1988 [****tail]

juliezhou · Guru

1988 [****tail]

juliezhou · Guru

Cruise’s made-in-Canada movie ‘****tail’ celebrates 25 years

By John R. Kennedy Global News

Posted July 29, 2013 7:35 am

Tom Cruise stars in '****tail,' which was filmed in Toronto 25 years ago.View image in full screen

TORONTO C ****tail, the movie that cemented Tom Cruise’s leading man status in Hollywood and made audiences dream of a place called Kokomo, celebrates its 25th birthday on Monday.

The simple tale of a bartender who tossed bottles and landed a wife C which opened in theatres on July 29, 1988 C was largely filmed in Toronto.

“Everybody was in awe of Tom Cruise because he was just ascending and he was definitely in control of the movie,” recalls Stuart Aikins, the movie’s Toronto casting director, from his home in B.C.

“But it wasn’t a movie that stood out for me.”

Written by Heywood Gould (previously a writer and producer of TV’s The Equalizer) and directed by Roger Donaldson (who had just made No Way Out starring Kevin Costner ), ****tail was Cruise’s tenth movie and came hot on the heels of Risky Business, Top Gun and The Color of Money.

The movie earned $11.8 million on its opening weekend and remained in the No. 1 spot at the box office in the U.S. and Canada for two weeks before being bumped by Young Guns.

It gave Cruise his best opening weekend — beating Top Gun by $3.6 million C and went on to earn $172 million worldwide.

In today’s dollars, ****tail was a $300 million blockbuster.

Cruise was Brian Flanagan, an American soldier returning to civilian life in New York City who meets a veteran bartender (Bryan Brown) and balances college studies and a job behind the bar.

With dreams of opening his own bar, Brian takes a job at a beach resort in Jamaica and falls for Jordan Mooney, a girl from a wealthy family (Elisabeth Shue).

A quarter-century after ****tail opened in theatres, its director explains why it still resonates with audiences.

“It’s a movie that speaks to young people and their lives. What are you going to do with your career? What are you going to do with your love life? How are you going to handle your parents? All of those issues are explored in that movie,” Donaldson said in an interview last year with Movie Fanatic.

“All of those things are themes that young people are concerned with and definitely identify with… and still do.”

Here are some fun facts about ****tail and a look at how some of its Toronto locations appear today:

C The fancy bottle tricks C known as “flair bartending” C demonstrated in ****tail by Cruise and Brown were choreographed by John Bandy. He recently said he’s not sure which actor broke the most bottles but recalled that Cruise was a quick learner because “he’s ambidextrous.”

C At the 1989 Razzies C which “honour” the worst in cinema C****tail won Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay. Cruise and Donaldson had been nominated for Worst Actor and Worst Director respectively.

C The ****tail soundtrack was a huge hit, reaching No. 1 in Australia and #2 in the U.S. (and making it into the Top 10 in Canada). It included tracks by Ry Cooder, John Cougar Mellencamp, Starship and The Beach Boys. A number of songs that appeared in the movie were not on the soundtrack album C notably Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.”

C “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys C without Brian Wilson C was the first single off the ****tail soundtrack. Released two weeks before the movie, the song went to No. 1 in the U.S. and Australia (it made the Top 10 in Canada) and earned Grammy and Golden Globe nominations. The video for the song was shot in about two hours on a fake beach at Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort prior to its opening to the public. Full House star John Stamos can be seen playing percussion.

C Donaldson, who was born in Australia, has worked steadily as a director since ****tail, making such films as Species and Dante’s Peak. Donaldson returned to Toronto to make 2003’s The Recruit with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino.

C ****tail is the only movie Cruise ever made in Toronto C but it wasn’t the last time he was in the city. While his then-wife Nicole Kidman was making 1995’s To Die For in Toronto, Cruise spent time in the city learning learning to fly and earned his pilot’s license.

He returned in 1998 to attend the Toronto International Film Festival as producer of Without Limits and popped into the city briefly in the summer of 2010 to visit daughter Suri while his then-wife Katie Holmes was shooting The Kennedys.

C Making ****tail in Canada was a bit of a homecoming for Cruise. When he was eight years old, Tom Cruise Mapother moved into a home on Monson Crescent in Ottawa with his parents and sisters and spent Grades 4 and 5 at nearby Robert Hopkins Public School and part of Grade 6 at Henry Munro Middle School.

C The classroom where Cruise’s character attends business classes is Room 3163 of the Medical Sciences Building at the University of Toronto.

C Cruise’s cousin William Mapother is credited as a production assistant on ****tail. The on-set experience paid off because Mapother became a prolific character actor soon after, appearing in such shows as Lost and Prison Break.

C The Jamaican club scene was filmed inside The Dance Cave on the second level of Toronto’s iconic Bloor Street venue Lee’s Palace.

C The New York City bar Cruise’s character walks into to apply for a bartending job was a TGI Friday’s at First Ave. and 63rd St. The interior scenes, however, were shot on a soundstage in Toronto.

C Cruise’s character Brian is twice shown in the elegant lobby of the apartment building in which Jordan’s wealthy father lives. In reality, it’s the lobby of the Canada Life building on Toronto’s University Avenue. There are, in fact, no residences there.

C ****tail was made in a much more carefree time. The movie opens with Cruise’s character Brian and his army buddies driving in a car without wearing seat belts. Throughout the movie, patrons happily smoke inside bars. Brian doesn’t hesitate to drive Kerry (Kelly Lynch) home after a night of drinking. And Elisabeth Shue’s character C who is pregnant C is seen toasting her marriage with a glass of champagne.

C The brief funeral scene in ****tail was filmed at St. John’s Norway Cemetery and Crematorium on Kingston Road in Toronto.

https://globalnews.ca/news/747392/cruises-made-in-canada-movie-****tail-celebrates-25-years/

juliezhou · Guru

Chasing Kokomo: The Secretly Dark ‘****tail’

JULY 31, 2015

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Although it takes place in the ’80s, in some ways ****tail feels like it’s set in the ’50s. Specifically, the version of the ’50s popular in the ’80s, when Back to the Future also takes place. At the time, there seemed to be a general attempt to reset America to a pre-’60s world, and the film used nostalgic covers of old-time rock and roll to evoke a feeling of boundless enthusiasm. That aching for the past is what you remember about ****tail, but beneath its aesthetic cheerfulness lives a more pessimistic view of existence.

In some ways the movie feels like a Reagan-era version of Saturday Night Fever, with flair bartending in place of disco dancing. Its “Started From the Bottom” plot arc springs eternal. In American Psycho (the book), Patrick Bateman encounters Tom Cruise on an elevator, and the movie he chooses to compliment Cruise on is ****tail, which Bateman absentmindedly calls Bartender. Tom corrects Bateman’s glib mistake. In that interaction, the character of Bateman picks up on what ****tail makes apparent: There’s a darkness at the edge of Cruise that contrasts with his all-American good looks.

While the film doesn’t have a ’70s downer ending, it has the rare ’80s denouement that involves compromise. Tom Cruise’s Brian Flanagan never fulfills his Wall StreetCesque dreams. And when he finds out that his love interest, played by Elisabeth Shue, is wealthy, and her father tries to pay him off to go away, he turns down the money in favor of love. Flanagan ultimately gives up on his dream of being super-rich to accept a less glamorous but more rewarding life running his own bar, clumsily titled “Flanagan’s ****tails & Dreams.” It’s fatalism as soundtracked by the Beach Boys.

I saw ****tail for the first time the ideal way — late at night on a free trial of Cinemax. Like the rest of the ’80s, ****tail feels like a weird, blurry dream. It is peak Tom Cruise; postCTop Gun triumph, dripping with sweat and hair gel. ****tail’s Cruise has charisma to burn, but the movie makes it clear: His self-confidence is all a front. Flanagan, like Tom Cruise himself, seems to suffer from Impostor Syndrome. Flanagan knows that his triumphs are piddling and momentary, that the stakes might seem low in the broad scheme of things but determine his life. That brilliant Tom Cruise smile never quite just broadcasts victory. It always broadcasts the outward appearance of victory with a slightly visible undertone of “Oh, ****!” Flanagan turns flair bartending into a life plan and finds a back door to the upper class by way of cruising wealthy women he meets bartending, but as he gets closer to the glamorous life, he finds it to be hollow and soul-bruising.

Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, New York. Many of his films are parables for his own story of reinvention and white-male aspiration, but ****tail feels the most like a Tom Cruise origin story. Similar to the real Cruise, Brian Flanagan uses charisma and sexual capital to get ahead. But in place of the treacherous world of Hollywood, Flanagan chooses flair bartending — the semi-lost art of flipping bottles that has been replaced as a marker of prestige by mixology. In terms of showmanship, though, if somebody is going to take 10 minutes to make you a drink, wouldn’t you rather it involve juggling than muddling?

****tail is the story of a blue-collar veteran from Queens who really wants to be a power-yuppie but can’t get a job anywhere because he doesn’t have the right connections. In some ways, ****tail is very ’80s: obsessed with money and appearances, but it falls into the “Greed Is Bad” camp. It’s like an absurdly glossy version of a British kitchen sink movie — concerned with working-class heroes, involving a surprise pregnancy, starring an angry young man who is frustrated that he can’t penetrate the ruling class because he wasn’t born in the right part of New York. It’s simultaneously clean-cut and incredibly dark, just like Tom Cruise. And Elisabeth Shue is Cruise’s match here. The two of them are so cute together, their romance feels believable and down to earth, even with all the waterfall sex and horse riding on the beach.

****tail got terrible reviews1 at the time of its release, but made $171.5 million worldwide. In hindsight, it’s kind of a perfect movie, an East Coast counterpart to American Gigolo. Cruise is electric throughout. His “Last Barman Poet” slam poem is a wet run for the Frank T.J. Mackey “Respect the ****, Tame the ****” monologue. There are also great supporting performances from fast-talking Australian Bryan Brown as Brian’s mentor, Kelly Lynch as a rich bitch, and queen Gina Gershon as a leather-jacket-wearing photographer who got lost on her way to After Hours and ended up in Cruise’s bar.

The movie’s signature song is the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo,” which people hate a lot, but I really enjoyed as a kid when I heard it for the first time on Full House.2 It is often cited as the nadir of the ****ty Mike LoveCled, Brian WilsonCless Beach Boys. But Mike Love wrote it with a Beach BoysCadjacent all-star roster of West Coast ’60s songwriters — John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas; Scott McKenzie, who wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”; and Terry Melcher, the West Coast producer whose mother was Doris Day.

Melcher also ran afoul of Charles Manson for supposedly screwing him on a record deal. Melcher and his girlfriend Candice Bergen were the former occupants of the Cielo Drive home where the Family murdered Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent. Manson targeted the Cielo house to, as Susan Atkins testified, “instill fear into Terry Melcher because Terry had given us his word on a few things and never came through with them.” And this haunted man went on to write “Kokomo”! Maybe that’s what gives it sort of an eerie feeling of poisoned wholesomeness.

“Kokomo” contains a secret message: The ’60s are long over, the ’70s were a bust, and now it’s the ’80s and we’ve still got to eat. Its extreme catchiness is undercut with sarcasm and pessimism. It’s about escaping to an idyllic land of enchantment that does not actually exist.3 Brian Flanagan wants to escape his lower-middle-class life, but he comes to find that, like Kokomo, it’s all a mirage.

Even though I love it, I’ve always felt “Kokomo” was a very cynical song.Maybe it’s because it’s the sound of giving up on former artistic ideals and just trying to make some money on a novelty record. The hell with it, dude, we’re going to Kokomo. But it’s a great novelty record! Divorced from the legacy of the Pet Sounds Beach Boys, on its own ’80s postmodern terms, “Kokomo” rules. I also love Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville.” I am not immune to the lure of a three-minute-long tropical vacation of the mind. OK, that positive part said, the bad: “Kokomo” and “Margaritaville” are the anthems of all-inclusive island resorts in the Caribbean with a mostly white clientele and many of the island’s locals working as staff in the tourism service industry.

The places evoked in those songs are imaginary, but all the islands listed in the opening chant of “Kokomo” are real islands. As sung by white dudes Buffett and the Beach Boys, “Kokomo” and “Margaritaville” always make me think first of colonialism, because of the complex and harsh colonial histories of the tropical countries in which white vacationers Buffett and the Beach Boys suggest you take a totally carefree vacation free of any cultural context. There’s a clip in the “Kokomo” video where you see white women splashing in the ocean and then a black woman walks across the frame carrying a tray of tropical drinks. Kokomo is not relaxing when you have to work there.

And in one of ****tail‘s many insane twists of logic, the Jamaican resort has to import white bartenders from New York in order to bring flair bartending to Jamaica? Ugh, Kokomonialism. The video was shot at a Walt Disney World resort, the Grand Floridian, subbing for the imaginary Caribbean retreat. ****tail’s Jamaica scenes were shot in Jamaica at the Sandals Royal Plantation resort, which seems to have “Plantation” in its name as a sign of luxury, not a reminder of the history of slavery in Jamaica. Like “Kokomo,” you might have to turn off your higher brain a little bit to enjoy ****tail fully. It’s a tropical drink melting in your hand.

The longer you listen to “Kokomo” on repeat, the more sinister it starts to sound. And the more you watch ****tail, the better it gets, at least in my experience. It’s endlessly rewatchable. ****tail is the late night cable movie that has it all: horse riding on the beach, class issues, a graphically depicted violent suicide. All this and “Kokomo” too. Good luck getting it out of your head now.

https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/chasing-kokomo-the-secretly-dark-****tail/

juliezhou · Guru

For a brief period in 1988, it began to feel like synchronised bartending was the coolest career option available thanks toRoger Donaldson’s cautionary tale of choosing ambition over love.

Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise), fresh out of the army, arrives inNew York, via the inevitable Greyhound bus, with dreams of overnight riches.

There's not an auspicious start as he takes the subway toVernon-Jackson StationinQueensto hook up with his only contact in the city, Uncle Pat who runs a local Irish pub inLong Island City.

****tail film location: 50th Avenue, Queens

Flanagan’s uncle’s bar, ‘Pat’s Place’: 50th Avenue, Queens |Photograph:Google Maps

‘Pat’s Place’ was a bar which stood at10-37 Jackson Avenueon the corner of 50th Avenue. It's now unrecognisable C apart from the distinctive shape C after being spruced up as the hipJackson's Eatery / Bar.

Despite Pat’s attempt to bring Brian down to earth, the aspiring tycoon has his sights firmly set on a career in Wall Street, or Madison Avenue, or ‘communications’…

He quickly discovers that he’s not remotely experienced enough to step straight into a high-end position and reluctantly settles for tending bar at night while studying during the day.

It’s more Brian’s charm and popularity with female customers than innate ability that get him a job from cynical Aussie Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown) at the old TGI Friday bar on theEast Side.

This stood at1152 First Avenueat 63rd Street but the candy-striped awnings are long-gone and the premises now houses the Sherlock Holmes-themedBaker Street Pub.

For reasons of economy, the production was based inTorontoand the interior of the popular hangout was recreated in the studio here.

****tail film location: Knox College, University of Toronto, Toronto

Brian enrolls at 'City College': Knox College, University of Toronto, Toronto

InOntariotoo is ‘City College’ where Brian enrolls for a business course, which isKnox Collegeat theUniversity of Toronto.

Coughlin and Flanagan’s bottle juggling routine proves a great hit, oddly taking precedence over speedy service, and the pair are hired to tend bar at “the hottest saloon in town”.

****tail film location: Old Don Jail, Gerrard Street East, Toronto

Brian and Doug tend bar at the 'Cell Block' bar: Old Don Jail, Gerrard Street East, Toronto

The ‘town’, once again, isToronto, where 'Cell Block', the blue-lit circular bar in which Brian flagrantly contravenes all manner of health and safety regulations by standing on the bar top to recite poetry, is theRotundaof theOld Don Jail, 550 Gerrard Street East.

TheDon Jail, east of theDon RiverinToronto'sRiverdaleneighbourhood, was built in 1864 as the Toronto Jail, with a capacity of 184 inmates. Before capital punishment was abolished inCanada, Toronto Jail was the site of twenty-six hangings, the last being as recently as 1962.

The Jail was renovated to serve as the administrative wing of Bridgepoint Active Healthcare in 2013, and itsRotundais open to visitors.

Doug and Brian’s ambitious plans to open their own ‘****tails and Dreams’ establishment come to grief after a fist-swinging falling-out over the flirtatious and rich Coral (Gina Gershon).

Giving up on the dull business course, Brian heads to the West Indies for an apparently lucrative gig running a beach bar inJamaica. The was the Dragon Beach Bar,Dragon BeachinPort Antonio, which went on to find fame under the name of, yes, the Cruise Bar. Sadly, it’s since closed.

You can still enjoyDragon Beachitself and, a few miles east, you can visitReach Falls, on theDrivers River, which is where Brian frolics with holidaying New Yorker Jordan Mooney (Elizabeth Shue).

In 2010,Tom Cruisereturned toPort Antoniofor the tropical island scene inKnight And Day, and you can see more of the town in the finalDaniel CraigBond movie,No Time To Die.

****tail film location: Lee's Palace, Bloor Street, Toronto

the reggae club in 'Jamaica': Lee's Palace, Bloor Street, Toronto

If you want to boogie the night away in the reggae-filled ‘Dance Cave’, well, that’s back inToronto. This 'tropical' hideaway was filmed insideLee’s Palace,529 Bloor Street West.

Lee’sis also the rock venue whereSex Bob-ombperform inEdgar Wright’s 2010 adaptation ofScott Pilgrim Vs The World.

A bad bet with Doug, who’s turned up on honeymoon with his wealthy new bride, leads Brian to enjoy a fling with the older C but rich, Bonnie (Lisa Banes).

Jordan, understandably humiliated, is on the first plane home, back to her job in a ‘New York’ diner.

****tail film location: Lakeview Restaurant, Dundas Street West, Toronto

Jordan waits tables at 'Jerry's Deli': Lakeview Restaurant, Dundas Street West, Toronto

Well, sort of. ‘Jerry’s Deli’, where she waits tables C and later gets to dump the day’s specials onto the contrite Brian, is the famousLakeview Restaurant,1132 Dundas Street West,Toronto.

This 24-hour eaterie dates back to 1932 and its period deco interior has appeared inTroy Duffy's 1999The Boondock Saints, the 2007 musicalHairspray,David Cronenberg's 2012Cosmopolis, withRobert Pattinson, and famously became 'Dixie Doug's', the faux-Southern pie restaurant inGuillermo Del Toro’s Oscar-winningThe Shape of Water.

Brian, now living with Bonnie back inNew York, realises the terrible mistake he’s made. It’s outside a gallery alongside the old Regency Theatre, which stood at1987 Broadwayat West 68th Street inNew York, that he drunkenly breaks up with her.

The Regency, which seems to be showingCasablanca, was indeed a rep house showing classic films. It closed in 1999 and the whole block has been rebuilt.

Jordan is in no mood to take Brian back but, after a wise word from Uncle Pat, he storms off to her family’s luxury apartment on C where else? C 'Park Avenue'.

****tail film location: Canada Life Building, University Avenue, Toronto

the lobby of the Mooney's apartment building: Canada Life Building, University Avenue, Toronto

That expansive lobby, where Brian has to get past the doorman, is actually that of theCanada Life Building, 330 University Avenueat Queen Street, inToronto’sDowntowncore.

Once he gets up to the penthouse to confront Jordan’s father (Laurence Luckinbill), who tries to pay him off with a $10,000 cheque, the elegant blue and white living room isLady Pellatt’s SuiteinCasa Loma,1 Austin Terraceat Spadina Road, on a bluff overlooking northernToronto. TheSuitehas had a slightly warmer makeover than its clinical pale blue-and-white colour scheme in the film.

****tail film location: Casa Loma, Austin Terrace, Toronto

the Mooney family's 'Park Avenue' penthouse: Lady Pellatt's Suite, Casa Loma, Austin Terrace, Toronto

The mock-Gothic folly ofCasa Lomahas proved a real boon to the city’s film industry, featuring in countless productions, most famously as Professor Xavier’s Academy inBryan Singer’s firstX-Menmovie, but also inScott Pilgrim Vs The World(again),David Cronenberg'sDead Ringers,Keanu Reevessci-fiJohnny Mnemonic, and Oscar-winning musicalChicago.

‘Hysteria’, the smart floating nightclub now run by Doug, isThe Water Club, in a barge moored on theEast RiveratEast 30th Street, inNew York'sMurray Hill.

Unless you want to hire the club, you've missed your chance for a romantic meal here. From 1982 to 2018,The Water Cluboperated as a restaurant but it's now used exclusively as a venue for private events.

Things are not going as well as they appear on the surface, and Brian finds himself hit by a dose of reality when he has to attend a funeral, held inSt John’s Norway Cemetery,256 Kingston Roadat Woodbine Avenue, inToronto. Picturesque and conveniently close to film studios, the cemetery has also been seen inGus Van Sant's 1995To Die For,John Singleton'sFour Brothers, andJim Sheridan'sGet Rich or Die Tryin'.

https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/c/****tail.php

juliezhou · Guru

THE POWER OF ****TAIL

(AUGUST, 2000)

I have no idea why this column happened. Bizarre. There's a good chance I was smoking too much pot at the time. The good news is that you get some solid life lessons and an extremely dated "Survivor" reference.

**

Unless you blocked it from your mind already, you should remember that Coyote Ugly was marketed this month as "****tail with women." That was an outright lie -- it's actually about a ditzy 20-something trying to jumpstart her crappy signing career in Manhattan. Her voice sucks, the plot sucks, everything sucks. The movie isn't even entertaining in an unintentionally-funny way, like Showgirls or Karate Kid III. Hell, as far as musical movies go, even Rhinestone was more entertaining -- at least we got to see Sly Stallone sing.

The only positive from Coyote Ugly's release was this: it pushed ****tail back into the limelight. Let's face it, ****tail is The Greatest Bad Movie Of All-Time, a veritable blueprint on how to get through the everyday rigors of life. If you don't enjoy ****tail -- at least secretly -- well, I don't believe you. It's simply impossible. Consider the following things:

* Tom Cruise in his absolute prime. If Cruise were Larry Bird, ****tail would be the '87 Playoffs -- he's never done more with less. Remember, this movie never would have been released if Cruise wasn't involved. And he never gets the proper amount of credit for the way he throws himself into roles, like the way he learned how to mix drinks and flip beer mugs and shotglasses in this movie. Most actors go the extra yard, but Cruise is REALLY into it.

When Mission Impossible 2 was released last May, I wrote that "the only Cruise sequel I would ever pay to see is ****tail." And I meant it. Not only is Tom Cruise the most underrated actor of our generation -- remember, he carried Rain Man -- but he's also the most "likable yet unintentionally-funny" actor of our generation. I'm giggling just thinking about the "Addicted to Love" scene from ****tail. Highest of high comedy. I defy anyone to stay stone-faced during that scene.

(When it comes right down to it, nothing beats Cruise when he's fired up and throwing himself into a quirky role -- pool player, cornerback, race driver, bartender, etc. -- and he's the only actor alive who would have bothered to learn how to flip beer glasses and juggle vodka bottles. Val Kilmer might have done it, but only for the right price.)

* Bryan Brown as Koglan. Maybe the greatest supporting character of all-time. We'll get to this later, but you should know that the drunken Koglan constantly throws out life "lessons" -- ala Confucious -- and prefaces each of them by saying "Koglan's Law: Blah blah blah..." Why did the producers kill Koglan off near the end? It's one of the unanswerable questions of life. His sitcom potential was off the charts. More on this later.

* Elisabeth Shue as Jordan, Cruise's love interest... and she's still in her chunky-but-sexy "Karate Kid" stage. Mmmmm.

* Great music. Always a key factor for any movie that demands to be watched over and over again. While we're at it, there's great scenery here, especially the downtown Manhattan and Jamaica parts. Eye candy galore.

* A ridiculous climax in a Park Avenue penthouse that features Cruise punching out a doorman and telling Jordan's Dad, "It didn't have to be this way." You really have to see it. Maybe my favorite "so bad it's good" scene that doesn't involve Gymkata or any of Corey Feldman's work in the Haim-Eggert classic Blown Away.

But forget those things for a few minutes and and concentrate on the legacy of ****tail -- the lessons that it provides America's youth. If you're under the age of 21, this movie basically walks you though life. For instance...

LESSONS ABOUT LIFE

1. Most things in life just kinda happen to you

As Uncle Tommy tells Brian Flanagan (Cruise's character)in the opening scene, "Every man wakes up one fine morning with a wife and kids... Where did they come from? They weren't there last time I looked. Most things in life -- good and bad -- just kinda happen to you."

If you think about this one, it's actually pretty deep. ****tail is like a real-life fortune cookie. Seriously.

2. "When a guy lays down a dare, you gotta take it"

Flanagan's actual explanation to Shue for why he screwed up their Jamaican romance by sleeping with someone else (because of Coughlin's bet that he couldn't land a rich chick). A great rationale for any guy coming back from a strip joint to face his wife.

3. "Champagne is perfume going in, sewage coming out"

I wish somebody had told me this before my high school prom.

4. You learn more about life working in the real world than you do going to college.

It's the old Catch-22... you can't get a job without a college degree, but you learn more about life working in the real world. For instance, if you want to get into sports journalism, you're better off interning at a newspaper from age 18-on and attending college classes part-time. Seriously. But your guidance counselor would never tell you this. That's why I'm here and that's why ****tail is here.

5. A good idea goes a long way

As Flanagan says, "Even the guy who makes drink umbrellas is a millionaire." He's right. Look at the guy who created Napster -- he's like 12 years old! A good idea goes a long way.

6. It's better to be a hustler than a hard worker

Koglan: "Tou can only take a guy so far... then it's a question of biology. Biology and destiny. There are two kinds of people in this world -- the workers and the hustlers -- the workers never hustle and the hustlers never work."

(Did you ever think you'd find such wisdom from a bartending movie? Koglan just described everyone on the Boston Globe's sports staff.)

7. "Talk is overrated as a means of resolving disputes"

Just ask OJ Simpson.

8. "Everything ends badly... otherwise it wouldn't end"

Maybe the best line in the movie. Say this to your significant other the next time you're breaking up with them and they say something predictable like, "I never thought things would end like this." Then look them in the eye and say, "Everything ends badly... otherwise it wouldn't end." You'll feel like you're in your own movie scene. Ummm... can you tell I've tried this?

LESSONS FROM KOGLAN

Koglan's Law: Anything else is always something better

His first law... he says this when Flanagan comes into TGIF's looking for a job. Cruise practiced this one in real life when he upgraded from Mimi Rogers to Nicole Kidman.

Koglan's Law: A star never pukes or passes out in public.

However, falling down stairs is allowed, according to Koglan. I'm not sure if it's okay for members of a star's posse to puke or pass out in public; this is something Koglan could have addressed if they ever spun him off into his own sitcom.

(Some possible sitcom titles for Coughlin: Malcolm & Koglan ... ****tails & Dreams ... Koglan's Law ... Koglan and Grace ... Koglan's Corner ... and my personal favorite, Koglan!)

Koglan's Law: Never tell tales about a woman -- she'll hear you no matter how far away she is.

Again, transcendent advice here. I wish I had known this in college -- maybe the entire female student body at Holy Cross wouldn't have turned against me like BB in "Survivor."

Koglan's Law: Never show surprise, never lose your cool.

A great tip for your next roto draft. I might start liberally quoting Koglan in my columns from now on. No jury would convict me.

Koglan's Law: Bury the dead, they stink up the joint

His final law, included in a dubious suicide note to Flanagan. I can't wait to unveil this one once the Red Sox fall out of the pennant race.

LESSONS ABOUT BARTENDING

1. You don't get rich giving things away

Flanagan's uncle made Brian pay for his first beer when he returned from the army. Why? Uncle Tommy owned his bar for 25 years and never bought a drink, not once. As he tells Flanagan, "You out-work, out-think, out-scheme and out-manuever. You make no friends. And you make damned sure you're the smartest man in the room whenever the subject of money comes up." Somebody definitely told this to Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs.

2. Less is more

According to Koglan, bartenders make money for bars by putting less liquor in drinks than you would normally put in drinks. The way you get away with this is by flipping bottles and having fun behind the bar, to distract the customers from the fact that their jack-and-coke is all coke and no jack.

(Don't worry if you're spilling liquor all over the place behind the bar while you're flipping bottles and putting on a show... this is okay, for some reason.)

2a. Bar customers don't actually care about drinking

If you're a good enough bartender, people would rather stand in a crowded bar and watch you flip bottles than actually order a drink. If you can stand on a bar and belt out a three-minute poem, that's an added bonus. Nobody will care and everyone will shut up and listen to you.

(As a former bartender, I don't have any personal experience with this, but I also couldn't flip bottles and spout poetry like Cruise.)

3. A bartender is the aristocrat of the working class

Koglan tells Flanagan this while urging him to hunt for a wealthy woman, telling him, "There are investors out there... there are angels... there are suckers. And there are rich women with nothing to do with their money. You can stand in this bar and be struck by lightning. I've seen it happen." Later on he tells him, "The doors are shut for people like us -- that's why we need to steal the key," which Koglan eventually did.

(In other words, why work hard when you can serve drinks and eventually marry a rich bimbo? Why didn't anyone tell me this while I was getting my Masters, dammit?)

4. Don't bartend for too long

As Flanagan tells Jordan, "You get a bar job to keep your days free for your real gig... after work you're so charged up you have a few drinks and it's party time. The days get shorter and shorter, the nights get longer and longer... before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours."

Words to live by. After six months of bartending, I was staying out until 4:00AM, waking up at noon, smoking and drinking up a storm and getting hit on more than a Blackjack dealer in Vegas. It's a great life... but you get sucked in and it eventually becomes your life. A dangerous line to cross.

(We'll be back on the "Don't buy this front - that was the best year of my life" show after this.)

LESSONS ABOUT LOVE

1. If you think somebody hates you, just wait until you've given them crabs

Koglan came up with that one and even added, "Then you'll REALLY know hatred." How can you NOT like a movie with lines of dialogue like that?

2. If you knock someone up, it's okay to ditch them

After Flanagan found out that Jordan was pregnant, he visited Uncle Tommy for advice. Here was the advice: "She's not trying to shake you down, she's not trying to make you marry her, you don't care about her... walk away from the whole thing." Apparently Uncle Tommy was a character witness at all of Shawn Kemp's child custody hearings.

3. A man will always be judged by the amount of liquor he can consume... and a woman will be impressed, whether she likes it or not.

Koglan claimed this was true but I'm not so sure... I mean, there's a reason Chris Farley never married. Since Koglan was pretty dead-on with everything else, we'll accept this one. Classic quote, regardless.

4. When you see the color of the panties, you KNOW you got talent.

Another gem from Koglan. I keep waiting for someone to send me a JPEG of them in their panties after I write a great column; then I'll KNOW I have talent.

--5a. Never fall for a girl named after an inanimate object.

--5b. If your new girlfriend's ring finger has a white circle around it, she's probably married to someone else.

--5c. Never fall for an assembly line hump that does the book on the first date.

--5d. Never tell tales about a woman, she'll hear you no matter how far away she is.

Koglan warns Flanagan away from his new girlfriend Coral by telling him all of these things. He finally ends up just sleeping with her to get the message across.

If you look at those quotes individually, it's really a blueprint for staying away from the wrong girl. You shouldn't fall for someone with a weird, stripper-like name (stick with the generic names - just trust me). You shouldn't get involved with married woman -- ever, under any circumstances -- because someday that could be your wife and you wouldn't want that to happen to you. You shouldn't date someone who "does the book" on the first date because you know that's not the first time it happened. And you shouldn't gossip about your sexual escapades because 1) it's not cool and 2) it always comes back to haunt you.

That's the power of ****tail. Over the last few paragraphs, you learned about life, drinking, love, bartending, friendship, sex, careers and success. And even if you thought I started this column out tongue-in-cheek -- which is partly true -- I bet you found yourself nodding along more than once.

As for the ending to this column ... everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end.

**END**

https://sportsguy.blogspot.com/2008/05/from-august-25-2000-power-of-****tail-i.html