L to R: Tom Friend, Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Mel Kiper, Jr.
There’s a great story about how sports writer Tom Friend landed a cameo on Jerry Maguire. I thought it was pretty funny and insightful look back by Friend. Check it out over at ESPN.com’s Front Row, I think you’ll like it too.
Photo by Neal Preston/20th Century Fox
The NY Times chats with Cameron about life after Elizabethtown, Tom Cruise and the genesis of We Bought A Zoo. You can read Leah Rozen’s entire article/interview over at the NY Times, but here’s a few choice excerpts:
Mr. Cruise, who had starred in the hugely successful “Jerry Maguire” (1996) and “Vanilla Sky” (2001) for Mr. Crowe, felt that it was time for his friend Mr. Crowe to emerge from behind the yellow legal tablets on which he composes his first drafts in longhand. “I was deep in the writing cave,” Mr. Crowe recalled, “and he said: ‘Hey man, you need to be directing. You’re forgetting the joy, the adrenaline.’ He’s, like, ‘Let’s go for a drive.’ ”
The drive took them to the nearby set in Los Angeles of “Knocked Up,” where the writer and director Judd Apatow was trading punch lines with Seth Rogen and the film crew. Mr. Cruise introduced Mr. Crowe to Mr. Apatow, who joked that he’d been stealing for years from “Say Anything…,” the sharp-witted teen comedy that first established Mr. Crowe as a director in 1989.
“Cruise sidles up to me and goes: ‘See? Get out of your house, man, it’s fun,’ ” Mr. Crowe said. “And that’s when it felt like, yeah, it’s time to direct again.”
Whatever the fate of “Zoo,” will Mr. Crowe wait as long again before making his next film? “Not anymore, baby,” he said exuberantly. He said he hopes to begin shooting in March on a new comedy that he had finished writing two days earlier, even as he was making final tweaks on “Zoo.” And he has another movie he intends to make right after that.
Unreality magazine lists their Top 10 Most Polarizing Films of the Decade and Vanilla Sky made the cut. This doesn’t surprise me at all, as many people either love it or hate it. Some love it so much, they saw it multiple times at the theater (and helped it reach $100 million in domestic box office) and dissect its multiple secrets, while others don’t like remakes, Tom Cruise or the ending. Here’s the list of films (in no particular order) that made their Top 10:
Don’t miss the recently released 25th anniversary of Risky Business on standard DVD and Blu-ray. It’s never looked better with a gorgeous new remastered version of the film. Amongst the extras:
I found this great picture over at Death Studios. Makeup artist Don Lanning was the artist responsible who worked on Tom Cruise’s makeup with KNB for Vanilla Sky.
As promised, (for a long time now), we present Cameron’s 1986 talk with Tom Cruise from Interview Magazine. He discusses his early film career (Taps, The Outsiders, Risky Business and Top Gun) and his plans for the future.
Peter Frampton paid homage to the late George Harrison at a concert he organized and Cameron also donated signed items from Almost Famous for charity silent auction to raise money for the Sept. 11 relief fund. During an encore last Sunday night, the British guitarist played an emotional version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as a tribute to Harrison, who died of cancer on Nov. 29 at age 58.
In Vanilla Sky, Cruise’s character David Aames describes lead guitarist George as his favorite Beatle. In the movie, Tom says, “I always liked George.” Crowe and Cruise considered scrapping the line, but decided against it. “We were both so sad. Tom and I kept saying, ‘Can you believe he’s dead?’ We decided it would be too late to change the line now and how it’s almost more meaningful now.”
As promised, I’ve added Cameron’s extensive interview with Tom Cruise from the June 2000 Vanity Fair. They discuss Cruise’s entire career and there’s even a description of Cruise reading the Lester Bangs part, so Cameron could hear it aloud. It’s a great interview, so check it out.
