Cruise and Coughlin bartending; Uncle Pat's never-buy-a-drink rule; Addicted to Love; Elisabeth Shue; the passed-out friend diagnosis; Roger Donaldson's late-80s run; Cruise playing basketball; the soundtrack
Cruise and Coughlin bartending comes first: nothing beats Cruise fired up in a quirky role, and nobody else would have taken bottle flipping so seriously. — Bill Simmons
Of all Cruise's mastered skills, this participant would most want to see him play nine ball. — Chris Ryan
Cruise approaches roles by asking what skill he can acquire, unlike Daniel Day Lewis asking who he can become. — Sean Fennessey
Brian and Coughlin are called really bad, slow bartenders who make drinks for no one while 80 people wait. — Chris Ryan
A nit pulled forward: the claim that bartenders make money for bars by pouring less, but they spill liquor everywhere while flipping bottles. — Bill Simmons
Uncle Pat's rule never to buy anyone a drink has aged well and is a smart business strategy.
New York buybacks are common; as a former bartender, topping up drinks for bigger tips steals from the bar, which is why an owner like Pat would not do it. — Bill Simmons
Pat had no real growth plan: he accepts free labor from Brian and takes a dollar or two off the bar as tips. — Bill Simmons
Addicted to Love and Shue, an 80s goddess, are listed, with Cocktail as a more adult Shue after The Karate Kid and Adventures in Babysitting. — Bill Simmons
Cruise leaving 40 paying customers to glance at Shue's passed-out friend and declare her fine always gets a laugh. — Bill Simmons
Funnier still, Shue abandons that friend for days, and the friend turns out to have gone home to New York. — Chris Ryan
Roger Donaldson's late 80s, No Way Out and Cocktail, is listed; No Way Out is called perhaps the most rewatchable 80s action thriller.
Cruise playing basketball is listed, part of a tour of his screen athletics from All the Right Moves to The Firm's running and tumbling. — Bill Simmons
Cruise is judged undeniably a good athlete but the fit, uncoordinated crew-type rather than a varsity basketball player, compared with a high-school swimmer. — Sean Fennessey
The basketball scene has Cruise going perfect from the field; the Philip Seymour Hoffman scene is called a direct parody, and "Ryan's Law" is proposed as never going five for five in a movie basketball scene.
The soundtrack did very well and made the Bobby McFerrin song a thing; it pairs 1950s rock callbacks with 80s songs like Kokomo. — Sean Fennessey
Asked for a final aged-best answer, the music is chosen. — Bill Simmons
Coughlin giving Flanagan tips; Addicted to Love bottle flipping; late-night Coughlin's laws stair fall; Cell Block barman poet; Jamaica bar reunion with Coughlin; first Bonnie scene; last Flanagan-Coughlin scene; showdown with Jordan's dad
The first entry lumps together Coughlin giving Flanagan tips, and possibly Uncle Pat giving Flanagan advice before he starts bartending.
Uncle Pat is a very familiar figure; Monty's father in 25th Hour is compared as another Uncle Pat who runs a New York bar and is cheap. — Sean Fennessey
Uncle Pat being cheap is the opposite of how to run a bar, answered by the point that he only has six people in his bar.
Coughlin's law "Anything else is always something better" is followed by Flanagan's first good night clicking with the waitresses, which is when the movie starts cooking. — Bill Simmons
A movie set entirely at TGI Fridays is floated; that stretch is called the best part, but a whole movie of it would be a good YouTube video rather than a movie. — Chris Ryan
TGI Fridays is praised as a realistic New York bar compared with movie bars like Cell Block; bartending there suggests Coughlin is not a life winner. — Bill Simmons
Coughlin may have just served time or been in a money-laundering scheme and is trying to regroup; "Coughlin's Law" is joked about as a prison movie. — Bill Simmons
Cruise bartending to Addicted to Love is called one of the five most 80s moments captured on film. — Bill Simmons
Cruise looks like he is hearing Addicted to Love, or music, for the first time, cheering it like a game; Robert Palmer's reaction is imagined. — Bill Simmons
The late night where Coughlin falls down the steps while streaming Coughlin laws and they do the Hippy Hippy Shake is really funny; Coughlin writes the laws around his own behavior. — Bill Simmons
Cell Block is called the greatest bar set ever built, a three-story prison cell like the set of Oz; Rembrandt reacted to it in real time on a Grantland video. — Bill Simmons
Cell Block is compared to the multi-level Terminal 5 concert venue in New York. — Bill Simmons
Nobody at Cell Block drinks; they wait for poems, and Flanagan delivers the world's last barman poet speech ending with the bar being open. — Bill Simmons
Gina Gershon ordering an orgasm and the Coughlin-Flanagan routine to All Shook Up complete an unassailable five minutes; the Cell Block scene is called hysterical. — Bill Simmons
The barman poet may have invented Steve Austin's "that's the bottom line" gimmick. — Chris Ryan
In Jamaica, Cruise keeps giving Shue the Rock Bottom by throwing her into the ocean. — Sean Fennessey
Cruise's two romantic interactions, the ocean throws and tickle-attacking Gina Gershon among feathers, suggest he had never done these things before. — Sean Fennessey
The Jamaica bar scene with Shue, Eckhouse hovering and Coughlin showing up is magic, ending with the success-manual bet and the revelation that he married a rich girl. — Bill Simmons
Whether Coughlin sought out where Flanagan was is questioned; maybe he guessed from Flanagan talking about Jamaica and the poster. — Bill Simmons
Coughlin convincing Flanagan to open a bar should have been in the list too. — Bill Simmons
The Jamaica bar is a bummer full of lonely regulars rather than sunburned tourists. — Bill Simmons
Coughlin's "there's my wife" cuts to Kelly Lynch clearly shot in another location, which is very funny. — Chris Ryan
The first Bonnie scene is great, and Flanagan then screws up things with Shue because he is a dirtbag. — Bill Simmons
The last Flanagan-Coughlin scene is the final pick, since the first half is much better than the second. — Bill Simmons
A self-described first-half guy calls Brian's showdown with Elizabeth's dad the funniest scene in the movie by far; another voice adds that the showdowns with the dad and with the sculptor are both excellent. — Chris Ryan
Another personal pick is the entire Cell Block scene, plus the electrifying Addicted to Love sequence.
The accountant-looking guy at the bar who owns the hottest spot in New York raises the question of why he is at a TGI Fridays. — Chris Ryan
