My hatred of him was immediate, visceral and enduring, and over the years I have taken time out of my busy, important life to write him a note each year on his birthday. This is a small sample of some of the letters I have written him:

July 3, 1986

Dear Maverick:

Your call sign in Top Gun should have been Muffin.

You’re a loser and flash in the pan and it’s obvious you don’t have a clue how to play beach volleyball.

Your smile makes me want to punch you with a rake.

Happy 24^th, moron.

Michael Murray

PS: Please send an autographed photograph.

July 3, 1992

Dear Tom:

I want to congratulate you on your Irish accent in Far and Away.

You’ve really been acting the shit out of things lately, especially when you made us all understand what it must feel like to be Tom Cruise in a wheelchair in Born on the Fourth of July. That was some heavy shit, really brave, and you deserve a milk carton full of Oscars for that role.

Happy 30^th, loser, it’s all downhill from here.

Michael Murray

PS: I have named my band Cole Trickle after your character in Days of Thunder. Inspired by your acting, we formed as a group even though none of us can play any instruments.

July 3, 2000

Tom:

What the fuck was up with your package in Magnolia???

I mean, please! Are you really that vain that you have to make it look like you have a giant cock? Really?? And did you even know what Eyes Wide Shut was about? Truly, you are the worst actor ever.

Happy birthday.

Michael Murray

July 3, 2005

Dear crazy Scientology person:

Joey will never love you.

You will never have her.

You may jump on sofas all you want, but you will never win her heart. You are a robot, a robot made of money and teeth, and although she has likely signed a contract, that contract will end and she will leave you. Mark my words, Cruise, mark my words.

You’re 43 now, and although you don’t know it, things are beginning to slip away.

Happy birthday.

Michael Murray

PS: I am taking the bus to America to buy a crossbow on the weekend.

July 3, 2014

Tom:

I’m on medication now and am doing well. I understand boundaries. I am sorry about the genetic material I sent to you on your 50^th birthday. It was inappropriate of me, to say the least, and trying to get you to introduce me to your ex-wife, the Katie Holmes version of your ex-wife, was insensitive. I just want to thank you for our friendship over the years, wish you the best as you move through your 50’s and let you know that I am really just fantastically excited for Top Gun II.

Happy birthday, old friend!

Michael Murray

We sat in the third row of this IMAX 3D spectacle, and I have to say it was the most concussive, punishing movie experience I have ever had.  We were so close to the screen that we couldn’t actually see the screen, and appreciating the movie was more of a physical challenge than an aesthetic one. Strictly confined within the conventions of the genre, Pacific Rim was a living, evolving piece of abstract expressionism that came screaming out at us like some terrible flying monkey.  We could only see gestures within the film– sound, colour and velocity—all swirling and spitting before us, but never did we have a clear, overview of things as they unfolded.

Of course, this didn’t really matter, because we knew exactly what was taking place. Pacific Rim is an action flick, a B movie writ monstrously large, and it followed the formula these movies always follow. This genre is now so much a part of me that I feel like it’s coded into my DNA, my understanding instinctive and unmediated rather than the product of conscious, cognitive functions, if that makes any sense.

Nonetheless, it was still a very disorienting experience ( I wanted nothing more than to inhabit a Brian Eno composition while there), and not simply because of the shock and awe campaign detonating around  us. Pacific Rim (note the name) was a movie designed for a global audience rather than a North American one. The film was so flat and one-dimensional that it was little more than a series of symbols and cues. There was no nuance or complexity, and this was intentional, because it’s built to travel, to be easily transferrable to other languages and cultures. The primary human characters in it are a diverse array of ethnicities, and the world represented a global, cultural mash-up. You simply don’t have to speak the language in which the movie is made to understand exactly what’s going on, in fact, you might even be better served if you didn’t.

For a movie that was all about fighting, there was no real violence in it, and it was more like a gigantic puppet show than a graphic representation of what a robot three times the size of a skyscraper fighting a massive alien might be like. It was a kid’s movie, meant to move merchandize and launch a franchise that will have global appeal. Last year, I think the top 10 top grossing films in North America were all sequels or prequels. Losing market share to piracy and revitalized cable television, original one-off movies that aspire to art are not where the bottom line lives, and the Hollywood arrow no longer flies no toward the heart of North America, but is now launched like a volley out toward the rest of the world, where all the money and people actually live.