Tom Cruise Heads Into Oblivion: Five Things You May Not Have Heard About This Week

By Cindy Davis | Lists | December 9, 2012 |

By Cindy Davis | Lists | December 9, 2012 |

I find the Important Stuff so you don’t have to.

5. We Got a Look at What “Breaking Bad” Might Have Been…on Lifetime.

It’s creepy, right?

And AMC Sent the Cast Cupcakes, to Mark the First Day of Shooting the Final Season.

If only the network was as kind to its loyal viewers. Between halving the last season of Breaking Bad and the excruciatingly long waits for “Mad Men,” we are made to cruelly and unnecessarily suffer.

4. Showtime Sneaked Us a Peek at Their Plan to Stay on Top: “Masters of Sex” and “Ray Donovan.”

“Masters of Sex,” starring Michael Sheen, Lizzy Caplan (as William Masters and Virginia Johnson), and Margo Martindale sounded interesting from the first announcements—this trailer confirmed my Sunday evening couch reservation for Showtime. The surprise here is “Ray Donovan,” which stars Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight, Steven Bauer and Elliot Gould; Schreiber plays a guy who takes care of problems—he’s called a “fixer”—for Hollywood’s rich and famous. Though the initial description wasn’t exactly titillating, this clip piques my interest.

3. Lee Pace Is Auditioning for Guardians of the Galaxy. Tomorrow!

A pat on the back to those speculators that called this one—Pace confirmed he’s trying out for Peter Quill aka Star-Lord. Guardians of the Galaxy will be directed by James Gunn (Slither, Tromeo and Juliet), and according to Pace, the script by Gunn, Nicole Perlman and Chris McCoy, is “great.”

2. PBS Announced Its New Series, “Shakespeare Uncovered.”

Three Fridays, beginning January 25th, PBS will air a six hour series of films covering William Shakespeare’s works—specifically, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tempest, Richard II, Henry IV & Henry V and an hour on the comedies Twelfth Night and As You Like It. Each film will feature actors and directors, such as mother daughter team, Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Patrick Stewart, Ben Whishaw, Jude Law, David Tennant, Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston, Helen Mirren, Julie Taymor, Simon Russell Beale, Ethan Hawke and Trevor Nunn, and will provide a mix of analysis, performance, history and biography. The series previously ran in the UK on BBC Four, and if you’re terribly impatient, you can find most of the episodes on youtube.

1. We Got Our First Look at Tom Cruise in the Oblivion Trailer and It’s Hella Better Than That Jack Reacher Shit.

Fuck it, people. I’m desperate for a new science fiction film (and no, JJ Abrams’ abominations do not count); I’m all in. Cruise was decent in Minority Report, proving that if the story is good enough, he can be tolerated. Based on Joseph Kosinski’s graphic novel, Oblivion finds disgraced veteran (why do all the kick-ass cops and veterans have to be “disgraced”?) Jack Harper (Cruise) as the last man on a destroyed, post-war Earth. He spends his days repairing drones and patrolling, until the monotony is disrupted by the arrival of a downed spacecraft. And then Morgan Freeman shows up and all hell breaks loose. Oblivion also stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Olga Kurylenko, Melissa Leo, Zoe Bell and Andrea Riseborough, and hits theaters April 12, 2013. It’s also on Dustin’s list of The 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2013.

Cindy Davis, (Twitter) is still trying to wash away the Prometheus memories.