Some good news, finally, for Tom Cruise: his cameo in Tropic Thunder brought down the house at an industry screening of the summer comedy. It's a time-honored show business tradition for stars who have encountered image problems to get back in their fans' good graces by showing that they have a sense of humor about themselves, though it doesn't always work, as Sylvester Stallone found out with Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot. Cruise's deep-inside turn, in which he dons a fat suit to play "a bald, hairy-chested, foulmouthed, dirty-dancing movie mogul of the kind who is only too happy to throw an actor to the wolves when his popularity cools" apparently works like gangbusters, especially among those who recognize it as a bitch slap at Sumner Redstone, the Paramount executive who cut his studio's ties to Cruise after speculation began building in Hollywood that the star's increasing reputation as a geek show on wheels might be killing his box office appeal.
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