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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35439 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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As an aside, Tom Cruise might be weird as fuck, but that mother fucker knows how to make a fucking movie. Sure, he's no Stanly Kubrick. But in a world of complete and utter drek, someone autistically repeating the steps movies used to take to be good, whether he understands what he's doing or not, comes off like a savant.

I legit think Cruise is one of the best filmmakers of all time, at least within the role of "stunt actor." How many people have ever strapped themselves to the outside of a plane that was taking off, much less done it 8 times just for the sake of creating entertainment? Given the continual development of CGI technology, he also might be one of the last such figures, since it won't be too long before we can get literally identical results on video without putting real people at such high risk.

since it won't be too long before we can get literally identical results on video without putting real people at such high risk.

The results wouldn't be identical. The risk of each Cruise stunt is both a selling point of the movie (endlessly repeated at very talk show so Cruise never has to talk about something substantive and controversial like his religion) and knowing Cruise did it also probably helps suspension of disbelief/people convince themselves of the quality of what's on screen.

This is why I wrote that the results would be identical on video, not that the results would be identical as a film or as a piece of art.

I predict that as he gets too old for leading man status, Cruise will be the new Eastwood: the Hollywood veteran who actually has a firm grasp on what makes a movie pleasurable for mainstream audiences, taking directing roles that give him lots of creative control and reliably turn solid profits, and the occasional vanity project to flex some underused acting muscles.

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