[movies] Bacall Speak

You listen.

Lauren Bacall correctly calls "get over yourself" on Tom Cruise on his recent public behavior.

Now, don't get me wrong. Despite being conflicted over how Tom uses his public persona to flog his religious views to the world, I've always enjoeyed him as an actor. His performance in War of the Worlds makes for good viewing.

There's a very skilled actor at the middle of all that bizarrity. But the bizarrity is making him a laughingstock.

Famously, she also criticised an entertainment reporter for anointing Nicole Kidman a "legend" in a question an interviewer asked her about acting with her, criticism which Kidman accepted with grace and equanimity.

Curmudgeonly? Maybe. But, as far as I'm concerned, if anyone is qualified to judge who a legend is, if the woman who played with Bogart in Casablanca, To Have And Have Not, and Key Largo can't judge, then nobody can.

And you, dear reader aren't qualified to judge Bacall unless you've seen them.

Consider it your film school homework.

(NB:Original story courtesy Yahoo! News)

(Editor's Note, 2 Aug 2005: As it happens, Bacall was not in Casablanca. It was Ingrid Bergman, of course.)