Yet another actor gets so megalomaniacal he ALSO becomes unwatchable

The Great Tom Cruise Backlash / Will this annoying phase pass, or will Tom become the next super-rich, Mel Gibson-like nutball?

There was Ronnie Reagan, but no one watched his movies anyway (and before him George Murphy, of whom almost no one knew he'd ever been in movies), then George C Scott and Barbra Streisand -- making us scream "I don't WANT to know anything about their private lives, their off-screen lives -- (I was only willing to not run screaming from anything with Elliot Gould in it out of sympathy for him having spent years sharing Barbra's bed, and good, I got to see MASH when it came out -- Jesus -- if there's any group of people about whom you can generalize they're MORE superficial and flakey than actors, it's Songbirds.)

Then Sonny Bono and Ahhnold, not that anyone was listening to Sonny Bono, but we still would watch Ahhnold's movies from time to time on cable, perhaps more to see Sandahl Bergman or Grace Jones than him, but still, they didn't cause outright nausea.

And now Tom Cruise, who has enough money to handle the loss of income if not the rejection becomes the new pain in the ass "Hey-I'm-not-just-an-actor ... I'm a real genuine intelligent person."

No, Tom, you're not. You're a shallow self-serving asshole, and the actor who isn't pretty much that (and there are some) is the exception. You're no exception. You make your living pretending to be Tom Cruise with another name, a sort of rabid weasel-man with bonded teeth.

You don't even do that very well. In other words, you and Steven Spielberg make a perfect couple -- make lots of noise and tell the world how fucking wonderful you are when what you do is distract without informing, entertaining, or delighting, millions of assholes excited to see themselves in you, notwithstanding. And if the Top Guns of Scientology could see how you are anti-selling the Church about as much as if Volkswagen got Henrich Himmler's grandson as their spokesman.

But now let's go back to Mark Morford, who says it better than anyone:

Let it begin now. Let it start with a wry askance glance and evolve into full-fledged annoyance and then move into raging hell-bent OK that's quite enough now please stop before we slap you silly.

Note to Tom Cruise: You are maxing out. Wearing out the welcome. Becoming less the tolerable and moderately talented and mildly likable megastar and more like an itchy boil on the deranged ferret of popular culture, requiring lancing.


--- gotta admit, Mr Morford has the handle on this one ---


The signs are all in place. The crazy ranting, the jumping on couches, the crazed grins, the enormous piles of money, the incessant photos of you sucking the face off your new and bewildered and child-like fiancee, the weird diatribes about psychiatry and mental health, the relatively common knowledge that you are super-seriously involved at the highest levels with one of the creepier money-hungry pseudo-religions in the nation.

Also: the assigning of a "handler" from said cult to tag along with your new bewildered young fiancee everywhere she goes to "keep her on the path" and make sure she doesn't, I don't know what. Talk about the nightmares? Break down in a heap and confess that it's all a staged setup? Reveal your true lizard identity?

you can read the rest of it here complete with all the links he's used to make his (admittedly easy) case, and even follow the URL path to subscribe to his column by email... it's an elegant display of acid-spray as art... if you liked this sample, you'll love having him come in on your email.