When Richard Wagner wrote his famous "Kill the Wabbit" tune, "Ride of the Valkyries," he probably had no idea that the mythological term would find a resurgence in a troubled Hollywood production. A valkyrie is a female deity in Norse mythology whose job was to take the most heroic warrior who died in battle to Valhalla to serve in Odin's army. What Odin's army is doing in doing near White Plains, New York is beyond me, but that's where you go when you die a Norse hero. Tom Cruise must have angered my similarly named Norse god, for Valkyrie appears as cursed as the last movie to bring down United Artists, Heaven's Gate. It has been protested against by the Germans, had some of its footage mysteriously damaged, been mocked by bloggers, and had its release date pushed from Oscar-friendly October to the cinematic cemeteries of February. When a flick with a star this big gets moved to a month nobody goes to the movies, the sharks smell blood in the water. That Cruise doesn't seem to mask his regular accent with a German one, even one as bad as Colonel Klink's, also has the sharks in feeding frenzy. His Wiley Post meets Jerry Maguire eye patch doesn't help either.

The New York Times chronicles Valkyrie's numerous troubles as well as the problem United Artists has in its latest incarnation as a studio. After being taken over by Cruise and his longtime partner Paula "I'm not Richard" Wagner, UA has put out one movie, Cruise's star-powered crash-and-burn, Lions for Lambs. Valkyrie will be UA's second release if it ever sees the light of day. If, as some speculators predict, nobody sees Valkyrie but director Bryan Singer, then UA could become DOA after only one movie. As Chris Rock once said: "Grand Opening, Grand Closing."

Provided Oprah doesn't have him back on her couch, Cruise's next filmed appearance will be in Ben Stiller's blackface comedy Tropic Thunder. Assuming that film's a hit, and Cruise is funny, it may renew audience interest in his film career. One can't count out a star whose wattage was once bright enough to light Broadway, nor, as Titanic proved, can one count out a movie plagued by problems and bad buzz. Valkyrie could surprise us all, or it could be Cruise's Battlefield Earth.

As Warren and Dusty sang in Ishtar, "Telling the truth can be a dangerous business. Honest and popular don't go hand in hand." Perhaps all this bad buzz is just to sell papers and/or get readership, and the truth is the far blander notion that Cruise has made a good movie. We'll see when UA opens Valkyrie on President's Day Weekend. I sure hope somebody in their marketing department refers to that weekend in February as "the new Memorial Day Weekend." I'll kiss whoever it is.