While zipping through my RSS feeds this week, I found a blurb from In Style, via CNN. With the title "The world according to Katie Holmes," I couldn't resist. What followed was a word association game that shared her thoughts on a bunch of brief, personal topics like her work, marriage, fashion, and age. Between listing one of her roles of a lifetime as being a wife, making many marriage references, and talking about what husband Tom Cruise likes to see her wear, I started to muse about the good old days.

Remember when she was just starting out and lived for herself? When her main interest in life wasn't the fact that she nabbed Mr. Cruise? How about when Tom was wowing audiences everywhere instead of being the tabloid face of Scientology? It seems like a million lifetimes ago that Holmes was a big up-and-coming actress, and Tom was the uber-awesome, megastar actor that everyone loved. In memory of those days, I thought it would be nice to throw a couple great flicks into the DVD player that captured their great, successful, and gossip rag-free early days.

The Ice Storm



Before popping up in Dawson's Creek, Katie Holmes was Libbets Casey, a wild schoolgirl in the '70s who makes Paul Hood's (Tobey Maguire) Thanksgiving all sorts of memorable in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. My favorite of Ang's films, Storm stars one heck of a cast -- Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Maguire, and Elijah Wood. Instead of the regular thanks and turkey gluttony, the film deals with two families who struggle for happiness and a road out of romantic disillusionment -- all in a '70s backdrop of changing times and political lies.

But Kate comes into play outside of the family dynamic. Libbets is the object of Paul's affection, but he has to battle his paramour-stealing friend Francis (David Krumholtz) for her attentions. While her role is brief, it looked to be the start of something good. Of course, some of the work that followed couldn't even be classified anything but stinkeriffic, but still -- there's some good ones like this wonderful first role, Go, and of course, her next film with Tobey -- Wonder Boys.

Unfortunately, while you can find a few trillion billion TomKat videos up on YouTube, no one has reveled in Libbets love yet. So, here's a selection of other goodies from the movie, and some retro Katie action for good measure.

Charlie Rose Interview -- Ang Lee, Rick Moody, James Schamus

Clips set to the song "Santa Clara"

Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, and where to store your gum when making out.

Katie Holmes sings I Hate Myself for Loving You

Katie on Speed in Go -- Ignore the Dubbing

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.

Today on the show: victim families praise United 93, the porn industry beats Hollywood to the burn-able download, and the little Cruise missile begins its evil reign of junket-cancelling terror. Just two days left to vote for our name - do it!

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Hosts
Karina Longworth

Editor
Randall Bennett

Music
Love as Laughter - I'm a bee

Format
4:55, 28.6 MB

Program
00:00 - United 93 donating some proceeds to 9/11 survivor fund
01:22 - CinemaNow has $30 useless downloads, or $20 fully functional porn
02:37 - HD-DVD out on da streetz
04:27 - Katie Holmes' new baby puts freeze on MI3 press cruise

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 ...