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Alcohollywood

Every week, join Clint and Jared (and selected guest panelists) as they discuss, disseminate and make drinking rules for films both good and bad. Sit down with each film's signature cocktail and enjoy!
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Alcohollywood
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Now displaying: 2014
Dec 25, 2014

Merry Krampus, listeners! We’re celebrating Christmas by dipping back into the horror well with Daniel Lackey of The Nightmare Gallery and Ele Matelan of Our Fair City and WildClaw Theatre, as we dig into the Finnish horror flick Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale! A micro-budgeted curiosity from 2010, Rare Exports follows the travails of a small rural community in Finland who runs afoul of the historical Santa - now a homicidal, mute old man who’s more Hannibal Lecter than Kris Kringle.

From herds of nude old men to dozens of children in rucksacks to defensive use of gingerbread, this movie’s got quite a bit of charm to it, and we highly recommend it if you’re not just gonna be watching The Interview on Christmas Day. Check out our custom cocktail to lighten up your holidays, not to mention our drinking rules!

Dec 18, 2014

Harry Connickuh, listeners! For our fourth celebration of O He With the Golden Voice, we (along with Kat and Michael of Burning Brigid Media) bring you a drinking game, cocktail and perplexed review of 1995’s Copycat, starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter as an agoraphobic psychologist and a cop trying to track down a copycat serial killer. Connick Jr. is in it way less than we thought, playing a grubby hick serial killer whose presence haunts Weaver and inspires the film’s main villain, but his chipped-tooth slurring and overacting is certainly one of the more memorable elements of this gimmicky, derivative thriller.

While Weaver and Hunter are both great in it, the characters are stuck in an unfortunately workmanlike thriller that can’t quite get over its own sloppiness. We also delve into a variety of  subjects, including poopsocking, ancient Chinese racial slurs, and a ukulele-based Connickuh carol for all to enjoy!

Dec 11, 2014

Konnichiwa, listeners! This week, we take on our first Japanese anime (on the show) with Grant of Chip & Ironicus and James of Geekspotting with Satoshi Kon's Paprika! This incredible, fascinating film follows the search for a stolen dream device, which is being abused to 'hack' into people's dreams and causing them to disappear and blur the lines between fantasy and reality. As the walls of the dream world begin to warp and collapse, it's up to the sprightly, powerful dream-warrior Paprika (and her more sedate real-life alter ego Chiba) to save the day.

It's a tremendous work of animation, with an incredible, fluid visual style and plenty of thematic material to unpack - we do our best in the episode, along with our custom cocktail and drinking game!

Relevant Links:
Every Frame a Painting's Video on Kon's use of space in time in his films, including Paprika
Radioclub.jp (click on the GUEST BOOK to find our secret message)

ANNOUNCEMENT: We recently contributed to a book on the Thin Man series of detective comedies, called Thoughts on the Thin Man, which you can find in print and Kindle form on Amazon!

Dec 5, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, Mark Soloff of Blastropodcast and Ryan Bond of Our Fair City join us to slog through the three hour apocalyptic Western-y flop The Postman, starring/directed by Kevin Costner! In this follow-up to his other sci-fi flop Waterworld, Costner plays a rugged drifter in a desolate, apocalyptic Oregon, who takes up the mantle of “Postman” in order to deliver mail to these post-apocalyptic shantytowns and rebuild America. While there are some neat ideas behind it, the film’s bloated budget, languid pace, and miscast lead results in a three-hour snoozefest that even we have a bit of trouble putting into words. Luckily, we've got some help thanks to our drinking game and custom cocktail, so check those out below!

Nov 27, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, Nick Ostrem joins us once more to talk the surprising cult film Samurai Cop, the recently-unearthed 1991 action-comedy starring Robert Z’Dar and Matt Hannon! The film tells the incomprehensible tale of bug-eyed karate cop Joe Samurai (Matt Hannon), his aloof partner (Mark Frazer), and their attempts to break down the evil Japanese Katana gang. Samurai Cop is a whirlwind of laughable acting, stilted dialogue, stunningly bad cinematography and more untouched boobs than you can shake a stick at. Still, we’ve got you covered with our custom cocktail and drinking rules!

(If you need more information on just what the hell Samurai Cop is, the Red Letter Media interviews with Matt Hannonhimself provide some desperately required context for the film’s unique madness.)

ANNOUNCEMENT: We’ve got a Twitter contest coming up too! Tweet @alcohollywood or email clint@alcohollywood.comwith the subject line ‘HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 CONTEST’ and tell us your favorite ‘boss’ in film history, and you may be chosen to win a prize pack of swag and promotional passes to see Horrible Bosses 2! Entries are restricted to within the United States, and the contest ends Tuesday, December 2nd, so hurry up and send us your picks!

Nov 22, 2014

“A dingo took my baby!” is one of the most famous lines in film history, but how does the movie itself hold up? Theo joins us as we head to the Australian outback for the Meryl Streep/Sam Neill true crime drama A Cry in the Dark (Evil Angels in Australia)!

The film follows the infamous Azaria Chamberlain case, in which a months-old baby girl was tragically lost and killed out in the outback, and their parents, Lindy (Meryl Streep, in one of her many Academy Award-nominated performances) and Michael Chamberlain (Sam Neill) are put on trial for murder. The film’s surprisingly great, with two strong performances centering a sensitive and complex drama about the way media affects public perception of events, the willingness of a discriminatory public to think the worst of grieving parents, the coding of women’s behavior in the public eye, and more. We can’t honestly recommend the film enough, along with our custom cocktail and drinking game!

Nov 13, 2014

Special guest Nathan Rabin of The Dissolve grabs his golden ticket, jumps through the movie screen, and joins us to talk 1993’s meta-action flick Last Action Hero! In this ballsy, flawed, filmed-by-committee action-comedy, precocious movie buff Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien) gets Houdini’s magic ticket and jumps into the movie world of clichéd 80s action movie cop Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Though the film’s ambitions are high, Last Action Hero is definitely not without its flaws, including its tenuous grasp of exactly what it’s parodying and other such issues discuss in detail in the podcast. Take a listen, and be sure to check out our custom cocktail and drinking rules below!

(Nathan Rabin’s written about Last Action Hero before in his book My Year in Flops, which you can get here!)

Nov 6, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, we uncover a lost, forgotten cult gem with My Favorite Year! Based loosely on the early writing career of Mel Brooks and his encounter with Errol Flynn on the variety show My Show of Shows, the film swaps those two for Mark-Linn Baker (Cousin Larry from Perfect Strangers) and Peter O’Toole as the hammy lothario Alan Swann. While this film is one of the few films to have a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, we had a bit more of a complicated time with it, as Jared and Clint (and guest Derek) get into a lively discussion of what works and what doesn’t work in this highly divisive comedy. Check out the debate on the episode below, along with our drinking rules and custom cocktail!

(Don't forget to check out our alternate intro below, in which an improv bit goes horribly wrong/right, and we keep it for posterity!)

Oct 31, 2014

Happy AlcoHolloween, listeners! We (along with guest Julia) wrap up Horror Octorbor this year with Halloween III: Season of the Witch, arguably one of the most divisive Part 3s in horror history!

Instead of following the Michael Myers formula, John Carpenter and director Tommy Lee Wallace chose to try to make Halloween an anthology series with this installment - here, an evil Irish corporation hatches a scheme to summon the forces of darkness through kitschy Halloween masks, with only a dorky May-December couple to stop them. The film's still a big mess, but there's a bit of goofy fun to be had, with its odd mixture of Invasion of the Body Snatchers psychological torment and just the right amount of camp. Even still, we've got a custom cocktail and drinking game to go along with it, so check it out below!

Also, click here to check out Clint's recent guest spot on The Lair of the Unwanted!

Oct 23, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, we strap cameras onto some oscillating fans and bring along Daniel Lackey of Forced Viewing and The Nightmare Gallery to talk Paranormal Activity 3! This third entry in the found-footage ghost/demon/whatever(?) series has all the thrills and spills you expect from the series: passive-aggressive bickering between couples, small noises in the night, time-lapse standing near beds, and so much more. Even still, we dig into the nature of found footage, especially this series. We also talk about what exactly makes us fear the idea of watching someone else’s home movies. Take a listen, and try out our custom cocktail and drinking game while you’re at it!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Early next week, between this episode and our last Horror Octorbor episode, we’ll be doing a mini-episode of Clint’s coverage of the 2014 Chicago International Film Festival – including an interview with Evolution of a Criminal director Darius Clark Monroe. Stay tuned for that!

Oct 17, 2014

HELL-o listeners! Justin Gerber and Randall Colburn of Consequence of Sound joins us as we continue our spooky look at the third part of different horror series with The Omen 3: The Final Conflict! This time, baby boy Antichrist Damien Thorn is all growed up (and played by a smirking Sam Neill), in a position of political power, and all set to cement his rule over mankind by preventing the birth of the Nazarene. Standing in his way, of course, are a cabal of comically clumsy clergy, Damien’s dunce of a dame, and his terrifically tepid toady, all of whom try (and confusedly fail) to take down the Antichrist, with little margin for TERROR! Check it out along with our custom cocktail and drinking game!

Oct 9, 2014

"Hello, listener. I wanna play a game.

All your life, you've wanted a custom cocktail and drinking game to one of the more insane entries to the Saw series.

Today, this opportunity will be given to you.

Clint and Jared of Alcohollywood (along with returning guest Dusty Wilson of Mercy Street Theatre Company) continue their month-long exploration of the third entry in a number of horror series with Saw III, in which Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) offers another series of karmic rust traps for yet another group of ungrateful, hapless protagonists. You will listen to this episode, watch the film and enjoy their drink. If you do not, you will... well, just miss out on a really fun dissection of a bat shit-crazy torture porn flick.

Drink or don't; make your choice."

Oct 4, 2014

Welcome to our third Horror Octorbor, listeners! For this third round of our comprehensive cacophony of creepy kinoscapes, we're taking on the third installment of a bunch of different horror franchises. This week, we're starting with Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors! Dream Warriors sees Nancy (Heather Langenkamp, all dead eyes and Susan Sontag hair) helping to defend a group of new teens/victims (including Patricia Arquette) from Freddy Krueger in a psychiatric hospital. Kat Evans and Ele Matelan from Our Fair City join us for this spooky installment. Check our our episode, drinking game and custom cocktail below!

Sep 25, 2014

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A DRINKING GAME?

This week, returning guest Derek joins us to talk about WarGames! The mid-80s Cold War-paranoid/video-game thriller follows David Lightman (a baby-faced Matthew Broderick), an enterprising hacker who accidentally prods a new supercomputer into starting preparations for World War III. The film is a perfect time capsule for so many cultural fears we had in the 80s, from the terror of nuclear annihilation, the distancing effect of technology on war, and the linking of video games to military technology. Check out what we thought of this Cold War war film/cyberpunk ghost story, along with our custom cocktail and drinking game below!

Sep 18, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, we’re getting weird once again with special guest Nathan Rabin (staff writer of The Dissolve and co-author of Weird Al: The Book)! This time, we take on “Weird Al” Yankovic’s only feature film, 1989’s UHF! The film is a distillation of Weird Al’s carefree, joyful, tongue-in-cheek parodic style, as slacker dreamer George Newman (Al) acquires a UHF station and fills it with all manner (or AL manner?) of off-the-wall programming. The result is messy, but delightful in its own way, and definitely earns its cult status. Take a listen, and check out our drinking game and custom cocktail below!

Sep 11, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, guest Theo helps us get in touch with our feminine, middle-aged side with Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer! When little Scarlett Johansson gets injured riding her horse, which itself becomes traumatized and aggressive, career-woman working mom Annie (Kristen Scott Thomas) takes both of them to ‘horse whisperer’ Tom Booker (Redford), who offers his homespun wisdom and chaste masculinity to this erstwhile city family. The movie’s gorgeous, but it’s also three hours long, and the romance-novel cliches abound; still, we actually had some surprising reactions to a movie we went into with some pretty low expectations. Take a listen, and enjoy our custom cocktail and drinking rules!

Sep 4, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, guest Theo helps us get in touch with our feminine, middle-aged side with Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer! When little Scarlett Johansson gets injured riding her horse, which itself becomes traumatized and aggressive, career-woman working mom Annie (Kristen Scott Thomas) takes both of them to 'horse whisperer' Tom Booker (Redford), who offers his homespun wisdom and chaste masculinity to this erstwhile city family. The movie's gorgeous, but it's also three hours long, and the romance-novel cliches abound; still, we actually had some surprising reactions to a movie we went into with some pretty low expectations. Take a listen, and enjoy our custom cocktail and drinking rules!

Aug 28, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, David Rheinstrom of Our Fair City joins us as we get out our magnifying glasses and take a closer look at the 1972 dramedy-thriller Sleuth! Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine both got Oscar nods for their performances in this adaptation of the titular Anthony Schaffer play, in which an eccentric old crime novel writer (Olivier) invites his wife’s working-class new lover (Caine) for a Machiavellian game of wits they won’t soon forget. Both actors are in fine form, the twists are fun and inventive, and there’s a good deal of spark that helps make up for the film’s bloated runtime and overuse of certain gags. Still, give us a listen to discuss this fun old film, and how its 2007 Ken Branagh remake (also starring Caine) holds up – and don’t forget to check out our drinking rules and custom cocktail below!

Also, if you haven’t heard us on the CinemaJaw podcast, we visited our other Chicago film podcast buds just this last week to talk performances by actors playing themselves – check it out here!

Aug 21, 2014

This week, we see into the future with Ryan Bond of Our Fair City and Geek Bar Chicago as we dive into the convoluted world of David Lynch’s 1984 flick Dune! Because our listeners demanded, Jared and I watched the three-hour-long Alan Smithee cut of this adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert – somehow, this complex tale of political intrigue and religious prophecy 10,000 years in the future was both too complex and too over-explained. Still, we get into some great discussion of the ins and outs of this fairly divisive and ambitious cult film, so check out the episode, drinking game and custom cocktail below!

*Episode rule: Drink every time Clint says the word 'skinny.'

(Forgive the coughing; Clint was a little under the weather during this recording.)

Aug 14, 2014

Happy Shark Week, listeners! This time, Craig and Julia joins us to wear their shark-fin hats with the Renny Harlin shark shocker Deep Blue Sea! A sea of 90s faces (Samuel L. Jackson, Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows, LL Cool J) find themselves on the run from genetically-engineered sharks, whose brains have been artificially enhanced to find the cure for Alzheimer's. (Don't ask.) What results is an incredibly fun, but oddly goofy and fun flick complete with shitty character names (Carter Blake?), dubious science, and end-credits rap songs. Check out our custom cocktail and drinking rules - like, subscribe and share!

Aug 7, 2014

It’s our 150th episode, and Alcohollywood is bringing back Chicago-geek power couple Clayton Faits (of Our Fair City) and Lauren Faits (aka Geek Girl Chicago) to talk about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade! In honor of our very first episode, where we covered Crystal Skull, we decided to look back on the third Indy film! Here, the titular adventurer (Harrison Ford) must beat the Nazis to an historical religious artifact with great power – sound familiar? Along the way, though, he learns a few lessons about family from his bookish, stern dad (a wonderful Sean Connery) and gives a lesson in arithmetic to his friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies). Crusade leans a bit much on the stuff people liked about Raiders of the Lost Ark, but its greater comedic edge, and the impeccable comic chemistry between Ford and Connery, help to make this one a classic.

TO OUR FANS: Thanks so much to everyone who listens to Alcohollywood, whether it’s in your car, at the gym, or just sitting on your ass reading the Internet (as we are most likely to do). Each and every one of you who listens, gives us feedback, comments, talks to us on Facebook or Twitter, etc., is a star, and we raise our glasses to you. If you haven’t already, be sure to share the love by subscribing on iTunes or Stitcher, rating and reviewing us there, following us wherever we may be (even our Instagram, where we have videos of the punishment shots!), and just talking about us. If you’re feeling generous, you can even donate or buy our book – another one’s coming next year! We wouldn’t keep doing this if you weren’t still listening and reading, so please keep it up. It means the world to us.

Aug 1, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, guest Nick of Three Brothers Theatre joins us to talk about yet another cinematic disaster – the 1994 film Clifford! Released unceremoniously in 1994 after being filmed in 1990, this abortive problem-child film sees Martin Short playing a precociously violent and demonic 10-year-old whose parents dump him on the unsuspecting Uncle Martin (Charles Grodin), whose life is completely destroyed over the next 90 minutes. Short’s creepy mugging and overblown schtick meshes poorly with the oddly nihilistic and dark tone of the film, resulting in a movie that’s as creepy as it is unpleasant. Luckily, we’ve got some booze and rules to help you get through it!

Jul 24, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, Nathan Roebbel of the Right Brain Project joins us as we dig into the Disney archives to take a look at the long-forgotten animated flick The Black Cauldron! The movie is an adaptation of an obscure Welsh-inspired fantasy book series following the adventures of a meek pig-keeper named Taran, who must fight off the Horned King (John Hurt) and destroy a magical cauldron that can create an army of the undead.  Released in 1985 after a contentious production process, the film isn’t done any favors by its half-hearted attempts at darker material and flat, samey characters – one must lament the film that could have been. Still, we’ve got all the tools to help you lament right here, with our custom cocktail and drinking rules! (We've also got our audio review of Klingon Warnog from the Federation of Beers, for all your geeky drink needs.) Listen below!

Jul 17, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, we’re staging an intervention by making a drinking game for a film about alcoholism! Returning guests Andrew and Julia join us to take on Billy Wilder’s 1945 classic The Lost Weekend, about an alcoholic writer (Ray Milland) who endures a rock bottom bender over the course of three days. The film takes an unflinching look at the morality and psychology of alcoholism, a first for a movie of this type. The film is helped along with some creative imagery and Miklos Rozsa’s unsettling theremin score. (It's also a fantastic double feature with Double Indemnity, another Wilder film we've covered on the show before as well.) Take a listen as we share in Don’s dilemmas with our custom cocktail and drinking game!

Jul 10, 2014

This week on Alcohollywood, returning guests and Kat and James (from fellow podcast Geekspotting) join us to help us unpack the 1979 masterpiece The Visitor! A strange Italian mix of Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, and Star Wars, this crazy film follows the interstellar battle between good and evil, as represented by Old Space God (John Huston) and a petulant little hell child named Katy (Paige Conner). Featuring Lance Henriksen as a sadistic basketball team owner and Franco Nero as Space Jesus, this crazy Drafthouse Films discovery is full of surprises. Check it out with us, along with our custom cocktail and drinking game!

CORRECTION: During the mailbag segment, we credit listener Jens Dietrich for being one of our pals at French Toast Sunday - that was a massive brain fart, and not only is Jens not affiliated with French Toast Sunday, he is, in fact, a dude. Many apologies!

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