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Last Samurai on CBC now...

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The Oracle

The Oracle

Pronouns: Who/Cares
Mar 8, 2004
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On the slopes of Mount Parnassus, Greece
tribunus said:
I agree with Insidious Von this and Kingdom of Heaven could've been legendary with some tinkering here and there.
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I saw Kingdom of Heaven at the theatre when it first came out and marginally enjoyed it, But when I saw it again about a year later thought it was fantastic.
I've since seen it about 5 times and enjoy it more every time I see it. IT almost made my list.
 
P

Powershot

Active member
May 18, 2003
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I liked this movie as well..
As for Kingdom of Heaven, I thought the Director's cut was a nice improvement over the theatrical.
 
5

5hummer

Active member
Sep 6, 2008
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Can't get past the title: Tom Cruise: The Last Samurai

Something not right about this ...
 
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Garrett

Hail to the king, baby.
Dec 18, 2001
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james t kirk said:
Tom Cruise may be a flake with his Scientology BS, but he is one of the best actors out there.
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JTK, I usually share your opinions, but Cruise is a horrible actor. I mean, downright horrible. The only thing I ever liked him in was Born on the Fourth of July. He has charisma... he used to be able to draw box office... but his acting is usually over the top and just plain bad.

Looking at his filmography, the only other movie I thought he was good in since '89 was Magnolia... which is saying something :)
 
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tboy

resident smartass
Aug 18, 2001
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way out in left field
Garrett said:
JTK, I usually share your opinions, but Cruise is a horrible actor. I mean, downright horrible. The only thing I ever liked him in was Born on the Fourth of July. He has charisma... he used to be able to draw box office... but his acting is usually over the top and just plain bad.

Looking at his filmography, the only other movie I thought he was good in since '89 was Magnolia... which is saying something :)
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Welp, I guess everyone is entitled et al because considering he makes millions and millions of dollars acting horribly, I'd LOVE to be horrible at something and make the money he does.....

(don't get me wrong, he's not in the same league as Judy Dench, Michael Caine, etc but still.....he's fricken better than Keanu Reeves FFS lol)
 
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nottyboi

Well-known member
May 14, 2008
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I thought Orlando Bloom was miscast in Kingdom of Heaven. Not a bad actor, just the whole Michael J. Fox as the crusader seemed a bit of a stretch, but as a whole I really like that movie. Ridley Scott is probably my favourite director.
 
M

Manji

The Balance of Opposites
Jan 17, 2004
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Garrett said:
JTK, I usually share your opinions, but Cruise is a horrible actor. I mean, downright horrible. The only thing I ever liked him in was Born on the Fourth of July. He has charisma... he used to be able to draw box office... but his acting is usually over the top and just plain bad.

Looking at his filmography, the only other movie I thought he was good in since '89 was Magnolia... which is saying something :)
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I thought Tom Cruise was pretty good in "Minority Report"....
The movie itself was a great movie (and maybe one of the Decade's Best Sci-Fi movies)....
 
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nottyboi

Well-known member
May 14, 2008
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Cruise is a great movie star and a mediocre actor. Overall his films are pretty entertaining.
 
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Garrett

Hail to the king, baby.
Dec 18, 2001
2,361
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tboy said:
Welp, I guess everyone is entitled et al because considering he makes millions and millions of dollars acting horribly, I'd LOVE to be horrible at something and make the money he does.....

(don't get me wrong, he's not in the same league as Judy Dench, Michael Caine, etc but still.....he's fricken better than Keanu Reeves FFS lol)
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Popular does not mean good. In fact, when you look at music, books, television, movies.. what is popular is usually of low quality. As I said, little doubt Cruise has charisma, but I find many of his movies simply unwatchable. Go back and watch some of his... better examples of cheese are hard to find anywhere.

I actually think Keanu Reeves is better than Cruise... and he can at least play a romantic lead. For me, around the same age, people like Edward Norton or Leo Di Caprio are much better actors than Cruise. Cruise does not have anything that can come close to American History X or The Departed.
 
Insidious Von

Insidious Von

My head is my home
Sep 12, 2007
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Don't bash Keanu Reeves, he is the greatest actor since William Shatner.

Eva Green was gorgeous window dressing in Kingdom of Heaven. She had a brief moment to shine and she hit a home run with it: her look of intense grief when she removes the mask from her dead husband's face, the leper King Baldwin (Ed Norton), stole my heart. Ed Norton is a fabulous actor, he recieved no acclaim for King Baldwin, that's disgracefull.:mad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJDLZRv1otE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLFLuPQhe5w&feature=related
 
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james t kirk

Well-known member
Aug 17, 2001
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Garrett said:
I actually think Keanu Reeves is better than Cruise... and he can at least play a romantic lead. For me, around the same age, people like Edward Norton or Leo Di Caprio are much better actors than Cruise. Cruise does not have anything that can come close to American History X or The Departed.
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I find Reeves is pretty much the same guy in every one of his movies - except maybe his early stuff. He's like Kevin Costner. He has screeen presence, but really, he's just reading a different script but in the same way.

I will totally agree that Norton and DiCaprio are fantastic actors, as is Johnny Depp. All of whom I would say are better actors than Tom Cruise.
 
D

Don Draper

Cufflinks & Cognac
Nov 24, 2009
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Mr. Mawpother the IV

tboy said:
Hey you can knock Tommy all you want but he's got 100x more money than the lot o' ya put together, he's banging Katie Holmes, he owns a P-51 mustang, probably all our dream cars, and has a house that most of ours could fit into it's pool house....

yeah, keep knockin' him lol......
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Good for Tommy boy for having all these things to play with. None of them however, absolutely none of of them makes him a GOOD ACTOR, not even for one second. They are all things that come with the success he's achieved. It has nothing to do with range, gravitas or creativity in his chosen profession. It has to do with calculated business decisions pertaining to demographics and a populist agenda.

Cruise is first and foremost: A MOVIE STAR. He's a safe bet. A bankable commodity. A good investment. A means to an end in order to get your project a 'green light'.

Cruise does not get involved in film projects in order to advance and support the art of film making and the craft of acting. He creates film projects in order to make money. Financial gain and fame are more important to him than contributing to the cannon of respectable cinema in his generation.

Before anyone says: "the film business is all about $ anyway", I say to you: "Dammed right it is!". However, $ is not the ONLY reason to make film. Film is the greatest creative medium available to the world. It is the only entity that combines the visual, the written and the audible in one process. Take the beauty of a painting, the sweeping sounds of a symphony, the prose of literature and the intensity of theatre and combine it all together. Film is the one place where you can harmonize all these elements.

Sean Penn knows this. So does Daniel Day Lewis, Eduardo Noriega, Johnny Depp, Tony Leung. All contemporaries of Cruise who make great $ but, more importantly, through their creative and intelligent choices not only contribute to Great Cinema, they also forge an admirable catalogue of their own acting ability. Cruise loves the fame and being in the public eye. These other actors keep a lower profile.

Honestly, really, can any of us see Cruise as Harvey Milk? Christy Brown? The Mad Hatter? The idea is laughable. He lacks the range and gravitas necessary to reach that level of talent. The one time he tried an accent ("Far & Away") it was unintentionally comical. He's simply not capable of it. It's even more frustrating when he does a "Magnolia", "Collateral" or a "Jerry Maguire" because it shows glimpses of some kind of interesting range going on in his head. Just enough to plunder Cruise depth. However, as soon as he does one of those, he hightails it back to safe Hollywood and pap like "War of the Worlds" that resemble video games more than film. That one good performance then becomes a novelty. Akin to a mediocre guitarist actually coming up with one good, rare 'lick'.

He is an industry. He makes a lot of $ for very many people and everyone wants to ride money bags coat tails. When a project of his goes green, 200 people will work for a full year. That is always a good thing.

A classic bona fide Hollywood movie star. Yes, totally!

An interesting, intriguing, challenging actor? Maybe, once or twice a decade.

If he's lucky, feeling brave and (dare I say it?) creative.

Never consistent.

 
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nottyboi

Well-known member
May 14, 2008
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Sean Penn is an example of an outstanding actor, Gene Hackman as well is a pretty good actor. Daniel Day Louis is scary good. Both Daniel Day Louis and Sean Penn have played roles where the movie star vanished under the character. In "There Will Be Blood" I would not have recognized DDL unless I knw it was him. A shockingly good performance. I had little respect for Leonardo De Caprio, until Blood Diamond... were he was unbelievable.
 
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