I'm Stephen Metcalf and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Valkyrie Gives You Pink Eye Edition.

On today's program, we're going to talk about Tom Cruise and Valkyrie.

Will Nazism reinvigorate the career of a Scientologist?

Bruce Springsteen and Walmart, friend of which working man exactly?

And 2008, The Darkness Before the Dawn or portal to the apocalypse. On today's

program, we're joined by a new guest, June, who is the foreign editor of Slate.com. Hey, June, welcome.

Thank you so much. And Dana Stevens, of course, our film critic. Hey, Dana. Hey, Steve.

Well, let's start with Tom Cruise. I somewhat rashly a week ago on Slate predicted the demise of Tom Cruise,

who's been a movie star for 25 years, a huge star. And my argument was that he's just so inextricably bound up in the Reagan era that this has to be the end of this yippy little hard body who's plagued some of us for the better part of a quarter of a century.

But now I discover, Dana, that thanks to film critics like you who've lowered the bars so far.

No, no.

I won't hold you personally responsible with but Valkyry, his latest

movie in which he plays, someone named, I believe, Colonel von Stauffenberg, who was a real

figure who attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1944, that his latest movie, Valkyrie, is actually

doing pretty good business. Now, I've stayed away. I obviously have a skin reaction to the sight and sound

of Tom Cruise, but you don't, and you thought that this was a pretty good movie, and Cruz is...

Well, let's not step so fast here, my friend. I also have a deep aversion to Tom Cruise, as I feel

like many moviegoers of our generation probably do, although, like you, there's risky business. I think

there's moments that Tom Cruise is perfectly cast and he belongs where he is. Valcary is not necessarily one of them. I mean, I think my take on Valcary, we'll go over to June who got Pink Eye from the movie in a moment, but I think my take was, gee, this wasn't near as execrable as we were all expecting. I mean, Valkyrie is just one of the few movies I can think of that people have been

mocking for years before its release. But Dana, listen to even how, this is how the GOP sets up the debate performances of those done candidates, right? It's like people have been making fun of George Bush since he was in, you know, sixth grade. And then the guy comes out, completes one English sentence, and the next thing you know, he's president.

Now, isn't this happening here with Tom Cruise and Valkyry that the laugh test really was the test that was being applied to this movie,

that in fact people could not sit through the previews of these movies without laughing at the side of Tom Cruise in a eye patch and jackboots and dancing around like a Nazi. Surely we hold movies to higher standards than that. Well, I would only agree with your George Bush analogy if this movie goes really far. If Tom Cruise starts to get awards recognition and great praise first performance and the movie is sort of critically acclaimed as a masterpiece, then I'm absolutely with you. Give me a break. And that's out of the question, I would imagine, but it's... I would think, probably. It's not, it's, yeah. Well, who knows? It's awards season. You know, who knows what moves the hearts of Academy voters. But what I liked about the movie precisely is it doesn't aspire to be much more than a well-paced suspense yarn, which I think it's pretty decent at being. Tom Cruise's performance is, you know, your standard Tom Cruise will hear a little bit of it in a minute.

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