Food and Beverage Cost Control

Assignment 1-Reaction Paper

Name: NICOLE CARINO

Year and Section: BSHM - III

Reaction Paper Making

Directions: I want you to make a Reaction Paper with regards to the world of Food
and beverage Cost Control in the movies: Cocktail, Julie and Julia, Beerfest and
Ratatouille. (Only choose one) Attached herewith the guidelines on how to make a
reaction paper. (100 points)
Guiding Questions:
1. Title of your reaction paper
2. Introduction
3. Observations
4. Experiences of the Main Characters (Movie)
5. Conclusion

Cocktail: A Movie Review

Cocktail tells the story of two bartenders and their adventures in six bars and
several bedrooms. What is remarkable, given the subject, is how little the movie
knows about bars or drinking. The first part of the movie works the best. That's
when Cruise drops out of school, becomes a full-time bartender, makes Brown his
best friend and learns to juggle those bottles. In the real world, Cruise and Brown
would be fired for their time-wasting grandstanding behind the bar, but in this
movie, they get hired to work in a fancy disco where they have a fight over a girl
and Cruise heads for Jamaica.
Early in the film, there's a scene where the two bartenders stage an elaborately
choreographed act behind the bar. They juggle bottles in unison, one spins ice
cubes into the air and the other one catches them, and then they flip bottles at each
other like a couple of circus jugglers. All of this is done to rock 'n' roll music, and
it takes them about four minutes to make two drinks. They get a roaring ovation
from the customers in their crowded bar, which is a tip-off to the movie's glossy
phoniness. This isn't bartending, it's a music video, and real drinkers wouldn't
applaud, they'd shout: "Shut up and pour!" The bartenders in the film are played by
Tom Cruise, as a young ex-serviceman who dreams of becoming a millionaire, and
Bryan Brown, as a hard-bitten veteran who has lots of cynical advice. Brown
advises Cruise to keep his eyes open for a "rich chick," because that's his ticket to
someday opening his own bar. Cruise is ready for this advice.
He studies self-help books and believes that he'll be rich someday, if only he gets
that big break. The movie is supposed to be about how he outgrows his
materialism, although the closing scenes leave room for enormous doubts about his
redemption. If the film had stuck to the relationship between Cruise and Brown, it
might have had a chance. It makes a crucial error when it introduces a love story,
involving Cruise and Elisabeth Shue, as a vacationing waitress from New York.
They find true love, which is shattered when Shue sees Cruise with the rich
Manhattan executive. After the executive takes Cruise back to New York and tries
to turn him into a pampered stud, he realizes his mistake and apologizes to Shue,
only to discover, of course, that she is pregnant - and rich.
The last stages of the movie were written, directed and acted on automatic pilot, as
Shue's millionaire daddy tries to throw Cruise out of the penthouse but love
triumphs. There is not a moment in the movie's last half-hour that is not borrowed
from other movies, and eventually even the talented and graceful Cruise can be
seen laboring with the ungainly reversals in the script. Shue, who does whatever is
possible with her role, is handicap because her character is denied the freedom to
make natural choices; at every moment, her actions are dictated by the artificial
demands of the plot. It's a shame the filmmakers didn't take a longer, harder look at
this material. The movie's most interesting character is the older bartender,
superbly played by Brown, who never has a false moment. If the film had been told
from his point of view, it would have been a lot more interesting, but box-office
considerations no doubt required the center of gravity to shift to Cruise and Shue.