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Posts with tag Stars in Rewind

Stars in Rewind: Tom Cruise Breaks Out the Moves

In honor of that impending deal Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists might be making with the WGA, allowing them to be the first Hollywood studio to bring writers back to work since the strike began, we figured it would be best to dig up an old Tom Cruise clip to share with you on this fine, fine day. But when looking for an old school Cruise clip that best celebrates this occasion, there was really only one place to go: 1983's Risky Business. You won't see Tommy gettin' down like he does here anymore; in fact, some of his more classic (and memorable) scenes involve the guy singing along to music -- having fun -- but he stopped all that nonsense long ago. Ah, but the clips still survive. Yay for us!

Some interesting tidbits about Risky Business: In this scene, Cruise improvised the entire dance. All it said in the script was that Joel needed to "dance to rock music." So yes, those are his moves ... and his moves only. Other folks we almost saw in this role include Tom Hanks and Nicolas Cage; both of whom auditioned for the part. Timothy Hutton was offered the role, but he passed. Thankfully, because it was this movie -- and, in some ways, this scene -- that flung Tommy Cruise into the spotlight. Good luck on your deal with the WGA, Mr. Cruise, and here's hoping you'll be doing a little dance like this once all the papers are signed.

Stars in Rewind: Brad Pitt Shills Pringles



If you're ever lucky enough to go to The Museum of Television and Radio in either Beverly Hills or New York City, be sure you request some old shows from the stacks and watch them in one of the study stations. A few years ago, my best friend and I were doing just that. Typically we'd fast-forward through the commercials, but her eagle eye spied Brad Pitt in this surfer-themed, LA-set Pringles commercial, and our mouths dropped. Not because we had the "fever for the flavor of a Pringles" either.

Now, if this thing doesn't scream 1980s, then I don't know what does. Check out the garish colors, the lightning fast cuts, and the hairdos. They even walk like an Egyptian with their surfboard, before eating all of the bikini babes' Pringles and then leaving the scene. Yikes. Pitt gets more facetime than the other male models in the commercial; could this be the vehicle that launched him into hearthrobbery? Perhaps only archaeologists who unearth this information in the future will be able to tell.

Stars in Rewind: Morgan Freeman -- Before He Was God!



Before he was God, he was a telephone lineman. Ever since The Shawshank Redemption in 1994, Morgan Freeman has become the 'go to' guy for voice over narration, his calm, deliberate tones lending an air of authenticity to the proceedings. When he's not narrating, he's mentoring, fathering, or advising, usually playing some kind of wise authority figure, which helps explain why it was so easy to accept him as God in Bruce Almighty.

Freeman didn't start as an authority figure, though. He appeared in numerous stage productions in the 1960s before moving into television as a versatile performer on the children's show The Electric Company. Somewhere along 1971 he took a job as a telephone lineman in a commercial for a mouthwash company. What struck me as fascinating is that the cadence of his speech is very familiar: brief pauses, then melting words together. What's different is that the tone of his voice is higher. He was in his early 30s at the time; over the decades, his voice has deepened and mellowed into the voice that followed a thousand marching penguins. Watch the clip and see God just hanging around as a blue collar worker.

Stars in Rewind: Cuba Gooding Jr. Stars in Hot Breakdancing Video!




Okay, so apparently Vin Diesel wasn't the only celebrity to get their breakdancing groove on back in the 80s. I'll admit Diesel's instructional breakdancing video is pretty hilarious, but at least it least it was edited fairly well. In this video, circa 1985, Cuba Gooding Jr. stars in one of those fast-paced, breakdancing montages with one helluva kickin' soundtrack. It's killer! My favorite part of the video is when they hold up a card that says, "Starring" and then flash a shot of Cuba Gooding Jr. But they don't show his name; instead, they cut from Cuba to a license plate that says "Black Girls Are Bad" -- so it almost looks like they're trying to tell you that this short stars some random kid and bad black girls. Eventually, they throw up Cuba Gooding's name in graffiti lettering (because you weren't cool in the 80s unless you knew how to write your name in graffiti), and grainy footage continues with a bunch of kids breakdancing. Someone takes a bite out of Mickey Mouse, there are kids breakdancing on rollerskates, and, well, why don't you watch it for yourself. How he went from this to Daddy Day Camp ... I have no idea.

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