Top Gun (1986)

Something I've heard a lot since I started blogging four years ago is that Top Gun is one of those classics you must watch a least once in your life. For a reason or another — mainly because I tried to avoid everything with Tom Cruise as my love for him is quite recent —, I never watched it. Since a sequel is coming (soon), I finally decided to watch it. 

The story follows Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchel (Tom Cruise), a young, cocky, hotshot pilot. After a daredevil stunt, Maverick receives news that he's being accepted into an elite training academy known as "Top Gun", along with his co-pilot and friend, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards). As soon as he begins his training, he's faced with two distractions — a highly competitive fellow student, Iceman (Val Kilmer), and Charlie Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), the attractive woman whom Maverick hits on the night before he's discovered who turns out to be one of his instructors. 

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Mission: Impossible is by far my favourite action franchise. With the exception of Mission: Impossible II which was a huge misfire, I loved all the entries and, I don't know how they do it, but each movie they make is better than the previous instalment, and therefore I was very excited about Mission: Impossible - Fallout. And kinda pissed too because the film's release date here was moved from the end of July to the end of August. Thankfully, the long(er) wait did pay off. 

After choosing to save his team over rescuing three plutonium cores, IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is forced to work with CIA agent/assassin August Walker (Henry Cavill) to prevent the nuclear cores from falling into the hands of the Apostles, a terrorist group founded by the remains of the Syndicate. 

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Genre

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Director

Stanley Kubrick

Country

UK | USA

Cast

Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Marie Richardson, Todd Field, Sky du Mont, Rade Šerbedžija, Vinessa Shaw, Fay Masterson, Leelee Sobieski, Alan Cumming, Leon Vitali, Julienne Davis, Thomas Gibson

Storyline

New York City doctor William Harford (Tom Cruise), who is married to art curator Alice (Nicole Kidman), pushes himself on a harrowing and dangerous night-long odyssey of sexual and moral discovery after his wife admits that she once almost cheated on him.

Opinion

Last night I finally saw Eyes Wide Shut, film that will always be remembered for being the last work of Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest filmmakers in film history. Just like every film he has made, this one has caused some controversy, and, I am sorry to say it, it did really disappoint me.

Overlong, tedious, and uneventful most of the way, Eyes Wide Shut is a major disappointment, and the writing is to be blamed.

Based on Arthur Schnitzler's 'Traumnovelle', the concept behind the story - a husband and wife rediscovering their passion through sexual experimentation outside the marriage - is interesting. But the slow moving story as a whole isn't particularly involving, and fails to make the viewer feel sympathy for the protagonists and care for their marriage.

The way too verbose screenplay does not tell through images, but through mostly banal dialogue most of the events.

Also, the film adds little to the stories of love, sex and betrayal used out of proportion in the film industry, and the veil of mystery and ambiguity that covers the film is not enough to save it.

Despite everything, the touch of Kubrick is there and you can feel it in the disturbing and creepy orgy scene, that shows perversion, and the negative side to lush without falling into pornography.

Fine acting from Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack and Marie Richardson, but the upsetting thing is that there is no chemistry between Cruise and Kidman, and they were even married at the time.

Quotes

Dr. Bill Harford: No dream is ever just a dream.

Rain Man (1988)

Genre

Drama

Director

Barry Levinson

Country

USA

Cast

Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Gerald R. Molen, Jack Murdock, Michael D. Roberts, Ralph Seymour, Lucinda Jenney, Bonnie Hunt, Beth Grant, Ray Baker, Barry Levinson

Plot

As his father dies, self-centered Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) learns that a $3 million estate is going to his savant brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) that Charlie didn't know he had.