big screen

top 10 films containing convincing inebriation

(…or ‘top 10 films with at least one scene which contains an actor convincingly portraying a pissed person’.)

it’s easy to stumble around, roll your eyes and slur your words in front of a camera but it’s not that often you watch a movie and wonder whether an actor was actually hammered during shooting due to such a convincing turn as a drunken fool.

i’m sure you will anyway but let me know of any glaring omissions, preferably not in the following format that i’ve become accustomed to recently:

“you cock, you don’t know anything. you fucking missed __________. i hate you”.

so, the list…

10. steve buscemi - trees lounge (imdb)

first off: the guy’s a legend and i wish he was in every film i chose to watch.

he wrote and directed this film and it’s definitely worth a watch - it’s one of those films where not much happens but the not much is extremely enjoyable. he plays tommy barilio, an alcoholic who spends his days sitting at the bar. the thing is, no matter what film i see him in he looks either pissed or extremely hungover so the chances of him not being convincing as a pisshead when he actually makes the effort are always gonna be slim.

9. val kilmer - tombstone (imdb)

ahh, rememeber when val kilmer was a decent judge of a script? he’s the best thing about this film as the permanently drunk doc holliday and passes the convincing drunkard test with flying colours. the amount of extremely quotable, half-cut lines he delivers totals a very large number that i really can’t be bothered to work out.

8. elizabeth taylor - who’s afraid of virginia woolf? (imdb)

taylor deservedly won an oscar for her performance in this classic and it’s easy to see why, playing one half of a volatile, alochol dependant couple opposite richard burton who also excels in his drunken role. taylor pips it though and is often frighteningly convincing as she lays into pretty much every other character on screen.

7. bing crosby - the country girl (imdb)

bing crosby plays an alcoholic actor in this 1954 film alongside grace kelly as his long-suffering wife. she actually won an oscar for her role but he walked away empty handed - if i was him i’d have been pretty pissed off. he’s brilliant in every scene and appears to be literally drunk in a large percentage of his appearances during the film. bravo.

6. william h macy - magnolia (imdb)

possibly the most criminally under-used actor on earth, macy gives an incredible performance in this incredible film. there’s only really one scene of drunkenness (see below) but he completely nails it as a drunk quiz-kid donnie smith. the word tragic doesn’t do the scene justice.

5. ray milland - the lost weekend (imdb)

before i watched this film i was the sort of person that hated black and white films for no good reason. then i saw the light. it’s a great movie in every way and milland’s performance is legendary, his slow descent into drink-fuelled insanity totally believable from start to finish. there’s a scene where his character starts hallucinating due to an alcohol overload which is harrowing to say the least and how he managed to switch off after filming is anyone’s guess.

4. dudley moore - arthur (imdb)

i must’ve watched this film at least 10 times when i was a kid and every time i assumed dudley moore was actually drunk. there’s a possibility that i was hugely gullible as a child but even so, i’ve never been as entertained as when i witnessed dudley expertly slurring every sentence and generally making a fool of himself as arthur. his drunken comedic timing was especially good. if ever there was a pissed character that i looked up to it was this one.

3. richard e grant - withnail & i (imdb)

it’s an obvious inclusion in this list but only because it’s so good. there’s a couple of things that make it even more worthy. firstly, this was richard e grant’s first film. secondly, before filming this he had never been drunk - not because he can really take his booze but because he’s teetotal. the director apparently forced grant to go on a drinking binge before shooting so he could experience drunkenness and the following hangover, something the actor was apparently not too happy about.

2. mickey rourke - barfly (imdb)

interesting fact: before mickey rourke’s head expanded and started resembling a giant walnut he actually looked like a human.

as with leaving las vegas, after watching this film you may actually feel slightly drunk. it was written by charles bukowski and is based on a period of his life when all he did was drink. rourke is astounding as drunk poet henry and is utterly convincing as an alcoholic who meets a lady in the same predicament. the script is pretty clever too but rourke’s acting draws you in and after a while you could easily believe him to be genuinely hammered.

1. nicolas cage - leaving las vegas (imdb)

fucking hell, this film is hard work to watch. not just because of the subject matter but due to the utterly convincing portrayal of an alcoholic by nicolas cage. to prepare he spent weeks binge drinking with a friend who filmed his behaviour so he could then study the effects and if the acting had been any less than perfect this film could have been an embarassing shambles. there are so many amazingly effective scenes that it’s impossible for me to pick one out. if for some reason you haven’t watched it, make sure you do soon. but not on a first date.

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