April 4, 2019

As I’ve mentioned before, my mother and I have only been to the movies together less than 10 times in 40 years. So when she conceded a night out at the cinema in August of 1988 I couldn’t believe my good fortune! I was pretty positive we would be seeing a 90 minute commercial for MacDonald’s starring an alien and a wheelchair kid called Mac and Me...because I am/was a spoiled little shit used to getting my own way. Well...Gail had a different plan in mind. She wanted to see Cocktail. I was vehemently opposed. I was all “ma! I’m 9 years old! I know fuck all about tending bar!” She would not relent. “Tonight we’re watching what I want to watch!” I pissed and moaned. “Well...what’s it even about!?” “It’s about a bartender who does neat tricks and throws bottles of booze up in the air,” she told me, You’ll love it!” So off we went...my mom and I...to watch this movie about a promiscuous bottle-tossing TGI Friday’s barkeep. I remember thinking that it was, you know, alright. Passable. I had to run out of the theater during the screwing scenes and stare at the poster for the A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Warrior. Other than that I enjoyed it well enough. But as soon as we walked out of the theater I knew that I needed the soundtrack IMMEDIATELY! That’s right...friggin‘ “Kokomo.” I was like...whatever this song is...it is better than cocaine and I need more of it ASAP (I mean...I didn’t really think that. I was 9 for chrissakes). I was so obsessed with that song I used to record 2 hour stretches of MTV to VHS tape when I wasn’t home in hopes of capturing the video. My folks made me sweat it out until my 10th birthday...all the way till friggin’ October...until they bought me the soundtrack on cassette. It was all I wanted for my birthday to, like, to the point of sickness. Someone would just mention “Kokomo” and I would enter a fugue state and my folks would find me three towns over mumbling “Aruba...Jamaica...” to myself. When my birthday rolled around I came home from school and my mom had a bunch of wrapped gifts for me to open and I went straight for the one in the shape of a cassette but she slapped me away and said “Jesus Christ! Open that one last!” ANYWAY....we should probably talk about Cocktail. What happens is this: raging lunatic Scientologist actor Tom Cruise plays Brian Flanagan, a soldier who returns home from the war (in 1988? whatever you say, dudes) determined to make it big as a big bigshot or some bullshit. Home, in this case, is NYC...which means this is yet another movie about a white dude who will stop at nothing to become a rich white dude. It is literally the plot of every other movie released during the 1980’s (and yes...I know what “literally” means). He wants to be a stock broker...or an ad exec. Duddn’t matter as long at there’s bux. Unfortunately dude didn’t go to college and is dumb as rocks. One afternoon after pounding pavement he wanders into a TGI Friday’s and asks for a job slinging drinks. The manager is Australian actor and star of FX’s 1 & 2 Bryan Brown...who is difficult to understand not because of his Aussie accent...but because he speaks entirely in weird alcohol jargon-filled riddles. Seriously...he speaks no actual human sentences in this entire movie. It is annoyingly impressive. He tells Cruise he can have a job but that he had better get ready for the big time as they are on the Upper East Side. At TGI Friday’s. Now I know Friday’s wasn’t always an embarrassing chop shop chain...‘cuz the guys from Big Star used to hang out at the one in Memphis and the picture on the back of the album Radio City was taken at a Friday’s...and there is nothing in life cooler than Big Star. But...I mean...in 1988 Manhattan? I just don’t know. Anyway...Cruise goes to work immediately. I guess they didn’t do stages back then, eh? The next scene he’s totally getting his ass kicked on the bar...which is like 10 people deep. Customers are screaming drink orders at him...including an extra who is totally one of the non-Alec Baldwin brothers. A waitress asks him for a cuba libre. He has to look it up in his little cocktail book. When he finds out a cuba libre is a rum and coke he calls the waitress a bitch. It is so not cool. After service he tells Brown that he thinks the waitresses hate him. “Wait to you give them all crabs” comes the reply. Ahhh...so it’s THIS kind of movie, eh? Cruise enrolls in city college so he can still become a rich guy or whatever but he instantly seems puzzled by the work cuz he’s a dumb motherfucker. The professor says “I suppose you all think you’ll be the next Donald Trump!” We chuckle because Donald Trump is still just a clown businessman and not the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD!!!! Back at the bar Bryan Brown shows Cruise how to flip some bottles around (there is no sidework of any kind at this restaurant. They are either working or pounding booze). Next scene: Cruise is just OWNING at tending bar. Everyone in the joint is just watching him dance and make drinks and cheering for him. It makes me think that maybe I need to start throwing more shit in the air when I work. Brown tells him that he can have pretty much any lady he wants now. I’m watching his dance moves and thinking it might not just be ladies leaving their phone numbers on the bar for him (what!? this has been a rumor for years!). Some customer is all like “you guys are the hottest thing in all of NYC...you gotta come work at my club!” So they go work at a nightclub called Cell Block...where people continue to just watch these two muppets bartend and not dance and do drugs in the bathroom. Could happen. Gina Gershon comes to the bar and tells Cruise she’s gonna put him in Rolling Stone Magazine when he’s famous (Note: for what??). He goes home with her and they ball. She seems to really into the sex, right, but then Cruise starts tickling her and they fall off the bed. So there’s that. She’s got some dough so Cruise and Brown start pushing her to bankroll their bar concept called “Cocktails & Dreams”. “We want to have a NY-style pub on every street corner in America!” goes their pitch. That’s just about the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard and makes me think that the people who made this movie have never even been to a bar. It seems like all systems go but then Gerson starts balling Bryan Brown instead (shouldn’t have tickled her, bro) and Cruise is pissed and smashes him in the face and fucks off to Jamaica. Aaaaand cue “Kokomo!!!” Real quick: there’s this false narrative that Brian Wilson went crackers after Pet Sounds and didn’t resurface for decades. In fact The Beach Boys continued putting out albums at a steady clip through the 70’s and 80’s (some quite good) and Wilson had a hand in all of them. UNTIL Kokomo. That tune was written by actual piece of feces with two human legs Mike Love, pedophile Papa John Phillips of The Mama’s and the Papa’s, and intended Charles Manson victim who didn’t get murdered Terry Melcher. So there’s that. ANYWAY...Cruise moves down to Jamaica cuz he heard you can make up to $300 a shift there. He’s doing the same bottle twirling bullshit AND he has adopted Bryan Brown’s weird riddle speech. “Ahh champagne...perfume going in...sewerage going out.” “Happy hour...an hour to spend with spouse soused!” It’s wicked stupid. Elisabeth Shue shows up at his bar and he’s all “holy shit...the girl from Adventures in Babysitting!” So they start hanging out and there’s a super montage of them doing island-y things: they windsurf, they ride horses on the beach, they train a local bobsled team. Actually I lied about the last part. There are zero people of color in this film...even in the Jamaica scenes. They ball in the waterfall...which seems like it would actually be challenging...and there is some serious side boob. 9 year-old Danny Tebo sprints out of the theater. Shue is all “I can’t wait to have kids” and Cruise is all “pump the brakes, cochise.” Meanwhile Bryan Brown materializes...having married the actress who balls Patrick Swayze against a fireplace in Roadhouse Kelly Lynch. So she’s rich and Brown can’t understand why Cruise isn’t trying to bang more rich ladies. It’s only implied that Shue doesn’t have money...never actually discussed. So Brown bets Cruise $50 that he can’t ball this middle-aged rich white lady...and Cruise takes the bet and beds the lady and this movie is GROSS. Shue finds out and is predictably pissed and tells Cruise she will see him never. Back in NYC Cruise has moved into richy lawyer McLawyerface lady’s penthouse. She’s supposed to get him a Wall Street job...but does not...because he is dumb. They break up. Cruise goes to see Lizzy Shue at the diner where she works and she throws a bunch of meatloaf at him. She brings him up to her apartment...which is a huge loft by the by...and tells him that she is pregnant (gasp). He explains that he had to ball that rich lady because it was a bet and you don’t back down when your buddy dares you to bang some broad. I throw up all over myself. She throws him out. Cruise just wanders around NYC in an ugly ass pinstriped suit looking dazed for what seems like an eternity. I mean...doesn’t he work?? Eventually he goes to see Bryan Brown who is running a gigantic nightclub on the East River and living on a yacht. But he’s all “The restaurant business isn’t as glamorous as I had hoped, pallzy--did you know you have to order linens and shit?” He’s despondent and drinking heavily but Cruise decides to leave him and give Kelly Lynch a ride home...who OF COURSE takes him upstairs and tries to schtup him. Cruise grows some morals and rushes back to the yacht and he and Bryan Brown fire that sucker up and sail off into the sunset together. JUST KIDDING! He finds that Brown has killed himself by slashing his own throat. So that sucks...but not as much as the fact that this movie REFUSES TO END! So Cruise chases Shue to her folks‘ place on Park Ave and...SURPRISE...they are filthy fuckin‘ rich! Pa dukes tells Cruise that there is no way is daughter is going to marry a bartender and offers him $10k for his trouble. He says he isn’t interested in the money which...I mean...of course he is! Shue refuses to go with him at first but then there’s a huge melee and the doorman gets his ass kicked and she changes her mind over the course about 90 seconds and abandons her billion dollar inheritance so she can help Tom Cruise open a fleet of Cocktails & Dreamssssses. At the end it is revealed that she is actually pregnant with twins. No one gives even the tiniest pebble of a shit. I just realized that I forgot to mention Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy” is in this movie. Oh well. I need a drink.