The 5 or 10 Corollary

As of this weekend I can no longer say that I am in my early 20s. You know when people ask you on your birthday if you feel older? Usually I say no but now old age is slowly setting in and a few things happened recently that really make me feel old.

1. I tripped over a pair of sneakers that were laying in the middle of the floor. I didn't notice them and almost fell and got really pissed as to why someone would leave sneakers in the middle of the floor. Trademark old person reaction.

2. I hit my shin on the corner of a coffee table and it hurt for like 2 hours afterwards. I was honestly doing the Peter Griffin move of holding my shin tight repeating the phrase "AAAAHH" for an extended period of time.

3. I downloaded a James Taylor song and Neil Young song in the same week.

4. I got someone in trouble for cheating in school. This coming from a guy who put an entire Shakespeare monolouge that I was supposed to memorize for a quiz on post it notes on the desk in front of me. (Hilarious story. Me and Dicky wrote the whole monolouge on post it notes and in turn got a 100 on the quiz. Our teacher quickly read through them and realized we were the only two people who aced it. So she called on Dicky to stand up and recite it to the class. Unfazed, Dicky said "you know, I really know it much better when I write it down". Genius.)

Now let's get to our title of this entry. This is another debate submitted by Steamin' Willie Beamen. It's very intruiging because on the surface the answer is easy, but it requires a more in depth look before a clear cut answer can be determined so I did a little research.....

The 5 or 10 Corollary

Tom Cruise vs. Leonardo Dicaprio- Before you mail it in for Leo, let's take a closer look. The laundry list of good movies for Tom may or may not outweigh the epic dominance of Leo's 5.

In my opinion the classic/defining Leo movies are as follows...Titanic, Gangs of New York, Catch Me if You Can, The Departed and Blood Diamond (sorry Pasquale, but Titanic is probably his most memorable role)

His "under the radar" movies include What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Romeo and Juliet, The Aviator, Body of Lies, Revolutionary Road and Shutter Island (which may become a defining movie for him but it's too early to determine). He's been nominated for 3 Academy Awards, for his roles in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Aviator and Blood Diamond. 4 of his movies have grossed more than $100 million at the box office and they are The Departed, The Aviator, Catch Me If You Can and Titanic (Shutter Island is currently at $97 million and will most likely surpass $100 mil) . The average gross of a Leo movie at the box office is $78.5 million from 19 movies.

Now let's take a look at Cruise's resume. To go with the "5 or 10" theme I'm going to list the 10 classic/defining Cruise movies and in my opinion they are....Risky Business, Top Gun, The Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, Days of Thunder, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire all of which were made in a span of 13 years.

Not to mention very solid movies and/or box office hits like All The Right Moves, Born on the 4th of July, Mission Impossible 2 and 3, Minority Report, The Last Samuri, Collateral, War of the Worlds, Interview With A Vampire, Vanilla Sky and a great cameo in Tropic Thunder. He also has 3 Oscar nominations for his roles in Born on the 4th of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia. Cruise has 15 movies that have grossed more than $100 million at the box office, including 5 in a row (the only person with more is Tom Hanks with 16) and the average gross of a Tom Cruise movie is $96.4 million from 29 movies.

Clearly Leo is a better actor who takes on more challenging and complex characters. His movie's are intense and very emotional and his 5 defining roles are simply exceptional. If you were to hold a fantasy draft with actors (something I would really be interested in doing, just to see how it plays out) Leo and Cruise would both be first round picks. In order to make my decision the criteria used are rewatchability, iconicness (one of the perks of writing is making up words), quotability, box office sucess and overall quality.

Based on those categories, I'm going to give my vote to Cruise. Yes the guy is a "stooge" according to Pasquale, and I must agree. But I could care less about what he does when he is not acting. He's clearly one of the most bankable movie stars of all time and I think his clinching category is rewatchability. The Departed can be watched every day for a month and still be amazing, however I don't think the same can be said for his other roles. As great as Blood Diamond is, I don't think I could watch it over and over. It's a phenomenal movie, but the theme is so "heavy" to quote Marty McFly that I can only watch that movie once in a while.

Leo will absolutely win an Academy Award before his career is over and I doubt Cruise will. But if you could only watch Leo movies or Cruise movies for the rest of your life and that's it, I think you would choose Cruise. A Few Good Men remains one of my favorite and most quoted movies I've ever seen. I mean who hasn't heard somebody say "you can't handle the truth". Throw in a top 3 action movie in Mission Impossible, a potential top 10 sports movie in Jerry Maguire and the greatest bartending movie in Cocktail (don't you dare say Coyote Ugly even despite the aesthetic appeal) and you've got endless entertainment.


Having said that, I am all kinds of fired up to see Leo's new movie Inception.

(In case you were wondering Nic Cage has 7 movies that have grossed more than $100 million and his average gross is $45 million from 44 movies. Which means he's had a few bombs recently including The Weather Man ($12 million), Next ($18 million) Bankok Dangerous ($15 million) and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans which has made a whopping $1.7 million)

I want to hear some feedback on this one although I am positive what Pasquale's vote will be. Stay tuned for the next installment of the Steamin' Willie Beamen debates coming soon. So until next time, as always....Stay Classy!