If You Like Depressing Movies...
Drunks

By Ingmar Bergman's depressed cousin

I was flipping the channels on the tube when I came across "The Crossing Guard." A story about a man who plans to kill the person who killed his daughter while driving drunk. I watched for a while, then switched. I came upon "When A Man Loves A Woman." A Story about a man trying to save a family while married to a drunk. With this seed of inspiration in my head. I went to the video store and rented "Drunks."

"Drunks" is a movie about one night in the lives of an AA group. AA in this case stood for Atrocious Acting. This film has more stars in it than a Scientology meeting. The problem is that every single one of them OVERacts. The biggest offender of the lot is the lead character, Jim, played by Richard Lewis. He is the old time recovering alcoholic with the depressing story that doesn1t end well. Boo hoo. The lone bright spot is Spalding Gray. The problem is that he is so good he doesn't blend well with the rest of the schlock.

The whole film is a bunch of stories told by recovering alcoholics. They all have their own sad stories to tell. There is the drunk black man who beat his wife, the drunk party girl (Parker Posey really stretching her acting abilities), the drunk doctor who got her license taken away, the drunk mother who hasn't told her son, the drunk who doesn't want to give up drinking, the drunk who gave up boozing for her son etc, etc. I haven't seen a group of "same, but different" characters this big since "Get On The Bus."

The only reason to see this film is for Spalding Gray, but if you want to see him, rent "Monster In A Box" OR "King of the Hill" instead.

Remember Rehab is for quitters and quitters never win. Or something like that. God I'm thirsty.