Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Top Gun Maverick Debut





...Vintage Rolex Coolness...


TOP GUN

MAVERICK

After 36 years, including three years of delays, the long awaited super-iconic and emblematic Tom Cruise Top Gun (1986) sequel is debuting tomorrow in theaters, with some great surprises. I am dedicating this article to my great pal, Captain Danny who mentioned he was inspired to become a commercial pilot when he watched the original Top Gun movie.







Mad Men actor, John Hamm plays a vice admiral whose callsign is "Cyclone" in Top Gun Maverick as we seen in the two photos below.



It's a small world, as I just mentioned Jon Hamm in my recent Rolex MAD MEN book story, and we see Jon pictured below rocking his Rolex Explorer from Mad Men.





Rolex Explorer

Tom Cruise's girlfriend in the Top Gun: Maverick movie is pictured below rocking a Rolex Explorer, and he is wearing his blacked out Porsche Design watch model which he sported in the first Top Gun.









Val Kilmer

The Iceman Returneth

Val Kilmer has lived an amazing life which includes being a very successful Hollywood actor. For some reason when I think of Val Kilmer I think of the role he played as Iceman in the 1986 mega-hit movie, Top Gun. The photos below of Val are from Top Gun and they show Val rockin' a Pepsi GMT-Master.






I Feel The Need...

...The Need For Speed!




We see Val Kilmer seems to appear in Top Gun Maverick, where he plays Tom "Iceman" Kazanksky, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.





Val Kilmer is pictured below taking a selfie that shows him wearing his "COOL AS ICE" Top Gun T-Shirt taken back in 2018.



The artwork on Val Kilmer's t-short seen above is a line drawing illustration taken from the classic photo of Val seen below sporting his equally classic Pepsi Rolex GMT-Master.




Val Kilmer apparently wore two different Rolex models in Top Gun as we see him below sporting a two-tone Rolex Datejust (which is totally 1980s :-) as opposed to the GMT-Master on his wrist which is seen above. 

What is more eighties than wearing a Rolex GMT-Master and a two-tone Datejust on a Jubilee bracelet? The only thing I can think of is Tom Selleck as Magnum PI!!!

Speaking of which, we saw the remake of Magnum PI, which came out back in 2018.


Val Kilmer is pictured below with Tom Cruise in the epic 1986 movie Top Gun and notice Tom is wearing a black Porsche Pilot's Chronograph watch which features a Lemania 5100 movement. 



Below is the original trailer for Top Gun which starred Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer.











Top Gun

Submariner

This is an interesting piece of Rolex Top Gun movie trivia. In the original Top Gun movie, toward the end of the movie, when Tom Cruise's character is helping Iceman, he pulls the brake on the Russian Mig, and we see Tom Cruise's wrist with a Rolex Submariner [Reference 5513] on it as seen in the photos below.



The "continuity error" showed a real U.S. Navy Fighter pilots wrist who happened to be wearing a Rolex Submariner, despite the fact that Cruise wore a Porsche Chronograph :-)


Take My Breath Away by Berlin was the title soundtrack to Top Gun which reached the Number 1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1986. Talk about Deja Vu all over again!!! The Top Gun soundtrack was a huge hit and reached the number one position in the 1986 U.S. Billboard 200.



Danger Zone was another epic and iconic 80s song from the Top Gun Album, which was performed by Kenny Loggins.



If you have ever wondered where the Top Gun metaphor came from you can find out below as we see from the original 1955 Top Gun movie poster.




FA-18 Hornet Fighter Pilot
Rolex GMT-Master

Speaking of real Top Guns and since we are on the subject of a Top Gun pilot wearing a Rolex GMT-Master, I thought it would be cool to share this story with you. What's the coolest job in the world? Perhaps being an actual U.S. Navy FA-18 Fighter Pilot like the actors portray in Top Gun. As we see in the photo below, the real-life FA-18 pilot is sporting a two-tone Rolex GMT-Master. FA-18s cost $38 Million each, and are amazing flying machines.


The screenshot above that shows the FA-18 pilot wearing a Rolex GMT-Master was taken from the video below.





An Amazing Career

Val Kilmer has enjoyed an amazing acting career, from playing Iceman in Top Gun (1986) to playing Batman in Batman Forever (1995,) to playing Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991) to playing Doc Holiday in Tombstone (1993). He was also in Willow (1988), and played Simon Templar in the 1997 adaptation of The Saint. In 2006 he played FBI Special Agent Paul Pryzwarra in Déjà Vu, and Dieter Von Cunth in MacGruber (2101).








Tom Cruise

Risky Business

Tripping on all this Top Gun movie info made me feel really nostalgic so I thought I would share more about Tom Cruise. I distinctively remember what an iconic movie Risky Business was when it debuted in 1983.




Tom Cruise was so cool with his Ray-Ban Wayfarer Sunglasses and driving his parents Porsche 928. I remember back in the early 1980s, the Porsche 928 was all the rage and then some.


1984 Rolex Daytona Brochure Cover

I remember back in 1984, how the Porsche was the coolest car, and here is a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona brochure cover featuring the Porsche 928S. Very Cool...


Speaking of the Porsche 928, here is an original brochure from Jake's Car World.






Back to Tom Cruise and Risky Business. Below is the original theatrical trailer for Risky Business, which is like a deja vu time machine.


Tom Cruise is pictured below with Rebecca De Mornay who costarred with Tom in Risky Business. Tom is sporting his Ray-Ban Wayfarers and Polo Ralph Lauren shirt in the photo below.




Rebecca De Mornay is pictured below years later wearing her two-tone Rolex Ladies Datejust.







Tom & Rolex

Tom Cruise is famous for wearing Rolex watches in movies as well as in his personal life. Below is a historic timeline of Tom and Rolex not only wearing them but also staring in his movies.





The Color Of Money 
(1986)

The first time I ever noticed Tom Cruise with a Rolex was in the Academy Award Winning 1986 movie titled The Color Of Money.








The Money Shot
Tom Cruise Holding Paul Newman's Rolex Datejust

In the next photo, we see a screen-shot taken from The Color Of Money, that shows Tom Cruise playing with Paul Newman's Rolex Datejust in the movie. Of course, this close-up helps to make a solid positive I.D., as a stainless steel Rolex Datejust. Notice the bezel has no fluting, thus making it a straight stainless steel bezel.







Rain Man 
(1988)

After finding out his autistic brother can count a deck of cards, Charlie Babbitt, played by Tom Cruise, pawns his yellow-gold Day-Date to buy suits for him and his brother (Dustin Hoffman) and a seat at a blackjack table at the Caesars Palace Casino.















Cocktail
(1988)



Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take ya
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go, Jamaica

Off the Florida Keys, there's a place called Kokomo
That's where you want to go to get away from it all
Bodies in the sand, tropical drink melting in your hand
We'll be falling in love to the rhythm of a steel drum band
Down in Kokomo

Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go
oh I want to take you down to
Kokomo, we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow
That's where we want to go, way down in Kokomo

Martinique, that Montserrat mystique
We'll put out to sea and we'll perfect our chemistry
And by and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity
Afternoon delight, cocktails and moonlit nights
That dreamy look in your eye, give me a tropical contact high
Way down in Kokomo

Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go
oh I want to take you down to
Kokomo, we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow
That's where we want to go, way down in Kokomo

Port au Prince, I want to catch a glimpse

Everybody knows a little place like Kokomo
Now if you want to go and get away from it all
Go down to Kokomo

Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go
oh I want to take you down to
Kokomo, we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow
That's where we want to go, way down in Kokomo

Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go














Tom & Suri

(2009)

Tom Cruise is pictured below holding his adorable daughter, Suri. Tom is wearing his stainless steel Rolex Datejust on an Oyster band. In the photo, Suri is trying to cover her ears, because they are just getting ready to go for a helicopter ride above New York. What a great and fun dad!!!









Knight & Day


(2010)

In 2010 Tom Cruise starred in Knight & Day with Cameron Diaz who wore a Submariner as seen below.










Mission Impossible

Ghost Protocol

(2011)

In 2011 Tom Cruise starred in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, which was the fourth in the series of Mission Impossible movies. Basically, Tom Cruise plays an American James Bond kind-of-guy. I actually really enjoyed watching the movie because it was so well done, and the special effects were great! In Mission Impossible, Tom wore a Tudor Heritage Chronograph as seen below.




Jeremy Renner is pictured below sporting his stainless steel Rolex Submariner in the Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol.