Rolling thunder motorcycle rally

"The comedy you were doing, you were playing it so well and I was telling people, 'oh my god, Tom Cruise is so great when he does comedy,' and then I remembered, wait a minute, you did it in Tropic Thunder. You killed in Tropic Thunder." Tom Cruise laughed after Conan O'Brien gave him some praise and then mentioned the name of his Tropic Thunder character: Les Grossman. "Look, I love comedy I used to write sketches when I was a little kid and I would do imitations to make my mother and my sisters laugh," said Cruise. Many fans were shocked to see Cruise in such a drastically different role from anything they'd seen previously, and not a whole lot of people know that he was mainly responsible for the details behind Les Grossman. He then delivered some lines from the movie, much to the surprise of Conan's San Diego Comic-Con audience. The actor yelled, "Stand back and literally f*ck your own face," and the audience went crazy. … [Read more...] about Les Grossman Remembered: Tom Cruise Revisits Tropic Thunder Character at Comic-Con

Best Comedic Performance: Any actor that can take the art of blackface and make it fresh, exciting, and above all else, funny again, is a genius in his own right. And people have spoken these words about Robert Downey Jr. for as long as I can remember. Even before he started crashing on wayward couches and taking roles in sub par action flicks like Air America, people would often site the actor as the best of his generation. Heck, the guy even made the third worst film of the 80s (Johnny Be Good) watchable. And that has to account for something. This year, the actor found his way into two high profile pictures that acted as a defibrillator on his waning career. He was smug, charming, and daft in Iron Man, but his performance as Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder stands as the defining moment in 2008's comedic film legacy. Much like the character he is playing on screen, Downey gave himself to this on-screen method actor and sold it home in a solid bit of hysterics. No one else could have … [Read more...] about BEST of 2008: A Look Back at This Year’s Film Highlights!

Criss: So they set it up. And I’m alone in there and it’s a long hallway, and it’s full of old garbage cans. All of a sudden, we’re into it. I hear Bob on the headset, we’re starting, and the door opens and two Mexican guys walk in. Garbage men. And they see me all dressed up, long hair, looking crazy, banging drums in the elevator [laughs]. And they flip out. And I flip out. No one knows what to do. And I keep hearing Bob, “What’s the matter?” And then they said, “OK, to hell with this,” as New Yorkers do, and they start moving the garbage. Bob is listening, and he hears, like, a war! He’s like, “Peter!” And I’m like, “You’ll never believe it! You gotta come over here, man. They’re moving the garbage.” We laughed and laughed and laughed I don’t know how long. … [Read more...] about The Oral History of Kiss’ ‘Destroyer’: ‘It’s a Miracle We’re Alive’

Before you recorded a note of the song “Born to Run,” what picture of the thing did you have in your mind?Just, exhilarating, orgasmic [laughs]. I remember when the riff came into my head. I’d been listening to the record “Because They’re Young” by Duane Eddy, and I’d been listening to quite a bit of Duane Eddy because I was into the twangy guitar sound at the moment. But it was one of those things that I can’t completely trace back. I mean, I had these enormous ambitions. I wanted to make the greatest rock record that I’d ever heard, and I wanted it to sound enormous and I wanted it to grab you by your throat and insist that you take that ride, insist that you pay attention, not to just the music, but just to life, to feeling alive, to being alive. That was sort of what the song was asking, and it was taking a step out into the unknown. And that’s the big difference, say, between “Born to Run” and … [Read more...] about Bruce Springsteen on Making ‘Born to Run’: ‘We Went to Extremes’

Peart had trouble revisiting his Seventies playing on the band’s latest tour – because he’s a better drummer now.“Doing stuff I would never do and with a clock that I have transcended now, it was hard. And then after having done it for a few days, when I came back to the modern me, I was playing along and I said, ‘Why can’t I settle into this? What’s wrong with me?’ And it was just that transition. I had immersed myself in the 40-year-old version of me and now when I come back to the modern me, it’s much more evolved – musically, time sense, touch, technique, emotion – all that stuff is so much better now. I look at the past with a tolerant smile now but it was unformed. Immature is the right word. I know I have a mature, hard earned mastery of the instrument now.” … [Read more...] about 22 Things You Learn Hanging Out With Rush