The Rewatchables - ‘Cocktail’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan step behind the bar to rewatch the 1988 hit ‘Cocktail,’ starring Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown, and Elizabeth Shue. It’s Coughlin’s law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This entire episode is brought to you by Captain Morgan Sliced Apple. I have wanted to do a rewatchable's for cocktail, the greatest bad movie of all time for a long time. This was the perfect time to do it. There's something about the sound of a shaker that takes me back to that island bar with the movie's theme song playing in the background. This episode was finally made possible by Captain Morgan, who wanted to let you know that they have a brand new spice room on the shelves.

Captain Morgan sliced apple. Enjoyed neat on the rock. or with a squeeze of fresh lemon, Captain Morgan's sliced apple is the perfect drink for the everyday adventure, especially when our island vacations are a bit postponed at the moment. Coming up, guys, everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end.

Except for this podcast, because it's going to be a delight. Cocktails coming up. Underneath the mango tree, me honey and me can't. Anybody drink? My rum specialties perhaps. I'm not like, oh man, either. I guess you are an original. See, the name of the game is woman.

Buttons were popping, skirts were rising. You can see the color of their panties. You know you've got tough. Stick with me, son. I'll make you a star. This is the Upper East Side. The Saloon, capital of the world. Big time. You're ready for the big time young Mr. Smagan. I think I can handle it.

All right, Sean Fantasy is here. Chris Ryan is here. we are about to tackle a very rewatchable movie that also doubles as the greatest bad movie of all time. And that is a title I put a lot of thought into. I take very seriously. I realize somewhere in the late 90s, early 2000s range that no bad movie had ever brought me more joy and more entertainment value than this one. There's some other bad, enjoyably bad, great movies like Roadhouse. But like a movie like Roadhouse actually is also kind of a good movie. It's got bad elements. but fundamentally is a good movie.

This is a bad movie that was poorly reviewed. Tom Cruise kind of disowned it four years later, and it's had a 32-year run and counting on cable and streaming services. It's my favorite Tom Cruise movie. I don't know what that says. It's literally my number one favorite top of course movie. And it's probably the go-to bartending movie, too. Sean Fantasy, I'll ask you first.

Is this the greatest bad movie ever? Can I give you my top five? Yeah. Okay. Number five, good, bad movie, over the top. The incredible Sylvester Salone arm wrestling movie, which I love, I love to, I rewatch that movie as much as any movie in the 1980s when I was a kid. It was always on WPIX. Fantastic movie. You know why? Because child a divorce. That's right. It's like a stealth divorce movie. That's right. Number four, I'm going Congo, which is just an extraordinary adaptation of the Michael. Crite novel. Love that movie. Incredible Laura Linney performance. Dylan Walsh, your boy. Number three, showgirls, which is Chris's number one. I don't want to spoil that for everybody. But showgirl is an incredible rewatch.

Number two, what is number two? Number two, I'm going to go Anaconda, which is a movie that I love watching from the 90s. And then number one has to be cocktail. So here's the thing. Here's why I think at least some of those movies are ineligible. I think with Showgirls, they knew the movie wasn't good as they were making it. I think with Anaconda, there was a slight wink to the audience with that movie. Like when the Anaconda eats John Voight and that whole thing, they kind of knew.

I think Snakes in the plane is the ultimate, Snakes on a plane is the ultimate example of we're intentionally making a bad movie. One of the great things about cocktail, Chris, first of all, there's 40 versions of the script. It's based on somebody's book. They're really trying to say something about 80s, wealth, And then it just turns into dudes flipping bottles. And it made a shitload of money is the other thing we should say.

Chris, what's your take? You mentioned Roadhouse earlier, and I don't know what it says about Kelly Lynch that she finds herself in both Roadhouse and cocktail. But she just talked about how, like, this movie was this probing portrait of 80s excess and greed and, like, what the Reagan days were doing to people. And that's not what's in this movie. I mean, there's, like, a lot of stuff in the beginning. of it where he's got these quick self-help entrepreneur books.

But this is about guys flipping shakers. Yeah. And the best scenes in this movie are when him and Coglin are just cooking together. It's like when you see an NBA All-Star game and two guys just clicked, you're like, oh, this is cool. It really could have been the whole movie. It didn't even have to have them have a fight. I just could have been at them with TGA Fridays every night for an hour.

But crucially, and I think what makes this a good, bad movie is that, there's very little bartending in the second half of this film. It's like a lot of self-discovery. Yeah, and I don't really know how to describe what happens in the last, I don't know, 18 minutes or so of this movie, but they were just like, hey, we got to wrap it up. Our shooting schedule is almost done. Hey, what if he just goes into the apartment and fights everybody and pulls her out

and then she's pregnant? We good with that? Good. Okay, let's go. It's completely head spinning. You know, watching Brian Brown. and cruise together, it reminds me of a young CR and Andy Greenwald

on the Hollywood Perspectus pod, you know? Just crank and takes. Greenwald's law. There's tons of them. I always, I got to follow them. I was thinking that too. All right, so why is this the greatest bad movie of all time?

Well, first of all, as you guys know, I don't know if, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the rewatchables, but I love Tom Cruise. He's great. I love Tom Cruise movies.

We've done Tom Cruise movies. on the rewatchables. We've done Jerry McGuire. We did Top Gun. We did at least one other one, right? We've done collateral. Collateral? We did Mission Impossible. Mission impossible. At least one of them. We did the firm.

My wheelhouse for Tom Cruise, my sweet spot, my favorite Tom Cruise is when he completely goes overboard. And I really think in 1988, which is when this movie was released, when he has one of the most fascinating IMDB years of all time.

This was the movie where he's still not self-aware at all. He throws himself into this movie completely and totally. He's, I mean, this is going to be

the first time the star of a movie wins the Mark Ruffalo Vincent Hanno Award for overacting. I don't know if that's ever happened. The most important

guy of the movie also is the most overacting. But it brings all the Tom Cruise things that I love where you have, he's just like

sheer, he's like, you know what, what's going to carry this movie is my sheer force of personality. Oh, I have to learn how to do bartending things. I'm going to become the best bartender there ever was. I'm going to flip bottles. I'm going to make drinks. There's going to be no more realistic bartender than me. You need me to do poetry in front of a large group. I'm going to study different poetry, open mic night stuff, and I'm going to deliver the best version of the barman poet. He just goes all in. And other than maybe Jerry McGuire, I don't know if there's another Tom Cruise performance like there. Is there, Chris?

Well, the thing that I love about this era of Cruz, if we're being real each other with Cocktail Rain Man, Fourth of July, color of money even, is that he's still kind of a real person? He has not completely like elevated to the highest

peaks of superstardom where like he's completely just like an icon and he's unknowable and he's just a megastar. Like he is obviously trying to be a human being in these movies. And he's obviously trying to probe a little bit of his own vulnerabilities

through these roles. He's one of those people, though, who throughout his career is really only as good as the script. You know, like he has so much sheer force of charisma, but if the script isn't good, it's very easy to say that Tom Cruise movie sucked. And that's unusual.

And you can, it's so acute at this time because he's basically making Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July between Cocktail. Those are two really good movies, one of which I think is, I think Born on the Fourth of July is his best performance ever.

And those are, you know, very carefully, beautifully made movies. And as you said, Cocktail, it feels like they shot for 40 days and then realized they had three days left, and they got to just wrap it up real quick. And you can feel like his mania in the movie,

his like wide-eyed intensity and weirdness and that smile that looks like it's going to crack his face open. Like, if the script isn't good, that comes off as like almost unnerving. There's something almost unnerving about him in this movie. He's so shiny and so over the top that it seems like that's maybe the commentary that Kelly Lynch was getting at, that like this can kind of drive you crazy if you are too ambitious. Well, you think about like what this Flanagan character is doing.

You know, he, like, from the second he's like flagging down the bus to get to New York and reading his like, how to make your idea into a million dollar business book. And, and arriving in New York, he's just, he doesn't. really have like a personality. He's just driven by like ambition and this will to like succeed, which I think, I think sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly could be applied to Tom Cruise, the actor as well. Is this sort of like, he hits something and he's just like, well, I'll learn how to fly a helicopter then. And then it kind of doesn't matter like what kind of story he's telling because you're just like, that guy just fucking hung on the bottom of a plane. Like I'm just impressed. I don't

even know if I have an emotional reaction to this. I don't know if I'm intellectually engaged with it. I'm just impressed. Sean called it unnerving. I call it wonderful. I don't know. I don't know what world you live in. We always do NBA analogies here. What he does in this movie,

I once compared to Larry Bird in the 1987 playoffs when everyone on the Celtics got hurt. And it's just like, how is this team still competing? I can't think of another actor in our lifetime who could have made this movie, this exact movie with this script. even like a C-minus.

Like, name me anybody. Name me anyone from any generation who's like, all right, this is a ridiculous movie. It makes no sense at all. But the charisma of this guy is going to completely put this movie on the back and carry it for better and worse. I can't think of anybody else.

Chris, how would Pacino have done? Well, Pacino has his version of it. It's cruising. Yeah, right. Same thing where it's like, I'm putting it on my back. I wrote this. So Chris mentioned how. how he's crazy in this movie.

I wrote this a while ago on page two. Quote, one of the prevailing themes in 2005 was that Tom Cruise turned into an insane person. That was here he jumped on Oprah's couch, all that stuff. But when you watch Cocktail again, a movie that was released in 1988, by the way, it becomes abundantly clear

that Cruz was bonkers way back then. Just watch the Addicted for Love bottle flipping scene again. It's absolutely no different than him doing somersaults on Oprah's sofa. In fact, his performance on Oprah was lifted right out of this movie. They're the same guy.

Is it possible, Sean, that we never realized in 1988 that this was just who Tom Cruise was? It took us another 17 years to figure it out. I think he has moments throughout all of his movies where he shows us this. Yeah. You know, in a few good men, when he gives the galactically stupid rant,

when he's kind of fake drunk, You're like, what the hell happened, Tom Cruise? Is he okay? You know, in the meltdown scene, in Help Me Help You and Jerry McGuire, he's losing his mind. He kind of just teeters on the edge. And frankly, he's amazing at that. You know, like that's one of his superpowers. I think whether that makes him crazy or not, I think is debatable.

I just think he is an actor who kind of knows how to go to the edge in an entertaining way. That's how I feel about CR with podcasts. Same thing. He knows how to go to the edge. And it's dangerous something. times, but you just got to write it out. That's right, Bill. I am dangerous.

Well, and that's, the great thing about Cruz is the unintentional comedy factor with him was always, it was him Slice Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, these guys from that era. And I think that became harder and harder to replicate once we had the internet and once everybody became so much more self-aware. We don't, it's so much

harder to find people who don't know why they're doing something that's funny. You know, like, if this movie came out now, it would be so much more self-aware. And so they would have just strategized better the whole thing. And that's one of the great things about some of these 80s movies. They had no idea. And the fascinating thing about cocktail is that they kind of backed into all the bottle flipping, right? Like, it was not, like, this was not supposed to be the fast and furious of bartending.

This is supposed to be a character study. about these kind of guys who are workers or hustlers, and which one are you, and looking for your angel and trying to make it big in the big city. And then you get Tom Cruise. And I think the moment that this movie flips is when they're in Flanagan's apartment and Coglin's writing cocktails and dreams,

he's kind of doing his sketch. And they do a close-up of Tom Cruise as he steps in it. He's like, let's really do this together. Right. And you're like, oh, okay. Like, definitely let's do this together, but also, like, would you like me to give you all of my belongings? Should I liquidate, like, my life savings for you? Like, what would you like me to do, Tom Cruise? Because your magnetism is coming through the screen and grabbing all of the people

watching this by the neck. That seems great. He's, like, making a pizza slice. That's fascinating. He's trying to convince Coglin. They're negotiating about 50-50, 60, 40, 70-30, and Cruz is just out of his mind. He's on like DefCon 1 in that scene. And I just, there's never been anybody like him that's been able to straddle all of these different worlds in the same performance. Chris, you mentioned that Kelly Lynch line about how this was a dark examination of 80s excess. Yeah. Brian Brown said something really interesting connected to Cruz around this. He said that the original script that Haywood Gould wrote was one of the best scripts he had ever read in his life.

And that it was a fascinating movie and a very different movie than the one that they made. but when Cruz came on board. He said it was very dark about the cult of celebrity and everything about it. Right. And because Cruz came on, they had to change the movie

because Cruz had an image that had to be supported in a way and it made the movie probably a little bit safer. And that's also a complexity with Cruz, right? At that time, it was very important

for him to be sexy and heroic and friendly and approachable and even when he's pushing the limits of his kind of wide-eyed mania that he has, he still has to be the good guy.

You know, you have to be with him. And there are times in this movie when you're like, what a piece of shit this guy is. It's incredible, the awful stuff he does to people. Flanagan's not a good guy, right? Like, I mean, we're going to get into this, but like, I don't think Brian,

Brian might be among the biggest dirtbags Cruz has ever played. Yeah, I love it. Brian Brown said the studio, the studio made the changes to protect the star and it became a much lighter movie because of it. He said this recently, by the way. It seemed like he was still kind of annoyed about it.

And I'm sure he's more annoyed that the movie became so successful and is on all the time. And he's probably like, that fucking movie? Really? Like, FX is just completely disappeared. Also, if you're Brian Brown, like, you can't go into a fucking bar. Like, you're like... So the film was based on Haywood Gold's semi-autobiographical 1984 novel. He'd worked as a bartender for like over 12 years to...

support his writing career, and made a lot of interesting people be on the bar. He said, very rarely was that someone who started out wanted to be a bartender. They had all ambitions, some smoldering, some completely forgotten or suppressed, this is quote. Which is true. And as somebody who did the role in the mid-90s, you do look up one day in like nine months has passed for 12 months. And you're like, oh, shit, is this kind of just going to be who I am? and you would meet, you know, there'd be waiters or whoever, and they would be like 39. And it'd be like, I'm a career waiter. This is what I'm going to do.

I don't, but there were always like these ambitions and these dreams flowing around. Somebody wanted to be an actor. Somebody wanted to start his own sneaker store. But then two years passed and they're in the same spot. That's a really interesting premise. Somebody wanted to start his own podcasting company, you know? Somebody wanted to start his own column. Right.

Whatever. It's an interesting theme for a movie. I still think it's an interesting theme for a movie. I don't feel like anybody has really cracked the service industry scene in the right way. And we've seen like, I think party down on stars did a nice job of dipping into a lot of it. I thought that was probably the closest. But for the most part, this whole world where people are looking at each other and like, fuck, I'm 29. I'm still doing this.

And it taps into this too in this movie because we don't know how long is in Jamaica. I have it coming in later. He goes to Jamaica. Is he there three years? I don't know. I think he's there for two or three years. But yeah. Yeah.

So it's like all, you know, this is who he is. He's going to be a bartender now. So that part's interesting. And then, you know, let's talk about what this said about, this movie comes out in 88, post Wall Street. We're in that whole, everybody trying to be rich. It's a super Republican wealth era. It's like a real era.

And it starts trickling in all these different movies, right? You see, like, Secret of My Success with Michael J. Fox. this movie. Wealth is a much more important theme to this movie than I think people realize. It's not just a bartending movie. It's like from the first minute, he's somebody who wants to strike a big. He's like, how do I become rich? How do I become a millionaire? He's got success books under the bar, all that stuff. Why was that such a theme in the 80s? And how ridiculous would it seem now when nobody, you know, young people don't talk like that. They care about all these different things. Wealth is not like the main motivator. I think the huge pivot that happened in the 80s, that's different. I mean, we can't do a whole, like, American history podcast, but I think the thing that comes up in the 80s the most is the idea that you can accumulate wealth really quickly is that there is like a fast lane to getting rich, whereas up until maybe that point, there was more of this belief that, you know, you work hard and maybe your

kids will have a better life than you did. You know, like that was sort of the idea of progression in this country. But the 80s come along and it's like, if you have this and you catch the right breaks and take advantage of the right opportunities and meet the right people and press your luck, you could become super filthy rich and have a boat and everything else that you see on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Sean, not much different than Wall Street, right? If you really look at this movie versus Wall Street, it's not like Bud Fox and Brian Flanagan are not that dissimilar. They're not, although Bud Fox is trying to operate within a very

defined scheme. And Brian Flanagan can't figure out how to how to find his, how to find his cocktails and dreams. You know, he can't really figure out. And also, one of the complexities of his pursuit is opening a bar is a difficult business. That's a hard way to make money. And it's actually the opposite of what he's trying to do. It's, that's like a 25 year gamble where you've got to work crazy hours and you've got to hire people who are untrustworthy. And it's so different from the Michael milkin, like, trying to get rich quick stuff that Chris is talking about. And, you know, all that stuff is born out of, um, two terms of Reagan and shining city on a hill and the American dream, like the belief in the idea of being able to make something of yourself. If you're a lower

middle class kid from the upper east side of New York and you just serve the term in the army, you deserve a chance to make a million dollars in a short period of time. And like, that's just not the, the consciousness, the culture right now around money in America, I don't think. The really good companion movie for Cocktail is Color of Money, because it's very similar set up, like an older sort of mentor, bringing along a younger protege. And a lot of, there's money involved. Obviously, like, the idea of winning is very much at the heart of both movies in some ways. But in Color of Money, he's playing pool. He's hustling pool. And what's he making? A couple hundred bucks, if he's lucky. And the entire thing is about how, like, Vincent, the

character in Color of Money, keeps going to towns and ruining the town. because he's too good so they can't win more money. And those margins are so much smaller. Brian's not interested in making a couple hundred bucks and tips. He's interested in getting $75,000 and having Bonnie basically set him up for life immediately. And he'll sell out to do that. This is the deepest conversation anyone's ever had about Cocktown. I'm really proud of all of us.

Sean, we're 28 minutes in on this podcast now, thereabouts. When does Chris break out his first Coglin impression do you think? Like is it in the next 15 minutes? Can we tell? I know he's been working on it. I know he was talking to his wife last thing. Like, hey, man, can I just, can you hear my Coglin impersonation? Last night, I was doing, what if Coglin had been coaching the Sixers as like Brett Brown?

Because you know, Brett Brown has that like mysterious accent. He's like, Coglin's law. Ben Simmons always shoots a three. You know what I? Yeah, it's bad as successful of a lot. All right, so we mentioned Kelly Lynch said how, by the way, she was saying how they re-edited it and completely lost my character's backstory. Her low self-esteem, who her father was, why she was this person that she was. But it was obviously a really successful movie, if not as good as it could have been.

I really can't imagine Kelly Lynch's character had much of a backstory other than here's her in a thonged bikini. Presumably, she must have a backstory because otherwise it makes no sense. Yeah. Like there must have been some idea of who she was because all of a sudden it's like Coglin's like, check out my super hot rich wife. I live on a boat. We opened a club.

It's just completely. It's so weird. Why is she with this guy? Well, so she wasn't happy with the movie. Brian Brown, who we'll get into later. I have a lot of Coglin thoughts. Not totally happy with the movie. Cruise in 1992 admitted that the film was,

quote, not a crowning jewel. end quote, in his career. Frankly, hurtful. Hurtful that he said that, out of all the things Tom Cruise has said and done, I think that's probably the one that he needs to readdress and maybe in 2020 admit that this was a crowning jewel of his career. This movie was savage by critics.

It won the Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture, which made history because no actor in the history of movies had ever been the star of the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture and been in an Oscar nominated movie in the same year, which he was with Rain Man. Cruz pumps out Rain Man and cocktail in the same year. Rain Man is my second favorite cruise performance. That and Jerry McGuire third.

I think he's awesome in Rain Man. He is, and he's obviously overlooked because Hoffman won for that performance. But that's an interesting top three. Do you know your top three? I just love Cruz. I think I'm probably more early 90s, So it would be some combination of firm and a few good men.

And then maybe color of money would be in there as like an early one. I have a few good men fourth. Okay. Sean, what about you? I like, for me, Cruz is like, let the chef cook. I like when the director's like, yeah, one more take, Tom, dial it up, one more notch. Let's do it again. And he just loses his mind.

That's my sweet spot for Cruz. I agree. I usually just like him doing that in a slightly more serious movie. So, like, I prefer it in Born on the Fourth of July, in Magnolia, in a few good men. I feel like those are the, you know, the movie line I've probably quoted to Chris more than any line in the history of movies is, and when it went bad, you cut these guys loose. That's my favorite, Cruz. You had Markinson, Dr. LaLogbook. I think Cruz, it's funny, we're heading toward 150 rewatchables with him.

We forgot that we did Magnolia. too. I think he's the most rewatchable. When we do the rewatchies, Chris, for the 200th. I think he's the odds on favor for Best Actor. I think he's made the most rewatchable movies. I don't know what it is about him. This is all right. This is why collateral is the most rewatchable movie of the rewatchables because it's cruising man. True. It's when it's when the beams are crossed in the best possible way. 20 million dollar budget, probably 16 of it went to cruise, it made $170 million. Despite the reviews, it was a massive hit. I saw this in the movie theater with my friend Jim Grady in New York City. We were staying at his mom's apartment,

and it was a movie we saw before we went out. And we were both kind of like, yeah, that was good. Liked it. Good times. Enjoyed it. Everything we thought it was going to be. We had no high expectations. It was just like, will this entertain? us for 100 minutes, and it did. When you were a fan of his in the 80s, did you have an awareness of, like, cocktail is considered not good, and Rain Man is considered a great piece of art?

Were you that kind of movie watcher? No, we knew Rain Man was better than Cocktail. We were still, like, our favorite movie was Rocky Three. Like, we just, we would break it down over and over again, and we knew that wasn't a great movie either. But there was also, like, you know, by 1988, we had a real history with Cruz, because Cruz had gone from outsiders,

Risky Business, which was an iconic 80s movie and has lost a little steam. Yeah. And you just kind of had Cruz season tickets at that point. So then when it took off with Top Gunn and, you know,

and then he's going right to this Rain Man cocktail combo. It's like, we're in. What do you make it next Tom Cruise? It was, and there's been very few actors like that, I think, that A plus stars

who were season ticket guys, you know? And I think Will Smith was able to do it too. To this day, to this day. I mean, literally 40 years of I'll watch any movie he's in. Yeah. And it's rare to get somebody that famous who's that prolific at the moment. Usually, like, when people achieve a certain level of fame,

it's like, and now I'm going to take two years to sort of think about my next role. And it's like, no, Tom Cruise was like going, he was doubling up every year. He didn't really do that until the whole eyes wide shut era. He's going full tilt through Jerry McGuire in 96 until he meets Kubrick. And Kubrick fucks him up in a whole bunch of different ways. but $20 million budget, $170 million. Our guy Raj, Roger Ebert, he weighed in. I mean, it's not surprising.

Two stars. I thought that was good. I thought he might go one and a half. Two stars. He wrote, the more you think about what really happens in cocktail, the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is. I mean, you know, he's right. As always, words hurt with Raj.

We're going to do the most rewatchable scene in one second. But first, let's take a break because the most rewatchable scene is brought to us by Captain Morgan. Little wrinkle for us in this podcast. Sean, Chris and myself are all lucky enough to have a delicious Captain Morgan dackery in our hands that we all made. I think I put too much lime in mine. Mine is like a different color than yours. As you know, the dacquerie is one of the drinks and choice in the movie cocktail. Nothing like talking about the most rewatchable scene in this movie with a drink like this in your hands and with your crew.

Sean or Chris, are you a more daquery like this or a frozen daquiry guys? What's your preference? I'm frozen daquery. I'm more like this. I prefer this. This feels classier. I think when I'm outdoors, if I was at the bar with Jimmy Eckhouse in Jamaica, me and Jimmy Eckhouse are hanging with Cruz, Flanagan's bartain.

I would go frozen daugree. But the daquery, one of those things, never disappoints. Oh, never. Nobody's like, oh, shit. Somebody made me a dacry. I'm not really enjoying it. The dacry is just, you win every time. Okay.

Most rewatchable scene, here we go. So I'm lumping all these together. We have the scene where Coglins giving Flanagan tips. Unless, Sean, are you partial to Uncle Pat giving Flanagan advice before he starts bartending? Because I know you probably had an Uncle Pat in your life. Yes. Uncle Pat is a very familiar figure. And you can see, I think, Uncle Pat in another rewatchables movie in 25th hour, I feel like Monty's father is kind of an Uncle Pat, right? Runs a bar in New York. You know, kind of a cheap bastard. Is Uncle Pat also in the fugitive? Yeah, I have some Uncle Pat stuff coming later. So you might want to put that in because he has Uncle Pat's in his life. Well, I just want to say about Uncle Pat. Like, why is Uncle Pat? Why is Uncle Pat? so cheap. Like, how can that be... That's the opposite of how you run a bar

business. You actually have to... Yeah, but he's got six people in his bar. Like, he... That's why. I think that's why. All right. Most Rewatchable scene. Coglin giving tips to Cruz. I'm looking. Looking for something better.

Coglin's law. Anything else is always something better. Coglin's law? Douglas Coglin. Logging. flourished in the last part of the 20th century propounded a set of laws

that the world generally ignored to its detriment. Followed by Flanagan's first good bartending night where it's really starting to take off he's clicking with the waitresses and then back to more Coglin tips. That's when the movie starts cooking. So that's the one where they do the weird thing

with the hands and the waitressers are like what does it mean? And he was just like, I don't know. And director Roger Donaldson, I think that's the point of the movie We were like, hey, Tom, I think the stuff we have is good, but I just don't feel like you're dialed it up enough yet. Is there another level you can go to? And Cruz is like, totally, I'm ready, and does it.

So would you guys have been happy with this movie if it was just set at Fridays? If it was just the entire movie was basically like their rise and fall within the Friday's ecosystem? Because I like found that whole part of this movie delightful. From like the shots of it during the daytime. to the night shifts to him, like, bringing out his tube socks, you know, it's like, I thought that was the best part. It's my favorite part, but,

I mean, cocktail in full is not a movie that makes sense now. So if you just had a movie with guys flipping bottles in TGI Fridays, it would have been more fun, but I don't think that's a movie. I think that's a good YouTube video. Yeah, right.

One of the things I really respected about the TGI Friday's call is that's actually like a realistic bar to be in a New York City movie. Like, I think when it's in movies, it's always these crazy bars that, you know, you would never see. Like the bars like Stefan would talk about an S&L.

That's what cell block is. Yeah. Right, right. But like, or like these crazy versions of Foley's that are just like the perfect, awesome giant bar. It's never just like, hey, where do you go to imbibe? Oh, I go to the TGI Fridays that's a half block for my house.

And it was, that part was really realistic to me. It says a lot about Coglin, too, and about where Coglin is in his life, the fact that he's bartending at a TGI Fridays and not at a place like Cell Block. He's, you know, he's kind of a loser. And when he meets him, he doesn't realize because he's got these great aphorisms and this advice and this swagger. But, you know, Coglin is not. He's not a life winner.

There's a chance he's maybe coming off serving some time. Coglin? Trying to regroup. Yeah, there's a chance there was like a money laundering scheme or. some sort of something he's trying to get back on his seat. Coglin's Law sounds like a top five prison movie. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine Coglin just rolling around different cellbox being like,

Coglin's Law, never trade cigarettes for... Right. Next most rewatchable scene. It's a short one, but cruise bartending with addicted to love cranking is probably one of the five most 80s moments captured in a film. Everything about it. It's perfect 80s. I have to ask my possibly unanswerable question right now.

Okay. Was that the first time Tom Cruise had heard addicted to love? I think it was the first day he had heard it. I think they played it for him a few times and he thought about. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. I get it. This is great.

This is great music. Can you imagine Robert Palmer's reaction to that scene thinking like, here's this nice little pop song I made and this guy's losing his mind behind a bar? singing addicted to love? It honestly seems like it might be the first time Tom Cruise has heard music. Because it looks like he's almost cheering for the music. Like he's watching a game.

He's like, yeah. A chorus. This is a recurring theme of Tom Cruise and the rewatchables when he's doing something that it's obviously something he's never done before. Like when he drinks a bottle of beer and he tilts it four inches too far toward his head and you always wonder,

or when he plays basketball later in this movie, it's like, has Tom Cruise ever held a basketball? basketball. Probably not, probably, but he's such a good athlete. He probably figures it out. I really want to talk about the basketball scene. Yeah, it's coming up. Next one, we'll call it, it's a late night for Cruz and Coglin. They fall down. Coglin ends up falling down the steps. And he's just ripping off Coglin laws like he's Dame Lillard hitting threes in a must-wing game. It's like Coglin laws are just streaming out of them. They're doing the hippie, hippie shakes. Coglin tends to write the laws around his behavior.

It's exactly right. Very narcissistic laws. That whole scene is really funny and really enjoyable. And then right after, they get hired to work at the cell block and so many questions. Rembrandt and I, we did a Rembrandt explains on Grantland. He had never seen this movie. And I just showed him the scene of this movie and he reacted to it in real time. It's impossible to explain what's going on in this movie.

It's, first of all, the greatest bar, I think anyone's, it's the greatest set for a bar anyone's ever built. It's a giant three-story prison cell. It's almost like they built the set of Oz just for this one scene. Chris, do you remember Terminal 5 in New York? I do. You think Cell Block kind of resembles Terminal 5? It reminds me of Terminal 5 is a concert venue in New York that has these kind of like multi-levels

and it kind of seems like a prison. And that's what it reminds me of most. Flanagan, first of all, some other dude climbs up the stairs. Nobody at the bar is drinking, having conversations. They're all just hanging on whoever the next weird poem's going to be. This guy does a poem. And then somebody's like, Flanagan, you should, let's hear one from you. And he does his whole, I am the world's last barman poet speech,

which I guess Craig's just going to have to play the clip. The orgasm. The death spasm. The Singapore sling the dingaling. Dingling. America, you're just devoted to every flavor I've got. But if you want to get loaded, why don't you just order? It ends with bars open.

Oh, so it wasn't open before where nobody's drinking or doing anything as we do all these things. And then Gina Gershant comes up, does the, I'd like to try the orgasm, please. and then Coglin and Flanagan make a drink to all shook up. An unassailable five minutes, Chris Ryan. The cell block scene is hysterical. It is unbelievable. Everything you want. I get mad when I go to bars and guys are like, it's trivia night.

I'm just like, what? Are you kidding me? Like, I came here to not do this. This is a bar where almost every five seconds, there's some new piece of performance that seems to emerge out of the crowd. The yuppie poet thing is so. weird. Like if that was in a David Lynch movie, I'd be like, yeah, it makes sense. I have two very specific wrestling-related thoughts about cocktail. One of them is related to the Yuppie

poet. And that's, I think he invents Steve Austin's whole gimmick when he's like, and that's the bottom line. At the end of the poem, I was like, did Stone Cold hear this, like, watch cocktail? See, I always thought Stone Cold was more like local. car dealership magnate where it's just like, come on down to the house of tires, you can't roll over me. Barman Poet could have been a wrestler. I don't know why they didn't think of that. Maybe there's still time.

And Tony, what was the other wrestling thing, Sean? The other one is when Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Shoe later in the movie in Jamaica are in the ocean, Tom Cruise keeps giving Elizabeth Shoe the rock bottom and it's the weirdest thing ever. It's like, why does he keep throwing her into the water? water. What's going on here? Well, this goes back to Tom Cruise, never having done things in his life before. Because his two romantic interactions,

one is giving Elizabeth shoe the rock bottom. And then the other one, he's kind of like tickle attacking Gina Gershaw when they're in the bed and it's like feathers are growing everywhere. It's like, what is this? This is how you hook up. Right. All right.

So we got that scene. Now, next rewatchable scene, we're in Jamaica. Elizabeth Shoe's at the bar. She's making spat in those Elizabeth shoe, Isaac Cruz, it's on. And then Coglin shows up. Eckhouse is hovering.

Eckhouse is in the vicinity. At house is like, give me the ball coach. Let me shoot a three. I'm going to be on 902 and O in about eight months. Like, you, no lines for Eckhouse. But Coglin shows up. And it's just magic for about four minutes, culminating at him.

betting Flanagan that there's a success manual somewhere in the bar and Cruz does the hall pops it up. Everything about that scene's great. Then it's revealed he married a rich girl and, you know, because Coglin's such a great character. You're like, oh man, this guy's out of the movie and then he pops back in and say, oh, there he is. Coglin. I have a couple of things I want to talk about in Jamaica Bar, but go ahead, Sean. All right, yeah, we'll save it. Did Coglin go seek out where Flanagan was for his honeymoon? I still don't understand that. I had that in unanswerable questions.

Did he know where Flanagan was? There's no internet back then. How would he know? Maybe he would just guess that because Flanagan had already talked about going to Jamaica. That awesome poster, you know? Yeah, true. I forgot about that.

I should have put that in a rewatchable scene, by the way, him convincing them to open a bar. That scene is really super enjoyable. Did you guys notice what a total bummer the bar in Jamaica is. All the people around the bar are like, Hey, Brian. Hey.

Yeah, that is weird. Everybody seems super lonely there. Usually it's like people with a sunburn like going ready to fuck in their hotel room. And Brian's like, I've been like, it's like 1230 in the afternoon and this guy's on like his third Daccarry or whatever. It's really weird.

That vibe is strange. My favorite, favorite thing though is when Coggan's like, there's my wife. And then the shot of Kelly, Lynch is clearly in a completely other part of the planet. Like, they're at a bar set somewhere. And he's like, it's my wife. And Kelly Lynch is like waving in the sunset in Maui and then comes like walking up and is on the Jamaica set. It's so, it's so funny. We might have to make Chris do the second half of the podcast just talking as Coglin. I think he wants it. I think America by one. You got to feed Joel Embed.

Coglins Lord, don't waste you big man. Next rewatchable scene, the first Bonnie scene, it's really great. And she does the excuse me to have fuck me written on my forehead. The whole thing with the guys and then Cruz obviously screws his whole thing up with Elizabeth shoe because he's a total dirt bag. And then the last rewatchable scene I have, because I think the first half of this movie is so much better than the second half of the movie. the last Flanagan Coglin scene

The luck is gone The brain is shot But the liquor we still got Just a lot Like Coglin just trying to get off A couple more threes Before his character disappears Any other most rewatchable scenes for you guys

No I'm a real first half First half a cocktail guy I think the funniest scene in the movie by far Is Brian's showdown With Elizabeth's dad Is that all your daughter's worth. Okay.

How much will it take? I don't want you goddamn money. You can't buy me out of Jordan's life? You think I'm letting some bartender walk into my family and destroy my daughter's life? That is her choice. The hell you say. Her choice! The hell you say it's going on here.

Jordan I? Oh, I think you're going to, yeah. The showdown with the dad and the showdown with the sculptor are both excellent. I have that in what's age the best for. Okay. Yeah. So what do you have for most rewatchable? I have

I have my personal is the entire cell block scene is just magnificent I'm all in I love addicted to love

that sequence is it's like it's electrifying honestly it's bizarre but it's electrifying addicted to love

it's and it's punctuated by that guy who looks like like an accountant sitting at the bar being like I own the hottest spot

in New York you guys got to work for me why is this guy in a TGI Friday By the way. Why are you owning the hottest spot in New York? All right.

Why was that Vincent Hanna, too? Why did I do it? I don't know. Before we get to the next category, we can't forget to remind you to treat your crew to the new, temptingly delicious, Captain Morgan sliced apple, the sweet, juicy, and crisp taste of fresh sliced apples makes Captain Morgan sliced apple perfect. For the everyday adventure, don't forget to drink responsibly. All right, let's do the rest of the categories here.

What's age the best? The first thing I wrote was Cruz and Coglin bartending, even though we've already covered it. I wrote this once. Nothing beats Cruz when he's fired up and throwing himself into a quirky role. Pool player, cornerback, race driver, bartender. I forgot to mention all the right moves earlier, by the way.

He's probably the only actor alive who would have taken flipping vodka bottles this seriously. I think, or whatever. I just don't feel like anybody else would have spent the five days to become the world's best barthenter. They might have spent a day. They might have tried to cheat it.

I really do feel like Cruz by the end of this was like, I can do this. You can do this professionally. I bet you $100 you can still do it. Oh, yeah. So if you were at Chris, if you were at Cruz's house, at what point would you want to see in flip bottles and make you a drink? Would you want to play pool with them to see if that skill still existed? Well, will

like my preference be? Because if I was at Cruz's house, I would probably just like flip a bottle at him as soon as I saw him just to see if he had his reflexes. But of all the skills that he has mastered, I would want to see him play nine ball.

I would too. I think he just takes on role. You know, the way that Daniel Day Lewis when he takes on a role, he wants to transform. Who can I become next? With Cruz, he's like, what skill can I acquire?

And sometimes that skill is nine ball. and sometimes it's hanging from a helicopter and sometimes it's being the best cross-examiner in the game. You know, like he always wants to add a new arrow to his quiver. So, but the thing about this movie is, I think that Brian and Coglin are really bad bartenders. They're really slow. They would be fine today when everything is like,

let me get a fresh herb garnish from out of our freeze dryer in the basement. so it's going to take 20 minutes for your drink. But back then, it's so wild to imagine like those guys. Sometimes they make drinks and it doesn't seem like they're giving them to anyone. They're like, see, we made this? And they just cheers and they're like hanging out. I'm like, there's 80 people waiting for a drink at this bar.

Hurry up. I had this in Pickin'its for later, but we can cover it now. Coglin says at one point, bartender make money for bars by putting less liquor in the drinks. So he's like, you got to distract the customer. You got to flip bottles. have fun, distract them from the fact that their Jack and Coke is all coconut jack. That all makes sense, but they're spilling liquor all over the place every time they're

fucking doing their mixed drinks and throwing bottles back and forth. There's just liquor all over the floor. And it's like, well, so how are you saving the bar, buddy? You've just poured half a bottle of rum on the ground? I don't know. All right. Next, what stage is the best? Uncle Pat's philosophy of if you own a bar, never buy anyone a drink.

That's smart. That's aged well. I think that's a smart business strategy. So Chris and I were actually having a conversation about this somewhat recently, about the culture of buybacks and whether or not you continue to return to a bar, even if they don't buyback for frequent customers. And in New York, buybacks are pretty common. And if you make yourself a regular, you drink half free a lot of the time.

Usually if you're at a bar for an hour, or at least that's the way it was what I was there. Here's the thing, though. This is why Uncle Pat's advice is great, because this was a trick as a former bartender. You know, you're pouring somebody a glass of wine. And then there one third of the glasses left and you go and you fill their glass up again, you only charge it from one glass. The thinking is they're going to make it up for you. back end with the tip. So, you know, all right, you and your friends, you had, I don't know,

$50 worth of drinks, but I kind of spruced it up. You really had about $80 worth of drinks. Now you're giving me the $50 check, but with a $40 tip. But really, I've just stolen money from the bar. And that, so I think Uncle Pat's thing is he owns the bar. He'd be stealing money from himself. Why would I do this? Just pay me, pay me what the drink costs. And, and, you know, And I'll have all, you know, and that's how I'd handle it. I just don't think Pat had like a real growth plan for his tavern. You don't think Uncle Pat was a thicker? He's closing the bar when Brian's like, I got somebody pregnant.

He seems to accept free labor from Brian. He's stealing like a dollar or two from the guy at the end of the bar because he's like, if you don't have your hand on it, then that's a tip. If you have your hand on it, that's some cigarette money. It's like Pat's not like trying to franchise that place. Do you think Uncle Pat would have traded for Tobias Harris and then give him $180 million? or no. Morewood's age the best.

Addicted to Love, mention it. Elizabeth Shoe, 80s goddess. Karatecade, we're all in. All in. Adventures and babysitter. But then cocktail, it's like a more adult Elizabeth shoe. She's not in high school wearing this sweatshirt, you know, flirting with Danny LaRousseau anymore.

She's now an adult. People loved Elizabeth Shoe. There's a great casting, whatever, for this coming up in a second. Another one stage the best for me. So we meet Elizabeth Shue. She's like, my friend has passed out on the beach. Can you help? He leaves the bar. He leaves 40 paying customers to go see this passed out friend. Stands over her for maybe a second and a half. It's like, she's fine. I don't know what kind of medical training crews had, but he just, he could see the moment. I mean, this is one of the great things. But it always makes me laugh how he

diagnosis. Dude, that's not even the funniest part of that whole bit. What is it? Then Shoe abandons that woman for days on vacation. And then you're like, oh, I guess she must have flown home because she got sick. She turns up. She's still in Jamaica. And she's just like, oh, yeah, she went home to New York. I'm still here. I've been alone for five days while she's been gallivanting with you. She's hanging out with five Jamaica guys. Just smoking crazy gonga. Directed by Roger. Donaldson, another what's age is the best. I just like his late 80s because he goes, No Way Out. Cocktail, two classics. I fired up No Way Out last night right after Cocktail. No Way Out,

just a heater, just absolute banger of a movie. You say the word. That's just the damn good movie. That is, I think, one of the most rewatchable, if not the most rewatchable 80s action thriller. There is. No way out. Perfect. It's really, really good. And it's kind of weird because, like, you know, cocktail is so fun. we're having a fun time talking about it. But it's weird that it was made by the guy who made no way out, which is like actually really well done, you know, like actually a good movie. Producer Craig's like, oh, great, we're going to do an 1987 movie down the road.

That sounds awesome. Another one's aged the best. We mentioned it earlier. We might as well get into it now. Cruise playing basketball. Yeah. So Tom Cruise sports movie athlete has been well. well documented. I know I'd definitely kick the tires on it and mailbags and stuff like that.

We saw him in all the right moves. Good cornerbacks. Undersized. I think Belichick would have turned him into maybe a slot corner, something like that. But undersized, like good technique, a little, a little too physical. We saw him. He was like a Logan Ryan type. Logan Ryan type. We saw him play basketball in this movie. We saw him play pool. We saw him, unfortunately, throw a baseball in War of the Worlds, which was tough. It looked like he had never held a baseball before. We've seen him running. He plays football in oblivion.

I think he throws a football. He's like, big games, Super Bowl. We saw his beach volleyball skills where despite being 5-7, 58, just had no problem, jumping up like Karchari and blocking people. And we've seen him do a lot of running, like a lot, like an insane amount. Like there's YouTube clips of him running and running and running. peaking in the firm, which is just the best scene in the firm.

We named it the most rewatchable scene when did that pot. It's 10 minutes of him sprinting and nobody sprints and then in collateral comes back he does that whole sprinting thing. What am I leaving out? In the firm, he does tumbling.

He does like gymnastics in the firm. That's right. Yeah. Bill, I think what you're suggesting here is that we could establish in the next Olympics a cruise decathlon.

Well, I asked the question in a mailbag. was Tom Cruise a good athlete? He also does interpretive dance in Tropic Thunder, you know, so we can add that to the list. But was Tom Cruise a good athlete? I think undeniably. Yeah. Undeniably.

So there's two types of athletes, right? There's the guys who are like, they're fast and strong, but they're usually the guys who do crew in college, which I think Cruz was. I don't think Cruz was a guy who could have like started at varsity basketball for three straight years for his college. Maybe he could have played like strong safety, but I feel like he's a crew guy. He's like the in-shaped muscle guy who isn't actually really that athletic. I went to a high school with a guy who was a swimmer, and he was a really competitive swimmer. Not like you, Chris. He was actually a real competitive swimmer.

And he was exactly what you're describing. He was very strong, very fit, very fast, handsome guy. He was class president. But any time he would get on the basketball, well court with us, it would, he would be, he was completely uncoordinated. He didn't know what to do with his limbs. You know, all he knew how to do was swim like the dickens. That's all he could do. And Cruz is the seems like that kind of guy. You know, he's got all the tools and none of the coordination. Here's my problem with the scene and it's my problem with a lot of basketball

and movies is that the movies perceives basketball is either, you're either Philip Seymour Hoffman in that scene. Remember like what movie was? I think that's why they did that scene. I think that scene was a direct parody of this scene. I am 100% convinced. It is 100% a parody of this. Either that or you're actually Ricky Pierce and you go like

8 for 8 from behind the arc, like cold off of the street. I just don't understand why no one in movies ever goes like two for five from the field. Just like make two, maybe rim one out. Like, why is it always just like Tom Cruise walks up wearing

I think sweat pant cutoffs and just turns into Mark Price? Immediately. And Coglin's rebounding him while smoking a cigarette. That's a cool move. I like that. So I think we should start a running bit on the rewatchables called Ryan's Law. Never go five for five in a movie basketball scene.

Any other what's age the best for you guys other than the stuff we have mentioned for the last hour? Soundtrack. Sean's a big McFarron guy. Love Bobby McFarron. Great stuff. This movie made the McFarren song a thing. The soundtrack did super well in this movie, too. It's funny because I feel like it's missing maybe two more songs that were kind of

essential late 80s type of songs. Well, it does something weird that a lot of movies from this time do, which is it has this fascination with 1950s rock and roll. So you've got the Georgia Satellites doing hippie, hippie shake. You've got this Everly Brothers song, this great Everly Brothers song at the end of the movie. When will I be loved? And you've got all these weird callbacks to this like more, the same way the 80s was like a callback to like a more,

back to the quote unquote, pure. Yes, exactly. And so you get that. Plus you get the super duper hardcore 80s experience stuff like, like Kokomo, like Bobby McFerran. There's one more too. What is the other? Isn't there like a big 80s rock song on this?

Is it like Journey opens it? Is it Steve Perry who opens the movie? I want to be young. When I can be wild. I don't know what happens at the beginning of this movie, by the way, when they, I don't know what stage is the worst, but when him and his army buddies, they somehow pretend to be a police car and stop a bus,

and then the bus lets Cruz on with suitcases. What is happening? Cruz has a baby sitting on his lap at the end of the bus ride. The song that was playing during that segment is Starship. Oh, okay. And then there's like a big bopper song on here, too. So it's weird. It's only 50s or 80s songs.

That's it. Well, it was directed by. guy from New Zealand. So I'm sure he was grasping for whatever. What's age the best for you guys? It's addicted. Oh, sorry. I'm going to go with Sean. I think the music. Okay. What's age the worst?

Probably start with a young person who's obsessed with being rich. I think is a theme that just feels weird now. Coglin loses $50 on a George Foreman Ken Norton fight that happened in 1973.

He's the worst gambler of all time, apparently? It's like that fight was 15 years ago. Who did you bet? That's amazing. That's fantastic. But do you think that Flanagan is like, great fight? Great boxing. Tell me more about George Foreman. Bonnie doing aerobics just as age the worst because there's this specific movie time from 83 to 88 when women doing aerobics in the morning with a leotard and staring at like a tiny square TV and jumping up and down. as somebody's asleep is just a recurring theme. Uncle Pat, back to him.

So Cruz realizes that his fling in Jamaica is pregnant, goes to Uncle Pat for advice. Here's the advice Uncle Pat gives. She's not trying to shake you down. She's not trying to make you marry. You don't care about her. Walk away from the whole thing. Uncle Pat.

A little Neil McCauley vibes from Pat. Unbelievable. Neil McCauley. The unfriendly, violent doorman in Jordan's building. I had him for What's Age the Worse. Normally, doorman are just like these happy, friendly guys, right? Isn't there one moment where that doorman is just, like, smoking at his desk? Yeah, it's just weird.

He's got a weird energy to him. He's working in a Park Avenue, you know, high-class condo. And then, What's the Age the Worst? Just a ridiculous climax in the penthouse. Cruise punches out the doorman and the butler. and has the classic, it didn't have to be this way to the dad. It's just so bad.

It's, I don't know why they did it. I love it though. Any other what stage is worse for you guys? The shirts. All the blousey shirts that those guys wear, especially in Jamaica. It's an 80s thing. I have some tough college pictures from that era.

It was weird, like these big, baggy, thick shirts. I think, I think the two main female characters, both being rich girls with dads, who disapprove of their husbands is kind of weird. That's just kind of a flaw of the movie in general.

Like, why are both of the women the same character? Like, they basically have the same story. Solid point. All right. New category. Uh-oh. Just for this.

Best Coglin lessons. I'm just going to rip through these. Craig, turn on the video camera. We're about to make history. Anything else is always, something better. Oh, Craig's going to join us. Oh, I thought that's what you said.

No, no. Please join us, though. Craig. Anything else is always something better. You down with that one? No. No. Okay.

Bill, nobody follows these laws. They're all bad. Well, maybe they follow this one. A waitress won't truly hate you until you've given her crabs. No? Hasn't come up ever. I've been saying it for years. A bartender is the aristocrat of the working class?

No? Still no. I don't care how liberated this world becomes. A man will always be judged by the amount of liquor he can consume. A star never passes out or pukes in public. However, falling downstairs is allowed. Never trust a chick named after an inanimate object. I like that one.

This is advice about coral. Yeah, coral. Never fall for an assembly line hump that does the book on the first. date. I don't even really know what that means. Never tell tales about a woman. She'll hear you no matter how far away she is. Never show surprise, never lose your cool. There are two kinds of people in the world. The workers and the hustlers, the hustlers never work and the workers never hustle. And bury the dead. They stink up the joint. Craig, you have to take one of those Coglin laws and apply them to your own life for the next 10 years. Which one would you pick?

got to be the crabs one right Craig yeah crabs one just calls out to me immediately I you know the person named after inanimate object's pretty solid

I don't know if anyone named peppermine out there's the move I I also like the an amendment object rule I think it's strong I think it should at least be considered

should we have should we start a podcast called Coglins laws and it's just round table discussions or maybe like you go off and you like try to live your life by a certain law. And it's like, guess what guys? I still don't have crabs. So.

The best part with Coglin's law, as we just found out, is they're completely ridiculous. But he says them with such conviction with his accent that every time he says one of them, you feel like Confucius has just stepped in with some amazing piece of advice for life. And then you actually write them down. You're like, what the fuck is this? I'm thinking about this while we've been recording. I think I'm going to adopt Coglin as like my new Slack persona. So like every time somebody's just like, hey, Chris, are you, I'm going to be like, never ask a podcaster if he's available before 11 a.m.

What a maniac. Coglin. What a character. Casting what ifs. Charlie Sheen was considered for the role, Brian Flanagan. That makes sense. Robin Williams was also considered that that feels weird to me. Maybe at a point when they, no, I think for Flanagan, but I think when the character

was older. That was one of the 40 versions of the script. You go on IMDB and it's basically every white actor in the late 80s was considered apparently at some point. The only one I believe is Charlie Sheen. Here's one that we know for sure. Heather Graham offered the role of Jordan Mooney but declined because she was doing license to drive with Corey Haim. She'd already committed to it. Leading to the question, is this movie better or worse, Elizabeth Shue or young Heather Graham?

I think it's great with Shoe. I agree. Molly Ringwild apparently turned down the role of Jordan Mooney as well. Best that guy, I care, the Joey Pants Award. Let's narrow it down to Uncle Pat. Real name, Ron Dean. Or Jordan's dad played by Lauren's Luckin' Bill, who's just going for it in every scene. Who would you go for that guy?

Can I throw one more in there? Yeah. What's his face? Gary Baman, who is the dude who gets the long tracking shot as he walks up to the bar and is like, Hey, I was told I got a free drink for staying here. That's Kevin McAllister's uncle in Home Alone. Oh, good one. Yeah.

Nice. James Eckhouse is not eligible for this category? I was going to say, is that house not on the board? Not on the board. Well, you know, how dare you? It was really validating after years of reading the Yuppie Poets' work to see him on screen. I was like, it's him.

It's that guy. That was exciting. All right. So let's give him. Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word. Tom Cruise. Yeah. Congratulations.

You're the first star who's ever won this award. Diane Waiter's Award. Candidates include Uncle Pat, Bonnie, Cruz's professor, played by Paul Benedict. He used to be on the Jefferson's way back when. Gina Gershon.

Kelly Lynch, who's eligible, and the immortal James Eckhouse. I think it's between Lynch and Gershon. I think it's Lynch. It's got to be Kelly Lynch. Okay. Great.

Recasting. The descending on the boat moment, you know, that's a big moment. That's a big moment for any man who watches this movie, I think. Agree. Recasting Couch. This movie's perfect. I wouldn't touch it.

Halfass internet research. Bottle tossing was added in at Cruz's request. Cokemo. Wait, hold on one second. Recasting couch, just quickly. I know we're not supposed to talk about him anymore, but Mel Gibson instead of Brian Brown. I love Brian Brown in this.

This is my favorite Brian Brown movie. Okay, okay. I think if you put Mel Gibson in a bar with Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise is going to get glassed at some point. Yeah, Tom Cruise dies. Kokomo was nominated for a Grammy and a Golden Globe, which I didn't realize. Huge, huge song for them.

The bartending they do in this movie is called, quote, flare bartending, unquote. Yeah. It's a real thing. There is an Andrew's shoe cameo in the wedding scene at the end. You can spot them out. It was a little doughier version. During this movie, during the filming, Cruz was with Mimi Rogers, who was getting him into Scientology.

And there's this whole, this is the movie that officially made him a Scientology person, which might explain this performance in the movie. The bottle of Louis Trey, Brandy, that was a $500 bet between Flanagan and Coglin in 1988. How much you think it's worth in 2020? No, that's a grand. $5,000? $3,600, $2,020. That's a specific bottle.

There were apparently plastic bottles given a cruise on the set because a lot of stuff was breaking. And then this is weird. In the film's theatrical trailer, there's a part from an extended version of Coglin and Flanagan, their final meeting on Coglin's yacht.

There's a darker version that had Doug claiming he made a move on Jordan, which sent Brian off in a rage and then Coglin says, I don't have any friends. And Brian says, as of right now, that is for sure. And apparently they just cut it. But that's kind of why Brian was entertaining,

maybe stepping in with Kelly Lynch. It was a little revenge factor. I kind of kept that in. Apex Mountain. Tom Cruise, here's the case. Rain Man and Cocktail, both huge hits for different reasons and different levels of quality.

And he's about to do Born on the Fourth of July and have it. his Oscar movie. And at this point, he is the number one star under the age of, I would say, 40. And you're just buying all the Tom Cruise stock possible. Could this be Apex Mount for Tom Cruise, Sean? I say 96. Jerry McGuire, I wish and impossible. Yeah. I think we agreed on that when we did the McGuire pod. So that makes sense. Brian Brown. He would say no. He would say, please no. He would say,

yeah, I think it's FX. Yeah. FX, yeah. Yeah. I also, yeah, he's done a couple of things

on them. Also, you could argue his Apex Mountain was marrying Rachel Ward who was the fucking number one 80-ish smoke show. I don't know. Craig,

look her up sometime. Elizabeth Shoeh. Elizabeth Shoe. I'm going to say no. She won an Oscar. Yeah. Jamaica. No.

Jamaica? Jamaica? Apex Mountain for Jamaica. Jamaica's cinematic Apex Mountain is belly. Mm-hmm. I like that. Yeah. I think there has to be probably a Bob Marley and the Whalers. Yeah.

There's also a connection to Jamaica. Bartending. I was just going to say that. Bartending? Is it this or Cheers? So my case for this being the Apex Mountain of Barthending is Cheers is still a massive hit show at this point. And Cocktail comes out.

You have those two at the same. same time. And Cocktail adds the extra element of athletic achievement to bartending, which wasn't, it's not, Sam Malone doesn't do that. So the answer is yes. Coglin's Law. I think this is the Apex Mountain of Coglin's Law. Was it

the Apex Mountain of people just saying weird fucking things and claiming they were laws? But also the answer might be yes. Bill, if you were in a bar and a guy started speaking to you in the style of Coglin's law, how many Coglund's laws do you think you would let that guy

get away with before you were like, you need to get away for me. Like, how weird is it that this guy only speaks in like riddles and limericks? Well, the thing is, I'm sure there were some bad Coggins law that maybe got the cutting room floor, like what, you know, whereas the Flanagan's kind of like, yeah, that one didn't really work. They're all bad. I mean, I'm sure there were like some incoherent ones. They're all crazy.

Cogman crafts all Cogman crafts all Cogman's laws around his own behavior. So I'm sure, like, there were a couple reaches. Kelly Lynch, I would say, so three of hearts comes out. I'm going to say like 92 and it's got the Sting song. It's got the shape of my heart and it was marketed really well. And I saw it in the theater on a date and it did really well. And she at that point had the roadhouse cocktail, a couple other things in her background. And I would say that was her Apex Mountain because she was one of the reasons I actually went to the theater to see a movie.

You wouldn't have said that in 1988. This has always been a big white man's burden guy. I feel like he would say that's Kelly's apex, right, Chris? Coglin's law. American greed, Apex Mountain. No, I think it's Wall Street. Gosh, I don't even haven't, I don't, I don't, I didn't think about that one. I decided to get weirder with Apex Mountain as a category, throwing in more curveballs in there.

Picking Nets, why was Coglin working at a TGI Friday's? the possible answers are he was hiding he had just gotten out of jail or he was just coming off some sort of venture where he was owned a piece in the bar but there was somebody who had a bigger stake and then that person got fed up with Coglin's Law

and was like can you just get the fuck out of here? I'm so tired of Cogman's Law so he was trying to regroup at T.J. Fridays basically. The latter, I like that one. I think that makes a lot of sense. He was involved. in some sort of business venture and he got kicked out. Did we ever figure out why Coglin actually slept with Coral and his best friend's girlfriend

to win a $50 bet? Like, who does that? Is he just a monster? It's really weird the first time through because he, not only does he sleep with Coral, he convinces Coral to come to the bar and make out with him to like drive Brian crazy because Brian talked about sleeping with him. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the both of them essentially just like try to. to sleep with each other's significant others throughout the movie. I mean, it is a really bizarre relationship. My best friend. My only friend. It's like, well, you don't have any friends because you try to like sleep with their girlfriends, dumbass. And you get these dumb laws.

Well, this is something that Chris and I have also been doing for years, you know, just to kind of challenge each other on an ongoing basis. Coglin's law, monogamy is a construct. So we think Flanagan spent like three years in Jamaica. By his math, that should have been enough money to open a bar. Why did he need money to open a bar? He just, he just laid out all the

math for us. He should have had like 70,000 bucks. It's not, it's not what it was meant. I think Jamaica is like just seductive enough to stay, but is not what he thought it was going to be. Because I think when we see how sort of quiet and tired that bar is, we're like, oh, it's not really like the money monster that he thought it was going to be. Okay. Can I ask you guys a question? Yeah. Do you guys think that Tom Cruise's makeup is really weird in Jamaica? Did you notice that, like, that he has like a ton of makeup on in Jamaica? I didn't know if it was that or he got sunburned and they had to like put makeup on to cover the sunburn or something. Because I do think these actors go to these locations and they get sunburned pretty quickly.

There's what's that movie, couples retreat? Yeah. One of the guys gets so sunburned in that movie. It's hilarious. And you could just tell like they, he just made a mistake. I can't remember which one it was. Why did, uh, Jordan work in a deli? I don't get that at all.

I don't know. She's just trying to make an independent life for herself. Yeah, but they make a whole point. The dad at the end is like, you're cut off. It's like, well, if she wasn't cut off before, why was she working in a deli? I think her apartment is way nicer than what she would make at the diner. A lot of questions about that one.

And then when Jordan's dad tries to buy cruise off, $10,000, like a little late. Not really getting my attention. For the 25K now, it's like, hmm, that's a lot of money. So you would have abandoned your child for $25,000? That's what you're saying, Bill? I'm saying Flanagan's a scumbag. Like if you're trying to get his attention,

10K's not doing it. But now if we're in the 2530 range, like what would have been the right number where Flanagan's like, yeah, you're right, I'll take the check. $1.00. It's 75 because that's what he needs to start the bar. It would have been really interesting if he was like,

here's 75K, go start cocktails and dreams, but leave my daughter alone. How did they not do that? I think that's a better ending. Yeah, that's a better ending. I know. He just sells. completely and then he runs into her five years later. And then, I mean, this is my number one

nitpick. So Coglin, the last time we see him, he's in a boat and not in good shape. Kelly Lynch shows up. He passes out. His whole life's falling apart. Flanagan goes to drive the wife home. She makes a move on him. I don't know how far away it was, but it couldn't have been more than 20 minutes. Maybe let's give it an hour round trip, max. comes back. Coglin's dead. There's blood everywhere. And as it turns out, as we find out later,

he's written this perfectly lucid, thoughtful suicide note for to get to Flanagan. That guy was in no condition to write like his name on a piece of paper. So what happened? Are we supposed to believe he wrote that note before? Or what was going on there?

Or is this just a bad movie? I think it's a bad movie. movie. I think a lot of that, I think a lot of the return to New York stuff is chopped up. Yeah. I honestly thought, rewatching the movie, I was like, did someone kill Cosman? I had that in unanswerable questions. That's what I thought. I was like in my mind, like, the last time I saw Cockrell, I was like, oh, right, and then somebody kills Coglin. Yeah. And I was also, like, convinced there was another huge last bartending scene. I was like, and then he's going to go, he's going to go to the bar that Coglin had with Kelly Lynch and do the, in an honor of him,

have one last great shift. But I was like, oh, no, I guess not. I realized probably about, I don't know, 10 years ago on the 40th rewatching this movie that Coglin might have been murdered. I just don't know how they would have framed the suicide note. Or whether somebody else who knew intimately who wrote it and was able to write it in his voice and have the same ridiculous bullshit that Cogne would have written. But is it possible like he squandered money, crossed with the wrong person, got, you know,

I almost wish they didn't have the suicide note. I think it should have been a letter he wrote like two days earlier that Flanning just gets in the mail. Well, he might have pre-written it, right? Because when he shows up at the club, when Brian shows up at the club, and Coglin receives him so warmly. And he's like, my only friend in the world, you know, my best friend. You get the impression that like Coglin's already made his decision.

Yeah. Right. You know, he's distraught. Some quotes that we didn't mention include. Champagne, perfume, going in, sewage coming out. She was a drinking champagne in the sun. Champagne.

Perfume going in, sewage coming out. Is she going to be all right? Yeah, she's going to be okay. Talk is overrated as a means of settling disputes. Proctologist's dream wall-to-wall assholes. I don't know. Looks like you've got a lot of friends here this evening. Proctologist dream.

What? Wall-to-wall assholes. Great to see you, Plattigan. Uncle Pat say, most things in life, good and bad, just kind of happened to you. Okay. Uncle Pat also saying outwork, out, think out, scheme, out maneuver, make no friends, trust nobody, make sure you're the smartest guy in the room when the subject of money comes up. Interesting advice. And then Coglin, Flanagan explaining why he slept with Bonnie the Cougar to Elizabeth

shoe, he says, when a guy lays down a dare, you got to take it. So if you ever want to commit adultery or cheat on your girlfriend or wife, and they ask what happened. Coglin's law. When a guy lays down there, you got to take it, I think is a good get out of jail free card. I got one more quote. Yeah. It's in Jamaica when they're out. And Kelly Lynch says, I have never seen a club with such intense dance vibes.

I have never seen a club with such intense dance vibes. Come on, let's decimate this dance book. What is that? It's the weirdest moment in the movie. And then Brian Brown's like, let's say let's decimate the dance floor. Coglin's law, the dance floor has to be decimated. Next category, could this be remade as a 10 episode? Netflix show, I wrote as the answer, yes, please.

We're ready. Cocktail the TV show, just make it. Probably unanswerable questions. Did the cell block work as a business plan? Yeah, Steve. Austin was inspired. Open mic poetry crossed with a jail cell. How long was this place open? Two years? Oh, no. It's like, it's like a nine month, like it gets hot, then it's over, and then it crashes. It's like a hard, like, you and your friends go there three times. They're like, this is the best.

Then never go again, and it's out of business in like nine months. Sean, what else did the cell block need to do to become one of, one of, uh, Stefan's bars? Tiger cage maybe A tiger would have been good Yeah, good point Well it's like in the 80s It would have been a tiger stuffed with cocaine Which is basically how you described this movie How much time exactly passes in this movie?

I'm going to say five years Yeah I'm so confused It seems like two days Yeah we go to Uncle Pat's bar at the end And it's the same people looking all exactly the same Five years later You would think like that old smoking guy

Would be dead already All right, my last non-answered question, why did they kill off Coglin? Why wasn't he spun off into a sitcom? And if he was spun off in a sitcom, what would it have been named? I have some titles for you. Cocktails of Dreams? Coglin's Law. Coglin and Grace.

Coglin's Corner. Or Coglin with an exclamation point. Coglin! I love that. You like that one the most? Coglin's law, I think, should be the name of the bar. But Coglin is the name of the sitcom. With the exclamation point.

Yeah. And he's just whipping off Coglin's Law one-liners with this cast of losers. It's like that Ted Dants at Show Becker. You know, it's just like just Coglin. Yeah. Where would you set the Coglin sitcom, Chris? Would you go New York or would you go Jamaica or would you mix it up, new location each year?

No, he goes back. home, it's in Perth, you know? He goes back to Australia. Yeah. I like how you're thinking. Who won the movie? Cruz. Got to be Cruz.

It's Cruz. But apologies to Coglin for an incredible performance. What a sidekick. Is there any case for Roger Donaldson? No, because of the second half of this movie. I think Raj disowned this movie pretty quickly after and moved on. What was this next movie?

Matchstick, man. No, no. Cadillac, man. That's when he got to work with Robin Williams. Yeah. Bill, Bill, is Roger Donaldson your favorite director ever?

No, but he's done a lot of things I like and he's on my radar. Species? Yeah. 13 days. Awesome. Chris, the recruit. Yeah.

Donaldson's a pro. The bank job? Dante's Peak? Safe pair of hands. You can't go wrong with Donaldson. Species, which is another great bad movie, but it's actually too good to be a bad movie. The Natasha Hensstridge movie?

Oh, yeah, that movie's great. There's like three Oscar winners in that movie. Craig. No way out. Species double feature. Craig, have you seen species? No, what's it about? Natassa Hendridge, who's throwing 107 miles an hour,

is an alien who they keep in this little, like, test tube laboratory thing. And she's just in this glass cage because she's this alien life form. but crossed for some reason she's a hot blonde. She breaks out of the glass cage, enters real civilization, becomes an adult fast, and now has to mate to keep her species alive. This is the actual plot of the movie.

Bill explains 80s to me. No, this is mid-90s. It's even worse. They knew what they were doing in the mid-90s. No, the movie made a lot of money and was very successful enough that they made species too and species. Three.

Oh, wow. But Species 1 is like kind of incredible. Michael Madsen's in it, March Helgeberger. Forrest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley. Yeah. This cast is incredible. It's a good movie. I expect we cover it soon.

It's been on my list for a while, but it would really, we'd have to have had like 325 episodes in the bank by then. Cocktail had also been on my list for a while. I'm so glad we did it. Any last thoughts, guys, before we go? This is an enjoyable rewatch. It's a really enjoyable rewatch. I really want to go to a bar.

All right. Well, thanks to Captain Morgan. Remember, Captain Morgan sliced apple. It's on the shelves. It's a brand new spice room. You can enjoy it neat on the rocks or with a squeeze of fresh lemon.

It could end up looking like this in a high ball glass. Captain Morgan sliced apple, perfect for the everyday adventure, especially when our island vacations are a bit postponed at the moment. We're back on Wednesday with dangerous minds. And we have a couple other good ones coming up. But Chris, Sean, Craig, thank you.