Sidestepping the icon discussion to take issue with one point from the Cruise article:
In the new thriller "Collateral,"Cruise plays his first out-and-out bad guy, a hit man who hires Los Angeles taxi driver Jamie Foxx as his chauffeur for the dusk-to-dawn schedule of murders he has planned and then precedes to force Foxx into his schemes.
So I guess his Lestat wasn't an out-and-out bad guy because he was polite while teaching the little girl that he'd previously turned into an undead monster how to murder people indiscriminately?
So I guess his Lestat wasn't an out-and-out bad guy because he was polite while teaching the little girl that he'd previously turned into an undead monster how to murder people indiscriminately?
Hey, Lestat was showing some good family values there!
Hey, Lestat was showing some good family values there!
The family that slays together, stays together?
Too easy.
You knew what you were getting from a Humphrey Bogart perfomance; you knew what to expect from a Jimmy Stewart performance. (Except for that one Thin Man movie). The joy was in seeing how you got there. Both of them were fine and effective actors, as well as iconic movie stars.
I might add Rope for Jimmy Stewart.
But part of the issue is that things have changed a great deal since the heyday of the Bogarts and Stewarts in two interrelated ways. Back then, the studio controlled the stars -- and tended to pigeonhole stars in formulas that worked. Warners wouldn't let Bogart be a romantic lead or comic foil because audiences liked him as a tough guy.
Also, the studios worked their stars. Filming only took a couple months, and it wasn't unusual for stars to make several movies a year and dozens in a career. Counting bit parts, uncrediteds, and the like, Bogart made over 75 movies -- and Stewart over 90. (Loretta Young -- over 100.) That pace isn't going to happen today. (ETA: By contrast, Collateral is only Cruise's 27th.)
I'm watching
Prime Suspect
on BBC-America -- Comcast claims it from this year but David Thewlis, Helen Mirren and Ciaran Hinds all look suspiciously young. So, I go to the IMDB to see when it says that David Thewlis was in
Prime Suspect
. 1993. Huh.
And found an entry for this film by Terrence Malick about Jamestown with Christian Bale as John Rolfe, Colin Farrell as John Smith and Michael Greyeyes playing somebody named Wobblehead. Interesting.
And there I was thinking I'd noticed you discussing something different from my starting point, Sean. It just looks like we have a different definition of icon. If icon isn't the word you use to describe what I've defined, switch icon in all my posts for what your word is.
I don't have the urge to defend my usage of the word -- it's lightly supported by dictionaries and things like icons in UIs, but it's hardly worth going to war over.
So, to be clear -- got nothing to argue with you about. Just defining
my
terms.
Robin, did you feel the lack of his penis?
Robin, did you feel the lack of his penis?
I haven't seen it and I feel the lack of CF's penis.
I ALWAYS feel the lack of CF's penis, ita. But didn't think it was needed in the film--there is enough emotional nudity, if you see what I mean. Plus a pretty pretty shot of CF walking down the hall which reveals the torso down to millimeters of the aforesaid member.
