My Top Ten Tom Cruise Movies

Happy Birthday to Tom Cruise, who turns 55 today. Wow… Does he ever age??

To be honest, I’m not a huge Tom Cruise fan. I mean, look at him in that photo up there… How annoying would it be to work with someone who goes around smiling like that? Can you imagine someone so goddamn happy sitting at the desk next to you?! Ugh. However, I have to say that I admire how Cruise treats his fans. He’s always happy to hang around & sign autographs and that’s cool. I hate stars who seem like conceited assholes in real life. He also seems to enjoy making movies and doing his own stunts and all that. So, yeah – I suppose he smiles like that because he does seem to be a pretty happy dude. Which is better than a grumpy famous person. I guess.

Anyway! I figured now would be a good time to finally do a list of My Top Ten Tom Cruise Movies. He’s of course been in loads of films but he does a lot of action dramas, which aren’t really my type of thing. That’s why my number one was a huge surprise… His best movie in years & a genre I love! And number two deserves more credit – It’s a classic. I admit to needing to re-watch some of those outside of the top ten & they’d probably move up the list. How about I shut the hell up & do this list. Is Cruise still smiling like a loon in that photo up there…??

Here are My Top Ten Tom Cruise Movies, counting down to my favorite (ranked by film, not performance):

The Rest That I’ve Seen:

25. Tropic Thunder
24. Cocktail
23. Eyes Wide Shut
22. Born On The Fourth Of July
21. Days Of Thunder
20. Austin Powers In Goldmember
19. War Of The Worlds
18. The Firm
17. Interview With The Vampire
16. The Mission Impossible Films (Think I’ve only seen 1 or 2… Should re-watch & am sure they’d rank higher)
15. Legend (I’m lying. I barely remember this.)
14. Risky Business
13. Endless Love
12. Oblivion
11. Vanilla Sky

Top Ten:

10. A Few Good Men

9. The Color Of Money

8. Collateral

7. Magnolia

6. Jerry Maguire

5. Minority Report

4. The Outsiders

3. Rain Man

2. Top Gun

1. Edge Of Tomorrow

Some I’ve Not Seen:

Taps, Far And Away, The Last Samurai, Lions For Lambs, Valkyrie, Knight And Day, Jack Reacher, Rock Of Ages, The Mummy

(Is he still fucking smiling up there??)

My Top Ten John C. Reilly Movies

Happy Belated Birthday to John C. Reilly, who turned 52 on Wednesday.

I dedicate this Top Ten to blogger Tom (aka Thomas J), who has done a lot of reviews of Reilly’s films. I apologize to you all as I’ve not been able to visit your blogs this year while I’ve had to cut way back on blogging but, when I did sometimes manage to comment on Tom’s John C. Reilly reviews (ages ago now), I believe my comment was usually “What? John C. Reilly was in this movie?!?“.

And in making this Top Ten, I realized that I indeed have no memory of Reilly being in half of the films of his that I’ve seen. So, for this list, I’m going to indicate after the title whether or not I remember John C. Reilly being in the film. Hopefully John doesn’t read my blog… It’s probably not much of a compliment to say I hardly ever notice him. Sorry, Mr. Reilly! You ARE Mister Cellophane, you know. 😉

Here are My Top Ten John C. Reilly Movies and whether or not I remember him being in them, counting down to my favorite film. Some of these are uncredited cameos (so you can’t blame me for forgetting him!). Here we go…

The Rest That I’ve Seen:

19. Cyrus – Yes
18. Nightwatch – No
17. Dark Water – No
16. Days Of Thunder – No
15. The Good Girl – Kind Of
14. Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny – No
13. Life After Beth – Haha. No, and it’s fairly recent! Shit, he’s even in a picture I used in my review…
12. The River Wild – No
11. Dolores Claiborne – No

TOP TEN:

10. Chicago
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Yes

9. Anger Management
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? No

8. The Perfect Storm
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? No

7. The Aviator
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? No

6. Boogie Nights
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Yes

5. Magnolia
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Yes

4. Never Been Kissed
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Kind Of

3. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Umm. Not really.

2. Wreck-It Ralph
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Yes

1. Guardians Of The Galaxy
Do I remember John C. Reilly In This? Yes

Saw But Don’t Remember The Movie, Let Alone Reilly:
Casualties Of War
The Hours

Some Of The Many I’ve Not Seen But Wasn’t Aware That He Was In Anyway Except For That One Where He’s The Only One On The Movie’s Poster & He’s Posing Like Jim Morrison:
We’re Not Angels, Hard Eight, The Thin Red Line, For Love Of The Game, Gangs Of New York, A Prairie Home Companion, Talladega Nights, Year Of The Dog, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Promotion, Step Brothers, 9, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Dictator, Anchorman 2, When Marnie Was There, The Lobster, Sing, Kong: Skull Island

Music Video Friday: Aimee Mann – Save Me (1999 Oscar Nominee)

Today’s Oscar nominated song is Aimee Mann’s Save Me from the film Magnolia.

Ah, Magnolia… That was a weird one, wasn’t it? I watched it at the time and I liked it a lot (especially the ending) but I’ve not watched it since and it’s one where I wonder if I’d just find it pretentious now in my bitter old age. However, I still love the Magnolia soundtrack! Okay, the use of Supertramp helped a lot but I also really liked the Aimee Mann songs even though I’m very rarely a fan of the singer/songwriter thing.

I suppose I liked Mann’s voice thanks to ‘Til Tuesday’s Voices Carry (ha – I loved that video! her boyfriend was such an asshole). But, from Magnolia, I preferred Wise Up – I think it’s weird that Save Me was nominated instead of that one considering that was the one used for the movie’s big sing-along.

Phil Collins actually won the Oscar in 1999 for You’ll Be in My Heart from Tarzan. Meh – it’s okay for your typical, lame 1990’s Phil Collins song but it didn’t deserve the win. Besides Save Me, the other nominees were Music Of My Heart, Blame Canada & When She Loved Me. Okay, I admit that I don’t know Music Of My Heart but I’d choose all the others over the Collins song. And, let’s be honest, the one that most deserved to win was When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2! Come on – you know you’re all feeling tearful now just thinking about Jesse being abandoned. 😦

But Save Me deserved its nomination & I’m glad a soundtrack I really like got some recognition. Like the movie, the video was also directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. During the filming of the movie, he’d have the actors stay in place while he filmed Mann performing next to them. Yeah, I read that at Wikipedia – I thought they’d inserted her into the scenes later with special effects magic. I also love this little tidbit at Wikipedia:

“By way of introduction to a live performance, Mann has referred to Save Me as “the song that lost an Oscar to Phil Collins and his cartoon monkey love song.” Furthermore, Mann has occasionally dedicated her song to Collins in several different venues, albeit in jest.”

Haha! I’ll now forever think of Phil Collins as the “cartoon monkey love song guy”. Anyway, here’s Aimee Mann’s video for Save Me: 🙂