The compendium here of Cruise--the broken ankle, Buster Keaton and the Hitchcock quote: "You don’t want the audience stopping to think. Hitchcock’s rule number one: it’s about creating a dream state and maintaining that dream state for as long as you can." —Fab!
Kudos, David Cole!
And who said that to be good on Substack, you have to be short? Wrong, as you prove here: well-done!
Gah oh my gosh thank you, that means the world coming from you. I love your film writing and frequently tried to write shorter posts like that but they always felt boring on re-read
I admit it was long enough that I read the first 2/3 (and was quite impressed) and then intended to come back to it, but forgot until the new post today reminding me). But the last 1/3 is great as well and I'm very glad to have come back to read the whole thing.
A few random pieces of apocrypha that you might find interesting:
I laughed when I saw this started out with so much conversation around trains after the autism jokes.
After Tom Cruise did the couch jump, a random guy at the Aberdeen, Washington (my hometown) Walmart won a contest to watch Mission Impossible III with ol’ Tom himself. The town declared it a holiday.
That said, I’m sure several sections of this completely passed me by but I was very moved by the character study of how Keaton, Cruise, and Chan were all somehow the same inside. I listened to this while cleaning house and making breakfast. Good job, sir.
Reading such a thoughtful, sprawling, detail-rich meditation like this reminded me of one of my favorite cultural essays on the internet .... one I love returning to ... and seeing updated/referenced/expanded upon as the years go by:
The compendium here of Cruise--the broken ankle, Buster Keaton and the Hitchcock quote: "You don’t want the audience stopping to think. Hitchcock’s rule number one: it’s about creating a dream state and maintaining that dream state for as long as you can." —Fab!
Kudos, David Cole!
And who said that to be good on Substack, you have to be short? Wrong, as you prove here: well-done!
Thank you so much, what a nice thing to hear!
It's a grand essay, David!
I agree; this is one of the better film essays I've ever read. I would read a whole book of this.
Gah oh my gosh thank you, that means the world coming from you. I love your film writing and frequently tried to write shorter posts like that but they always felt boring on re-read
It's really, really good.
I admit it was long enough that I read the first 2/3 (and was quite impressed) and then intended to come back to it, but forgot until the new post today reminding me). But the last 1/3 is great as well and I'm very glad to have come back to read the whole thing.
So glad to hear that it earned coming back to! Thank you
lmfao come again?
A few random pieces of apocrypha that you might find interesting:
I laughed when I saw this started out with so much conversation around trains after the autism jokes.
After Tom Cruise did the couch jump, a random guy at the Aberdeen, Washington (my hometown) Walmart won a contest to watch Mission Impossible III with ol’ Tom himself. The town declared it a holiday.
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/20060510/cruise10/aberdeen-embraces-cruise-it-will-put-us-on-the-map
That said, I’m sure several sections of this completely passed me by but I was very moved by the character study of how Keaton, Cruise, and Chan were all somehow the same inside. I listened to this while cleaning house and making breakfast. Good job, sir.
That’s a fantastic story. Thank you for reading, can you believe I made it the whole way through writing this thing without mentioning autism once?!
This isn't an essay it's a book
Reading such a thoughtful, sprawling, detail-rich meditation like this reminded me of one of my favorite cultural essays on the internet .... one I love returning to ... and seeing updated/referenced/expanded upon as the years go by:
https://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/
Looking forward to the reshoots/re-edits ahead. And to take the inspiration to start introducing my 11 year old son to the magic of Buster Keaton.