Unpopular Entertainment Opinions • Page 23

Magnolia is his best performance

 

Greatest of all time? Probably overstating it. He's probably not versatile enough. But he has a career's full of excellent work in dramas, action movies, and even at least one comedy I can think of.

 

He does a very good job in Born on the Fourth of July, too. And brings a little gravitas to some silly movies like Days of Thunder and Top Gun that are the majority of why those movies are enjoyable.

 

Tropic Thunder was a testament to costuming and writing. His performance is essentially the same as his action movies, just instead of saying serious things angrily he's saying funny things angrily.

 

Man I always forget he's in Tropic Thunder

 

I'm not the biggest fan of his Tropic Thunder performance, but he has displayed excellent comic chops and comedic timing in Edge of Tomorrow, Jerry Maguire, Magnolia, Risky Business, and the Mission Impossible movies. He's incredibly skilled and more dynamic than he gets credit for, I know he makes a lot of same-y looking action movies but there's actually a decent range of action hero protagonist he can portray.

I remember him being great in the Color of Money too but I haven't seen it in quite some time.

 

Color of Money is underrated. If he changed the names of the characters to disassociate it with The Hustler, more people would agree

 

I actually saw it before I saw the Hustler when I was 14 and had just discovered Scorsese and was running through most of his filmography. I remember liking it, but it still being the least hit by a Scorsese film I had ever been. Until I saw Boxcar Bertha for the first time recently. But yeah the Hustler connection wasn't in my mind and I was into it.

 

Tom Cruise has some great performances and I always get defensive when someone is being made fun of and a lot of people make fun of Tom Cruise, and I get it

 

He's great in Magnolia and Eye Wide Shut. I don't think I'd ever consider him to be one of the greatest actors of all time, but he is probably one of the best movie stars, if that makes sense. He's certainly a very committed actor and when he approaches a movie he probably does the "most" acting but I dunno about best. It's hard to call him the greatest when people like Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Daniel Day Lewis have been in movies.

 

Acting isn't any one thing. A lot of people have a very narrow view of what it requires, of what makes a great performance, and they hold everyone to the DDL standard when so many actors aren't even attempting to do what he does. Cary Grant and Marlon Brando are doing such wildly different things, and both do things the other isn't capable of, and both are two of the greatest screen actors we've ever seen.

 

like how everyone thought Kristen Stewart was a bad actress because she basically just plays her charming self and everyone was like this is bad then all of a sudden everyone else realized that she's great

 

I think for me it was about the writing she was given. For a long time I only saw her in Twilight and that Snow White movie and I thought she was awful. Then I saw Adventureland and American Ultra and Still Alice and realized how wrong I was. Probably gonna catch Personal Shopper this week just off what I've heard about her performance.

 

I think people thought she was bad because of Twilight and then just refused to watch anything else with her in it. She's really really good though.

 

Which is why I also mentioned someone like PSH, a master of subtlety. Or look at someone like Casey Afleck, who some people dog on for "playing himself." But I think he's an amazing example being able to capture a character's natural essence to the point where it doesn't even feel like he's acting.

I like Tom Cruise, I just don't think he'd ever cross my mind if someone told me to list off a few of the greatest actors of all time. But I would consider him to be one of the greatest movie stars ever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

She's in Still Alice? I've been meaning to watch that for a while and hearing that means I'm taking the plunge tonight

 

But that's the point. Actors are doing such widely different things, different roles or directors ask for such wildly different performances/performers, why limit what a great actor is based on an arbitrary or subjective feeling of what our pre-conceived idea of a great actor is? Tom Cruise is one of the greats. Being a "movie star" takes a hell of a lot of charisma and skill. Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, James Cagney, Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando, Sidney Portier, Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Philip Seymour Hoffman, George Clooney, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael B. Jordan, trying to sort them in terms of being the "greatest" or separating them by the kinds of acting they do, it's taking very different styles of performing and trying to stack them against each other. I don't think it really works.

"Greatest" discussions are fun, but they've gotta be fluid.

 

I think the opposite. The only way Cruise can be considered to be one of the greats is if you separate him into a specific category and style.

 

Then what is Cary Grant?

 

I feel like the answer is an actor but something tells me that's not the answer you're looking for

 

Why insist on a separate categories for actors who don't fit what you think "great" is? Cause Cary Grant, by his own admission, could not do what the new class of Brando/Dean/Clift could. Should he get his own category? Should the method actors get their own category?

 

I'm not insisting. I'm just saying that Cruise is one of the greats in terms of one genre. I don't get what these categories and stuff are. Cruise is a great action star. He's not one of the greats outside of that though. Die Hard is one of the greatest action movies, not one of the greatest movies. Dwight Howard is one of the best centers, not one of the best players. Etc....etc...

 

Well I wouldn't say that one of the greatest action movies can't one of the greatest movies of all time. Calling Tom Cruise one of the best action stars ignores his dramatic work, which includes great to incredible collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg.

 

Possibly. I separate the way I appreciate 2001 from the way I appreciate Star Wars, so why not do the same for actors?

Also, I wish I could upload photos from my phone because last month I hung up a huge poster of Tom Cruise in my office. I work at a theatre and found it rolled up in a room no one goes in. On the back it says, "proudly framed May 1997".

 

It doesn't ignore his dramatic work. His dramatic work is very good as well. But it doesn't make him one of the greats. Outside of his action work, Cruise is largely replaceable. He doesn't own performances in the same way guys I'd consider the greats do. He's a step above George Clooney. I'm never not aware I'm watching Clooney. Cruise rarely distances himself from the fact that he's Tom Cruise.