Do not send me tweets about Tom Cruise

I have seen all of them

There are THREE Thursdays in June so you’re getting a bonus feature all about the patron saint of sickos, Tom Cruise. If you missed this month’s feature about the unfairly overlooked career of director Joan Micklin Silver, you can read it here.

In this issue: Top Gun (1986, 110 minutes, Amazon Prime and Paramount Plus), Magnolia (1999, 183 minutes, Kanopy), Collateral (2004, 120 minutes, HBO Max) Rock of Ages (2012, 136 minutes, Hulu but I don’t recommend it).

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Do not send me tweets about Tom Cruise

I have seen all of them. Congratulations to the thousands of people on Twitter who have only now realized that Tom Cruise is a good actor. As both an artist and a public figure, Cruise embodies Hollywood celebrity in its purest form: gaudy, vaguely frightening, completely irresistible. His personal life is, obviously, indefensible. I don’t think I could (nor do I want to) defend any celebrity’s personal life, all of which depend on obliterative greed and shitty politics, but Cruise’s fame makes his beliefs particularly harmful, both directly and indirectly. All to say: I cannot separate the art from the artist, but I still want to talk about both.

What was more intense, this scene in MI1 or him rambling on 60 Minutes in 2005?

Cruise holds an old school mystique few celebrities can still claim. There is a shroud around his despicability in a way there isn’t for other Hollywood leading men in cults (Chris Pratt subtweet). The inherent controversy of his lifestyle fades because he simply refuses to discuss it. To hear him tell it on his rare talk show appearances, his personal life exists solely in service of work. He watches movies, works out, sends Christmas cakes not for his own pleasure but to MAKE MORE CINEMA. 

There are truly thousands of top TC moments I could write about, but instead I will give you four that each capture a different and genuinely special aspect of his acting. I am holding a fifth spot for when he finally works with a female director which seems, um, unlikely, but a girl can dream.

Singing into Malin Åkerman’s butt in Rock of Ages (2012)

Let me first say Rock of Ages is a horrible movie that nobody should ever watch. It is wall-to-wall bad—in performances, in music, in production design–except for TC’s scenes, which are perfect. No one could call Cruise’s acting effortless but he embraces the tryhardiness of the physical comedy by taking it all very seriously. Cruise’s performance, which is 75% reliant on his back muscles, never acknowledges that the scene is dumb or that the song is terrible. He’s an unexpected choice to play a sex symbol given that he has never had sexual chemistry with any actress, but it only heightens the character’s aloofness, unpredictability, and self-absorption. It is a snake swallowing its tail of onscreen narcissism. And frankly, I like his voice! Hollywood guys will train nine hours a day for six months to play Special Agent John Muscles in an HBO miniseries, and then maybe sing a scale before playing the male lead in a musical (Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia subtweet) but Cruise, unsurprisingly, is absolutely prepared.

oh FYI this newsletter is NSFW now

“Yo homie, that my briefcase?” in Collateral (2004)

Every scene in the Mann-iverse has a thousand vague cultural attachments that you can repeat until they have no meaning. Did you know this scene is used in tactical handgun training? Did you know Michael Mann made TC deliver packages in disguise to prepare for the role? It is all very interesting and ultimately trivial, but what I love here is Cruise’s trademark immaculate precision, both in the stiffness of his posture, the calculated coolness of his line-read, and the swiftness of his movements. 

The somersault in Magnolia (1999)

I refer you above to where I said Tom Cruise is incapable of having onscreen sexual chemistry with actresses. That is all exactly the point in the cat-and-mouse game he thinks he has with this reporter. It is entirely believable that Frank T.J. Mackey is not having, and may not even be interested in having, sex with women. His display of virility is about as believable as a little kid flexing in their Halloween costume. I mean, HIS PANTS ARE STILL AROUND HIS ANKLES!! It’s a nice display of Cruise’s ability to convey an absolutely unparalleled athleticism alongside a humiliating level of impotence.

Note that his hair is equally greasy in both of these. No apologies for the nudity

Getting dressed post-volleyball in Top Gun (1986)

What hasn’t been said about the volleyball scene? There is one thing, and here it is: Tom Cruise gets hideously sweaty and sandy playing beach volleyball in his jeans, and then throws a t-shirt and bomber jacket onto his actively wet body to go eat macaroni or whatever with his teacher. Immediately upon entering Charlie’s home, he bluntly asks if he can take a shower. It is so weird in a movie that is already often incoherent, and the tactility of leather on sweat is far more erotic than any aspect of the romance. It’s a moment entirely emblematic of the magnetic but deeply alien personality that defines Cruise as an actor and as a masculine ideal.