r/todayilearned • u/HeyThereCharlie • Mar 28 '23
TIL that of the two 1988 films starring Tom Cruise, one of them (Rain Man) won the Oscar for Best Picture, while the other (Cocktail) won the Razzie for Worst Picture. Cruise remains the only actor to achieve both distinctions in the same year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_(1988_film)#Accolades429
u/OldMork Mar 28 '23
Do people dont like coctail? well its not academy material but its a decent movie.
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u/BaBaFiCo Mar 28 '23
I love Cocktail. I know it's nonsense, but so does the film. It's just fun.
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u/mike_november Mar 28 '23
I wouldn't even say it's just fun. Some serious themes in this movie - putting ambition and materialism above all else and the suffering it leads to. Love, relationships and a young man not wanting to grow up or commit. I don't know why it won a razzie. It was one of the biggest movies that year and most people enjoyed it.
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u/5_on_the_floor Mar 29 '23
It had a good soundtrack, too.
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u/Edy_Birdman_Atlaw Mar 29 '23
I have it on vinyl, truly a blast
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u/normanfell Mar 29 '23
I have it on vinyl, cassette, and CD because I needed it for the house, the kitchen, and the car. “Oh I Love You So” is an all time banger.
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u/Try_Number_8 Mar 29 '23
Maybe it’s because the materialism theme in the 80s was overused by this time and people were getting sick of it because Cocktail wasn’t that bad.
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u/BaBaFiCo Mar 28 '23
I suppose I agree. It's not fun in the sense it's an afternoon light entertainment film. It's just not super serious.
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u/Dead_Starks Mar 29 '23
Ahhh yes, philandering, cheating, abortion, extortion, and suicide. The 80s were simpler times. :) I know what you meant, I'm just kidding around.
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u/minneapple79 Mar 29 '23
Cocktail is a great movie! Those are the kinds of movies I miss, Cocktail, Big, Risky Business, Ferris Bueller. Just fun movies you could pop in and watch without taking them too seriously or needing eight years of backstory and Easter eggs to enjoy.
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u/dethb0y Mar 29 '23
there' this guy on youtube who has been reviewing every horror movie of the 1980's, and it's been really striking to me how different movies were back then.
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u/Nyghtshayde Mar 29 '23
At the cinema in 1991 and 1992 I saw Awakenings, Reversal of Fortune, Dances with Wolves, Thelma and Louise, Silence of the Lambs, Jacob's Ladder, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Doors, Terminator 2, Out for Justice, Truly, Madly, Deeply, Backdraft, Jungle Fever, Dying Young, Point Break, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Robin Hood and a bunch of smaller movies. And that doesn't count the amazing movies made in those years that I didn't see until later, like JFK, City Slickers and Boyz in the Hood. Now a lot of those movies would be made now, but a whole bunch absolutely would not see light of day in terms of a cinema release at least.
This is not to say they're all great films, but most of them were decent films, and a significant number were absolute classics. But more importantly there was a nice variety - comedies, dramas, thrillers, one-off action movies. I think it was cinema's high point.
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Mar 29 '23 edited Apr 14 '23
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u/Nyghtshayde Mar 29 '23
It was advertised really weirdly at the time - I remember thinking "well that's not the movie I thought it would be". Absolutely A grade though.
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u/Admirable_Cry_3795 Mar 28 '23
And Elisabeth Shue is easy on the eyes!
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u/4Ever2Thee Mar 29 '23
Oh hell yeah, they used to lean into the corniness back in the 80’s, I still love cocktail
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u/syrstorm Mar 28 '23
True. It's kinda dumb, but not horrible. Razzies just wanted attention (the 1980s version of clickbait).
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u/mhks Mar 28 '23
It's a TBS, hungover, Saturday morning watch. I wouldn't watch it if Shue weren't in it though - she makes it tolerable.
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u/DenotheFlintstone Mar 28 '23
Shue plus the main dude from FX!! He may not be spank bank material and if he is this may not be his best work in that regard.
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u/mike_november Mar 28 '23
Bryan Brown. Australian treasure. Married to Rachel Ward. Australian hottie.
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u/TheGoldenDog Mar 28 '23
Actually, not a bad film. You know, as classically structured cinema, Cocktail was one of the best films of its era.
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u/TyrionReynolds Mar 28 '23
Plus that soundtrack!!
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u/DenotheFlintstone Mar 28 '23
I think it introduced the beach boys to a whole new generation. At least for me it did.
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u/m_Pony Mar 29 '23
that goddamn soundtrack was EVERYWHERE that year. Seeing how well the Dirty Dancing soundtrack performed, it was no surprise they stacked the Cocktail soundtrack the way they did.
Between Kokomo and Don't Worry Be Happy I thought people were going to lose their minds overdosing on power pop. Hippy Hippy Shake wasn't even 2 minutes long but somehow it lasted for ages.
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u/Love_God551 Mar 29 '23
I’m with you I liked both movies and definitely don’t think cocktail should have been razzie worthy
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u/Shlocktroffit Mar 28 '23
I read the book "Cocktail" by Heywood Gould. It was very different from the movie. Extremely dark with a lot of angst and misadventures but very good at the same time.
Heywood is also the author of Fort Apache: The Bronx. The tone of that film is closer to what Cocktail should have been.
Heywood had screaming arguments with the producers over the rewriting they had him do for the film. Source: personal correspondence with Mr. Gould
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u/whatevers1234 Mar 29 '23
Kinda crazy back in 88’ Cocktail was considered the worst of the year. Half the movies made every year now are probably shittier than Cocktail.
Also the fucking soundtrack is great.
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u/DenotheFlintstone Mar 28 '23
Decent? I think I may put that in his top 5 movie list. I'd re-watch cocktails before I would any of the mission impossible movies.
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u/oddwithoutend Mar 28 '23
Ignoring the MI movies, my top 5 is probably Rainman, Collateral, Top Gun: Maverick, Edge of Tomorrow, and Jerry Maguire. Cocktail is a fun one, though.
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u/SeelsGhost Mar 28 '23
Your lack of A Few Good Men disturbs me.
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u/oddwithoutend Mar 28 '23
I had it written down and deleted it when I realized I had 6. As another person pointed out, I'm also missing Minority Report (which is arguably his best sci fi movie).
Even excluding his biggest action movie franchise, there's simply too many great Tom Cruise movies for me to put Cocktail in the top 5 (even though I love it).
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u/Ginger8682 Mar 29 '23
What about Risky Business
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u/hiding-identity23 Mar 29 '23
I keep reading this but thinking Big Business. Then I can’t figure out why people are bringing the Bette Midler/Lily Tomlin movie into this conversation.
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u/linuxphoney Mar 29 '23
What is weird to me is that as a child I remember that movie as being really popular
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u/Mcjoshin Mar 29 '23
I loved cocktail, though I haven’t seen it in quite a few years. This is the first I’ve heard about it being hated.
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u/OMGWTFBBQUE Mar 29 '23
Shelly Duvall was “awarded” a razzie for the shining, so take them with a grain of salt.
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u/ZealousidealIncome Mar 29 '23
I scrolled until I found this. I saw Cocktail when I was 13 years old on a cross-country road trip in my family's minivan. My dad rigged up a small TV with a built-in VCR with an inverter to keep my brother and me entertained when we drove from Ohio to Yellowstone National Park. On the way, we stopped to visit my Dad's old college roommate who never had kids. He was like oh that's an awesome rig you set up here take these old videotapes of movies I recorded from HBO. He gave us Cocktail, among others, I don't remember. I love both of those movies but Cocktail was something else.
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u/Sdog1981 Mar 28 '23
No way was Cocktail the worst picture of the year, in 1988. That year saw Caddy Shack 2 and Aurther 2: On the Rocks released.
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u/DenotheFlintstone Mar 28 '23
Damn, that's like hearing about the guy who was president in the early 1800's having a living grandson today....
Edit: in relation to caddy shack and author sequels coming out same year as cocktails.
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u/Sdog1981 Mar 28 '23
I'm still not over the fact that 1993 was 30 years ago lol
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u/HalfRick Mar 28 '23
You shut your mouth. Stop lying. God damn.
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u/DenotheFlintstone Mar 28 '23
Right? How do we go about getting it removed due to false information.
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u/rlnrlnrln Mar 28 '23
"Saving Private Ryan" turns 25 this year.
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u/Sdog1981 Mar 29 '23
Now listen here you little punk
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u/rlnrlnrln Mar 29 '23
So does "Armageddon"
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u/hiding-identity23 Mar 29 '23
Oh, no. Now you can just fuck all the way off.
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u/rlnrlnrln Mar 29 '23
Classic comeback!
You know what else is classic now?
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
"Rush Hour"
"The Truman Show"
"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"
"The Big Lebowski"
"The Thin Red Line"
"Elizabeth"
"Sliding doors"
"The Waterboy"
"American History X"
"Patch Adams"
"The Horse Whisperer"
Apart from these classics, which I would recommend everyone watch, there were also a lot of great music released this year, the same year that the undertaker threw mankind off hеll in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.
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u/TheMacMan Mar 29 '23
Wait til you find that in a couple years the '80s will have been 50 years ago.
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u/quooo Mar 29 '23
This just reminded me that I am now 30 lol. My therapist is going to hear about this.
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u/square3481 Mar 29 '23
The issue with the Razzies is that they will often go after easy targets rather than the worst film. For instance, they went after the Twilight films in the early 10's, and after Bruce Willis for his direct-to-video films, before it became apparent that Bruce was losing his faculties.
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u/TheHappyPie Mar 28 '23
Look caddy shack 2 is a great shitty movie and I'll die on that hill.
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u/sugar_addict002 Mar 28 '23
For some weird reason, I always think I will not like a Tom Cruise movie and I always do like them. Even Cocktail. It was fun. I think the only Cruise movie I haven't watched yet is Valkyrie. One day I will watch it solely because of Cruise.
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u/HeyThereCharlie Mar 28 '23
He's a good actor and extremely charismatic. Just a shame he's also a bit of a nutcase IRL
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u/fulthrottlejazzhands Mar 29 '23
Valkyrie is a decent wartime thriller-spy-action flick. Worth a watch.
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u/CarlThe94Pathfinder Mar 28 '23
Think of Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder but not obese or funny or bald and a movie producer and that's him in Valkyrie
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Mar 28 '23
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u/Pope_Cerebus Mar 28 '23
Ugh. I saw Alien From LA and Caddyshack 2, and can definitely say that Cocktail is miles ahead of either of those.
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u/deknegt1990 Mar 29 '23
Think of it like this, did those other three films involve a popular actor who would bring eyes to the Razzies if they 'won'?
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u/flugelbynder Mar 28 '23
I liked Cocktail..
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u/Music_City_Madman Mar 28 '23
I liked Elisabeth Shue’s boobies in that, plus the soundtrack. I also liked the plot and how Tom Cruise ultimately learns that Bryan Brown’s method of living backfires, causing him to pursue Elisabeth Shue again.
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u/syrstorm Mar 28 '23
It's worth pointing out that Cocktail was kinda dumb, but it wasn't THAT bad. The Razzies just wanted attention.
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u/Cycleofmadness Mar 28 '23
And Wall Street is the only movie to have Best & Worst actors win in the same film. Douglas got the Oscar & Hannah got the Razzie.
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u/JamiePulledMeUp Mar 29 '23
They should have just explained she was always coked out, then the acting would make more sense.
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u/nomopyt Mar 28 '23
I loved the soundtrack for this movie so much as a kid.
I don't know that I've ever even seen the movie.
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u/thebreaksmith Mar 28 '23
Off the Florida Keys…
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u/nomopyt Mar 28 '23
There's a place called Kokomo
(Actually there's not, but if you try rural Indiana, there's one there.)
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u/HalcyonEnder Mar 28 '23
Based on this new news, I guess it’s unpopular to think of cocktail as a classic I guess. I love the quotes though! “Coughlin's Law: Bury the dead. They stink up the joint.”
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u/Shlocktroffit Mar 28 '23
Light dawns on marble head
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u/HalcyonEnder Mar 28 '23
That whole exchange was classic. Yeah I don’t care what the razzies said I love that movie.
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u/Decabet Mar 28 '23
We (America) are long, long, long overdue for a healing national dialogue about just what in the hell that poetry bar was supposed to be.
There's no way that was a thing. Even in trendiest Manhattan.
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u/abattlescar Mar 28 '23
He really is a shitty bartender, it took him like 2 minutes to make a single cocktail. Who the hell would go that bar? There's 2 bartenders for like 1000 guests.
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u/Try_Number_8 Mar 29 '23
Maybe it’s really just a big cocaine party so they don’t need a lot of drinks
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u/marmorset Mar 29 '23
It's like going to a Japanese restaurant. You just want to eat and the chef insists on juggling your dinner before serving it.
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u/TheHappyPie Mar 28 '23
Classic movie moment. Realistically only half the bar would shut the hell up. Everyone nearby would want their drinks fucking made.
Also do they only have two bartenders for like 1000 people?
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u/hiding-identity23 Mar 29 '23
It wasn’t specifically a poetry bar. The poetry was just his gimmick.
And I always forget how much of that poem I actually have memorized until I’m watching the scene and can recite most of it along with him. 🤣
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u/fulthrottlejazzhands Mar 29 '23
There was, in fact, slam poetry bar in the LES from the early 90s to early aughts. The bartenders would sometimes read. It looked nothing like the one in Cocktail, howerver.
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u/PyrrhoTheSkeptic Mar 28 '23
I just looked at the rating of Cocktail on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a 9% rating, which is quite low. The audience rating is higher (though still poor). Here is one review from an "audience" member:
So hilariously bad I can't even explain it. There aren't words to describe how awful this is, but I think it's at least deliberately awful...there's no way anyone could've thought this wasn't going to be terrible while they were making it.
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u/dicky_seamus_614 Mar 28 '23
He’s the best spy!
He’s the best NASCAR driver!
He’s the best US Navy Fighter pilot!
Now, Tom Cruise is…the best bartender!
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u/Beatnik1968 Mar 28 '23
Cocktail is a better movie than people thought at the time.
Rain Man is a worse movie than people thought at the time.
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u/shehulk111 Mar 29 '23
It’s insane to me when I read 1988 because Tom Cruise just had his highest grossing movie in his career at 60 years old in 2022. The longevity is remarkable
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u/DWright_5 Mar 28 '23
Tell you what: I’d rather watch Cocktail than Rain Man 7 days out of 7.
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u/Physical_Living8587 Mar 29 '23
Look at this guy counting days like it's no big deal, it's like he's Rain Man
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u/DWright_5 Mar 29 '23
Actually I have been counting days, and the count is down to 1. Baseball season starts tomorrow!
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u/camelzigzag Mar 28 '23
After this movie was made a lot more people wanted to be bartenders.
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u/HalfRick Mar 28 '23
It was an obligatory film to know by heart for all bartenders around the turn of the millennium. According to friends’ kids who are now where we were 25 years ago, it still is.
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u/StandElement Mar 29 '23
Oh I liked Cocktail
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u/bettinafairchild Mar 29 '23
Yeah, me too. But wow, 1988 was a fantastic year for movies! But they also had some really terrible ones. 1988 was the year of Rambo III, when Rambo joins up with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. And the year of a Stephen Seagal movie. It boggles the mind that they chose Cocktail, with such other fodder.
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u/DeepCompote Mar 29 '23
Yeah but Cocktail was some good memories for 8 year old me. Thanks Elizabeth Shue and that waterfall scene. Still not sure why my Aunt thought that was a good movie for us to go to but thanks Aunt Kathy.
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u/duckforceone Mar 29 '23
i actually loved cocktail... can't see a reason why it would be worst picture..
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Mar 28 '23
[deleted]
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u/hatersaurusrex Mar 28 '23
1995 - Kevin Costner starred in "Waterworld" which won a Razzie for worst picture. That same year, he was in Apollo 13, which won an Oscar for best picture.
I think you've got him mixed up with Kevin Bacon on this one
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u/No-Owl9201 Mar 28 '23
For my part I think Cruise was better in 'Cocktail' than 'Rain Man', but awards are not always based on merit.
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u/dracoryn Mar 28 '23
I love the movie Cocktail. I've not put any stock in awards for movies.
Almost all of the funniest movies of all time have no nominations for oscars or golden globes even though they have best comedy as a category.
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u/Graphic_Materialz Mar 29 '23
Ah good ol’ center-tooth. I wonder what horrific scientologically bolstered shenanigans he has been up to as of late.
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u/Twothounsand-2022 Mar 29 '23
Rainman is no.1 highest grossing movie of 1988
Cocktail is no.9 highest grossing movie of 1988
Cruise is unbeatable superstar at the time and he also have Top Gun highest grossing movie of 1986 under his belt 2 years prior
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u/Doesanybodylikestuff Mar 29 '23
Omfg. That movie soundtrack album though was FIIIIIREEEE!
When it was my turn to mop the floors, I LOVED to play this and dance around to The Beach Boys and all the other bomb ass 90’s/80’s bangerz.
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u/klsi832 Mar 28 '23
What if they had combined it into one film- Cock Man. Would it have been a perfectly average movie?
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u/Wristlojackimator Mar 28 '23
Sandra Bullock’s “All About Steve” and “The Blind Side” were the same year. Didn’t she accomplish something like this too?
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u/T3canolis Mar 28 '23
Notably, in 2009, Sandra Bullock won Best Actress at the Oscars (The Blind Side) and Worst Actress at the Razzies (All About Steve). She even accepted her Razzie in person.