Tom Cruise Draft (Bonus Excerpt)

0:28We all want to stay in the know, especially when it comes to our money. Hey, 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.

1:07We choose a FilmSpotting 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 won 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, listeners at 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.

1:50What 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 Tunes territory. So, you know, Filterspotty 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 his choice of the best of a certain franchise driven by Tom Cruise that 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.

2:34So you can hear that full draft, all 20 picks, by becoming a member of the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. But we're going to give you some of those picks right now.

2:50What kind of a show are you guys putting on here today? You're not interested in art? No. Now look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation. Welcome, everyone, to Film Spotting Family bonus content, October 2025. 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 midday for this recording rather than end of the night, which is what we've been doing lately. So unfortunately, you guys are taking the hit, though, you early birds. Haven't even had my coffee yet. The earliest recording, I think, in film spotting history.

3:32I was going to ask. 20 plus years, Sam. Yeah. No show has been recorded this early in the morning. How are you doing? I'm doing great. This is probably ideal for me, too. I'm never so sharp as I am at 7 a.m. I have definitely had my coffee. I've walked the dog. I've been up since 5.30. So we're good. Let's do this. Oh, my goodness. I don't know. I'm on the cruise. I'm feeling very cruise. I'm up early. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't do any push-ups. You're very wired. I don't know how I'm going to do. I, of course, didn't have all my notes prepared. So not for the draft, for our show, which we're recording after.

4:07I 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 twice every hour. I did not get any sleep. You're in cranky collateral cruise mode is what we're going to get. I am. That's exactly how I am. But you also, well, we'll get to this. You get to pick first, so you shouldn't be that grouchy. I do. I do. Well, let's welcome in our guests. We do have with us Zach Cook. Are you in Chicago or Chicagoland, Zach? I am in Chicago.

4:46Yep. Wonderful. Okay. I live on the north side. Okay, great. Zach, we are 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 2011, Maddie 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 2023. it did occur to me like when I was thinking about this draft I need something that I could actually draft with you guys and maybe wouldn't take that much advanced preparation yes and I thought you all might appreciate that too so I thought let's draft Tom Cruise we've all seen a lot of Cruz yes 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.

5:52We always go to our quiz master, Thomas Todd, to decide the draft order. I'm not sure I've ever won this before. I don't think you have. Maybe once, but I'm not sure I've ever picked first. Yeah. And lo and behold, this time, the question was great. Great question. Great 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 Rain Man identify? Did he count? Of course, without counting, he just knew how many toothpicks were on the floor.

6:35He 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 87. You will be picking fourth. Zach, have you seen Rain Man? Sam, you said... Yes, I have. But not in a while. It's been a little while for all of us, I'm sure. Sam, a little closer, 182. Josh, way closer, 225. You'll be picking second. Yeah, Sam third. And I said 262. The correct answer, the box contained 252 picks. There were 246 on the floor. Amazing. Four left in the box. So, Josh, we were off by five.

7:28You were minus 21. I was plus 16. 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 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.

8:07It was what I what I should have been hearing was 46. You know, I could hear Dustin Hoffman intoning it. What I was hearing was what I was hearing was obviously more like 62. And I think my first answer was 562. That's what I had in my head. And I was about to answer that. And then I, then I realized, wait, there's not going to be, there's probably not going to be 500 toothpicks in a box. That seems high, you know? And so I went, I went 262 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 going to have no clue.

8:46I thought Josh would just have no, like, there's no way you would pull this from Rain Man. You'd have no recollection. You'd have no starting point. And so what I thought you would do is, is you would go back to the infamous trivia spotting Bellasaraptor, and you'd say 237, and you'd be four off. Oh, man. Just stick with that number. If only my brain worked that way. No, I just, I had my own instantaneous Rain Man moment. We all did. We all did. Didn't question it. That's all I can say. Impressive. Okay, so the way we're going to do this, and we are, We're not going to rush, but we're under a little bit of a time crunch because, as we said, it's early in the morning.

9:25We all have things to do today, and we do have an entire show to record after this, myself and Josh. A big one. Yeah, a big one. We're just going to draft straight. We're not doing any special categories. We've done some drafts in the past where 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 20 cruise films total. Serpentine. The only stipulation. 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.

10:10Yeah. Fair? Yeah. I mean, 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 Mission Impossible films? Zach is the one who suggested it, and Sam and I are on board, so you're outvoted. Zach, okay, Zach, you explain yourself then. Why the rules? We got to pick a broader range of cruise films here. We can't just stock up on Mission Impossibles. Okay, so 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 Mission Impossible.

10:48The problem is there's two great films, and then it's a drop-off to Mission Impossibles. So really, I just don't know the best way to do this. But Sam, we have to think about this in the context of Cruise in those films, which I'm sure will come up when someone picks a Mission Impossible film. Are you picking it for the film, or are you picking it because of Cruise's contribution, particularly to that installment? I 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?

11:24Six? Pick eight again. No, I think it's like pick eight. Yeah. And then I get two back to back. Right. But I'm not going to pick for a while. I don't think the film I'm inclined to go with, I don't think it's going to get picked. I could be wrong. I don't know what Zach's feelings are about this movie. 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.

12:05And 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 too. Those two are Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut. Those are my two favorite films that Tom Cruise stars in. And what I've decided, both 1999 films. So this is a 1999 Cruise draft. Pete Cruise. A draft of two. Pete Cruise. And 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.

13:02And I think he is legitimately great as is Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut. I think that was a crucial film, obviously, for Cruise to cement himself as a legitimate. I think a lot of us probably felt that 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.

13:45I think he's an all-time entertainer. So for a list like this, I'm going with the performances that most entertain me. And part of that is to distinguish from the list we did, Adam. I think this was 2017, maybe 2018, 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. Like 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.

14:27I 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. Um, 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, um, and this cocky sports agent that, you know, it leans on his star persona incredibly punctures it just a bit.

15:09It'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 going to grab a Jerry Maguire here at the top. Love this. Love this. As soon as you went with Eyes Wide Shut, 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 magnolia um but uh but i'm got but i'm going to but i will preface it by by saying that um i wondered i 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 Like, is there any good to great Cruise film where he's the best thing about it?

16:04And 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 love Cruise's sincerity about his work. I love his work ethic. I love his emotional commitment, 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.

16:40That's his best role, you're saying? Tom Cruise. Yes, that's right. He's very good at it. Got it out. So I will say it's like Cruise is maybe my, I don't know, 10th favorite thing about Magnolia. He's very good. uh 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 uh pta or like my emotional response favorite pta i also wondered if i could maybe grab one battle after another here for crews being invoked by benicio del toro as he tosses uh leo out the window um but if that's not fair yeah i'm gonna take magnolia no no doubt i I didn't think there was a chance I was going to get it.

17:23I'm thrilled. And I sent it over. Because you thought I would take it for sure? I thought you would take it. Because Josh, I didn't think Josh would take it. That's what I mean. I knew. It's not really on my board. I thought you were going to take Magnolia, Adam. And then I knew Josh would take Eyes Wide Shut. That's how I thought it would go. But as soon as you didn't, I - We shall see. The door was open. So there we go. 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.

17:54So I was able to do a little research there. And I agree. These were the top three roles. 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 4th 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 that 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.

18:36What 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. So pandering to the crowd. I loved 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, which is such a really good movie. movie and frighteningly still timely 40 plus years later.

19:19I just blown away by how good this movie was and how good Cruz is in it too. It's a perfect festival for him. So I'm taking Ritsky business and then I'll speed things up here. I am going to pair that with another iconic Cruz 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 too, 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 his best acting performances but what we think of when we think of Cruise Yeah, he's definitely got full Cruise We are going to be rivals Zach.

20:08A Few Good Men was lower on my board, but Risky Business was one I really wanted. Also, for the period of his career, just a movie where you can see him becoming Tom Cruise before your very eyes. It's 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. Sam, Josh, how about Zach's approach?

20:49He'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 going to lose. Nice guys finish last. Josh, I give it, then I take it. That's true. You did take risky business. He was crushed. 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. To hear that draft and to become a member, learn more at filmspottingfamily.com.

21:27Film Spotting is listener supported. Join the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.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 2005. That's filmspottingfamily.com.