I just got done watching the movie “Magnolia” which is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, most noted for his Boogie Nights movie, which I loved.  It was a really great movie that told the story of several people who we think are strangers but end up being strangely interrelated at the end of the film.  In it, Tom Cruise plays a character who is eerily close to his real life personality today, except Tom in real life is a nice guy who’s very passionate about a religion, not passionate about “taming” or “conquering” women like his character in Magnolia. 

Magnolia came out in 1999, and it was a fairly new concept at that time, since there weren’t too many movies that were a montage about several characters with huge ensemble casts that were commercial successes.  And actually, Magnolia was not a huge commercial success either, before I get ahead of myself. 

Tom Cruise plays the Frank Mackey character, who has made a business out of seminars that sell “conquering women” to men who are desperate and never get any action or the time of day from women.  However, he goes about it in a not so nice way, forever degrading women, saying that he can get any women he wants.  He lists among his bullet points of things to do to get, and then dump, women as not calling for 8 days at least, putting up an act of emotional competency and caring, and creating jealousy. 

In other words, all the stuff that guys who are forever stuck in the junior high and high school mentality of “getting girls” do.  And the men that follow him I’m sure find they are met with resistence instead of a bowing down of the heads and so forth that Frank preaches.  Frank preaches in a firey manner, rotating his pelvis in suggestive motions, creating unease and angst, but also excitement in his followers that they can be just like him if they act like a self absorbed jerk who alternates feelings and caring with an idiotic attitude. 

It’s a wonder he doesn’t sell pheromones to attract women, it’d be much easier than going through his blue booklets.  All in all, his character is hilarious, and ultimately, even identifiable when we find out how became such a megalomaniac.  As I said, some of his behavior in this film reflects a bit of what we’re seeing in his scientology videos today, so it’s interesting.