Anyway, so Gary put Cocktail on and then we got for some reason more and more and more excited to see Cocktail, such that when we got our little DVD envelope in the mail and opened it and found instead the middling Bret Easton Ellis misanthropy of Rules of Attraction we were deeply bummed. Finally Cocktail arrived, and we watched it. I have seldom had my false memory of a film proven more false than this film proved it. The whole thing of Tom Cruise throwing bottles around and singing is like ONE MINUTE of screentime. The rest of the film is almost wholly incomprehensible.It didn’t so much have a plot or melodrama or drama or comedy or even dialogue. It feels like watching the beginnings of like seven totally different films. When it was over I made the call that it was actually the most “realist” film I’ve ever seen, as it had no “narrative” in the most basic traditional sense (in which events come to bear on future events), and was really just a string of things that happened to an unremarkable guy, none of which had any effect on any other thing. Gary pointed out that the only thing marring its perfect realism was the fact that every single line of dialogue was a perfect cliché (“you’ll never love anyone, because you don’t love yourself!” “IS THIS WHAT YOUR DAUGHTER IS WORTH TO YOU?” “How can I ever trust you again?” “Twins???????”).

Basically Tom Cruise gets out of the army and then goes to New York and wants to be on Wall Street but all the elitist fucks on Wall Street tells him he needs a college degree to be a stockbroker. So he goes to college. In college the professor is mean about his idea to start a bar. He walks by a bar and gets a job. The guy who runs the bar is British and they do dances together behind the bar; everyone loves the dances! “Hey you guys are sensational, you gotta get outta this dump, come work at my place I’ll make you rich, etc.” They go to do their routine at a big fancy New York bar where people climb up on staircases and declaim poetry in between rad DJ dance party sections (literally a scene in which a crowd of hundreds of partying dancers chant “MORE POEMS MORE POEMS MORE POEMS!” so Tom Cruise gets up on the bar and delivers an improvised rhyming poem about all the cocktails he knows how to make). Gina Gershon takes a picture of Tom Cruise; they fuck; the other bartender fucks Gina Gershon; Gina Gershon is mad at Tom Cruise; Tom Cruise punches the other guy. This is like seven minutes into the film.

Suddenly Tom Cruise is in Jamaica making drinks for tourists. He’s real good at bartending! Everybody says so. Elisabeth Shue comes up and says her friend passed out on the beach. Tom Cruise helps the friend; Bobby McFerrin music plays; people with dreds are like “come on bwuoy she be dead and stuff!” Elisabeth Shue is wearing a black leotard. The next day Elisabeth Shue comes back to thank him, gets a free beer (“Beer! My kind of woman.”). Suddenly British bartender frienemy shows back up. Apparently no hard feelings–they immediately start their old hilarious banter about getting pussy and what pussies each other are. Frienemy immediately starts messing around in Tom Cruise’s life again, showing him the foxy millionaire lady he married who walks around in leather g-strings and french kisses everyone. Her name is “Carrie” which I misheard for the entire film as “Gary” but somehow didn’t find that remarkable. British Frienemy tells Tom Cruise he’s a working class asshole who doesn’t know how to hustle. Tom Cruise laughs. British Frienemy is honestly being a real asshole but Tom Cruise doesn’t seem to mind; Tom Cruise doesn’t seem to have a single other friend on the earth. Frienemy bets him some bottle of fancy booze that Tom Cruise will be begging him for a job within a month. Tom Cruise of course takes that bet, because ha ha ha, why would he need a job? He’s a great bartender here in JAMAICA LAND.

Then there’s lots of scenes of Cruise and Shue fucking in Jamaica. By a waterfall, by the beach, by the fire, in the ocean, then they go horseback riding. Shue is also an artist? This is brought up a couple times in the movie but then ultimately abandoned as a plot point. Shue says she wants to have babies with Cruise; Cruise is understandably weirded out. The next day (??) British Frienemy bets Tom Cruise fifty bucks he can’t get this ugly rich 80′s style lady in bed. Cruise takes the bet, gets the lady in bed. Elisabeth Shue is mad, flies back to New York. Tom Cruise is like “oh man bummer–” but then has sex again with ugly rich 80′s style lady (“you can’t leave me like this baby” BLOWJOB IMPLICATION!). Next we are in New York again, no way to tell how much time has passed. Could be years. Rich lady wears succession of horrible fur coats; does 80′s aerobics and drinks carrot juice; thus is obviously insane and we empathize with poor Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is a kept man! So emasculating. Goes to fancy New York art show; gets drunk; makes hilarious crack about all the bullshit ‘modern art,’ gets punched in face by artist. Goes and finds Elisabeth Shue at the diner where she works; she dumps soup and chicken à la king on his head while bus boy laughs. Tom Cruise is not mad, follows her home, she tells him she’s pregnant, he freaks out and runs away.

Goes to Frienemy to indeed beg for job within a month. No way to tell how long ago the chicken à la king happened, to say nothing of the art show where he hilariously and brilliantly skewered abstract expressionism. Frienemy is sad; blew all his money and doesn’t know how to run a bar. Tom Cruise is like “it’s cool.” Drives Carrie/Gary home, where she shows him her butt and frenches him. At the last moment he remembers she is gross and he’s supposedly becoming a daddy with that girl he did it with in Jamaica an indeterminate amount of time earlier and whose name I never learned. “I can’t do this!” “We both want it, you know it,” “YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND’S WIFE!” “So what I’m supposed to be with just one man for the rest of my life?” “Yeah, it’s called MARRIAGE.” Oh snap Tom Cruise!

Runs back to the boat (?) where Frienemy lives (? without his wife??), but Frienemy is dead in a huge pool of blood. Cruise starts screaming “SOMEBODY HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” even though he is on a yacht down by the dock many miles from any person. Sad!

Then later he gets a letter from Frienemy. Suicide note! “The only thing I will miss are our conversations.” As a film viewer, I would really have appreciated seeing some of these supposedly great “conversations,” because I wasn’t aware until Tom Cruise’s tears over the suicide note that these two guys actually liked each other. I mostly just saw Frienemy ruin Tom Cruise’s life and Cruise not really be mad about it. Friends? Maybe it’s a guy thing. Michael Caine should have played that role, but didn’t. I don’t know who that British guy is. He was very world weary.

Tom Cruise sad; cries. One thing you’ve got to give Cruise–he can cry on demand, which I think is probably really really hard to do. He cries in almost every movie he’s in. This is never remarked upon by critics and I don’t know why, as I find it really interesting. Remember how good he was in Magnolia? “Hey welcome back from lunch, HOW’D YOU LIKE THOSE NACHOS?”

At this point so many beginnings of films have happened! What was all that stuff in Jamaica with the daquiris? How did Frienemy find him in Jamaica?? Why was Bobby McFerrin playing, is he Jamaican? Also I forgot to say there is a part in a dance club with “reggae music” where Carrie/Gary says “I’ve never seen a place with such heavy dance vibes.”

Now Tom Cruise is going to where Elisabeth Shue lives, which is on PARK AVENUE, uh oh you see where this is going! All this time he wanted a rich girl and he never knew he had one right there in front of him, carrying his majestic seed within her belly!!! HUH??? Just like “How to Marry a Millionaire” except stupid. Also we never really realized his burning desire for a rich girl, we only realize it later when Elisabeth Shue yells it at him. “You were so desperate to hook some rich girl I didn’t want you to know I was rich until I knew how you felt about ME, okay? HOW YOU FELT ABOUT ME!!!!!!!!!!!”

At the building the doorman sneers at his working class clothing. Lets him up into the penthouse, where Shue’s father tells him he’s a bum and gives him 10,000 bones or clams to leave his daughter alone forever. Pretty tacky move! Shue comes in: what’s going on? Nothing, are you still pregnant? Yeah. Sorry I was weird before. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE ETC!!!!! Tom Cruise leaves; sad. Am I a daddy? What is daddy? I forget what happens next, I think he goes back to his uncle’s bar and his uncle tells him what’s the big deal, it’s just a pregnant dame, just forget about the whole thing. Tom Cruise goes back to the penthouse. The doorman is so pissed! “I’ve been instructed not to let you inside! HEY YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE–” Tom Cruise evades the doorman, races into the penthouse, grabs Shue: “I wanna marry you” “we can’t get married, so many things between us don’t work, which I know from the approximately one day we spent together in Jamaica that time.” “Our child needs a father!” “Yeah but what about when you bail on me yet again because of that British guy?” “He’s dead, he killed himself.” “Oh man that sucks.” Oh no the dad comes in! And the doorman! Everyone yelling! Get him out of here, you bum, you working class bum, no way is my daughter marrying a poor person! The doorman is TOTALLY FREAKING OUT, you’ve never seen a doorman with such a commitment to tasks not in his job description! Grabbing! Punching! Kicking Tom Cruise! Knocking over important pieces of modern sculpture! At one point Elisabeth Shue gets involved and the doorman starts fighting HER! Finally Cruise/Shue make it into the elevator. Dad yells “YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN” (because of daughter marrying poor person), Tom Cruise goes “that’s the way I like it.” Damn! He really had no compunctions about breaking into that house and destroying a family! Cool! Also, girlfriend, have you ever heard of abortion? Are you religious or something? what is going on, you’re like 18 years old. Who on earth would think Tom Cruise’s character (whose name I also did not catch except that his last name was Flanagan) would be a great husband not to mention father??? Well whatever.
The next scene is their wedding. Somehow Shue is still not showing her pregnancy, even though it feels like months have passed since Jamaica, thus proving that this movie was written by 12 year old boys. Then there is a bar called “Cocktails and Dreams,” and Tom Cruise is the owner! And he throws a couple bottles around. Apparently at these bars the only thing you do as a patron is stand at the bar and cheer hysterically at the bartender. Then they yell “POEM! POEM!” (what is it with these people and bartender poems??) Tom Cruise delivers a poem to his unborn child; says if it’s a boy he can take over Cocktails and Dreams, and if it’s a girl, he will try to marry her to someone who is not like her father. Dubious poetry, dubious sentiments! Then Elisabeth Shue comes up and whispers in his ear and he goes “TWINS!”

that’s how the movie ends.

It was the worst movie ever made. Why wasn’t it just bottle dancing the whole time? Where did he learn how to do the bottle thing anyway? Who was that British guy? Did Tom Cruise ever finish his night school degree? Where did he get the money to start his bar? Remember how Gina Gershon was in this movie?? Seems like forever ago that we saw her. “That’s what you get for telling people about our sex life. Too bad—it only gets better.” OH DAMN, you missed out on some killer ‘tang homie! CONFLICT

Isn’t it crazy how these male movie stars get more and more foxy the older they get? It bums me out, as I am already getting less and less foxy with every passing year, sometimes I look like a skeleton in the mirror, a weird face skeleton with a lumpy butt and weird spots under my eyes from all the sunscreen I forgot to wear for 30 years. To be fair, I am not a movie star–I assume I would look a lot better if I had a personal trainer, personal chef, and crazy makeup and/or plastic surgery or whatever, also airbrushing. But these guys! They just get foxier and foxier! Tom Cruise used to be weird looking; now he is a stone-cold fox. Robert Downey Jr.! Brad Pitt! Javier Bardem! Gael Garcia Bernal! They all start out foxy and then 20 years later you’re like “WAIT HOW DID YOU GET EIGHTY TIMES FOXIER????”

I kind of like Tom Cruise. He’s so bonkers but I think he is actually a really weirdly amazing actor. However, all this has nothing to do with Cocktail, in which he is not foxy, and during which I was mind-blowingly bored.
The soundtrack isn’t even good!!!!!!!!! Also did you know that Brian Wilson wrote Kokomo FOR THIS MOVIE? Thanks a lot, Cocktail. Thanks for nothing.