Tom Cruise

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ok, maybe i would say obsessed.

jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:41 (nineteen years ago) link

I only revived this thread because I was getting (irrationally?) riled at the cruise hate on the collateral thread. anyone else like him?

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:45 (nineteen years ago) link

I've become quite fascinated with Mr. Cruise lately. He was on Leno the other night and was talking about how he ran with the Olympic torch. Leno asked him how long he ran for. Simple question, but Cruise couldn't answer it. He tensed up and laughed nervously, scanning the audience as if to say, "Can you believe he's asking me this?" He said, "How am I supposed to..." between chuckles and flashes of his grin. It was weird. It looked like he was hiding something.

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:47 (nineteen years ago) link

Cozen: I'm not sure if I like Cruise, but I don't like kneejerk Cruise hate.

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:48 (nineteen years ago) link

He made Collateral very enjoyable for me.

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:48 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't have any problems.

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.

RJG (RJG), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:49 (nineteen years ago) link

i don't hate tom cruise, but there is something about his presence in a film that guarantees a spoiling of any reality effect. he has sort of transcended adjectives, or observation for that matter--he isn't handsome, he's tom cruise. he isn't charming, he's tom cruise. i don't think having him "play against type" even really works.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:51 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't like kneejerk Cruise hate.

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.

Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:52 (nineteen years ago) link

there's something vacuum-like about him. i can't bring myself to hate him, because i can't really fathom him.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:53 (nineteen years ago) link

you must like him, in a way, if he give you the wanking impulse.

crosspost

RJG (RJG), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:53 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm down with TC.

na (Nick A.), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:55 (nineteen years ago) link

Wanking isn't abuse, it's fighting prostate cancer. I KNOW we've been over this.

Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:55 (nineteen years ago) link

is it a weird thing to say, when someone says i. 'I don't find his roles believable' when you believe he is smug, smarmy and smiley and when most of his roles, the parts he plays, are like that (s, s, and s)?

what is it about him?

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:56 (nineteen years ago) link

I think the trouble is that I believe he's really like that, but I don't believe he's really acting.

Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:57 (nineteen years ago) link

but c0zen i think he's played a very wide variety of roles (especially recently)--but to me, whatever characteristics are present in the role, are somehow independent of or simply marginal to the qualities cruise brings to the role as a presence. those latter qualities are often vague and difficult to describe, but the feeling i get from them is not one of admiration or loathing, just confusion.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:58 (nineteen years ago) link

oh yes part of it is that in interviews, etc. he comes across as excessively mannered and self-conscious, like a politican.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:59 (nineteen years ago) link

i mean he has a full repertoire of "folksky" or "intimate" gestures which seem entirely crafted, un-spontaneous.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 17:59 (nineteen years ago) link

But his glimmering chompers!

na (Nick A.), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:00 (nineteen years ago) link

(and pssst, amateurist, that's called acting)

na (Nick A.), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:00 (nineteen years ago) link

what's called acting? and who's whispering in my ear?

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:01 (nineteen years ago) link

I agree with you, amtrst, about 90%. Only difference is that I *would* call it loathing. That could just be me, though. I think I sympathize with Nicole too much.

Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:03 (nineteen years ago) link

is it a problem that he's not acting? that's a (bigger) different question.

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.

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:05 (nineteen years ago) link

Acting = the crafting of folksy gestures. Look it up.

na (Nick A.), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:05 (nineteen years ago) link

that was me talking to myself.

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:05 (nineteen years ago) link

Amateurist SOOOOO OTM. He's frightening but bewitching somehow. Cruise that is.

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

jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

See, I agree with a lot of what you've said, which is why I find the guy so damn fascinating. It's much easier for me to hate someone who I find just plain dull or untalented.

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

i think of his stage laugh, which he pulls out in interviews: slight cock of the head, "ha's" in perfect intervals of 0.46 seconds, and then a corrective lowering of the head/returning of the mouth and brow to "expectant thoughtful position" in 2.87 seconds.

xpost

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

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

i find him fascinating in exactly the way i find bigtime politicans fascinating, there's all this obviou ambition and talent at work but, one also wonders, perhaps a certain cynicism/shallowness/emptiness.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:09 (nineteen years ago) link

also he is very talented too.

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:09 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't know about emptiness. I think he's wound too tight. He could snap at any moment. Like jed said, frightening.

Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:10 (nineteen years ago) link

no, i'm sure the "emptiness" is just an illusion (dude why am i now hearing the four tops' "reach out--i'll be there" in my head?!) created by the mass of publicity he does.

|a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:12 (nineteen years ago) link

interpol, "no-one's empty".

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:12 (nineteen years ago) link

he's not VERY talented but he has something.

xpost

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.

more xposts

jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:13 (nineteen years ago) link

If we didn't know he was a Sci3nt0l0gist would we still feel he was unnaturally self-controlled? He seems that way to me too, but I wonder how much I'm filling in from that knowledge.

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.

nickn (nickn), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link

That was Melissa who said the bit about the shoes!

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:26 (nineteen years ago) link

sorry melissa!

jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:45 (nineteen years ago) link

You're suck a dick, jed.

Harold Media (kenan), Thursday, 12 August 2004 18:46 (nineteen years ago) link

oh i totally missed this thread. bravo cozen

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

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


prima fassy (mwah), Thursday, 12 August 2004 21:40 (nineteen years ago) link

re: the Leno consternation: One would never hear Mr. Cruise described as "awkward and inarticulate" when speaking without a script.

Mr. Tony Plow (Leee), Thursday, 12 August 2004 22:35 (nineteen years ago) link

i haven't seen the collateral thread but he was fantastic in it and i normally hate him. well he was ok in minority report too but only when he took his eyes out.

keith m (keithmcl), Thursday, 12 August 2004 23:43 (nineteen years ago) link

he masturbates in risky bussiness. which is nice.

erik, Friday, 13 August 2004 12:18 (nineteen years ago) link

Why Erik, you passionate man!

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 13 August 2004 13:00 (nineteen years ago) link

he has always seemed so alone, hasn't he. poor tom!

g--ff (gcannon), Friday, 13 August 2004 13:26 (nineteen years ago) link

Being as I am the only person in the world who has watched Vanilla Sky with Cameron Crowe's commentary, there's a bit where as he's talking Crowe calls Cruise up on the phone out of the blue while the recording of the commentary is happening, to talk about the movie. In they're chat Cruise comes across as very down to earth and personable, and never once demands royalties for being on the commentary. He's just hanging out at home, and not taking himself seriously - it's a really nice moment. However, I realise he probably is a cunt.

Huey (Huey), Friday, 13 August 2004 13:29 (nineteen years ago) link

"they're"? Oh the shame...


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

Huey (Huey), Friday, 13 August 2004 13:30 (nineteen years ago) link

britain, days of thunder is on tonight, bbc 1, 11.15pm.

cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 13 August 2004 18:46 (nineteen years ago) link

fassy say more.

g--ff (gcannon), Friday, 13 August 2004 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link

did erik just turn up?

amateur!!!st, Friday, 13 August 2004 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link

oooh...hello!

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

erik, Saturday, 14 August 2004 05:26 (nineteen years ago) link

three good tom cruise movies
risky business
a movie in favour of american capitalism at its most free, frisky, sexy, fun and makes the young and hung tom cruise an erotic icon, attempts at flirting with nostaliga, but really a conflation of sex and buisness (the scene with the house as brothel, and the princeton interview--"We need the room"/"I'll take them again"/'' Q: what are you planning to major in. A:Buisness") The first meeting of the black drag hooker; the masterbating in white briefs, clean and pure--(b4 aids?), the football helmet (all american protection), etc etc etc.
top gun
i think its queer, but then all that butch phallocentricism in one place would make me think that, the weak guy dies, the arrogant fuck gets rewarded, and cruise gets life handed to him on a plate of piverlege and skill (see he isnt cocky, he is that good)--first real action movie and war movie that is not a bout war at all, that is shot with the sheen and gloss of commericals, that is cut and edited like porn (rising action--money shot, over and over again).
eyes wide shut
three levels here.
real--what most people see it as, an exciting night that concludes safely, the narrative is consistint and happens normally.
surreal--an allegorical tale about fantasy and fiedilty-- a bored rich man dreams of a life of sexual freedom and exoticism after his wife has admitted pseudo infeidlity. (the opera, the orgy, the medical card, the wanting to cheat on nicole kidman, the russian whore and the mask makers daughter, the sailor--all standard devices, works best when thinking of schiltzlers(sp) original novel)
metareal--an assumption because nic and tom are married, that there marriage is on view to us, an examantion of the nature of celebrity, something to make us feel dirty about looking at "stars", a nasty beating down of these peoples reputaitons--(tom called faggot, tom unable to gain an erection around whores, tom being unfaithful, tom being egotistical vs nicole being a whore herself, nicole faking sophistication, nicole being nothing more then arm candy); a movie that holds secerts--(most people only got the first meaning)

anthony, Saturday, 14 August 2004 08:20 (nineteen years ago) link


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