After all of the shocking and sad news yesterday, there's nothing like a refreshing laugh, or 50. I've enjoyed many of the Funny or Die shorts that have popped up, but this one is pure gold. This time around, Jerry O'Connell spoofs Tom Cruise's creepy Scientology video -- you know, the one Patrick Walsh blogged about, where Tommy reveals that he, and other Scientologists, are like an EMT/Jaws of Life combo for terrible accidents. (Oh, how I'd love to hear WHY.)

After watching this clip, my appreciation for the former Slider has increased exponentially. I could type away and share some of the jokes Jerry includes in this clip, but it's better to just see it for yourself. Suffice to say, if there is ever a Tom Cruise biopic, I want O'Connell to star. Enjoy!

Hoo boy. Hoooooo boy. Check out this video of Tom Cruise aggressively preaching the merits of Scientology while the Mission: Impossible theme plays. It is very real, and you need to see it. Like, now. Let's just say the dude's even more into this than we thought. As Gawker (who's also hosting a clip) writes, "If Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch was an 8 on the scale of scary, this is a 10." Apparently, the video has been privately shared between reporters investigating Cruise's ties to the religion, although no writers have gone public with it for fear of lawsuits by the Scientologists. Until now. It's out there, baby.

I would check the video out quickly. Gawker claims they are not removing the clip, regardless of what pressure they get, but a lot of similar Youtube and Google videos have been put up and quickly taken down in the past week. The one we have up now hasn't been taken down, so get to it fast! The video is nearly ten minutes of pure Cruise intensity and oddness, undiluted by publicists and cover-ups. I did a little research while watching it, as I didn't know what some of the terms meant. When he says "org," he means "organizations," "KSW" is a policy letter used to "Keep Scientology Working," and "SP" is Scientology code for a "Suppressive Person." The video's most chilling moment follows Cruise's question, "Have you ever met an SP?" when that blood-curdling, hollow laugh kicks in. Remember Cruise's "Respect the c**k, tame the c**t" monologues in Magnolia? This is like that, only disturbingly real. But maybe I'm just being "glib."

"Did you have a good world when you died? Enough to base a movie on?" -- Jim Morrison

Fortunately Morrison did have enough to base a movie on (the inappropriately titled The Doors), but thousands of dead celebrities and historical figures would make horrible subjects for biopics. Just because they led famous lives doesn't mean they led dramatically entertaining lives. Of course, Hollywood is good at making up or manipulating events for dramatic purpose and therefore just about any person could be given the formulaic biopic treatment.

Some people are better served with made-for-TV movie, others with big-budget studio epics. The easiest subjects to imagine are those who would provide great soundtracks; the more difficult personalities are those without current relevance or some fitting resonance today. I picked seven dead people (and a bonus: one living dog) who don't already have films in development (as far as I know) whose lives we need to see on the big screen as soon as possible.

Ok, you're Tom Cruise. You have a "religion" you're devoted to which gives your life purpose, tons of money, a huge amount of success, you know quite a bit about pharmacology and mental health issues, you have a new baby and a pretty hot wife who just married you at a gigantic wedding in a picturesque Italian city attended by almost anyone who is anyone in Hollywood (except Oprah and a few other non-believers). In other words, you have everything you could ever want in life. So, with all those things, what could you possibly need or want to do next? Why, make a record of course!

Yes, its true -- at least according to a recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald (via Blowing Smoke), Cruise has decided he wants to record and release a rendition of The Righteous Bothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling with new wife Katie Holmes. The idea reportedly came to him after he serenaded Holmes with the song at their recent wedding. According to sources at the wedding, Cruise has a pretty good voice and so does his wife (proven by her vocal performance in the remake of The Singing Detective) so the idea isn't out of the realm of possibility -- especially with all the high-powered record producer types who were in attendance.

Apparently, after Cruise finished singing and proposed the idea of recording the duet, he and his new bride were inundated with offers of huge sums of money for the exclusive rights -- and at his wedding too. Tacky. But really, what do you expect from record industry execs anyway? So, with all the attention and deals on the table, why hasn't this all moved forward and why are we not downloading this sure-to-be-fantastic recording right now via iTunes? One reason: Scientology. Cruise's obsession with and devotion to the late L. Ron Hubbard's creation apparently is too "bizarre" for record industry execs and they're concerned about its impact on sales. Cruise, however, is adamant that his religion isn't "bizarre" and won't be a problem because, according to a source at the wedding, "the song is a symbol of their love and Scientology is a basis for their companionship." Yeah, that doesn't sound bizarre at all.

Well, It's official: Paramount has ended a long-standing production deal with Tom Cruise. The 14-year-long relationship included the release and box-office success of films like Mission: Impossible, Top Gun and Days of Thunder, but a memo released today cited Cruise's recent public behavior as "unacceptable." Cruise's recent pronouncements -- about anti-depressant drugs, parenting and his enthusiastic embrace of Scientology -- have all led to negative press and public scrutiny. The subscription-only Wall Street Journal has the original story, including quotes from Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone like: "As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal." As Martha noted last month, the deal actually expired at the end of July, with negotiations apparently going on over the past 21 days. In the wake of Mel Gibson's recent role as tabloid-fodder, is big Hollywood trying to be pro-active, making sure star behavior doesn't affect the bottom line? Or is it just the economic realities of a fading star's trajectory? At this time, there was no formal response from Cruise or his producing partner Paula Wagner; we'll keep you posted with more about this story as it develops.

Yesterday I had dinner with my family for Mother's Day. At some point during the dinner discussion, my father mentioned that he and my mother had gone to see Mission: Impossible 3 over the weekend. After telling him that I had not seen the film yet, he laughed and replied, "Gee, with all the Tom Cruise bashing you've been doing on your little website thingy, I'm not surprised."

I laughed and said something about having too much stuff to do lately, but he followed it up with, "Say all you want about Cruise, the guy really does give you your money's worth." Afterward, I felt kind of bad for mocking Tom so much over the past week. Sure, the guy is a little wacky off-screen, but with films like Collateral, Vanilla Sky and The Last Samurai, it's obvious the man pours all of himself into each and every role he takes on. However, it's obvious now that his open and outward belief in Scientology is starting to turn people off. But why?

Cruise is only one man on a long list of very popular actors who now believe in Scientology. Okay, so maybe they don't preach it the way he does, but with more and more people taking up interest, is it only a matter of time before the religion shifts from off to on-screen? Perhaps that's a good thing. After all, ever since 9/11, the only way most people learned about the Muslim religion was through film. Because that's what they're used to. That's what makes them feel safe.

So, I ask you: How long before Scientology makes its way to the big screen? And, would you welcome the subject as a means to explore something a lot of people don't yet understand?

It's been awhile since we covered anything Scientology related and, I don't know about you, but I desperately need a fix. Janeane Garofalo, star of such classics as The Truth About Cats, Dogs and Why I Shouldn't Be Acting, is stirring up a bit of controversy after publicly backing the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project on her Air America radio show, Majority Report.

The program, which is based on teachings by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, helps those who worked in and around ground zero during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 heal their mind, body and spirit. While, on paper, it sounds like a wonderful thing to be doing, many have blasted the program and questioned its validity.

Personally, if Janeane hasn't been cast in a live-action version of Daria: The Adult Years, then I really don't care to hear anything from her. If she's so hell-bent on promoting Scientology through her radio show, then perhaps she should change it from Majority Report to Minority Report. Then, maybe Tom Cruise can step in and predict a future crime or something. Eh, just an idea.

Yup, it's finally here. Katie Holmes has given birth to a baby girl. Her name is Suri (not sure what that means), and she weighs 7 pounds, 7 ounces.

More details soon ...

It's hard to believe, I know, but it's been a whole year since Cinematical was officially born. Actually, our birthday was last Saturday, March 10, but we were so busy with our heads buried in movies we let it slip right by. A lot has changed around here in the past year - we've gone from being a little film blog with former editor Karina Longworth blogging all by her lonesome, to a site with a full-fledged staff, covering festivals, reviewing lots of movies, and bringing you up-to-the-minute movie news. Now Karina has moved on to another project (although we're very glad she's still around writing her excellent new column, Laws and Sausages, and doing some other cool stuff for us), and spandy-new Editor-in-Chief James Rocchi is at the helm, with Martha Fischer and me rounding out the editorial team, working hard to continue to bring you what you've been coming here for, while adding a few refinements here and there. It's been a great year at Cinematical, and we're looking forward to the next one. In the meantime, here's a look back at the past year in Cinematical:

 

A couple days ago, I posted about the supposed controversy around the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet" being pulled by parent company Viacom, ostensibly in response to Tom Cruise threatening to pull ads for Mission: Impossible: 3 if the episode was aired. Daily Variety reported yesterday that an anonymous Cruise spokesman denied the allegations, but an interesting statement from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone  - signed "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu" - seems to indicate otherwise. Parker and Stone were reportedly told not to discuss the reasons behind the episode being pulled, but did anyone really expect those boys to stay muzzled for long? I think not.

Now the heavies are getting into the game. Jim Emerson, writing on the Scanners blog on Roger Ebert's website, wrote earlier this week about the brouhaha around Isaac Hayes' abrupt departure from South Park, and yesterday posted another lengthy piece about the issue of Scientology and the First Amendment. Now even Andrew Sullivan is getting on the bandwagon, urging his readers to demand the airing of "Trapped in the Closet" and, while they're at it, to boycott Mission: Impossible: 3. Rolling Stone has a really good in-depth article on Scientology in general, as well - one of the few pieces with which the Scientology bigwigs actually cooperated. It's long, but an engrossing read.

It'll be interesting to see on which horn of this little dilemma the folks at Viacom will choose to impale themselves. Piss off mega-movie-star and high-level Scientologist Cruise and run the episode again, to prove to everyone they weren't lying out their asses when they claimed they only pulled the episode in order to run episodes featuring Hayes, in a farewell tribute? Or piss off their viewers, South Park fans, Parker and Stone, and defenders of the First Amendment in general by keeping the episode, well, in the closet?

Hollywood, Interrupted reports that sources inside Paramount and South Park studios say  the scheduled repeat of one of my fave South Park episodes, "Trapped in the Closet" - the one that satirizes Scientology and has R. Kelly singing to  Tom Cruise to "come out of the closet" - was pulled due to Cruise threatening parent company Viacom. Cruise reportedly threatened to pull advertising for his upcoming film, Mission: Impossible: 3 if the South Park episode was aired. 

In their long history with Comedy Central, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have never been censored, not even for their infamous "Bloody Mary episode", but Cruise throws his weight around and suddenly the boys have their mouths duct-taped? Following the news that Scientologist Isaac Hayes, who voiced The Chef on the show, quit because he was offended by the Scientology spoof, this story, if it proves to be true, doesn't really serve to make Hollywood Scientologists look like good sports, eh?

 

Editor's Note: When it came time to assign the year-end "Worst Of" list, Cinematical writers Erik Davis and Robert Newton both jumped at the chance. Rather than put them in the steel cage and let them fight to the death (something which parent company AOL frowns upon), we are letting them tag-team with this "Wurst Movies Of 2005" feature:

Erik Davis: I'm probably not going to be very popular for this choice (especially among Scientologists), but I have to start off with…

10. War of the Worlds – Okay, so Tom Cruise didn’t defeat the Aliens by giving them a computer virus (with a Macintosh) à la Independence Day, but that still doesn’t excuse this film from sucking up the hype and spewing it all over our faces as we left the theater.

Robert Newton: I'm a big sci-fi fan, and am always pained to see a fetid floater like Snore Of The Worlds or Aeon Flux or The Island, but for me, the most leaden of all genre turds was…

You guys really jumped on our Tom Cruise/Scientology poll - if you haven't checked out the comments to that post, you should, because there's some pretty wild stuff going on there. We thought one comment deserved some extra attention.

Reader Sanjeev writes: "Reading this blog seems to indicate that the "Xenu" subject has lot of mystery around it...I am sure millions are curious about what Tom's viewpoints are on this subject." Yeah, I would say so. So, maybe, "Tom should make a movie on this subject ... and Steven Spielberg would love directing it, knowing how he loves to scare people and make mean alien movies."

<insert emoticon of Karina smiling out of corner of her mouth here>

Sanjeev continues, "The publicity expenses on such movie could be minimal since
so many websites have already raised the public awareness, and created a big "mystery" about it. Millions would flock to see the movie since they are curious about Tom's viewpoints on this subject. I cannot but see this as a mega-blockbuster idea :-)"

I'm totally on board. Except for one thing: how do you keep this from being Battlefield Earth II: Cruise Control?