Thu, June 2, 2005
"Who's Coming With Me?"—12:15 PM
The "New York Times" has an article about Tom Cruise making a bit of a spectacle of himself lately, particularly during his Flubber-infused appearance on Oprah to talk about his new girlfriend, Katie Holmes. (Another Amazon! Tom's "you must be at least this tall" sign apparently features a diagram of Tom sitting on his own shoulders.) I think it's hilarious that the "Times" thinks this is important news. The paper gravely expresses concern in Hollywood that Cruise might be "doing long-term harm to his career" by whooping about Holmes and publicly proclaiming his devotion to Scientology. It's as though he's staged some sort of Jerry Maguire-style flip-out, and he'll be muttering in a bathtub within a week.
I admit, I found it kind of odd that he demanded a Scientology recruiting tent on the set of War of the Worlds, but it surprises me that anyone in Hollywood would worry about this hurting his career. First, he's Tom Cruise. Second, we all thought being really public about his kooky beliefs was going to seal Mel Gibson's fate – dropping him to B-rate Lifetime movie walk-ons and late-night cable pitches for direct-shipped diabetes medicine. But we were wrong; dead wrong.
Here's my favorite part, though. It's obvious to anyone with a calendar that even if Tom & Katie's romance is genuine, the timing of its press blitz release is extremely convenient for their respective summer tentpoles and magazine covers. If Tom Cruise says he's not gay, I believe he's not gay. If he says he's in love with Katie Holmes, I'll believe it. But the decision, timing, and fervor of the announcement? Pure publicity. However, some plucky cub reporter at the "Times" dug deeper (my emphasis):
Mr. Cruise's recent comments and behavior have been fodder for Internet bloggers, radio talk show hosts and late-night comedians, who, among other things, have questioned whether the love affair with Ms. Holmes was a publicity stunt. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cruise denied that this was the case.
Who asks that question of Mr. Cruise's spokeswoman? First, who cares what she says, we all know it is what it is. But more importantly, what did you think she was going to say? "Ah, well played, 'New York Times'. You've beaten us at our own game. Indeed, it is a publicity stunt. Enjoy six more weeks of magazine covers. See 'War of the Worlds' on June 29! 'Cocktail' isn't that bad after the first 20 minutes!" She's allegedly part of this giant publicity machine – don't you think they might have drilled her on how to deny that it's a publicity stunt?
"AC" — Thu, 6/2/05 3:56pm
It was a very strange article. The main thing I got from it was that the hilarious Der Spiegel exchange was apparently real.