Post 180: Mapother, Shampother.
I always liked Tom Cruise. I still like Tom Cruise. He’s rated as one of the coldest celebrities in the city, but you know what, I never went to movies because of actors anyway. Except for maybe the other Tom, Mr. Hanks.
But really, are we all that bitter at Tom Cruise because of his 2005. Are we Americans all just willing to turn on anyone who goes a little nuts? He’s been around for 20+ years, and the first time he does something we don’t like, we are just foaming at the mouth to jump on him. We also seem to be doing this with Madonna as well, which means I think that it’s all blowback as everyone is sick of “Loving the 80’s.”
So he’s part of a cult.
So he’s probably gay.
So he jumped up and down on a couch and wooed Katie Holmes.
I can forgive the first two. Not the third one, but hey, he’s an actor, they are all a little wacko. You’ve got people telling you are great and beautiful all day long so they can make money off of you. Of course that’s going to mess with someone’s head.
But this guy was “the” star of the 80’s and 90’s. He had 5 movies in a row top 100 million back in the days when movies averaged 55 million. For most of the people my age, we grew up with this guy; he was in at least three movies that everyone has seen at least 5 times.
We forgave Brando’s eccentricities under the guise he was a “great artist” but all of a sudden, Tom goes weird and he’s a pariah. Part of me says shame on you America, but hell, it’s easier to laugh about Tom Cruise than read about the horrors of the Middle East war we’re in.
Anyway, how about a list.
Dave’s top ten Tom Cruise movies. Ranked not just in quality of the film, but also ranked in part to cultural significance, the essence of Tom Cruise, and the re-watchability.
10. Jerry Maguire. Honestly, this was the reason I went to film school. Hell, it plays a big part in my first script I ever wrote. When I first saw this movie, it hit me on the level that Star Wars did. It’s about sports, it’s about male friendship, and it’s about finding love, any of which I will go to see a movie for. I find the film almost unwatchable now, partly because I’m a different person than who I was 10 years ago, and I really don’t buy the whole ending anymore. Whatever, I loved it at the time.
This is probably Tom’s best role (but not quite his best acting performance), as Cameron Crowe suited it to play off his public persona and it was tailored to Tom’s biggest strengths:
1. His ability to get empathy in a redemption/discovery plot (also see Top Gun and Rain Man)
2. His ability to feign boiling distress, as if something is billowing underneath that has the potential to crack his perfectly engineered life. (see Eyes Wide Shut and Minority Report) This works both in his comedy and his romance, in his Show me the Money and his office breakdown, as well as his “you complete me” finale.
3 Tom running ( seriously, check this out He runs better than any actor ever. Just something about the way he does it sells the potency of his purpose. The stride, the way his arms move at 90 degree angles, and the way his clothing seems to float around him. This is a gift. The link is dynamite on it’s own to boot, a perfect compilation and spoof of the Nike commercials and paced exactly with the music. Crowe had Cruise running in both of the films he did with him (Maguire and Vanilla Sky) and did so at key plot points; he knows how to direct Cruise better than any other helmer.
4. He plays off a kid, and does the whole father thing. Maybe it’s his boyish charm, but he’s a master at this, because he’s able to flash those million dollar gams. (also see Rain Man and War of the Worlds).
5. He’s given a male his age to play off of. Sure, make your own gay joke, but Cruise is at his best when he is playing against another male character, whether it’s arguing, flying planes, talking about world issues, or breaking into CIA headquarters, he’s able to play a guy’s guy with guys better than he does anything but run. (go ahead and read that last sentence and replace the u’s with a’s. It’s that easy) He was able to bring out the best in Cuba to a point that it won Gooding the Oscar and got Cruise his 2nd nomination. Here he gets the “help me help you” speech and we see Jerry figure out his life through an equally stubborn male character. This movie doesn’t work nearly as well with another actor as Jerry Maguire.
The only Tom Cruise skill that isn’t in this movie is his yelling. He is able to do that angry, indignant yell as well as anybody (which is kind of sad, because most actors will underplay anger). It’s a trademark of his, with the whole “I want the TRUTH.”
9. Days of Thunder. Another one of those 80’s movies that would seem ridiculous if you made it straight today (and why Talladega Nights will be a huge hit. Really, this decade’s film production is filled with a schaddenfruede that we as audiences seem to lap up, whether it’s in the form of Scary Movie or Date Movie, it’s like we want to be in on the joke, and it pisses me off, because we’re better people than assholes who laugh at the past). It’s a mediocre movie as a whole, but it’s watchable because of Cruise, who plays the arrogant, reckless type he was best at in the 80’s, who slowly has to figure out that he can’t do it all on his own.
Rowdy Burns: You run good.
Cole Trickle: Thank you.
Rowdy Burns: Now go get your own car and we'll see how you do in a crowd.
See, it’s the running thing. Plus we’re given a great car chase as he and his rival tear through a city in rental cars. Great premise, equal execution.
8. Born on the 4th of July. This was when Tom was trying to become a crossover to a serious actor, and to his credit, he’s pretty decent in his attempt. One of the better “films” in his career, but it works on the same level as his performance was, it was meant to show that Tom Cruise can act, and the fact that his persona disappears when Kovic gets paralyzed, is about how the film goes, it's about watching someone we admired have to redisconver their purpose in life. It’s also lower on the list because 17 years later, watching a Vietnam anti-war film borders on torture, regardless of the message, I would rather watch paint dry. We got our own problems here.
7. Mission Impossible 1 & 2. The first one gets on the list for the famous break-in scene, which was one of those moments that was so good and so preposterous it had to be parodied over and over again. Even if it’s a muddled plot, it’s still surprisingly fun. The second one is a better film, even if it seems to have the exact plot of Final Fantasy 8, right down to the scar on his face.
6. I was thinking of putting up Magnolia, but it’s one of my least favorite films, having the opposite effect as Boogie Nights, as I dislike it more every time I see it. But it is kind of interesting performance wise, not because Tom is against character, but because he chooses to turn 35 in front of the audience by growing his hair long. When men turn 35/40 they either grow their hair out or they grow a goatee. It’s one of the two and it’s an epidemic of lameness for white males. It pisses me off how good he looks in this movie, almost as much as the ridiculous frogs from the sky is, and how brilliant some of the film school kids I attended with thought it wasn’t a terrible Deus ex Machina. So let’s go with Collateral, one of the best buddy/ non-buddy movies in a while. Like Magnolia, Cruise is playing drastically off persona as a hitman who comes to LA to kill off a bunch of people. Part of the appeal for me comes from its LA backdrop, capturing the essence of the city, and it’s fun to watch the film with a “hey, I’ve been there” eye. Cruise is merely ok in this film, and I feel the same way about Foxx (why he got an Oscar nomination is beyond me) and most of the film’s enjoyment is due to the directing job Michael Mann does. The scene in the Korean nightclub is one of the more tautly controlled murder scenes and I’ll watch that scene every time it’s on. Pre-meltdown, this was a rather interesting performance by Cruise, as he commands the lines with a dark, matter of factness that we had never seen in him (the Magnolia is a façade, this is a real bastard character), and it was mesmerizing to see him deliver it, and even more terrifying to see him talk to Matt Lauer about the history of psychiatry in the same fashion. One last digression, Cruise got a lot of flack for his accent in Far and Away (far and away my least favorite of his films… I’m sorry) which actually was rather accurate and decent. But he got so much flack, he hasn’t tried an accent since. If there ever was a film where he could have used an accent it’s Collateral. Can you imagine the role if he had a vaguely threatening Eastern European twang to him? I think he would have made the role all the more interesting.
5. Cocktail. Now we’re getting into his 80’s canon. It’s one of the decade’s more ridiculous films, right down to the Elizabeth Shue being rich third act, but it’s done with an air of what the hell breeziness and paced in the exact 3 act style screenplay books teach (Tom tries to be a business world guy, becomes a bartender, succeeds as a barkeep (end of act 1) bar owner and him move to the tropics and aim for rich cougars, falls in love, loses girl (end of act 2) guy cleans up life, gets girl, film over). While it’s not even in the same league in terms of enjoyment, it does belong in the same genre as Road House, two goofy 80’s movies that take place in the bar subculture that are remarkably mindless yet overpoweringly simple to get into when they come on TNT or TBS on a Sat afternoon.
4. Minority Report. After Jerry Maguire, I don’t know if Tom Cruise has been in a role where the character wasn’t deeply flawed in one sense or another (the Mission: Impossible sequels halfway excluded). It’s almost like he is trying to prove that he wasn’t the brash boyish character that made him famous. That trend continues here, as he plays John Anderton, a high level cop with an addiction to some new kind of drug. He’s driven and he’s good at his job, but like most of the roles he has been in the last 10 years, Cruise/the character doesn’t do much to win the audience’s favor. He has become more of a vessel actor, just letting the director mold his character, and letting Tom perform as non-threatening as possible. It kind of goes back to the running thing, as he works as a finely polished machine making the rounds for the day. In Minority Report, he has two things working for him. #1 He runs. A lot. #2. He is directed by Spielberg doing action mode movie and not letting his religion, views on divorce, or belief that kids save all into the picture too much, going back to the Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark style of storytelling and not of the Color Purple or Amistad hit or miss artiste. And it’s one of Spielberg’s best jobs and highly entertaining, taking a 30 page Phillip Dick novel and turning into an action vehicle with a morality message underpinning that doesn’t come off as didactic. The end result is a movie that gets the most out of it’s two biggest stars, having them do what they do best. The chase in the mall where Cruise is carrying the pre-cog is one of the most joyfully cinematic moments of the decade, as Spielberg plays with the a psychic character and uses her gifts in the way we want to see a psychic guide a guy on the run, having her tell him to wait, to run, drop change, or grabbing a random woman and telling her “Don’t go home, he knows.”
3. Rain Man. Hoffman won the Oscar, but almost 20 years on, I find Cruise’s work to be far more impressive. He takes a truly selfish character and slowly turns him into a decent and likable person, and is forced to do so with one of the best actors of the last 50 years playing a blank character, meaning he doesn’t act off of him, Cruise is forced to craft a redemption tale while talking to a wall. The film itself is one of the almost-classics, a movie that’s very, very good, but not a masterpiece, and it could have been a disaster if the casting was off. Hoffman got the showy piece and is mesmerizing at times, but it’s Cruise who controls the plot of the film, and he does a heck of a job, slowly coming to love and understand his brother, and does so as the proxy for the audience.
2. Top Gun. I don’t like this movie, it glorifies the Navy as reckless, cowboy heroes (that’s really not an anti-military statement), and is a better recruiting tool for the service than any promo film could ever be. It also so homoerotic, it should be listed in the gay/lesbian section at blockbuster. But as much as I don’t agree with this film, goddamnit, do I respect it. It’s mesmerizing in it’s timing, precisely and masterfully set up, and it is filled with great lines, action scenes, and even pulls of the whole singing in the bar scenario to boot. By all notions a 20 year old film about Air Force pilots would be long forgotten, but between the classic one liners and Tom Cruise hitting the apex of celebrity appeal in his career with a role suited for him and only him, it gets to the same level of Brando in On the Waterfront, Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, or William Shatner as James Kirk. That’s what we will remember them for, even if they go on to make better films. Cruise OWNS this role, and it’s his legacy film, as long as he’s still around, people will remember Top Gun when they think of him.
1. Risky Business. In a decade filled with teenage classics, Risky Business remains at the top of the 80’s heap, both in it’s gleeful charm appeal and unlike some of the other films, this one still holds up and barely feels dated (unlike my other favorite, Better Off Dead, which is so surreal and goofy it only could have been made in the 80’s). Perhaps the main difference here is that Cruise is not playing a brash or cocksure male, but a wide eyed B-b-boy who is terrified of his parents and essentially of women.
Hell, as male teenager films go, this one has it all. The sweet, beautiful woman who educates the man, the friends who stick by the lead character, a clear cut bad guy, a sure set dilemma about parents (both him getting into Princeton and that glass egg), and a finite timeframe for him to achieve his goals (the parents are away for only so many days).
We also get
+ A killer car chase, Porsche vs. Pimp-mobile.
+ We get Curtis Armstrong in his greatest non-Booger role, as miles, the genius friend who is totally crude and loyal. Armstrong was in three of the best 80’s films, Better Off Dead, Revenge of the Nerds, and Risky Business. All three are classics. This isn’t a coincidence. His killer line:
Miles: Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, "What the fuck." "What the fuck" gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future. Say "what the fuck."... If you can't say it, you can't do it.
+ A house party… where the house is a brothel.
+_The “whose the u-boat commander line.” When I watched this the first time, my father came in at this moment and quoted the line. I have said before, my father wouldn’t know the name of this website if you asked him, but he remembers this line.
Joel Goodson (get it?) is a kid in need of guidance and confidence, and he finds it through a woman. Who just happens to be a woman of the night. In the beginning, he’s a kid without an impulse, by the end he’s a kid who is ready to be a man. To boot, the scene when he actually “becomes a man” is one of the top 3 love scenes ever made, from the opening shot of Dimornay with her blouse floating in the wind, to the pan across the pictures of Joel’s childhood, and then to the American flag on the TV screen in the waning hours of broadcast programming,
I can go on about the film, and how it’s probably the finest teen film ever made. It’s endlessly watchable, it has a trademark scene.
Sure the tighty whities are a bit much (then and now) but goddamnit, that initial slide couldn’t be more flawlessly timed, executed, or cued to the music.
I’ve watched this film some twenty times, and it never fails to make me feel happy. A perfect teenage dreamers movie both dark, edgy, and funny, even if The Girl Next Door took it one step further, Risky Business still kills it every viewing.
Lana: So, how're we doin'?
Joel Goodson: Looks like University of Illinois!
This was how I felt when I was at my teenage best, if I’m going down in flames, I’m going down my way. That’s freedom, that’s being 18. That’s Risky Business.
My humble advice for Tom Tom? Do one of two things:
1. Disappear for 3 years. Just bide time and wait for the best script to come along and find the perfect director. By then, the bitterness will have died down, at the comeback will overwhelm the naysayers, who for all intents, were just trying to make fun of a guy who made it.
2. Do a Katherine Hepburn in The Philadephia Story. In 1940, audiences had grown weary of her and were starting to turn until she played with type of her persona, as a high strung, narcissistic, mean spirited woman who finally gets what’s coming to her. If Cruise actually takes a chance and acts in a comedy, where he is the doofus who realizes his past follies, the audience would eat it up. He has the comic timing, he has the track record to get people to see him do something different, and if he wants to act past 50, it’d be the smart move. He needs to stop playing the 40 something wanderer and branch to more adult roles. Along the lines of the Hepburn, he has to allow other actors to share the spotlight. Every movie (save Magnolia) has been a Tom Cruise vehicle, it’d be nice to see him take smaller parts that suit his acting, not his persona better.
Here’s hoping we don’t turn on an icon we created. We loved him and turned on him for being what he is… somehow, I feel the comeback is inevitable, here’s hoping for a Newman like second half of his career. If not, I’ll always have Risky Business.
But really, are we all that bitter at Tom Cruise because of his 2005. Are we Americans all just willing to turn on anyone who goes a little nuts? He’s been around for 20+ years, and the first time he does something we don’t like, we are just foaming at the mouth to jump on him. We also seem to be doing this with Madonna as well, which means I think that it’s all blowback as everyone is sick of “Loving the 80’s.”
So he’s part of a cult.
So he’s probably gay.
So he jumped up and down on a couch and wooed Katie Holmes.
I can forgive the first two. Not the third one, but hey, he’s an actor, they are all a little wacko. You’ve got people telling you are great and beautiful all day long so they can make money off of you. Of course that’s going to mess with someone’s head.
But this guy was “the” star of the 80’s and 90’s. He had 5 movies in a row top 100 million back in the days when movies averaged 55 million. For most of the people my age, we grew up with this guy; he was in at least three movies that everyone has seen at least 5 times.
We forgave Brando’s eccentricities under the guise he was a “great artist” but all of a sudden, Tom goes weird and he’s a pariah. Part of me says shame on you America, but hell, it’s easier to laugh about Tom Cruise than read about the horrors of the Middle East war we’re in.
Anyway, how about a list.
Dave’s top ten Tom Cruise movies. Ranked not just in quality of the film, but also ranked in part to cultural significance, the essence of Tom Cruise, and the re-watchability.
10. Jerry Maguire. Honestly, this was the reason I went to film school. Hell, it plays a big part in my first script I ever wrote. When I first saw this movie, it hit me on the level that Star Wars did. It’s about sports, it’s about male friendship, and it’s about finding love, any of which I will go to see a movie for. I find the film almost unwatchable now, partly because I’m a different person than who I was 10 years ago, and I really don’t buy the whole ending anymore. Whatever, I loved it at the time.
This is probably Tom’s best role (but not quite his best acting performance), as Cameron Crowe suited it to play off his public persona and it was tailored to Tom’s biggest strengths:
1. His ability to get empathy in a redemption/discovery plot (also see Top Gun and Rain Man)
2. His ability to feign boiling distress, as if something is billowing underneath that has the potential to crack his perfectly engineered life. (see Eyes Wide Shut and Minority Report) This works both in his comedy and his romance, in his Show me the Money and his office breakdown, as well as his “you complete me” finale.
3 Tom running ( seriously, check this out He runs better than any actor ever. Just something about the way he does it sells the potency of his purpose. The stride, the way his arms move at 90 degree angles, and the way his clothing seems to float around him. This is a gift. The link is dynamite on it’s own to boot, a perfect compilation and spoof of the Nike commercials and paced exactly with the music. Crowe had Cruise running in both of the films he did with him (Maguire and Vanilla Sky) and did so at key plot points; he knows how to direct Cruise better than any other helmer.
4. He plays off a kid, and does the whole father thing. Maybe it’s his boyish charm, but he’s a master at this, because he’s able to flash those million dollar gams. (also see Rain Man and War of the Worlds).
5. He’s given a male his age to play off of. Sure, make your own gay joke, but Cruise is at his best when he is playing against another male character, whether it’s arguing, flying planes, talking about world issues, or breaking into CIA headquarters, he’s able to play a guy’s guy with guys better than he does anything but run. (go ahead and read that last sentence and replace the u’s with a’s. It’s that easy) He was able to bring out the best in Cuba to a point that it won Gooding the Oscar and got Cruise his 2nd nomination. Here he gets the “help me help you” speech and we see Jerry figure out his life through an equally stubborn male character. This movie doesn’t work nearly as well with another actor as Jerry Maguire.
The only Tom Cruise skill that isn’t in this movie is his yelling. He is able to do that angry, indignant yell as well as anybody (which is kind of sad, because most actors will underplay anger). It’s a trademark of his, with the whole “I want the TRUTH.”
9. Days of Thunder. Another one of those 80’s movies that would seem ridiculous if you made it straight today (and why Talladega Nights will be a huge hit. Really, this decade’s film production is filled with a schaddenfruede that we as audiences seem to lap up, whether it’s in the form of Scary Movie or Date Movie, it’s like we want to be in on the joke, and it pisses me off, because we’re better people than assholes who laugh at the past). It’s a mediocre movie as a whole, but it’s watchable because of Cruise, who plays the arrogant, reckless type he was best at in the 80’s, who slowly has to figure out that he can’t do it all on his own.
Rowdy Burns: You run good.
Cole Trickle: Thank you.
Rowdy Burns: Now go get your own car and we'll see how you do in a crowd.
See, it’s the running thing. Plus we’re given a great car chase as he and his rival tear through a city in rental cars. Great premise, equal execution.
8. Born on the 4th of July. This was when Tom was trying to become a crossover to a serious actor, and to his credit, he’s pretty decent in his attempt. One of the better “films” in his career, but it works on the same level as his performance was, it was meant to show that Tom Cruise can act, and the fact that his persona disappears when Kovic gets paralyzed, is about how the film goes, it's about watching someone we admired have to redisconver their purpose in life. It’s also lower on the list because 17 years later, watching a Vietnam anti-war film borders on torture, regardless of the message, I would rather watch paint dry. We got our own problems here.
7. Mission Impossible 1 & 2. The first one gets on the list for the famous break-in scene, which was one of those moments that was so good and so preposterous it had to be parodied over and over again. Even if it’s a muddled plot, it’s still surprisingly fun. The second one is a better film, even if it seems to have the exact plot of Final Fantasy 8, right down to the scar on his face.
6. I was thinking of putting up Magnolia, but it’s one of my least favorite films, having the opposite effect as Boogie Nights, as I dislike it more every time I see it. But it is kind of interesting performance wise, not because Tom is against character, but because he chooses to turn 35 in front of the audience by growing his hair long. When men turn 35/40 they either grow their hair out or they grow a goatee. It’s one of the two and it’s an epidemic of lameness for white males. It pisses me off how good he looks in this movie, almost as much as the ridiculous frogs from the sky is, and how brilliant some of the film school kids I attended with thought it wasn’t a terrible Deus ex Machina. So let’s go with Collateral, one of the best buddy/ non-buddy movies in a while. Like Magnolia, Cruise is playing drastically off persona as a hitman who comes to LA to kill off a bunch of people. Part of the appeal for me comes from its LA backdrop, capturing the essence of the city, and it’s fun to watch the film with a “hey, I’ve been there” eye. Cruise is merely ok in this film, and I feel the same way about Foxx (why he got an Oscar nomination is beyond me) and most of the film’s enjoyment is due to the directing job Michael Mann does. The scene in the Korean nightclub is one of the more tautly controlled murder scenes and I’ll watch that scene every time it’s on. Pre-meltdown, this was a rather interesting performance by Cruise, as he commands the lines with a dark, matter of factness that we had never seen in him (the Magnolia is a façade, this is a real bastard character), and it was mesmerizing to see him deliver it, and even more terrifying to see him talk to Matt Lauer about the history of psychiatry in the same fashion. One last digression, Cruise got a lot of flack for his accent in Far and Away (far and away my least favorite of his films… I’m sorry) which actually was rather accurate and decent. But he got so much flack, he hasn’t tried an accent since. If there ever was a film where he could have used an accent it’s Collateral. Can you imagine the role if he had a vaguely threatening Eastern European twang to him? I think he would have made the role all the more interesting.
5. Cocktail. Now we’re getting into his 80’s canon. It’s one of the decade’s more ridiculous films, right down to the Elizabeth Shue being rich third act, but it’s done with an air of what the hell breeziness and paced in the exact 3 act style screenplay books teach (Tom tries to be a business world guy, becomes a bartender, succeeds as a barkeep (end of act 1) bar owner and him move to the tropics and aim for rich cougars, falls in love, loses girl (end of act 2) guy cleans up life, gets girl, film over). While it’s not even in the same league in terms of enjoyment, it does belong in the same genre as Road House, two goofy 80’s movies that take place in the bar subculture that are remarkably mindless yet overpoweringly simple to get into when they come on TNT or TBS on a Sat afternoon.
4. Minority Report. After Jerry Maguire, I don’t know if Tom Cruise has been in a role where the character wasn’t deeply flawed in one sense or another (the Mission: Impossible sequels halfway excluded). It’s almost like he is trying to prove that he wasn’t the brash boyish character that made him famous. That trend continues here, as he plays John Anderton, a high level cop with an addiction to some new kind of drug. He’s driven and he’s good at his job, but like most of the roles he has been in the last 10 years, Cruise/the character doesn’t do much to win the audience’s favor. He has become more of a vessel actor, just letting the director mold his character, and letting Tom perform as non-threatening as possible. It kind of goes back to the running thing, as he works as a finely polished machine making the rounds for the day. In Minority Report, he has two things working for him. #1 He runs. A lot. #2. He is directed by Spielberg doing action mode movie and not letting his religion, views on divorce, or belief that kids save all into the picture too much, going back to the Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark style of storytelling and not of the Color Purple or Amistad hit or miss artiste. And it’s one of Spielberg’s best jobs and highly entertaining, taking a 30 page Phillip Dick novel and turning into an action vehicle with a morality message underpinning that doesn’t come off as didactic. The end result is a movie that gets the most out of it’s two biggest stars, having them do what they do best. The chase in the mall where Cruise is carrying the pre-cog is one of the most joyfully cinematic moments of the decade, as Spielberg plays with the a psychic character and uses her gifts in the way we want to see a psychic guide a guy on the run, having her tell him to wait, to run, drop change, or grabbing a random woman and telling her “Don’t go home, he knows.”
3. Rain Man. Hoffman won the Oscar, but almost 20 years on, I find Cruise’s work to be far more impressive. He takes a truly selfish character and slowly turns him into a decent and likable person, and is forced to do so with one of the best actors of the last 50 years playing a blank character, meaning he doesn’t act off of him, Cruise is forced to craft a redemption tale while talking to a wall. The film itself is one of the almost-classics, a movie that’s very, very good, but not a masterpiece, and it could have been a disaster if the casting was off. Hoffman got the showy piece and is mesmerizing at times, but it’s Cruise who controls the plot of the film, and he does a heck of a job, slowly coming to love and understand his brother, and does so as the proxy for the audience.
2. Top Gun. I don’t like this movie, it glorifies the Navy as reckless, cowboy heroes (that’s really not an anti-military statement), and is a better recruiting tool for the service than any promo film could ever be. It also so homoerotic, it should be listed in the gay/lesbian section at blockbuster. But as much as I don’t agree with this film, goddamnit, do I respect it. It’s mesmerizing in it’s timing, precisely and masterfully set up, and it is filled with great lines, action scenes, and even pulls of the whole singing in the bar scenario to boot. By all notions a 20 year old film about Air Force pilots would be long forgotten, but between the classic one liners and Tom Cruise hitting the apex of celebrity appeal in his career with a role suited for him and only him, it gets to the same level of Brando in On the Waterfront, Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, or William Shatner as James Kirk. That’s what we will remember them for, even if they go on to make better films. Cruise OWNS this role, and it’s his legacy film, as long as he’s still around, people will remember Top Gun when they think of him.
1. Risky Business. In a decade filled with teenage classics, Risky Business remains at the top of the 80’s heap, both in it’s gleeful charm appeal and unlike some of the other films, this one still holds up and barely feels dated (unlike my other favorite, Better Off Dead, which is so surreal and goofy it only could have been made in the 80’s). Perhaps the main difference here is that Cruise is not playing a brash or cocksure male, but a wide eyed B-b-boy who is terrified of his parents and essentially of women.
Hell, as male teenager films go, this one has it all. The sweet, beautiful woman who educates the man, the friends who stick by the lead character, a clear cut bad guy, a sure set dilemma about parents (both him getting into Princeton and that glass egg), and a finite timeframe for him to achieve his goals (the parents are away for only so many days).
We also get
+ A killer car chase, Porsche vs. Pimp-mobile.
+ We get Curtis Armstrong in his greatest non-Booger role, as miles, the genius friend who is totally crude and loyal. Armstrong was in three of the best 80’s films, Better Off Dead, Revenge of the Nerds, and Risky Business. All three are classics. This isn’t a coincidence. His killer line:
Miles: Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, "What the fuck." "What the fuck" gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future. Say "what the fuck."... If you can't say it, you can't do it.
+ A house party… where the house is a brothel.
+_The “whose the u-boat commander line.” When I watched this the first time, my father came in at this moment and quoted the line. I have said before, my father wouldn’t know the name of this website if you asked him, but he remembers this line.
Joel Goodson (get it?) is a kid in need of guidance and confidence, and he finds it through a woman. Who just happens to be a woman of the night. In the beginning, he’s a kid without an impulse, by the end he’s a kid who is ready to be a man. To boot, the scene when he actually “becomes a man” is one of the top 3 love scenes ever made, from the opening shot of Dimornay with her blouse floating in the wind, to the pan across the pictures of Joel’s childhood, and then to the American flag on the TV screen in the waning hours of broadcast programming,
I can go on about the film, and how it’s probably the finest teen film ever made. It’s endlessly watchable, it has a trademark scene.
Sure the tighty whities are a bit much (then and now) but goddamnit, that initial slide couldn’t be more flawlessly timed, executed, or cued to the music.
I’ve watched this film some twenty times, and it never fails to make me feel happy. A perfect teenage dreamers movie both dark, edgy, and funny, even if The Girl Next Door took it one step further, Risky Business still kills it every viewing.
Lana: So, how're we doin'?
Joel Goodson: Looks like University of Illinois!
This was how I felt when I was at my teenage best, if I’m going down in flames, I’m going down my way. That’s freedom, that’s being 18. That’s Risky Business.
My humble advice for Tom Tom? Do one of two things:
1. Disappear for 3 years. Just bide time and wait for the best script to come along and find the perfect director. By then, the bitterness will have died down, at the comeback will overwhelm the naysayers, who for all intents, were just trying to make fun of a guy who made it.
2. Do a Katherine Hepburn in The Philadephia Story. In 1940, audiences had grown weary of her and were starting to turn until she played with type of her persona, as a high strung, narcissistic, mean spirited woman who finally gets what’s coming to her. If Cruise actually takes a chance and acts in a comedy, where he is the doofus who realizes his past follies, the audience would eat it up. He has the comic timing, he has the track record to get people to see him do something different, and if he wants to act past 50, it’d be the smart move. He needs to stop playing the 40 something wanderer and branch to more adult roles. Along the lines of the Hepburn, he has to allow other actors to share the spotlight. Every movie (save Magnolia) has been a Tom Cruise vehicle, it’d be nice to see him take smaller parts that suit his acting, not his persona better.
Here’s hoping we don’t turn on an icon we created. We loved him and turned on him for being what he is… somehow, I feel the comeback is inevitable, here’s hoping for a Newman like second half of his career. If not, I’ll always have Risky Business.
posted by Indiana at
9:17 AM
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