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Tom Cruise makes surprise appearance at movie awards to honour Mission: Impossible director

Tom Cruise made a rare awards show appearance at the Advanced Imaging Society (AIS) Awards on Wednesday (30Jan19) to present his Mission: Impossible collaborator Christopher McQuarrie with an honorary prize.

According to editors at The Hollywood Reporter, Cruise was a guest presenter at the 10th AIS Awards at the Steven J. Ross Theater at the Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles, where McQuarrie was presented with the Harold Lloyd Award for achievement in filmmaking.

The 56-year-old action star praised the director of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which took $780 million at the global box office, who he said “applies cutting edge technology beautifully” and “like Harold Lloyd, respects the audience … and understands that story is everything.”

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The actor also didn’t go home empty-handed, as he and McQuarrie also accepted the trophy for best scene or sequence, for the acclaimed 2018 movie’s white-knuckle helicopter chase sequence.
In his acceptance speech, McQuarrie thanked New Zealand for being “the only country that would let us shoot the helicopter sequence”, and was similarly generous in praise of his leading man.

“Our single greatest piece of technology is Tom Cruise,” gushed McQuarrie. “I have an unfair advantage. Whatever we come up with, Tom’s response is ‘Yeah, I’ll do that. How are you going to shoot it?’ That sets in motion the development of new technology.”

McQuarrie, who wrote the screenplay for The Usual Suspects, has collaborated with Cruise on Valkyrie, Jack Reacher and the latest two Mission: Impossible movies, Rogue Nation and Fallout, and they are working on two more instalments to be released in 2021 and 2022.

Meanwhile, other movies recognised for their cutting-edge technology included Ready Player One, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Black Panther, which was recognised for best immersive feature, and Bradley Cooper-directed film A Star Is Born, which won an award for creative use of high dynamic range (HDR) in a live-action feature.

Previous recipients of the Harold Lloyd award, named after one of the greatest stars of the silent movie era, include directors Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and Ang Lee.

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