The folks who wrote this little summary try to connect the disappointing third place showing of Tom Cruise’s new movie Knight and Day to not only backlash against Cruise’s strident support of Scientology, but also directly to what is officially becoming “jumping on Oprah’s couch-gate”.
Now, I am not a Tom Cruise fan, and I have not seen Knight and Day even though it is playing directly across from my house. I have, however, seen the trailers. And it is my opinion that if the movie’s opening returns have been a disappointment, it is directly due to the trailers making the movie look like a big noisy pile of suck-trocious crap. All I saw was a bunch of computer-generated cars tumbling around violating every law of physics. Meanwhile the “hero” clings to the roof of a speeding car, without a hair out of place, making smartass remarks as huge chunks of Detroit metal go bouncing past. At least in the chase scene in Bullitt, Steve McQueen, acting great that he was, managed to look worried about his situation.
But here again, (and how many years has it been?) people who write about these things have brought up Oprah’s couch as the cause of Cruise’s decline and fall. That fatal couch! Ah, how dare he treat Oprah’s sacred set furniture with such gross disrespect? How could he believe, even for a moment, that the public would ever forgive or forget such abuse of a cushioned fellow being, who would no doubt chose to be called an Upholstered-American?
I don’t want to make broad generalizations here, so I’ll just say I’ve never given a shit about Tom Cruise’s incident with Oprah’s couch, and I can’t understand anyone who does.
Do you give a shit about Oprah’s couch? If so, why?
I was watching when it happened, and it was seriously spooky. Like he was high on something meant for horses spooky.
No, creepy. Creepy in an “Oh my God I hope whoever he’s ‘in love’ with is escaping while he’s busy here” sort of way.
He was out there wild with his eyes bugging and an intensity that clearly frightened Oprah, and, well, just, DAMN! I’ve watched the clips since then, and I really don’t think it shows enough to understand. It was nutso, man, nutso.
and shit.
I watched it when it aired, too, and I remember thinking he was a horse’s ass.
Before the scientology stuff had come out, before all the “mental illness doesn’t exist” crap, just the couch incident where he claimed to be out of his head happy with being in true love for the first time ever. Deliriously, insanely in love. For the first time evar!
And this interview happened, what, a month or two after he and Nicole Kidman broke up? So his two children got to watch their father jumping around like a lunatic on national television telling the world that he’d never actually been in love with their mother? Nice. Real nice.
Does it matter to me a great deal? Nope, not at all. In fact, my family went to see Knight and Day yesterday, mostly for the great air-conditioning in the theater. But between the couch incident and all the other crap that’s been spewed out, yeah, he’s an ass.
I just think he’s a smug, smarmy prick, and that’s the character he almost always plays. I might see it at home later, but I think I’ll pass on the price of the movie ticket.
I do.
I think I share the thought with lots of other people that TC jumping on the couch kind of confirmed him as a weirdo. I personally think that if he continues to do things like Tropic Thunder and Knight and Day only then will people forget what a weirdo he is.
I reluctantly went to see Knight and Day earlier tonight. After it was over, my wife and I looked at each other and said at the same time “well, that was cute.” I want to like Tom Cruise again; and him taking rolls where he can show that he can laugh at himself a little bit is a good way to do that.
Yeah, for me, this was the moment that sealed it. For me and a lot of gals my age, he started out as a teen idol. We thrilled to his tighty-whities in Risky Business, wanted to be the girlfriend in All the Right Moves, melted watching Top Gun, etc. Up until this point, we thought he was a hot, desirable Movie Star. Little by little, we started hearing that he was a Movie Star with perhaps some issues.
But the dance on the couch forced us to face reality. He was a Fookin Whack Movie Star. I don’t watch Oprah and don’t care about her couch. All I knew was that all of a sudden, this hot guy I’d been crushing on had revealed himself to be batshit crazy.
He jumped more than Oprah’s couch that day. Homeboy jumped the shark.
Having taste different than the average mainstream that is hand fed to us DOES make you a hipster-douche, thanks for reminding me!
Btw, I wouldn’t suggest using Dominos anymore to support this little old man rant of yours, Dominos themselves made a advertisement campaign based around how much they suck.
It isn’t the couch jumping incident that ruined his image with a lot of the public, but that is the most standout crazy moment from that year where he appeared to be going slowly insane. The type of actor he is was going to lead to him having a significant decline in popularity the older he gets, whether he went crazy on Matt Lauer or not, which is I think the bigger issue here.
Well that’s kind of the point of the movie. It’s not a realistic action flick even on the order of Mission Impossible. It’s an action adventure romance comedy, along the lines of Chuck. It’s just supposed to be fun and entertaining, not at all realistic. I saw it, and it was totally preposterous, but it was supposed to be. And that’s what made it so much damn fun.
Not the couch per se. I mean certainly not the actual couch. But I think you were kidding about that. But:
It’s just one more thing in a long line of weird creepy behavior… And when an actor develops such a strong personality in the headlines, it eventually becomes distracting from the movie going experience when their face makes you think about the real person instead of the character. Especially in his case, since he keeps getting cast as ‘likeable action hero or romantic lead’. It’s not so much a problem when he plays creepy megalomaniacs like that frogs falling out of the sky movie.
Beyond the general weird behavior, him being so tight with the scientology movement, which is evil, makes one a little offput at supporting his endeavors. In a similar vein to why some people hesitate before seeing something by Directors who fled the country rather than face statutory rape charges… And I’m not entirely convinced that Katie Holmes isn’t being somehow psychologically damaged by the relationship…
Note, I still saw the movie. But I have a fairly strong suspension of disbelief ability, and am generally more aloof about celebrity antics than the average person. But it was hard to stop myself from rolling my eyes at the idea of another heroic romantic lead Tom Cruise movie.
I remember he and Kidman split up a while before Moulin Rouge! came out (2001), and Wikipedia tells me this was actually several years before the couch jumping incident (2005). However, it was apparently just a month or two after he started dating Katie Holmes.
Like you, this incident sticks in my mind mostly because it seemed like such a jerk thing to do to his kids. And if that’s how he was acting on national television, who knows what lunacy was going on in private? I felt really sorry for them. Kidman could probably say to herself “Thank God I’m not with that psycho anymore”, but it’s got to be a lot harder to write off your father that way. I hope for their own sake that they didn’t take it this way, but I could see them interpreting his behavior as meaning not only that he’d never loved their mother, but that he’d never really loved them either or been happy when they’d all been together as a family. Especially since the Cruise/Kidman kids were adopted, they might understandably have been concerned that dad cared more about his new girlfriend and the prospect of having “real” (biological) children with her than he did about them.
I seem to remember with all the giddy jumping around and mugging for the camera, when Cruise was asked what, specifically, he loved about Katie Holmes, he was at a sudden & total loss for words. Or at least so I heard it reported.
And it was around the same time that this came out, isn’t it? (see especially from 2:35 and 4:23) for other heapin’ helpins of creepy.
It was a bad career move. Like Farah on David Letterman and appeared to be high. Or when Cher did those infomercials for beauty products. Or well the list goes on.
Back in the day they used to teach celebrities how to go on talk shows and such. Some people do well in unscripted situations, some do not.
It’s a shame that Cruise who; depsite his beliefs, is a fine actor; is going to be known not for his work but for the moron who was jumping all over Oprah’s couch.
I think Knight and Day has failed to light up the box office just because it hasn’t struck a chord with audiences. Or they’re all choosing to flock to see Toy Story 3. Cruise’s antics are irrelevant.
I do plan to see Knight and Day when it’s out on DVD.
On the Knight and Day thread, I mentioned how both I, and the SO, liked it a lot.
Sure, there were some major plot holes, but for a summer, blockbuster popcorn film, it was funny, lots of action and a decent story. No - there will be no Oscar nominations, but hey - we knew that going in. It was never advertised as Shakespeare’s Knight and Day.
Regarding Tom Cruise, the closeted, whack-job, Sciencultogist? Who cares…I watch films and TV shows with actors/actresses that I might not want to be pals with in real life, but it doesn’t matter.
Yes - his couch jumping solidified, and certified, his insanity - but I can think of lots of nutjobs who are quite talented in what they do. Tom Cruise did a good job in Knight and Day - and for those waiting for the DVD, I don’t doubt for a minute you will post here again and say, “Hey, that was kind of a fun movie!”
The theory in the OP’s link seems pretty obviously false. Cruise had two successful movies right after the couch thing, its pretty hard to believe that five years later eveyone decided to stop seeing his movies.
I like Cruise as an actor. He’s obviously a pretty weird guy IRL. I don’t think I’d want to put him in charge of anything important, but his job is to pretend to be a secret agent on my TV, he doesn’t really need to be a paragon of righteous living and rationality to do that well.
I want to like Tom Cruise again; and him taking rolls where he can show that he can laugh at himself a little bit is a good way to do that.