comment #1

btwnproductions says ...

COCKTAIL is glossy 80s junk all the way. I assume Chase was working on CADDYSHACK II and unavailable.

comment #2

ZayTonday says ...

something something, xenu, something.

comment #3

Bob Violence says ...

I was gonna mention Cocktail too, and I guess we're giving Losin' It a pass because of Wonder Boys or something

comment #4

Bob Violence says ...

P.S. I've never seen All the Right Moves, should I make some attempt to remedy this?

Also what should I do about this growth on my back

comment #5

AtticusRex says ...

Losin' It was his worst film. All the Right Moves is almost his most 'normal' movie. I would think Legend is among his worst choices. Far and Away suffers from being boring and he and Ms. Cruise really didn't have that Silver Screen connection. It's even evident in Eyes Wide Shut.

Days of Thunder is quite possibly his truly awful movie. Especially with it's pedigree: Tony Scott, Robert Towne and Robert Duvall.

The one thing that has always amazed me about Tom's career is the fact that he has worked with just about every great Director there's been since his Outsiders flick.

As for the above mentioned Trailer for Knight & Day... I love it. It shows us a side of Tom that seems pretty cool and fun. And why not?! I actually want to see this romp and if it's anything like the trailer (Or even better) then this will be a fun time in the Theatre and really whats wrong with that? Brad Pitt has made his share of fun loony comedies why not Cruise?!

comment #6

George Prager says ...

Am I the only one who thought that COLLATERAL kinda sucked? It suffered from the same screenwriting software problem that ruined TRAINING DAY. After Ruffalo bought it, the movie went downhill really fast.

comment #7

btwnproductions says ...

LOSIN' IT was pre-stardom, so doesn't really count. Everything after RISKY BUSINESS is fairer game.

comment #8

StevenKar says ...

When I was young and I watched MAGNOLIA, I thought it was an amazing movie ... and then I grew up.

I wouldn't say it's his worst. His worst have got to be:

LEGEND, DAYS OF THUNDER, FAR & AWAY, INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, VANILLA SKY, LIONS FOR LAMBS, COCKTAIL, MI2, MI3.

comment #9

actionman says ...

what's wrong with all of you?! days of thunder is one of the ULTIMATE guilty pleasures. it's hardly horrendous. it's not great but it's a ton of fun. the shot of cruise emerging through the smoke/fog on his motorcycle on the race track is priceless

knight and day looks like fun, it's cruise's mr and mrs smith

comment #10

Krazy Eyes says ...

Ruffalo didn't buy it in COLLATERAL. His character was only seriously wounded -- except all the scenes of his recovery were left on the cutting room floor. I liked the film overall though.

Cruise has made a good number of disposable films in his career (good directors or not): Cocktail, Days of Thunder, Vanilla Sky, The Firm, etc.)

comment #11

actionman says ...

MI 2 sucked but MI 3 was a return to form for the franchise

lions for lambs isn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. cruise is quite good in it.

comment #12

Chicago48 says ...

The trailer needs to be recut, but it's good to see Tom back in comedy territory.

comment #13

COCO says ...

This Eloi liked it.....she is cute....good stunts.....
comedy for the masses.....airplane crash....meh....
popcorn anyone?

comment #14

Josh Massey says ...

Cruise has only had three truly awful films: Mission: Impossible 2, Cocktail and Lions for Lambs. Damn impressive for a nearly 30-year career. (Count me in the pro-Days of Thunder camp. Great, stupid fun - and a fun movie to show off your sound system with).

Oh, and '80s Chevy Chase ruled. It's '90s Chevy Chase who we need to forget ever existed.

comment #15

MickTravisMcGee says ...

The problem is, all through the trailer I'm watching and wondering if Cruise's character is a guy having fun or if he's a total psychopath.

Which kinda defines his problem in real life, too ....

"All The Right Moves" is good but contains the worst theme song of Cruise's career (worse even than "Losin' It"). I heard the movie coming on Encore the other day and I've heard better harmonies from two cats boning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7cSZA-z6HU

comment #16

AtticusRex says ...

@ : Dude, stop whatever your taking... please... Magnolia is a modern masterpiece. And a very brave performance by Mr. Cruise. I remember that November month that Magnolia opened in... it was one of those very rare Hollywood Novembers where we were treated to two masterworks... Magnolia and The Insider.

@Actionman: Guilty Pleasures aside (And I can understand this being one for you) my tearing down of it was because of who was part-n-part of the production. I mean the Chinatown scribe wrote this! Now perhaps I was expecting to much from Tony Scott because back then he was kinda like the Michael Bay of that period... great looking awful movies. Scott redeemed himself with the fantastic True Romance. And what of Duvall? This train wreak was way before that other embarrassment Gone in 60 Seconds. Though I do understand the need for an actor to EARN!

comment #17

AtticusRex says ...

Silly me... my first @ shoutout is meant for Steven Kar in the above posting.

comment #18

MJB says ...

I have to defend Far and Away! This film was a lot of fun, it was epic, and had a great sense of humor about itself. Tom and Nicole weren't required to have sexual chemistry, they were adversaries for a large part of the film. The ending was incredible and, dare I say, Tom and Nicole were quite funny in this...Nicole played the snotty, spoiled rich white lady much better in this than in Australia. And you gotta love the land race at the end! It was classic Hollywood entertainment.

comment #19

Mark says ...

Still looks better than Salt.

Diaz said an interesting thing. That if Cruise wasn't CRUISE, that he'd be a professional stuntman. Probably true. He's become a 2nd tier Jackie Chan.

comment #20

Abbey Normal says ...

@8: No way does Interview qualify. That movie stands up quite well, I'd say. At the very least it meets Jeff's bar of being "quality-aspiring." It's even sporting a "fresh" rating on RT (albeit just barely).

comment #21

Mark says ...

Magnolia is Anderson's worst flick...by a mile. i remember how excited i was that month as well. No way i could be disappointed. Then so many why's. why so long? why was that kid in so much? and above all, why make in the same decade as Short Cuts? Today, It'd be like Jason Reitman doing a 2nd rate gay cowboy movie in 2009.

comment #22

Art says ...

Movies with bad puns in their title tend to be bad. The first I heard of this flick I got a bad vibe just from the title.

comment #23

George Prager says ...

Am I the only one who thought that SHORT CUTS kinda sucked? The Lori Singer character was embarrassing, as was Jack Lemmon, as was the Christopher Penn scene at the end. Kind of a proto-CRASH (at least CRASH had Don Cheadle. What did SHORT CUTS have? Huey Lewis?)

comment #24

bents75 says ...

You're all fools. I'm with Actionman on Days of Thunder being a big guilty pleasure, but so are half of Cruises' films, and Cocktail in particular is the shit!!!

Classic Tom Cruise, 1988, right when he started to realize he was awesome and everyone else thought so too.

Classic Bryan Brown right before he plunged into hack, straight to video of the week, Treat Williams territory.

Classic Elizabeth Shue before anyone knew who Elizabeth Shue was (and before everyone then forgot).

It has one of the cheesiest, most uninspiring plots of all time, including an entire act where he relocates and gets involved in a serious relationship with a rich girl just to win a bet from a dude he'll presumably never see again anyway...all the while pining over the other girl he let get away, who he had known for less than three days to begin with. God, it's awesomely bad.

It's about following your dreams...and his dream just happened to be owning a bar. Who else dreams about that? Fuck if I know. But Brian Flanagan did.

If Cocktail was on blu-ray, pumping out Beach Boys and Robert Palmer in Dolby 7.1 - I'd sneak down to Best Buy in a trenchcoat and fedora and buy it now. It's true.

comment #25

The Winchester says ...

Prager, Short Cuts has naked Julianne Moore AND Lyle Lovett.

I'm not quite sure what I think of A Few Good Men anymore. I remember really liking it when it opened, but then I noticed that Tom Cruise is always in motion, doing some actor's business, when other characters are speaking so that we're always drawn to him. It's really distracting. On top of that, I think the "You can't handle the truth" has been beaten to death, and I'm a little freakin tired of Aaron Sorkin.

comment #26

bulltron says ...

This looks like one of the fake trailers from Tropic Thunder.

comment #27

rick blaine says ...

Gee, I must have dozed off during the movie, Cruise was in Short Cuts??

comment #28

Krillian says ...

I like the description of "quality-aspiring". Cruise does have a good track record for choosing directors and co-stars. Now it looks silly for him to have passed on The Tourist (which now has Alfonso Cuaron on board) to go for this. Cruise doesn't need a smug-joke M:I4-type movie right now. I keep hoping The Hardy Men will emerge with him and Ben Stiller.

Never saw Cocktail or Losin It, but I'd say his worst was Days of Thunder, which isn't that bad, and what young actor wouldn't want to share several scenes with Robert Duvall?

Anyone who does think Days of Thunder is that bad just needs to see Sly Stallone in Driven and then they'll exclaim "My goodness, Days of Thunder is an unsung masterpiece!"

comment #29

bfm says ...

It's true, Cruise does make careful and considered choices that usually pay off for him. When they fail (eg Lions for Lambs) you can at least see why he thought they were worth a shot.

Will Smith and Michael Douglas are two others who I've always thought make very good choices. I used to say that if Michael Douglas was in a film, you could guarantee that it would be good, not because of him per se but because it would be an interesting script and well directed. Of course Ghosts of Girlfriends Past shot that argument down in flames.

comment #30

Terry McCarty says ...

Krillian wrote:
I keep hoping The Hardy Men will emerge with him and Ben Stiller.

Would rather see THE HARDY MEN with Cruise and Brad Pitt as Frank and Joe Hardy; at the same time, I'd prefer that Stiller direct instead of Shawn Levy.

comment #31

Mark says ...

i think most A-list guys, those who have gained the power to do whatever they want, make deliberate and smart decisions. You never see Crowe, Damon, Di Caprio, etc. in a trailer and say, whoa, paycheck job.

comment #32

zyg says ...

krazy eyes: ruffalo was seen shot by cruise's character (a trained killer with the right tools). later, foxx's character says something to the effect of 'why did you have to kill that guy? (who?) that cop.

while there may be footage of ruffalo recovering that was left out of the movie, his character for all intents and purposes, died.

comment #33

Alvy Singer says ...

The K&D trailer reminds me of Bird on a Wire.

comment #34

Noah Cross says ...

Really hated "Far and Away", the accent alone makes it painful. Maybe Ron Howard's worst which is really saying something.
(Cruise really begin well. He was a great psycho in "Taps" and "Risky Buisness" should be in any list of top ten teen films.)

comment #35

AH says ...

I would argue that this movie is a very smart decision because the last thing Cruise needs to do at this time is a serious movie.

comment #36

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Y'all are crazy...if there's any great "guilty pleasure" action movie on Cruise's filmography it's M:I 2, not Days of Lameass Thunder.

I'll take me some outstanding gunplay and inexplicable dove action -- not to mention perhaps the best, albeit ludicrous motorcycle chase ever committed to film -- over Tom peeing into a cup, listening to Robert Duvall's good ol' boy unconvincingly try to "bitch him out" all while he's collecting the biggest paycheck of his character-actor career.

Scott and Cruise are obviously trying to re-capture that Top Gun magic on the ground, but it doesn't really translate at all, IMHO. TG is a much better guilty pleasure movie, mainly due to the homoerotic subtext (Tarantino hilariously nailed it in Sleep with Me), and the always-fascinating presence of Val Kilmer.

M:I 2 may be intermittently awful, but at least it never commits the cardinal cinematic sin of being fucking boring.

comment #37

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Now, more on topic, I'd really like to see Cruise play an asshole/villain in a pitch-black comedy. I'm thinking it could be helmed by the Coen Bros., or at least someone approaching their stature in that genre (Quentin? David O. Russell??).

I thought TC went some fascinating places in Magnolia. That's a film I actually have some serious problems with, but everytime he's onscreen you can feel the energy of a movie star playing a character he's never really played before -- maybe not even comfortable with?

It's impossible to really get into the psychology of why that role worked so well, all I know is it just worked. He needs to get back to that place, somehow. His part in Tropic Thunder was a step in the right direction, I s'pose, but that movie was too damn silly to give the characters any real weight.

comment #38

hiviper says ...

bents75, I'm with you on this one. Cocktail is a cornball guilty pleasure from start to finish. From the acrobatic drink-making to "Coughlin's laws" to Cruise toasting his pregnant wife with a limerick at the end, it's pure comedy gold

comment #39

Gordon27 says ...

"suggests it may be the only formulaic throw-away movie of Tom Cruise's career. "

I'd say 'The Last Samurai' is both formulaic and a throw-away movie. I can't believe nobody's mentioned it yet.

comment #40

AtticusRex says ...

@Gordon27: No one has mentioned Last Samurai because it's not a bad movie. It's shot well, Watanabe is a wonderful discovery (For American auds). Sure the scene where Cruise rides into the volley of gunfire and doesn't get hit is well... bad which hurts the ending... but still a good movie.

MI:2 is actually kinda lame which is a shame but Woo has had issues connecting Hollywood w/his style.

Vanilla Sky: That was a HUH?! flick yet interesting.

To those that don't like Cruise in Interview w/a Vampire... He actually does a very good job in the role. As does Bandaras it's Pitt that has the worse of it... playing a down-in-the-dumps-woe-is-moi Vampire.

@Alvy Singer: Dude, K&D's trailer itself is N&D above that crap called Bird on a Wire!

comment #41

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

You say Woo has issues connecting Hollywood with his style, which is a statement I can totally agree with (I think Face/Off is his only American film that works with any consistency). But then you proceed to mention The Last Samurai in a positive breath. How is that not a movie that doesn't have serious issues (way more serious than M:I2 because, well, it's trying to be taken very seriously) connecting Japanese culture/cinema with Hollywood commercialism??

comment #42

DeeZee says ...

Jeff: Surprised no one's name-dropped Last Action Hero in the same context, 'cus that's the vibe I'm getting with this film.

comment #43

AtticusRex says ...

@CitizenKanedforChewingGum: Yes Face/Off tries real hard to deliver and you can even say Woo's 1st American film tries (Hard Target) But he has yet to recreate in American cinema what he did in Hong Kong with The Killer and Hard Boiled. Perhaps it's the cast here. Maybe putting big Hollywood stars in place of those great unknown to us Asian stars is what made those Hong Kong action films work so well.

Still I praise Last Samurai because it's a well made, beautiful to look at and well acted movie. As I said before the ending is weak but for me that's it's only fault. Endings can be very tough to nail. Take the remake Taking of Pelham 123. Not a bad updating until the end. Then it's Hollywood dreck. It's like the filmmakers all of a sudden realized they didn't really have a clue why the original was so great in the first place. (Um, the ending folks and well yes Walter/Roberts too). I also didn't like the ending of HEat and Collateral but really enjoyed the ride through 2/3rds of each film.

comment #44

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Hmmm...fair enough, Atticus. I actually haven't seen TLS since it played in theaters. I sorta liked it at the time, but I was just sort of starting into my serious Japanese film/Kurosawa kick at the time. I think I definitely have a more refined taste for that sort of cinema now, and when I'd run across random scenes from it on cable I wasn't too impressed. But your comments here definitely have me curious & somewhat motivated to revisit/reassess it, I guess.

Probably a stupid question, but you have seen Last Action Hero, right Dee? Hard to get a different movie's "vibe" from a trailer if you've never actually, you know, seen the original film in question to begin with.

comment #45

AtticusRex says ...

@CitizenKanedforChewingGum: Thank you for your kind words but just so we are on the same page Zwick IS no Kurosawa.

As for Last Action Hero... man oh man... I really and truly feel bad/sad for McTiernan. What a great 3 films out of the gate he had and then..... it all came tumbling down starting with this and Medicine Man. Though I kinda would like to see the real full cut of 13th Warrior. There was a fun/good movie in there wanting to claw it's way out.

comment #46

sumo-pop says ...

I have a long standing admiration for All The Right Moves. That one along with Vision Quest are two of the more underrated sports movies of the 80s.

comment #47

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Oh, we're on the same page, alright. I don't even think Edward Zwick is Andrew fuckin' Davis.

Yeah, McTiernan certainly has had an odd career full of ups and downs. That string of classic action films, then a bunch of flops, then the indictment, and the possibility of jail-time still hanging over his head.

I'm a pretty big fan of DH:WaV for whatever reason. Also kind of amusing to watch that movie knowing that it was written as a Lethal Weapon sequel.

Regardless of your opinion of the movie, I think it's pretty obvious that it turned out waaaaay better than LW4.

comment #48

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Yeah, I actually caught AtRM for the first time a couple years ago on a whim -- got it from the library when they were running low on new releases.

It really is a pretty well-crafted film that still holds up pretty solidly today, which kind of shocked me. It approaches high school life in an authentic, gritty, Rust-Belt sorta way. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting when I rented it, but it certainly wasn't that.

comment #49

AtticusRex says ...

@CitizenKanedforChewingGum: Wow, I've learned something today... I didn't know that DH:WaV was based on a LW script. As for saying that LW4 was bad... was forgetting so was LW 2 & 3. But 4? Whoa doggie! that was bad... but not as bad as Another 48 HRs. Or maybe LW4 was just as bad?!

Like the way you think CitizenKanedforChewingGum. And thank you for the heads up on DH & LW info.

comment #50

le corbeau says ...

I wouldn't say throwaway so much as weightless. Cruise has never made a movie that seemed like he did it just because it would be fun to shoot in a Mexican beach resort or something. Even his duds are of considerable ambition (Far and Away, Eyes Wide Shut, Vanilla Sky, Lions For Lambs) or utterly logical career moves (all the Mission Impossible movies). There's never been fluff in his career before, but this looks like his Mr. and Mrs. Smith or The Mexican, a movie made for showing on airplanes.

comment #51

le corbeau says ...

"I thought TC went some fascinating places in Magnolia. That's a film I actually have some serious problems with, but everytime he's onscreen you can feel the energy of a movie star playing a character he's never really played before -- maybe not even comfortable with?"

Glad to see someone defend at least a little of Magnolia. It's mostly a mess (and surely I'm not the only one who put Short Cuts and a book by Charles Fort visible at the beginning and knew, from that moment, that frogs would rain from the sky at the end) but there are great bits in it-- and one of the best is Cruise saying "I'm... just... sitting here... silently... judging... you." At that instant you knew everything you needed to know about what Scientology Superbeing Tom Cruise is like in real life.

comment #52

DeeZee says ...

Kane: Do I need to see Battlefield Earth to know it sucks?

comment #53

Sams says ...

Didn't find the trailer appealing at all. Not funny, too much screaming from Diaz. Over the top action, sure, but he passed on Salt for this? Salt looks way better. And am glad Jolie is in it since I'm tired of seeing Cruise clenching his jaws in the tense / dramatic scenes.

comment #54

lipranzer says ...

The trailer was definitely very silly, but I concede it could be fun silly.

All time worst Cruise movie, for me, is COCKTAIL. I may be one of the few people who read the book it's based on (it's by Heywood Gould, who also wrote FORT APACHE, THE BRONX), and while the homophobia is pretty hard to take, the rest of the book is quite good, and the Cruise character is fascinating. The movie is a total vanity project, and a stupefying one at that (for starters, it's hard to believe director Roger Donaldson could go from making one of my favorite movies of the 80's - NO WAY OUT - to this).

And sorry, but while I don't hate LAST SAMURAI, I do consider that a ridiculous movie. Maybe the reason why I don't hate John Woo's PAYCHECK as much as most is because I saw it right after seeing the pretentious SAMURAI, and anything came off looking better.

comment #55

LexG says ...

Cruise = best hair in the history of mankind.

comment #56

KRush says ...

Bulltron, speaking of Tropic Thunder, that was one of Cruise's best performances. There's a lot of garbage in his career, all the previously mentioned crap. All the Right Moves has Lea Thompson in a marching band outfit (yeah!). He needs to mix it up with a "Born on the Fourth" of July riff, something where's he's not afraid to play a guy almost 50. Get a paunch for crying out loud!

comment #57

Burbanked says ...

DZ: actually, yes. Yes you do.

You can assume all you want about BATTLEFIELD EARTH or LAST ACTION HERO based on what you've read. But you can't know that anything sucks, and you can't ever be taken seriously and your opinion will continue to be meaningless if you throw crap around about movies you haven't seen.

I know others have asked this and failed, but still: if you hate all movies so much and you seemingly never even watch them, why do you continue to comment on a movie site for which SEEING movies is of critical importance to the strength of ongoing conversations? What the hell kind of twisted narcissistic joy does this bring you?

comment #58

DeeZee says ...

Burbanked: Dude, if you need to watch Battlefield Earth to know it sucks, you might as well be recruited into the fold yourself. The only films you watch to have an opinion on, if you're not sure you'll like 'em, are the divisive ones. Otherwise, if you know you're not gonna like 'em, it's a waste of time and money, unless you can milk some ironic "so bad it's good" moments out of 'em.

comment #59

Burbanked says ...

My point isn't really about BATTLEFIELD EARTH if you truly didn't get that.

It's that you can't KNOW anything without first-hand knowledge. You can assume it or you can qualify it, but you can't know it. Your comments on this site run way WAY too far into the "I am certain of this because I read it somewhere", constantly basing your impossible-to-refute "logic" on conjecture and consensus and rumor. You come across as having very little interest in the intelligent, impassioned discourse of adult discussion or even, you know, reality.

And seeing bad movies isn't always a waste of time and money. It's important to know why something doesn't work every bit as much as why it does.

But what about my true question: why do you keep coming here if you hate movies so much and the people who love them?

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