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!