How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Like (The Old) Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible:: Rogue Nation

Here's the general truth: I do not care about Tom Cruise nowadays. It is very likely that I will never see Mission: Impossible:: Rogue Nation. His recent string of action movies are the kind that don't appeal to me, even causing a trip to see Oblivion to leave me wondering if the movie was just bad or I had undiagnosed A.D.D. that made staring at the ceiling all the more interesting. Yet there is something that a more recent audience must accept that isn't entirely represented by his recent output: Cruise was actually a pretty good actor when he had subject matter that challenged him. True, these films challenge him to scale skyscrapers and dangle from planes, but what I mean is that Cruise is actually secretly good.

Birthday Take: Tom Cruise in "Magnolia" (1999)

Tom Cruise in Magnolia

Welcome to The Birthday Take, a column dedicated to celebrating Oscar nominees and winners' birthdays by paying tribute to the work that got them noticed. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive retrospective, but more of a highlight of one nominated work that makes them noteworthy. The column will run whenever there is a birthday and will hopefully give a dense exploration of the finest performances and techniques applied to film. So please join me as we blow out the candles and dig into the delicious substance.

The Directors Project: #25 - Paul Thomas Anderson

Scene from Cinema Paradiso

With the many lists and essays written on the subject of film, there has been one thing that The Oscar Buzz has tried to understand: Who is my favorite of the film world? For 10 weeks this summer, I will be exploring this with a countdown of the Top 50 names based on a numerical ranking of ratings from various sources, the following is a list of directors who rank above everyone else. With occasional upsets, this is intended as both a discussion opener as well as a better understanding of me as a film critic and fan. Please enjoy and leave any comments you have regarding the entry's selection.

The Oscar Buzz Begins with "The Master"

Joaquin Phoenix

Sports fans have seasons when players fight each other for the championship. You can keep your baseball and football. I will take movies any day. Every year I get a thrill out of watching the best of the best compete for the top prize: the Oscars. At 84, the ceremony remains one of the most culturally revered American awards to be given to film on a yearly basis. While it isn't strictly given to movies released in the fall, I consider September to be the ultimate start of the Oscar Buzz. What better way to begin the competition than with revolutionary director Paul Thomas Anderson's latest The Master, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams: a big Oscar nominated pedigree coming off of the director's most praised film There Will Be Blood?