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Cruise at the Beginning
Oprah Winfrey aired a Tom Cruise interview last Friday, and today she's running a tribute show about his 25 years of stardom. Cruise's big career kick-off, of course, was Risky Business, which opened in August 1983. It strikes me as odd, as it has to Roger Freidman, that neither Cruise nor Winfrey thought to invite the film's director-writer, Paul Brickman, to take part in the show. By any fair standard this seems like ingratitude and bad manners.
The reason for the blow-off, I'm presuming, is because Brickman didn't become a powerhouse director in the wake of Risky Business's huge success and therefore isn't flash enough to share the limelight with Cruise admirers like Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hofman, etc. But Cruise owes Brickman big-time. Risky Business was the springboard that led to everything else. Without it Cruise probably wouldn't have been cast in Top Gun, which in turn led to The Color of Money, Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July -- the three late '80s films that firmed his rep as a serious actor as well as a hot-ticket movie star. If I were Cruise I would have insisted on Brickman being included. Right is right.
I'm also recalling how Brickman's film was actually the vehicle in which Cruise gave his second stand-out performance, the first being Curtis Hanson's Losin' It. Shot in late '81 for $7 million and released four months before Risky Business, it was treated as a minor thing by audiences and (as I recall) most critics. It may have seemed like just another wild-weekend-in-Tijuana teen comedy, but I remember deciding early on that Losin' It (which had a tender emotional element in Shelley Long's performance as a housewife on the brink of a divorce) was a cut or two above. I remember telling myself that Hanson was a director to watch. It costarred John Stockwell and Jackie Earl Haley.
I gather that the Winfrey-Cruise tribute is ignoring Losin' It as well. To be honest I haven't seen it since my first and only viewing 25 years ago, but writing this has sparked interest in the DVD. I wonder if it still plays. I'm presuming that it does.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on May 5, 2008 at 11:12 AM
comment #1
MikeSchaeferSF
says ...
There was also All the Right Moves, made before RB but released after, as I recall. And then Legend nearly derailed everything...
Posted by MikeSchaeferSF
at May 5, 2008 12:59 PM
comment #2
giantman
says ...
Wonder how much this PR cost United Artists?
Posted by giantman
at May 5, 2008 1:05 PM
comment #3
MilkMan
says ...
Is it safe to assume to Oprah is a Scientologist?
And to me, Risky Business is the Coming of Age movie that Michael Mann never made.
Totally un-related, but this a MOVIE blog: I watched Inside this weekend. Totally evil and totally beautiful.
Posted by MilkMan
at May 5, 2008 1:06 PM
comment #4
vansmith
says ...
If your Cruise you dont go looking for Brickman, he might be on the skids, maybe you give him a shout out. Cruise is an enigma, he's got those insane eyes. Hey take a look at Cruise in the M3 running at full speed thru a Chinese neigborhood, he's so 'there' he's out of here...must be those vitamins..
Posted by vansmith
at May 5, 2008 1:07 PM
comment #5
lazespud
says ...
Yeah, what the hell happened to Brickman? The guy directed two absolute GEMS; Risky Business and Men Don't Leave (what GREAT movie!). And then nothing... did he get the plague or something? I mean both of these movies got great reviews; I remember when Entertainment Weekly began publishing around the time of Men Don't Leave and they had their innovative Grade scale; it was the first movie they gave an "A" to that I had seen and it prompted me to go see the movie... it was terrific and moving and is the famous exception to Ebert's rule that any film with a hot air balloon in it is going to suck.
By the way, the first time that Cruise made an impression on me at least, was well before Losin' It. It was with Taps; he wasn't a lead, but he was pretty intense.
Losin' It was much, much better than the horrible, 80's Teen-Sex-Comedy title would suggest. My recollection is that the film looked pretty good; well shot and good production design on a tiny budget...
Posted by lazespud
at May 5, 2008 1:18 PM
comment #6
Dr. Smith
says ...
Risky Business is a damn good movie...
Posted by Dr. Smith
at May 5, 2008 1:24 PM
comment #7
D.Z.
says ...
Digital Bits just noted an anniversary edition dvd for Risky Business for September.
"Extras will include audio commentary with star Tom Cruise, director Paul Brickman and producer John Avnet, as well as an alternate ending and The Making of Risky Business documentary. The film will be restored and remastered, as you'd expect."
Posted by D.Z.
at May 5, 2008 1:25 PM
comment #8
Wrecktum
says ...
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Tijuana!
Tijuana who?
Tijuana bring your mother to the gang bang?
Posted by Wrecktum
at May 5, 2008 1:48 PM
comment #9
Undercover Brother
says ...
No sooner do I read this than I jump over to high def digest and see this:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Disc_Announcements/Warner_Gets_Into_Risky_Business_on_Blu-ray/1708
Posted by Undercover Brother
at May 5, 2008 1:55 PM
comment #10
Griff
says ...
Does anybody know what happened to Paul Brickman? I've done websearches and nothing shows up.
Posted by Griff
at May 5, 2008 1:59 PM
comment #11
squealy
says ...
It's Oprah. Oprah's audience wants to see celebrities, not forgotten directors from the 80's.
Posted by squealy
at May 5, 2008 2:06 PM
comment #12
Mark
says ...
Somehow i have a feeling that Cruise would've made it big even had Eric Stolze or whomever got the lead in Risky Business. Even if it didn't lead to Top Gun, or caused him and Kilmer to swap roles, he still would have found lead work, and no one else had the nose to play Hoffman's brother in Rain Man (which is pretty much the best Tom Cruise movie ever).
Posted by Mark
at May 5, 2008 2:11 PM
comment #13
Howlingman
says ...
Brickman ...
I would imagine his career is not unlike many others; years in the trenches, a huge success, then nothing that comes close after it. Look deep and I'm sure you'll find many whose careers follow that same trajectory. Many do years of uncredited work, not to mention the snail's pace of development hell where you can spend years on project after project that just won't get off the ground.
Posted by Howlingman
at May 5, 2008 2:17 PM
comment #14
Movie Watcher
says ...
Have to get RB on dvd. I think Cruise should have won an oscar for 'Fourth of July'. I doubt he will win one, unless he distances himself from whatever that scientology thing is.
Posted by Movie Watcher
at May 5, 2008 2:30 PM
comment #15
deadre
says ...
Hello, I worked on TAPS and if my memory serves me, that might also be seen as the launching of Mr Cruise. Sure, it wasn't a lead but it got him tons of notice, a great agent (he dumped everyone else who helped him get that far) and a trip into the stratisphere. He still seems to me to be the very unsophisticated kid he was then, plaid pants and all, covered with a veneer of sincerity, just as he was then.....
Posted by deadre
at May 5, 2008 2:32 PM
comment #16
corey3rd
says ...
St. Oprah doesn't want anyone but A-list faces on her tribute.
Posted by corey3rd
at May 5, 2008 4:19 PM
comment #17
MarkEbner
says ...
Not only was Brickman excluded from this bought and paid for waste of an hour, but his name was not mentioned once during the time that heterosexual cocksucker Cruise kept mentioning, "the director."
Posted by MarkEbner
at May 5, 2008 5:24 PM
comment #18
jimjonesiii
says ...
seriously, what happened to brickman?
Posted by jimjonesiii
at May 5, 2008 5:43 PM
comment #19
Mark
says ...
maybe brickman was a fuckin asshole who didn't want to cast tom in the first place.
Posted by Mark
at May 5, 2008 7:58 PM
comment #20
cinefan
says ...
According to IMDB, Brickman hasn't done anything since Uprising in 2001. His filmography is very spare (a couple of screenplays and a couple of directorial credits). It looks like Risky Business did nothing for him career-wise and I'm curious as to what happened to him in Hollywood - it sounds like there might be a really interesting story there.
Posted by cinefan
at May 5, 2008 8:27 PM
comment #21
Terry McCarty
says ...
Re Paul Brickman:
His screenplay for DEAL OF THE CENTURY came between RISKY BUSINESS and MEN DON'T LEAVE.
Curious as to the backstory of his career between 83-90.
Posted by Terry McCarty
at May 5, 2008 11:44 PM
comment #22
lazespud
says ...
Gruver --
We are hereby deputizing you; once you return from Brooklyn, your mission is to find out what the fuck happened to Brickman. Uprising was great and all, but after two outstanding films as a director, why hasn't he directed another film, and why has he done hardly anything else in Hollywood?
Get on it. Chop chop.
Posted by lazespud
at May 6, 2008 12:19 AM
comment #23
jimjonesiii
says ...
as a major risky bussines fan, i`ve been asking the same question for years.
what happened to paul brickman`s career?
i remember he kind of regret his first film in his sophomore effort:
when chris o`donnell says he just saw a stupid comedy about a spoiled kid who turned his house into a brothel.
Posted by jimjonesiii
at May 6, 2008 1:12 AM
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