Free Republic

Great actor. Really shone in “The Sting”, “Silent Movie”, and tons of TV guest star appearances going back to the 60s. I even liked a late 70s con man/con daughter show he did with the smoking Stefanie Powers, “Feather and Father”.

The Left's rabid hatred of Rove and Bush has contorted their positioning to the ludicrous point where they're "outraged" at the outing of a CIA desk jockey, when they hate the CIA almost as much as they do Bush. They're unwittingly paraphrasing a line from the brilliant "Animal House" "He can't do that to our agents. Only we can do that to our agents."

Why it doesn't work. (1) The cliched dysfunctional family: egotistical father, rebellious annoying son (see "The Day After Tomorrow"), (2) No story, peripheral "War", just repetitive hiding from aliens with Dakota Fanning screaming a lot, (3)Tim Robbins' character: One moment he says, "They've been planning this for a million years! This isn't a war! It's an extermination!" The next moment he says, ""We're the resistance! We can kill them!" (4)The ending. In both the Wells book and 1953 classic, the Martians' world is dying and they pick Earth as their best hope for repopulation, so their demise by bacteria is plausible and unexpected. In this version they'd been "planning this for a million years" with their war machines buried here forever, so you'd think they would have figured out that annoying microbe problem. (5) Tom Cruise is a one-note lightweight.

Why it doesn't work. (1) The cliched dysfunctional family: egotistical father, rebellious annoying son (see "The Day After Tomorrow"), (2) No story, no "War", just repetitive hiding from aliens with Dakota Fanning screaming a lot, (3)Tim Robbins' character: One moment he says, "They've been planning this for a million years! This isn't a war! It's an extermination!" The next moment he says, ""We're the resistance! We can kill them!" (4)The ending. In both the Wells book and 1953 classic, the Martians' world is dying and they pick Earth as their best hope for repopulation, so their demise by bacteria is plausible and unexpected. In this version they'd been "planning this for a million years" with their war machines buried here forever, so you'd think they would have figured out that annoying microbe problem. (5) Tom Cruise is a one-note lightweight.

Three out of many lapses on the list:

"If God didn't want them sheared, then why did He make them sheep?" Calvera (Eli Wallach) to the Seven, "The Magnificent Seven"

"Seven years of college down the drain." Bluto, "Animal House"

"No one ever won a war by dying for his country. You make the other poor dumb bastard die for HIS country." "Patton"