(Photo by Chiabella James/Paramount Pictures)
From his teen idol days in the early ’80s to his status as a marquee-lighting leading man today, Tom Cruise has consistently done it all for decades — he’s completed impossible missions, learned about Wapner time in Rain Man, driven the highway to the danger zone in Top Gun, and done wonders for Bob Seger’s royalty statements in Risky Business, to offer just a few examples. Mr. Cruise is one of the few honest-to-goodness film stars left in the Hollywood firmament, so whether you’re a hardcore fan or just interested in a refresher course on his filmography, we’re here to take a fond look back at a truly impressive career and rank all Tom Cruise movies by Tomatometer.
In this TV edition of Review Roundup, we share the Tomatometer scores for new fall shows Constantine (NBC), and Mike Tyson Mysteries (Adult Swim).
See our interview with Mike Tyson and Jim Rash of Mike Tyson Mysteries, and keep track of all the new fall shows here!
Mike Tyson and Jim Rash of Mike Tyson Mysteries explain the surprising effect of watching their new series to Senior Editor Grae Drake.
Season one of Mike Tyson Mysteries airs Mondays at 10:30 pm on Adult Swim.
This week at the movies, we’ve got a woman on the edge (Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum); a shameless fraudster (Identity Thief, starring Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman), and some hotshot pilots (Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer). What do the critics have to say?
Steven Soderbergh claims that Side Effects will be the last theatrical film he directs. Critics say that if that’s the case, he’s crafted a heck of a swan song in this sleek, mysterious thriller. Rooney Mara stars as a young woman suffering from depression after her husband (Channing Tatum) is released from prison. She turns to a psychiatrist (Jude Law) who prescribes her an antidepressant that he’s being paid to pitch, but soon she’s reeling from the drug’s adverse effects. The pundits say the Certified Fresh Side Effects is twisty, elegantly shot, and suspenseful, one that offers further proof of Soderbergh’s ability to elevate genre material to new heights. (Check out this week’s Total Recall, in which we count down Law’s best-reviewed movies.)
Melissa McCarthy has established herself as a scene-stealing supporting player, and critics say in Identity Thief she proves she has the goods to be a leading lady. Unfortunately, they also say she and co-star Jason Bateman can’t save the film from its rambling, aimless script. McCarthy stars as an identity thief whose posh lifestyle is being financed by a financial services drone (Bateman), who tracks her down but soon finds himself in over his head. The pundits say Identity Thief‘s laughs are attributable to McCarthy and Bateman, who labor mightily to create a framework for the movie’s undisciplined plotline. (Check out this week’s 24 Frames for a gallery of impostors and identity thieves.)
Upon its release in 1986, Top Gun was a massive success, one that made Tom Cruise a superstar, spawned a hit soundtrack, and inspired an uptick in enlistments into the Navy. It’s getting an IMAX 3D rerelease this week, so a new generation can see what all the fuss was about. Suffice to say, the critics were largely split, with many praising the film’s aerial footage while finding its characters to be pretty one-dimensional.
This week in family viewing brings the theatrical re-release of an iconic 1980s action flick (Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer) and a mixed martial arts comedy on DVD (Here Comes the Boom, starring Kevin James and Salma Hayek). Read on to find out what’s appropriate for the whole family.
What’s it about? In the midst of the Cold War, a bunch of Navy pilots with names like Maverick and Iceman talk trash and play volleyball.
Who’s it for? It’s rated PG for “action Sequences, language and some sexual content.” Top Gun was pretty racy for those of who came of age in the 1980s, and some of the language is pretty coarse, but on the whole the movie is safe for young teens.
Is it any good? Top Gun helped to make Tom Cruise the biggest star on the planet, and it features some exhilarating flight sequences, but critics found it to be more stylish than emotionally involving.
What’s it about? Kevin James stars as an indifferent high school teacher who is roused into action when the school is threatened with budget cuts. His solution: raise money by battling on the mixed martial arts circuit.
Who’s it for? It’s rated PG for “for bouts of MMA sports violence, some rude humor and language.” It’s likely to seem pretty mild compared to a typical night of televised UFC.
Is it any good? Critics say James is surprisingly convincing as a fighter, but Here Comes the Boom is a little too bland and predictable to work as a whole.
This Week’s Ketchup covers movie development news stories about potential roles for James Franco, Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington, the superhero sequels Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall and Thor: The Dark World, remakes of The Rocketeer, Videodrome and the Jack Ryan franchise, as well as a reflection on the impact following the death of one of Hollywood’s most successful directors.
On Sunday, August 19th, director Tony Scott (and brother of Ridley Scott), committed suicide by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the San Pedro port district of Los Angeles. Scott left behind over 15 major Hollywood productions which included Top Gun, True Romance, Enemy of the State, and four films with Denzel Washington (Man on Fire, Deja Vu, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and Unstoppable). Like many of Hollywood’s top directors, Scott always had a full slate of films in development for the future, and his death leaves most of them in an unknown state, as Scott’s industry friends are still reeling in shock. The highest profile of those planned projects is the Top Gun sequel that Scott and Tom Cruise were scouting locations for as recently as two days before his death. Scott’s development slate also included two remakes: one of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, and one of Walter Hill’s The Warriors. In 2009, Tony Scott spoke to Rotten Tomatoes exclusively about his plans for the remake of The Warriors, which included a massive gang ensemble crowd scene to be filmed on the very bridge from which Scott took his own life. Other projects that he was attached to included the military crime thriller Narco Sub (which is about exactly what it sounds like), a Mickey Rourke mob thriller called Potsdamer Platz, and a Vince Vaughn film called Lucky Strike set in the world of “jet repossession.” This column is normally dedicated to covering the movies that will be in your theater in the near future, but this week, our headline is dedicated to the loss felt by Scott’s friends and families, and the films we will never see.
Writer/director Stephen Gaghan hasn’t directed a movie since Syriana in 2005, but despite the delay, his return is attracting some major A list star attention. Candy Store is described as a crime thriller about a Brooklyn beat cop who discovers that a global criminal organization is operating right in his neighborhood. Brad Pitt is currently the top choice, and is in negotiations, to play the cop, with the other major role being discussed with Denzel Washington. Christoph Waltz is also in talks with Lionsgate for a supporting role. If the deal can’t be worked out with Brad Pitt, other possibilities include Ben Affleck, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Matt Damon. If Denzel Washington drops out, Jamie Foxx has also been mentioned as a possibility for that role. Stephen Gaghan also won an Academy Award for adapting the screenplay for Traffic.
With The Expendables 2 in theaters this past weekend, that movie is obviously going to be getting a lot of press in this late-August, nothing-much-else-going-on, dog-days-of-Summer period. Enter independent action producer Adi Shankar (The Grey, Dredd 3D, Killing Them Softly), who has announced that he has his own trick casting project in development. Although his film would have no official ties to The Expendables, basically what Adi Shankar is working on is a female version of The Expendables. This has led to movie bloggers and columnists all around the Internet to start compiling their dream casting lists, which usually start with Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton, move on to Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich, and Kate Beckinsale, and sometimes name check the likes of Gina Carano, Lynn Collins, or Michelle Rodriguez. Of course, this would be a very good place to note that Adi Shankar’s announcement didn’t mention any actress, specifically, so we don’t actually know for sure who may or may not end up signing up for this movie. In other news, Adi Shankar’s company (which is called 1984 Private Defense Contractors… really), also made the news this week by starting development on an action movie based on the 1990s Rob Liefeld comic book series Bloodstrike. Basically, all that one needs to know about Bloodstrike is that they were super powered government assassins who were brought back from the dead, and two of their members looked a lot like Deadpool and Wolverine.
A while back, Christopher Eccleston was cast as Malekith the Accursed, leader of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, in Thor: The Dark World. Just as Loki wasn’t the only villain in the first Thor, Malekith is going to have company in this sequel as well. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who fans of TV shows with very short titles know as both Adebisi (OZ) and Mr. Eko (LOST), has been cast as the Dark Elf warrior Algrim the Strong, AKA Kurse. Eccleston and AAA will be joined by several returning cast members from the first film, which this week we learned will include Kat Dennings as Jane Foster’s friend Darcy Lewis. Marvel Studios has scheduled Thor: The Dark World for release on November 8th, 2013.
Although the film earned a worldwide box office take of $155 million, the 2012 spy-romance-action film This Means War is generally seen as at least a critical flop (25% on the RT Tomatometer). One might think that would be bad news for that film’s male leads, until one remembers that Chris Pine is still the new Captain Kirk, and Tom Hardy had a little movie this summer where he traipsed around with a metal octopus thing over his mouth. Paramount Pictures has had Chris Pine attached to star in their reboot of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character for a while now. This week, it was revealed that for the character of Navy SEAL-turned-CIA-operative John Clark, who will get his own spin off in Without Remorse, Paramount is looking to cast Pine’s This Means War costar, the aforementioned Tom Hardy. Kevin Costner has also been confirmed as accepting an offer to star in both films as the CIA liason for both Jack Ryan and John Clark. The premise of Tom Clancy’s original Without Remorse novel is definitively set during the Vietnam War, which will probably be updated to some place like Afghanistan. The Jack Ryan reboot film is currently scheduled by Paramount Pictures for late 2013, with Without Remorse probably to be expected later on in 2014 or 2015.
Back in 2010, during Conan O’Brien’s “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour,” Jim Carrey joined O’Brien on stage for a musical number wearing a green-and-yellow-striped Kick-Ass costume. Now, Universal Pictures is apparently attempting to take advantage of Carrey’s status as a Kick-Ass fanboy by starting negotiations for Carrey to actually costar in the sequel, now known as Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall. If the deal goes through, Jim Carrey would play an ex-mafia member called Colonel Stars, who with his brother Lieutenant Stripes forms a superhero group called Justice Forever, who find themselves countered by a team of villains led by the villain from the first film. All of this is based on Mark Millar’s second Kick-Ass mini-series, and Millar is already working on Kick-Ass 3 (the comic book). In addition to returning cast members Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Chloe Moretz, the sequel’s new cast includes Morris Chestnut, Donald Faison, and John Leguizamo. Universal Pictures has already scheduled Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall for June 28, 2013.
Some weeks, you have to figure that an actor tries to get a bulk discount with their publicist by having them announce multiple movies simultaneously. The winner of this week’s Publicist Blue Plate Special is one James Edward Franco. First up, let’s discuss Franco’s directorial debut with As I Lay Dying, based on the novel by William Faulkner, about a family fulfilling a dying woman’s last wish to be buried in her Mississippi hometown. Like the novel, Franco’s film will be an ensemble affair, telling the story from twelve different perspectives, and this week, we learned that the cast will include Danny McBride, Tim Blake Nelson, Logan Marshall Green, Ahna O’Reilly, Jim Parrack, and James Franco, himself. Filming is scheduled to start in Mississippi in October. Next up on the James Franco Express is an action movie called Homefront, which will be directed by Gary Fleder (Runaway Jury, Don’t Say a Word) from a script by Sylvester Stallone. Jason Statham will play an ex-DEA agent who moves to a small town hoping to find some peace and quiet, but instead he gets into trouble with the local meth kingpin named Gator and his biker chick girlfriend, played by James Franco and Winona Ryder, respectively. Finally, there is Third Person, from writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah), which tells the story of three different love stories in three different cities (New York, Paris, and Rome). Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde were already cast in Third Person, but this week, Mila Kunis also signed on, and James Franco and Casey Affleck are also in talks for roles. There’s no word yet as to whether Franco might also take roles in Candy Store, Bloodstrike, Thor: The Dark World, Without Remorse, Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall, Maleficent, or the remakes of The Rocketeer and Videodrome.
This week saw Angelina Jolie’s name mentioned in two very different stories, although the characters at the heart of both films arguably have some things in common. First up (and the reason this story is a “Rotten Idea”) is the news that director David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club) has dropped out of Sony Pictures’ planned Cleopatra biopic, based on the book by Stacy Schiff. The “only so-so” box office results of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are reportedly being at least partly blamed for the cooling off between David Fincher and Sony Pictures. It’s worth noting, however, that Fincher is hardly to blame for that film not setting the world on fire. The fact that its release came so recently after the (quite excellent) Swedish film starring Noomi Rapace has to bear some brunt of the responsibility (especially globally). Sony Pictures hasn’t given up on the Cleopatra biopic, however, and is considering other directors, including Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), whose The Life of Pi has a really fantastic trailer in theaters right now. In other news, a young four-year-old actress named Vivienne Jolie-Pitt has been cast as the young Princess Aurora in the Disney 3D film Maleficent, which is a live action adaptation of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Elle Fanning plays the older Princess Aurora, and Jolie-Pitt’s mom (not at all coincidentally) plays the title character. Maleficent is currently in production and scheduled for release on March 14, 2014.
The 1991 live action adaptation of the graphic novel The Rocketeer is arguably the rare film that is both a throwback to an earlier time, distinctly of its own time, and also ahead of its time. The reasons The Rocketeer pulled off those distinctions is that it was a “retro action film” set in the 1930s (ala Raiders of the Lost Ark), but as a superhero movie, it arguably was made a decade too soon. Well, there’s now new management at Walt Disney Pictures, and reportedly the studio is looking to revive and remake The Rocketeer. As of yet, there are no creative people attached to the project, but Disney is starting to take meetings with writers. And now, some more back story: The Rocketeer got its start in the 1980s in independent comic books, created by the late Dave Stevens. The premise of The Rocketeer was intended as an homage to old serial heroes (Flash Gordon, King of the Rocket Men, etc), and it’s pretty simple: a pilot in 1930s Los Angeles finds a jet pack designed by Howard Hughes, and uses it to fly around and fight bad guys, save the girl, etc. The 1991 movie was directed by Joe Johnston, who would go on to direct another nostalgic superhero movie, Captain America: The First Avenger. The film was perceived as a box office flop at the time, but it retains a “Fresh” Tomatometer score (61%), and has, over the last 20 years, developed a loyal fanbase. The idea of remaking The Rocketeer still, however, seems like something of a cash grab, and that’s why it’s one of the week’s Rotten Ideas.
Back in 2009, the Weekly Ketchup covered news of Universal starting development on a remake of David Cronenberg’s graphic and freaky Videodrome. For a while, it had seemed like Universal had wised up and long since ditched those plans, but this week proved that not to be the case. Universal Pictures is now in talks with commercials director Adam Berg for him to make his feature debut on a remake of Videodrome. This Videodrome remake was written by Ehren Kruger, writer of such films as Scream 3 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, who is also producing the remake. James Woods starred in the original Videodrome as the head of a sleazy cable channel always on the lookout for sexy and violent material, whose interest in a satellite feed of torture called Videodrome leads him into an experience where reality and fantasy cross. If you’ve ever seen images of James Woods holding a “flesh gun”, or with a huge gaping hole in his abdomen, that was Videodrome. Now, Universal wants to take what was an essentially small story of a man going insane and “blow it up into a large-scale sci-fi action thriller” and “infuse it with the possibilities of nano-technology.” It was a crazy idea in 2009 (when this writer wrote much of the previous text, by the way), and it’s still one today, and that’s why it’s the week’s Most Rotten Idea.
For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS via Facebook.
Tony Scott, the British director of such muscular action films as Top Gun, True Romance, and Unstoppable, committed suicide Sunday by leaping from a bridge in Los Angeles. He was 68.
As a 16-year-old, Scott starred in his brother Ridley’s short Boy and Bicycle. Though he studied to be a painter, Scott was inspired by his brother’s success and turned to filmmaking himself, directing a number of commercials before making his theatrical debut with the vampire film The Hunger in 1983. His next film, Top Gun, was a huge commercial hit; the tale of a group of hotshot Navy pilots elevated Tom Cruise to superstardom, spawned a wildly popular soundtrack, and inspired a wave of armed forces enlistees.
Scott re-teamed with Cruise for the less successful Days of Thunder in 1990, and directed True Romance, a wild crime movie written by Quentin Tarantino, in 1993. In 1995, Scott directed Crimson Tide starring Denzel Washington, beginning a fruitful collaboration between director and star that would include Man on Fire (2004), Déjà vu (2006), and the critically-acclaimed Unstoppable (2010), his final feature. He also worked with Will Smith on the critical and commercial hit Enemy of the State in 1998.
In addition to his film work, Scott teamed with his brother to produce the series Numb3rs and The Good Wife for television. In addition to his brother, Scott is survived by his wife Donna and their twin sons.
