Drinking and Movies

Whatever petty differences the fans of Blue Ribbon Radio may have, I think it is safe to assume that we all love drinking and movies. If you have been at this drinking business long enough to be associated with Blue Ribbon Radio you should have developed a sense that not every drink is proper for every occasion. There are times when nothing but a good dark beer can cure what ails you, and other times when your world seems good and right and true a protracted evening of bourbon is in order. Just as in normal life, your drinks should reflect the movie you are watching, especially if your goal is to drink with the movie.

Most movies worth watching will have some sort of easily discerned code or guide for how or what you should drink. I don't mean drinking games, as they tend to punish those who are good at them by forcing them to remain sober. On top of this already heinous state of affairs you still have a movie to watch. However, there are some movies where this code is not so obvious and you may have to do a spot of thinking to figure out what your proper drink is.

As a basic guideline, the different genres of movies lend themselves to different drinks. For example, you would never dream of drinking a Chardonnay while watching a Western, and it would seem more than a little strange to pound the blog's namesake beer during a viewing of Schindler's List. Some movies are kind enough to have a very specific drink for you to consume, but others don't.

One of my personal favorite genres is film noir / hardboiled detective. If you drink anything other than rye or bourbon while watching a movie based on Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett you should just be ashamed of yourself. By that same token, it seems that beer is the perfect drink for a good action movie. These movies are testosterone-fueled escapism and beer complements this well. Action movies are best watched with several friends, and often whiskey is too heavy and intoxicating to keep you interested in John McClane's struggle without having you completely ignore the movie in favor of seeing who can do more one-handed pushups. The best example of this is the movie Shoot 'Em Up. By any critical standard it was a terrible movie, but this doesn't account for the gigantic awesome factor. It wasn't meant for and Oscar, but for men to gather round and drink beer and watch absolutely insane gunfights.

On a different wavelength, there are those movies which have a definite and concrete connection with drinking. These are movies where your protagonist has his drink, and by God he's going to have it whatever the cost. These are movies like The Big Lebowski, with Lebowski's White Russian. Blue Velvet lends itself to PBR, but I prefer to drink the Heineken. Full disclosure - I absolutely loathe PBR. I understand that I write for Blue Ribbon Radio, but it is just terrible beer and I cannot abide it one damn bit. Although I said earlier than rye or bourbon is the only thing appropriate for film noir, the one exception is The Long Goodbye, when you should drink a gimlet - “Half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice. Nothing else.”

These types of movies tend to be some of the best movies for both drinking and watching. Even if you take drinking out of the equation, God forbid, these are movies that bring people together. These are the movies where everyone watching it can quote every line. Not surprisingly this makes it hard to introduce new people to the movie, as nobody wants to watch a movie for the first time with some asshole who can't stop quoting it. Movies like these are movies that make family. I will never forget the memories I can't remember from High School of getting drunk and watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Movies like Barfly, Withnail and I, and Casablanca will forever connect drinking with watching movies. The connections are so strong that they develop cults, as in the case with The Big Lebowski. The simple act of having a drink while you watch a movie is so pleasurable and grounding that I cannot really manage without one. To plug my other article on “Dressing for Drinks,” this is another one of the reasons why I wear blazers – pockets for flasks. Six ounces of Wild Turkey is a lifesaver when you've been drug against your will to a Pixar movie on a Sunday afternoon in a dry county.

Frank Nichols continues to bring a little bit of class into our otherwise awful world.