someone from ilx said that the superslick tombot broke ca magnolia, and he played with his image, his blankness and his vanity in a much more serious way (ie minority report, collateral, vanilla sky, even last samuari...this may be the case, i havent seen these films)

also, he seems to be collecting name directors, from the beginning, actually:
kubrick, scorcese, stone, ron howard, sidney pollock, brian depalma (i've liked a dozen things depalma has directed, mission impossible isnt one of them)