Mood:
accident proneNow Playing: Defending (sort of) Tom Cruise and his ilk...
Topic: Celebrity News/Thoughts
I am taking a moment to post my opinions on celebrities and pop culture that might go against the grain of what everyone else is thinking. This might earn me some enemies or, at the very least, cause me to get a pair of discount designer shades at CrystalShades.com to protect my identity.
First off, I am a fan of Tom Cruise. I have been a fan of his since I was 12, and that was nearly 21 years ago. Back then, I carried his picture in my wallet and wept when he married Mimi Rogers. I was envious of Kelly McGillis in Top Gun. I also thought Tom Cruise was robbed of Oscar recognition for The Color of Money and Born on the Fourth of July. I thought Tom Cruise did an excellent job as the ambi-sexual vampire mentor Lestat in Interview with the Vampire. (Stuart Townsend didn't bring as much glee or depth to his Lestat in the horrid Queen of the Damned.)
I also believe that Tom Cruise is a good actor with a winning personality with a nose and a smile that only a mother could love. (Have you seen his mother? They look exactly alike!) I have loved Tom Cruise as a lover, a mother, a friend, and sort of like Rosie O'Donnell. Last year's appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show ruffled my feathers. His open disdain of antidepressants and post partum depression felt like a mighty stab in the back since I am an antidepressant user and was suffering from post-partum (post-adoption if you will) depression. Tom, if you're reading, you really hurt my feelings! The press has spent the better part of the last six months documenting his reportedly faux or apparently crumbling relationship with Katie Holmes. She was the victim, she was duped, Tom Cruise was brainwashing her.
Um? Okay.... Perhaps, but I couldn't feel sorry for the then-pregnant Katie Holmes since she took no precautions not to the get pregnant. (Right, they're all anti-Catholic. What about pre-marital sex? I believe that is also a big Catholic no-no.) Poor, innocent Catholic Katie Holmes and big bad Scientologist Tom Cruise. My goodness! Tom Cruise is the size of an ant. Kick him in the nuts, make a run for the border and get a restraining order if he is that crazy and evil. I don't feel bad for Katie Holmes. Dating Tom Cruise is the biggest thing she could have done for her career. (BTW, indie movie girl and former Dawson's Creek costar has gotten nominated for an Oscar. Go Michelle Williams. I suppose Dawson pined after the wrong girl.)
Scientology is a weird-sounding religion. From all I've read, it seems like a cult. It seems scary. However, Catholicism and Jehovah Witnesses seem like a cult and scary to me. The leftist liberal in me still celebrates the freedom to speech and the freedom of religion in the United States, and I believe that Tom Cruise has the right to say what he wants to say about antidepressants and to practice any religion he wants. Although I am classified as a Universalist Unitarian, I follow more of a Word of Faith movement spirituality which generally relies on positive prayer and thought (to achieve the greatness that God has for his children). WOF detractors believe that it is cult like and is trenched too much in the secular and not enough in the world. Kind of like Scientology, no? (Unitarian-Universalists aren't staunch Christians favorite religion either.)
Tom Cruise, I am defending you! You go with your crazy antics and your oft-criticized religion, because I don't care that much. I love your movies, especially your action movies. Nobody runs like a bat out of hell in an action movie like Tom Cruise. I can't wait to see Mission:Impossible III.
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I admire Nicole Richie. She transformed herself from the skanky-looking and drugged-out sidekick of Paris Hilton into a lean (a too-lean, she and I and everyone else admits), sober, and pretty glamour girl about town in her own right. She graces best dressed, best tressed, and best makeover lists of dozens of magazines. She's getting solo fashion magazine covers, and recognition of her own. Even her feud with Paris Hilton makes her look good, since she didn't publicly start the feud. (The issue, I believe, is that Paris became jealous that Nicole didn't need her anymore for press.)Like Paris, Nicole is generally famous for nothing but I like her anyway. I'd rather see the made-up doe eyes and razor-cut bob of Nicole Richie than the overexposed long legs and pointy elbows of Paris Hilton. (I'm even going to take a glance at Nicole's debut novel, The Truth About Diamonds.
Here are some other things that go against popular beliefs:
1. I like Jennifer Love Hewitt. I think she's cute and genuine, and I like her TV movies except for the Audrey-biopic.
2. I think Keanu Reeves is kind of a good actor.
3. I don't like Jennifer Aniston. I think she's plain and her acting ability can't support anything bigger than a sitcom.
4. On that note, Friends, not that funny.
5. Beyonce Knowles is not a triple threat anything. Neither is Usher, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, or any other of those singing-dancing-acting stars. Dance with the date who brung ya.
6. Madonna hasn't been relevant for ten years.
7. Gisele Bundchen has nothing on Cindy Crawford.
8. Best celebrity ass does not belong to Kylie Minogue, but Beyonce.
9. Matt Damon is an underrated actor. Ben Affleck is overrated and gets way too much press.
10. Wrestling is not fake. Those dudes can and do get hurt!
11. Playing gay in a movie, not that brave. Being openly gay in America, very brave.