Woody Woodpecker for the degenerate set?

When Bart Simpson won a wad of cash in his settlement with Krusty The Clown over the use of jagged metal cereal-shaped "O"s, the young mind reeled in anticipation. He envisioned himself at a roulette table, dressed in tie and tails, high ball in hand, buxom women hanging on either side of him. Put it all on black, he announced, to which the croupier and lady luck responded Red! Or maybe it was the other way around. The point is, his chips were taken, the women fled, and the imaginary Bart hung his head. Dissolve back to the daydreaming Bart, gleam in his eye, who can only utter, "Cool!"

This congratulatory image of self-destruction is satire, of course, but who among us can claim to have seen the desperate and downtrodden and not envied them. Think of the freedom! Keeping this in mind, the third LeisureSuit.net Do-It-Yourself Film Festival has some recommendations to go with this week's All Drunken Issue--they form the Romanticized Visions of Alcoholism Film Festival!!

And who better to usher it in that that little limey lush Dudley Moore? I still remember seeing Arthur in the theaters as a youngster, completely oblivious to the fact that he was drunk. I guess I was a stupid kid; I thought that Arthur was just a noisy, funny, pain-in-the-ass, kinda like Woody Woodpecker, and it wasn't until some time later I realized that he was a drunkard! Oh! to think of a time when one must live unaware of the joys of alcoholism!

Arthur, if you've, like, lived under a cultural rock, is the story of a spoiled-but-lovable drunken millionaire who has everything in the world except the love of a good, honest woman. Think of an emotionally crippled Richie Rich. The first act of Arthur affords the brilliant Moore plenty of screen time to stumble around Manhattan society sucking down booze and cackling. For years after Arthur's release one could not go to a party without hearing some joker try and affect a his slurring-Brit voice (the oft-quoted line being, "You mean you're a hooker? I thought I was doing great with you!?!") The Dudster spent years perfecting this act, both as a world class lush, and as part of Derek and Clive, the astoundingly funny act he and fellow alcoholic (now dead from liver problems) Peter Cook used to do. Arthur is not just schtick, though. The love story between Moore and the unlikely Liza Minelli, for whose love Arthur must trade his inheritance, is truly touching, as are the relationships Liza has with her blue collar dad and Arthur shares with his haughty butler, played by Sir John Gielgud.

"To All My Friends!"

When Barbet Schroeder met Charles Bukowski he asked why the deeply autobiographical author had a several-year gap in his collections. Because I was drunk, he responded. Great, let's make a movie about it, was the logical step they both took. The result is Barfly, one of the most harrowing looks into the mundane struggles of a drunkard---or so they would like you to believe! What Barfly really is is a make-believe la la fable about just how awesome it would be to throw your life into the bottle. Next time you see some wino on the street, be steadied in the knowledge that his life is not agonizing boredom tempered by only the lifesaving libation. It is a roller coaster ride, filled with getting beat up, picking up strange women, getting seduced by magazine editors, engaging in very important and highly emotional discussions over grave socio-political matters (albeit often slurred), farting in women's faces, and having everybody love you if you can pay for a round. The only truly depressing thing about alcoholics one learns from Barfly is that if they make a film about it it will jinx the lead actor, in this case Mickey Rourke, into never making another good film again.

As Henry Chinaski (Charles Bukowski's longtime pseudonym) Mickey Rourke is unstoppable. He gets under the skin of this role, allowing himself to be shot unflatteringly sticking his belly out, farting (I mentioned that already), acting greedy and childish and needy, and getting beat up a lot. By Sly Stallone's brother, even . . . yeah, that guy. There's nothing cooler than a guy who gets beat up a lot. What romanticizes Chinaski's alcoholism so much is that we know he'll snap out of it, become a famous writer, and then write about his alcoholism . . . so, therefore, it is okay to root for him. We know it is temporary, so it loses its fatalistic edge. We can glow in these freewheelin' days, and laugh as Chinaski blows what little money he has on a round for the house. And every lit major can raise a glass and quote Mickey Rourke: "To all my friends!!!"

Don Birnam's Life's Work

The Granddaddy of drunken writer flicks, though, is Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend. A surprise hit from 194Something, a dark and somber picture about a destructive loser who won't rest until he pushes everyone dear to him away, including his former idealistic self. Who wouldn't wish to spit in the face of charity and instead scratch the itch of self-pity. Ray Milland, who plays the wan wino Don Birnam, is rude to his brother who supports him, the upwardly-mobile Time Magazine-worker fiancé who loves him, and the dizzy dame down at Nat's bar (the only one who speaks like she's in a typical Billy Wilder film) who sees in him a fellow lost soul who may be the support she needs to better herself. She also lends him ten bucks.

Milland's Birnam just takes and takes and takes, and gives nothing back to anyone except the selfish desire to drink and cry over the writing career that once seemed so promising. There are crippling monologues describing the paranoid thoughts of a drunk, the fear one has that any morning may in fact turn out to be a Sunday, with liquor stores closed and bars opening late, and a montage of increasing desperation as Milland tries to hock his typewriter, only to learn it is Yom Kippur and all the pawn shops are closed. Through it all he wears rumpled suits, smokes non-filters from a soft pack, is addressed as "Mr. Boi-num", and begins sentences with "Say,". Plus there's the near-Shock Corridor scenes in the withdrawal ward in the hospital, where grown men whimper like children and cry out, "Beetles! Everywhere! You gotta help me, doc!" Bart and I say, "Cool!"

At The Trees Lounge--A Family of Fellow Losers

The last picture you should rent before heading off to the bar is one of my favorite movies of all time, Steve Buscemi's Trees Lounge, which takes place in a fantastic world on the border of Long Island and Queens that I know is real. Buscemi plays a loser named Tommy who hangs out at a bar. That's it. That's not enough of a story for you, well fuck you and fuck your whole family.

Tommy's a mostly lovable guy, an unemployed mechanic with a busted car, estranged from his family, the possible father of his ex-girlfriend's baby, and only gettin' action from the 16-year-old daughter of his buddy. Alcoholism takes a backseat to this shaggy summer's tale, though a thick minty urinal cake fog wafts throughout the story. The bar is the only outlet for Tommy, the only thing happening in his life, the only place where Tommy even has the potential for feeling happy. Don't worry, though, as Tommy blunders through another day outside the bar, getting in even deeper until his whole world falls apart, there will usually be a can of beer close by, a visual aid for the film, but a moral crutch for Tommy. Tommy lives in a close circle of friends, all of whom hurt one another, but all of whom care for one another the way only working class people can--they understand each other.

Buscemi is such a good actor (and, surprise, writer and director) that this life, so depressing on paper, is portrayed in a manner so amusing and cuddly, that, again, we wind up envying Tommy for his freedom. Only in the movies would a drunk pose no threat to safety. Only in the movies could a drunk exist in a world totally ruled by his own code. The code: get booze, crack jokes. Who wouldn't want to be any of these men: Arthur, giggling like a clown, Henry Chinaski, living out a writer's rough and tumble years, Don Birnam, greedily taking compassion and giving back only scorn, and Tommy, happy with his dysfunctional circle of fellow-losers, quietly causing mini-catastrophes for himself.