Poor Tom Cruise. He had Buckley's chance of winning the Best Actor
Oscar earlier this year for his lead role in Jerry Maguire.
If Mr Kidman is serious about ever having Oscar on his mantelpiece –
before finally getting one of those lifetime achievement award pretend ones
when he's 82 and senile – he should have sacked his agent for convincing
him to take the part of Maguire, sports agent to the stars.
Maguire had absolutely nothing going for him in the geoffrey rush for Oscar
glory.
To start with, Maguire's able-bodied.
Cruise should have been around long enough now to know that Academy members
are always a sucker for a role involving someone who's physically disabled,
mentally challenged or just plain mad.
Cruise came close in Born on the First of July. He should have stuck to
his guns.
Dustin Hoffman was mentally challenged in Rain Man; Daniel Day Lewis was
physically disabled in My Left Foot. Lee Marvin was blind practically the
whole way through Cat Ballou, as was Nicolas Cage last year in Leaving Las
Vegas.
Tragically, Cruise had nothing to work with in Jerry Maguire.
So the Gordon Gecko of sports agent gets doubts about the morality of his
business and his million dollar lifestyle. He ends up with one client, a
fading football star (Cuba Gooding Jr is excellent and deserved his gong)
and has to fight his way back. Big deal.
Did Tom really think there were any Oscar votes in shouting a bit in footie
stadium tunnels and pointing fingers at cameras and mouthing "Love
ya baby".
Not once did he get to spin around in a wheelchair, looking all sorry for
himself like Woody Harrelson did in The People vs Larry Flynt.
Gosh, there's votes in them there wheelchairs. Especially if you're Woody
Harrelson and decide to talk like Jimmy Stewart after being shot in the
belly. Acting people like impromptu stuff like that even if it makes no
sense at all.
Woody must have come real close to upstaging the loony tune from Down Under.
Likewise, did Maguire get burnt to a crisp like Ralph Fiennes's character
in The English Patient?
No. He stayed all teeth and apple pie goodness throughout, when a good disfigurement
was what he needed most.
What a range of emotions such a script development allowed a talented actor
to exploit!
As well as standing up and delivering lines like "The desert is no
place for a woman" exactly how he'd imagine an Easter Island statue
would do it, Fiennes also got to lie hideously deformed on a hospital bed
and whisper things like "It....'s ...a ver...y ....plum.....plum"
really slowly, just the way he imagined Sir Anthony Hopkins would have if
he had bad asthma.
You could almost hear the vote envelopes dropping into the Fiennes ballot
box at Price Waterhouse.
He must have come very very close, which is a pity because he deserved some
belated recognition after being robbed in Schindlers List.
And what was Geoffrey Rush doing while Cruise was shouting "Show me
the money!", battling for screen time with an overly cute little kid
and getting bogged down with an unbelievable contrived "I didn't realise
I loved her until I realised I loved her" romantic sidebar?
Dribbling down his shirtfront, muttering inanely and playing Rach's 3rd
very very badly, that's what!
Gosh, there must have been big wads of votes in playing David "Do you
mind if I grab your left tit while I play this opus backwards" Helfgott.
No wonder he collected the coveted top gong.
No, Tom, take a tip from us.
Next time your agent rings and says he's got a role where you play a wheelchair-bound
blind, alcoholic, mentally retarded ex-Viet vet, grab it fast.
Meanwhile, back at the video store.... Jerry Macguire is an at times heartwarming,
at times funny contemporary film.
It's got an excellent change of being taken out ... a lot more than can
be said for that acceptance speech poor Mr Kidman had in his pocket last
Oscar night.
