#69 - Cocktail (1988)

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[00:01:58] Properly Howard, a podcast that reviews classic films and other pulp fiction. Today we take a look at the 1988 romantic-ish movie, Cocktail. Starring Tom Cruise as a person, Cocktail is a film that explores the world of bartenders who impregnate. Cocktail is a charmless movie that even Elizabeth Shue's side boob can't redeem. With me, as always, to discuss this movie is Dr. Anthony Lodon.

[00:02:27] Elizabeth Shue. Absolutely my first time watching this film. My expectations were very low, Steve. Uh-huh. Were they met? I didn't know where the basement was. My expectations should have been a lot lower. Um, all right. Shall we talk about Cocktail? Yes, sir. Uh, Steve.

[00:02:53] Would you rather punch a philandering bartender, an arrogant sculptor, or a rude doorman? Man. Um, it's really between the sculptor and the doorman. I'm gonna lean. Wait, wait, wait. Before you, before you, before you answer, would it help if the philandering bartender were Australian? Would that help you?

[00:03:23] I figured that was just assumed. Okay, all right. All right. Now I'll, I'll hear your answer. Yeah, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with the, with the sculptor. Um, especially considering what the sculptures were, I mean. So these are all, these are all characters. He has, he has punchable art. These are all characters that Tom Cruise actually does punch in the face over the course of the movie Cocktail.

[00:03:52] This movie is very anti-sculptures, by the way, because not only does the sculptor get punched into his own art, but I believe the doorman also collapses into a sculpture of some sort. Tom Cruise is just going through and just, he's just, he's, he's a madman against a particular art form.

[00:04:16] Now, uh, you, I feel like you are, you spend more time in bars than I do. That was like the, the most gentle shade anyone's ever thrown at me. No, I mean, you're at least weekly at the Roadhouse. True, yes. I mean, I do, I do, well, I'm a comedian, so I do perform in bars. I host trivia in a bar. So, yes.

[00:04:42] You also host a movie, you know, Big Flick Energy in a bar, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Movie commentary show. So, I mean, I'm not a stranger to a bar. It's just not a weekly, it's not a regular thing for me. So, I'm wondering, like, after watching this movie, do you feel like, man, I should spend more time in bars? Or do you think, what am I doing with my life?

[00:05:09] Um, I just know that this is a very unrealistic depiction of, uh, of bar patrons. Uh, there is no way that, especially a busy bar is going to be like, ooh, could you do a poem instead of getting me my freaking drink? Like, so, so I watched this film for the first time. Um, my, my daughter and her girlfriend were over and I said, look, you could watch this film with me, but you don't have to.

[00:05:38] I just want you to know you really, really don't have to. And they stuck through the whole movie. Wow. And, uh, they had a lot to say about this movie. And I, if it was not for them, I would have been, I would have been miserable the whole time. But, um, after the movie was over, I just had my face in my palms. It was like rubbing my head, trying to like make sense of what I had just seen.

[00:06:07] And the, the thing that kept on running through my head was if I saw someone do bottle tricks, like a lot of flipping of bottles. At what point would I think, you know what? I want to hear this guy's poetry. Like, where's the link between that? Like, it's, it's like, it's like going to like a monster truck show and like thinking, I wonder who's driving that Bigfoot.

[00:06:38] I wonder if he's great at folk music. Well, and to be clear, this is definitely going back to some of our earlier conversation about this is this is a clear poets versus sculptures. This is the age old feud. Yeah, the age old feud. Like the idea that poets think that people want to hear poetry all the time, anytime.

[00:07:05] But absolutely like want to fist fight if there's a sculpture nearby. Well, these patrons are very into this poetry. In fact, they will hear anyone. I mean, if you, anyone with a poem will enjoy the rapt attention of the patrons of what's the name of this place? The cell block. Yes. The cell block. What is happening?

[00:07:33] What is happening at the cell block? First off, let's, let's just discuss about, let's just discuss the logistics of bars, right? So like at, you know, the original bar, sure, whatever. That's fine. But when you're in a place called the cell block and there are hundreds of people. Yeah. Hundreds of people. Like maybe a thousand people on, on maybe seven levels. Right. But there's two bartenders.

[00:08:05] There are two bartenders that not only are sufficiently able to, to provide drinks for all these folks, but they can do it at a leisurely pace, right? Like they can flip things. They can fling ice at each other. They can spend time for an individual order. Everything stops to hear Tom Cruise say a poem. Yeah. Well, first they stop. No, no. I'm sorry to correct you.

[00:08:35] First, they stop to hear the yuppie poet. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Who has. Boy, they really took it to the yuppie culture, didn't they? Now that we're talking about this, I think maybe the cell block is maybe a different kind of establishment. Like maybe its primary purpose is not to get people drunk. Like, because if you were like on, you know, level seven, you might be like a teetotaler. Mm-hmm. Maybe that's a great bar experience for you.

[00:09:05] You're not tempted. There's no way you're ever going to get near the bar. Logistically, it's impossible for you to drink. And so maybe if, let's say you're in the program, you don't have to worry. You go to the cell block, go to level seven. You'll be able to hear the poetry just fine because they're going to yell it and everyone's going to quiet down for it. So you're there just for the poetry.

[00:09:31] Is this whole movie really just a retelling of Dante's Inferno? No. I want to tell you, today I wrote out a medieval parallel to this. So it's really funny that you went Dante's Inferno. Because I'll just do it now. I was going to wait until later in the podcast, but what the hell. I think that this movie is a retelling of the Troubadour Revolution.

[00:10:02] So in between the 12th and 13th centuries, the medieval world was ruled by lords and ladies. And the marriage of these lords and ladies really made the society move forward. In fact, the lives of commoners were upended if their lord or lady married someone that wasn't going to be good for their particular plot of land. But along come the troubadours.

[00:10:32] And they suggest that maybe marriage shouldn't be about landholding anymore. In other words, money. Marriage should be about wooing women with lyrics. And so what they would do is they would come to your town, get a place of honor at court. And they would probably sing a song about some great knight who does a great deed.

[00:10:59] And if they were able to woo the women enough, there might be a marriage match based not on money, based on romance. And at the end of the day, this changes the world. It changes the world as we know it. The reason why we marry for love rather than landholdings or money is because of the effectiveness of these poets. They change the world, Steve.

[00:11:27] And that is what happens in this movie. Wait, wait. So you're suggesting something happens in this movie. I'm suggesting that these men are trying to woo wealthy women. That's sort of their goal, to find a marriage match that's going to improve their social status and improve their pocketbook. But in the end, love wins. Love wins in the end. It does?

[00:11:57] Marriage for romance. Love wins in this one. This is your statement. This is what you're saying. If you're going to sum up this movie, this movie is about love winning. That's right. Money doesn't rule the world anymore, Steve, because of Tom Cruise and the ineffectual Coghlan's laws, which are cast off. Yeah, that's right. Like a king's decrees. Just throw them in the garbage.

[00:12:27] We don't need to be ruled by these laws anymore. Love is going to rule the day. And what ends up happening is a 1980s troubadour story. See, I just thought this was about dumb people having sex. Oh, that's where you missed the boat. This is the worst Tom Cruise movie, right? I've never seen Vanilla Sky. That's pretty bad.

[00:12:57] You know what? This movie was so bad, it almost made me wonder if I should have taken Vanilla Sky. Do you have a long history with this movie? Do you rewatch this movie? Do you enjoy this movie? I saw this movie in the theater. Okay. And I've seen it a few times since, for sure. Probably a couple years ago with Heather.

[00:13:24] And she made it very clear this time that she would not be watching Cocktail with me. That she had seen it for the last time, the last time she saw it. That's disappointing. Yeah. Here's the thing about Cocktail. I've seen it enough times to where I feel like I should know this movie. But I always, when I watch it, I go, I must have fallen asleep the last time. Because there's no way that my recollection of the movie is it.

[00:13:52] And then I watch it again and I'm like, oh, that is it. Like, that's it. Like, that's all it is. It's... It's... I don't want to call it a rough draft because I've turned in rough drafts and still gotten a decent grade. It's an amazing concept to have no concept. It's a real bold idea. I mean, it's...

[00:14:20] There's no way you know what the movie's going to do at any point in the movie. You know what I mean? Like, there's not a point where you're just like, okay, well, he's looking for work in a profession he has no qualification for. And we're going to spend some time on a montage of him not getting these jobs. And it all makes sense to me. Like, it all makes perfect sense. Like, why?

[00:14:45] Like, the movie appears to be trying to, like, say something about, like, the difficulty of finding work. And it's like, yeah, if you're woefully underqualified for the position you're going for, you're not going to get the job. Well, okay. But there are other jobs. No, there are certainly other jobs. But... But he only wants to do this thing. No, he has it in his mind that he's going to get rich fast. So he's in the right place for it.

[00:15:12] He's going to, you know, cross the bridge from Queens over to Manhattan. You know, these jobs are just falling off trees. Mm-hmm. You could just stumble backwards into a desk job in Manhattan and become a millionaire overnight. That's his view on these things. And it doesn't really work out. And I was impressed with the attention to detail and the realism of that journey that he goes on.

[00:15:40] When he realizes, the one thing I know is bars. And so if I'm going to get rich, it's going to be in a bar. It's going to be trying to figure out how to parlay my knowledge of the bar business into a dynastic takeover of the United States restaurant scene.

[00:16:04] So did you think, you found it believable that he was getting all these face-to-face interviews based on a resume that had nothing on it? I mean, he is Tom Cruise. I love that Christian Bale based his entire performance as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho on Tom Cruise the person. I did not know that. Yeah, he revealed that he just would watch interviews with him.

[00:16:33] And that's how he decided to portray Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. And it's fun. It's like when I found that out and I watched it, I was like, yeah, that's pretty good. So I know a little bit of trivia about this movie. This was, it was during the making of this movie that he discovers Scientology. Oh.

[00:16:55] And so we might be watching him, like, be brainwashed into a cult over the course of this film. So this is, he's mid-audit. You can kind of see the light in his eyes dim a little bit, like midway through the film. It's disturbing. It's disturbing. No, it is a disturbing film, though, for sure.

[00:17:24] Now, I, now listen, we should talk Tom Cruise. Now, I was talking with my family yesterday and I was saying that I wasn't a real big Tom Cruise fan. And my wife said, no, wait a second. There's a lot of Tom Cruise movies that you like. Which is something that you would say to me. And I said, yeah, I like six or seven Tom Cruise movies. And then I went through the filmography.

[00:17:54] He's made 48 films. And I, I was right. I like about six of these films. So, I mean, I could reel them off, but, you know, they're, they're, they're films that I think work.

[00:18:11] Like, for some reason, like, Tom Cruise either doesn't ruin the movie or it taps into something like The Color of the Money where, like, it taps into something very Tom Cruise-y about his personality and then makes something of that. You know, that it becomes kind of part of the plot that he's a young dumb guy. I don't know.

[00:18:36] Like, just to be realistic, can I say that I don't like Tom Cruise movies and simultaneously say, no, I really like about six of these things? Yeah, it's an interesting dilemma, right? I mean, part of it is, is just volume, right? I mean, if you've got this many films, like, what do you have to do to say, like, you can't, I mean, it would be hard to say, I don't like Tom Cruise, right?

[00:19:02] Because of, because you obviously have some, right? You have some, some movies that you actually enjoy quite a bit, right? I mean, that's. Like, here's the thing. I think my batting average with Tom Cruise may be about the same as my love of Scorsese films. And yet I would say I love Scorsese, but I would just be focusing on, you know, maybe five or six of these films.

[00:19:29] But I, but I'm happy to say, look, I'm not a big Tom Cruise fans, but I guess I'm not focusing on the five or six that I like. Yeah. Like, I mean, do you eat everything at a restaurant you enjoy? I guess not. Sometimes you go to a restaurant that you really like because you only really like one or two things on it. Yeah, sure. I really go to a restaurant and say, I would like the entire menu. Or even try the entire menu, right?

[00:19:57] I'd say, I'm not going to take the thing that I know I like. I'm going to try this other thing because I want to give this, this, this menu, all the credit. So what are your movies that you like of his? And you list them. So, yeah, I've, I like Jerry Maguire. I like. Which is very much. It requires Tom Cruise. Like this is Jerry Maguire is not one of his movies. You can say, despite Tom Cruise, I like this. It has. He is the reason you. He's. It's hard to imagine that film without Tom Cruise. Exactly.

[00:20:27] All right. So I like the first Mission Impossible. I like the most recent Mission Impossible. I like Color of Money quite a bit. Edge of Tomorrow, like Edge of Tomorrow. Really? Never seen it. Oh, I think you'd like it. Let's see here. What else do I like? I didn't hate him in The War of the Worlds, although that is kind of an odd film. I liked War of the Worlds. So, yeah. I mean, there are a handful of these that I.

[00:20:57] Minority Report I like. Minority Report, which my wife calls the eyeball movie. Well, you really like Magnolia. I used to. Ooh. And my opinion on Magnolia has changed of late. Really? That was like one of your top films. I really quite liked it when I was maybe early 20s. So I'm a different person now. He's in a lot of Tropic Thunder.

[00:21:27] I re-watched Tropic Thunder. Yeah. And in my mind, he just had a little cameo. No, he's in it quite a bit. He's kind of an important character in that film. And really quite enjoy the fat suit in Tropic Thunder. So that's how much I like Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder. Did you ever see Collateral? I like Collateral. Collateral. He's sort of off-brand in Collateral, too. Right. Still charismatic.

[00:21:58] He's more Coghlan in Collateral. Yeah, sure. Can we talk about Coghlan? Yeah, I do want to say that I'm not sure that Cocktail's worse than Mummy. All right, I have not seen Mummy. We'll find out. I dislike all of the Mission Impossible franchise. But I like the bookends. Like the first one and the most recent one.

[00:22:25] I don't really understand Coghlan. Yeah? Just as a concept? As a person? As a character? He's not even a character. Well, it's not even a movie, so it's fine. He's more like a Sphinx or something. Well, this is where I think maybe where I was thinking in a Dante-type world, right? Like, I just feel like, what is his... He serves... He shows up, right?

[00:22:54] Like, he disappears, it feels like. All he does is create... He's a guide for hell? Yeah. Like, he's basically ushering him in. There's a very, like... There's a sinister quality to him, right? I mean, he does nothing but make things worse, right? He introduces him to every possible, like, form of sin, it seems like, right? He ruins his life at least three times. He introduces him... First off, he says, you're not drinking heavy enough. Uh-huh.

[00:23:22] So he gets him into that realm, right? And then it's like, okay, you need to... He really feeds the greed. Like, he already had, like, a greedy kind of sense to it, but it was, like, with the notion of business. And he's like, no, no, no. You can make your money, but you can do it by manipulating people and basically swindling in a way, right? Especially with women, right? So, like, there's... Yeah. So he's bringing in this concept of lust. He's bringing in this concept of greed. He's bringing in this concept of, you know, overindulgence.

[00:23:51] And it's just... He just keeps firing at him. And then when he finally is, like, when he, you know, reaches this pinnacle of where the relationship cannot withstand it, he flees to the tropics to pursue his other... Like, I'm just going to go along maybe with the original plan, but I'll be in Jamaica. I will be free of the trappings of that world.

[00:24:17] Basically, he's escaped what he thinks is hell and he's eventually reached what he assumes is a paradise. But who shows up back in paradise to ruin everything once again? It's Coughlin. Coughlin? Coughlin is one of the most underrated movie villains, I think, of all time. Is this movie like Fight Club? Like, Coughlin is just like... He's just an extension of Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise's worst part of his personality. Right.

[00:24:47] So when Coughlin's wife tries to seduce Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise pushes her off. She's like, what are you doing? We're married. Yeah, exactly. This movie makes a lot more sense. As a fever dream? Yeah. As a fever dream, it's perfect. I'm going to play you a little something here, Stephen. Please do. I don't care how liberated this world becomes. A man will always be judged on the amount of alcohol he can consume. Always.

[00:25:14] And a woman will be impressed whether she likes it or not. A star never pukes or passes out in public. Ah! I could watch Brian Brown fall downstairs all day. He literally falls into a lower layer of hell. Exactly. And he comes back up. No worse for the wearer.

[00:25:43] See, this is all... It's all there, man. His rules are basically whatever he's doing at the time. Mm-hmm. Like, whatever comes into his mind right then, that's now a life rule. Does Coughlin kill himself? Is that what I'm trying to understand? I think he... No, I'm pretty sure he's murdered. He's murdered. I cannot... Yeah, no, I...

[00:26:12] I mean, clearly they want him to think that he was... That he committed suicide. Yeah, like he just threw his whole body onto a glass or something. First of all, committing suicide by cutting your own throat with a broken bottle? Yeah. It's not a great way to commit suicide. It's a way. And secondly, we know he's had money trouble. Sure. And he's a bet... We know that he bets. Sure. Right?

[00:26:42] He was betting on like a 1973 fight. Yeah, what was it? What was it? He's such... Somebody give him a VHS and say, hey, before you play this, you want to bet? He's such a bad bettor on sports that he's throwing money after a fight that happened 10 years ago.

[00:27:05] Well, that's the thing is I always remember like, oh yeah, I think he was in with some, maybe some gambling issues or... But I never fully... It's George Foreman and Ken Norton Jr. in a 1973 fight. Yeah. And he's betting on it. I think it's Rocky's manager, Mickey. I've seen this movie several times and it's like, and I feel like the movie is like, oh, oh yeah, sorry, we should probably kill him.

[00:27:35] And they kill him and there's not like... And that's just kind of it. You know what I mean? Like it's... Oh no, he's totally murdered. I don't know if the movie knows this. I don't know if the people who made the movie understand that there's no way that this guy committed suicide. But he's having severe money trouble. We know that he bets. We... The way that he commits suicide is a very non-traditional way to commit suicide. And probably very difficult.

[00:28:04] You know, stab yourself in the neck with a broken bottle. And then I think that there's something about her getting Tom Cruise up into the bedroom at the exact same time that Coughlin is murdered. Yeah, but doesn't he get a note? Doesn't he get the suicide note from Doug? Yeah, there's no way that guy, that drunk, wrote that suicide note. Suppose... According to everything I know, it's supposed to be a suicide.

[00:28:34] Yeah, there's no way he wrote that note. And in fact, when Cruise is reading the suicide note, you hear the voice of Coughlin, you know, reading the note as if from the grave or whatever. And at one point he kind of like, he chuckles in the letter. And my daughter said, is he laughing? Did he write in the laugh into the letter? And I'm wondering if this invented the LOL. This movie invented the LOL.

[00:29:03] Perhaps he was dictating. The first LOL in his suicide, in Coughlin's suicide letter. Oh my god, that's insane. So no, I think that the suicide letter was staged for sure. So you think there should be a sequel to where he tries to find out how Coughlin was killed? I think that they should try to make this movie. Like sometimes you look at a movie and you'd be like, well, maybe we should do a remake. No, they should try again for the first time.

[00:29:33] Yeah. Because this was not a movie. No, I mean, it's crazy. It's like, it is such an interesting misfire on so many different levels. Like just, okay, he's looking to get rich. All right, so it becomes a bartender. Oh, and then like he kind of makes, like there's a part of you that goes, oh, this movie's called Cocktail. So maybe, maybe there is something to be said for, for this idea that, that he is maybe gonna, gonna make it as this bartender thing.

[00:30:01] It's like, well, no, kinda. I mean, eventually he'll get his own place, but we're gonna skip right over to how, like to that too. Like, because he got a loan from his, from his uncle, which man, it really feels like that could have happened earlier. You know, and, uh, that, I mean, then it's, oh, he's in Jamaica. Oh, now he's like, I don't, and what am I supposed to believe about this person? Right?

[00:30:26] Like if, if I've seen him get so upset about losing and losing a relationship to his best friend that he decides just, just to chuck his best friend and leave. So obviously the movie tries to tell me that he has, he has a heart and a yearning for a real relationship. So then he ends up in Jamaica and he forges a real relationship. I mean, they ride horses. There's literal sex under a waterfall. Right. All of that.

[00:30:55] And then Coughlin comes in and just kind of sort of dares him, like sort of gives him the, the Marty McFly chicken treatment. And he's just, he can't handle it. So he, he, uh, in order to prove Coughlin wrong, he, he basically undermines this entire relationship that he has, which by the way, the movie seems to forget a lot of it. What's happening. Right. Like the movie just like she leaves, right. Elizabeth shoe leaves.

[00:31:23] He finds that out and then doesn't talk to her anymore and just decides to stay as this boy toy and, um, and moves to New York and is just, you know, kind of paraded around by his new, uh, older rich girlfriend. And then, and then that doesn't work out because he has to punch a sculptor obviously. Well, there's also the, um, the aggressive jazzercise in the morning. Yeah.

[00:31:53] I was, that was a lot of jazzercise in the morning. How do you survive one morning of that versus? Here's the thing. I mean, I don't care how much money you've got. If you're waking me up with jazzercise and, or making me drink carrot juice, I'm out. We don't do carrot juice anymore. Right. Like we're like, that was a strictly like, that's like a 1988 to like 91 thing. I think then carrot juice is like, we're done with that. And so, and then, so he decides, well, I'm going to go and find my, this object of my affection again.

[00:32:22] Cause I really, really obviously care about her. But I mean, I'd never, and so then like, there's the reveal, like she found out that he, she, I thought that was just sort of an unknown thing because he like, what was he thinking that she left for? Right. I mean, like I just assumed he knew that he had been caught and that's why she left. And that's why it took him so long to go back because, and he stayed because he just figured, well, I mean, I lost her.

[00:32:48] But then like, she reveals that she knows that he cheated on her and then he gets pissed that that's a problem. Yeah. This was a big problem for my daughter too. Um, yeah, she, she thought, you know, why do you think she was so angry if she didn't know? This guy is not able to put two and two together. He can flip a bottle pretty well. He, I don't think he understands relationships very well.

[00:33:15] And it's probably because he keeps taking advice from the devil. Yeah. A dumb guy and the devil teaming up. It, that scene vexes me every single time. Cause why, if he didn't know that she knew, then why was he just so quick to just be like, well, I'm just going to be with this other person for, for a long time.

[00:33:40] And then his reconciliation or attempt at it is basically like, you don't understand what it's like when a guy gives you a dare. Yeah. Like you don't understand if one of your buddies throws down a dare, you have no choice. You have no choice, but to, but to, uh, you know, to cheat on, I mean, he's like, I will cheat on you again. Should I get dared? Let's just try to keep me out of dare situation. To have and to hold the chairs to death to us part.

[00:34:10] Unless there's a dare. Unless there's a dare or a double dare. Um, it's, it's, and then, and so then that's like, ends up later just kind of being enough to say, look, Hey, you know, you get a dare. And then, and then it's like, well, I mean, I'll be honest. I was, I was getting spooked. And then she buys that.

[00:34:33] It's like, so she, so his explanation for why he cheated on her was because he was quote spooked by, uh, this, the seriousness of their relationship. So that would work to some degree if he didn't immediately just then forge a, what seemed like a long-term relationship in a very monogamous relationship with this other woman. So.

[00:35:00] No, I think that the only way that this makes sense is if he was a gold digger all along. Like that, that was his, it explains the first relationship that he had, uh, that didn't work out. He was in Jamaica just waiting for a rich heiress to come along. He accidentally falls in love with this other girl, which kind of sidetracks him for a bit. Coughlin gets him back on track. He's like, Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:35:29] I remembered why I was here in the first place. He finds his woman, his millionaire. And the sculpture totally, the sculptor totally derails this whole plan. If it wasn't for this. That's why there's this age old rivalry. If it wasn't for the sculptor. The poet's lives are always ruined by the sculptor.

[00:35:54] If it wasn't for the sculptor, his plan would have gone off without a hitch. He would have married a rich woman in New York city. He would have been the prince of the city. Uh, unfortunately sculptors ruin everything. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, I mean, I think the original draft, it was a magician. Oh my gosh.

[00:36:24] Oh geez. All right. Steve is there. Is that, was there a trope, a cliche device of this movie? That you enjoyed? I don't think so. I mean, I did appreciate, I did appreciate that, uh, after our extensive discussion, um, on clowning and, uh, we, we got ourselves a little, uh, Bobby McFerrin and, uh,

[00:36:54] it's sort of a sub theme of this particular season. Bobby McFerrin. Oh, what is the movie? The movie is not a movie. You see the, this is the problem. You think that you were going to sit down and watch a movie and that ruined your expectations. Right. Cause it's like, is this a romantic movie? Cause it doesn't feel it.

[00:37:22] Is it a drama? Cause it doesn't feel like a drama. These are all movie categories. See, you continue to make the same mistake. Yeah. That's my problem. Right. Is this jazz? This is Tik TOK before Tik TOK. We're going to put a bunch of unrelated, but entertaining things all together. It's just kind of loosely related to an algorithm. I love that they're in Jamaica.

[00:37:50] And for some reason, the only like reggae they can get is the kind of reggae that you would hear at a Walgreens. It's like, did you like Tom Cruise on a horse? Maybe you would like him reciting poetry. Maybe you would like naked Tom Cruise. Maybe you'd like to see Tom Cruise drunk. Maybe you would. You want to see Tom Cruise punch?

[00:38:17] Do you want to see Tom Cruise living with an older man? How about an older woman? Would you like to see him punch that old man and get slapped by that old woman? How much more interesting is this movie if like the woman that he was being the boy toy for was like 80 years old? Oh, it would be a lot of, for sure it'd be more interesting.

[00:38:43] Now, okay, when he kind of falls into the clutches of Coughlin, they're living together at one point, right? It seems like it. That's a lot of time to be spending with one guy who sounds the way he does. Oh my God. Is there a less charming person than Doug Coughlin? He almost sings his lyrics. He almost sings his lines. It's like every line is like...

[00:39:13] Watching every moment he's trying to be cool is some of the funniest stuff. I mean, the unintentional comedy when he's like kind of shaking his shoulders when he's like going to make that one drink. By the way, there's hundreds of people in this bar and they're going to both stop to make one drink and make it really poorly. I don't know how many times they threw that ice and that ice went nowhere near the glass. These waitresses hate me. They're not going to hate you as much until you give them crabs.

[00:39:44] Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, okay. So you're just a vile human. So are you saying they should give them crabs? So I can find out the depths of their hate? Well, the best part is Tom Cruise doesn't have crabs yet, but he's about to move in and share a towel. Is there a tweak that you'd make to this movie? Yeah, I want the woman to be impossibly old.

[00:40:08] Like I want him to lose his relationship with Elizabeth Shue with like Glenn Close now. Now originally, I think Charlie Sheen was slated for this. To be the older woman? No. No, to be... Gallagher, what's his name? Flanagan. Flanagan. To be...

[00:40:35] It would be great if Gallagher did have this part though. Gallagher is Coughlin. Charlie Sheen is Flanagan. Instead of poetry, it's just exploding watermelons. We're just making juice for the daiquiri. So, yeah, no, I think Charlie Sheen would have brought a little something different to this. I think that's my tweak. This movie made nine times its budget, by the way. Very popular movie.

[00:41:06] And really, sort of the peak of Tom Cruise's run in the 80s, right? Mm-hmm. Like, he puts out this and Rain Man in the same year. Yeah. That's a flex. I mean, it's like, I'm going to start opposite Dustin Hoffman. And then I'm going to do whatever this is over here, just because. And then Born on the Fourth of July comes after this.

[00:41:36] So, he's at the height of his powers. And at the height of his powers, he decides, I'm going to do this movie, Cocktail. And I think initially it was supposed to be a much darker movie, which I thought was interesting. Well, because I think the semi-autobiographical novel that it was on was kind of, yeah, it was more exploring sort of the depths, I guess. Yeah.

[00:42:02] So, Tom Cruise comes along and he wants to make it a little bit more sexy. And he's the one that introduced the bottle flipping. So, can you imagine this movie without the bottle flipping? True. I know. So, I guess, just reading something that said, Brian Brown said that the original script was one of the best screenplays he'd ever read. Well, either he really is the devil. Well, he said it was. A much different screenplay. Yeah.

[00:42:31] He said it was dark and it was like about the cult of celebrity. And then he said, but when Tom Cruise signed on, that they rewrote it. Yeah. You know, that makes sense. Because this movie makes zero sense. When he came on, by the way, mid-conversion to a cult, introduces the bottle flipping. Somehow this movie doesn't really make sense anymore. Huh.

[00:42:59] I hate, might as well face it, you're addicted to love. Oh, my God. That scene is so much. I hate that song so much. I didn't think I could hate it more. And now I hate it more. I've never particularly liked the song. But it's really funny, like, how repetitious it is. And that's part of the reason, I think, why it's a hateable song. But, man, this movie is like, that is another circle of hell, right? Like, I mean, this idea of just this relentless chorus.

[00:43:30] And then the forcing of everybody. I mean, oh, my. Even the people singing it. It was just like, it was almost a chant, right? It wasn't like they were singing along. It's torture. It's absolute torture. It is such an uncomfortable scene in a movie that is rife with uncomfortable scenes. And Tom Cruise is so into this song. I mean, he doesn't sing it well, but he sings it almost squealing.

[00:44:08] I also hate Tutti Frutti. Oh, Rudy. Hate that song a lot. I hate all of the poetry. All of it. The poetry is horrible. Oh, what war is he coming home from? I think this is a, I'm assuming Vietnam.

[00:44:35] I mean, I think that this is an intentional play on the Crusades or something, which would fit with the Troubadour theme. Like, does this, is this movie out of time and place? Is this, is this, is this the same cinematic universe is born on the 4th of July? That's what's happening. Yeah. Like if you could combine those, if he could be working behind a bar and you just, he's in the wheelchair, so you can't see him, but the bottles are flying in the air. Way more entertaining.

[00:45:04] Invention of the word flugelbinder. Boy, yeah, they really wanted that to be a thing, huh? The flugelbinder was, is what they call the plastic hole, the plastic cinch that's at the end of your shoelace. Right. Immediately, my daughter looked up that these things are called aglets. Right. So, but you know, flugelbinder, why not?

[00:45:34] Steve, is there, well, let me ask you this one, because we haven't, I haven't asked you this one for a while. Who's this movie for? Because. That's, that's all I could think about. Who's this movie for? Because. A lot of people watched it. A lot of people like this movie. So it's gotta be for a few people, right? It's only gotta be for people that want to see Tom Cruise smile. And people that hate sculptors. Like, there's just, there's the two categories. Like, the same way that you thought the only reason why I like the menu is because John Leguizamo is gonna get killed.

[00:46:04] It's the same reason that people would go see this because sculptors are getting, finally getting what's coming to them. It's, it was interesting because I'm like, this isn't romantic. This is not a romantic movie. It tries to be in the most haphazard way. But there's nothing about it. Even despite at the end when everybody's like, they're all happy that they're like married and they're all like all giddy about each other. I'm like, we've seen Elizabeth Shue like for five minutes.

[00:46:32] And, and we're supposed to buy this, this triumph. Like she's gonna leave everything behind for this guy that she spent three days with, including unprotected sex. Like, so they raw dogged in Jamaica and now she's willing to give up everything for him. And, and so I don't know how that qualifies as a romantic movie because he spends a good chunk of the movie being a really bad person.

[00:46:57] Like, so, so, and then it's like, well, is it, it's, is it a tale about the dark side of something? I mean, I don't know. Like, I mean, there's nothing. I think clearly this movie wanted to say something about the, the folly of, of pursuing money at the expense of everything else. Sure. I don't think it succeeds on any level. Why is, why is, um, Coughlin, like he loses all this money on a venture because he's really bad at it.

[00:47:27] Like, why is his wife like not keeping track of any of that? I like in his, in his litany of, of financial concepts that he doesn't understand. He includes sales tax. Right. Right. So like, how, how bad of this are you, man? So imagine, I mean, imagine you find out later that the devil is, uh, is mentally challenged. He doesn't mean to be evil.

[00:47:56] He just doesn't know things. Like I could understand not, not understanding zoning law, but how difficult it is to acquire a full liquor license. There's a finite amount of them. So therefore you've got to kind of be on a list and I, and I had no idea, but his other thing is like, he's like, well, I didn't know math. I know how to flip a bottle, create spontaneous laws.

[00:48:28] You know, he's had to kill himself with a broken bottle. I don't know that anybody's ever done that. I mean, he's kind of innovative. Maybe he faked his death. Maybe that's what happened. Dude. My favorite is how Tom Cruise needs to put his hands into the amazing amount of blood and then to look at it. This was, this was a comment in my living room as well. It's like, you can't, you look at him and see he's dead. You know, there's blood everywhere. Like the dudes bled out and he, I mean, he would have been, he would have just like touch the blood.

[00:48:57] He like, he's like finger painting with the blood. Yeah. This, this is why this feels much more Dante-ish to me. It's just a, I just want to say in blood. I want to say that I really am tickled by misinterpretations of higher learning. I quite like that. His interactions with some of his professors at the city college are some of the funniest scenes I've seen ever.

[00:49:28] At one point he just gets into like, like a third grade insult battle with his, one of his professors with. You mean Paul Benedict? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What else has he been in? You, you would recognize him from the Jeffersons. All right. I was going to say Benton. And you would also recognize him from, um, this is Spinal Tap. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I know that I've seen him in a number of things, probably the Jeffersons. That's probably the one I was thinking of.

[00:49:58] Uh, I would like to see a lot more of him. I'm, I'm disappointed that his career didn't include a lot more Tom Cruise movies. Just like he becomes like the Rob Schneider to Tom Cruise's Adam Sandler. Just once a movie, once a movie, he comes in and just exchanges. He's insults with Tom Cruise. I would love that. Is this movie better, worse, or on power with a Ron Howard movie? This is like a, it's a Howard minus, I'm gonna say seven. Okay.

[00:50:28] I'm about at Howard minus 20. This is the, this is the absolute worst version of a Ron Howard film. Yeah. I would agree. Oh, by the way, Paul Benedict, uh, he's also the, uh, guy that they mistake for Guffman in Waiting for Guffman. Ah, yes, of course. That's right. That's right. Oh, that, that's fantastic. Um. Which, which could have been the Christopher Guest movie instead of Death Wish, by the way.

[00:50:58] Sure. Yeah. Then we wouldn't have got to experience Death Wish together. Yeah. Which we found out later was the, uh, origin of, uh, Hero at Large. Um. Um. These are horrible bartenders, right? Oh, yeah. Real bad. I mean. Real bad. They're supposed to be the best, some of the best bartenders. Yeah. Some, they're being recruited, right? They're so good.

[00:51:27] And it's almost like in order to become, because they don't serve, you know, he's horrible at the beginning. He's not really serving drinks. At the end, he's just spilling, like, expensive liquor all over the place. Right. And takes long pauses for poetry. So. He becomes worse later, and that's what makes him better. He becomes the best by becoming the worst. Mm-hmm. Okay. I think, I think we now have a tagline for our podcast.

[00:51:59] Steve, is there a half the battle one to grow on moment in this film? Um. Yeah. I mean, I guess. It feels, uh. There's like, it feels like there's two things. One is, um. Uh. Wear a condom. Okay. All right. And the second one is, uh. Sculptors beware. I was going to say, listen to your Uncle Pat. Don't give away drinks for free.

[00:52:29] Pat's got some really good advice. And he should be listening to Uncle Pat more. And to Coglin less. Did we, did we not, did we not give the first yuppie poet enough time here? I think he got fun.

[00:54:09] Hey everyone, David here. The wait is over. Severance is back. The Lorehounds are teaming up with Properly Howard to bring you comprehensive coverage of season two. Join John, Anthony, Steve, and myself each week as we dive into this amazing show. Here's what you need to know. We've set up a dedicated feed for our Severance coverage. To join us, just search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast player.

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