Tom Cruise = von Stauffenberg

[RabbitDynamite]

And so is Hollywood portraying the assassination attempt on Hitler with an all Hollywood cast and crew portraying Germans because it's the only amazing good guys vs. bad guys story they have left . It can be directed and written by Americans, but the actual actors should be German and read German dialogue and it should, if possible, be filmed on location.

Because "respect" and "historical accuracy" are not phrases found within the vocabulary of your average studio muck-a-muck. "Losing money because Joe public doesn't want to see some people gabbling in a foreign lingo, don't they know everyone speaks english now a days etc." is.

What baffles me is that quite recently a poll of the public was published by an American film magazine that Tom Cruise, more than any other other star in Hollywood, makes people decide not to see a movie solely because he is in it. How on Earth do you keep getting high profile roles after that? "Hey let's cast the guy who makes everyone not watch the movie!"

For the record, I thought that Last Samurai was still a very good movie despite the shoehorned American protagonist and the stomach churning romance side plot. The former at least, could have been done so, so much worse than it was. Still, the fact Cruise has been in an occasional good movie is totally irrelevant to his talent (see also: Keanu Reeves) and I still think the majority of his output is pap.

 

[Helmchen]

Well it's beeing shot in the streets of Berlin atm. Just imagine a Opel Blitz fully loaded with actors dressed up like Wehrmachts Soldaten passes a group of tourists on the way to the set...
By the way there was an accident with one of the trucks by which several of the actors riding on it were harmed.
Oh and for the first time since 1945 a Ju-52 with svastikas was seen in the sky above Berlin. Believe me some people were pretty scared when they saw that plane...

Anyways I'm a bit sceptic about Holywood making a movie about an historical event. Dunno somehow a expect a flat love story plenty of fighting action -melee and ranged-, loads of explosions and an omnipotent hero. Call it prejudice I call it experience...
Especially when it's a movie about such a dodgy -dodgy might be to hard but couldn't find any alternatives...- character as Stauffenberg who wasn't as good as some people would like him to be.
Nonetheless I think that I gonna watch the movie. I want to hear Cruise speak german -or did I just understand something totaly wrong?- and I'm pretty curious about the film itself -is Stauffenberg's character believable are there no unneccessary love stories/shootouts and so on.

 

[[TW]schneidzekk]

Well, i heard some German actor was chosen to play Stauffenberg, but then Cruise wanted to play him and since he is one of the owners of the studio, he got the role.

Helps to have the monies

 

[thedonster]

Cruise is an idiot.
But you have to give credit where it's due, and he has made some good movies in recent years. Collateral and Minority Report come to mind. Cruise as von Stauffenberg? I'm skeptical, but give it a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Incidentally, Cruise's philosophical assassin character in Collateral was lifted from William Gibson's novel All Tomorrow's Parties.

 

[thedonster]

What baffles me is that quite recently a poll of the public was published by an American film magazine that Tom Cruise, more than any other other star in Hollywood, makes people decide not to see a movie solely because he is in it. How on Earth do you keep getting high profile roles after that? "Hey let's cast the guy who makes everyone not watch the movie!"
.

John Travolta has that effect on me.
And he's another Scientology freak.

 

[D3terioNation]

Cruise is an idiot.
But you have to give credit where it's due, and he has made some good movies in recent years. Collateral and Minority Report come to mind. Cruise as von Stauffenberg? I'm skeptical, but give it a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Incidentally, Cruise's philosophical assassin character in Collateral was lifted from William Gibson's novel All Tomorrow's Parties.

He was brilliant in Born on the 4th of July! Awesome film!

 

[Lustmord]

Holy Crapinsky,they look like twins

 

[Quietus]

Especially because the son of the man he's going to portray expressed his discomfort with it. It just isn't very respectful of them. They should have just casted a real Germans for the roles. Why 'Hollywoodize' the movie when you can make it historically accurate? It's not like German movies don't sell (Der Untergang, Das Boot, Stalingrad, anyone?).

Nimsky, Hollywood is like a child perpetually stuck at the age of 14. It just keeps making the same "warm N fuzzy GoodvsEvil" simplistic slop over and over and over again (yes there are some exceptions but not nearly enough). I watch these moview nowadays and I can literally predict what type of a scene is coming up and what emotional "button" it's going to hit. It's SO formulaic that you could take scripts from 20 years ago and if remade nowadays nobody would be the wiser because the formula is damn near the same as back then. Hollywood isn't about dead on accurate renditions of history, it's about "entertainment and making as much money as possible" At least with the blockbuster big name movies it is. I've yelled about this many times on these boards.

I expect absolutely nothing as far as historical correctness and documentary level story telling from hollywood. It's just mindless entertainment and that probably what it will always be. Nobody wants to go pay to see a "buzzkill" historically correct film except the few freaks out there like me and a few others. It's about entertainment not education.

BTW I've seen Der Untergang or "Downfall" I think it's called in the US. One of the best war movies I've ever seen. On a sidenote Clint Eastwood is the only US moviemaker that I'm aware of that actually attempted to make a historically correct war film(s). So what does that say when only a 70 something year old man is willing to take the risk on it? IMO it says Hollywood sucks *** and will likely continue to do so. I think someone should start a site reviewing and picking apart all these hollywood war movies so everybody can see and learn how stupid they really are. It could be like the anti hollywood pro history site. I'd love to see that.