If Tom Cruise wet the bed last night, is Roger Ebert's review of Minority Report still valid?

Arts & EntertainmentTelevision / Movies

  • Author Thomas Cullen
  • Published August 12, 2018
  • Word count 536

The reason why I’m intrigued, by this concept, is that for all of my life (or rather for just the vast majority of my life – no satire intended) movies have come across as being akin to sunlight and stars. And so has Hollywood. Even as I’ve continued to get older, and continued to get older, and brought with all that progress a genuine understanding, and a genuine perspective on the true meaning of fragility and of vulnerability, to this day I can find it very hard to dispel the myth of Hollywood immortality, and the myth of movie exemption.

In 2018, and not just in 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 or 2011, I’m still of the natural tendency to perceive movies, movie stars and movie reviews as a kind of outside bubble. If the rules of reality get applied to a movie star, or if they get applied to a filmmaker (specifically like a director), or to a press junket or to a film premiere, no matter how hard the appliance of the rules, and no matter how hard the exact DNA or format of the rules unto themselves, it’s still a feasible outcome to just dismiss the appliance and to simply continue to perceive the myth of Hollywood and the myth of movie star immortality as completely and utterly intact.

And then comes along a very different, and a very unexpected appliance of reality.

To put it in the most succinct manner possible: if the iconic action star, Tom Cruise, wet the bed last night (not saying he did, just merely presenting the possibility that he did), then is Roger Ebert’s 2002 review of Minority Report still valid?

Indeed: as illogical, and as baseless as the perspective is to possess, I haven’t for the life of me the ability to fail to present the perspective – a perspective that’s simply too unique, too creative and too valuable to fail to present.

In terms of an actual answer, to the proposition, if the answer is no, and Ebert’s review should be dismissed because Tom Cruise wet the bed last night, I feel that I would be forced to deem that the basis of the answer is to connect the very culture of Hollywood to the value of the absence of technology (and more specifically the value of the absence of the internet). As such, the alternative answer of yes then has a natural right to mean that technology and that the internet have a capacity to co-exist with Hollywood – so which is the better option?

The absence of technology is the absence of Hollywood; thus, on the basis that the answer to the Ebert/Cruise proposition is no, the logic of the no is to connect the value of no Hollywood to Hollywood; the answer of yes then meaning to connect Hollywood to the value of Hollywood.

The value of no Hollywood – Hollywood.

No: Hollywood – Hollywood

Yes: Hollywood – no Hollywood

So it seems that the answer is no: to protect and to honour Hollywood as much as possible (just as the Battle of Hastings had intended to do but wasn't able to) it's better if movie reviews can’t adapt themselves to a fast-changing and relentless environment.

Best Tom Cruise movies:

Interview With the Vampire,

Top Gun,

Valkyrie

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