Die Hard with a Vengeance
This is the third installment in Bruce Willis’ career as sarcastic flatfoot, John McLane. The last time we saw him he was in a reasonably good place. He transferred to Los Angeles working with his buddy Al and back with his wife and kids. Now, he is back in New York. He looked like he just woke up out of a week long bender complaining how he walked out on his wife after an argument. Now, he has to contend with a terrorist leading him all over the city playing his stupid little games while nursing a hangover.
Trainspotting
Trainspotting is about a group of Scottish 20-somethings who spend most of their time getting completely messed up on heroin. One of those heroin addicts is played by Ewan McGregor. In one scene, McGregor is forced to get clean cold turkey by his parents who basically just lock him in his room. It gets pretty crazy after that, like a Hunter S. Thompson nightmare.
The Big Lebowski
The Dude (played by Jeff Bridges) is a leftover from the hippie movement who has kind of checked out of society’s progression to smoke weed and drink White Russians. It does this pretty much constantly but all of these outcasts from some weird detective story keep making it very hard for him to just mind his business. They keep butting in to his life trying to turn him into some private eye. Most of the time he just ends up drunk, beat up, and a carpet short.
Dude, Where’s My Car
I haven’t seen this movie in forever. It makes me laugh that it was made 13 years ago. I remember my 14 year old self really enjoying it. Seann William Scott was coming off the very funny Road Trip and American Pie, and Ashton Kutcher was funny once. Just watch That 70′s Show. One day. after getting completely blackout drunk, they wake up and find their car missing. So they investigate what they were doing last night by the clues they find in their pockets. It is pretty much The Hangover except it is like the wacky 90s teen version of it.
Bad Santa
Billy Bob Thorton plays the worst mall Santa Claus ever. He goes mall to mall to steal all the last minute Christmas shopping money with his elf. The only problem is he is a barely functioning alcoholic. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact. Beer cans avalanche out of his car, and he wets himself at least once over the course of the movie. Kids are supposed to sit there, man!
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
This movie is not necessarily about a group of friends who get hungover. What it is about is a couple of buddies who get REALLY stoned, and then go on an adventure. In fact, if they wanted to make a Hangover-esque sequel, it probably would have been better than the sloppy attack on overly-politically-correct America the sequel really was.
London
Captain America….I mean Chris Evans…..plays a charismatic junkie who overthinks everything. He rises from a deep drug-fueled sleep looking like he just sprinted head on into a frigging brick wall by a phone call that informs him that his ex-girlfriend (the one that got away) is leaving town for the foreseeable future. So he crashed the party and spends the whole time snorting lines with his smooth British drug dealer (played by an awesome Jason Statham) making sure he wakes up tomorrow looking just as awful.
Unknown
A bunch of guys wake up in a warehouse with absolutely no memory of how they got there. They are in all different forms of disarray (either tied up or beaten up). These guys aren’t a bunch of nobodies either. Jim Caviezel. Joe Pantoliano (where the hell has he been by the way). Barry Pepper. Greg Kinner. Jeremy Sisto. Fear gets to these guys and think about offing each other or teaming up. It is pretty dumb when they find the very convenient empty container of gas with a label that says “May Cause Memory Loss.” Otherwise, it is a decent cheapie thriller.
Crank
Crank is awesome. It is Jason Statham pushed to his most Statham-est and beyond. He wakes up, confused, no memory, but he plays a video that says he has been poisoned. His on call doctor tells him the poison will only attack his system if he lets his adrenaline fall. So he decides to get the blood bumping causing all sorts of over the top mayhem on the city streets.
Buried
Ryan Reynolds wakes up in a coffin in the Middle East. That’s the whole movie. He is an American contractor who is kidnapped and held for ransom. He isn’t tied up in a bunker though. He is literally buried alive. Reynolds gets a lot of flack but he sells the shit out of this premise which could be an incredibly boring flick.
