top gun

“Tower, this is Ghost Rider requesting a flyby….” whether it be Maverick soaring through the skies in Top Gun, on a spy mission with Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible, fighting Aliens in Edge of Tomorrow or playing a contract killer in Collateral there’s nothing quite like watching TOM CRUISE project his passion, commitment and overall love for his craft onto our movie screens… he’s INFECTIOUS : born on this day in 1962, Syracuse New York, Tom Cruise made his film debut playing Billy in 1981’s Endless Love, six more movies followed before Tom took on his iconic role of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell alongside Val Kilmer and Kelly McGillis in Tony Scott’s 1986 action masterpiece Top Gun, he became a box office sensation, his career boomed and he’s never looked back… of course along with his well know action movies Tom can also act with the best of them, he’s won three Golden Globes and been nominated by the Academy in three pictures… Oliver Stone’s 1989 true story Born on the Fourth of July, Cameron Crowe’s 1996 comedy Jerry Maguire and Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant 1999 movie Magnolia : aged 59 Tom’s currently filming Mission Impossible 7 and yep he’s still doing those crazy stunts and his new movie Top Gun : Maverick hits the big screen later this year… what an ABSOLUTE BADASS !!

It was the year that Pixar Studios opened, Amber Heard was born and Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa won a Best Picture at the 58th Academy Awards – it was also the year screen legend James Cagney died and Mike Tyson became the youngest Heavyweight World Champion in the history of Boxing – it was also the year two of my movie heroes starred opposite each other for the last time – Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster first appeared together in 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and in 1986 they would star in their seventh & final movie together Tough Guys….

My Definitive Action Movies of 1986 : at Number 1 is James Cameron’s epic scifi movie ALIENS that sees Ripley alongside a group of kick-ass Colonial Marines trying to stay alive down on LV-426 – at Number 2 Maverick & Goose fly into Top Gun coming up against the best Fighter Pilots the navy has to offer – and at Number 3 Sylvester Stallone plays Marion Cobretti a cop and part of the “Zombie Squad” who loves nothing better than Telling it to the Judge and putting the bad guys down in Cobra – at Number 4 is John Carpenter’s superb Big Trouble in Little China that sees Burton played by Kurt Russell battling a sorcerer named Lo Pan down in Chinatown – and finally there can be only one at Number 5 and that’s Russell Mulcahy’s Highlander don’t you just love that Queen soundtrack, that amazing Scottish backdrop and Clancy Brown’s villainous Kruger? – as you can see 1986 was an incredible feast of action movies, I was only 15 years of age at the time and my love affair with the movies was only just beginning….