This week, the movie that’s often considered the first flop of Cruise’s career: Ron Howard’s Far and Away! Is the movie — or are the accents — as bad as we thought? How can a movie work at the highest and lowest levels, but kind of miss the middle? How do we make our peace with the big political choice that Howard makes?

Content warning: indigenous erasure, colonialism, physical violence, sex work, harm to animals

Unanswered Questions:

• Was it the right decision to avoid the issue of native populations entirely?
  
  
• Can we understand the Christie storyline as being that of an Englishman coming under the romantic spell of America?
  
  
• Given the Irish immigrant story and the talk of destiny, why is there so little religion in this film?
  

Further reading:

• Native Land Digital
  
  
• Joy Harjo
  
  
• Copper Yearnings (Kimberly Blaeser)
  
  
• Ron Howard Interview (The Guardian)
  
  
• Far and Away Review (Roger Ebert)
  
  
• Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America (Leslie Zemeckis)
  

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Join us next time as we finally find out if Tom Cruise can handle the truth in Rob Reiner’s 1992 drama A Few Good Men!

The Last Star In Hollywood is an independent podcast produced by Elizabeth Rae and Alastair Stephens.

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