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'Top Gun: Maverick': Patches On Tom Cruise's Jacket Spark Controversy

zebedee

One Too Many
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Shanghai
Years ago I got hauled up in front of a Chinese employer (when in China, natch) for accidentally referring to Taiwan as a country and got a bollocking; I explained to the man in question that I was mistaken culturally, but that political beliefs in different countries were not my responsibility as an individual. If he could have fired me on the spot, he would have done. In retrospect, I should have just accepted sledgehammer practicality and sung the national anthem, tearing up a bit.

Chinese nationalism can be an odd beast, at once frightening and mawkishly sentimental ('We Chinese are lonely in the world; Taiwan Province must return to the arms of the mother.') and deliberately hoodwinked ('Hong Kong parents and British textbooks are to blame- these are lazy parents and deceitful school books!'). The notion of cultural and ethnic distinctiveness as having political weight is not really a discussion-point in official reality (even though the Chinese people consists of 51 ethnicities, at least). There is, officially, only a Chinese-ness 'belonging' to Beijing rule- broad strokes, broad slogans and broad reality is as readily applied to Western media as it is to Chinese loyalties- offence is occasionally intentionally drummed-up about Western films and media series. Individual Chinese may or may not be that bothered (and might be amused, whimsical, disinterested or sympathetic), but there is also the expected response which people rehearse. A large step forward would be the official acceptance of Chinese-nesses in disputed areas along with multiple political models, but you don't govern 1.3 billion that way.
 
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Edward

Bartender
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Good eye on the patches! Goodness. I don't think I'd ever have noticed.

Doesn't that put it right in context if even someone as sharp-eyed as one of our own jacket-people wouldn't have spotted it unprompted?

and my joint-favourite film of all time is Vanilla Sky (along with The Truman Show).

For a Carey vehicle, I much prefer Man on the Moon or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I very much enjoyed Vanilla Sky despite not being a fan of Cruise. I'd love to see the original European (Spanish?) film which it remixed for the Hollywood / English-speaking market. CAn't recall the name offhand, but I gather it is very good indeed.

Chinese nationalism can be an odd beast, at once frightening and mawkishly sentimental

To be fair, I've yet to encounter any form of nationalism of which the same could not be said. ;)

Ha, the original cast have really, er, bulked up.

Quite so. Val Kilmer, jinkies - from snake-hipped Jim Morrison impersonator to ALL THE PIES. At least they don't have to worry whether the prop plane can carry his weight if he's too big to get into the cocpit in the first place... Maybe the plot of the film will be him being called out of retirement to fly a secret assassination mission against whatever bad guy of the day, real, imagined, or both, only to fidn that by the time he has slimmed down to fit the cockpit, the war is over.... :D
 

Justhandguns

Practically Family
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780
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London
For a Carey vehicle, I much prefer Man on the Moon or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I very much enjoyed Vanilla Sky despite not being a fan of Cruise. I'd love to see the original European (Spanish?) film which it remixed for the Hollywood / English-speaking market. CAn't recall the name offhand, but I gather it is very good indeed.

The reason why I watched those two Vanilla Sky movies was because of the other Cruise, Penelope to be exact, who starred in both films.

Judging from some of the news about mainland Chinese students attacking their Hong Kong university mates who were marching for the recent extradition legislation in the region (and the excessive use of force from the law enforcements), it sums up what Chinese nationalism means. Such an uncivilised nation.
 

Edward

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The reason why I watched those two Vanilla Sky movies was because of the other Cruise, Penelope to be exact, who starred in both films.

Judging from some of the news about mainland Chinese students attacking their Hong Kong university mates who were marching for the recent extradition legislation in the region (and the excessive use of force from the law enforcements), it sums up what Chinese nationalism means. Such an uncivilised nation.

I think it best we avoid the politics around current Hong Kong issues in these parts. Suffice it to say that my own experience in general of the Chinese is very far from "uncivilised", even if they do (as here) sometimes sink to our Western levels.
 

Ernest P Shackleton

One Too Many
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I think it best we avoid the politics around current Hong Kong issues in these parts. Suffice it to say that my own experience in general of the Chinese is very far from "uncivilised", even if they do (as here) sometimes sink to our Western levels.
They kind of don't have other options if they want to play on the main stage. Nobody does. In economics, the strong force is to follow the leader. It's grade school rules, and the circumventing thereof, and all the unsavory behavior we experienced as children. We don't really change that much. The consequences just get bigger and more dire.
 

Stand By

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[QUOTE I very much enjoyed Vanilla Sky despite not being a fan of Cruise. I'd love to see the original European (Spanish?) film which it remixed for the Hollywood / English-speaking market. CAn't recall the name offhand, but I gather it is very good indeed.[/QUOTE]

For me, Edward, Vanilla Sky is an incredible remake and completely worthy of it. After being blown away Vanilla Sky at the cinema, I naturally scoped out the 1997 original - and was totally underwhelmed. Entitled "Abre Los Ojos" (Spanish for "Open Your Eyes"), the main character is a millionaire who owns a lot of bakeries and runs around in a VW Beetle. Not that flamboyant. He's a pleasant-enough looking fellow and when he has his resulting accident, he isn't so very disfigured at all IMO. Penelope Cruz shines and steals all the thunder out from under him ...
The film subsequently got the Hollywood treatment it needed and everything is amped. Tom Cruise enhances David Aimes's character with great looks and charisma and he's in the who's who of New York - a vain man who would feel the loss of his appearance and the loneliness of social reclusiveness all the greater and his special effects make-up is superb. He owns a multinational publishing empire of glamour magazines - a bit more heady than bread. He runs around Manhattan in a Ferrari and is having a shallow fling with the amazingly beautiful Cameron Diaz so the glamour is amped there too. And Penelope Cruz again ... say no more.
I love the scene when he's in bed with Cruz and she inexplicably turns into Diaz and the serene love he's experiencing from Cruz shifts to the crazy-love of Diaz and she's acting like a neurotic ex (a delicious performance) - and you watch him trying to rationalize how this could possibly happen; is it his imagination or is he dreaming - but it's so real - so he can't - and the veins are fit to burst with stress and he's scared witless out of his mind (and laughing at the madness of it) and on the precipice of sanity and insanity - and it's perhaps the best acting I've ever seen of somebody actually in the process of losing their mind. A totally engaging performance. All props to TC. Didn't get that in the original either.
 
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Edward

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For me, Edward, Vanilla Sky is an incredible remake and completely worthy of it. After being blown away Vanilla Sky at the cinema, I naturally scoped out the 1997 original - and was totally underwhelmed. Entitled "Abre Los Ojos" (Spanish for "Open Your Eyes"), the main character is a millionaire who owns a lot of bakeries and runs around in a VW Beetle. Not that flamboyant. He's a pleasant-enough looking fellow and when he has his resulting accident, he isn't so very disfigured at all IMO. Penelope Cruz shines and steals all the thunder out from under him ...
The film subsequently got the Hollywood treatment it needed and everything is amped. Tom Cruise enhances David Aimes's character with great looks and charisma and he's in the who's who of New York - a vain man who would feel the loss of his appearance and the loneliness of social reclusiveness all the greater and his special effects make-up is superb. He owns a multinational publishing empire of glamour magazines - a bit more heady than bread. He runs around Manhattan in a Ferrari and is having a shallow fling with the amazingly beautiful Cameron Diaz so the glamour is amped there too. And Penelope Cruz again ... say no more.
I love the scene when he's in bed with Cruz and she inexplicably turns into Diaz and the serene love he's experiencing from Cruz shifts to the crazy-love of Diaz and she's acting like a neurotic ex (a delicious performance) - and you watch him trying to rationalize how this could possibly happen; is it his imagination or is he dreaming - but it's so real - so he can't - and the veins are fit to burst with stress and he's scared witless out of his mind (and laughing at the madness of it) and on the precipice of sanity and insanity - and it's perhaps the best acting I've ever seen of somebody actually in the process of losing their mind. A totally engaging performance. All props to TC. Didn't get that in the original either.

To be fair, Hollywood can occasionally eclipse an original. For me, the remake of The Ring was better than the original for the simple reason that I found a much better narrative in the former; that said, my difficulties with the latter could well be a cultural thing, as I have very limited experience of Japanese storytelling.

Re the scene you mention, it is good indeed. I wonder was there a smal influence on it by Jacob's Ladder, which similarly flips between lovers (though not as rapidly, I seem to recall).
 

Stand By

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Look out for the remake of Jacob's Ladder @Edward!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3016748/

Ugh. The original still has it - as the chilling creature and gore effects (Vietnam war) made the film and were done by Gord Smith's special effects house, FX Smith, who led the SFX industry by at least 15 years ahead of everyone else. It felt so authentic. This feels like more of everything we see today.
Such a shame that Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas. I drove past the local drive-in the other week: Toy Story 4, John Wick 3 and something else 2. I forget what it was as it wasn't worth remembering.
 

Edward

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JW3 is terrific, however.

Looking forwqrd to it - caugth the first one on a plane long before it got any buzzni the UK, and loved both it and 2. Though I liked Wanted and ..... something similar, the title escapes me - I think the John Wick series eclipses them. I especially loved that what kicks him back into the business in the first picture isn't the loss of his wife, but the much later loss of his dog. Somehow that 'final straw' effect seemed much more real.
 

barnabus

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Looking forwqrd to it - caugth the first one on a plane long before it got any buzzni the UK, and loved both it and 2. Though I liked Wanted and ..... something similar, the title escapes me - I think the John Wick series eclipses them. I especially loved that what kicks him back into the business in the first picture isn't the loss of his wife, but the much later loss of his dog. Somehow that 'final straw' effect seemed much more real.
I like that they're consecutive chapters in a story with no time gaps in between.
 

Seb Lucas

I'll Lock Up
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7,562
Location
Australia
JW3 is terrific, however.

I haven't gotten anything much from the first John Wick films, I'm afraid. Formulaic and contrived - nothing seems to matter, it's just kill the bqd guy's henchman with some implausible CGI choreography until it's time for the big boss to get his grand exit. But nothing much is done to make this more interesting. Boring. To me the Wick film are like watching someone else play a video game for two hours.
 

Stand By

One Too Many
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1,741
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Funnily enough, last night I finally watched Eyes Wide Shut. It's been on my list of films-to-see for ages - as it's TC (and I'm a fan, as stated previously) and a very attractive Nicole Kidman.
I was astonished to find it desperately bad and NC was terrible. One of the worst and most pointless films I've ever seen. Awful.
 

Seb Lucas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,562
Location
Australia
Funnily enough, last night I finally watched Eyes Wide Shut. It's been on my list of films-to-see for ages - as it's TC (and I'm a fan, as stated previously) and a very attractive Nicole Kidman.
I was astonished to find it desperately bad and NC was terrible. One of the worst and most pointless films I've ever seen. Awful.

Agree - but because of Kubrick's colossal reputation many people will insist it is a work of genius - has to be - and anything you might identify as bad was deliberate by K because he is a genius and you just don't get it.

As an artist I think Kubrick was enervated by the time he made this film - he struggled to fire up his powers of innovation and formalist excess.
 

Edward

Bartender
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25,072
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London, UK
Not that I have any insight into that world myself, but it struck me as somebody who isn't into kinky sex parties and knows nothing about them's idea of a kinky sex party. Particularly if said person was a fifteen year old boy. Trivia: within the first few pages of the (equally awful) Davinci Code, there's a direct reference to the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut which is the clumsiest pop-culture reference in popular media since charactersa in Lois and Clark talked about "Going into the Mosh Pit" at "a Pearl Jam Concert". Awful, awful, awful.
 

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