More Top Picks Amazfit Bip 5
player ready...None of the actors listed below will miss a meal in 2009. None will have to tighten his Versace belt, have his Gucci driving shoes resoled or be on the lookout for the repo man. However, in film, perception is everything, and even though these guys have gotten away with plenty because they are who they are, they may no longer be who they were.
Tom Cruise
What’s he done? “Risky Business,” “Top Gun,” “The Firm,” “A Few Good Men,” “Jerry Maguire,” “Mission: Impossible I, II and III,” “Magnolia,” Nicole, Katie, Suri, while maintaining a place at the high end of the Hollywood food chain for 20 years.
What’s he done wrong? Bounced on Oprah’s couch, made himself the middle-age poster child for Scientological weirdness and underdelivered at the box office with “M:I 3.”
What’s new? “Valkyrie” (Dec. 25), the story of Claus von Stauffenberg, a much-honored, much-wounded Nazi officer who was at the center of a German plot to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944.
What’s at stake? Cruise’s place at the box office, which teeters on the risky premise of making a Nazi — even a well-intentioned Nazi — sympathetic.
Brad Pitt
What’s he done? “Thelma & Louise,” “Se7en,” “Twelve Monkeys,” “Fight Club,” “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Babel.”
What’s he done wrong? Cheated on Jennifer Aniston. He’s made a few dumb career choices too. Potboilers such as “The Mexican,” “Troy” and “Spy Game” made what they did because he was in them; “Babel” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” were art films, and the Coen brothers’ “Burn After Reading” might have shown a nervy willingness for Pitt to play against his image, but it did jack for his marketability.
What’s new? David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Dec. 25), from a script by Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump”), after a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about a man who was born old and gets younger.
What’s at stake? “Button” is elegant and bittersweet, but it isn’t a blockbuster. Pitt may not care — he has his philanthropic causes, and his children; his collaborations with Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and his own Plan B production company have been about making quality movies. But if his clout is going to mean anything, he has to remain a movie star.
Leonardo DiCaprio
What’s he done? “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” indicated that DiCaprio was among the greatest actors alive. Few of his films have captured the mainstream imagination in a major way. “Gangs of New York,” “Catch Me If You Can” and “The Departed” were all serious — in some cases brilliant — movies, but they weren’t “Titanic.”
What’s he done wrong? “Blood Diamond” and the documentary “The 11th Hour” were movies DiCaprio was motivated to do for their sociopolitical content. While he does consistently good, important work, — his last, “Body of Lies,” was an overlooked gem, probably because of its Middle East content.
What’s new? “Revolutionary Road” (Jan. 2 in Chicago), directed by Sam Mendes from the Richard Yates novel, about a ’50s couple seeking fulfillment. In it, he’s reunited with his “Titanic” co-star, Kate Winslet.
What’s at stake? DiCaprio is probably the male star best able to survive box office dips and acting misfires, because he has a surfeit of talent, magnetism and a contagious sense of conviction.