Eye of the Goof

For what it's worth, its reviewers (including Kim) have been mostly lukewarm about it.

i actually enjoyed it more than i expected to, though owing nothing to cruise. in fact i am at the point where i find myself wishing every movie were cast with "unknowns." it's harder and harder to suspend your disbelief when celebrity mugs, romances, court battles, voice overs, shilling, etc have so saturated the every day media shower. after the recent cruise-mania it was impossible to forget who you were looking at up there, even for a second.

the production value of w.o.t.w. was, as expected, very high with the main mistake (imho) being the same one made everywhere- the aliens are c.g. i think a guy / gal / midget in a weird latex suit covered in goo and filth with some flailing animatronic appendages or what have you always -films- creepier than c.g. the c.g. machines were great, but the aliens? uh, not so much.

ok, what was this all about again? oh, right cruise being crazy... he's obviously a guy who has too much money, too much free time, too much ego, and not enough brains to guide the ship of self through choppy waters into port dignity.

Pure CG just doesn't cut it for me either, jaime. I happened to catch part of Spielberg's Jurassic Park last week and was amazed at how well the movie's blend of CG and traditional animatronics has held up; the dinosaurs are totally believable.

I also would like to see more unknown actors being cast in films, but I suspect that they would soon become just as overbearing and obnoxious as the celebs they replaced. I hate to sound like Rick Santorum, but the problem really is the culture of Hollywood: it's a collection of extremely paranoid, supreme egotists who spend their days being told how wonderful they are by sycophants who then turn around and stab them in the back.

And as someone who belonged to a cult in my youth and subsequently escaped, I have some sympathy for Cruise (even though he's an ass). This recent bout of proselytizing bears all the hallmarks of a man who's trying to mask his doubts about the pseudo-scientific crap he's been spoonfed by the Scientologists by racheting up his zeal to extreme levels. I suspect that he's heard the Xenu story and knows at least subconsciously that his faith is bullshit.

well, if your theory is in fact the case it does serve to humanize this particular buffoon a bit... but then, what's so great about humans? :)

personally i don't feel even the quantum probability of an ion of sympathy for him. but then my heart is small and black and hard as diamond.

you belonged to a cult in your youth? what were you catholic?

Yes, I am a lapsed Catholic, as a matter of fact, but I was referring to being a so-called Jesus Freak back in the '70s. I lived in a co-ed hippy commune that was led by a 'latter-day apostle' named Jim Durkin who considered himself to be on a par with the likes of Peter or Paul.

I joined because at the time, they seemed to be more of a family to me than my own home which was presided over by a drunken, abusive step-father. But when the group started doing things like confiscating medicine from sick members, then chiding them for a lack of faith when they didn't recover, I decided that this didn't square with my reading of the Bible, and I took my leave secretly. When the leaders found out I'd left, they told the rest of the congregation to shun me because I'd been "fellowshipping with demons".

It took me a long time to get over the rejection and doubt that they subjected me to, but I was eventually able to forgive them and move on.

i can commiserate 100% on the "drunken, abusive step father." i myself was too young to have any recourse, joining a cult as surrogate family or otherwise, so my heart does go out to you, small and black though it may be. i'll stop commenting now to spare you any further "fellowshipping with demons."

No worries. It's not painful at all for me to discuss it. I'm actually very grateful that I had the experience because it taught me a lot about who you should give your trust to, and what you should believe.

And I'm sorry to hear that you had to suffer through the same step-father experience that I did. No kid should ever have to be subjected to that. I was trapped in the situation for many years, and even though I eventually 'escaped' to join the cult, I felt tremendous guilt at leaving my mother at home with him.