| Support Brian's Belly by purchasing through these links. |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
Page One
Page Two
|
|
Continued from previous page.
 Swingers (1996)
Who's Soused: Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Ron Livingstone
Written by wannabe smoothie, Jon Favreau, this slight comedy doesn't go very deep, but it does "superficial" better than most. They're drunk in L.A., they're drunk in Vegas, they're drunk in L.A. again. Luckily alcohol makes the perfect bedfellow for Vince's every monologue on womanizing. Beautiful babies abound in this economical, talky flick. Watching the sun come up through a trailer window with two aspiring actresses, getting through a Hollyweird party, or licking the wounds that only being turned down for the role of Goofy can cause, that demon alcohol finds its way into all the characters' hands sooner or later. You can watch the imbibing fun from the safety of your own home, resting secure in the knowledge that the Swing music resurgence is once again, mercifully, dead.
Major Drunk Scene: Nothing goes better after a long night of drinking than a heavy, greasy meal at your favorite diner. Especially when Vince decides that "you're all grows up!" Standing atop a table full of waffles and swinging his shirt over his head, Vince's Trent is the ultimate "Can't-take-him-anywhere" friend. Personality plus!
Message: Your friends are all jerks, so just be yourself. Oh, wait... you're a jerk too? Doesn't matter, Heather Graham will still want you.
 What! No Beer? (1933)
Who's Soused: Buster Keaton
Buster's last starring feature in America, and the only major attempt by MGM to pair Buster with Jimmy Durante, Beer features Great Stone Face and The Schnoz as bootleggers during prohibition. If Beer's subject matter didn't already ensure its inclusion here, the fact that Buster was actually drunk during its filming must. Just two weeks out of rehab, Buster still needed a stay-at-home nurse, Mae Scriven, to help keep him off the bottle while filming Beer. Two weeks later, Buster wed Mae in a Mexican service, blitzed out of his gourd. Buster never had such a stone face as in his own dazed wedding photos. Luckily the marriage wasn't legal as he was still married to his wife, Natalie. Talk about walking the drunken walk!
Major Drunk Scene: It's an ironic feast for the senses as Buster uses his vaudevillian's chops to evade rolling barrels of beer careening down a hill at break-neck speed. Never before has any actor been literally chased on film by the cause of his own eventual physical breakdown.
Message: You can't tell a drunk by his face.
 National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
Who's Soused: John Belushi, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst, Peter Riegert, Tim Matheson, and, yes... D-Day
Delta fraternity has the worst house on campus, the worst incoming pledges and get the worst grades in school. But they know how to party. Single-handedly responsible for popularizing toga parties, this John Landis gem also brought binge-drinking, peeping toms, road trips, "Louie Louie" and Otis Day and the Nights back into vogue. Why drink to excess? Maybe because you scored a zero on your last test, you're on double secret probation or there's a golf ball in your soup. Or so you'll have the uncontrollable urge to break Steven Bishop's guitar into a million pieces. The rest of the party-goers will thank you.
Major Drunk Scene: With a devil on one shoulder, an angel on the other, and a drunken underage girl passed out in front of him, buzzed toga-reveler Tom Hulce does the right thing and takes the poor girl home. God bless Hollywood.
Message: You don't have to drink away your money... you can drink away your parents' money.
New! Double Secret Probation Edition available!
 Barfly (1987)
Who's Soused: Who Isn't?
Charles Bukowski's autobiographical slice of skid-row life follows the day-to-day ramblings and rumblings of Henry Chinaski, a part-time poet, full-time drunk, played ably by Mickey Rourke. Gee, ya think he practiced much for the role? His face looks like a callused gorilla's hand. Even Faye Dunaway manages to look like a lizard-skinned Weimaraner in this stripped-bare portrait of low-living excess. Did someone say Frank Stallone? Yes, he's here too, as Chinaski's worst enemy and only shot at any sense of pride. Would you believe that egocentric bartender Frank dishes out more punches in two minutes than his brother Sly did in five Rocky's? Luckily for Chinaski, in the down-and-out world of professional drunks, there's always a rematch. It's just a matter of ingesting the right fuel, and pouring the same for "all my frieeeeeeends!!!"
Major Drunk Scene: Tough choice, but we'll have to go with the final triumphant slugfest between bartender Frank and drunk-ass Mickey. This scene is not just notorious for its realistic street-fighting, but for possibly being that imperceptible push towards becoming a real-life boxer that was the death knell of Rourke's career.
Message: Heavy drinking never pays, except if you can write well...about heavy drinking.
 Strange Brew (1983)
Who's Soused: Bob and Doug McKenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas)
Filmed in "Hoserama," this film really wears its inebriating influence on its sleeve. Straight from the files of SCTV, Bob and Doug come screaming out of the Great White North to open a brewery, but encounter problems along the way that are strangely reminiscent of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Coincidence? Not really, as the pair of directors based their movie, very loosely, on the bard's masterwork. As you might imagine, there's beer here, lots of beer, not just being ingested in copious amounts, but pushing the (throat clearing) plot along and giving brewery owners Bob and Doug the chance to do some of their funniest set pieces. Max von Sydow is on board as the evil Brewmeiser Smith, fresh off his successful turn as Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. And Mel Blanc blesses the film with one of his last voiceovers.
Major Drunk Scene: There's something rotten in the state of mental health, as Bob and Doug join the dumbest hockey game this side of the Hansen brothers family picnic. They also take satirical jabs at Return of the Jedi back when it was topical, unlike Mel Brooks (and Rick Moranis) would in Spaceballs four years later. Beauty, eh?
Message: A woman would have to be bombed to appreciate the line: "Geez, you're nice. If I didn't have puke breath, I'd kiss you." Find and marry that woman!
James Hollis Smith lives in Manhattan, where he is editor-in-chief of a national men's magazine. He can be contacted at his web site www.evil-g.com.
|
|
    
|
««PREVIOUS
Everyone has their personal top ten. Post yours in our user forum ⇒.
|
|
|
|
