A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"Please help yourself to this tripe."

I realized earlier that I'd never really written about Tom Cruise here. Even taking into account his latest round of publicity whoring for War of the Worlds (check out Defamer for some truly frightening screen captures from his Oprah appearance) and his nauseatingly ubiquitous gushing over his totally spontaneous romance with Katie Holmes, I consciously avoided flogging that particular dead horse (for once). In this way, I was able to mistakenly convince myself that entries about the Spice Girls and Samuel L. Jackson somehow elevated APCB above other exercises in navel-gazing.

But enough is enough. Tom Cruise, shut the fuck up:

In an interview with Billy Bush on TV show Access Hollywood, to be screened on Thursday, Cruise speaks of his disappointment to learn Shields used Paxil to fight post-natal depression following the birth of her daughter Rowan. Shields is currently weaning herself off her medication so she and husband Chris Henchy can have another child.

Of course, the first thing I'm going to do in an entry about Tom Cruise is talk about Brooke Shields. Specifically, if my wife had gone through the kind of PPD Shields reportedly experienced, there wouldn't even be talk of a second child, unless we adopted. I'd have taken wire cutters and a soldering iron and handled those pesky vasa deferensa myself.

Maybe living in Houston has made me overly sensitive to such things. Oh well.

Onward.

Cruise, who claims to have helped people fight drug addictions through his controversial Scientology religion, says the Suddenly Susan actress should have used vitamins to help her feelings of despair. Cruise says, "Here is a woman, and I care about Brooke Shields because I think she is an incredibly talented woman. You look at, where has her career gone?"

Yeah, because it was such hot shit before she had kids. Sahara (fun fact: Lambert Wilson appeared in both the Matthew McConaughey version and this 1983 stinkbomb)? Brenda Starr? After Sex (Dan Cortese was billed higher)? This isn't quite on par with Meryl Streep suddenly deciding to appear in the Red Shoe Diaries.

Cruise maintains, "These drugs are dangerous. I have actually helped people come off. When you talk about postpartum, you can take people today, women, and what you do is you use vitamins. There is a hormonal thing that is going on, scientifically, you can prove that. But when you talk about emotional, chemical imbalances in people, there is no science behind that. You can use vitamins to help a woman through those things."

You hear that, you dumb broads? It's all in your heads.

No, really, I'm glad Dr. Cruise acknowledges the existence of hormones, though he seems unable to explain the origins of the tiny dwarves and Demonic Humors cause shit like depression and schizophrenia.

Actually, that would be better than what the "Church" really thinks:

Scientology religious doctrine holds that all illnesses, both physical and mental, are caused by "engrams" of negative energy in a person's "thetan", and that mental health professionals in fact place new "engrams" in their patients, covering up old problems with new ones.

Now it all makes sense: Theodoric of York was the first Scientologist.

I stopped believing Cruise behaved the way he does (suspicious romances, freaky intensity) to help open his movies long ago. The marquee value of "Spielberg/Cruise" was enough to earn even the mediocre Minority Report over $350 million worldwide, after all, and WotW promises to be even bigger than that. No, the truth is that he actually believes what he says. And unlike, say, fellow Hubbard fan John Travolta, Cruise is good enough of an actor to get away with it.

And for all of you hating on Tom and Katie's relationship, this one's for you:

Dating Tom Cruise is starting to pay off for Katie Holmes, if internet reports are to be believed - she's set to steal a Mission: Impossible 3 role from Lindsay Lohan. According to website Ananova.Com, Holmes has become the hot favorite to replace Scarlett Johansson as Cruise's love interest in the action movie sequel.

Holmes instead of Johansson? Great choice.