Measuring up

I had a loud chortle when I first saw the official Tom and Katie wedding photos. In the shot shown round the world, Tom is clearly an inch or so taller than Katie - who as we all know normally has at least an inch or two on the love of her life. She's all hunched down to make her eternal beloved seem like a towering presence, rather than the teeny tiny man we all know he is. Vanity, they name is Cruise.

It actually reminded me of the scenes in War of The Worlds between Cruise and Tim Robbins. It was like Spielberg had used reverse Hobbit technology. Let me explain: When filming the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson hired short actors as hobbits, tall actors as everyone else and used tricks of staging and photography to amplify the difference. In War, Spielberg did all he could to minimize the height difference between teeny Tom and towering Tim. Robbins is a tall, tall guy. There'd be at least a foot difference in height there. Not in the film though. 'Cause we have to believe that Tom could beat Tim's ass. Hmmm. Maybe if he just scrunched down a bit...