The torch gets passed on! Hollywood is saved!
Tom Cruise: popular pretty-boy with less than stellar acting ability who is inexplicably popular. He’s the new George Peppard!
Julia Roberts is Sally Field.
Harrison Ford is Peter O’Toole.
Sylvester Stalone is John Wayne.
-Rue.
Umm… when was George Peppard EVER remotely as popular as Tom Cruise?
When did he ever get 20 million dollars (okay, adjust for inflation) for a movie? When did he get the lead role in a major motion picture?
If you just want to insult Cruise by saying he’s no more talented than Peppard was, fine. But something tells me Tom Cruise will never need to do “The A-Team.”
I’d say Tom is more like Rock Hudson (I didn’t INTEND a gay subtext, but if the tabloids are right, who knows?)- a mediocre actor whose good looks and charm made him irresistible to women, and whose regular-guy demeanor made him likeable to men, and who became a huge star, without making many great films or giving many noteworthy performances.
Yeah, but Rock Hudson was of normal stature.
Cruise needs literally millions of dollars spent on camera tricks and special effects so that he doesn’t look like a leprechaun on-screen.
(In Rock’s day, short actors were told to stand on a box. See Alan Ladd.)
Incidentally, astorian, Cruise will be suing you for twenty million dollars now, due to your SDMB suggestion concerning his sexual preference.
Can Adam Sandler be the new Jerry Lewis?
I’d just love to rest assured knowing his career is headed into telethon hell.
No, no. Jimm Carrey is the new Jerry Lewis.
George Peppard was bland, blond and expressionless: just look at every other cover of “Vanity Fair” for that season’s new George Peppard. I think it’s Heath Ledger this month.
Tom Cruise is creepily intense. More like the new Elisha Cook, Jr.
The new Rock Hudson? Jodie Foster.
Oh, and Robert Downey, Jr., is the new Wallace Reid (OK, everyone quick go look him up . . .)
2 problems here. O’Toole drank like a fish and that is something that has never been said in connection with Ford.
People actually liked to go see John Wayne movies.
Oh, Jesus, that’s great!! I can just see the Little One now in the remake of The Maltese Falcon: “Keep on riding me and they’re gonna be picking iron out of your liver.”
Complete with response from Bruce Willis, today’s Humphrey Bogart: “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?”
Eve, you continue your unbroken string of posts that crack me up!
I just saw the trailer for Evolution, and the thought struck me –
Orlando Jones is the Ernie Hudson of a new generation.
How sad is that? I liked him in Liberty Heights…
Damn, there go my chances with her, no matter how many presidents I kill. Although, the thought of Jodie nuzzling up to some young starlet’s (your choice of pubic reference here) does turn me on more than the thought of her nuzzling up to me.
So would the new Fatty Arbuckle be O.J. Simpson?
Wally Reid was a huge star in the silent era. If I’m not mistaken, his heroin habit only exceeded his popularity. His widow took to the road, after his early, needle-ridden demise, crusading about the evils of drug abuse.
Just a synopsis, and only from memory. I am at work, and don’t have time to fite a cite. 
Ummm…that should read “find a cite”…
Preview only helps if you actually READ it before submitting…
The Maltese Falcon, 2002
Starring:
Kevin Spacey as Sam Spade
Nicole Kidman as Brigid O’Shaughnessy
John Leguzamo as Mr. Cairo
John Goodman as Kaspar Gutman
Tom Cruise as Wilmer Cook
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Written by: Gus Van Sant and William Gibson
Special cameo appearance by Harvey Keitel’s penis
No, sorry. Martin Short is the new Jerry Lewis.
Adam Sandler can be the new Charles Grodin. (Because I say, that’s why!)
-Rue.
[ul]
[li]Harvey Keitel is Robert Mitchum[/li][li]Mel Gibson is James Garner[/li][li]Uma Therman is Ally Sheedy[/li][li]Rachel Leigh Cook is Molly Ringwald[/li][li]Billy Bob Thornton is Orson Welles[/li][li]Tom Seleck is William Holden[/li]and
[li]Sigourney Weaver is Barbara Stanwyck[/li][/ul]
-Rue
Ukulele Ike: other than shortness, there is a big difference between Tom Cruise and Alan Ladd (not that you implied that there was - but your post piqued a family memory)
Alan Ladd was a kind though troubled man who always treated the lesser folk in his business with courtesy and generosity. My grandmother was a bit-player; not even a blip on imdb.com. Alan Ladd found out that she’d had to put my dad into military school, so he bought her a pair wire recorders so they could send messages back an forth.
(Libel Alert) The closest Tom Cruise can do is to have his Scientology cult stage muggings and drownings so Tom Cruise can step in and save the day.
(back to the OP) Did anyone else see Tom Sizemore as the sergeant in “Saving Private Ryan” and see William Bendix back from the dead?
Your career and reputation distroyed because you were connected to a crime you did not actually commit?
No, I don’t see why you would put them together.
Now I think Harrison Ford is today’s Bogart. They have a similar acting style. Plus, they both got into the business later than usual, and their sex symbol status lasted well past the usual expiry date. Ford’s even played a Bogart role, in the remake of Sabrina.
I can’t see Willis as Bogart at all.
That’s cool. I was thinking almost exclusively of their expertise at delivering snappy patter and one-liners.