Alcohollywood

Happy Valentine's Day from all of us at Alcohollywood! In lieu of our regularly scheduled programming, our friends Julia and Todd join us to take on the 2009 Nia Vardalos vanity project I Hate Valentine's Day! In this tragic misfire,  the My Big Fat Greek Wedding star plays a patently psychotic florist whose strict five-date system blows up in her face in the wake of a fling with a charming, down-to-earth restauranteur (John Corbett, her co-star from Greek Wedding). The humor falls flat, Vardalos' personality is grating, and the cast is full of obnoxious comic relief characters who are given no inner lives except in relation to Vardalos' Genevieve. Seriously, this film looks like it was shot in a facsimile of New York City made on a different planet - it's worth at least one painful watch, with the help of our custom cocktail and drinking rules!  

This week on Alcohollywood, we take on one of our more obscure listener requests – the mid-90s micro-budget action movie Felony! The film features a bevy of B-movie stars (Jeffrey Combs, Lance Henriksen, David Warner, Joe Don Baker) who shamble through this film without really knowing what they are doing! The convoluted story follows a cameraman (Combs) and a bunch of vaguely linked groups of people, all looking after a tape that might incriminate the villains somehow. The movie takes place in a magical land where cars have a Pinto-like combustible fragility, and everyone switches their allegiances at the drop of a hat. What’s more, the citizens of a major city completely ignore car chases and shootouts, even when they’re in them! We try to untangle this mess with the help of our signature cocktail and drinking rules, so take a listen!

This week on Alcohollywood, we're watching the 1997 disaster flick Dante's Peak, starring Pierce Brosnan and The Terminator's Linda Hamilton as a rockstar volcanologist and a small-town mayor, respectively, who attempt to escape a rampaging volcano terrorizing the small town of Dante's Peak. Basically Jaws with a volcano, the film is a cheesy rollercoaster ride, but not nearly as obnoxious as its volcano-film partner, Volcano. The effects hold up well, the stakes are clear, and the filmmakers actually go for the gut with some of the deaths. With that in mind, it's certainly an interesting artifact to explore: a perfect encapsulation of a time when coffee was ubiquitous, everyone dressed like Blossom, and science robots were still a fascinating gimmick. Check out our rules and custom cocktail, as well as our review below!

This week on Alcohollywood, we're getting weird with it! 1977's House (Hausu) is a wacky, sprightly, insane Japanese horror-comedy that follows seven teenage girls (all named after their chief personality trait) who visit an aunt's house for the weekend, only to be greeted with carniverous pianos, watermelon-based horrors, deadly mattresses, and spooky cats, all filmed with a colorful, cartoony edge by experimental film director Nobuhiko Obayashi. The result is incredible in its wackiness and childlike glee, and truly has to be seen to be believed. We are joined this week by Three Brothers Theatre's Nick Ostrem, who helps us untangle this madness, along with our signature cocktail and drinking rules. Check it out!

One award loss and one sprained ankle later, Jared and Clint return from Vegas to resume their duties as your humble hosts! This time, friend of the show Craig stops by to help us dissect and make sense of one of his favorite films - the 1982 post-apocalyptic Italian anomaly She! The film stars Conan the Barbarian's Sandahl Bergman as a sexy warrior goddess helping two be-permed schlubs find a girl captured by the garishly dressed Norks. This film is a schizophrenic nightmare that will either leave you rolling in your seat or screaming in agony. There's scene after scene of shoddily-assembled and murkily plotted events see our heroes avoiding werewolf orgies, fighting robot Frankensteins, cutting the limbs off multiplying stand-up comedians guarding bridges and more. It's a film you really have to see to believe; luckily, it's available on Netflix streaming. We've also got the drink and the rules to get you through it!

Coming to you live from Las Vegas, Nevada, this episode of Alcohollywood sees Jared and Clint podcasting from the New Media Expo (recorded on Jan. 8th), joined by Editor-in-Chief of AMC Movie Talk John Campea, who graciously sits with us and gabs about Oscar nominations speculation (with which we make many wildly inaccurate guesses about what ended up being nominated). For the most part, however, we end up talking about James Bond's biggest Vegas vacation, Diamonds Are Forever! The start of the overt campiness of the Bond era, we see a very tired and flabby Sean Connery come back to the role to interact with one of the weirdest rogue's galleries a Bond film has ever had. Along with John, we also get into the Bond series as a whole, and we all learn a little something.

Happy New Year, listeners! For 2013, we (along with Julia once again) are starting out the year with The 13th Warrior, the strange 1999 film starring Antonio Banderas as a Muslim who finds himself recruited to help stop a group of ‘demons,’ in true Beowulf style. Directed by both John McTiernan and author Michael Crichton, based on the latter’s novel Eaters of the Dead, the film is a muddled, dimly lit mess that is difficult to follow and unfortunately hard to look at. Despite some great practical effects, and a committed performance by Banderas, it still can’t escape just how mediocre it is. However, we’ve got some magic potions to help you through the film, along with our rules and review here!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays from the folks at Alcohollywood! For the holiday season, we're tackling yet another unconventional Christmas film - the 1985 dystopian cult classic Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam! In this 1984-on-crack world of  steampunk Britain, mild-mannered accountant Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) tries to track down the girl of his dreams while stymied by stunted bureaucracy, terrorist attacks and intrusive family and friends. The result is a wonderfully realized, dreamlike and endlessly entertaining flick that is evocative of the best science fiction and Expressionist films in film history. Luckily, we've got the perfect cocktail and rules to accompany you on this adventure - just be sure to bring the right paperwork!

It's the end of the world, and we feel tipsy - this week on Alcohollywood, we watch the Roland Emmerich disaster flick 2012 and figure out just how worried we should be about the coming Mayan apocalypse (Hint: not at all). Follow John Cusack and a bloated ensemble cast of international actors, all slumming it for cash, as they alternately engage in philosophical hand-wringing about the end of the world and evade one CGI sequence after another. Despite some engaging disaster porn, it's still pretty overlong, and you can see entire characters and plot progressions lifted wholesale from Emmerich's previous disaster flicks (Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow). At the same time, we've got a custom cocktail and drinking rules to get you through to the other side!

Harry Connickuh everybody! In celebration of that, we check in with Little Man Tate, the 1991 kid dramedy starring (and directed by) Jodie Foster. Foster plays Dede, a working class mom in New York who struggles to raise her little man, Fred Tate, a young genius, and the pressures of celebrity and achievement coming from the early-90s obsession with kid geniuses. Connick himself also stars (well, cameos) as a charismatic college student who teaches Fred the ways of pool and awkwardly walking in on someone having sex. Despite its good intentions, the film's a bit of a slog, and most of the characters (particularly Fred) don't have the charisma to carry a feature film. Nonetheless, give it a shot and find out what you think, bolstered by our custom cocktail and rules!

This week on Alcohollywood, we check out the 1980s Danny Devito-directed comedy Throw Momma from the Train, starring DeVito as a schlubby mama's boy who, wishing the death of his mother (Anne Ramsey, The Goonies) gets mixed up in a Strangers on a Train-like bargain with his struggling writing teacher (Billy Crystal) to kill his mom in exchange for her lamprey-like ex-wife. The result is a surprisingly hilarious and darkly comic buddy piece, with Crystal and Devito giving career-high performances bolstered by a strong, genuinely witty script and nuggets of magical realism in the strange world of the film (one of Devito's hallmarks as a filmmaker). Throw yourself off the wagon with our custom cocktail and drinking rules!

This week on Alcohollywood, we praise Crom with our review and drinking game to 1982's Conan the Barbarian, the John Milius flick that put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map! This silent, episodic epic follows the eponymous barbarian (Schwarzenegger) on his quest for revenge against the warlord-turned-cult leader Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), joined by his friends Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) and Subatai (Mongolian Sonny Bono). With a huge and bombastic score from Basil Pouledoris, fantastic camerawork, and an unconventional 80s feel, it's definitely worth a watch, even if the pace drags a bit. Luckily, we'll help you crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women with our custom cocktail and drinking rules!

This week on Alcohollywood, we're ushering in the new Spielberg film (Lincoln) with one of his last films named after the surname of one of the main characters - Hook! This 1991 nostalgia misfire, starring Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman, explores what happens if Peter Pan wakes up and becomes a cynical workaholic lawyer who ignores his kids, complete with floppy '90s cellphone. When the nasty Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his kids to bait Peter to come back, Tinkerball (a distracted Julia Roberts) must drag him kicking and screaming back to Neverland and train him for the fight of his life against Hook. Does it still hold up twenty years later? Check out our review and drinking game here!

The name’s Bond….James Bond! This week, Alcohollywood is doing its first New Release with the latest James Bond film Skyfall, in which James Bond (Daniel Craig) deals with the specter (get it?) of his childhood and his empty life as a spy, all while melding the gritty Bourne-era Craig Bonds with more traditional elements. Here, an attack on M (Judi Dench) brings Bond back out of the shadows, in order to track down her potential killer and a list of undercover spies that is threatened to be released by flamboyant villain Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Throw in a couple Bond girls, a new Q (Ben Whishaw) and Ralph Fiennes channeling a more serious John Steed from his Avengers movie, and you’ve got a great cast bolstered through strong direction from Sam Mendes, absolutely gorgeous cinematography from Roger Deakins, and a wonderful score from Thomas Newman (pinch-hitting for David Arnold) to create a fantastic Bond movie that attempts – for better or worse – to bring the character a bit more dimension, and question

Remember Dorf? Those 1980s VHS tapes with Tim Conway where he plays a dwarf golf instructor by standing in a hole in the ground, with tennis shoes glued where his knees are to simulate having shorter legs? This week on Alcohollywood, we’re finally tackling one of those hit “cult bad movies” you kids these days seem to like so much – Tiptoes! This time around, we get to see the “Dorf effect” be given to acclaimed actor Gary Oldman, in what the schizophrenic trailer claims is “the role of a lifetime.” I assume this means that, after you do it once, you have enough sense not to do it again. Either way, the film vacillates between (attempts at) a tender drama of midget relations and the complexities of starting a new family – personified by bored and confused thespians Matthew McConaughey and Kate Beckinsale – and a wacky comedy about just how funny those midgets are. Co-starring real dwarf actor Peter Dinklage as a greasy French Marxist and Patricia Arquette as a dumb-as-nails drifter, this film is as perplexing

Welcome to the second episode of Alcoholloween, as we finish up HORROR OCTORBOR!, our month of Stephen King films, with the 1982 horror anthology Creepshow! Here, dated and wacky cartoon transitions from George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) speed us along five tales of terror. Prepare for two hours of: a vengeful father who just wants his cake; a dumb yokel (a blissfully rare acting role from King himself) finding a meteor with strange properties; a vengeful husband takes his sadistic jollies from torturing his wife and her lover; a strange Yeti in a crate helps a weak-willed husband solve the problem of his shrewish wife; and finally, a Scrooge-like germophobe deals with a pernicious bug problem. The film is full of 80s kitsch, so be prepared for that - we'll help you along the way with our custom cocktail and drinking rules!

This week on Alcohollywood, we check in to the Overlook Hotel with 1980s Stanley Kubrick film The Shining, as we continue HORROR OCTORBOR! Watch the slow but intense haunting of the Torrances, who care for the hotel by themselves, with the help of fantastic cinematography, chilling performances and a haunting sense of atmosphere that makes thus truly one of the best Stephen King adaptations to date (even if King himself doesn't think so). Along with this, we can descend into alcoholism right with Jack along with our drinking game and custom cocktail!

This week on Alcohollywood, we're headed back to the 1980s with the Stephen King-written werewolf flick Silver Bullet, starring Gary Busey as alcoholic-yet-fun uncle Red, who helps handicapped Corey Haim track down a werewolf that's killing the increasingly-simpleminded denizens of his small Maine town. Luckily, they've got the help of their spunky sister, a bunch of unfounded assumptions, and Corey's flipping-sweet motorized wheelchair, the "Silver Bullet"! Keep a look out for other actors who probably shouldn't be here, including Terry O'Quinn as the well-meaning town sheriff, Everett McGill as a preacher with a terrible secret (SPOILER: he's the werewolf), and Lawrence Tierney as the town bartender. Bite into our custom cocktail and drinking rules for Silver Bullet!

This week on Alcohollywood, we’re continuing HORROR OCTORBOR! by sitting through the three-hour miniseries IT, starring a bevy of B-level actors at the height of their popularity in the early nineties, plus a “special appearance” by Tim Curry as the titular character! Let’s get the Stephen King checklist out: After a group of seven kids (check) in a small town in Maine (check) destroy a creature that preys on their everyday fears (check), the kids – one of whom is a famous horror author (check) – must return to this town as adults to defeat the monster and recapture their childhood. This one’s a bit of a slog, but it terrified audiences in 1990, so we thought we’d check it out. Will Pennywise the Clown steal these kids’ souls, or will he be defeated by a slingshot and naive belief? Check out our rules, drink and review below!

This week on Alcohollywood, we start HORROR OCTORBOR!, where we celebrate Halloween by reviewing and drinking to Stephen King adaptations! To begin, we tackle the 2007 thriller 1408, starring John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson and one evil fucking room. In typical Stephen King fashion, the main character is a cynical horror writer (Cusack) with family issues who investigates a notoriously scary hotel room in New York – you can guess what happens next. The movie is, if nothing else, great for fridge freakouts, Samuel L. Jackson’s sly performance, and some great, atmospheric direction from Mikael Halfstrom. Check it out along with our review and drinking game, and our custom cocktail!