An alternative-universe Hollywood where a married pair of superstars -- it will not be helpful to think of Cruise and Kidman, Burton and Taylor, Bogart and Bacall -- have appeared together in nine consecutive boffo blockbusters (the samples we see of their work are on a par with the standard big-screen sendups of TV soap opera); where the female half has met with a disapproving public and two straight flops since their breakup; where two years after the split there somehow remains an unreleased joint effort directed by a three-time Oscar winner who, looking like the wild-haired Ben Gunn of Treasure Island, is editing the project in Kubrickian secrecy inside the Unabomber's transplanted Montana cabin; and where the head of the studio must wait to see the final cut with the national press corps at the junket. Julia Roberts, just to open a can of Whiskas in the overall atmosphere of fishiness, plays the part of Catherine Zeta-Jones's wallflower sister (wearing a fat suit in flashback for substantiation), though that doesn't cut down on her usual quotas of teeth and tantrums. Both actresses could sue the cameraman for their sallow complexions. John Cusack, insofar as he's supposed to be in recovery from a mental breakdown, has shakier grounds for litigation. And Christopher Walken, as the anchoritic director, would probably be flattered. Billy Crystal, as the unprincipled publicist (a tautology, to be sure), works very hard and handily on the assembly line of gimcrack jokes. The sheer volume of jokes would be reduced, however, by roughly a third if Crystal and his co-writer Peter Tolan were deprived of the penis. (Perhaps Tolan's given name shaped his destiny.) Joe Roth, a former studio chief himself at Fox and Disney, returning after a decade to the director's chair to lengthen his brief and undistinguished list of credits (Streets of Gold, Revenge of the Nerds 2, Coupe de Ville), should certainly know his subject from top to bottom. But dissembling and disinformation can become a habit. Hank Azaria, Stanley Tucci, Alan Arkin. (2001) — Duncan Shepherd