apocalypse later

five-time academy award winner kirk lazarus: check it out. dustin hoffman, "rain man," look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. counted toothpicks, cheated cards. autistic, sure. not retarded. you know tom hanks, "forrest gump." slow, yes. retarded, maybe. braces on his legs. but he charmed the pants off nixon and won a pingpong competition. that ain't retarded. peter sellers, "being there." infantile, yes. retarded, no. you went full retard, man. never go full retard. you don't buy that? ask sean penn, 2001, "i am sam." remember? went full retard, went home empty handed.

when tom cruise did that horrible horrible movie vanilla sky i was convinced that the guy's a, well, a monster. only a terrible actor, or person, could really fuck a cameron crowe film like that. jerry maguire is a great movie because that was the pre-tom cruise tom cruise we were seeing there. and even then you could fault the acting.

almost famous is that film which i think is closest to my heart, the scorseses and the altmans need all your faculties, so the only explanation i could give myself about vanilla sky is that it's one of those magic realism moments you read in books, where you have no idea what just happened, except it did. and to you. horrible.

so that was my story, until an hour ago when, watching a ben stiller film, i realized i was charmed by the tom cruise performance (it's the performance, not the actor, let's make that clear) and thought i might consider taking back the monster description. watch tropic thunder. the hiphop dances, i swear; do i have a low mp3 somewhere. and then robert downey jr. those three words. the movie with tobey maguire was just genius. if i were the oscars he'd receive not just five; give the guy thirty, please. everyone's smart in tropic thunder because everyone plays the fool.

and we all liked jay baruchel, oh so cute. he was in almost famous, too. small role, but he was there. there's another tom cruise movie i liked, magnolia, but i don't think he was acting there. by the way, which came first, was it magnolia? or vanilla sky?