Toasts--An Explanation

Today, Booze Movies premieres a new feature--Toasts. “Toasts” will consist of feature articles and profiles of the people, characters, film series, and other elements that made special contributions to the history of 100 proof film.

I can think of no better subject with which to begin than W.C. Fields, soused cinema’s patron saint. In the upcoming week, I will follow my first toast with reviews of the five films contained in the W.C. Fields Comedy Collection (The Bank Dick / My Little Chickadee / You Can't Cheat an Honest Man / It's a Gift / International House). The second box set in this series is not due until March 20th, so this Fields fix will have to sate fans of the Great Man in the meantime.

Cheers,
garv

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Review: American Beer (2004)

USA/C-105 m./Dir: Paul Kermizian/Cast: Paul Kermizian (Himself), Jon Miller (Himself), Jeremy Goldberg (Himself), Richard Sterling (Himself), Robert Purvis (Himself)

In June of 2002, New York college student, Paul Kermizian, and four of his friends set off in a minivan on a cross-country adventure to visit 38 craft breweries in a scant 40 days. Their quest, the brewery tours, and their suds-induced hangovers are documented in the 2003 documentary, American Beer.

Any good documentary requires either a fascinating subject or a larger-than-life character at its center to make the journey worthwhile. Unfortunately, the subject matter of American Beer--the art of craft brewing and the business involved--while well-documented, is unlikely to interest non-beer drinkers or those that find Budweiser flavorful. Furthermore, while a beer-swilling, cross-country expedition sounds like fun, American Beer’s road-trippers are not a particularly interesting or humorous group (they seem to think that making faces at the camera is the height of comedy). Happily, the craft-brewing industry seems to attract quirky eccentrics, so the documentary really sings when Kermizian focuses on interviewing the owners and brew masters of the breweries on their tour. The passion displayed by those brew-obsessed oddballs elevates this documentary above Food Network fodder.

Drinks Consumed--Beer

Intoxicating Effects--Slurred speech, swearing, and hangover

Potent Quotables--LARRY BELL (Founder/President of the Kalamazoo Brewing Co.): With my apologies to Mr. Baudelaire--One should always be drunk. That’s the great thing; the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of time weighing on your shoulders, you should drink without respite. Drunk with what? With beer, with poetry, or with virtue as you please, but get drunk. And if you should wake on the stairs of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room and find your drunkenness has vanished or is ebbing, ask the wind, the wave, ask the bird, the star and the clock, ask everything that flies, everything that sings, everything that speaks, everything that moans. Ask them the time. And the wind, the wave, the bird, the star, the clock will all reply, “It is time to get drunk.” If you are not to be the martyred slaves of time, be perpetually drunk with beer, with poetry, or with virtue as you please.

Video Availability--American Beer DVD (Special Edition)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--The business and politics of the wine industry are placed under the microscope in Mondovino (2005).

Ultimate Beer (Hardcover)

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Review: Strange Brew (1983)

USA/C-90 m./Dir: Rick Moranis & Dave Thomas/Wr: Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, & Steve De Jarnatt/Cast: Dave Thomas (Doug McKenzie), Rick Moranis (Bob McKenzie), Max von Sydow (Brewmeister Smith), Paul Dooley (Claude Elsinore)

Good day, eh. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas originally created the characters of beer-loving Canucks, Bob and Doug McKenzie, for the sketch comedy show SCTV in order to mock Canada’s broadcast rules requiring television networks to include “Canadian content” within their programming. However, due to the McKenzie brothers’ instant popularity, the boys not only became series regulars, they eventually leapt to the big screen in Strange Brew, the ultimate love letter to beer on film.

From the opening logo, featuring a belching MGM lion, Strange Brew promises to be stupid and sudsy in the most satisfying way. The plot takes off (take off, eh) when Bob and Doug try to obtain free beer from the Elsinore Brewery using their ‘mouse in an empty beer bottle’ trick. Instead of beer, the boys are awarded jobs at the brewery, where they soon find themselves entangled in a family power struggle (borrowed heavily from Shakespeare’s Hamlet) and a plot to take over the world by lacing beer with a mind-control drug. When the tainted beer is delivered to the local Oktoberfest celebration, only Bob, Doug, and their alcoholic dog, Hosehead, can save the day, eh.

It’s difficult to call Strange Brew a “good” movie in the conventional sense. The script is silly, the direction is crude, and the picture’s low budget is apparent in every frame. Still, with or without the aid of beer goggles, it’s impossible not to enjoy Bob and Doug’s motion picture debut. That is, unless you’re a total hoser.

Drinks Consumed--Beer

Intoxicating Effects--Belching and public urination

Potent Quotables--BOB: This movie was shot in 3-B… three beers, and it looks good, eh.
DOUG: Hoserama. Call it Hoserama, eh.

Video Availability--Strange Brew DVD (Warner Brothers)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--In 1999, Bob and Doug were set to return in a sequel, Home Brew, but the project was abandoned when financing fell through. Variations on the characters did return to the screen as a pair of talking moose in the animated film Brother Bear (2003).

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Booze News: Casino Royale on DVD March 13th

The newest James Bond film, Casino Royale, has been announced for release on March 13th in both DVD and Blu-ray disc formats.

On the whole, I’m lukewarm regarding the Bond series. Most of the films are overlong and mediocre, and Bond himself is a disappointment as a boozer. I mean--“Vodka martini, shaken not stirred”--what kind of a prissy drink order is that?! Shaken… stirred… who gives a ****? Furthermore, anyone that orders vodka in their martini doesn’t know squat about martinis. A vodka martini ain’t a martini. It’s slop. Give me gin, and make it dirty, Baby.

That said, Casino Royale gets a “thumbs up” from this crocked critic. It was one of my favorite films of the year--the best Bond film I’ve seen--and Daniel Craig is the best 007 (Sorry, Connery). Best of all, this entry features a much higher booze quotient than previous films in the series. I’ll post a full review in March, but in brief, this Bond comes highly recommended.

Casino Royale DVD (2-Disc Widescreen Edition)

Casino Royale (Two-Disc Collector's Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray]

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Review: Dumbo (1941)

USA/C-64 m./Dir: Ben Sharpsteen/Wr: Joe Grant & Dick Huemer/Cast: Dumbo (Himself), Timothy Q. Mouse (Edward Brophy), Jim Crow (Cliff Edwards)

Jumbo Jr., Disney’s ultimate mama’s boy, suffers the fastest onslaught of DTs in motion picture history in 1941’s Dumbo. The pint-sized pachyderm makes his first appearance, delivered by stork to Mrs. Jumbo, aboard a fast-moving circus train. Before the choo-choo ride is over, the other denizens of the big top have derisively dubbed Junior “Dumbo,” based upon his enormous ears. Despite the oversized flappers, Mrs. Jumbo loves her baby dearly, but being that nothing ever goes right for kids or misfits in Disney films, the mother and child are soon separated. Luckily, a circus mouse named Timothy takes a shine to the friendless babe; and between the two of them, they eventually find a way to reunite mother and son.

Surprisingly, this sweet family film features an extended drunk scene, triggered when Timothy encourages Dumbo to drink a tub of water to cure his hiccups. What they don’t know is that moments before drunken clowns dropped a full bottle of booze into the water. Not only does the pair get high on giggle juice, the bender takes a sinister turn when they are beset upon by visions of pink elephants. Apparently, clowns drink some hypercharged hooch. It should be noted that without the aid of the firewater, the pair might never have discovered Dumbo’s special talent which ultimately saves the day.

Drinks Consumed--Unidentified booze

Intoxicating Effects--Hiccups, slurred speech, staggering, stumbling, harmonizing, delirium tremens, hangover, and memory blackouts

Potent Quotables--CHORUS: Look out! Look out! Pink elephants on parade!

Video Availability--Dumbo DVD (Buena Vista)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--Animation’s supreme drunkard, Homer Simpson, hit the big screen in 2007's The Simpsons Movie.

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Review: Remember Last Night? (1935)

USA/B&W-81 m./Dir: James Whale/Wr: Harry Clork, Doris Mallory, & Dan Totheroh/Cast: Robert Young (Tony Milburn), Constance Cummings (Carlotta Milburn), Edward Arnold (Danny Harrison)

In an obvious attempt to capitalize on the success of MGM’s The Thin Man (1934), Universal Studios released their own comic-murder mystery the following year, featuring another tipsy twosome, multiple murders, suspicious characters, and a luxury estate with cocktail bars in every room (including the bedrooms). Remember Last Night?, based upon Adam Hobhouse’s novel, The Hangover Murders, concerns a couple of newlyweds (Robert Young and Constance Cummings) who wake up the morning after a wild party with a honey of a hangover and a dead man in one of the guest rooms. Unfortunately, all of the attendees of the previous night’s binge were so bombed on bubbly that none of them can recall what happened. Police detective, Danny Harrison (Edward Arnold) has his work cut out for him, trying to keep all of the suspects in one place and sober enough to interrogate.

Universal’s knockoff lacks the witty banter of The Thin Man, and its plastered protagonists come across as manic and belligerent when stinko, rather than witty and urbane. However, that’s not to say that Remember Last Night? is completely without charm. On the whole, it’s a fast-moving romp, aided greatly by touches of dark humor provided by James Whale, who directed this throwaway between Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Showboat (1936)--Perhaps he lost a bet. If you’re looking for a frothy curio of a time when intemperance in excess was considered cute, this is just the film for you. However, I should warn easily offended viewers that the film is regrettably scarred by a racially distasteful blackface scene.

Drinks Consumed--Champagne, brandy (sidecars), scotch (& soda), wine, and unspecified cocktails

Intoxicating Effects--Slurred speech, drunk driving, destruction of property, brawling, hangover, and memory blackouts

Potent Quotables--TONY: I’ll never take another drink as long as I live.
CARLOTTA: Neither will I.
TONY: I wonder if there’s one around anyplace.

Video Availability--Never released in any video format

Similarly Sauced Cinema--Earlier in 1935, the Frankenstein Monster (Boris Karloff) discovered “Drink--GOOD!” in James Whales’ Bride of Frankenstein.

James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters (Paperback)

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Review: Factotum (2005)

SA/C-94 m./Dir: Bent Hamer/Wr: Bent Hamer & Jim Stark/Cast: Matt Dillon (Henry Chinaski), Lili Taylor (Jan), Marisa Tomei (Laura)

Henry Chinaski, the alter ego of Charles Bukowski, first portrayed by Mickey Rourke in Barfly (1987), returns to the screen in Factotum. The film, an adaptation of the soused scribbler’s novel of the same name, follows Chinaski (Matt Dillon) as he works his way through a series of short-lived jobs and female companions. Punching a time clock and emotional attachments both represent obstacles in the way of Chinaski’s two true loves--booze and writing--so they are things with which he must eventually dispose.

I made the mistake of revisiting Barbet Schroeder’s classic 1987 film before viewing Factotum, and I found that in all ways--screenplay, direction, set dressing, and acting--the new film came up short. Factotum has little of the dry wit and dingy grandeur of the previous film. Everything is a little too clean, especially Matt Dillon, who’s too handsome, too well-groomed, and too healthy-looking to ever be completely believable as the sometimes-homeless boozer. Dillon’s good looks could have been overcome with makeup and body language (after all, Mickey Rourke was not a bad-looking guy), but his performance also comes across as timid, especially in relation to the insane, grungy power that Rourke brought to the role of the tough-guy bard.

I know it’s unfair to judge the merits of one film upon the successes of another, but it is impossible to help comparing the two movies, especially in that the bar and liquor store sequences in which Dillon initially encounters Marisa Tomei are nearly identical to first encounter of Rourke and Dunaway in Barfly. Ultimately, the new film a disappointingly flat concoction, lacking in many crucial ingredients.

Drinks Consumed--Whiskey (Scotch and bourbon), beer, and wine

Intoxicating Effects--Staggering, stumbling, vomiting, physical violence, and soused sex

Potent Quotables--HENRY (to his father): Hey, Robert, what do you say you and I go out and have a few cocktails?
ROBERT: You mean you wanna go drinkin’ in the middle of the week without a job?
HENRY: Well, that’s when you need a drink the most.

Video Availability--Factotum DVD (IFC)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--Bukowski’s writing was also adapted for Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981) and Crazy Love (a.k.a. Love Is a Dog From Hell, 1987).

The Charles Bukowski Tapes (DVD)

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