Thomas Cruise Mapother IV can do the drama, the action and the comedy. He's got a few Oscar nominations and a few Golden Globe wins. Is he weird? Yes, but all he wants to do is entertain us. Eventually when he dies, all the haters will regret every negative word they said about him because there's no one next in line like him.
sharehe's a very good actor. in terms of character, he's worse than any kevin spacey or weinstein you want to mention.
he exploits child and adult slaves in the scientology cult.
but you had to love this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omgf9WuGwq8
As I said, he is weird. But dammit I cannot deny the man is a one of a kind star.
shareYears ago this older gay guy told me he used to see him in this gay bar/club type of place where you had to be “Someone” or know “someone” or be a really hot young guy to get into. Cruise was supposedly one of the latter and he would wear super short short denim cut offs. The purpose for this place was for the rich guys to pick up the young hotties. This was like, late 70’s early 80’s I believe.
interesting. scientology has a long history of
a. claiming to be able to 'cure' homosexuality, which they consider a defect, and
b. obtaining/retaining an exhaustive rundown of any person's history, which they
will not for a second hesitate to use to blackmail or impugn anyone who leaves or especially criticizes 'the church'.
its a very, very evil & exploitative cult. should be outlawed, their assets seized, reparations paid to the many victims.
Wow, that’s awful. Have they done that to Leah Remini? The google page for her Scientology docu-series says they call her a has been who is exploiting them for financial gain. But she was with them with her family since childhood, so maybe they just don’t have anything on her.
I can see Tom Cruise being worried about his action movie fans finding out if he’d been a gay hustler before his big break.
yes, i think there must not be a lot they can use against Leah, who is a mensch.
edit: she was also very lucky to get her whole family out, which is not usually the case.
here is some background :
https://tonyortega.org/2019/01/02/scientology-smears-aftermath-guest-with-info-from-his-supposedly-confidential-files/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tom-cruise-katie-holmes-divorce-scientology-344687
Thanks, this’ll be good. I’ll read it later!
shareDon't worry, we have The Rock now.
shareI was talking about a good actor.
shareThe Rock was good in the Grid Iron Gang. The others? Meh.
shareHe's good in Jumanji.
shareI think he acts the same in every movie.
shareI think he's a weirdo and has some issues. I think that either Scientology is duping him for its own dishonorable purposes, or he's knowingly and willingly going along their plans. But I also think that when Cruise called out Dr. Phil for his horseshit he was 100% right.
shareWhat did he say about Dr. Phil? Is this connected to Cruise’s comments about women taking medication for postpartum depression that Brooke Shields took him to task over?
shareNo, it was about comments Dr. Phil made about him. This was quite a while ago and I've long since forgotten the exact specifics, but here's what happened.
On one of DP's shows he talked about Cruise and his weird behavior. Made a lot of statements like, "Cruise does X, which is often a sign of [some clinical term], and his doing Y is a classic symptom of [some other term], and it's clear to me that there's strong reason to suspect that Cruise suffers from [some disorder]."
Cruise's public response was, in essence, "My God, isn't Dr. Phil a talented man! A genius! Most therapists would need to meet people and talk to them extensively in a clinical setting to assess their mental health. But not him! He and I have never met at all, but that's not a problem. He doesn't know my clinical history, or if I even have one -- but not a problem for him! And while it's true that we all have different personalities in different situations, we act differently with our kids, our romantic partners, our coworkers, that's not a problem either. He can see only a few scraps of just my public persona and make a diagnosis!"
DP responded immediately, screeching "I never made a diagnosis! I just said that these things he does are signs of that problem, I never said that he has that problem!" He backpedaled like hell. And with good reason. Diagnosing someone without their permission or some other authorization (e.g., a court order) is a violation of the APA's code of ethics.
DP got himself off the hook with that weaselly hair splitting. But Cruise had it right. When a person publicly presents himself as a mental health expert, calls himself "Doctor," and makes statements like those about a specific person, with a lot of clinical terminology, he *is* making a diagnosis, whether he wants to admit it or not.
Incidentally, DP gave up his license to practice about fifteen years ago. I'm pretty sure that was after this incident. Probably so he could do crap like this and get away with it.
Interesting. Dr. Phil has always come across as a fast talking charlatan to me.
shareHe's a great actor and I like most of his films. However....there is the Scientology issue. WTF is up with him, why won't he come to his senses and leave that cult like Leah Remini has?
shareI honestly think he doesn't leave because they made him the pope of it. He's at the very top of the top - OT VIII (Operating Thetan Level 8). I had to Google that one...
That means he gets his ass kissed, he's worshiped, he can do whatever he wants. I can see how it would be difficult to leave a cult/religion/whatever that absolutely praises you. I picture him like Prince Hakeem in Coming to America... 'the royal penis is clean, your highness.'
Brainwashing. Some people have stronger wills, and as jekpirkins points out, he’s the king of the cult and she obviously wasn’t nearly so high up. Plus, he has long been rumored to be a closeted gay and they for sure know all about that and could blackmail him as jriley points out.
I’m very sceptical that conversion therapy could work on anyone, even a highly brainwashed person.
Travolta, OTOH, is supposedly very sexually active with men, or was at least up to a few years ago. The Enquirer has done multiple exposes on his gay affairs, and I have heard first hand accounts of him hitting on a guy in a spa. This guy I know is straight and Travolta took a shine to him, and promised him a role in a movie, which he actually delivered on. He got him a small part as a guard in an action flick with one or two lines. The guy said he asked him if he was gay and Travolta, married at the time, said he was bi and in an open marriage. Sounds believable. This friend of my friend said they never fooled around and I tend to believe him so it’s pretty cool that Travolta honored his word and gave him a part like he said he would. The guy wasn’t even an actor.
My point is, that being a Scientologist hasn’t stopped Travolta from acting on his sexual orientation.
I've heard there are two levels of Scientology. Celebs who can "market" it get one experience; the rank and file get quite another.
I spent some time in airplane cockpits but had to give it up. It just costs too much. You've either gotta get someone else to pay for it, or have a lot of money. Travolta not only has his pilot's license, he has a license to fly jets. And does. The dude's living my dream. Must be nice.
Well, at least I've got Flight Simulator.
Why not get someone else to pay for it? How much does it cost to rent a plane for a flight? Like, say, you get a group of people taking a trip together to charter a plane and you get your hours.
I did that once. I wasn’t an organizer and I didn’t have to pay so I don’t know the details. The pilot got to add to his hours and didn’t charge us for his services. He was a friend of a friend.
I was flying 30 years ago, so my info might be out of date.
There are three types of pilot's licenses (here in the USA). Private pilot, commercial pilot, air transport pilot. They require passing tests, racking up flight hours, and medical exams. My vision was good enough for a private pilot's license but not for the other two.
A private pilot *cannot* make money from flying. If I took three friends along, the most I could ask was for them to split the costs with me -- airplane rental, etc. I'd pay 25% and the other three would pay 75%. Sounds like that might have been what your friend's friend did.
Renting a two seat Cessna cost (in 1991) $50/hour, or $200/day. A private pilot's license requires at least 40 hours flying time. 250 hours for the commercial, and 1500 for the ATP. At that time the total cost of getting a private license was about $4000. I did a Google just now and it seems to be about $10K today, $30K to get a commercial license.
There were two ways to become a professional pilot. Join the military and let someone else, Uncle Sam, pay for your training. Or, put yourself into huge debt. My instructor took the second route. She was a student at Embry Riddle, home on summer break. She had her commercial license, instrument rating, multi-engine rating, and was a certified instructor. Not even out of college yet. And she told me that she was already $50,000 in debt.
I just looked her up on FB and in the FAA database. She's got the ATP license, type ratings in a few massive aircraft, and a job with a major airline flying their birds. Those jobs pay very well, so I'm sure she's long since out of debt. And she still looks a little like Teri Garr in her prime. Good for her.
But I'm stuck with PC games. I couldn't even pass the private license medical these days. That's OK, my wallet couldn't stand the strain.
Meanwhile -- Travolta *owns* a 707. Wow! I'm not envious; I'm glad that some people do get to do things like that.
Thanks for the lesson on all of that.
Very interesting.
Couldn’t you even fly, small, short distance aircraft?
> Couldn’t you even fly, small, short distance aircraft?
Well, as I said, I couldn't even pass a private pilot's medical exam these days. I'm well past fifty, and I've got a few of an older man's medical problems. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to drop dead while writing this. But those problems are enough to disqualify me.
I see.
shareDid you know Donald Trump's brother Freddie was a pilot for TWA back when that was a big deal (the only civilian too)? His pilot career of course put him at odds with Donald and the rest of his terrible family. Freddie was the good Trump and the family destroyed him, cut him off, and he ended up dying of alcoholism at 42. The source is his daughter Mary's new book.
shareOh.
shareWhy did his pilot career put him at odds with the rest of them?
shareGood question. Because his father who was the tyrant of the family wanted him to stay with his real estate business and considered a pilot the equivalent of a bus driver. Donald helped gang up against him and he admitted how bad he treated him, contributing to his alchoholism and death. I strongly recommend Mary Trump's new book.
shareSounds like they pegged him as the black sheep for being good.
He was the honest one who worked to learn a highly trained and admired skill to do an honest days work.
He made them look bad.
His movies are generally very good to even great:
Top Gun, Risky Business, The MI series, Born On The Fourth Of July...Too many huge hits to list
HELLS BELLS, he was the best part of Tropic Thunder which would have been a great comedy even without him👍
He nails Rom Coms, action, comedies, the man can do it all
He's a legit all time superstar
If only 'his people' could reel him in on some of his off-putting personal
life stuff
He needs to keep shut about all of that
Yeah, I don't go around telling people how much I like Tom Cruise but I will admit he's very fun to watch on screen and has had uncanny luck (to the point where we can't chalk it up to luck) in being in so many quality films. Rain Man, Jerry McGuire are a couple favorites. I'm surprised he did Born On the Fourth of July, but that was very early in his career, and some people might consider The Color Of Money to be a "serious" film. Days Of Thunder, Cocktail, I'll pass.
share4th probably does feel a bit out if place in his filmography but he really delivered the angst and dramatic self loathing
The man is odd but super talented
Katherine Hepburn attributed her own success to being able to pick out good scripts. She was being modest but I’m sure there was something to it.
shareHe nails Rom Coms, action, comedies, the man can do
it all
He's a legit all time superstar