TheRetroCritic

Tropic Thunder sure made noise when it came out. You had an all-star comedy cast, with Robert Downey Jr. famously and controversially playing an African American character... or, rather, a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude, and ultimately winning an Oscar for his performance. The film also included a nearly unrecognisable Tom Cruise in a rare goofy comedy role at a time where his popularity really needed a boost. The movie's plot revolves around a group of egomaniacal Hollywood actors working on a super-expensive Apocalypse Now -style war movie. When the film goes massively over budget and looks like it'll flop harder than John Carter , the film's director (played by Steve Coogan) decides to follow Nick Nolte's advice (he plays the writer of the novel the film is an adaptation of) and land all the actors in the real Vietnamese jungle so they can somehow shoot a gritty and more realistic version of the movie. Which is odd since that doesn't really

All you need is JAM...

We discuss the ending of new Tom Cruise flick Oblivion (see review below) in new podcast The Big Rewind . (SPOILERS)

From the director of Tron Legacy comes this Tom Cruise-starring post-apocalyptic sci-fi in which a drone repairman with a testicle-shaped helicopter goes around a devastated Earth working on his final task before being sent to the next planet humans have decided to inhabit. Cruise is Jack Harper, a normal-enough dude with a penchant for white leather who starts having regular nightmares depicting a life he can't recall. Which makes sense since he and his partner, along with many others, all agreed to have their memories erased after the war... for some reason. Slowly but surely, he starts to find out that his reality isn't quite as straight-forward as he originally believed. It's hardly a new premise but with its cool visuals and fresh-ish approach, Oblivion certainly looked like a promising sci-fi thriller. Director Joseph Kosinski once again delivers a great-looking film full of interesting futuristic technology and big ideas. Once again, however, there is someth