Speaking of Cameron Crowe: I recently discovered a podcast that’s actually been out a few years hosted by Alec Baldwin. Obviously he’s a big Star so he pulls a lot of big Hollywood names and earlier this year (pre-rona) he was doing a mini series leading up to the Oscars with past Oscar winners and one of his interviews was Crowe. Crowe told this great story about Cruise from during the production of Jerry Maguire.
Crowe really really wanted the famed old director Billy Wilder for the role of Dicky Fox, you know the mentor to Jerry in the film that it cuts to from time to time who talks directly to the camera? Wilder is in his 90s by now and is an ornery codger who doesn’t know who Crowe is as his biggest stuff hasn’t come out yet, and he keeps telling Crowe to “Get an actor!” After a lot of pleading he finally thinks he has Wilder convinced, and he’s supposed to come to the set this one day. Tom Cruise is there and is all excited to meet the great Billy Wilder who is one of his heroes. The day comes and of course Billy no shows. Crowe calls and Billy doesn’t even know who he is and hangs up on him lol. Crowe tells Tom that Billy is having a bad day or something and he’s probably not coming or whatever. Then Tom is like, “Let’s just drive over there!” all intense and shit just like you’d expect.
So Crowe puts Tom in his car and they are driving through LA to Billy Wilder’s office to barge in on him and try to convince him to take the part. Billy lets them in and immediately changes his tune once he sees Tom Cruise (with whom he is quite familiar, unlike our boy Cameron Crowe) and Wilder is so awestruck he is almost flirting with Tom Cruise. So Tom finally got to meet one of his heroes after all. But they still couldn’t convince Billy to take that part, some Sony executive wound up doing it and doing a decent job of it.
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Alec Baldwin is a fantastic interviewer.
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I’ll have you know Saving Private Ryan (with aliens) is a masterpiece
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What’s the name of the podcast?
Great story. Billy Wilder, wow. Of course it took me a second to realize you weren’t referring to Willy Wonka.
He says during one of the breaks that he literally got the idea for it from the Schwetty Balls sketch on SNL 
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It’s Aliens, only worse. Ragtag bunch of stupid soldiers, with their boring af machismo. No wonder I hadn’t seen it.
We’ve got a Never Cruiser over here
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OP, this is Ghostrider requesting a flyby.
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I think you might really enjoy Starship Troopers.
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We need a gif of Dustin Hoffman furiously scribbling, for when the thread suffers serious injury.
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I have not yet found the interview, but here is one I enjoyed. There’s a bit near the end where Tom discusses Stanley dying that I think is genuine.
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One with Cameron Crowe (lol) and Cruise on Charlie Rose (LOL)
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Watched eyes wide shut last night, haven’t seen it since it came out. I think that one theme of the film that totally went over my head in my first viewing is the class aspect. Tom Cruise is a wealthy, successful physician, but to his clientele he’s ultimately nothing more than a servant. So the undercurrent to the film is Cruise trying to jump into a social class where he doesn’t belong and can never belong.
Can’t find the scene on youtubes but that’s really driven home by one of the last scenes, where Cruise realizes how out of his depth he is. He goes into his kitchen and cracks open a budweiser. lol peasant.
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The 2nd segment that starts at 2:00, wherein he’s talking about the difficulty posed to his and Nicole’s relationship. I never really considered that before, but holy shit he’s right. Kidman was so belittling of her husband’s character, readily dismissing his theory on sex and almost relishing that opportunity. But then when she was deep into describing her willingness to throw it all away for one fuck, it becomes somber. Damn she was good, so was Tom. But the mind-games that would play on 2 genuinely married actors, could be real.
And he chuckles at the end, thinking about how he believes Stanley knew of his torment.
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It’s amazing to me how many people who worked with Kubrick genuinely admired and even loved him, when almost to a person they will tell you how utterly difficult he was to work for and how impossible they felt he was to please.
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Perhaps he was the difference between a person who is self absorbed but compassionate vs someone who is self absorbed and selfish or a narcissist. He might have been both aware of his nature and as considerate to others as he could be on the terms available to him. The real assholes are the people who know how they negatively affect others at times but don’t take any responsibility. But beyond that, a person can’t be asked much more than to acknowledge a thing and work on it as best they’re able each day.
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The short lil 30-approximate-minute documentary chronicling the making of The Shining is interesting if you haven’t seen it - a bit of footage featuring Shelley Duvall in particular. He wasn’t gonna baby her os for one scene anyway lol.
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Is that real? Almost looks like a deep fake. Interview with a vampire is a ridiculous, weird wonderful movie. My wife refuses to watch it and it drives me nuts.
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