Tom Cruise

even when he is shit he is watchable and I can't really tell when he is shit, any longer.

maybe I am just good at avoiding films I would like him less in--vanilla sky and stuff.

I pretty much hate him, but I wouldn't call it kneejerk. It's not a reflex, it's an opinion that took years of gathering evidence to build. I've seen almost all of his movies, and I just... don't... LIKE the guy. Not as an actor, not as a person. And yet I still go to see his movies. If anything's kneejerk, it's the impulse toward self-abuse.

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what is it about him?

I've not seen so many of his interviews and if I try to think of what he looks like being interviewed I get 'the stock smile' or his 'uncomfortable consternation' looking back at me. those are just images not memories. in fact, I'm not sure, have I any memories of tom cruise? probably definitely so it would be silly for me to argue fr his images over my memories. well, not entirely but I won't. I always think of him as insecure but always remember him as outgoing, confident, good look-ing.

Jaymc's story about Leno kinda sums up the confusion i feel about him.

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i mean yeah, i was being a little hyberbolic. i can see him as good looking and sexy and all that.

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well Madchen put it more succinctly upthread:

He doesn't look like a zombie so much as he looks like he's always concealing the desire to launch across a room and beat someone to death with their own shoes.

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Also, I saw him on a different talk show recently where he started laughing uncrollably for a good minute, if not more, and when he tried to speak he couldn't. I wasn't paying enough attention beforehand to know the context or to understand what was going on when he finally was able to talk, but that was a definite chink in the armor moment.

(it's midnight for now tho, but later)

cruise's magnolia = von trier's five obstructions?

"Vanilla Sky" commentary? Oh the shame...

http://sportsmed.starwave.com/i/magazine/new/risky_business.jpg

I very strongly agree with all the people who have criticized the Cruiser, on this thread, articulating their disquiet at him. I am not just backing a consensus or being ... knee-jerk - no, I find the actual comments on the thread incredibly accurate, insightful; they describe the way I feel about the Cruiser but have never been able to name so well.

I like RJG's post: about the colons.

All the stuff about the Cruiser, in interviews, laughing, and smiling uneasily, and being unable to answer - is hilarious!

Some people would say that this makes it queer, or gay, or homosocial, which is, OK, a different thing. It may be homosocial, but it's definitely not queer. It is annoying, to me, the way that peoplem, in general, think that straight men are queer when, in films, they hang about together. This distracts from the real problem of rampant heterosexuality, which (rather than homosexuality) is what submerges and demotes Kidman in this film, or other women in similar films.

I am pleased with that last thought - it is the best expression of a somewhat interesting idea that I have managed for a while, in my seemingly intellectually declining years.

i think that conflating homosocial and homosexual can be dangerous, and i think that we need to pay attention when those things converge...i dont know about days of thunder (which is an artifical refinement of the themes of top gun), but i did say "i think" about top gun, which means that i am unsure, that my own desires and complications may get in the way