Because You Never Asked

(5/01)

     This year, after 3 weeks living by the Roman Sea, it finally became necessary to inform myself as to a baseball score. In so doing, I bought the International Herald Tribune and discovered that the team (Texas) paying a ballplayer (A-Rod) ¼ billion dollars to play a game almost all of us played for fun, is in last place. This brightened my day.

     I also stumbled upon an article devoted to one Jerry Bruckheimer, heretofore unknown to this writer. (How many of you have ever heard of Jerry Bruckheimer?) As it turns out, this man is a very important Hollywood producer, best known for making huge, expensive movies that are critically lambasted by the "intelligentsia". As anyone familiar with the California movie industry could well predict, this means his movies are immensely successful, earning him and the studios enough money to not only wipe out dandruff, shingles, psoriasis, halitosis, beri-beri and rabies in all of sub-Saharan Africa, but to provide each of these countries with enough of an Air Force to be considered, if necessary, a "Rogue State". He is about to release the movie "Pearl Harbor", which, according to the article, has the highest budget ever approved by a studio: $135,000,000. This is probably more than it took to bomb Pearl Harbor in the first place . and put it back together again.

     I suppose it would be a difficult task for the average cinema customer to know, right off the top of their head, the two movies they hate the most. Contrary to such supposition, for this writer the answer is as clear as a Cayman Island reef, my hierarchy (lowerarchy?) in this category being perfectly defined. This and the following essay took life because Jerry Bruckheimer, I found out, made them both.

     For many years, the film I hated the most in the century long history of cinema was something called "Top Gun". Like most films I'm familiar with these days, I've only seen bits and pieces of it on TV; 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, while getting ready for bed, while dressing to play tennis, while eating a sandwich, whenever I get tired of scratching my ass . there it is again, filling the gaps between commercial breaks on some obscure cable station transmitting from the rings of Saturn. Although I've seen almost all of it, I've never seen the beginning, don't know how it ends, and am somewhat hazy as to what it is all about. For those of you who are now skeptical as to my ability to critique such a film, I'll only say that with the passage of time I've learned that the things I don't know about "Top Gun" are remarkably irrelevant in fully understanding not only the film in question, but almost all of contemporary Hollywood output. In any event, thanks to Jerry Bruckheimer, "Top Gun" is now second on my list. (More in next essay).

     For some inexplicable reason, a healthy dose of my cinema wrath falls upon Tom Cruise. (See essay "How to Make it in Hollywood" and others) Like all beautiful leading men, his job is to facilitate the bodily response leading to the wetness and odor associated with an aroused female and he does it about as well as the rest of this generation's stable of macho stars. What is it then? Why am I always picking on Tom? Perhaps . and most notably in "Top Gun" . it's the obnoxious self-confidence he flaunts with women. For a shlub like myself, who's next orgasm (with a partner) is always a distant long shot whose procurement is forever in doubt, a certain degree of resentment is a distinct possibility. If I (and probably you too) were to hit on a woman in a Cruise-like fashion, she'd probably act as if I'd just cut the most wicked, sulphury fart imaginable, followed by an abrupt flight from my presence, never to be seen again. Tom Cruise could walk up to the same woman, pass the same fetid wind, add a belch for good measure, and say, "excuse me, but for reasons surely having nothing to do with the higher instincts of our species, I've been gazing upon you. Although your face is somewhat reminiscent of the sole of a Timberland boot, and it's obvious you have the intellect of a toilet seat, there's something about those anti-gravitational tits of yours that stir my dipstick. With this in mind, I was wondering if you'd buy me a drink and then accompany me to my apartment where you will be third in line in servicing my erotic needs?"

     "Of course Tom, what are you drinking?"

     I sometimes have this fantasy: A young woman is putting on the finishing touches while awaiting the arrival of a blind date. There's a knock at the door. She opens. It's Tom Cruise. She politely asks him to have a seat and adjourns to the bathroom where we hear her thoughts as she finishes her preparations. "Christ, I can't believe my sister did this to me again. I'd rather be forced by Mike Tyson than have to spend the next few hours with that leper out there. Better it should be Tiny Tim on a bad hair day, or even that creep from last week who thought he was so smart . what was his name . Rattel?, Carvel?, Grapel? Maybe I can tell him I just tested positive for gangrene, or that my hamster just died .or . "

     But the film "Top Gun" could not make my all-time-bottom-two-shit-list simply because of my unconscious antipathy for Tom Cruise. The film has an attitude --- and I don't claim to know exactly what it is --- that I instinctively feel runs contrary to my idea of how the world should be. Although the motion picture industry has given us some magnificent examples of the horror and folly of the most negative, self-defeating act human beings engage in --- war --- it has far more frequently commercially enriched itself with a superficial, naïve, adolescent glorification of military action. More often than not, it has made war not only an acceptable mode of behavior, but a desirable one.

     Since the end of WWII there has been virtually no act of military heroism that the American nation could truly take pride in. For a country that is perhaps the most militarily powerful entity in history, this might seem an absurd statement, but a sober examination of the facts show that American military strength is far more an act of ambition than heroism. For those who'd dispute this with patriotic pride, I say the following: let's be honest with ourselves. Forget the bull crapping parades, the presidential speeches and the Hitlerian Super Bowl half time extravaganzas. I ask you . beating the crap out of Saddam Hussein? Landing a few Marines in Haiti? Bombing the stuffings out of Serbia? These acts are something like the Super Bowl champs running up the score against the local High School. Or how about getting back a few Navy flyers from China? Lots of parades and ceremonies for that one.

     "Top Gun" was a very successful attempt to fill this void. It even created its own little extra-curricular, ex-official military engagement, almost like Spring Training for a real war, with a dead person or two thrown in for good measure. It fed a hunger that had gone unfed for quite some time.

     But even worse than the exaggerated, swashbuckling conceit of Tom Cruise, or the sophomoric cheerleading for military action, is the attitude of the characters themselves in "Top Gun". With the exception of Tom Cruise and his sidekick, who adore each other, everyone sees the rest of mankind as a possible enemy. They all seem to be mired in some vague, indecipherable, amorphous competition that permeates every move they make. Nobody likes anyone. Everyone wants something somebody else might have. The sarcastic belittlement of others, along with the smug aggrandizement of oneself, is considered the normal personality of a well-adjusted human being. After awhile, every bit of dialogue in this film seems no more than a euphemism for, "Oh yeah, well I'm the best pilot .", "Oh yeah, well I'm gonna get the girl .", "Oh yeah, my uniform is starched better than yours .", "Oh yeah, well I'm the star of this movie, so shut up and be the loser you are ."

     In short, just what an ambitious, aggressive, global economy citizen should be. Which brings me to . (See essay "The Worst Movie Ever Made")