CJG Movie Man

JERRY MAGUIRE @ 30.

There must be a heavy burden that comes with being Tom Cruise. the guy that starred in "Endless Love" with Brooke Shields, and played a memorable villain in "Taps" who'd go on to becoming Hollywood's No. 1 Movie Star. It's the that burden however well-documented and considerable - but the burden of being very talented, but being the only thing we've grown to love and hate him for. We don't watch Tom Cruise movies with the same weight we go to see Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn, or Philip Seymour Hoffman movies, with anxious anticipation of probably the most anticipated, award-caliber performance that will sweep awards shows. We watch him with the hope to see him dangling off cars, buildings, running at breakneck speed, fly through the air with motorcycles, and find himself in life-and-death scenarios left and right - which are all fine by the way. I mean, to be fair, "Mission: Impossible" had that killer dangling-on-a-wire in Langley sequence - a staple of its director Brian De Palma adding true suspense to a popcorn film. I'll also give Steven Spielberg props for putting Cruise to good use in "Minority Report" in 2002, so his action movie status remains unchallenged. But Cruise also did "Rain Man", "Born on the Fourth of July" and even his Oscar-nominated performance in "Magnolia", proved he could command a screen without the need to strap himself onto a ballistic missile, helicopter, or dangle from a building.