A Hyperlink Tribute to Great Drinking and Hangover Scenes in Cinema
Welcome to The Credits hyperlinked tribute to some of the great scenes in cinema that have captured the joy of a good drink, the embarrassment of one too many, and the hell to pay the morning after. What better day to celebrate film’s relationship to alcohol than on January 1st, the unofficial national holiday for the hangover.
And here we offer a little challenge—see if you can guess the film we’re referring to before you click on the link. We’re not going to make it easy, it will require a little bit of luck and a considerable mental index of films to choose from. There will be some clues in the phrasing of the sentence, be it a single word or the description itself, but it will require a sharp eye and easy recall, no easy feat if you’re feeling a touch cross-eyed at the moment.
We will, however, offer you one concrete fact—there will be no scenes from The Hangover.
Without further ado, here goes…
Dear reader, perhaps you’re something of an alien to the world of drinking, and last night was your first time. Or, maybe you’re something of a Main Line socialite (the ‘burbs of Philadelphia, for the uninitiated), and you found yourself in the arms of someone you care for, someone who you could have a wonderful life with. Hopefully you didn’t get into an altercation, because drinking and fighting is for amateurs, even if you consider yourself a master of both.
Perhaps you were ordering a drink in front of an attractive stranger and were feeling impossibly cool, golden, even. Or, maybe you attended a more intimate gathering and spent the night with somebody that, no matter how hard you have tried, the adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ just hasn’t worked in this case.
One town known for it’s over-the-top New Year’s Eve celebration is Vegas. Perhaps you were there? We hope you didn’t wake up this morning to relive that moment when you were picking up that lovely stranger and find you were leaving a lot to be desired in the charm department. That’s one of the strange alchemical properties of alcohol; it’s often only in retrospect that you realize, as genius as it seemed at the time, you’re far too old to go streaking. Or perhaps you woke up in an unfamiliar place this morning, and were reminded that drinking a bit too much can make exchange students of us all, lacking the full breadth of language required to explain how, exactly, we got here.
It’s true that alcohol can be a truth serum, which is why it’s always a good idea to stay relatively sober before giving any toasts, especially at a wedding. Even if someone you loved deeply and hurt you badly suddenly comes back into your life, giving him or her a heaping helping of the truth while intoxicated can often lead to even worse pain.
Maybe you found yourself in a compromising situation with somebody you shouldn’t be with? Our advice is, if you have to ask if somebody’s trying to seduce you, they usually are, especially if they’re plying you with a few drinks first. Then again, if a few drinks can loosen your button metaphorically, it can also do so literally, allowing you to slip into a whole new world of experience.
For those of you with siblings, there’s something truly fabulous about having a drink with them, is there not? The same goes for having a drink with members of your band, even if they’re terrible singers and only play the ukulele (it helps if they’re hot, of course, because some of us like our musical acts that way.)
Whether or not your year included producing a string of successes or a slew of failures, there’s always a reason to toast yourself. One thing you don’t want to do, however, is steal somebody else’s drink, regardless of whether it’s a martini or a milkshake, because that’s just rude.
And so, today you might be feeling a little worse for wear, and if there’s one thing we can be sure about, you’ve said this to yourself before, as we all have.
Then again, there’s only one known cure for a hangover, dude.
