It’s desperately old, I realize, this YouTube clip of Tom Cruise chatting up the benefits and power of Scientology in strange, circuitous fashion, but I hadn’t watched it prior to its spoof in last weekend’s Superhero Movie, so what’s that perfectly annoying saying NBC coined — “It’s new to you!” Well, that applies here. If you have nine or 10 minutes and still haven’t seen it, it’s well worth checking out. Hell, even the first couple minutes will give you a sense of the top-shelf crazy on display here, what with Cruise talking about Scientology being “the authorities on the mind, the authorities on improving conditions.” Err… OK. And what the hell is “Crim-Anon?”

“Being a Scientologist, people are turning to you, so you’d better know it. You better know it,” Cruise offers up at one point, with his trademark intensity and… menacing pause. “And if you don’t, go and learn it.” Other bon mots find Cruise rhapsodizing that he “will not hesitate to put ethics in on someone else” (?!), which is a trait I believe he might share with President Bush. If the cumulative effect of all this really forceful rhetoric is mesmerizing and definitive — Cruise is as madly persuadable as he is madly persuasive — its actual meaning and real-world application is still fuzzy, though. There’s a lot of talk about change and action, and an emphasis on doing, on recognizing complexities and “creating new and better realities.” But there’s never any sense of what sort of “other world” Cruise (or any other Scientologist, for that matter) is specifically advocating. I mean, other than the same sort of fuzzy liberal rap hung around the neck of every Hollywood actor, what socio-political agenda or causes (other than the anti-psychotropic drug stuff) does Scientology advocate? Change and action, on a certain substantive level, mean engagement with the real world, not shrouded secrecy.

I was a big… well, decent-sized fan of Michael Shannon’s intense work in Bug (less so in World Trade Center), so I was already predisposed to think about casting an eye toward his next indie offering, Shotgun Stories, even before news that the revenge flick — a $68,000 festival darling which
centers around a feud that erupts between half-brothers following
the death of their father — scored writer-director Jeff Nichols CAA representation and a gig directing another movie, for Killer Films. Then came the effusive advance critical praise (above), from Variety and Roger Ebert, among others. So you can imagine my considerable surprise when I then saw that the film which has been dubbed “a point-blank buckshot blast of American rage” is actually rated PG-13. Is that possible? I mean, rage, real rage — and, even more specifically, American rage — connotes something harder, with edge. Not necessarily graphic, but prone to profane outburst and pot-boiled-over intemperance. Something rated R, not PG-13. Poor word choice, perhaps? Or does the movie skirt critical issues it purports to examine?

Universal must be stoked, but also kicking themselves a bit. The latest Newsweek, dated April 7, features a cover story on surrogate mothers. This just three weeks in advance of the big screen Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy regarding the same, Baby Mama, opening April 25. So where’s the ad buy, Universal? You had this one handed to you…

A week and change ahead of its alleged trailer debut, Paramount has released a first-look photo of Tropic Thunder, currently slated for release on August 15.

Ben Stiller — who nursed the idea of a Vietnam War spoof more than decade ago, long before the incarnation of this script, co-written with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen — rocks at least one decently sculpted bicep as spoiled action star Tugg Speedman, though one assumes his butt cheeks are clenched tightly for this shot, and that an awful lot of money was spent on Tan-On or some other skin bronzer. That’s Jack Black in the back, as gross-out comedy star Jeff Portnoy, the melanin doppleganger of man-in-the-middle Robert Downey, Jr., who plays an intense, Australian-born method actor who goes to all sorts of extremes to get into character. It’s a nice shot, though hopefully Stiller, who’s also directing, dials down the “Blue Steel” a bit. Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Matthew McConaughey and Bill Hader also star.