Tom Cruise and Matt Lauer Clear the Air

“Three and a half years after the interview heard ’round the world, Tom Cruise is back in the studio, today,” Matt Lauer said at the very top of Monday’s Today show.

Lauer wasn’t kidding. Hovering over Lauer and co-anchor Meredith Vieira as they were trying to open the morning program at 7 a.m. was Cruise, standing over their desk, even though the interview segment to promote his Christmas release Valkyrie wasn’t slated until the 7:30 half-hour.

“Let’s set the record straight,” Lauer said before Monday’s sit-down with his one-time on-air sparring partner. “This is not Rocky II.”

But the two did finally clear the air – and discussed at length – their June 2004 confrontation, in which Cruise angrily accused Lauer of being glib during a discussion of Brooke Shields’s use of anti-depressants to treat her post-partum depression.

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Tom Cruise may have a Golden Globe nomination for Tropic Thunder, but, according to daughter Suri, his performance as Santa Claus needs some work.

“I’m always Santa,” the mega-star said about the Cruise family Christmas proceedings during a press conference for Valkyrie, which hits theaters Dec. 25. “The teenagers know it’s me, but I was surprised at Suri last year. Kate made the Santa outfit and when I came out, I did my best Santa impression. She looked at me and said, ‘No, dada.’ This year, I’m going to do a little better. I’m workin’ on it.”

In Valkyrie, Cruise plays a different guy named Claus: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a German militaryman who plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler and bring down the Nazi regime.

“We got to shoot in Berlin at the locations where these people were—and where they died—which was very powerful,” he said.

The role tapped into a storyline that the Top Gunner has been thinking about since childhood.

“I grew up playing with the neighborhood kids in the yard wanting to kill Nazis, wanting to kill Hitler,” Cruise explained. “As a child you’d think, ‘Why didn’t someone just shoot him?’ This is an important story, because I didn’t know it. It’s important to know, of course, that it’s not everyone, it’s not everybody who felt that way and fell into that Nazi ideology. That, to me, was surprising.”

“When I make a movie, it’s about us,” he said later. “It’s not about me. It’s about the journey we all take together…I grew up wanting to travel the world and I wanted an adventurous life.

“Sometimes I get a little more adventure than I had ever bargained for.”

(Source: EOnline.com)

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Telluride, Colo. –
Tom Cruise agreed to help out the Palm Theatre by letting the theatre show his new movie, “Valkyrie,” as a fundraiser for the theatre.
“Valkyrie,” the story of a man who tried to kill Hitler, will show at 8 p.m. on Dec. 26 and Dec. 30 in the Palm.
Cruise, who owns a home near Aldasoro and who recently showcased it on the Oprah Winfrey show, has long supported the community.
Heather Knox Rommel, who runs the Palm, approached Cruise’s property manager about showing the film. The property manager passed the request on to Cruise, who agreed to the showing.
“We’re really trying to step up our fundraising, Rommel said. “Not the best time to do it in this economy.”
This summer, the Palm is losing one on its major funding sources. The Gluckstern family paid $1 million to have the Palm named after their friend, the entrepreneur Michael D. Palm, who died from AIDS in 1999. That gift was paid out over five years, and will be entirely paid off by June. 30.
So the Palm has begun looking for other sources of funding.
“The Palm has to be self supporting,” Rommel said.
Tickets to the screening of “Valkyrie” are higher than a normal movie. Tickets to the Dec. 26 showing are $40 for the VIP section, which gets you a better seat and a gift bag. Students can get into the VIP section for $25.
For regular seating, tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for students.
For the Dec. 30 show, tickets are $20 for all adults and $15 for students.
Tickets are going fast.
“We’ve sold a lot of tickets already,” Rommel said.
As well as the tickets, the Palm is raising money through a small silent auction for heliskiing and nights at the Franz Klammer, and other gift certificates from local businesses.
“Valkyrie” is based on the story of the 1944 plot by German army officers to kill Adolf Hitler, install a separate government, and make peace with the Allies and end World War II. Cruise plays the leader of that plot in a film directed by Bryan Singer and co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, a team that collaborated on “The Usual Suspects” in 1995.
Tickets are available at telluridepalm.com or at 970-369-5669.

(Source: TellurideNews.com)

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Hot on the promotional trail, Tom Cruise was spotted on his way out of the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” studio following a plug for his new movie “Valkyrie.”

The “Eyes Wide Shut” stud was gracious enough to stop and chat with fans, sign autographs, and pose for pictures before being escorted away by his bodyguards.

And it seems Tom can’t get enough of the Late Night show circuit – during a recent appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” he confessed that he’d like to follow in his wife Katie Holmes’ footsteps all the way to Broadway.

Cruise told Leno, “I like making movies but I’m not saying no to Broadway. I’d like to do a musical.” Tom also gave Jay props for his future move to primetime. “Hey man congratulations you moved to ten o’clock. What happened you just didn’t want to stay up that late, what’s the deal?”

(Source: Gossip Girls)

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The Golden Globe nominations are in – and many of the new nominees are expressing their excitement, gratitude and surprise.
(…)
Brooke Shields, who rose early to help announce the nominations, was thrilled for friend Tom Cruise, who nabbed a Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Musical nod for his nearly-unrecognizable turn as a fat, balding movie executive in Tropic Thunder. “I’m so glad for him!” Shields told PEOPLE. “I think it’s ironic, all the work that he does [and] that’s what he gets nominated for. I think he’s done tremendous work so I think he’s probably chuckling about it too.”

(Source: People.com)

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UA/MGM’s thriller is one of five wide releases

United Artists/MGM’s Tom Cruise Nazi thriller “Valkyrie” will open on Christmas Day instead of Dec. 26, so the pic can benefit from the traditional uptick in moviegoing on Christmas night.
A record number of movies are unspooling over the Christmas frame this year.

“Valkyrie” is one of five wide releases opening on Dec. 25 alone. The other four are Disney’s Adam Sandler laffer “Bedtime Stories,” Paramount’s Brad Pitt-Cate Blanchett starrer “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” 20th Century Fox’s Jennifer Aniston-Owen Wilson comedy “Marley and Me” and Lionsgate’s “The Spirit,” directed by Frank Miller.

That’s on top of the movies opening Dec. 19, including Sony’s Will Smith drama “Seven Pounds” and Warner Bros.’ Jim Carrey comedy “Yes Man.”

The specialty side is equally busy over the holidays, with “Gran Torino,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Doubt” and “The Wrestler” all using the holiday to expand. Openers include “Revolutionary Road” and “Last Chance Harvey.”

“Valkyrie,” from director Bryan Singer, takes the spot vacated by Forest Whitaker sports drama “Hurricane Season,” which has been pushed back from Dec. 25 to next year.

“Hurricane” was to have been the last movie distributed by MGM via its output deal with the Weinstein Co. The pic will now be distributed by the Weinstein Co.

(Source: Variety)

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Tom: Kate and I will have more children

LOS ANGELES, California—“We’ll have more children. I’m (the one) saying this. Kate is not here,” said Tom Cruise in a recent press con at the Four Seasons Hotel.

But don’t stop the presses yet — Suri, Tom’s youngest child, may have to wait awhile for her sibling. “Kate is working and we’re enjoying this time,” Tom said of his wife who’s appearing in the Broadway play, “All My Sons.”

He added: “It’s very precious. We don’t get this time back. That’s why when Suri was born, we really shut down everything for months.”

Tom, speaking to reporters to drum up publicity for his new film, “Valkyrie,” was quite game to talk about other issues as well. A lot is riding on the film, the second release of United Artists (UA) since he and Paula Wagner took over the film studio founded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and other early Hollywood titans. “Lions for Lambs,” their first release, did not perform well at the box office. And Paula, Tom’s long-time producing partner, has left UA.

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Tom Cruise’s highly anticipated suspense thriller ‘Valkyrie’ finally arrives in theaters December 26, and ET’s own Mary Hart is with Tom, director Bryan Singer and co-stars Carice van Houten and Thomas Kretschmann to get their take on the true story and “what if” scenario that could have changed the course of World War II!

In ‘Valkyrie,’ Tom plays Col. Claus Graf von Stauffenberg, who helped to hatch a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the height of the war in order seize power and put an end to the bloodshed.

“He was a man who thought beyond himself and even his country, looking toward the world,” says Tom. “Very early on he was someone who opposed Hitler.”

The question posed on everyone’s mind at one point or another, adds Tom, is why didn’t anyone just go ahead and just shoot Hitler? Well, it wasn’t that easy, explains Singer.

“You have millions of people in the army: 3,000 generals, German generals in the field; you’ve got fanatical Nazis working all around them, and a government that was about getting rid of him, but also [about] turning the government around,” he says. “['Valkyrie'] was a very ambitious plot, and all the soldiers had taken an oath to [Hitler] personally. It’s very serious.”

Things weren’t always so serious on the set, however, as the cast and crew tried to keep things light despite the dark subject matter — and sometimes the location itself provided the entertainment.

“We had to stop shooting [one day] because there was a wild boar in the neighborhood,” says Tom with a laugh. “That was a new one. I thought I was being ‘Punk’d.’”

In the interview with Mary, Tom also showed off his new shirt designed specifically for him by Katie Holmes for their wedding anniversary, and revealed what daughter Suri thought when she saw her dad on set wearing an eye patch for the movie!

“The make-up girls are smart — they got a teddy bear with a patch,” says Tom. “She got used to that, [but] first when she saw [me with it] she would come up and take the patch off my face.”

Watch ET for more with Tom and ‘Valkyrie’!

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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Oscar-winning “Usual Suspects” writer Christopher McQuarrie has signed on for double duty with United Artists, the largely somnolent studio headed by Tom Cruise.

UA has brought in McQuarrie to write and produce two high-profile projects: “The Champions,” an adaptation of an old British TV series; and “The Monster of Florence,” a fact-based story about a series of murders in Italy. Cruise may take one of the lead roles in “Florence.”

McQuarrie’s concrete involvement suggests a new push to accelerate UA’s slate. The studio has a $500 million production fund that requires three UA movies to be released by mid-2010. But the only project greenlit by UA since Cruise and business partner Paula Wagner took control of the MGM division two years ago is Cruise’s World War Two drama “Valkyrie,” due in theaters next month. McQuarrie co-wrote that film.

“The Champions” revolves around a group of government agents who encounter a hidden civilization that grants them superhuman talents. McQuarrie is hashing out the script with Guillermo del Toro, who will also produce the film but is not attached to direct.

“The Monster of Florence” tells the strange-but-true tale of popular author Douglas Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi, who began investigating a series of unsolved murders in Italy and wound up implicated in the case. Two years ago, McQuarrie optioned the film rights to the duo’s ensuing best-seller along with “American Beauty” producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen.

UA also is developing the children’s literature series “Ranger’s Apprentice,” the first book of which “Crash” director Paul Haggis is adapting with his daughter Alissa into a possible franchise. (Yahoo! News)

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MSN Movies has posted 3 videos on their Valkyrie page.

I’ve uploaded them for you to download or watch on YouTube. ALso, upload a truckload of screencaps

(Right click “Save As” on the download link, to view the WMV files you will need Windows Media Player and WinRar (to uncompress the files)

TRAILER

Download WMV | Watch on Youtube | View Screencaps

Featurette #1

Download WMV | Watch on Youtube | View Screencaps

Featurette #2

Download WMV | Watch on YouTube | View Screencaps

Previews (cause I like to tease )

That’s all for now. Later today: Icons

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