Vanilla open-your-eyes Sky

Fear is a great motivator. Fear of Tom Cruise in a bad performance stopped me from watching "vanilla sky" for years now. Tonight I overcame this fear.

I did not hate the movie. A few too many Courtney Love references and really, Tom, please oh please affect some new mannerisms for the "okay I am feeling angst now" moments.
I loved Tom Cruise in "Magnolias" where he played the consummate jock asshole saleman "Respect the cock" guy. If I could like him in that movie, and I did, he must be all right as an actor. More than just the guy from "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder".

Unfortunately for Mr. Cruise we jean and joe averages know all too much about him as skewered through the tabloid press. I bet they didn't tell you about that until after the soul exchange eh Tom?

Vanilla Sky was not as good as "Open your Eyes" even though I saw it with subtitles it definitly is better. Cameron Crowe did a respectable job on the writing and directing here. I watched the movie through and then read the plethora of withering reviews. Critics can be so petty.

Anyone who has had dream delusions or sleep misadventures can identify with the character's problems trying to discern which reality is the one to pay attention to. Unlike the movie "pi" which was so bang on correct with the depiction of where the pain in the brain is, and exactly how to get rid of it, "Vanilla Sky" is a film I can discuss and watch again with no fear of relapse.
After "Pi" I think I took 5 weeks off to get my brain back together again. No shit.

So you see --life with a brain injury isn't all sunshine and roses and being content with one-tenth of what you are capable of. It can be disturbingly surreal seeing aspects of your pain up there for the world to see. My moment was when the character finally can't take the headaches anymore and opts for the handful of meds. Been there done that and oops it didn't take. Unlike the movie character my face looks great. Or at least as great as $56,000 can buy. And I never did have any *visible* scars, except on the top of my head where the hair won't grow, and along my cheek where it looks like a scratch. Nowadays the same things would cost in the hundreds of thousands.

Wallowing in life. That's me.
No, I didn't hate the film.
Tom, you are better than your press. Alot better.
btw: Cameron Diaz is naturally about as freakishly skinny as a person can be without decomposing. No, that is not a compliment but rather a wake-up call to all of us. Why is this one in a hundred million body type being glorified? Is it so the rest of us can never be satisfied? I suspect so. I want a movie queen who is 5 foot 7 and 150 pounds of normalcy.

Wallow wallow.

“I'm very brave generally, he went on in a low voice: only today I happen to have a headache.”
Lewis Carroll