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friday funtime
'Milkyrie' Faithfully Recreates Plot to Assassinate Gay-Rights-Advocating Hitler
It's Friday, and that means one thing: It's Defamer Friday Funtime! Wherein we share something completely stupid with you in the hopes that it will make you smile, possibly kickstarting a weekend of savage self-abuse. More » -
valkyrie
The Germans Love 'Valkyrie'!
The debate over Valkyrie's box-office viability has tempered since its plunge from the post-holiday Top 10. But while it's barely broken even at home, it managed a stunning Euro groundswell over the weekend. More » -
scientology
Tom Cruise Comes Face-To-Mask With 'Anonymous'
Tom Cruise has finally been confronted by the one red carpet presence more troublesome than Billy Bush: The anti-Scientology, V for Vendetta-masked group known as "Anonymous." More » -
valkyrie
Vengeful Gossip Bashes 'Tom Cruise's Nazi Apologia': An Annotated Guide
We knew Fox News gossip and mortal Tom Cruise enemy Roger Friedman was upset last week when MGM denied him an advance look at Valkyrie. Today, he exacted his mouthbreathing, error-packed and all-around vicious revenge. -
Friday Morning Box Office
The Butterscotch Puppy: A Christmas Miracle!
We hope Santa brought everything you wanted (Wii porn), and nothing you didn't (tongue cancer, American Apparel giftcards). Your B.O., followed by the Top 5 Chinese Dishes Consumed Later by the Jews Who Saw Them: -
defamer attractions
Your Favorite Stars Join Holiday Box-Office Fight to the Death
Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or mortifying at the movies. This week: Hollywood gets stuck in your chimney delivering Benjamin Button and four other holiday blockbuster hopefuls. -
Fizzles
It's Official. Jimmy Kimmel And Tom Cruise Have Zero Chemistry.
There's something extremely wrong with this exchange between Jimmy Kimmel and Tom Cruise, and we're inclined not to pin it all on Tom. -
money matters
MGM Pours $70 Million Into Making You Care About 'Valkyrie'
Valkyrie is recovering reasonably well from the crippling stroke of bad publicity that nearly killed it earlier this year. But only part of that is due to slightly better-than-average word on the street. -
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Cruisin' usa
Tom Cruise Reveals Long-Held Murderous Fantasy to Mario Lopez
Tom Cruise continues to bring the weirdness on his Valkyrie press tour, so why should Extra's Mario Lopez be spared? -
tom cruise
Everything Tom Cruise Knows About Bush, He Learned From the 'Today' Teleprompter
Tom Cruise reunited with Matt Lauer on the Today Show this morning, and fortunately for the audience, Cruise's strategy appeared to be, "Bring the crazy up front and as early as possible." -
short ends
Touch Dong's Body
· After hearing Dong-won Kim's rendition of Mariah's "Touch My Body," all other takes, including the original, instantly fade away. Enjoy. [Thanks to Dave Holmes for this one.] -
katie holmes
'I'm No Wallflower,' Katie Holmes Instructed to Say
On a day that has seen its fair share of horrors, the suddenly, comparatively innocuous couple of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes couldn't have picked a better day for news of their upcoming dual cover story for the NY Times magazine to leak out. After we've witnessed Satan himself emerge onto Sunset Blvd. to announce a series/collagen installment plan for Lisa Rinna, what damage can be done a creepy story like Cruise's revelation that he bought Holmes an engagement ring after their first date? With the black smoke coursing through our city, who can choke out a laugh at Holmes's insistence that she hasn't become a Stepford wife? Oh wait, we can: -
tom cruise
MGM Swats Rogue Critic in Latest Round of 'Valkyrie' Backlash
It's been far too long since MGM was on the defensive over Valkyrie, the campaign for which uncomfortably started in its own office lobby but has since found decent enough traction in theaters and on TV. So! Right on cue, and apparently just for old time's sake, a high-ranking New York film critic has found something new to whine about. -
tom cruise
Tom Cruise Inherits Coveted K-Fed Spot on 'Details' Magazine's 2008 Power List
Details unveiled Tom Cruise this morning as the cover boy of its annual Power Issue. Sadly, Cruise only makes No. 7 — a position shared last year by Kevin Federline and Larry Birkhead. But perhaps it's the thought that counts: Previous Power Issues have ranked the "most influential men under 45," but the magazine has expanded its age range in 2008 to include "the most influential men under 47," thus barely qualifying the 46 year-old star in time for his Valkyrie promo tour. Excerpts of his acceptance speech follow the jump. More » -
tom cruise
Could New 'Valkyrie' Trailer Start Backlash to the Backlash?
MGM has released the final trailer for Valkyrie, and really, nothing here indicates why United Artists would have sabotaged this film with one Harveyesque bump after another, all the way off the cliff into the dead zone of February '09. (It now opens Dec. 26.) They may not have the viable Oscar contender they wanted, either, but beyond the late, portentous introduction of Tom Cruise's eye-patched, would-be Hitler killer, this new clip has us marveling at the irony of a feel-bad Nazi drama potentially doubling as the feel-good comeback story of the year. It's almost enough to make us want to swap the old Superman Returns stand-up at Defamer HQ with the fancy new Valkyrie display occupying MGM's own lobby. Bryan Singer, you are a continued inspiration to one and all. [MGM] -
robert downey jr
The Road to Oscar Hell is Paved With Dead Paramount Movies
What a mess: Paramount's reshuffling of 2008 awards bait including Defiance and The Soloist — the latter of which now won't open until next March — has left devastated Oscar watchers (including us) tossing out their carefully wrought Trophynomics™ calculations for the fall movies season. Few are more dismayed than the DreamWorks gang, whose hopes that The Soloist might at least cover the cost of hiring movers were met with the reality check that the 'Mount has more important, Brad Pitt-y things to do before year's end. We think this, along with other traumatic developments elsewhere over the last week, calls for an all-new Oscar scorecard; start over with us after the jump. More » -
valkyrie
Tacky Lobby Ad Reminds MGM It Still Has To Release 'Valkyrie'
Now we think we know where Tom Cruise was last night while Katie Holmes labored through her Broadway premiere all alone: Snapshots from a Defamer spy suggest he hit Century City after hours, sneaking the first of Valkyrie's oversize stand-ups into the lobby at MGM. We have it on good authority from the inside that such direct marketing of an MGM release in the faces of its employees and other building tenants is an unprecedented move for the buttoned-down distributor, but face it: You'd probably do the same thing if you had the chance cut your studio's holiday decoration budget by 95 percent. [Follow the jump for the enlarged detail.] -
tom cruise
Nevada's Free-Movie Lovers Ambushed With 'Valkyrie' Screening
Valkyrie. It's that rare movie which, without even having been released, has already managed to break free from its celluloid constraints to become a genuine state of mind. ("How you feeling?" "Oh, a little Valkyrieish, you?" "Same.") We all know the story by now: Odd flight of historical fancy by Nazi-obsessed director Bryan Singer; Tom Cruise signs on, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Col. Shtuffel Von Klingenhauser, the movie's famed Hitler-hunter; mishaps and flatulence follow, Nazis are injured and sue; and its studio crumbles amid a round of musical release dates. But through it all, has anyone actually seen this thing? According to E! Online, top secret testing is currently underway at an undisclosed location somewhere in Nevada known only as Area Einundfünfzig—and what they are learning there is nothing short of astonishing: More » -
tom cruise
Tom Cruise: 'I Don't Run United Artists; I Just Own It.'
Horny gossip spinster Liz Smith had unwittingly curried favor with Tom Cruise by appearing on an episode of Fox News Channel's gossip-for-conservatives show Lips & Ears, in which she opined that misunderstood Nazis: Just The Nice Ones-vehicle Valkyrie should be "accepted in the same way World War II movies by Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood and Francis Ford Coppola." (The actor has a staff combing the airwaves 24-hours a day for Cruise-positive messages; both Smith and Lips & Ears have now been slid into the Allies column.) What followed was a candid chat with the actor on everything from his crumbling UA dominion, to his comedic turn as a Harvey Weinstein-type in Tropic Thunder, to his billion-year war bride Katie Holmes bruise-inducing preparations for her Broadway debut: More » -
valkyrie
Truckload Of 'Valkyrie' Extras Want $11 Mil In Nazi Pain And Suffering
The saga of Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, the Tom Cruise-as-Hitler-stalking -Nazi-infidel project that we frequently need to remind ourselves is an actual movie, and not just an improbable plot point in James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning—is not one for the fainthearted. From a location shoot hindered by a cult-leery, swastika-averse German government—to an ongoing round of musical release-dates that most recently positioned its opening for December 26, 1857, a safe 40 years before the invention of movie projectors—this is not what you call a sinking studio's dream project. Now Deadline Hollywood Daily notes that 11 Nazi soldier extras who fell out of a truck during filming last summer are suing United Artists for $11 million. (That's one million per Nazi, for those not schooled in the Third Reich-championed Hitler Math.) From Spiegel Online: More » -
paula wagner
With Paula Wagner's Departure, UA Now Consists Of Tom Cruise And The After-Hours Cleaning Woman
In November 2006, MGM handed Tom Cruise the keys to a gleaming, custom-refurbished United Artists, and, with a $500 million credit line for fuel, instructed the giddy superstar to take his longtime producing sweetheart Paula Wagner on the ride of a lifetime. Two years later, the duo managed to journey to one place only—Turkeyvania—with a release slate consisting of Lions For Lambs, and the soon-to-bomb Valkyrie. (Even sooner than expected! It's just been announced that its release date has been moved back two months to December 26th, either shortening its suffering, or lengthening ours, depending on how you look at it.) Yesterday came news of EVP of production Jeff Kleeman's departure after just 11 months, leaving no one at the company but Cruise, Wagner, an assistant fully engrossed in the latest OK!, and a cleaning woman chasing after Nazi-eyepatch-dotted tumbleweeds rolling through the hallways. Variety is now reporting that the trigger-shy Wagner "is in talks with MGM to leave her post," a departure Deadline Hollywood Daily explains was something of an inevitability: More » -
united artists
Another Half-Billion Reasons to Worry as UA Loses Another Exec
We aren't sure if Nikki Finke has confused the continuing exec exodus from United Artists with just another routine bomb and/or anthrax threat, but either way, the 11th floor at MGM Tower is clearing out again: Jeff Kleeman is reportedly evacuating his office as Executive Vice President of Production after less than a year on the job at UA. His departure follows marketing boss Dennis Rice's own flight earlier this summer and an abbreviated period during which Kleeman oversaw the development and/or production of exactly no finished films. Factor in the continuing limbo of Valkyrie, its deep (if closed) pockets and a tense relationship with its partners at MGM, and we can't help but ask once again: Does Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner or any of the skeleton crew left over there actually have a plan for this studio? More » -
tom cruise
Tom Cruise's Comeback Film: A Village People Biopic, Starring Tom Cruise In Every Role
As Tom Cruise loves to remind us on his website, he's been prancing around Hollywood for 25 years, playing all kinds of roles we vaguely remember. But who knew all that hard work had been mere preparation for his landmark role in a one-man Village People biopic? In an apparent nod to American history, the patriotic Cruise temporarily abandoned hope for a truce between his army of Xenuphobes and Germany, choosing to split the difference and celebrate this wonderful country L. Ron Hubbard called home. In between the COS founder’s time traveling vacations to ancient Rome and DeLorean rides to the future, that is. And now that Cruise has donned a cowboy hat, tight jeans, and a fitted tee, he’s officially paid homage to each bandmate from that gayer-than-gay feel-good group of song-and-dance men who would surely welcome Cruise into a singalong of “It’s Raining Men.” So among Tom’s many characterizations of the Navy Boy, Earnest Construction Worker, Bad Boy Officer and, of course, Leatherman, which Village Person’sheelsshoes does Tom fill out best? More » -
short ends
This Is Hands Down The Lamest Commercial We Have Ever Seen
· And we love it! All together now: "My drain was clogged/Sink full of goo/It was fixed real fast/by ADEE do!" [adeedo.com] More » -
lion trainer
MGM Chief Takes A Swing At Lionsgate While (Sorta) Standing By 'Valkyrie'
We admit there's not a whole lot of shattered Earth to be found in Sunday's NY Times survey of the limping, lethargic new/old MGM (i.e. deep library, shallow future). Hats off to chairman Harry Sloan, though, for abandoning the low-energy talking points early on in the process and getting straight to the bitchslappy good stuff — whacks at his own new premium-cable partners ("If you don't have a major summer and a Christmas picture, you're not a player at the studio level. ... The best you're going to be is Lionsgate") and theatrical pals ("I thought I was making a deal with the guys who'd just come off Oscars for Chicago, Gangs of New York and Aviator," he said of the Weinstein Company. "Instead they went to the festivals, picked up movies and arbitraged MGM's deal on Showtime"). More » -
defamer
Entire Internet Calls Bullshit as Peter Bart Goes to War For 'Valkyrie'
An insomniac browse last night at PeterBart.com revealed that the Variety editor's spirited studio defenses have made a remarkably speedy, seamless transition to the blogosphere. Readers seem to be enjoying it as well, alleging stolen stories about DreamWorks on one hand and launching a fascist-tastic comment cascade following Bart's breaking! News! about production resuming on Valkyrie: More » -
power plays
Jealous Harvey Weinstein Stakes His Own Claim to 'Valkyrie' Debacle
Amid all of Tuesday's post-holiday hustle and bustle, we regrettably overlooked perhaps the most profound news item of the day: Harvey Weinstein indirectly hopped in the Valkyrie fray at Cannes by picking up US theatrical/DVD rights to Operation Valkyrie, a 2004 German retelling of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It's the same film Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer made (or are making, with worse accents) only to see it bumped twice to a Feb. 2009 release-date Siberia by Cruise/UA's partners at MGM — oddly the same folks with whom The Weinstein Company shares its own distribution deal. Small world, eh? It gets even weirder — kind of. More » -
cruise missile
MGM Chief Blames the Germans as Slide of the 'Valkyrie' Continues
You tell us what's more frightening about MGM boss Harry Sloan's recent proclamations from Cannes: A) That the guy freely admits both Robocop and the Brat Pack-slays-the-Communists epic Red Dawn are up for remakes at his studio, or B) Sloan's public support of Tom Cruise, Valkyrie and United Artists has winnowed to the point of "clanking endorsement." Oh, who are we kidding? Valkyrie trumps everything: More » -
come to papa
Sumner Redstone Apparently Finds Right Price to Forgive 'Good Friend' Tom Cruise
The Tom Cruise Image Rehabilitation Tour rolls on today with a public pardon from Viacom kingpin Sumner Redstone, who followed his prodigal son's subdued Oprah stint with a reassurance that, you know, all that erratic-behavior outrage from a couple years back? Just kidding! And Mission: Impossible 4? It's "up to Brad Grey." Or, loosely translated, "Are we on number four? Already? Well, I'll be": More » -
disaster of the week
'Valkyrie,' UA Not Just Another Cruise/Wagner Casualty, Say Cruise/Wagner
Michael Cieply's latest dispatch from the Tom Cruise beat inventories the wreckage from the mid-air collision that is Valkyrie and United Artists, including exclusive interviews with hobbled pilots Paula Wagner and Bryan Singer. For Singer's part, he's fine to let the film speak for itself if and/or when it's ever completed and released. But for Wagner, Cruise's UA partner and designated press scold, skeptics like us just! Don't! Get it! More » -
defamer
Tom Cruise Wants Katie Holmes To Find New, Non Spice Girl Friends
Tom Cruise isn't having the best month. First, a bunch of hooligans slapped his laughy face on some ultra-strong pot and called it Tom Cruise Purple. Then, the feel-good movie of 2008, Valkyrie, got pushed back (making it the feel-good movie of 2009). And now, Victoria Beckham has usurped a bit of his domestic control and transformed Katie Holmes into a fellow stick figurine. And Tom's April blues have reached a breaking point:"[Tom] is keen to put some distance between his actress wife and Victoria, who have morphed into each other...it concerns Tom that Katie has lost so much weight recently."
More » -
the clip show
A Week Of False Terribles
As we put this week to bed, it's time to reflect, project, deflect and genuflect on the week that was... More » -
short ends
'Project Runway':There Will Be Tears
By now, we've all heard the news that Project Runway is headed to Lifetime. In advance of the 2009 launch, Intrepid Defamer Videographer™ Molly McAleer has crafted a touching look at the subtle ways in which the show will change when it leaves its current home on the Bravo Network. Here's a hint: keep a box of tissues nearby. [Molls She Wrote] More » -
the day after
Tom Cruise's Career In Flames As 'Valkyrie' Melts Down
Yesterday, the troubled Tom Cruise/Nazi vehicle Valkyrie got pushed back — for a second time — from October to February 2009. MGM is painting the film's new release date as a golden holiday-weekend opportunity for the $90-million-plus historical drama, but it goes without saying this is beyond bullshit; no amount of spin from any of MGM boss Mary Parent's necktied monkeys can reclaim whatever traction Valkyrie might have had once upon a time. Its Cruise/Bryan Singer pedigree took its first hit when it was pushed back from summer '08 to fall ("Better Oscar chances!" we were told as Singer's reshoots pushed his budget and his star past their respective limits), and it now threatens to overtake Charlton Heston as this week's highest-profile celebrity casualty. "Valkyrie is dead," wrote David Poland at The Hot Blog. "There is no such thing as a good movie that gets moved from summer to fall to spring." More » -
release date shuffle
Delayed Flight of 'Valkyrie' a Good Sign, Says MGM
The craziest movie star in America is playing a Nazi colonel with one eye, one hand, and three fingers who tries to bomb the Fürher and take over the Third Reich, but instead kills everyone in the room but Hitler, and eventually dies by firing squad. What more could America want on PRESIDENTS' DAY WEEKEND? More » -
defamer
Tom Cruise Won't Get His Shot At Killing Hitler Until October
· Bad news for those who were aching with anticipation over Tom Cruise's turn as the cutest little would-be Hitler-killer in all the German army: United Artists and MGM are pushing Valkyrie's release date back from the Fourth of July holiday weekend until October. The official reason cited for the move is the need to find a new location for a pivotal, still-unshot battle scene, not a desire for the skittish studio to get the film as far away from summer blockbuster competition as possible. [Variety] More » -
defamer
So How's The Studio Mogul Thing Working Out For Tom Cruise?
When MGM turned over the reigns of its moribund United Artists label to Tom Cruise a few short months after the actor/producer/freelance detox technician was cruelly cast out of the Paramount family, we just assumed that the burgeoning mogul would effortlessly greenlight himself up a few blockbusters that would quickly restore him to his former position as the Biggest Movie Star in the World. But with early reviews of the forthcoming Lions for Lambs, his first UA-branded release seeming tepid at best, Slate's Kim Masters looks at the studio's next projects, finding little that would make one want to stomp a talk show sofa in joy: More » -
defamer
The producers of Valkyrie claim that damage done to the footage they shot in the difficult-to-secure Benderblock location was caused by a development problem, denying that it was the nefarious work of the same fart-happy saboteur who's hellbent on destroying Tom Cruise's movie. [AFP/Yahoo] -
defamer
Tom Cruise's Moment Of 'Valkyrie' Silence Destroyed By Mystery Fartiste
All the hard work that Tom Cruise and the Valkyrie team spent convincing a stubbornly indecisive German government to allow their film to shoot in the Bendlerblock, one of its most hallowed landmarks, was nearly squandered when a pranstker insensitive to their shooting location's place in the country's history decided to interrupt a respectful moment of silence with a perfectly timed fart-take. According to a report in the Daily Mail that's denser with flatulence synonyms than perhaps any piece of prose we've ever read, Cruise was allegedly less than amused: More » -
defamer
Magic Johnson Beats The Hillary Drum
· Not to be outdone by Oprah Winfrey's lavish Barack Obama fundraiser—attended by the likes of Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Chris Rock—lesser community-outreach deity Magic Johnson hosts one for Hillary Clinton at his Beverly Hills home. [Variety] More »









































