Tom Cruise Makes His Own Pact with Writers

Studio heads are fuming.

Executives who run the movie biz are members of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a group that represents hundreds of movie studios and production companies, and negotiates with entertainment industry trade unions like the Writers Guild of America (WGA).

Interestingly, the WGA has made a deal with Tom Cruise and UA that is similar to the agreement that the union cut with David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants.

By making the first interim deal with the WGA, UA now has a competitive edge over the rest of the Hollywood studios. But this has also created a situation that has weakened the position of the AMPTP and created pressure for other companies to make side deals with the writers’ union, which plays right into the hands of the striking writers.

To that end, the WGA is pursuing similar side deals with the Weinstein Co. (owned by former Miramax Films founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein) and Lionsgate.

The UA deal helps its distributor and majority shareholder MGM because needed product will be supplied to the company.

Because MGM is a member of the AMPTP, in a desire not to break ranks with the group, MGM CEO Harry Sloan had been pleading with Cruise and his sidekick Paula Wagner not to make their own deal with the WGA.

Could it be that there are some second thoughts about making Tom Cruise the head of United Artists film studio?

Meanwhile the awards shows are also feeling weakened and pressured as a result of the writers’ strike.

“What would the N.F.L. be without the Super Bowl?” one movie exec told the New York Times. “They will find a way to make it [the Oscars] happen.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

The Oscar folks started getting nervous when the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announced that the actors who were nominated for Golden Globes, in a show of support for striking writers, would not be attending the ceremony.

It could be that the only one walking the red carpet will be Al Gore.

Let’s face it. Awards shows aren’t really about honoring peers. They’re about the public’s insatiable desire to have another opportunity to star gaze. That’s the draw, and that’s what brings in the big bucks.

For the Academy, it translates into around $50 million in Oscar-related revenue. ABC TV brings in scores of millions in ad money each time the golden boy mugs for the camera.

Winning an Oscar can also give a boost to a film, in box-office terms, of 5 to 10 percent.

All of the dough means that keeping actors (who also happen to be SAG union members) away from the awards shows is the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) ace in the hole in getting concessions from execs and ending the strike.

Redford’s ‘Lions for Lambs’ Penned by Clinton White House Intern

Even the mainstream media critic crowd has had to acknowledge that the Robert Redford directed “Lions for Lambs” film is told through a Left Coast lens.

Variety calls the movie (which incidentally also co-stars Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise) “back-bendingly liberal but also deeply patriotic.”

The Hollywood Reporter points out that although Redford and scriptwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan set out arguments both for and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s “no doubt” about “where they [Redford and Carnahan] stand.”

And veteran film critic Emanuel Levy says “Lions for Lambs” is Redford’s “most overtly political drama.”

An explanation for the strong leftward tilt of the movie can be found in the background of Carnahan.

While pursuing political science studies at USC, “Lions” scriptwriter Carnahan was also an intern in former President Bill Clinton’s White House. Carnahan’s responsibilities included working in a war room that defended Hillary Rodham Clinton’s failed health care plan.

Carnahan received a career boost from older brother Joe who directed “Smokin’ Aces” and was scriptwriter of the more even-handed terrorist-related movie “The Kingdom.”

In a lefty performance of the off-screen kind, actor Sean Penn gave folks yet another glimpse into his parallel universe in a fawning interview he did with the U.K. Guardian.

In response to criticism he received for his public embrace of dictator Hugo Chavez, Penn carped, “I take a lot of flak, but truth is stubborn. I ain’t going to say it don’t annoy me but, if the intention is to make me do it less, it’s really going the other way.”

About his part-time journalist gig for the San Francisco Chronicle in which he went on a “fact-finding” journey to Iraq and Iran, Penn boasted, “I don’t know if this is true, but I may have written the first published piece in mainstream journalism that actually explained what these contractors were up to over there.”

Regarding the media, Penn complained that “nobody’s watching this stuff, and it’s eating away at our democracy.” He also groused that we didn’t find out “people were building up these private militias out of the Pentagon with tax payers’ money.”

“The way I see it,” Penn said, “if you believe in democracy, you got to do something. We have people running the country now who really should be in prison for what they are doing to democracy. If you define our country by the Constitution, we have enemies of the State in the White House, the Defense Department and the State Department. That’s where we are now.”

Wonder if Penn secretly longs to be the running mate of UFO spotter Dennis Kucinich.

Rosie O’Donnell’s Terrorist Fans

Terrorist leaders are weighing in on Rosie O’Donnell’s geopolitical rantings.

Ramadan Adassi, the terrorist head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, has said that he agrees with O’Donnell’s views. And Ala Senakreh, the West Bank Chief of the same terrorist group, is inviting Rosie to come on a fact-finding visit and live with them for a while.

“We welcome Rosie O’Donnell to stay among us and to get to know the truth from being here,” Senakreh said, according to author Aaron Klein.

O’Donnell’s rep says the idea that terrorists have picked Rosie for their pin-up poster is “absurd.”

But when you look at Rosie’s statements, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

Assisting in making the monsters appear cuddly, O’Donnell said, “Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers.”

Helping to take the terrorists off the hook for the events of 9/11, she informed folks that the buildings were brought down in order to get rid of documents that incriminated Enron and other corporations.

Relieving the Iranian government of responsibility, the blustering blogger suggested that the Bush administration orchestrated the kidnapping of fifteen British sailors as a pretext for war.

Lending a hand to terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who had confessed to more than 30 terrorist plots and the 9/11 attack, O’Donnell spread the word that the confession had been coerced via U.S. torture.

And who could forget when Rosie announced that our country had treated the Guantanamo inmates “like animals” and subjected them to “torture … on a daily basis.”

What does her rhetoric portend?

Rosie will be back on the tube real soon—on Al Jazeera.

The former object of Rosie’s affection, Tom Cruise, apparently intends to construct a $10 million bunker under his home in Telluride in order to keep wife Katie Holmes and daughter Suri safe from an intergalactic alien attack.

Cruise does have some interplanetary experience. After all, he starred in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 flick “War of the Worlds.”

According to Star Magazine, Cruise plans to hunker down in a bunker because of his devotion to the Church of Scientology. He reportedly believes that “an evil revenge attack” is being plotted by Xenu, a dethroned galactic potentate.

The structure will purportedly be “a self-contained underground shelter” with high tech air purifying capability.

Cruise’s rep denies the report and says it’s “completely untrue.”

Even though Hollywood publicists aren’t anxious to admit their clients have concerns over interstellar invasions from outer space, politicians are chomping at the bit to have another shot at a guest worker program.