This week on Alcohollywood, we crash and burn with guest Derek as we talk about 1990's cult hit Robot Jox, directed by Stuart Gordon! In the far flung future, the Cold War still rages, but now territorial disputes are settled by gladiatorial robot fights. Achilles (Gary Graham) our illiterate hero, squares off against Alexander (Paul Koslo) for the territory of Alaska. Luckily, he is helped by his genetically engineered love interest Athena (Anne-Marie Johnson) and the flamboyant Tex Conway (Michael Alldredge). Along the way, we get to see wonderfully cheesy acting, delightful stop-motion robot fights and so much more. Check out our review and drinking game below!
This week on Alcohollywood, Clint and Jared (along with our friend Mark of Our Fair City and Blastropodcast) take on the Steven Spielberg classic Jurassic Park, just in time for its release in 3D this weekend! The tale of a group of paleontologists, scientists and children who visit an island based attraction inhabited by newly cloned dinosaurs has captured imaginations for generations, and it's hard to argue against how fun and awe-inspiring the film's visuals are. It's quintessential Spielberg adventure of the finest caliber, bolstered by a great cast that includes Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Wayne Knight and Sir Richard Attenborough. Check out our drinking rules and cocktail before you head out to the theater!
Saddle up, partners, because we (along with returning guest Todd) head to the Wild Wild West (of Italy) for the 1964 spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars! Clint Eastwood plays The Man With No Name, a lone gunslinger with no allegiances and an eye for money, who wanders into a desert town besieged by gang warfare and decides to clean house. The film was a career-defining effort for both Eastwood and director Sergio Leone, who helped to define the spaghetti Western and its unique sense of dramatic, operatic style. Ennio Morricone delivers a dynamite score that charms as much as it thrills, and the film's climax is famous in its building of tension and excitement. Unofficially adapted from the 1961 Akira Kurosawa samurai flick Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars is a worthy transfer, and a great film in its own right. Check out our review and drinking game below!
In this scattershot hero's journey, all manner of rented costumes are used to full effect as the Fantasy Mission Force encounters a group of Amazons led by a fey man in a tuxedo, Chinese Nazis driving American muscle cars, Asian Scotsmen, and many more strange horrors. Part of the charm (and the frustration) of the film is just how hyperactive it is, but if you can ride with the bizarre energy you can have a lot of fun laughing at it. While Jackie Chan isn't in it much, his fight scenes are as dynamic and skillful as ever, so if you're a Chan fan, you'll still get your money's worth (which is no money, since it's on Youtube)! Check out our review, drinking game and cocktail here!
Erin go bragh from Alcohollywood! To celebrate everyone's favorite drinking holiday, we invoke the luck of the Irish with the Hallmark TV special The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, a three-hour epic slog starring Whoopi Goldberg and Randy Quaid! The movie follows a dumpy American visiting Ireland, falling in love, and interfering with the class warfare of magical Irish creatures. Along the way, we see a bevy of beloved Irish and Scottish actors shaming themselves, while terrible special effects and school-play production design assaults the eyes. Luckily, we've got just the drink and game to endure the magical legend in time for St. Patty's Day!
This week on Alcohollywood, we revisit the Coen brothers for the first time since our Big Lebowski episode, watching and drinking to the 2000 joyride O Brother, Where Art Thou? with our buddy Grant (of Chip and Ironicus and Let's Play Dungeons and Dragons)! A mythic melange of The Odyssey, Southern folklore, the Great Depression, and your standard road movie, the film follows a trio of escaped convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) who embark on a journey across 1937 Mississippi to find treasure and bring Clooney back to his lady love (Holly Hunter).
Along with the crew of Coen Brothers characters along the way (a one-eyed John Goodman, a blind Stephen Root, Michael Badalucco, and others), O Brother also features fantastic color-corrected cinematography by Roger Deakins, a killer soundtrack by T-Bone Burnett, and the wonderfully offbeat script from the Coens themselves. If you haven't seen this film, you owe it to yourself to check it out, along with our custom cocktail and drinking game!
This week on Alcohollywood, our Disney princess Cherish joins us as we visit the Mary Poppins carbon-copy follow-up Bedknobs & Broomsticks! Apprentice witch Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury) takes in three obnoxious Cockney children, only to promptly drag them along on her grand adventure to win the war for the British using the dark arts - which, apparently, just involves 'substitutiary locomotion' to get ordinary objects to float and perform pranks on people.
The film, despite its good intentions, interesting visual effects and charming performances from its leads, doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor Mary Poppins because of its meandering story, scenes and songs that drag on too long, and repetitive, derivative cartoon sequences that just rehash animation and backgrounds from Robin Hood and The Jungle Book. That being said, it's an interesting case study in Buena Vista/Disney's attempts to make lightning strike twice, and is helped immensely by our custom cocktail and rules!
The 2012 Oscars are upon us, and with that in mind we once again take on a Best Picture nominee! This time, it's Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the eponymous Emancipator. With a script by noted theatrical scribe Tony Kushner, the film depicts the ratification of the 13th Amendment in an almost procedural manner, with an excellent cast supporting a transcendent and sensitive performance by Day-Lewis.
Despite its slow pace, and some occasional pacing and script issues, it's a really rewarding watch. If this is Spielberg coasting in his golden years, this is the way he should do it (as opposed to Crystal Skull). In the meantime, we talk about the film along with our custom cocktail and drinking game!
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!
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 as it is misguided. Luckily, we’ve got our custom cocktail, some drinking rules, and frequent guest Julia, who joins us for a quiz! Take a listen:
This week on Alcohollywood, we're getting in touch with our feminine sides with frequent guest Julia, as we cover the Drew Barrymore late-90s you-go-girl fairytale Ever After, costarring Anjelica Huston and Dougray Scott! This retelling of the Cinderella fable takes away all the magic and plops the story into a loose version of 16th-century France, complete with anachronistic Leonardo DaVinci and games of rock-paper-scissors.
This time around, young cinder girl Danielle (Barrymore) attempts to find love and assert her girl power while wooing the young Prince Henry (Scott) under the nose of wicked stepmother Rodmilla (Huston). Regardless of your gender, we've just got the magic potion to accompany your next viewing of this slice of 1990s cheese!
This week on Alcohollywood, we're headed back to our roots by tackling a Steven Spielberg film for the first time since our first episode! This time around, we're doing his very first movie, the made-for-TV thriller Duel, starring Dennis Weaver as a nebbish 1970s wimp dealing with the worst case of road rage imaginable - the unseen driver of a monstrous, murderous semi truck that seems to stop at nothing to terrorize him.
The result is either a wonderfully Expressionistic, abstract look at the nature of the rapidly emasculating man set against the road-trip atmosphere of the American 70s, or a sweet horror movie about man vs. truck, however you want to look at it! Whatever your perspective on the film, we've got the drink and the drinking game to spice up the proceedings, so start your engines!
This week on Alcohollywood, we celebrate our 50th episode with some of our previous guests (Rachel from our Captain America episode, Julia from several of our episodes, Craig from our Fellini Satyricon episode, and Nick from our Independence Day episode) to watch the Wolfgang Peterson children's fantasy film The NeverEnding Story! Join Bastian Balthazar Bux (Barret Oliver) as we watch him reading a book, while learning the tale of young warrior Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) and his fight to save the kingdom of Fantasia from the Nothing!
We also announce the winner of our Alcohollywood Drinking Game Contest: user TTBF from SA, who gives us this drinking game for the podcast:
"Rule 1: Drink anytime for laughter - It doesn't matter if it is laughter, a giggle, a snort, or any other audible form of finding something humorous. Drink for it.
Rule 2: Drink anytime technical aspects of a film are mentioned - Cinematogaphy, blocking, lighting, mise en scene, and even motifs.
Rule 3: Drink every time someone goes off topic - Whether it to be discuss other movies an actor's been in, some hard science, or other such things. Optional addition: Include skipping around in the movie as being off-topic.
Finish your drink line: Finish your drink when you hear any variant of 'And that brings us to our finish your drink line.'"
(NOTE: Beware that this episode is filled with more alcohol-fueled antics than normal, as well as a couple stuffy noses.)