Not directly related to a current legal topic(although there are legal implications) there is a feature story in the paper today with the headline bellowing how Tom Cruise repeatedly risks his life in the Mission Impossible movie series.

It features a photos of him hanging from the blades of a helicopter in high flight. The seemingly hopelessly naïve and star-struck reporter marvels how it is miraculous Cruise is still alive since he seemingly cheats certain death several times each movie by performing the most seemingly life-defying dangerous stunts, while using no safety back-up measures, supposedly never using stunt doubles, supposedly never agreeing to instead rely on computer technology to create the scene convincingly without the need to endanger the star actor.

My response to all this is how can anyone be stupid enough to report on, or to believe such pap?

I mentioned that there are legal/liability implications and they are many. The article would have us believe that this star, who earns like 30 million a picture and whose continued health throughout production will make or break the picture at the box office, is constantly put in real peril, is constantly endangered, without apparently anyone insisting that him and his attorneys sign any sort of releases, and that this is all fine by everyone, even though with technology the scenes can be electronically created in an equally convincing fashion without constantly endangering the star. Also, since the producers secure insurance on any actor they are paying multiple millions to, no insurance company would ever under-write such pure, unadulterated idiocy.

And, in fact, we have been hearing about all this garbage since the Mission Impossible series started some years ago. When he was being interviewed by kiss ass members of the entertainment press who would seem astonished by all the supposed risks he took, people watching the reports invariably would say "yeah, right, like they(the film makers) are actually going to endanger him."

So, then why is the entertainment press, as well as the supposedly legitimate news press, continuing to report on such idiocy? And Cruise is just an example. There are constantly unquestioned reports of actors boasting they did their own dangerous stunts.

Now I recognize that some stars of the past, like Steve McQueen with his motorcycle, would perform some of their own stunts on a limited basis, but we are being asked to believe that Tom Cruise and others constantly hang from helicopters in high flight, dive off high cliffs with no parachute into deep waters, hang on the roof of speeding cars going 120 m.p.h., get constantly shot at with life rounds when escaping from villains etc.

And again, I have no ax to grind with Cruise but am using him as the most obvious, and expensive, example. Action stars are constantly seeking to reinforce their machismo by boasting in interviews of the risks they took, performing all their own dangerous stunts, etc.

And the higher standard is 4 (four!) criminal arrests should disqualify you from being the state's top law enforcement officer. I mean, this and the tax liens paint the portrait of somebody who lacks judgment.

Raise your hand if you recently had hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax liens and four criminal arrests? Nobody? I don't begrudge his ability to earn a living, but not as the AG.