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Tom Cruise Starts a 'Food Fight'

Filed under: Comedy », Casting », Deals », Fandom », Newsstand », Tom Cruise »

You know how they say the way to a man's heart is through food? Well, when you're an actor who's fallen from grace, then the way back into the hearts of your audience is through comedy. AND ... if you really want to go berserk, you choose a film that combines food and comedy! Wham! Welcome back to Hollywood Mr. Tom Cruise. Yup, The Hollywood Reporter tells us Cruise is enjoying all the buzz surrounding his scene-stealing cameo in Tropic Thunder and is now "loosely attached" (ie: the Oscar wind can blow and knock him right off) to the comedy Food Fight.

Should he remain this film's star, Cruise would play a snooty New York chef who, for some odd reason, is forced to cook in a school cafeteria. Steven Brill was originally in talks to direct the film, but they've since gone on to other candidates (one imagines Cruise wasn't too keen on working with the dude behind Without a Paddle and Drillbit Taylor). As of now, Adam Brooks (Definitely, Maybe) is attached to pen the script. Food Fight is just one of several projects Cruise is "loosely attached" to, as the world is still waiting to see what the man takes on following his stint as an eye patch-wearing Hitler assassin in Bryan Singer's upcoming Valkyrie.

What Should Cruise Do Next?

Cinematical Seven: Chick Flicks for Guys

Filed under: Comedy », Romance », Universal », Home Entertainment », Cinematical Seven », Lists »



Two things I enjoyed about Definitely, Maybe, which came out on DVD today: the cheesy jokes about New York City in the early '90s and the fact that it is a chick flick for guys. What I mean by the latter is that the movie seems targeted to females yet it caters more to the male viewer. It's basically a male fantasy: Ryan Reynolds tells the story of how he dated three beautiful women (played by Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks), one of whom he married and later divorced -- meaning he's now single again. And he also got a cute, precocious daughter (Abigail Breslin) out of the deal who becomes beneficial to him in his return to bachelorhood.

But then is it really a chick flick? I guess it is if you count romantic comedies in that grouping, though the genre has never necessarily been aligned with the term, nor vice versa. And in the age of Judd Apatow, it's more likely that any new romantic comedy is actually a guy movie. Do many men realize it's a movie for them, though? Probably not. Though chick flicks are typically movies primarily populated by women characters and/or a female protagonist (think Steel Magnolias), romance films not made by either Apatow or the Farrelly brothers may be thought of as being for the ladies, even if they feature a male lead, like Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe.

I'll admit I've always been confused about chick flicks as a term. I apparently enjoy many so-called chick flicks, including even (especially) Beaches. So, I may not be using the term correctly in this list. However, I am a guy and I know what guys want. So, I'm going to do this my way, and answer the following question: What other films may have been initially perceived by males as being made for chicks but which turned out to be more for them (us)?
 

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