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Film Spotters Josh and Adam. Here. Wednesdays are when we usually share a show from the Film Spotting Archive, but this week we're going to do something a little different. We're going to share just a little bit of our October Bonus Show. Of course, bonus shows we do these monthly for Film Spotting family members. This one was a Tom Cruise draft with you and me, Adam, producer Sam and listener Zach Cook, who actually chose the topic.
Yes he did. We always do a draft in October. The Bonus show is always a listener proposed draft. We choose a Film Spotting family member at random, and they usually suggest two options. We discuss internally which one of those two we want to do. And it was Zach's first choice the Tom Cruise draft that one out. I don't know how much as we're recording this, I don't know how much of the draft exactly that producer Sam is going to offer you. You're probably going to hear, though, listener,
Zach Cook break Josh's heart with his first pick. You might also hear Josh break my heart with his second pick, or maybe not. You might have to actually be a family member and listen to the entire draft to get all that.
What I'm pretty sure you won't hear, probably because he'll edit it out, is Sam with his last pick or two, just going absolutely into Looney Tune's territory. So, you know, Film Spotting family members they get that.
Yeah, that's true. Though honestly, I don't mind Sam's fifth choice so much. It's his fourth choice, and I'll tease it a little bit and give a hint and say that it's it's his choice of the best of a certain franchise Tom Cruise that I think I think would surprise he might surprise a lot of listeners. That's the one that befuddled me. And you could find out what we're talking about if you get to hear that entire draft.
So you can hear that full draft all twenty picks by becoming a member of the Film Spotting Family at Filmspotting Family dot com. But we're gonna give you some of those picks right now. What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?
You're not interested in armed Now, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation.
Everyone to Film Spotting Family Bonus content. October twenty twenty five. It is draft time we have with us. Josh Larson coming to us from Scotland. How are you today, Josh.
I'm living the dream. It's it's mid day for this recording, rather than you know, end of the night, which is what we've been doing lately. So unfortunately you guys are taking the hit though, you early birds.
I haven't even had my coffee yet. The earliest recording, I think, in Film Spotting history, I was going to ask twenty plus years Sam, no show has been recorded this early in the morning. How are you doing.
I'm doing I'm doing great. This is probably ideal for me too. I'm never so sharp as I am at seven am. I have definitely had my coffee, I've walked the dog. I was, I've been up since five thirty, so we're good. Let's do this. Oh my god, No, I'm I don't know how it's going to go. I'm feeling very cruise. I'm up early. I didn't I didn't couldn't do any push ups.
You're very wired. Yeah, I don't know how I'm going to do. Of course, I of course didn't have all my notes prepared, so not for the draft for our show, which which we're recording after. I have no notes for the Cruise draft. And that means that I went to bed on edge. I had to wake up extra early to get prepared for the show, and that means that it was just like when you have to catch an early morning flight. I woke up around twice every hour. Yes, I did not get any sleep. So you're collateral.
Cruise mode is what we're gonna am.
That's exactly, but you exactly get You get to pick first, so you shouldn't be that grouchy.
I do. I do well let's let's welcome in our guests. Yeah, we we do have with us. Zach Cook. Are you are you in Chicago or Chicago Land, Zach?
I am in Chicago.
Wonderful, Okay, Okay, great, Zach. We are pleased, Zachah, We're pleased to have you with us. Give family members a little bit of background. How long have you been listening to the show, maybe, how you got into the show, and how long have you been a family member?
Okay.
I was introduced to the show by my wife back in two thousand and eleven Medie Ballgame era, and I have basically listened faithfully ever since.
Amateur, very amateur film critic, but love the show. I've been a proud Film Spotting Family plus member since.
Twenty twenty three.
It did occur to me like, when I was thinking about this draft, I need something that I could actually draft with you guys.
Maybe wouldn't take that much advance preparation.
Yes, and I thought you might appreciate that draft, Tom Cruise.
We've all seen a lot of crew well, yeah, love it.
Yeah. You were randomly chosen from all the family members who raised their hand and said, hey, I'd love to be part of a draft and here you are. We always go to our quiz master, Thomas Todd to decide the draft order. I'm not sure I've ever won on this before me once, but I'm not sure I've ever picked first, and lo and behold this time. The question was great, great Christian question question Thomas, of course cruise related.
The question was the box contained, Oh, I'm sorry. The question was I don't have the question in front of me, I have the answer in front of me. The question was essentially how many toothpicks fell on the floor in rain Man? How many toothpicks did did Raymond identify? Did he count? Of course, without counting, he just knew how many toothpicks were on the floor. He immediately calculated the right number. We had to, of course, without looking it up.
We had to remember from our many viewings of rain Man. We had to identify that number. And Zach, you said, eighty seven. You will be picking fourth, Zach.
Zach, yes, I have, but not in a while.
It's been a little while. Songs, I'm sure, Yeah, Sam, a little closer one hundred and eighty two, Josh, way closer, two hundred and twenty five. You'll be picking second, Yeah, Sam, third, and I said two sixty two the correct answer. The box contained two hundred and fifty tooth picks. There were two hundred and forty six on the floor, four left in the box. So Josh, we were we were off by five. You were you were minus twenty one. I was plus sixteen. Very narrow margin there.
I'm somewhat shocked, and I want to ask, did you know this or have an instinct of where to go immediately? Did you sit and think about it for a while, because I can't explain this.
It was.
It came three seconds after I saw Thomas's question. And I am not a rain man, like I think. I saw it when it came out, and maybe once a couple of years after that. So something mysterious was happening that I managed to even get this close.
I I did the same thing where I had an immediate answer, like I could hear it in my head. Now it turns out I had the wrong number. It was what I should have been hearing was forty six. You know, I could hear Dustin Hoffman in toning it.
What I was hearing was. What I was hearing was obviously more like sixty two and I think my first answer was five hundred and sixty two, and that's what I had in my head, and I was about to answer that, and then then I realized, wait, there's not going to be there's probably not going to be five hundred toothpicks in a box. That seems high, you know, And so I went, I went two hundred and sixty two, and I just I could hear that in my head.
Now.
Of course again I was wrong, but I was close. Now when I looked it up after that, I got very nervous because I thought Josh is gonna have no clue. I thought Josh would just have no like, there's no way you would pull this from raining. You had no recollection, you'd have no starting point. And so what I thought you would do is is you would go back to the speed of a spotting. You'd say two thirty seven, and you'd be four off.
Oh man, if only my brain worked that way. No, I just I had my own instantaneous rain Man moment.
A question I can say, impressive. Okay, so the way we're going to do this, and we are, we're not gonna rush, but we're under a little bit of a time crunch because As we said, it's early in the morning. We all have things to do today, and we do have an entire show to record after this, myself and Josh, A big one. We're just gonna, yeah, a big one. We're just gonna draft straight. We're not doing any special categories.
We've done some drafts in the past where we've we've aped the Ringer style where you had to pick a blockbuster and a comedy and a drama or things like that, maybe cruise decades or something. No, straight up cruise films. We're going through them. We're doing five rounds, four of us, so twenty cruise films total. La Serpentine. There you go, Serpentine. The only stipulation, even though it almost surely would have worked out this way anyway, is you can only pick one mission impossible film.
Fair.
Yeah, I mean so we don't have the time to get into it. But I resent the restrictions. I don't know how Zach feels. What do you care if I want five impossible Zach.
Zach is the one who suggested it, and Sam and I are on board. So you're out voted, Zach.
Okay, Zach, you explain yourself then, why the rules just.
We got to pick a broader range of Cruise films here.
We can't here on Mission Impossibles.
Okay, so you just you just wanted us to touch on all different areas of his career just for interest's sake, variety, Josh, Okay, that's fine. Maybe I won't pick any problem is get back at you.
There's two great films and then it's a drop off to Mission Impossibles. So really, I I just don't know the best way to do this.
But but Sam, we have to think about this in the context of Cruise in those films, which I'm sure will come up when impossible film.
Are you picking it for the.
Film or are you picking it because of Cruz's contribution particularly, And so I can't think that's the question.
Well that is a great segue into my number one pick. And of course this is tough because I'm really bad at math. With the Serpentine, I don't pick until what pick eighth again, No, I think it's like pick eight and then I get two back to back. But I'm not gonna pick for a while. I don't think the film I'm inclined to go with. I don't think it's gonna get picked. I could be wrong. I don't know what Zach's feelings are about this moviees it's what this movie.
I don't know what his feelings are about this movie. I should say that's always the wild card when you have guests on, but I can't imagine it would be here back at eight And anyway, I just want to go with my heart. I think there's a top tier of three cruise movies, and it really comes down to two for me that are my favorite, and those two I'll go ahead and say it. It's no surprise. Sam, you for sure could say it. I think Josh you
could to. Those two are Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut. Yeah, those are my two favorite films that Tom Cruise stars in, and what I've decided, both nineteen ninety nine films. So this is a nineteen ninety nine cruise draft, Cruise Draft Crew two Pete Cruise, And if if I was just doing an incinerator pick between those two, I think I'd go Magnolia. But this is a Tom Cruise draft, and as good as I think Cruise is in Magnolia, Eyes
Wide Shut is more the cruise vehicle. I think that he is obviously more essential to that Kubrick film than he is as part of the ensemble in Magnolia, and I think he is legitimately great as is Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut. I think that was a crucial film obviously for Cruz to cement himself as a legitimate I think a lot of us probably felt that he was he was a legitimate actor at that point, but we knew that he could deliver as a serious actor once
we saw Eyes Wide Shut. And that is my number one pick.
I love it Eyes Wide Shut. Off the board, Okay, I think this is going to work out well for me just because of the particular approach that I'm taking, which might be a little different we'll see from Adam and maybe for the other two of you. I think Cruise is a very good actor, quite a good actor. I think he's an all time entertainer. So for a list like this, I'm going with the performances that most entertained me, and part of that is to distinguish from
the list we did Adam. I think this was twenty seventeen, maybe twenty eighteen, our top five Tom Cruise performances, where I'll probably hopefully get one or two from that list, But I didn't want to mimic that, which was something exactly what it says. This is him at his best instead of best, however you might define that. I asked myself, Okay, I'm watching a Tom Cruise movie right now, what is it going to be? Because I do think it's not
just that approach for me or for Mood. I do think that's getting at sort of his essential quality as one of the great movie stars. Now I say all that, and I'm going to waffle a bit with my first pick. I'm going to contradict myself here, but I think only a little bit, because Jerry maguire is an extremely exhilaratingly entertaining Tom Cruise movie. But also, and here's where I'm contradicting myself, the reason it was my number one Tom Cruise performance when we did that list is because I
do think it's his best. So it's combining those two qualities, and this cocky sports agent that you know, it leans on his star persona incredibly punctures it just a bit. It's not a deconstruction entirely, but is doing something different than maybe those earlier star turns or some other star turns he would give later it's self aware, I would say, without being self sabotaging. And that's where the entertainment for me comes in. So I'm gonna grab Jerry Maguire here at the top.
Love this, Love this. As soon as you went with eyes White Shot, Adam, I knew the door was open for Josh to make a massive blunder, and I just love it.
Thank you.
I didn't think there was a chance I would get it Magnolia. But but but I'm going to But I will preface it by by saying that I wondered. This will be a strange phrasing, but I think it's answering maybe the question that that Josh just answered where it occurred to me last night. I was like, is there any good to great Cruise film where he's the best thing about it? And there are some I realize. My default was like, I'm not sure, because he's such a
delivery device for entertainment. I have totally bought into the Cruise as last movie star narrative. I kind of love it, and it's helped that there's been this great run of Mission Impossible movies or good to great or good to very good. I loved Cruse's sincerity about his work. I love his work ethic. I love his emotional commitment, which is which is different sometimes than acting, I think. But I do think he's very good. He's very good at
being Tom Cruise. I like him. I like watching him on screen almost every time.
That's his best role. You're saying Tom Cruise, Yes, that's right, he's very good at.
So I will say it's like Cruse is maybe my I don't know tenth favorite thing about Magnolia. He's very good, so you know, using Josh's criteria, it's a bit of a cheap, but it's like it's it's depending on the day, my favorite PTA or like my emotional response favorite PTA. I also wondered if I could maybe grab one battle after another. Here for Cruise being invoked by Ben cl del Toro as he tosses Leo out the window. But if that's not fair, Yeah, I'm going to take Magnolia, no,
no doubt. I didn't think there was a chance I was going to get it. I'm thrilled. And I said it because.
You thought I would take it, for sure.
I thought you would take Josh.
I didn't think Josh would take That's what I mean I knew it's not.
I thought you were going to take Magnolia, Adam, and then I knew Josh would take Icewead shut. That's how I thought it would go. But as soon as you didn't, the door was open.
So there were right Zach, all right number four.
So I had a little advantage at least with Adam and Josh. You all have been somewhat on the.
Record with some of your top five cruise performances, so I was able to do a little research there, and I agree these were the top three year oll. I figured I probably was not going to get any of these, but I'm actually happy drafting four and five because there's still some really good stuff here that.
I can pair it.
You know, probably from a pure acting perspective, the role I should be taking here would be ron Kovic born on the fourth of July. But I have not seen that movie in a long time. I have seen it, but I did not get a chance to catch up with the homework to watch.
The full movie.
And I know, Adam and Josh you just did your whole recollection. That feels like a movie that belongs to.
One of you.
Perhaps what I did get to do was from research for this process, which was really thrilling. I went back. I said, I'm going to go for iconic Cruise roles. If I'm not going to get the absolute best, I'm kind of competing with you, Josh. I'm going to get the roles that just scream Tom Cruise and everyone thinks Tom Cruise.
That are also good performances. I love this movie, and I can't believe I hadn't seen it.
This was my breakthrough for going on this draft. I finally sat down and I watched Risky Business, sad movie, and frighteningly still crushed timely, forty plus years later. I just blown away by how good this movie was and how good Cruise is in it too.
It's a perfect vestial for him.
So I'm taking Risky Business and then I'll, you know, speed things up here. I'm going to pair that with another iconic Cruise movie. I did a little market research privately with my Facebook friends. He's actually a little contained in that movie Risky Business, which is kind of great. So I want Unhinged Famous Cruise two. So I'm just taking it while it's here. I'll take a few good men as well to start rounding out my list. I'm looking for the Cruise roles that I do like and
that are, as you say, just supremely entertaining. Maybe not as best acting performances, but what we think of when we think of Drews.
Yeah, definitely going to Cruise.
We are going to be rivals. Zach, I didn't A Few Good Men was lower on my board, but Risky Business was one I really wanted also for the period of his career. You know, just a movie where you can see him becoming Tom Cruise before your very eyes. It is like, whoa, this guy is going to be enormous. And as you said, I revisited it a couple of years ago, and the whole film is incredibly solid. It's not just like one of these breakouts where it's a
breakout because of the star at the center. It's a really interesting movie doing provocative things that just happened to birth Tom Cruise as we would come to know him.
Yep, h Sam, Josh. How about Zach's approach, He's like that pick feels like it belongs to one of you guys. That's not how drafts are supposed to work.
No, too nice, Zach, too nice?
Too nice? You're gonna lose. I finished, Josh, I gave it.
Then I take that's true.
That's true, you take risky business. He was crushed just so this could.
Get dicey between the two of us as things proceed.
Zach, you do get monthly bonus shows as one of the benefits of joining the film Spotting Family. That was a blast, Josh. We love those drafts with listeners, don't we for sure? Yeah. To hear that draft and to become a member learn more at film spotting Family dot com.
Film Spotting is listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family at film spotting family dot com and get access to ad free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and, for the first time, all in one place, the entire film spotting archive going back to two thousand and five. That's a film spotting Family dot com panically