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The Top Five On Screen Alcoholics
May 2, 2008 5) Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 4) Joe and Kristen Clay (Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) - The Days of Wine and Roses 3) Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage) - Leaving Las Vegas 2) Don Birnman (Ray Milland) - The Lost Weekend 1) Arthur Bach (Dudley Moore) - Arthur
I don't remember having this much regret over omissions from a Top Five list in a long, long time. Let's just get it out there: Some actors have done their best work playing drunks. In addition to our top five, we received the following nominations: Billy Bob Thornton as Willie in Bad Santa, Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man series, Bob and Doug McKenzie in Strange Brew, Bluto from Animal House, Kid Shelleen in Cat Ballou, Paul Giamatti as Miles in Sideways, Dean Martin as Dude in Rio Bravo, Michael Keaton's dramatic breakthrough as Daryl Poynter in Clean and Sober, Meg Ryan's best work in When a Man Loves a Woman, and Peter O'Toole's legendary Alan Swann in My Favorite Year. That's quite a list. So what qualifies our top five? We'll tackle that in ascending order, but it should be noted that every performance that made the list at least earned an Oscar nomination. Three of them won. I went back and forth on whether or not Martha from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf should be here. A good Top Five always sees that happen. In the end, though, I don't remember her for anything but being a drunk, and I can't say that about the strongest honorable mentions. The best drunk couple surely deserves some recognition, and when you look at all the pieces in The Days of Wine and Roses - Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick were hardly dramatic heavyweights to film audiences then, ditto director Blake Edwards - and then consider how the story works, with Joe essentially turning Kristen into a drunk so they can both enjoy it, yeah...that one hits hard. Most people would have Ben Sanderson higher than number three, but I think Don Birnman is a slightly better performance. They both won Oscars, true, but there's more humanity in Birnman, whereas in Nic Cage's performance, there's almost an absence of it. And finally, Dudley Moore as Arthur. OK, let's forget about the sequel, shall we. Arthur is one of all-time great comic performances by a guy who, really, was kind of overrated. But Arthur is hilarious, sad, desperate, carefree, quotable and unforgettable.
So, over the next two weeks, you'll have a chance to win a pair of passes to see what we believe will be the highest grossing film of the year...without having to pay to do it. Oh, you'll wait in line to attend the Big Picture Premiere, but at least you'll get to see it before your uncool friends. Here's something we've never done, and the time is certainly right: The Top Five Steven Spielberg Movies. It could easily be argued that he's the best American filmmaker ever, although there's no argument that he's the most successful. But ranking his five best? That's a chore. He's done everything from invent the summer blockbuster (Jaws) to make the best movie about the Holocaust (Schindler's List). He's perfected fantasy (E.T.) and the war movie (Saving Private Ryan). So good luck shrinking his accomplishments to five movies. Get your list together e-mail it to us by Thursday, May 8th. As with all movie ticket giveaways, we have to limit our winners to the Phoenix area, since that's where our screening is. If you're not in town, however, you can still play, and we've been known to send out some very nice consolation prizes in exchange for your help. Remember, we'll have two chances for you to win, so if not next week, you could win with the following Top Five. |
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So you say you want to see
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull? Well, it's going to be one hot ticket, that's for sure. Fortunately,
we're prepared for that inevitability, and we've set aside some passes for
you.