Ah… Tom Cruise. More than just a pretty face. He’s also crazy… and he’s a pretty good actor as well. In this episode of Trivia Tuesday, Tom Cruise will be the thread that ties all of these clips together. There are 10 of them! You don’t have to get them all right, but I don’t think they are that hard either. Just share your guesses in the comments and then share the video with your friends.
What is your favorite Tom Cruise character?
It is Summer! Well not officially, but it is hot outside and the kids are out of school, so that means that lots of families will be embarking on a classic staple of my childhood… the road trip. I have so many memories sitting in the back of my aunt’s suburban as we traveled all over the Southeastern United States visiting campgrounds, state parks, beaches, springs, and caverns. I hope to instill plenty of these memories in my kids as well.
But perhaps you are like me and you have to work most of the summer and don’t get to participate in a lot of the fun. That’s okay, you can live vicariously through some movie characters in some great road trip movies. I will say that these are probably not the best movies to watch while you are on a road trip, that is a list for another day. There are so many that I will share a couple of honorable mentions, but these are my top 3. Please share your favorites in the comments below.
Honorable mentions (in no particular order):
The Blues Brothers (1980) – a quotable cult classic, they were on a mission from God.
National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) – Come rain, shine, dead relatives, or dragged dogs, the Griswolds were determined to get to Walley World. Skip the sequels and watch the original.
Thelma & Louise (1991) – They just wanted a girls’ weekend away. And instead they got a modern landmark of feminism on film.
Dumb and Dumber (1994) – Clearly not the smartest film on the list, but just try to keep a straight face as Lloyd and Harry rumble through America in their dog-shaped “shaggin’ wagon.”
Zombieland (2009) – Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) emerges from a World of Warcraft marathon to find zombies have taken over America. When Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) shows up, Columbus joins his quest for Twinkies and zombie annihilation.
When car dealer Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has an autistic older brother named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) and that his father’s $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father’s money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers’ cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.
This was the highest-grossing film of 1988 and won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hoffman, Best Director for Barry Levinson, and Best Original Screenplay. IMDb users rated it 8.0 out of 10. It is so much more than a road-trip movie, it is just good cinema.
Years after the collapse of civilization, the tyrannical Immortan Joe enslaves apocalypse survivors inside the desert fortress the Citadel. When the warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) leads the despot’s five wives in a daring escape, she forges an alliance with Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), a loner and former captive. Fortified in the massive, armored truck the War Rig, they try to outrun the ruthless warlord and his henchmen in a deadly high-speed chase through the Wasteland.
You might say that it is more of a chase movie than a road trip movie (especially since there are no actual roads just desert wasteland) but I think it should get a pass for such a large vision from George Miller being pulled off in nearly flawless fashion. It is a technical masterpiece and a great piece of storytelling. It is sitting at an 8.1 on IMDb.
The Hoover family — a man (Greg Kinnear), his wife (Toni Collette), an uncle (Steve Carell), a brother (Paul Dano) and a grandfather (Alan Arkin) — piles into a VW bus and heads to California to support a daughter (Abigail Breslin) in her bid to win the Little Miss Sunshine Contest. The sanity of everyone involved is stretched to the limit as the group’s quirks cause epic problems as they travel along their interstate route.
I can’t even think of another movie that I would consider at #1. When I think of a road trip story this is what comes into my head now. The comedy and tragedy are so intertwined. This is one seriously messed up family, but the close quarters of the van and the superb storytelling makes it feel like its your messed up family.
So what do you think? Sound off in the comments below! We’ll argue about it until dad threatens to turn the car around.
Doug Liman, who previously helmed Mr. & Mrs. Smith and the Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow, is in talks to direct Lionsgate/Summit’s post-apocalyptic young adult thriller Chaos Walking. Robert Zemeckis had previously been attached to the film, which is based on the first book in Patrick Ness’ bestselling young-adult trilogy.
The story takes place in a world where there are no women and all living creatures can hear one another’s thoughts in a stream of images, words and sounds called Noise.
Lionsgate picked up the property in 2011 as a way of extending its dominance in the YA film space thanks to its Hunger Games and Twilight franchises. But the studio has stumbled with some of its subsequent efforts including the Divergent franchise as well as Ender’s Game, which never even spawned a sequel.
But Chaos Walking has more pedigree than Divergent or Ender’s Game given that Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind) adapted the book.
Doug Davison, who produced the Liman-directed Tom Cruise starrer Mena, is producing alongside Allison Shearmur (Rogue One, Cinderella). Zemeckis and his ImageMovers’ partner Jack Rapke also are onboard as producers. The hope is to be in production in the fall.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
I’m working through several 2015 movies and tying to put my feelings into writing before the Oscars come on in two weeks. My problem is that I have found a couple that I very much enjoyed watching and it is always more difficult for me to write a review of a good movie than one that I despised. So often it is hard to even express why a movie resonates with me, but usually the reasons that a movie is awful come to mind very easily. In the meantime, I am going to share some really good movies that you can watch on Netflix while you are stuck inside during #snowpocalypse.
Rain Man is “definitiely” a very entertaining movie, but it isn’t just funny in certain points. It is Charlie’s character development that keeps the movie interesting. Raymond is steadfast. He is an autistic savant and is unwavering in his personality, his delivery, and his routine. God help you if you mess with his routine.
This film was made before the autistic spectrum was really outlined the way that we have today. We can even see this in Ebert’s review of the film as he compares autistic people to cats. He asks, “Is it possible to have a relationship with an autistic person? Is it possible to have a relationship with a cat? … I have useful relationships with both of my cats, and they are important to me. But I never know what the cats are thinking.” This film was partly responsible for bringing the savant form of autism to light in popular culture, but it did it in a way that didn’t pander to the audience or play on it for emotional trickery, nor does it linger on the sideshow parlor tricks that Raymond’s disorder affords him. Instead it remains focused on this complicated relationship.
There is a moment in “Rain Man” that crystalizes all the frustrations that Charlie feels about Raymond, a moment when he cries out, “I know there has to be somebody inside there!” But who? And where?
It takes some time and work for him to get there, but by the end of the film Charlie find himself loving Raymond, this brother which he never knew he had and of whom he tries to take advantage. How does he get there? Does he find a way to fix Raymond? Some miracle cure that turns him “normal?” No, as anyone who knows someone who suffers from autism, the way to love them is to love them right where they are.
If you do decide to watch this as a family, I would encourage only much older children because the language is pretty salty and there are even a few brief moments of nudity. If you can catch an edited version on television, it may actually make it better, because in this case, those aspects do nothing to drive the story further. This could have easily been a PG-13 movie. The message comes through loud and clear however as we ask ourselves if Charlie is really any more mature than Raymond even though society accepts one but not the other.
