the film and it didn't it didn't convince me the sort of value of the way that

story was told and this movie feels like a smash up of the um medicality of birdman the grueling

aspects of the revenant and the kind of self-satisfied like smugness of bardo and you put them all

together and like you do get a ton of virtuosity his movies always look amazing and the camera work

and the production design and the costuming of these movies is very special um he does have

he has taste whether it is good taste is debatable but he has a point of view

sure he he makes a lot of choices he has style yes style he uh yes and whether it is

and i guess even taste i mean i i do remember the kitchen in bardo just it was one of the most glorious

things i've ever seen it does things look good and look purposeful and that is not true often

if many filmmakers so i yeah it's all it's it's all surface and and the writing is and the ideas

are always the problem for me yeah the first three movies of his career or four movies of his career

um memorials peros 21 grams babble and beautiful are very different they're very they're grounded

extremely intense human dramas that have no

outsized or fantastical components to them yeah but they still are all the the storytelling

interconnected you know there there is something extra yeah a lot of lattice work in all the

yeah you can't just like tell a story about a person you know it's all got to connect in this one

magical whatever way we can't just be straightforward it's interesting though that it is now evenly

distributed where you've got the first four films that are these kind of much more tightly focused

character dramas even if they're globe-crotting and then these four other movies that are much more

reliant on scope and style and it almost feels like diggers him like there is there feels like a

little bit of self-chiseling going on here in a way that i admired that i didn't see in bardo like

bardo feels like fake self-isolating whereas this there are times where i'm like you it feels like

you're kind of powerless like you've been a little bit denuded or or like destroyed by your

inability to like get anybody to pay attention to what it is you've been trying to say with your films

over the past seven years maybe i'm being a little too generous to him but i did there does feel

to be like some component of that in this movie while also being this big massive movie star showcase

and extravagant production yeah i do think that it is self-aware i don't know it's the good type of

self-aware you know i think that i think there's a very fine line between self-aware and self-indulgent

and there's a there's a part of his films that i that makes me hate a part of myself which is that

being cynical is not a personality and his movies are just so relentlessly cynical about how like

we are all doomed and they're all kind of like this interwoven conceit between your own mortality

and you're striving to be to transcend it like it's always going back and forth on that like

that is what birdman is it's about a guy who's like thinks he's a hot shit actor and then realizes

like his life is meaningless unless he can be a real hero unless he can really get above the sort of

surface level experience of just being a successful man and i like that idea but like where the movie

nets out and how it chooses to like throw its punches i find i find to be really shallow

so i feel this way through all of his movies i think they're kind of interesting to think through

i think they're kind of annoying i think they're they look really great and then i watch them a

second time and i'm like yeah i don't wish i wasn't watching this exactly and also i i want

i wonder where on that on this one um i do think that the crew's component of it just makes it more

special why did tom cruise sign on to this movie the great question i don't know the answer

i thought it's almost like he spun a wheel there were 20 or 20 hours on it and he was like well

there's 20 people who are great right and i got to do one with one of them and that's what i did

in the past you know there still are layers of artifice to this role that i wonder whether

you know he didn't jump right back in to magnolia no there is he spends a lot of time in you know

high accent work big prosthetics you don't get to actual tom cruise he doesn't have to bear himself

very much or until very a couple moments yeah but so but so you can kind of see it as a

like a bridge back from ethon hunt and you know he's just doing stunt work of a different kind

it's a lot of less movement from from tropic thunder it's a lot of like hiding doing a voice

you know doing a lot of physical contortionism that it shows how he's transformed in some way

yeah but again him showing us the actor and crisis stuff is a way more interesting choice and a

place that i'd like to see him move and it actually made the over the top stuff work better

yes it made it feel like oh there is a contrast in what he's accomplishing here he didn't just

turn his life over to being an annoying agent screaming at people on a phone during tropic thunder

like there's there's it's not just layered it's textured like you can feel him going to different

places so i really appreciate that and it's weird when you i mean the 10 years is pretty grim even

though some of these movies i'd love but since 16 it's jack reacher never go back then the fail

mommy film which is not a regional i agree then 2017's american made which i think is underrated

and it's kind of an interesting movie not not a huge success but an interesting movie and then

mission impossible fallout top gun maverick mission impossible dead reckoning mission impossible

the final reckoning and now this yeah this isn't a better movie than mission impossible fallout

which is just a fucking delight you know just the joyful action movie is not a better movie than

top gun maverick i agree okay i agree but what do those two movies have on their mind i guess is the

question yeah like not really anything uh they they have the the idea of tom kruz on their mind they

are tom kruz mythologized mythology vehicles and this does as well in a in a different way but it's

about more he's less at the center of it when you ask like why did he do this like why do you think he

did it i can't figure out how self aware tom kruz is either to put the you know that's and maybe in

that way he and eerie two are an interesting match and maybe they see something in each other

but i don't know if he understands that he's just been shut off in action star mode for 10 years

and now that he he wants to whether he wants to take a different direction be himself again whether

he feels he needs to career wise because the last couple mission impossible didn't really deliver

in the way that we you know that they expected both commercially and artistically in in one podcast

opinion and so does he understand that he's got to make the pivot but he also doesn't you know he

needs a gradient you know he needs a bridge back to himself so this works out and or is he just you

know someone who saw more as peros before everyone else in town which was one of the lines from his

interview and he's been saying he said that he said that he admires Brad Pitt and he said that he

worked with Ridley Scott and London that's it those are the only three specifics that he offers

in that entire interview and you watch something like that which i think is an incredibly revealing

text and that it says nothing he has no he seems so divorced from any reality it seems like

the characters that we've been seeing running around or you know just what he does emotion is motion

another quote from him what does that mean i don't know it doesn't mean anything but i think it's

just because he i so i don't know i don't know i don't understand how he's thinking about these things

i don't know whether he's thinking literally i'll psych a line of life because what else am i going to

do here um obviously he's made some what you could describe his mistakes in the press in the past

he jumping on the couch the hectoring mat lower the memorable moments where he came off as aggressive

or odd and there was a sense that he was diminishing the magic of the work that he was doing on screen

by not only showing us too much of his true self or a performed self that was maybe closer to

true self um but that he was debunking the wonderful mystery of the movie star and

he's retrenched completely yeah and as returned to reveal nothing but when you have chosen to

reveal nothing exposing yourself at length reveals a kind of falsity a kind of protective outer shell

and that's fine if you only want to make Ethan Hunt movies i love Ethan Hunt movies i got no problem with

um when you're making a movie that is as loud and dramatic and consequential in theory as digger

i think you're expected to have something to say to have some point of view that doesn't mean

you need to talk about your your relationship with your family or with your faith or whatever it is

that people are always wondering about with Tom Cruise i you know would it be useful to hear him talk

about Scientology for an hour in depth with blistering honesty yes is that ever going to happen

it's never going to happen um i do think that it would be helpful i do also i mean

again we he did not use proper nouns but i feel like i learned a lot about

mentalities and the way people think and communicate and put uh worlds together in that world

but there's a whole sense of the secret you know kind of like the manifestations of of things and

this movie maybe you could make the cases reflective of that of the way that he sees the world

in that specific respect um it's really interesting that he made his bones

mostly playing ordinary guys doing extraordinary things that was kind of his superpower we were

talking to our colleague Tyler outside about the movie and he was like i'm interested in the movie

because Tom Cruise never really played a Texan or a you know a western figure he's never made a

he's never done a cowboy movie and then we're thinking like well he's never really played a

southerner either in a movie and he's done accents right he does not have an interview with the vampire

does not extend in far and away he's done some accent work but mostly he plays Daniel Caffey in

Mitch McDeer and the cornerback and all the right moves and you know the kid and risky business

and he plays the American every boy who just happens to be beautiful and stunningly charismatic

and so mate doing a trend like a transformational part at the stage of his career the

ultimate psychoanalysis is in the arc of the great movie stars much like his forebear Paul Newman

presumably once we went into Academy Award oh so you think that's why I mean I got one for Leo

and it got a bunch of and burn man got a bunch of them yeah I mean it's one of the most

Oscars friendly filmmakers in the world this is a hugely audacious performance in which he's

very good in the movie yes there is the most obvious it's time narrative that we've ever had he

was just given an honorary Oscar last year for his contributions to the film industry so

if you're being cynical you think yeah I want to win an Oscar once but I still I would have like to

bend and be in the war room for a number of reasons but also be like is this the way that we're

going to win an Oscar because I don't know yeah it's interesting because like he could have also done

a very intense human drama I've always I've always wanted him and Cameron Crowe to reunite on a movie

because I just think that that Cameron Crowe understands something about Tom Cruise that no other

filmmaker understands and hit the two movies that they made together I have always been fascinated by

and they're like you know they're like two mirrors staring at each other you know I'm sending like a

million cascading images yes yes you know reflecting one another but I think I understand where

he's going here let's talk about best actor before before we end the like the other cruise movies

that we really like because I think that's why this movie exists I think this movie exists as a

100 million dollar production sure because Tom Cruise was like yeah I'll make an interview to a movie

let's and let's make it fucking big yeah well yeah we know that but I just I have some I have some

questions in the decision making on his part that led to because I don't know we're going to talk

about best actor and I don't know whether I have them in my five I don't think I do either yeah

I'm gonna the interesting thing about this is I have seen all but two of the movies here

so I feel like I'm coming from a place of being informed yeah about this race and this is an

interesting race and it's a race that seen from one direction includes Brad Pitt, Matt Damon

and Tom Cruise seen from another direction um-hmm includes a lot of older actors yes and

an un a complete unknown um I'll read from the bottom up the last time it okay oh this is in order

yeah more or less but it doesn't include Tom Cruise well yeah and it will there okay go ahead

Jack O'Connell and Inc don't think it's happening Brad Pitt and the further misadventures of Cliff Booth

we haven't seen it we haven't seen it he's already won for this part which means they'll be and it's

a Netflix film yeah there will be maybe a little bit less yeah positivity in that direction

Robert Pattinson prime time now this we doing really well and young people really like it it was number

one yesterday at the box office it beat Avengers which is interesting I will also just say anecdotally

you know they press box did a whole episode about it and Brian and David both loved it kind of

unreservedly when we talked about it we were like this is I thought with Brian actually yeah we

this is we loved it but we were like this is for the hardcore this is you know for the movie people

and it seems like everyone I know it's just kind of like wow that's pretty good I and your point

is right and I think a huge part of it is Pattinson who I think now has like has been rubber stamped

in a way that he was not when he made Mickey 17 that's true but I've got him low maybe that's

wrong you can tell me if that's wrong okay your borrower saw in artificial we haven't seen that movie

yet yeah Sebastian Stan and Fjord which six months three months ago I would have said it's probably

in a good spot right now I don't think isn't such a good spot because the divisive nature of that

movie even though it's something that movie has a strong Oscar potential yes Seth Rogen in invite

this is a bit of a sleeper to me there's definitely a world where all four of them go in

because that movie is so so liked yes like liked enough that everybody wants them in but I think

Seth is weirdly in the weakest position of the four of them because he's the most familiar

in terms of the performance he's giving I guess that's true and I but he's so liked yeah I mean

he's great but it is also not classically what we think of as a best actor performance it's more

comic yeah and and sly and sarcastic and and sad and sad to far Jackson for Michael

well I mean yes Ryan Gosling for Project Hill Mary I don't know where I am on this I don't

know where I am I know that that's Amazon's only movie and they're gonna come back but they

they haven't gotten in the mix yet I don't think Gosling's gonna be nominated but I do think the

movie is gonna get nominated for a bunch of awards yeah I like Project Hill Mary okay here's

I've got six people here plus crews okay right now this feels like the race to me okay maybe

Pattinson has a surge maybe something else happens that I don't know about maybe you're a

Borosov is extraordinary in the movie artificial but I think it's Anthony Epilito for I play Rocky yes

which critics are not gonna like the movie regular people are gonna love the movie the academy

is probably gonna like it enough right it's gonna get attention whether it gets in is debatable

he's very very good in the film Pedro Pascal behemoth okay if you say so I don't think he's

getting in yeah but I think he's in the on the periphery okay John Tertur for the only living

pickpocket in New York yes I think this is happening yeah and I think these next three are

definitively happening Andrew Scott Nelson or Matt Damon in the Odyssey and John Malkovich and

Wild Horse 9 I completely agree on the top three I think Pattinson is a little closer than you think

that we are of course in you might be that is but that is recency bias but that's also how these

things happen and the actor races start a lot earlier and solidify a lot earlier like Malkovich you

know was at the festivals and then it was done and you can kind of just start you know cementing

that now yeah I mean that one feels like it's happening officially this could change

interest God is getting amazing reviews for a movie that I think people really don't like very much

Damon's gonna carry across the Odyssey fridge to me the question now is amongst those six and

let's say Pattinson is seven yeah where does Tom Cruise fit in so the academy loves in a re-tune or did

until Bartow and has historically not understood Cruise at all and he got an honorary Oscar last year

because as you know in Steven Spielberg's words she saved theaters but they've nominated him

three times yes three competitive acting they just they don't they don't get it they were

snobs about it and I think the academy has changed in a lot of ways since then but I think

and not really in the favor of you know the firm and its greatness and it feels to me you know

Tracy's kind of like you guys love all those 90s movies and and I love that for you and it just

feels how the academy feels about Tom Cruise well I said this many times I feel that the

Jeremy Guyer year was his Oscar he lost to Jeffrey Rush that year

the Jeffrey Rush win is something that happens which is like a bit of an older actor who many people

are not as familiar with is overwhelmed that performance his David Health got was so so big and so

emotionally powerful and Cruise when he lost there that was his second nomination after born on

the 4th of July was 34 years old and everybody was like he'll be back not to worry in 99 he's nominated

for Magnolia which is a very big and abrasive performance and a character that sometimes stars

win for but not often and then nothing since he got a best picture nomination for Top Gun Maverick

but that's the only other time he's been nominated and I'm not sure if Tom Cruise's reputation

amongst cinephiles academy members the world at large is as one of our great actors it's as the

movie star right that's how we understand him our contention has always been he's a great actor

he's a really interesting actor he's kind of an adventurous actor in a way that many movie stars are

not if you go and compare him to the matinee idols over time you compare him to Clark Gable you compare

him to Rock Hudson or Paul Newman or you know the beautiful men of movie history yeah he's doing

way crazier shit than them he made eyes watch shot he made he made Magnolia yeah he did less

Grossman like he's a weird guy yeah weird state of rock of ages like he's a cook

rock of ages and sometimes it'll work yeah yeah yeah yeah and the last 10 years is saying like

well actually slow down right and with the exception of rock of ages everything that you were listing

is is 2000 it's you know 25 years ago yeah it's great yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's really

weird kirsten forever you know yeah does he still send her shoes the the coca no or maybe

maybe someone else since no I think he sent her shoes someone sending someone shoes um

he's no all of that is before 2005 and then 2005 like rock of ages yes is weird but

you're giving him credit for being weird good and sometimes more frequently weird goes bad

I'm just giving him credit for being for taking risks for doing things that many of his peers

wouldn't do and I valkary was a swing man he was like I'm gonna make a movie about

Nazis who attempted to kill Hitler and he was like this is normal this is a cool thing that

cool actors do and that was that's the sort of thing that you would see in a movie in the 70s but not

in 2008 and certainly now with Brian Singer um I just want to let you know that he sends Dakota fanning

shoes Dakota fanning got it that makes sense you see collateral recently not in the past like three or

four years he's amazing in it post 2000 well sure what year 2004 right when I said it I said 2005

is the dividing line yeah okay and that was 21 years ago edge of tomorrow that's a slapstick comedy

in a sci fi action it is it is very good and he is good running around in it and Emily Blence

arms are amazing uh huh those you take away but it's different that's not that's not 90 that's not

86 through 96 okay it's not cutting time it's time crews getting nominated for best actor no

do you think this movie will be an epic financial fiasco yes or just a disappointment uh where did

Mickey 17 net out I think worldwide not terrible okay but I don't I think this movie is going to

end up doing worse yeah but I'm just I'm looking for as we learned from the summer box office

game com stone help you learn that in business too but I'm just curious I mean Mickey 17 made

$134 million worldwide is there gonna make $134 million worldwide I don't think so no it might

open sub 10 million yeah and come in like fourth place behind this is why I was saying at the

beginning you know I think there are a lot of people who want to know but don't want to sit through it

so that's not that's not a good look that's not auspicious this is the challenge too with movies like

this is in our in our society a movie that doesn't work as a wait for streaming yeah it's not actually

we haven't gotten to the place yet in the revival of movie going culture where interesting failures

are worthy of your time and money they're worthy of your second screen experience while sitting on

your couch three months after everybody else yeah but it's a movie that ought to be seen on a big

screen like why go to all this trouble of staging this elaborate machine I mean I think that's

just a larger question about the movie why go to all this trouble you're right to make a good to make

an interesting podcast it's fun to just talk about stuff yeah I've been looking forward to this and

I still don't know I don't feel resolved on it yeah yeah um and I don't think that I mean that

was the interesting thing it also would have been so easy for us to just be like interview sucks

fuck this movie yeah I don't feel that way no I do feel that anything that gets the kind of

reaction and engagement and me just thinking about it every day and being like hmm well what about

this and over remember this part um and you know has you asking questions of like what is satire

and what is what is comedy and what is the the meaning or use of art and what is the meaning or use

of Tom Cruise I mean you don't have to provide those answers so just to ask the question is

is interesting but I don't know if I want to watch it again that's the thing I will but that was

that was the other interesting thing in doing the eena re2 rewatch that I did that I did because

it is such an eena re2 movie so I went back I did amara's paros just didn't enjoy as much as you

know the first time around and I was like okay this is a little cute I get it and manipulative and

birdman just really really tough hanging the second time around there is a there's the freshness

and and the you can only be provoked in the way these films provoked you once and after that you

get it well you got to remember that with birdman that was a pretty dramatic recontextualization

redefinition of an eena re2 movie you know there was the novelty of the false single shot style

you know where they're kind of hiding all the threading of those shots but still seeing it on

screen you know for the first time in opening weekend I was like wow this is really cool you know

like he really pulled something off here plus the sort of the bravorin nature of the acting style

and the cleverness air quotes of the script was just different from his previous four movies I mean

his previous four movies were these like dead serious triateses on the pain in the world and how

you know demolished the art yeah yes right as yeah how like you know agony is a can in infectious

disease so it was different at the time but like I as I said before like just looking at it

with a any critical lens the movie just feels really shallow yeah I

I'm gonna see this again I'm probably gonna see this again on a big screen but do you think it's

getting do you think cruises getting nominated Sean I don't think you gave your answer I do

you do I do I also think I'll I'll add this movie is ripe for 10 years later reclamation

there will totally cult to this movie a thousand percent because it's gonna seem right about a lot

of things it's also just very big and audacious in a way that people love that I love I love when

when filmmakers are like fuck it we are going to as you said 15 and I do because I think the bottom

of this race is a little soft and as to me it's really a question of it if I play rocky plays

really really well and they campaign at belito well yeah he's a good talker if he's charming if

he's good on the scene they love an ongenoo right and this is otherwise a lot of old hands I love

that fact about at the top three contenders and best actor this year have all played Ripley yeah

is that great now Malcavich yeah Ripley's game really perfect yeah really for this and of course

the talented mr Ripley for Damon and and there's something Ripley ask about Tom Cruise

no way that he moves through the world sure wouldn't you say he would be cut at it yeah he would be

you would have been a hell of a Ripley I would watch it now does it have to be yeah listen

no there's older Ripley stories right aren't some of the later high school novels about him being

older guy I think that's what the Malcavich film is is with all the later stage Ripley um okay top 10

cruise performances I forgot to rank them I just wrote out 10 so I'll I'll do it live now

you'll do it live yeah we don't have to talk through every single movie did you rank yours as well

I did I have to make a decision right now because I'm stuck on something okay what about what to do

okay um which I mean to do mine and then you can do yours since you're not ranked sure you don't

want to go you want to go back and forth I thought that we could but we don't have to okay okay

number 10 what do you got risky business not on my list wow okay you don't know how to have fun

and you don't know the power of dancing in your socks I've never done that okay now that's not

surprising to me I've danced I've danced I danced I danced every day with my daughter in my in my

underwear while wearing ray bands it's never happened okay it will never happen it's my

solemn promise to you on the show uh my number 10 is mission impossible which is just an acknowledgement

yes of a broader canon of work and also because I love him is Ethan Hunt and the sequence where he's

sitting across from Henry Chirney and he's like Kitchwich you've never seen me very upset

I think is fantastic and Dupalma aids it his performance in the other movies is like

a little up and down you know a little a little I don't know I think non-entity at times so I

had a nine just to to build a beautiful list and podcast together and nine I'll do fall out which is

my missing a mission impossible choice okay because I do think that we need to honor just the

Tom Cruise jumping out of planes yeah and just absolutely like ripping on guys and that is

that's the peak of it for sure that is a form of acting it completely is and he's one of the best

that he's a great physical performer there's a ton of running in both of these mission impossible

movies that's one of his signatures um okay good we're getting a little bit of differentiation

already okay number nine I've given myself a real challenge here okay are you also ranking

these live no no I've just I have to pick one or the other of these two movies okay so here's

what I'll tell you what I'm choosing between for number nine I'm choosing between the color of money

and rainman I feel that rainman is his most underrated yes same era yeah you know that and they come

right around the same time and it's when he's hot shit young crews but he's no longer like high school

student crews and we've talked about this many times this came up on the rewatch was conversation

quite a bit but the best performance in rainman is not Dustin Hoffman it's Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise is

the center of the movie he's the full crew of the movie and he exhibits I think a lot of paythos

and a lot of complexity in a way that a lot of his performances don't the color of money he's playing

kind of a dumb guy but he did learn how to play pool and he's a fire he's he can't look away from

him I know and every single scene he's a light show but it's Paul Newman's movie I'm I want to know

where Paul Newman is going why don't you do rainman and I'll do color of money at number eight because it

is my it's on my list in terms of like the young peacocking crews which is a real element of of what

he did he he did play a lot of like American you know like the normal guys but they always had a

little edge they were always a little too hot for their bridges they were always like look over here

look at me and color of money you know where was the blending forever I love how we're mixing it

up right now my number eight is Vennel sky okay you so you just want to be in the club with with

Lance Oppenheim no I was in the club before Lance was born okay I built the club okay Lance is

welcome as I said the cruise crow project matters to me I think it's nice that you guys have this club

and once again it's for you well it's not I mean Lance said it's his favorite movie of all time yeah

yeah I know I wouldn't put it that high I do think the movie has some flaws what I love is the same

thing that I love about digger which is like what a weird swing for the most famous person in the

world to do to make a movie about being the most famous person in the world to make a movie about

fearing becoming hideous and unloved and lost it's a very strange movie I it's always been interesting

to me the crew that cruising crow together made these like this pair of midlife crisis movies yeah

but you can make the case that cruise was not yet at his midlife crisis when he made these movies

but he almost like four tells them or he just has several you know or yeah you can do a lot when

you're that rich in famous he keeps going every quarter he gets a new one um but yeah I've always

been a big fan uh so your number eight will be the color of money so what's your number seven

great question let's go with

top gun maverick okay which is you know Tim in old guy nostalgia Jesus mode uh but I found it very

moving and he plays listen one of the signature notes of this podcast you being moved by top gun

maverick um I mean you know it does it is also a spot for like the absurdity of late Tom Cruise and

what Tom Cruise has kind of become as a character on this podcast and the movie is like very aware

of that you see a picture of his bicep before you see him you know uh just multiple shots of him on

all the motorcycle grinning with the theme song but I do think that he finds in the moments with

Miles Teller and you know in this the scenes with John ham there is like the Val Kilmer scene when

he just is talking to it's he can still act he finds humanity in those moments yeah and it's the

best type of nostalgia yeah maverick is a is a certain kind of a cruise apart is like a little

more wolfish little more devilish you know yeah he's like a he's the risk taker character he's the

the loose cannon um who breaks the rules sure you know he lives lives his own way sure but that's why

he's never been able to put in but he's supposed to you should have been a kernel by now

because I was out of ham says to him but he's also in top gun maverick like you know he's softened he's

still he's still bopping around he's still getting in trouble he's still

not only laughing in bed fully closed with Jennifer Connor you know that scene is interesting uh

but uh he made up a whole new version of football yeah to create teamwork yeah what's that game

called uh double double offense to something I don't know no it's like thunderball or something

it's very stupid okay my number six is collateral yeah oh I'll do collateral it's six two oh great

okay there we go y'all homie is that my briefcase yeah um no i again another thing that

I think interesting actors do which is like I'm gonna play the villain I'm gonna play the scariest

person in the movie uh it was interesting I was rewatching some sequences of from this last night

the scene where he assassinates the jazz musician the scene where he uh gets his briefcase back after

Jamie Foxx is mugged in his car and he looks in that movie with that hair the way that he should look

now he should have a head of white and gray hair yeah and he should be a little older and a little

more grizzled and I watched him on gma and I was like why is it important to you to look like this

no I know you know I was thinking about this recently because I mean shoulds a powerful word right

and should is it should the strong word it's how he would look if it were the 80s but I was thinking

about it in terms of also Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman who obviously you know

have a different interpretation of what it means to be late 50s and early 60s

but like what are we supposed to do as we age like as everyone just supposed to like go gray cut

their hair off and shop at Talbot's like can't we as the world you know turns I honor your fear

fears about aging I'll just say for an actor yeah especially for male actors I'll limit this to

male actors so as not to indict Sandra Bullock or Nicole Kidman or any other actress who whose

bank ability is somehow premised on their attractiveness but for male actors especially male movie stars

aging unlocks a level of gravitas and clarity to the work that is usually very powerful

and letting yourself be exposed as an older person instead of doing what he doesn't digger which is

pretend to be an older person right which if he did not have the psychotic diet and you know physical

regimen and and beliefs and dying his hair he might actually just look like digger you know like

most normal men when they get into their 1670s just start to look like digger and there's not really

anything wrong with that and it has served many many great movies stars well to get a little bit older

William Holden got older he looked good yeah handsome in network I know he's actually quite sexy in

network even though he's a grizzled 60 something he he he draws Diana Christians in in that movie

that's true but what he's playing in network is very different than the types of roles that

crews wants to play sure you know Russell Crowe has aged naturally and now he's just like a Nuremberg

so I'm doing fine work I kind of enjoy Nuremberg so I don't I just I don't know if it's limited to

the bankability and and what you want to do and what audiences and or studios or the

except in terms of the way you look and what roles you'd play I don't think has is gender specific

there's I think a much wider offshoot of this conversation that I think would be interesting

but maybe not for a movie podcast that is sort of about like the crisis of aging that is happening

amongst Gen X and and younger boomers and this desperate desire like the sort of like plastic

surgery latent life thing used to be the terrain of like wealthy cookie people right and now has

become far more common amongst people with means yes and I mean it's not limited to just Gen X and

boomers I mean there are no many 25 year olds also no of course I think that's a downstream effect

of it being like more accessible of the technology improving of the ability to kind of like

manipulate your image via social media even just like makeup and hair care and all those things

are just so much more elevated than they were 20 or 50 years ago but it means that we're like

where our culture no longer comfortable with aging and you could say Tom Cruise is a signal figure

and that the fact that he is frequently looks like or is at least attempting to look the way that he

did in 2005 right and again I do think there is a difference in the genders and sort of like what

the expectations are people there there's some but there's something a little sad about like an

unwillingness to look the way that you naturally would look as an actor because it's like those are

your tools your tools are not having a frozen face because you've manipulated your face because of

surgeries that actually limits your ability to go further into a character to be even more human

you're becoming more inhuman yeah I think that's true and and and then it becomes the differences

between like surgical or you know physical interventions and then just styling and how you position

yourself in the world and what you know what you wear and do you hold your shirt up when you are

on the cover of a national magazine and all like all of these sorts of things and that like they're

related but I think there's there's what someone does and then also like our concept of how someone

of a certain age should look is interesting yeah and why is it what it is and why is it either

25 or you know 90 and that there's like there's just this area in between where everyone from the

age of 35 to 68 now kind of looks the same yes and that is weird but also why do I need to you know

why do you need to look 90 go ahead yeah go ahead I mean this is this is really down the rabbit hole

yeah whatever I think milk culture has completely infected this okay now I'm obviously 44

and the thing that happens when you get older as a man is sure women who are a little older are

more much more attracted to than they ever would have been and you get this kind of murmuring

effect where when you're like 11 and you meet your friends hot mom and you're like oh that mom is hot

right I never thought about this this way and then you get to 44 and you're like all the moms are hot

but because of the way that milk posts stifler's mom is like now advised to us that that is more

of a sweet spot there was a time 10 years ago where I thought Kardashian was the thing that was

influencing our perceptions of beauty and yeah I feel like we have moved out away from that as kind

of like the I think the way that Marilyn Monroe was once a vision of sexual desire sure this is

all interconnected to cruise though because cruise similarly is like what is my most appealing

masculine age when was I at my absolute absolutely most right beautiful and appealing to the

widest swath of people I do know the answer to that what is it it's 1992 a few good men which is

not my number five but that's when he's the handsome you can put us back on track okay these are

some interesting thoughts about it in my 40s some of it is also just about like the part of the

reason the Kardashians are so influential aesthetically he's just also because they coincided with

the rise of like of Instagram and and so there's just like a visual flattening effect and everything

has to look the same way actually Instagram face and I think that's true to like aesthetic features

and age and the way we dress and all of the above anyway but not Tom Cruise who's still just trying

to look like like Maverick we both have collateral number six yeah what's your number five I don't

know this gets really hard I guess top gun you've gotten top gun and top gun Maverick yeah they're

different phases of life I knowledge Tom Cruise is aging process even if you don't aging emotionally

he's experiencing things all people have value okay of course I agree I'm advocating for him to get

old I love old people he can get old I grew up federating people I was obsessed with my grand

hands my great uncles and aunts I was I'm so interested in that do you think that if you were like

so you have like a good silver grade going right if it not according to my daughter who says my

hair is gray no but it's like if it goes white if it changes color it will it's gonna go totally white

my dad is white right and then are you gonna intervention you're just gonna go I've said I don't

intend to diet I don't you know I don't I don't will it be really weird if I'm talking about

milf son of pod when I'm 52 and shock white it'll probably be weird I wouldn't be ideal yeah but I

I am who I am I mean I really believe in this like I actually think okay well listen you're

it is like you're an example to the kids but it's just it is also like you haven't had to confront it

yet you know if like I go I could go my my dad the way my dad or the way of my mom your mom is

white silver my mom it's just it's like pure white at this point um and my dad you know

slowly went from salt and pepper to to just I mean just great hair on my dad and so if it's gradual

maybe I would lean into it I'm not I'm not prescriptive about this it's just for me okay for me I

don't really like spending a lot of time on this stuff yeah okay I know you got to be in your

spreadsheets congratulations there's other things I wish I was doing you know so whenever I'm doing

something like that whenever I'm like fussing over something like that which is part of the reason

I get I'm just a reproductive cruise I'm like he's really worried about this he's really interested

in this he's like a whole machine that accounts for all of these things and maybe machines that he

uses to account for them as well but it has a huge part of his job and has been his it's not like

he he was always the huge matinee movie star idle like even you know and I top gun is because

just him in the in the jacket just him playing volleyball yeah it's incredibly important and this

is like you know cocky um jingoistic like I can edgy tom cruise who you're still rooting for

the I mean you can't not have maverick on the list I I don't have it on the list I forgot to

mention my number seven which is my nardy report oh okay he's good in it he is really good in it he

is very good in it again at being asked to play grief being asked to play fear and um very you know

very hitchcocky and thriller very carried grand kind of performance of like a man wrongfully accused

desperately trying to get away from something um but my my my top six I think is indicative of kind

of what I like about cruise versus what the matinee audience likes about him and I think what some

of his like anography is like I like when he goes a little bit outside of his own beauty and tries to

examine something a little bit deeper number five is born on the fourth of July which I think is

oh yeah one of his very best performances I think that's my number two I think it's like he's

incredible and the top five is very tightly impacted for me because they're mostly about risks

that are being taken with one exception um so your number five is top gun so what is your number four

one of the fourth of July of course sure please run kovic uh the annum veteran who um comes to speak

out against the war uh along island classic and uh transformational performance and this this should

have been his Oscar I think I know you think it's your McGuire who did he lose to I'm gonna look

at up but yeah I mean he's he's sensational in it and I think he lost to someone very worthy

is that recall uh yes I think it's one of those tough years but yeah he lost to um

Daniel De Lewis in my life foot yeah but that's one where it's like then gdl's gonna get a

couple he's Daniel's Daniel De Lewis is really good but I would give it to Tom Cruise in that one

it's fine thank you okay so I guess it for

I'll do a few good men you good men is also my number four okay that's beautiful um this is my

this is my favorite performance this is I mean you know this is one of the most important movies

on this podcast yep and rock star movie star shit yeah I just everything about he's funny he's

angry he's principled but he's also you know outside the lines and he's not always on his best

behavior he goes toe to toe with Nicholson he looks so handsome in the uniform sure yeah I mean

well I think he does in the actual court of law well we know that but I think in the court of

acting many people would give Nicholson the w but I've always thought Cruise gives the more it

really the truth yeah but then he is also just setting up Nicholson I don't know whether I agree

with you but maybe he wins the movie but not the scene uh I think I'll I strenuously object yeah

anyway you doctor the law books um yeah I I mean if you can do this the showcase for a very

specific kind of movie star part um lawyer gets to give big speeches gets to be highly emotional gets

to be skeptical gets to be downtrodden gets to be drunk yes gets to be absurd um gets play softball

number three what is it uh so I guess I don't know so I mean the two movies I have left are

Magnolia and Jeremy McGuire what's your what what is what are your I know both of those are in

there for you what's eyes wide shot is number three for me did I forget eyes wide shut oh I did oops

okay we've got two top gun movies on your list you're not gonna take the top gun movies away from

me but maybe I would take eyes wide shut instead of all are of money I don't know okay you have

eyes wide shut it's fine we have them all I didn't mean to forget eyes wide shut I've always wondered

probably a pined on this in the past but I've always wondered with eyes wide shut and with um

with uh vanilla sky mm-hmm how much of those were self reflexive acts to take those parts yeah

because eyes wide shut which is about a doctor who enters a world of mystery and sexual

ridiculousness and power um is very much a movie about being Tom Cruise you know that he's constantly

being gawked at and he's being singled out and he kind of loses his his self throughout the process

of that movie women are throwing themselves at him kind of strangely um he feels like he's in some

sort of massive conspiracy in what she is at the center and the same is true of vanilla sky like

that they're they're it's so crazy that that's the next movie he made after after working with

Cooper for two and a half years on eyes wide shut um but again I think he just totally turns himself

over to that movie and you he still talks about that movie yeah working with Stanley and how

special that was to him in the way that you know he's like a he's your classic like I want to get

beat up I want to be the ball of clay right I want to be told by the great my strow is what I should do

Tom Cruise is never directed a movie and he's produced a lot of movies but never directed a single

movie unlike so many of the figures that we kind of venerate and talk through and there's careers

evolve and he still wants to be in someone else's hands and when he does that he usually when

it's somebody who's really talented he gives his best performances even with the nirritu who are

so shaky on he's doing something cool and digger something big that you can't say of a lot of the

kind of mid middle of the road stuff that he's been doing so number three is eyes wide shut what's

eyes wide no what's number three for you I'll do magnolia at three magnolia is my number two yeah

you know obviously not as much of the movie is on his shoulders

speaking of people I'd like to see him reunite with

be nice to see Paul Thomas Anderson and Tom Cruise make a movie together again I don't know if

that will ever be possible there's always been some speculation about what the master did to their

relationship yeah um he's extraordinary as Frank T.J. Mackie funny weird Tom Cruise is not

frequently very funny you mentioned he's very funny and a few good men which is not a comedy but he

is funny in it right but and that's because the particular ratatat of the sorkin lines

fits with him fits fits fits with his delivery so he is funny but he is also kind of ultimately like

the emotional crux of magnolia and it's so out there and it's so weird it's like it's one

branch of what Tom Cruise can do which is why I put it at number three instead of our shared number

one which is of course Jeremiah Guire which is the whole range of what he can do yep total package yeah

something it's his best performance still think it's arguably his most fully realized movie

like a proper character study and the great romance and the great inside a world exploring how sports

and sports agencies and that job works in a way that you've never really seen before right also

very idiosyncratic movie in terms of the way that it's structured with the cutbacks and forth to his

agent character his agent mentor character and yeah a real like lessons movie I think it's brilliantly

written I think it's very funny it's aided by the fact that it's got supporting performances

in a world around it it is so rich that lets it be this proper character study but yeah I'm

going to always felt like this is his this is him at his best yeah it's so specific and strange

and also so popcorn at the same time yep and has all of the his character gets a lot of moments

from you know show me the money and but but also the that everyone else remembers Jonathan

Libnicki or the you know you had me at hello you had me at hello that it's really it's kind of

incredible what he manages to do within such a broad and big movie yeah I mean I he's also playing

like a non a very good guy sure well he doesn't he often doesn't play good guys that's the thing yeah

it's true until he's not what's he trying to tell us yeah well then he tried to tell us that

he was asking us to trust him one last time I'll take another mission in possible movie tomorrow

sure I mean the last the biplane slusson yeah Tommy from Elton man together bring him back

I you must be out of your mind we did talk about your mental and your mother because I didn't really

want to spoil for people when that happened I just sat right up like hello nice to see him not doing

doing a normal performance to not like really mannered severance mission impossible kind of performance

all right well that's it we did okay this was the digger episode great how do you feel unresolved

but okay you know I'm glad we had the discussion I'm glad that you weren't like I loved it masterpiece

yeah and or this is a this is total drag I'm glad that you at least thought it was interesting it's

interesting I thought you were really going to hate it and I did feel I sensed that the turn

yeah that the twist that you would get on board with it because it is pretty artfully done and I

feel like it's weirdly not gotten I don't usually read reviews of movies before we do the episodes

and I read a maybe three or four this morning partly out of kind of morbid curiosity but partly just

to jog my memory of some of the things that we do to really properly access the sequences but

you know I just feel like there it's a real knives out situation for this film in a way that I find

fascinating the critics have their knives out not it's not a big while mystery I

that usually means that like it's accomplished something yeah it's gotten a reaction yeah so and it

got one out of us even if we are still a little bit trying to figure out where that is mm-hmm all right

good chat good job I'm headed to New York congratulations five movies in five days that's my plan

okay I think I may be seeing several of those movies here while you're there you're seeing Cameron

you may be seeing artificial yeah I need them to confirm that I am seeing artificial okay I think

I'm gonna be able to see another film I'm gonna see making Rianch one at so that last night I know

lots to discuss October can I tell you something yes I was thinking about this in the way here okay

I feel like a lot of October is gonna be the same kind of conversation about Digger

where it's like it's like this is interesting yeah did this work so that's great news for us I don't

know whether that's great news for the filmmakers and or the box office but that's where we cook

that's the interesting thing about this podcast is that we kind of want things to be rocky because then

we have a lot to discuss yeah I know yeah yeah well I feel that way and I always feel that we

on October and I always hate August and September because the the films are usually so

wickedly yes and I love October and this October you'll also hate March and April for that reason

because you're tired and you're hungover from the Oscars yeah we got to probably tell me

here this year that was great I would love for there to be one big movie right after the Academy

Awards sure that would be nice we do get Tom's Crown Fair next March yeah but I'm just thinking

through in my mind I'm like okay so next weekend we got Verity over the weekend yeah as we'll talk

about on Monday's episode and then other mommy social reckoning we've got sense and sensibility we've

got whale fall we've got clay face we've got LeBole and Egra opening we've got a bunch of things that

are really rich yeah yeah talk about and really in the bones of the show plus you got Halloween coverage

yeah plus we got a live show it's gonna be good it's gonna be fun okay I'm glad to see your spirits

are up okay thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode thanks the Lucas

Kavanaugh for his production support they both came today wearing cowboy hats shout out to them

yeah Verity Monday calling Hoover Adaptation and Halfway Dakota Johnson Josh Hartman we'll see you then

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